Anne of Green Gables
CHAPTER XXXVI
The Glory and the Dream
On the morning when the final results of all the examinations were to be
posted on the bulletin board at Queen's, Anne and Jane walked down the street
together. Jane was smiling and happy; examinations were over and she was
comfortably sure she had made a pass at least; further considerations troubled
Jane not at all; she had no soaring ambitions and consequently was not affected
with the unrest attendant thereon. For we pay a price for everything we get or
take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not
to be cheaply won, but exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and
discouragement. Anne was pale and quiet; in ten more minutes she would know who
had won the medal and who the Avery. Beyond those ten minutes there did not
seem, just then, to be anything worth being called Time.
"Of course you'll win one of them anyhow," said Jane, who couldn't understand
how the faculty could be so unfair as to order it otherwise.
"I have not hope of the Avery," said Anne. "Everybody says Emily Clay will
win it. And I'm not going to march up to that bulletin board and look at it
before everybody. I haven't the moral courage. I'm going straight to the girls'
dressing room. You must read the announcements and then come and tell me, Jane.
And I implore you in the name of our old friendship to do it as quickly as
possible. If I have failed just say so, without trying to break it gently; and
whatever you do DON'T sympathize with me. Promise me this, Jane."
Jane promised solemnly; but, as it happened, there was no necessity for such
a promise. When they went up the entrance steps of Queen's they found the hall
full of boys who were carrying Gilbert Blythe around on their shoulders and
yelling at the tops of their voices, "Hurrah for Blythe, Medalist!"
For a moment Anne felt one sickening pang of defeat and disappointment. So
she had failed and Gilbert had won! Well, Matthew would be sorry—he had been so
sure she would win.
And then!
Somebody called out:
"Three cheers for Miss Shirley, winner of the Avery!"
"Oh, Anne," gasped Jane, as they fled to the girls' dressing room amid hearty
cheers. "Oh, Anne I'm so proud! Isn't it splendid?"
And then the girls were around them and Anne was the center of a laughing,
congratulating group. Her shoulders were thumped and her hands shaken
vigorously. She was pushed and pulled and hugged and among it all she managed to
whisper to Jane:
"Oh, won't Matthew and Marilla be pleased! I must write the news home right
away."
Commencement was the next important happening. The exercises were held in the
big assembly hall of the Academy. Addresses were given, essays read, songs sung,
the public award of diplomas, prizes and medals made.
Matthew and Marilla were there, with eyes and ears for only one student on
the platform—a tall girl in pale green, with faintly flushed cheeks and starry
eyes, who read the best essay and was pointed out and whispered about as the
Avery winner.
"Reckon you're glad we kept her, Marilla?" whispered Matthew, speaking for
the first time since he had entered the hall, when Anne had finished her essay.
"It's not the first time I've been glad," retorted Marilla. "You do like to
rub things in, Matthew Cuthbert."
Miss Barry, who was sitting behind them, leaned forward and poked Marilla in
the back with her parasol.
"Aren't you proud of that Anne-girl? I am," she said.
Anne went home to Avonlea with Matthew and Marilla that evening. She had not
been home since April and she felt that she could not wait another day. The
apple blossoms were out and the world was fresh and young. Diana was at Green
Gables to meet her. In her own white room, where Marilla had set a flowering
house rose on the window sill, Anne looked about her and drew a long breath of
happiness.
"Oh, Diana, it's so good to be back again. It's so good to see those pointed
firs coming out against the pink sky—and that white orchard and the old Snow
Queen. Isn't the breath of the mint delicious? And that tea rose—why, it's a
song and a hope and a prayer all in one. And it's GOOD to see you again, Diana!"
"I thought you liked that Stella Maynard better than me," said Diana
reproachfully. "Josie Pye told me you did. Josie said you were INFATUATED with
her."
Anne laughed and pelted Diana with the faded "June lilies" of her bouquet.
"Stella Maynard is the dearest girl in the world except one and you are that
one, Diana," she said. "I love you more than ever—and I've so many things to
tell you. But just now I feel as if it were joy enough to sit here and look at
you. I'm tired, I think—tired of being studious and ambitious. I mean to spend
at least two hours tomorrow lying out in the orchard grass, thinking of
absolutely nothing."
"You've done splendidly, Anne. I suppose you won't be teaching now that
you've won the Avery?"
"No. I'm going to Redmond in September. Doesn't it seem wonderful? I'll have
a brand new stock of ambition laid in by that time after three glorious, golden
months of vacation. Jane and Ruby are going to teach. Isn't it splendid to think
we all got through even to Moody Spurgeon and Josie Pye?"
