Diana blushed and hung her head over her plate of fruit cake. “I’m sorry, Miss Stacy. I don’t mean to slip.”
“I know you don’t, dear. But I am concerned for you. You were one of my very best students, yet now your marks are sliding. I thought… well, I wondered if perhaps you are struggling with things you feel you can’t talk about to anyone else. Not to your mother, not to your friends, not even to Mrs. Allan. I wanted to offer myself as a sympathetic ear, in case I can be of any help to you.”
Diana looked up, sudden and unexpected tears sparkling in her eyes. “Oh, Miss Stacy. I hardly know where to begin; my feelings are such a tangle, and they seem such a mess to me! And…” she hesitated, took a gulp of her tea to calm herself, and then said, “and I wonder whether I ought to talk about what’s troubling me at all. Even if I could sort it out enough to know where to begin. What’s the use of talking about one’s problems if the problems are unsolvable?”
“Most problems that seem impenetrable are not truly… not when one looks at them the right way.”
Still Diana hesitated. She knew she could trust Miss Stacy with any of her secrets—knew it instinctively, for the kindly young schoolmistress had always possessed an undeniable air of honesty. “But how can she help thinking my troubles are silly?” Diana asked herself.
But would Miss Stacy think her silly? She had always been so sympathetic before, had taken Diana’s concerns to heart and had guided her well through past troubles.
To test the waters, Diana said, “You have made me feel so grown up, just by asking me here to tea. I don’t want to feel like a little girl again… not in your eyes.”
Miss Stacy’s smile had no mockery or amusement in it, only warmth and remembrance. “It wasn’t so terribly long ago that I was a girl of fifteen. I recall what that feels like. I recall all of being a girl of fifteen, Diana. It is not as easy as older women think. I believe as we grow older, we forget how it felt to be young and vulnerable, and still learning the ways of the world. But I have not grown so old… not yet.”
Diana decided she must trust Miss Stacy, or go mad from all the grief and fear and confusion that plagued her. “You once told me that I would find a way to shine at my brightest, even with… with…” She trailed off, unable to speak on, for she felt so terribly guilty, as if she were committing the sin of a thousand betrayals.
“Even with Anne at your side,” Miss Stacy said.
Diana nodded. “But now Anne has gone on to the Queen’s class… and oh, Miss Stacy, I wanted to take the classes so badly, and wanted to be a teacher, too. And now Anne is doing it all without me. She’s no longer beside me—not very often, anyway—yet I feel farther away from ‘shining’ than I ever was before. I feel positively dull. And I don’t know what to do.”
“I see,” Miss Stacy said, sipping her tea. “Is that all that troubles you?”
“Well… no.”
“Would you like to tell me the rest?”
Diana did tell the rest. For more than an hour, she wrung out all her feelings into her cup of tea, confessing all the anger she felt at her mother—and the guilt over that anger, too, for she knew full well that her mother only wanted what was best for her. “It’s only that we have different ideas about what’s best for me,” Diana said, “and maybe it’s wicked of me to say so, but I really think that I know best about me, after all, even if she is my mother.” She told about Aunt Josephine and her letter, encouraging Diana to reach out and take what she wanted from the world… and how that advice had haunted her ever since. “I do want to take what should be mine, but the thought of doing it makes me shiver. And I can’t take something if taking it might hurt someone I love, can I? Who’s more important then—me, or the person I may be hurting?” She even spilled out her conflicted feelings about Gilbert, for she knew by then that there was no danger of Miss Stacy letting the news slip to any malevolent ear. “I feel as if I ought to let all thought of Gilbert go. But then I see him again—just set eyes on him, that’s all—and my heart starts to flutter and I just can’t, Miss Stacy… I truly can’t!”
Last of all, she tried her best to unspool the tightly wound, fearfully tangled skein of her love and envy for Anne. “Anne has been nothing but good to me. I can’t imagine my life without her. And yet I am consumed with envy whenever I think of her. Imagine, envying a poor orphan! Yet I do, Miss Stacy… I do. She has all the courage I lack, and now that she’s in the Queen’s class without me, she has the future I lack, too—the future I want. Oh, what am I to do? Anne may not know it, but I’ve been an awfully bad friend to her, and the knowledge of how ungrateful and mean I am eats at me every day. But I can’t seem to stop feeling that way, either.”
