They leaned together on the bridge’s rail, talking of pleasant things while the float remained still in the water below. They spoke of the frolics they’d enjoyed all summer long, the picnics and games and parties. They spoke of the school year to come, the hopes and challenges that lay ahead, and the exciting prospect of a new teacher. The longer they spoke, the less nervous Diana felt, until, after an hour or two, she felt as if she and Gilbert had been the best of chums for years and years… for their whole lives, in fact.
“There’s ever so much more to like about him than just the way he looks,” Diana realized. “Why, when he’s not trying to be a scoundrel for the attention, he’s perfectly nice and friendly.”
Suddenly the pole in Diana’s hand gave a jump. She shrieked in surprise and nearly lost it, but Gilbert reached across to grab it before the fish could pull it from her hands.
“Steady,” Gilbert said. He pulled the fish in; it broke the surface with a great commotion and a flash of silver scales in the sun. “You are lucky,” Gilbert crowed. He pulled the fish up to the bridge’s railing and dropped it in a pail of water. “You ought to come fish with me more often, Diana.”
She smiled, but not timidly this time. “I’d like that.”
Suddenly the grin slid off Gilbert’s face. He busied himself with the fishing line, winding it carefully around the pole and fixing the hook. Diana had the sinking feeling that he was searching for words… and she knew exactly what—who—those words would be about.
“Say, Diana,” Gilbert finally said, “do you recall when I asked you to talk to Anne Shirley for me?”
“Yes,” Diana said cautiously.
“Well… did you ever?”
Diana swallowed hard. They’d spent a lovely afternoon together, and Gilbert hadn’t brought up Anne once. And he had to go and spoil everything by getting all sappy about Anne now! “What in Heaven’s name can I tell him?” Diana wondered. The last thing she wanted was to let Gilbert down now, after they’d shared such a pleasant day and grown so friendly. But Anne still turned to frost at the mere mention of Gilbert’s name. Of course Diana hadn’t spoken to Anne on his behalf! To do so would have been to invite the tempest.
Diana decided the best course—the only reasonable one, really—was to tell a falsehood. “Yes,” she said rather weakly, for she never liked to be untruthful.
Gilbert’s eyes lit up. “You did? What did she say? Has she accepted my apology? Will she be friends with me now?”
“Well,” poor Diana stammered, “She’s… she’s… awful stubborn, you know, Gilbert.”
“Oh, I know,” he said in a way that suggested he found Anne’s stubbornness utterly enchanting.
“I… I think she’ll come around eventually,” Diana finished lamely. “I must go now. My mother will be expecting me home for supper.”
“Wait, Diana.” Gilbert reached into the pocket of his vest and pulled out a small envelope. It was sealed, but its edges and corners looked bent and rather abused, as if Gilbert had been carrying it for some time. “I’ve been thinking I might give this to Anne, but I haven’t worked up the nerve to go all the way to Green Gables and face her. Since you’ve talked to her and you think there’s hope, would you be a chum and deliver it for me?”
Diana took the envelope and gazed down at it, her heart sinking as she did. “A. S.” was scrawled on the front, right over a little drawing of a carrot.
“Please say you will,” Gilbert implored.
Diana looked up at him, helpless to deny his smile and his twinkling, mischievous eyes.
“Oh, all right,” she finally said, a bit crossly. “Now I really must go home.”
“Good-bye,” Gilbert called as Diana stalked off over the bridge. “Come and fish with me again sometime.”
When she reached home, Diana ran up to her room and shut the door hard behind her. She stared at the envelope for a long time, biting her lip, wondering what she ought to do. Anne would surely fly in to a rage if Diana delivered the note, or even told her of its existence. “She’d never read it,” Diana thought. “She would burn it straight away, without even opening it.” Therefore, it couldn’t do any harm for Diana to see for herself what the envelope contained. Certainly Anne would never find out.
