Chapter III
Greeting and Farewell
Charlie Sloane, Gilbert Blythe and Anne Shirley left Avonlea the
following Monday morning. Anne had hoped for a fine day. Diana
was to drive her to the station and they wanted this, their last
drive together for some time, to be a pleasant one. But when Anne
went to bed Sunday night the east wind was moaning around Green
Gables with an ominous prophecy which was fulfilled in the morning.
Anne awoke to find raindrops pattering against her window and
shadowing the pond's gray surface with widening rings; hills and
sea were hidden in mist, and the whole world seemed dim and dreary.
Anne dressed in the cheerless gray dawn, for an early start was
necessary to catch the boat train; she struggled against the tears
that WOULD well up in her eyes in spite of herself. She was leaving
the home that was so dear to her, and something told her that she was
leaving it forever, save as a holiday refuge. Things would never be
the same again; coming back for vacations would not be living there.
And oh, how dear and beloved everything was -- that little white porch room,
sacred to the dreams of girlhood, the old Snow Queen at the window,
the brook in the hollow, the Dryad's Bubble, the Haunted Woods,
and Lover's Lane -- all the thousand and one dear spots where memories
of the old years bided. Could she ever be really happy anywhere else?
Breakfast at Green Gables that morning was a rather doleful meal.
Davy, for the first time in his life probably, could not eat, but
blubbered shamelessly over his porridge. Nobody else seemed to
have much appetite, save Dora, who tucked away her rations comfortably.
Dora, like the immortal and most prudent Charlotte, who "went on
cutting bread and butter" when her frenzied lover's body had been
carried past on a shutter, was one of those fortunate creatures
who are seldom disturbed by anything. Even at eight it took a
great deal to ruffle Dora's placidity. She was sorry Anne was
going away, of course, but was that any reason why she should
fail to appreciate a poached egg on toast? Not at all. And,
seeing that Davy could not eat his, Dora ate it for him.
Promptly on time Diana appeared with horse and buggy, her rosy
face glowing above her raincoat. The good-byes had to be said
then somehow. Mrs. Lynde came in from her quarters to give Anne
a hearty embrace and warn her to be careful of her health,
whatever she did. Marilla, brusque and tearless, pecked Anne's
cheek and said she supposed they'd hear from her when she got
settled. A casual observer might have concluded that Anne's
going mattered very little to her -- unless said observer had
happened to get a good look in her eyes. Dora kissed Anne primly
and squeezed out two decorous little tears; but Davy, who had
been crying on the back porch step ever since they rose from the
table, refused to say good-bye at all. When he saw Anne coming
towards him he sprang to his feet, bolted up the back stairs, and
hid in a clothes closet, out of which he would not come. His muffled
howls were the last sounds Anne heard as she left Green Gables.
It rained heavily all the way to Bright River, to which station
they had to go, since the branch line train from Carmody did not
connect with the boat train. Charlie and Gilbert were on the
station platform when they reached it, and the train was whistling.
Anne had just time to get her ticket and trunk check, say a hurried
farewell to Diana, and hasten on board. She wished she were going back
with Diana to Avonlea; she knew she was going to die of homesickness.
And oh, if only that dismal rain would stop pouring down as if the
whole world were weeping over summer vanished and joys departed!
Even Gilbert's presence brought her no comfort, for Charlie Sloane
was there, too, and Sloanishness could be tolerated only in fine weather.
It was absolutely insufferable in rain.
But when the boat steamed out of Charlottetown harbor things took
a turn for the better. The rain ceased and the sun began to
burst out goldenly now and again between the rents in the clouds,
burnishing the gray seas with copper-hued radiance, and lighting
up the mists that curtained the Island's red shores with gleams
of gold foretokening a fine day after all. Besides, Charlie
Sloane promptly became so seasick that he had to go below, and
Anne and Gilbert were left alone on deck.
"I am very glad that all the Sloanes get seasick as soon as they
go on water," thought Anne mercilessly. "I am sure I couldn't
take my farewell look at the `ould sod' with Charlie standing
there pretending to look sentimentally at it, too."
"Well, we're off," remarked Gilbert unsentimentally.
"Yes, I feel like Byron's `Childe Harold' -- only it isn't really
my `native shore' that I'm watching," said Anne, winking her gray
eyes vigorously. "Nova Scotia is that, I suppose. But one's
native shore is the land one loves the best, and that's good old
P.E.I. for me. I can't believe I didn't always live here.
Those eleven years before I came seem like a bad dream.
It's seven years since I crossed on this boat -- the evening
Mrs. Spencer brought me over from Hopetown. I can see myself,
in that dreadful old wincey dress and faded sailor hat, exploring
decks and cabins with enraptured curiosity. It was a fine evening;
and how those red Island shores did gleam in the sunshine. Now I'm
crossing the strait again. Oh, Gilbert, I do hope I'll like Redmond
and Kingsport, but I'm sure I won't!"
"Where's all your philosophy gone, Anne?"