“Feelings are strange things,” Miss Stacy agreed. “They behave without logic. But we all have them, Diana, and even the unwelcome feelings are nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I disagree,” Diana said calmly. “I feel rotten inside when jealousy overcomes me. Or when I get too angry with my mother. Then I do feel shame, and I think perhaps God made us that way, so that we would know when we have let our feelings go to far.”
Miss Stacy watched Diana in silence for a moment, then said, “I think you are much brighter and wiser than anyone gives you credit for, Diana dear. Even you don’t give yourself enough credit.”
Diana didn’t know how to respond to Miss Stacy’s compliment, so she only bowed her head and picked at the crumbs of her fruit cake with her fork. After a moment, she said, “I do feel a little bit better, just for having told you everything. Not all the way better… but a bit.”
“That is usually the way of things. When we can be honest about the way we feel… when we hold nothing back… then we can be sure that others see us most clearly. Even when the picture we must show them is ugly or distorted, at least we know it is a true and honest picture. And it feels good to be sure that our truest self is seen, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Diana agreed, brightening a little. Then her face and her spirits fell again. “But Anne is my bosom friend. I should be my truest self with her, shouldn’t I?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Miss Stacy said in a practical tone. “Have you been dishonest with Anne? Or kept something back that you ought to have told her about?”
Diana wondered if she had. She couldn’t think of anything, other than telling Anne about her feelings for Gilbert, but… but still she felt a strange weight in her heart, as if she had forgotten something important.
When it became plain that Diana had no answer to Miss Stacy’s question, the schoolmistress spoke on. “I believe you can still shine brightly, Diana. And I believe your path through life will be just as bright and wonderful as you are, yourself. It may be a different path than what you dream of now, but it will be good and fulfilling and right all the same. You’ll know its rightness when you find it; you will recognize its truth for yourself, without your mother or Anne or anyone else pushing or prodding you toward it. You will take your path of your own accord, and do it gladly. You’re too smart and good a girl for your life to take any other shape.”
Diana did not meet Miss Stacy’s eye. She still felt the odd, compelling pressure of something long forgotten—something important—stifling all her gladness.
Again, Miss Stacy seemed to sense that more of her subtle guidance was needed. She thought for a moment, looking earnestly at Diana’s troubled face, the downcast eyes and the blushing cheeks. Then, at last, Miss Stacy hit upon advice that felt exactly right, and so she dispensed it. “Diana, dear: Sometimes we must humble ourselves—even when we already feel that the world has humbled us—before we’ll find peace.”
Diana glanced up, her brow furrowed, her lips pressed together in consternation.
“Peace can only come from inside us,” Miss Stacy said, “and sometimes, before we can attain it, we must do the hard thing and make amends with whatever haunts us deep down, inside our very souls.”
Diana nodded and offered Miss Stacy a smile, as if she underst
ood the advice perfectly. But to herself, she said, “If only I could know for sure just what haunts my soul. Then perhaps I could finally have a little peace!”
When the World Has Humbled Us
“Spelling will be our last lesson today,” Miss Stacy announced smoothly from her lectern. “But before you take out your slates, class, I have an important announcement to make.”
Although Diana’s love for Miss Stacy had only grown in the months since her first tea with the schoolmistress, she struggled to tear her eyes from the window. The first week of June was as bright as a jewel—a sapphire of pure skies, forget-me-nots and bachelor’s buttons blooming along the fence lines of the fields, and the deep, inviting, crystal-clear depths of the Lake of Shining Waters, which was even now winking seductively at Diana from beyond the shady spruces. But Miss Stacy had proven herself a friend and confidante many times over since their first memorable get-together. She and Diana had become almost like chums… not quite, for a truly chummy relationship wouldn’t be seemly between a teacher and a student, but they had both come to enjoy their chats so well that they shared tea and conversation—Diana earnest if often confused; Miss Stacy confidently guiding—at least once a month as the school year unfolded. Now here they were at the end of the year, with only three more weeks to go before summer vacation started, full already of the promise of warmth and welcome idleness. Fifteen-year-old Diana marshalled all the good sense and self-control she had learned from Miss Stacy, and turned her face away from summer’s beckoning. She focused her attention on the schoolmistress… and noticed, with a sudden shiver of foreboding, that there was an unfamiliar reservation in Miss Stacy’s manner. In fact, it nearly felt like regret.
