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Anne Shirley
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about Anne
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
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[04 Nov 2006|11:56pm] |
Patty's Place.
It's been on her mind ever since Anne had returned from the "consitutional" through the park with the girls, and Charlie and Gilbert. Even now, sitting on a low wall in the graveyard across from her room, her mind is not on the here and now but rather trailing delightfully through dreams of tiny red brick cottages, laughter, and a sweet sense of home.
She can allow the daydreams this afternoon--there's all weekend to work and her mind is, as Phil put it earlier in the week: "simply crammed--I feel like a cupboard just waiting for someone to open the door so that everything can just fall out."
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| [conversations with dead people] |
[31 Oct 2006|09:47pm] |
It's the fault of the letters.
Those letters from Avonlea, full of gossip and warmth from Diana, full of advice and kind words from Marilla and Mrs. Rachel, full of spotty ink and misspelled words from Davey. That must be why Anne is feeling so very homesick, as she readies for bed and braids her long red hair.
She feels ever so slightly azure around the edges--a combination of the stinging postscript of Ruby Gillis' last letter ("Gilbert seems to be enjoying Redmond, judging from his letters," which--well, really, Gilbert has the perfect right to write to Ruby Gillis if he pleases) and the sinking feeling that she'd failed the practice maths exam of this afternoon, and when she slipped into bed, Davy's letter was beneath her pillow.
Homesickness, she thinks, miserably, isn't really something that ever goes away, is it? Something tickles her nose, and she sneezes and rubs at it, wondering, rather pathetically, if she isn't going to catch a cold now, too--
But it isn't cold. Not really. And the scratchy stuff by her nose--it isn't her pillow, it's dried flowers that have fallen from their vase by her bed.
And--
And--
She sits up, her heart thumping wildly and the wide grey-green eyes wider and more shining than ever, because over by the windowseat of her small white room, holding a large flat box carefully in his arms as though he thinks he might break it, somehow, is the most familiar face in all the world. And, "Oh--oh Matthew," she cries, and her hair in its two long braids bounces against her back as she goes flying towards him, regardless of the rumpled bedsheets she leaves behind.
Tears sting her eyes, and she isn't entirely sure why, but she knows that she has never been so happy.
Matthew Cuthbert stands up with his shy smile and blue eyes sparkle with pleasure as he carefully lifts the top off the box and hold out for her the world's most beautiful dress: rich brown shirring falls to the floor, and oh--the sleeves. Daintily cuffed at the elbows, and the most perfect puffs above.
"Thought you might want this," he says, shyly, his face turning rather pink at the look on her face. "Seeing as how my girl's been getting so big, and all. Why--why, Anne, don't you like it?"
For Anne's great eyes have filled with tears, and disregarding the beautiful dress (and she'd worn that dress until it could be let down no further, and still she refused to let Marilla turn it into rags) she throws herself into his arms, breathing deep the hay and tobacco scent of him, while he pats her back awkwardly and says, "Well now--well now."
"It's beautiful," Anne says, her voice shaky, and she squeezes her eyes tight until his hands on her shoulders push her gently back. He looks at her so long and so searchingly that she bites her lip.
"Don't--don't you like how I look?" she asks, a little wistfully, her hands twisting in front of her. Soft white organdy drifts about her feets and tucks around her small waist, and she raises one hand to touch the pearls at her throat, as if seeking them for comfort.
Matthew only smiles, beneath his mustache, and nods briskly (as if that might detract attention away from the suspicious moisture in his eyes). "Why, sure," he tells her, and the mustache twitches with his shy smile. "I've got the prettiest, smartest girl in Avonlea, don't I? You'll do just fine, Anne."
His blue eyes shine with pride, and she smiles up at him, comforted and aching and wishing just to throw herself once more into his arms.
"Do you really think so?" she asks, blinking away the tears that threaten to blur the dear face before her, and he nods, and clears his throat, awkward.
"Well, sure. Guess everyone else is gonna figure it out." He sits on the windowseat, resting his hands on his knees, and looks pleased with himself. There's room enough for Anne to next to him, and she does, folding her hands in her lap and resting her head against his shoulder.
"Good," she sighs, content. "I don't want to disappoint you."
He only shakes his head, and concentrates on his hands, before putting one arm around her back and letting her tuck up against his shoulder, her cheek resting against the worn flannel jacket he wears.
"You're going to do real well," he reiterates, gruffly, after organizing his thoughts mutely for rather a long few moments.
She runs her hands over the soft brown cloth on her lap--that dress which had once been so pretty and was now so determinedly out of fashion. Anne nods, but her eyes are cast down.
"I wish things never had to change," she says, softly. "And that I could stay at Green Gables with you and Marilla and be your Anne forever. And, oh, Matthew, it's unfair, isn't it? I used to think such things were romantic, but I'm afraid I've learned better." His arms tightens about her shoulders, comfortingly.
"Well now," he says, hesitatingly. "Well now, Anne--I don't know about that." He looks down into the great grey-green eyes and the small face turned up to his, and touches her chin with one work-thicked finger.