"It's all submerged under a great, swamping wave of loneliness
and homesickness. I've longed for three years to go to Redmond
-- and now I'm going -- and I wish I weren't! Never mind! I
shall be cheerful and philosophical again after I have just one
good cry. I MUST have that, `as a went' -- and I'll have to wait
until I get into my boardinghouse bed tonight, wherever it may
be, before I can have it. Then Anne will be herself again. I
wonder if Davy has come out of the closet yet."
It was nine that night when their train reached Kingsport, and
they found themselves in the blue-white glare of the crowded station.
Anne felt horribly bewildered, but a moment later she was seized by
Priscilla Grant, who had come to Kingsport on Saturday.
"Here you are, beloved! And I suppose you're as tired as I was
when I got here Saturday night."
"Tired! Priscilla, don't talk of it. I'm tired, and green,
and provincial, and only about ten years old. For pity's sake
take your poor, broken-down chum to some place where she can
hear herself think."
"I'll take you right up to our boardinghouse. I've a cab ready outside."
"It's such a blessing you're here, Prissy. If you weren't I
think I should just sit down on my suitcase, here and now, and
weep bitter tears. What a comfort one familiar face is in a
howling wilderness of strangers!"
"Is that Gilbert Blythe over there, Anne? How he has grown up
this past year! He was only a schoolboy when I taught in Carmody.
And of course that's Charlie Sloane. HE hasn't changed -- couldn't!
He looked just like that when he was born, and he'll look like that
when he's eighty. This way, dear. We'll be home in twenty minutes."
"Home!" groaned Anne. "You mean we'll be in some horrible boardinghouse,
in a still more horrible hall bedroom, looking out on a dingy back yard."
"It isn't a horrible boardinghouse, Anne-girl. Here's our cab.
Hop in -- the driver will get your trunk. Oh, yes, the boardinghouse
-- it's really a very nice place of its kind, as you'll admit tomorrow
morning when a good night's sleep has turned your blues rosy pink.
It's a big, old-fashioned, gray stone house on St. John Street,
just a nice little constitutional from Redmond. It used to be the
`residence' of great folk, but fashion has deserted St. John Street
and its houses only dream now of better days. They're so big that
people living in them have to take boarders just to fill up. At least,
that is the reason our landladies are very anxious to impress on us.
They're delicious, Anne -- our landladies, I mean."
"How many are there?"
"Two. Miss Hannah Harvey and Miss Ada Harvey. They were born twins
about fifty years ago."
"I can't get away from twins, it seems," smiled Anne. "Wherever I
go they confront me."
"Oh, they're not twins now, dear. After they reached the age of
thirty they never were twins again. Miss Hannah has grown old,
not too gracefully, and Miss Ada has stayed thirty, less
gracefully still. I don't know whether Miss Hannah can smile or
not; I've never caught her at it so far, but Miss Ada smiles all
the time and that's worse. However, they're nice, kind souls,
and they take two boarders every year because Miss Hannah's
economical soul cannot bear to `waste room space' -- not because
they need to or have to, as Miss Ada has told me seven times
since Saturday night. As for our rooms, I admit they are hall
bedrooms, and mine does look out on the back yard. Your room is
a front one and looks out on Old St. John's graveyard, which is
just across the street."
"That sounds gruesome," shivered Anne. "I think I'd rather have
the back yard view."
"Oh, no, you wouldn't. Wait and see. Old St. John's is a
darling place. It's been a graveyard so long that it's ceased to
be one and has become one of the sights of Kingsport. I was all
through it yesterday for a pleasure exertion. There's a big
stone wall and a row of enormous trees all around it, and rows of
trees all through it, and the queerest old tombstones, with the
queerest and quaintest inscriptions. You'll go there to study, Anne,
see if you don't. Of course, nobody is ever buried there now.
But a few years ago they put up a beautiful monument to the
memory of Nova Scotian soldiers who fell in the Crimean War.
It is just opposite the entrance gates and there's `scope for
imagination' in it, as you used to say. Here's your trunk at
last -- and the boys coming to say good night. Must I really
shake hands with Charlie Sloane, Anne? His hands are always so
cold and fishy-feeling. We must ask them to call occasionally.
Miss Hannah gravely told me we could have `young gentlemen
callers' two evenings in the week, if they went away at a
reasonable hour; and Miss Ada asked me, smiling, please to be
sure they didn't sit on her beautiful cushions. I promised to
see to it; but goodness knows where else they CAN sit, unless
they sit on the floor, for there are cushions on EVERYTHING.
Miss Ada even has an elaborate Battenburg one on top of the piano."
Anne was laughing by this time. Priscilla's gay chatter had the
intended effect of cheering her up; homesickness vanished for the
time being, and did not even return in full force when she
finally found herself alone in her little bedroom. She went to
her window and looked out. The street below was dim and quiet.
Across it the moon was shining above the trees in Old St. John's,
just behind the great dark head of the lion on the monument.
Anne wondered if it could have been only that morning that
she had left Green Gables. She had the sense of a long
passage of time which one day of change and travel gives.
"I suppose that very moon is looking down on Green Gables now,"
she mused. "But I won't think about it -- that way homesickness
lies. I'm not even going to have my good cry. I'll put that off
to a more convenient season, and just now I'll go calmly and
sensibly to bed and to sleep."