“Students,” Miss Stacy said quietly when she had all her pupils’ attention, “there something I must tell you. I find it rather difficult to say, so I had better just come right out with it. I will not be returning to teach at Avonlea next year.”
There was a racket in the schoolroom—groans and wordless exclamations of disbelief from the boys, shocked gasps from the girls, and of course, Ruby Gillis’s whimpering. Even at fifteen, Ruby still hadn’t lost the habit of hysterics.
Diana felt quite sick to her stomach. She had come to rely on Miss Stacy’s good sense and guidance more than she’d realized, until that moment. Now she had no idea how she could expect to get along without her. By habit she glanced across the room to Anne’s desk, and there she found Anne’s gray eyes, widened and stunned, staring back at her from a pale, sickly face. Diana felt one brief surge of warmth in her chest, for it was good to know that she and Anne still felt as one, even if they were so often separated.
“I know it is upsetting news,” Miss Stacy said, “but I want each and every one of you to know how very proud I am to have been your teacher. You have all achieved so much more than even I thought possible. I will always look back with fondness on this school, and the years I spent teaching in Avonlea will surely be some of my gladdest. Now—” she brushed her hands together, as if finishing up some unpleasant business— “let us tackle this spelling, shall we? It’s a lovely afternoon, and I know you’re all as eager to be out in the sunshine as I am.”
But Diana found it all but impossible to concentrate on the spelling lesson. It wasn’t summer’s beauty that distracted her now. Rather, a terrible pain had settled deep into her middle. She had never felt anything so sharp, so agonizing before. Never in her young life had Diana known a loss so complete. She had been unprepared for it, and it was all she could do to keep herself from crying at her desk, never mind spelling out the words that Miss Stacy recited from her lesson plan.
When class ended for the regular students and Diana stood to shuffle numbly out of the classroom (leaving the Queen’s students behind for their extended lessons), Anne reached up as Diana passed her desk. The slender, white hand slipped into Diana’s, cool to the touch from the shock of Miss Stacy’s announcement. Diana paused, squeezing Anne’s fingers and gazing down at her friend in mute sorrow. Anne looked back at her from a mask of perfect tragedy, but she could find no words to say, either.
Diana might have taken the road home—she often did these days, finding more pleasure than she ever had before in the company of the other girls—but today she felt she had to be alone with her grief. She saw none of the Birch Path’s green-robed, light-dazzled beauty, nor did she pay any heed to the tiny purple stars blooming sweetly in Violet Vale. Not even the ghosts of the Haunted Wood could distract her—Diana was pursued by a subtler but far more terrifying phantom now. She paused at the footbridge and leaned on its rail, finally giving vent to the lonesomeness that overwhelmed her, weeping in a storm of sobs.
“Oh, it’s not fair, it’s not!” she cried, though no one was nearby to hear her except the brook and the trees. “Just now, when I found a grown-up friend—and a friend who’s just as good to me as Anne is—now I must lose her!” Who would offer her kind understanding now? Who could she turn to with any trouble no matter how complicated or silly?
Spurred by the unfairness of it all, Diana ran suddenly toward home. She tore up the slope with the air burning in her throat and chest, but no matter how hard or fast she ran, she couldn’t leave her sorrow behind. Fresh tears blinded her; she stumbled on a tree root and fell to the ground. But she wasn’t hurt—only scraped some, here and there—so she bounced up and hurried on again. “I’ll write Miss Stacy a letter,” she told herself. “I’ll pour out all my truest feelings to her, just as she told me to do, long ago.”
