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A tall, thin girl, "half-past nineteen", with sober eyes and dark hair and just a hint of what could pass for a sense of humor about the mouth, had stepped out on the broad red sandstone step of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse one grey afternoon in October, firmly resolved to beat every mote of dust out of the sitting room rug before the rain started.
An autumn rain in the Maritimes can be mighty and fearful, but even a powerful storm dare not cross the right sort of housekeeper set on the right sort of task; and by the time this one reached Green Gables, Marilla's beating of the sitting room rug had whipped the storm into submission as well; it spread nothing but a gentle mist over the fields and gardens, and its winds did not so much as muss her hair.
Not that Marilla's hair was easily mussed, or that she would have fretted overmuch if it had become so. She always wore it twisted up in a sensible knot behind, with two hairpins stuck firmly through it; and if by chance some wisp or tendril had happened (had dared) to come down, it would be reminded of its place the moment Marilla should notice it had slipped free—which, if it were not falling in her eyes or tickling the back of her neck, might take all day, for Marilla Cuthbert did not run to the sort of vanity that had a young woman always looking at herself in mirrors, or, in fact, to any sort of vanity at all.
It was not vanity, but plain good sense, that had her shaking out her apron when she had finished pummeling the sitting room rug. Neither was it vanity that had her smoothing down her apron and skirts when she had finished shaking them out, for Rachel Lynde was coming up the lane. Rachel Lynde was the tidiest housekeeper in Avonlea, and she kept the tidiest house in Avonlea even with a husband and a baby to look after. If Marilla couldn't keep her own house, which had only her father and her brother in it—two of the shyest, quietest, least demanding (and least slovenly, in their own right) men living—without becoming dusty and rumpled and staying that way, why, what would become of her when she herself had a husband and children and had to keep a home for a proper family? Making sure Rachel Lynde never saw her in disarray was not vanity on Marilla's part; it was a practical means of making sure she was always equal to her own responsibilities.
Rachel Lynde was a shortish, round-faced woman with fair hair and laughing blue eyes that, it sometimes seemed, could see through the back of her head as well as the front, for she observed everything and, as far as Marilla could tell, missed nothing. She and her husband Thomas had moved into the house down the lane, just where the main road dipped into a hollow, about a year past, and finding Marilla Cuthbert to be her nearest neighbor, she had soon determined that she would also be her closest friend. In practice this meant that as well as making herself aware of Marilla's affairs—Rachel Lynde prided herself on being aware of everyone's affairs—she would make Marilla aware of hers. It often occurred to Marilla that it would be better if people spent more time minding their business and less carrying it to their neighbors' doorsteps; but stop Rachel she could not, and when she allowed herself to think of it, as she did now, Marilla reflected that she would much rather see Rachel Lynde coming up the lane (even for the purpose of delivering a heaping helping of her own gossip) than almost any half-dozen other people she'd ever met.
That lady was just a few steps from the doorstep now, with the baby on her shoulder, aflutter with whatever it was she had come to talk to Marilla about. "Well!" said she. "What do you think? Young Naphtali Fuller has gone off to plant cotton in Georgia!" She came into the kitchen when Marilla bid her, unwinding her scarf, pulling young Tommy's wraps away from his face, and fanning her own rosy-cheeked face with her free hand. Marilla put the kettle on. "You remember I told you when Naphtali Senior had come within a hair's breadth of running down that American with his buggy over at White Sands? Apparently he did knock him down, at least, though he just ruined his suit and broke his leg; if he'd actually run him over he'd have been killed. In either case poor Maryelle Fuller was just beside herself for ages about it—I had to bring her covered dishes three times a week or she'd have clean forgotten how to set her own table. How that woman keeps her children fed I don't know. But now it seems that Naphtali has been going to visit that American—Roberts is his name—Naphtali has been going to visit Mr. Roberts in a gesture of good will, you know, to make sure his leg is healing up proper and see what other tending he needs, because of course he hasn't any particular friends in the area, and why would he? Well, Naphtali Junior has been driving along with him, and didn't he just fall in love with Mr. Roberts' daughter Evangeline, and now off they go to set up on Mr. Roberts' plantation in Atlanta. Atlanta!" As far as Rachel Lynde was concerned, the Canadian mainland was as far away as anyone could ever possibly need to venture—New Brunswick, or Toronto at the absolute furthest. She knew people relocated to the United States, for reasons fathomable only to themselves, but at least they usually tended to settle in Boston, which had the same sort of reasonable North Atlantic climate as the Island did, after all; and she'd heard a rumor once that someone's cousin's brother-in-law had moved to Baltimore and found it congenial; but Atlanta! Atlanta may as well have been the moon.