Despite her excuses, Diana still felt as low as a snake when she slid a finger under the flap and tore the envelope open. Inside was a little post card, decorated on the front with an illustration of blue and pink flowers, embossed, and edged in bright gold. It was one of the prettiest cards Diana had ever seen. It was stamped with these words, also glittering and golden:
May good health
and good cheer
be yours forever.
Diana turned the card over. To her relief, Gilbert had not written out some deathless love poem, but had simply signed his name.
“Oh, I’m a terrible friend, and a truly bad girl, for doing something so mean-spirited and jealous to my bosom friend,” Diana mourned.
But what else could she have done? Gilbert and Anne had caught Diana up between them. And now she was stuck as their go-between, a position she did not want, and one that Anne had made quite hopeless and unbearable in any case.
Diana lit her candle and burned the envelope to ash. But the card was too pretty to destroy. She tucked it into her drawer beneath her stockings and shut the drawer firmly. “If only I could shut up my feelings as easily as that,” she thought with a distracted sigh.
Josephine’s Letter
Miss Stacy turned out to be every bit as wonderful as Anne had hoped and Diana had imagined. She was a soft-spoken, ladylike young woman who nevertheless seemed glad to be teaching in remote Avonlea, not put off by the rustic nature of her surroundings, as some other teachers might have been. She had a great enthusiasm for each and every one of her pupils, and seemed to know just the right way to nurture the best in them, so that each scholar reached instinctively toward his or her fullest potential, like seedlings thriving in the sun. The autumn was full of thrilling adventures that nurtured the mind as much as the spirit: nature walks and studies of birds’ nests and earthworms; spelling bees out in the October sunshine along the shore of the brook; recitations in which true feeling were encouraged by Miss Stacy, so that all the plays and poems that were performed left the students prickling with awe and eager to read more for themselves.
Anne was glad to get to know the new schoolmistress when she returned from her convalescence, and of course by that time Diana was already fully devoted to their teacher, leaping out of bed each morning eager to rush to the schoolhouse and learn at the lovely young woman’s proverbial knee.
At the end of November, Miss Stacy announced that she intended to hold a Christmas concert, and that she would like every student to perform something, even if they only appeared in a simple tableau. “It’s a fine and important skill,” Miss Stacy said, “to speak comfortably before a crowd. Concerts can help us become our best, most confident selves.”
Diana and Anne shared a look of the purest excitement as they collected their books from their desks.
“Just think, Diana,” Anne said, glowing, “we will finally get to perform. Oh, I’ve waited for this day for so long.”
“Diana,” Miss Stacy called from the front of the classroom, “will you please remain for a few moments? I would like to speak to you privately before you go home.”
“Wait for me outside,” Diana whispered to Anne.
She wondered what the trouble could be. She hadn’t done as well with her spelling as she would have preferred, but that hardly seemed reason enough to keep her after class. There was no anxiety in the moment, though, for Miss Stacy was a reasonable woman who always spoke to children respectfully, as she spoke to adults. If there was a problem, Diana knew she wouldn’t be shamed or humiliated for it, but rather guided and advised in a most sympathetic way.
“What is it, Miss Stacy?” she asked when the school room had cleared.
“It’s about the concert. I have noticed, w
hen we’ve done our group sings, that you have a remarkably fine voice. I would like to ask you to give a special solo performance.”
Diana’s mouth fell open, before she remembered that it was rude and promptly shut it again. “I… I guess I can do it,” she stammered. “But I never sang in front of an audience before.”
“I’ve never sung,” Miss Stacy corrected gently, with a smile. “There is a first time for everything, Diana dear. I know it can be intimidating to think of performing before an audience, but you have a rare talent. You know, I think you are a very special and admirable girl, but I get the sense that you don’t always shine to your full brightness.”
Diana blushed and looked down at the toes of her boots. Hadn’t she been thinking that very thing about herself for ever so long now? “It’s hard to shine, I suppose,” Diana said slowly and rather weakly, “when other girls are so much prettier and gayer and… and more popular.”