"I guess maybe it's all right. Reckon Marilla and I've done worse things than taking you in, but I guess I can't think of anything much better. And it seems Marilla's sure brought you up right.
"And I guess you're still my girl, and I'm proud of you." Blue eyes crinkle in a shy smile. "You just do your best, and that's all anyone can do."
"Always," says Anne, and opens her eyes, startled, to find them wet and her room dark and an ache beginning in her stomach. Tears don't hurt like the ache does, though, and after a long while she sleeps again, exhausted, and when she wakes again it's with a smile that's only a little wistful.
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[10 Sep 2006|08:13pm] |
The steps heading towards Room 203 aren't as light as they once were, but the laughter and the voices are just as girlish, and it's almost possible to forget the curve to Amy's stomach or the way Anne's hair is coiled so firmly instead of falling in a loose braid.
The room, too, has changed; still cheerful and white, the late summer sun spills now onto neat beds and empty desks. Still, it seems welcoming, as if the room itself were glad to see the two girls returning.
"And she really thought he was proposing to her?" Anne asks in amazement as they come laughing through the door, skirts set aswirl.
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| A birthday |
[30 Mar 2006|10:11pm] |
Anne has never particularly cared for March. It tends to be cold, and gray, and rainy and muddy, and she almost always has a cold through most of it. But it is her birthmonth, and this particular day does happen to be her birthday.
At least, she thinks, cheering up where she sits on the porch with her chin in her hand, it is clearing up outside. And it is almost properly Spring.
Almost.
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[06 Jan 2006|11:13am] |
Green Gables looks particularly pretty on a clear winter's evening, when the sun has just set and stained the snow rose and gold and orange, and the windows glow comfortingly into the settling dusk. It looks everything calm, and peaceful, and you know that inside there will be a crackling fire, and the smell of baking bread.
There will also be a tiny terror, by the name of Davy Keith.
"Davy," Anne says, despairingly, "what on earth have you done to your shirt?"
The small culprit looked down at his shirt, which he had buttoned inside out, guiltily. Anne had admonished him, earlier, not to play outside in his good shirt, but Davy, weighing the trouble of changing his shirt against simply wearing this one inside out, had simply turned his shirt inside out and gone out merrily.
Unfortunately, he had completely forgotten to change it around until the last minute, when Dora had caught him trying to sneak up the stairs, and so now he stands, hanging his head, under Anne's incredulous gaze.
"'s fine," he says, grumpily. "I'll just change it around and you won't even notice. I would've gotten away with it, if Dora hadn't tattled."
"I did not!" protested Dora indignantly.
"Did so!" Davy shot back. Anne shushed him, and sent him upstairs to change, and Dora into the kitchen to Mrs. Lynde, before sitting down in Matthew's old rocking chair. She waits until she can hear Davy banging around upstairs, and Mrs. Lynde talking to Dora, before allowing her mirth to bubble out of her, sitting there by the fire laughing merrily.
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[20 Nov 2005|10:35pm] |
It's marvelous, Anne thinks, that the air in Avonlea hasn't yet chilled, and that the leaves haven't fallen yet, though they are red and gold and glowing in the slanting October sunlight, and she breathes in the familiar scents happily and with a sigh, closing her eyes in bliss. Behind her, the music from the A.V.I.S's harvest party hums merrily through the air, muted by leaves and silent trees and the winding path she'd taken away from the party itself.
And, oh, it was good to see Diana and Ruby and Jane and even Charlie Sloane, who'd shaken her hand with great dignity and pomp, although she was happy to have slipped away before he caught up close enough to ask for a dance, but even Charlie Sloane was a welcome sight these days--just another reminder that she was really and truly home.
Behind her, the band strikes up a merry waltz, and she laughs, and holds out the edge of her skirt, curtseying gracefully to the fence in front of her.
"Why, thank you," she says, cheerfully, imagining an invisible partner into existence, who bows to her and takes her by the hand to lead her into the dance.
She's done this before, out by the lake, under the moon, called out into the crisp cool night, but here, today, she laughs and steps lightly and twirls under autumn leaves the same shade as her bright hair, and doesn't miss that other dance.
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[02 Nov 2005|07:24pm] |
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Both Hands -- Ani DiFranco |
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This is not, in actuality, plot-related. Just a little something that poked as me until I had to write it. Do enjoy.
Anne isn't sure, exactly, what it is that draws her to him so. He is prickly, and proud, and his moods oscillate wildly--he glares and laughs and freezes all in a minute and she loses her balance and grasps blindly at words while her own temper rises hot in her cheeks. Gray eyes snap into gold, and he laughs, and she laughs, and allows herself to be lost in pale smiles.
And then she stares into wild golden eyes, and feels not quite safe, and not quite sure, and terribly, wonderfully tempted, while her heart gives a queer little flutter. She catches her breath, and imagines white hair blown in a cold winter wind; dark sweater against green grass and gray rocks; golden eyes and golden harp and a strain of music that breaks her heart beautifully and she feels the sting of tears; hears the wild clear call of a hunting horn.