Of course it wasn't only to discuss Naphtali Fuller Junior that Rachel had come to Green Gables. Her main purpose, or so it seemed, was to tell Marilla that there was another small Lynde on the way, and to be sure that Marilla would come down and help look after Tommy when the new baby came. Of course Marilla would; it was only neighborly to lend a hand to a nearby family in need, even if they weren't friends. And of course Rachel and Marilla were friends—Marilla wondered, as she poured the tea, that Rachel even need ask.
"Well," said Rachel, with a twinkle in her eye, "April's a long way off. I didn't know but you might be making plans of your own by then."
Marilla picked up her tea, sipped slowly, and absolutely would not smile or blush. "What ever do you mean?" she asked, when she was able to do so placidly and with nothing more than a raised eyebrow.
"Oh, Marilla," Rachel sighed. "John Blythe has been to see you every day for the past eight months. You know I see him from the house when he comes around by the road, and I suppose on days when I don't see him it's because he's taken the shortcut through the fields; eight months, Marilla! If you're not engaged yet you surely will be by Christmas, and then there's nothing to keep you from getting married next summer, is there?"
"Nothing but the fact that we are not engaged," Marilla said. "If and when we are, I promise you shall know of it. Until then, I'll thank you to keep your conclusions to yourself, if you must leap to them at all." She tried to soften her voice and speak a little more kindly; if she seemed to be scolding Rachel, there was no telling how the latter would take it. Rachel was made of pretty stern stuff, but Marilla had learned that even the most strong-willed woman could be unpredictable when she was pregnant, and the last thing Marilla wanted was to upset her friend; she felt a pang now, just at the startled look on Rachel's face, and heeded it; she even reached out and patted Rachel's arm. "You're looking tired from the walk up; shall I ask Matthew to drive you home?"
Rachel, who had resumed her wits, good-naturedly declined the offer, wrapped herself and her young son up again against the breeze, though it had lessened, wished Marilla a good afternoon, and set off back down the lane. Just as she reached the bend, she met someone coming around it the other direction, and Marilla heard her say "Well, hello, John Blythe!" with a smile in her voice that Marilla was sure she didn't like even from this distance. Rachel and John spoke for a moment and then went their respective ways, Rachel down to the road to her home, John up to the red sandstone step where Marilla stood, hands folded so she wouldn't fuss with her skirts. To worry over her appearance when John Blythe was visiting really would be dangerously close to vanity; indeed, she kept her folded hands under her apron where nobody would see if she clenched them just a little too tightly, now that John Blythe was coming.
Marilla could not deny that she—well, enjoyed was probably too strong a word, but she certainly appreciated watching John Blythe approach her door. Broad in the shoulder and long in the leg, he moved with the easy grace of a young man who knew most of the young women would look at him sooner or later, but didn't much mind those who wouldn't. He had a way of looking up through the dark curls that flopped down over his forehead, even though he was often taller than whomever he was looking at, with a sheepish expression that generally made a body inclined to forgive him, whether or not he'd done anything that needed forgiving.
It was not a look of this kind that he cast on Marilla now, however, nor the oddly bashful smile she'd grown accustomed to, nor the more confident smile he'd been showing her more of lately (and she thought she might be the only one who saw it), nor the thoughtful gaze she sometimes surprised on his face when she caught him looking at her when he thought she didn't know. As John Blythe drew near to Marilla, his head was tilted, his brow was knit, and the look on his face was slightly confused or unhappy; Marilla was a little confused herself, to imagine what could possibly be disturbing him.
"Good afternoon, John," she said, when he was within a half-dozen steps of where she stood.
He stopped, touched his cap, and shoved his hands back in his pockets. "Marilla."
"Would you like to come in? There's tea still hot."
She saw something in his eyes darken; then he tilted his chin and whatever it was seemed to clear. "Thank you, no—I thought we might walk for a bit, since the rain's stopped. It'll be much too cold in the afternoons, soon." He turned halfway back to the lane, but didn't look away from her.
"Well—all right." Marilla untied her apron, hung it on the peg inside the door, and pulled her shawl around her shoulders. She stepped out and shut the door behind her; then, as John did not offer her his arm, she simply took her place beside him and they began to walk down the lane.