“That is true.” There was no patronizing lilt to Miss Stacy’s voice. She took a young girl’s troubles as seriously as she would take her own. “I know how that feels, Diana. It is hard to grow up, and difficult to find your place… where you fit comfortably among your friends, your family, the world. But I think you don’t give yourself, or your potential, enough credit. You are very popular with the other girls—and with some of the boys, too.”
“I’m not as popular as Anne,” Diana blurted before she could stop herself.
“But you and Anne are very dear friends, aren’t you? Or am I mistaken?”
“No, you’re not mistaken. We are the very best of friends. It’s only…” Diana shrugged, not knowing how to explain, nor even how to sort out, the jumble of feelings inside her.
“Ah,” Miss Stacy said, a sort of understanding sigh. “I see. You love Anne, because she sparkles so brightly herself. But how do you stand out, and truly be Diana—the most whole, most honest version of Diana—when you stand in her shadow?”
“Yes,” Diana said, wilting a little, though she didn’t know why she felt ashamed, since Miss Stacy was so helpful and caring.
The schoolmistress took Diana’s hand briefly, giving her a squeeze to fortify her. “That, too, is one of the hard lessons of growing up: learning how to love our friends without envying them.”
“Sometimes I think I do all right at it, but then something will happen to remind me how different Anne and I are, and how I’ll never be like her, and how impossible it is to hope for it, and then I’ll resent her again.” Diana looked up, her cheeks flushed with the sudden force of her feelings. “And I don’t want to resent her, Miss Stacy! I want to love her just as much as I ever did when we first became friends. But…”
“But it’s not always so easy, is it, Diana?”
Miserably, Diana shook her head.
“You are doing a fine job. It’s a lesson one learns with time, not all at once. That’s the way of most lessons, you know. But I do think singing a solo will help you in this regard. I am sure Anne will wish to give a performance of her own, and she’ll do well at it. But you must have your chance to do well, too. You must have an opportunity to stand on your own, and to shine your own light without anything to diminish it.”
“I do feel very frightened, just thinking of it.”
“Keep thinking about it,” Miss Stacy suggested. “With time, the idea will become less frightening. And I look forward to hearing you sing by yourself, Diana. I look forward to it very much.”
Diana did as Miss Stacy suggested, and thought and thought about the Christmas concert and what it might be like to stand up before a crowd to sing without anyone beside her. She thought about it so much that by the time Christmas vacation came, she was in a cold terror and could scarcely enjoy the weeks away from school.
Perversely, it seemed as if fate wished to prove the good, kind, helpful Miss Stacy as wrong as possible, for the more Diana pondered the solo, the harder her heart grew toward Anne. There was no special reason for it, unless Diana simply envied the ease with which Anne could stand up before the classroom and recite or even spell a word. Performing seemed to give Anne no trouble at all; indeed, it was as natural to her as breathing. But even as Diana felt crumpled and pinched inside with envy, the fact of that envy saddened her as it never had before. For what she had told Miss Stacy was true: she wanted to love Anne, and did her best to feel nothing but warmth toward her. But that warmth seemed harder to maintain every day.
On a mellow evening, when dusk had turned the snow-covered fields to drifts of smoky blue and the spruces of the Haunted Wood were tipped in glittering ice, Diana sat at the tiny table next to her bedroom window, musing bleakly as she gazed out across the dim world. The lamp was burning in Anne’s bedroom window, and presently Diana saw the light flash. Five flashes: the signal that meant, “Come over, for I have something important to tell you.”
Diana scowled as she considered going. But then she drew down her curtain, carefully and slowly so the motion wouldn’t be seen from Green Gables. She lit her own light and took a piece of paper and her ink pen from her writing box. Diana didn’t know exactly what she would write, or to whom… she only knew that she must get her feelings out somehow, before they overwhelmed her and spoiled her from the inside out. As she tapped the end of the pen against her lip, the silver charm bracelet jingled softly on her wrist. And then she knew precisely to whom she must write.
Dear Aunt Josephine,
I suppose you will think this is a very foolish letter, but I must write to someone or I think I will actually go mad. I can’t talk to Mother because she will think me a very bad girl and will scold me. I can’t talk to Father because men don’t understand. And I can’t talk to Anne for reasons that you shall see.