The prospect already made Diana feel somewhat better, so the worst of her tears had dried by the time she reached home. She came in through the kitchen door and found Mrs. Barry busy at the stove, with a somewhat harried air hanging about her.
“Diana, dear; you’re home at last. Mr. and Mrs. Allan are coming over for supper to discuss getting Minnie May into Sunday school. They will be here soon, in fact.” Mrs. Barry looked up from her pot of sugar peas. “Merciful Heaven, Diana; have you been crying? Put a cool cloth on your eyes so they aren’t red and puffy by the time the Allans arrive. And change your stockings—you’ve torn one.”
Diana looked down. Her right stocking was indeed ripped just above the edge of her ankle-high boot. She must have torn it when she fell. As she stood there, silently contemplating the stocking with a dull sense of futility, Mrs. Barry snapped, “Be quick, now! I need your help getting supper.”
“Miss Stacy wouldn’t want me to aggravate Mother by sighing at her,” Diana reminded herself. So she stifled her frustration and climbed the stairs to her room.
“Bother everything,” Diana grumbled as she changed into a fresh dress and tugged irritably at her hair, which was tangled from her run up the hill. “Bother the whole world!” Now that Miss Stacy was going, nothing felt right to Diana—nothing! The whole world was one topsy-turvy, upside-down place, where she could never feel comfortable or entirely happy again. Despite her best efforts—hers, and the valiant Miss Stacy’s—Diana had never quite figured out what mysterious sense of wrongness still haunted her… that sense of something long forgotten that had first plagued her at her initial tea with the schoolmistress. “And now I’ll never know,” Diana told herself sourly. “Without Miss Stacy to help me sort it all out, I’ll go on feeling tangled up and lost and dreadfully uncomfortable for the rest of my life!” All those many months ago, Miss Stacy had advised Diana to humble herself in order to find her peace. But Diana had never known precisely how to humble herself, or why. How could she do it effectively if she didn’t know why she was doing it?
Diana jerked open her stocking drawer so vigorously she nearly pulled it right out of her dresser. She calmed herself with a deep breath, then went searching for her best pair of stockings. She pawed through the drawer with impatient hands, fighting down her frustration, her pain, her rising temper…
… and felt something smooth, flat, and cool beneath her fingertips.
Diana stopped, mid-paw. Suddenly she knew exactly what had hau
nted her soul since the first tea with Miss Stacy… and since long before that, too. How could she have forgotten? A curious pain, made from equal parts guilt and embarrassment, gnawed at her with teeth as sharp and persistent as a rat’s. Reluctantly, Diana took hold of the card and pulled it from the depths of her stocking drawer. It had been years since she’d seen it last, but she remembered the gilt words printed on the front without even having to read them.
May good health
and good cheer
be yours forever.
Her cheeks burning with shame, Diana turned the card over to read Gilbert’s name. Time had faded his signature, but it was still clear enough. And the lines of his letters may as well have been knife-sharp, given the way they cut into Diana’s heart.
“Oh, Anne,” Diana whispered. “I have wronged you, though you never knew it. And I must make amends.”
Supper with the Allans seemed to go on for an eternity. Diana did her best to enjoy it, for the Allans were two of the loveliest souls in all of Avonlea. But all the while, through supper and dessert and pleasant parlor conversation afterward, the card waiting upstairs on her writing table seemed to mock her attempts at good humor. An hour after supper, it was all Diana could do to keep herself from fidgeting like eight-year-old Minnie May. And when at last the Allans took their leave, the sun was already well on its way toward setting.
Diana forced herself to help her mother with the washing up, though her feet danced in place with the urgent need to run up to her room and signal across the wood to Anne. She watched the sunset nervously as she dried the dishes and put them away, and when the kitchen was clean again, she kissed her delighted mother on the cheek and made herself climb the stairs with grown-up dignity. After all, she had a hard conversation ahead with her dearest and oldest friend. She should be thoughtful about it, not headlong.
Diana of Orchard Slope Page 26