"I saw Mrs. Lynde on her way home when I came in," John said after a few moments.
Marilla looked at him, surprised. John and Rachel had been nearer the house than the road when they met; didn't he know Marilla had seen them speaking to each other? "Yes," she said. "She came by about half an hour ago."
"She seems to come by ... often."
This should not have been news to John. Marilla couldn't think what could be the matter with him. "Well ... the Lyndes are our nearest neighbors," she reminded him. "Rachel is my friend."
John stopped walking and turned to face her, cross about something. "Is she?"
"Why, of course she is. What is it that's troubling you, John?"
John was extremely vexed, Marilla could tell, and she was at a loss to guess why this might be. He scowled and hunched his shoulders—it really was a bit cold for walking, in fact—and then shocked her with a look she had never seen before, up from under the brim of his cap: he looked like he was accusing her. "I don't think you're being all the way honest with me."
Marilla blinked. "Not all the way honest? What falsehood have I told you, John Blythe?"
"I—" he sighed quickly. "I don't know how to say this, Marilla. You and Rachel Lynde—you're awfully good friends." Marilla folded her arms and waited for him to continue. "Awfully good friends," he said. "I mean—sometimes I think you like her better than you like me."
She could only stare at him. "John Blythe, are you jealous? Of my friendship with Rachel Lynde? That's the most ridiculous—"
"Well, hang it, Marilla, who wouldn't be jealous?" He was pacing now. "Every time I come to see you she's watching me come up the lane—"
"She watches everybody who comes up that lane!"
"—or she's just been here and you're offering me tea you made for her in the first place, or you can't come out with me because you're off on your way down to see her, or—it ain't right, Marilla, that's what I'm saying."
Had John had been injured? Was he feeling ill? This kind of talk wasn't like him; not right, to be friendly with the woman who lived as near to next door as anybody could live to Green Gables? What on earth had put such ideas into his head? Marilla asked him as much, but it only made him angrier.
"Friendly? My sister and my cousin Mary Maria are friendly. George Fletcher and Hi Sloane are friendly. You—" He took a deep breath. "You and Rachel sure seem like there's something between you that's getting in the way of something being between you and me."
Marilla couldn't move. She had not been so shocked since the time Matthew had disagreed with their father over some aspect of their mother's funeral service—she could no longer remember what—and had raised his voice and argued with him, right there in front of the minister. But this—! John had stopped short of naming Marilla's supposed crime outright, but she had been going to church since she was seven years old, and she knew what he meant. What he thought about her was improper. What he thought about her and Rachel was indecent. Of course the woman was her friend, even her closest friend, but—well, perhaps she was more attached to Rachel than other young women were to their friends; but other young women had more friends, didn't they; and other young women had sisters, as well, instead of living off the road with only their quiet brothers and their silent fathers; so other young women didn't need the kind of friend Marilla Cuthbert had in Rachel Lynde. Now that she thought about it, though, Marilla supposed Rachel didn't need Marilla to be the same kind of friend she, Marilla, needed Rachel to be. With a sinking and slightly ill feeling she understood that this perhaps uneven devotion was what John had seen, and what he was asking her about, and what he thought was interfering with her feelings for him.
Marilla was horrified and frightened and indignant in about equal measures. She could, and must, face the fright and horror presently; but immediately, she could take her indignation out on John, who had caused it. "There is nothing between me and Rachel other than ordinary friendship," she said icily. "Certainly nothing that would get in the way, as you suggest, of something between me and yourself."
"I don't—" he began, but she couldn't guess whether he was going to argue or concede.
"In fact," she went on, before he had the chance to do either of these, "the only thing getting in the way of something between us is you, John Blythe. I find it's too cold for walking after all. Good evening." And she turned on her heel and walked, head high, back toward the house.
John was calling after her. "I'll be back when you've come to your senses!" was all she heard, but she did not turn to listen to anything else he might have to say. She closed the kitchen door, traded her shawl again for her apron, and did not even look through the window until she was sure John was gone.
Marilla did not see Rachel Lynde above twice in the following week, and John Blythe not at all. But by week's end, with the first breath of snow in the air, up the lane he came—wearing, Marilla noticed, his most sheepish expression, as if he knew it would lead her to forgive him, no matter whether or not he deserved it. It made her furious. He really had been waiting for her to cool off; he hadn't spent a single minute all week thinking about whether he'd been in the wrong or whether he hadn't. Marilla gritted her teeth.