Aunt Josephine, I like Gilbert Blythe a terrible lot but he doesn’t like me one bit, except as a friend. He only likes Anne, even though Anne has refused to speak to him for more than a year because he slighted her once long ago. I feel like the worst kind of friend, because I know Anne would be sore with me if she knew how I feel. She thinks Gilbert Blythe is about as bad as the Devil. I know it is wrong to talk about or write about the Devil, but I don’t know how else to be clear in my communication, so you will have to pardon me, please.
I don’t know what to do. I’m awful confused. I feel sad nearly all the time about Gilbert, because he is dead gone on Anne, but what if he could like me instead? And I know if Anne finds out, she’ll scald me. What should I do about the two of them?
My teacher, Miss Stacy, wants me to sing a solo at the Christmas concert. I am dreadfully afraid of it. I feel that I am a pretty good singer, but the thought of singing by myself in front of a crowd just gives me the chills. Should I sing at the concert, or not?
Do write if you have any advice for
* * *
Your great-niece to be pitied,
Diana Barry
The very moment she’d finished the letter, a weight of woe seemed to lift from Diana’s shoulders. Often that is the way of things. What we keep bottled up inside only ferments, and builds pressure. But if we can pour out our feelings, we can find some measure of peace again.
A package of gifts arrived, sent via the Charlottetown Post, the day before Christmas. Aunt Josephine had been generous, even lavish, with her Christmas giving. There were big, imported oranges and pomegranates for the whole family, and a sack of chestnuts from the tree that grew in her mansion’s back yard, which Mrs. Barry immediately poured into a roasting pan and set over the fire. There were sweaters and gloves for Father and Mother, and a porcelain doll with curled hair for Minnie May.
Diana received her present with the smell of the chestnuts drifting smokily around her. It was a long, thin box covered in green velvet and tied shut with a red ribbon. She opened it carefully and found inside a pretty, peachy-soft cameo necklace with an elegant, long-necked lady carved in white. And beneath the necklace was a folded letter.
Diana put on the necklace and then read her letter eagerly. It was written
in a thin, cramped, stiffly elegant hand that was so much like Josephine herself that Diana couldn’t keep back a smile.
Dear Diana,
* * *
Do not think your letter was foolish. Or if it was, I account it no more foolish than any other complaint a girl or woman has ever made on the subject of males. Men—and boys, for that matter—are stubborn, oblivious, eminently frustrating creatures who are better left to their own devices than fretted over by sensible young women like yourself. There exist people who will tell you to disregard the advice of an “old maid,” since I have had “no experience” of men. But it is precisely BECAUSE I know the habits of men that I am an old maid!
Your friend Anne is a charming girl, and, I have no doubt, a worthy friend. In fact, I have sent along a present for her, some slippers, which you must give her on my behalf. But if she is in the habit of carrying grudges, then it will be to her sorrow. Fiddlesticks to whatever she may think; I will not hear of any relation of mine holding herself in check for fear of offending a friend, particularly when that friend is behaving like a fool. Diana, my dear, here is one thing proper ladies—those who are not old maids—will never tell you: what you want in this world, you must reach out and TAKE, for no one will hand it to you. Yes, I know it is scandalously forward and entirely unladylike. But if you want something, my dear, you must be willing to seize it, or risk losing it forever.
As for the Christmas concert, you must certainly sing. Wear this necklace when you do, and it will be just like having me there to applaud you.
* * *
Yours in shocking crassness,
Josephine Barry
By the time Diana sent her first letter to Aunt Josephine, she had already made up her mind to sing at the concert, even though the thought still terrified her. But in the pouring out of her feelings, into a sympathetic old ear, she had found an ounce of courage and run with it. She had chosen “Angels from the Realms of Glory,” which seemed fitting for the occasion of Christmas, and had performed it several times now at the concert rehearsals without any tragedy befalling her.
Diana of Orchard Slope Page 21