"The Newbridge trustees have offered Jane their school already," said Diana.
"Gilbert Blythe is going to teach, too. He has to. His father can't afford to
send him to college next year, after all, so he means to earn his own way
through. I expect he'll get the school here if Miss Ames decides to leave."
Anne felt a queer little sensation of dismayed surprise. She had not known
this; she had expected that Gilbert would be going to Redmond also. What would
she do without their inspiring rivalry? Would not work, even at a coeducational
college with a real degree in prospect, be rather flat without her friend the
enemy?
The next morning at breakfast it suddenly struck Anne that Matthew was not
looking well. Surely he was much grayer than he had been a year before.
"Marilla," she said hesitatingly when he had gone out, "is Matthew quite
well?"
"No, he isn't," said Marilla in a troubled tone. "He's had some real bad
spells with his heart this spring and he won't spare himself a mite. I've been
real worried about him, but he's some better this while back and we've got a
good hired man, so I'm hoping he'll kind of rest and pick up. Maybe he will now
you're home. You always cheer him up."
Anne leaned across the table and took Marilla's face in her hands.
"You are not looking as well yourself as I'd like to see you, Marilla. You
look tired. I'm afraid you've been working too hard. You must take a rest, now
that I'm home. I'm just going to take this one day off to visit all the dear old
spots and hunt up my old dreams, and then it will be your turn to be lazy while
I do the work."
Marilla smiled affectionately at her girl.
"It's not the work—it's my head. I've got a pain so often now—behind my eyes.
Doctor Spencer's been fussing with glasses, but they don't do me any good. There
is a distinguished oculist coming to the Island the last of June and the doctor
says I must see him. I guess I'll have to. I can't read or sew with any comfort
now. Well, Anne, you've done real well at Queen's I must say. To take First
Class License in one year and win the Avery scholarship—well, well, Mrs. Lynde
says pride goes before a fall and she doesn't believe in the higher education of
women at all; she says it unfits them for woman's true sphere. I don't believe a
word of it. Speaking of Rachel reminds me—did you hear anything about the Abbey
Bank lately, Anne?"
"I heard it was shaky," answered Anne. "Why?"
"That is what Rachel said. She was up here one day last week and said there
was some talk about it. Matthew felt real worried. All we have saved is in that
bank—every penny. I wanted Matthew to put it in the Savings Bank in the first
place, but old Mr. Abbey was a great friend of father's and he'd always banked
with him. Matthew said any bank with him at the head of it was good enough for
anybody."
"I think he has only been its nominal head for many years," said Anne. "He is
a very old man; his nephews are really at the head of the institution."
"Well, when Rachel told us that, I wanted Matthew to draw our money right out
and he said he'd think of it. But Mr. Russell told him yesterday that the bank
was all right."
Anne had her good day in the companionship of the outdoor world. She never
forgot that day; it was so bright and golden and fair, so free from shadow and
so lavish of blossom. Anne spent some of its rich hours in the orchard; she went
to the Dryad's Bubble and Willowmere and Violet Vale; she called at the manse
and had a satisfying talk with Mrs. Allan; and finally in the evening she went
with Matthew for the cows, through Lovers' Lane to the back pasture. The woods
were all gloried through with sunset and the warm splendor of it streamed down
through the hill gaps in the west. Matthew walked slowly with bent head; Anne,
tall and erect, suited her springing step to his.
"You've been working too hard today, Matthew," she said reproachfully. "Why
won't you take things easier?"
"Well now, I can't seem to," said Matthew, as he opened the yard gate to let
the cows through. "It's only that I'm getting old, Anne, and keep forgetting it.
Well, well, I've always worked pretty hard and I'd rather drop in harness."
"If I had been the boy you sent for," said Anne wistfully, "I'd be able to
help you so much now and spare you in a hundred ways. I could find it in my
heart to wish I had been, just for that."
"Well now, I'd rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne," said Matthew patting
her hand. "Just mind you that—rather than a dozen boys. Well now, I guess it
wasn't a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it? It was a girl—my girl—my
girl that I'm proud of."
He smiled his shy smile at her as he went into the yard. Anne took the memory
of it with her when she went to her room that night and sat for a long while at
her open window, thinking of the past and dreaming of the future. Outside the
Snow Queen was mistily white in the moonshine; the frogs were singing in the
marsh beyond Orchard Slope. Anne always remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty
and fragrant calm of that night. It was the last night before sorrow touched her
life; and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying
touch has been laid upon it.