"Afternoon, Marilla," John said when he reached the kitchen door.
"John Blythe." Marilla folded her arms.
"I've ... come to ask you to forgive me," he said. "You will forgive me, won't you, Marilla?"
Marilla raised her eyebrows. "I don't think I should," she said. John Blythe blinked and actually took a step back. "You said some dreadful things, John, and you said them right to my face. Did you really think you could turn up six days later and give me that look and I'd forgive you? Without so much as a suggestion of an apology?"
"But I am sorry," he protested. "You have no idea how sorry." Marilla scoffed. "Well, I am," John insisted. "You're ... not like other girls, Marilla. I guess I was a little scared of how much you're not like other girls, last week, and I shouldn't have been. But it's seemed to me you've been glad to see me these past few months, and I'd be sorry if you weren't glad to see me anymore."
It was better than figuring she'd forgive him just because he wanted her to, at least. Marilla thought John really did sound sorry—for what he'd done and said as well as for what had come of it. She didn't know as she was ready to forgive him yet, though; she didn't think he'd suffered nearly what she had, and she thought he ought to go away a while longer and really think about what he'd done. She said so, lifting her chin. "That's as may be, John Blythe, but I don't see a clear way to forgiving you just yet. I'm still smarting from what you said to me—it wouldn't be right to pretend it hadn't happened."
"I'm not pretending—"
"I just can't," Marilla said. When a man had looked a woman in the eye and called her a sinner and a liar, it would be a mistake to forgive him the first time he asked.
"Marilla—please, I—"
"Good day, John." She was sure she could find it in her to forgive him; but not today. She stepped back inside and closed the kitchen door before he could follow her; but she could see his shocked, pale face through the window, and she closed the door gently.
Marilla turned her attention to scrubbing and mending and knitting; the house filled with the scents of baking; before she knew it, it was Christmas, and Matthew and Papa had brought home a tree and armfuls of greenery, and John Blythe had not been to see her in nine weeks.
The Cuthberts exchanged their gifts and ate their goose and dressed extra warm to go to the church service; on Boxing Day Marilla brought a basket down to the Lyndes', and would have stayed for supper if she had known she'd be invited, but instead she had to return home. "I've had a real nice time this afternoon," she said, as she wrapped up in her scarf. "And I'm glad you're feeling better, Rachel."
"Not half so glad as I am! I know we're meant to suffer with the bearing of children, but I always thought that meant just at the moment, and not in the months and months leading up to it." Rachel laid a hand on her middle and sighed. "This one is feisty already. Be able to stand up to his brother the minute he's born, I expect." She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. "Will you be all right, Marilla?"
Marilla gave a weak smile. "I will, yes. I'm sure it'll just be—"
"Marilla." Rachel took Marilla's hand in both of hers. "He won't come back."
"I know. If he hasn't by now, after two months—"
"No—he won't, he isn't coming back."
Marilla felt the color leave her face. "I don't know what you mean."
"I'm sorry. I just heard yesterday from Leah Fletcher that John's been going to see Sarah Jane McGinty. Almost every day for six weeks now. ... What did you and he quarrel about?"
The dull ache that had been in Marilla's chest since that cold day in October got colder and harder. She stood with her hand in both of Rachel's, looking at the door behind Rachel's shoulder, for a long minute. Then she drew her hand gently away, pulled her coat on, and tugged her scarf up around her ears. "It doesn't matter. Good evening, Rachel. I'll come down to see you tomorrow—I'll bring you some bread."
"All right." Rachel had knit her brow, but she didn't try to draw Marilla any further.
Marilla was glad Rachel hadn't asked her any more questions, as she walked slowly back up the lane to Green Gables, quiet in the snow, to get supper for her brother and their father. She was glad she had never spoken much of herself and John, for now she had no one she needed to explain his absence to. She would go home, and would live there as she always had, until someone else came to call.
But no one came to call that winter, nor the following spring. At the end of the summer John Blythe married Sarah Jane McGinty; Marilla was not invited, but Rachel and Thomas had the kindness to say he looked dignified and leave it at that. Still no one came to call; Marilla supposed everyone she knew was occupied with a busy farm or a young family, or both; and everyone she didn't know, well, it would never occur to anyone who didn't know a house was back there to come as far off the road as Green Gables. She made a home for Matthew and Papa, and then for Matthew and herself after Papa died. And it wasn't all that long before, up at Green Gables, Marilla Cuthbert barely noticed the years as they passed by.