She presses her cheek to warm wool, wonders at fingers paler than her own and how the two entwine, pale and paler, delicate hands tracing calluses made by harpstrings and farm work. Her hair falls over his sweater, blazing like a fire
I am the blaze on every hill
and they are red and white, gray and gold. Her hair smells like lilies from the flowers she had pinned in it; his sweater smells like a cold fresh mountain wind and wool and every so slightly of the far off salt sea, and she knows that his mouth will taste like the tea they drank, warm and comforting like the breath they share when he bends his head to lightly brush his lips against hers.
He is fierce and gentle and hard and questioning all at once, this half-grown boy, and she can be dreamy and lost and angry, sometimes, and quiet, other times, with him, the solemn eyed girl-child of whom poor Matthew Cuthbert had been so ludicrously afraid. He is not safe, not the way Gilbert is safe--but sometimes even Gilbert is not safe anymore, when she looks up suddenly to see that strange yearning in clear hazel eyes and knows she can't give him what it is he'd ask of her--if he asked what she is afraid he might. Bran is not safe in the way that a fire is never quite safe, how it can go from cool candlelight to catch, blazing upon a hillside.
Fire on the mountainside will find the harp of gold
Gil is not like that. He is always there, a steady place for Anne to fall back upon
(I think you are just searching for a steady place to stand)
when it seems as though she is about to spin right off of the earth and out into the brilliant apocalypse that she sees beyond the wide windows, there to rescue her when she finds herself clinging to a bridge post, there to hold her together when she is feeling herself starting to shatter, fragile as any piece of glass.
Bran fascinates her, and she wonders at the gentleness in his fingers when he touches her cheek, at the warmth of his hand on hers, warmth that glows through her and she has to smile at him with shining starry eyes.
Gilbert makes her feel safe, and comfortable, and needed--the way Matthew, who was the first man to ever love her, made her feel. Except--except Gilbert is different, isn't he? Somehow, there is something she cannot quite see that makes, oh, all the difference in the world.
Because of Bran, she has stopped trying to open the door. Because of Bran, and the hurt that darkens the world for her everytime it remains closed.
Because of Gilbert, she knows that she has to try to open the door again. Because of Gilbert, and the confusion and the pain and the longing in his eyes, in the way he does not reach for her.
For now, though, she can rest her head against soft Welsh wool, and hear Bran's lilting voice speak to her, and close her eyes to the world, even if she isn't sure, exactly, why she wants to.
And perhaps that is alright, for now.
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| All Hallow's Eve |
[01 Nov 2005|06:13pm] |
It has been...an interesting night.
She had gone downstairs, and her clothes had lightened and whitened and her hair had flowed down her back and the delicate scent of lilies had surrounded her.
She had been in the bar for...longer than she had expected to be. As a result, she is glowing--literally. Gold glitter shines in ruddy hair, on pale shoulders and cheek, on dark eyelashes.
And she can't seem to stop smiling as she dances lightly down the hall towards her room.
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[29 Oct 2005|12:11am] |
She shouldn't really be outside, not alone, not at night.
But the harvest moon, rising so yellow and lovely in the night was so unreachable and so heart-achingly beautiful that she slipped out the door, leaving her sewing and her work behind her, and stood at the edge of the lake, her arms tight around her, grateful for the warmth of her thick sweater.
"Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be
For ever and for ever."
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| Room 203: Tea Party |
[17 Oct 2005|11:25am] |
The plates are set, the tea is steeping, and after a flurry of clearing and rearranging this morning, there is a pleasant little table set in the room, with four white chairs around it.
The pies are on the windowsill, mouthwaterly fragrant.
All in all, it looks to be a lovely tea.
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| Room 203 |
[12 Oct 2005|11:08pm] |
It's late.
Anne sits up in bed, her arms wrapped about her knees, gazing out the window. It's late, but she doesn't feel tired yet, and she's worried. Two nights now, Amy has been late into the room, and her smiles are not as bright as they once were, or her laugh as merry, and so Anne is worried.
She breathes a sigh of relief as the door clicks softly open, and looks over, wide gray eyes shining in the dim room.
"Amy?"
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| Some days before... |
[25 Sep 2005|10:20pm] |
"Oh," Anne, says with a sigh, laying her book down upon her lap, "it really is such an unfair evening to have to study, Marilla. Look at that sky! Have you ever seen it so clear, or the blue so bright? Look at the pink of the horizon, Marilla! Isn't it lovely?"
"Stuff and nonsense," returns sensible Marilla, knitting amiably. "You've seen plenty of skies, Anne Shirley, and you'll likely see plenty more. Skies are a fine reason to ignore your studies, I suppose? And isn't Gilbert supposed to be along tonight?"
"Yes," Anne returns, with her eyes locked still on the glowing sky. "He should be here soon. Marilla, I don't think you understand how truly impossible it is to think about Greek philosophy when it is such a beautiful evening."
"Likely not," Marilla tells her drily, rising stiffly from her seat. "It's getting too hard to see out here. Mind you and Gilbert don't ruin your eyes, reading in the dark." A swing of the screendoor, and she has disappeared inside the house, while Anne's book lies forgotten on her lap, her chin in her hands and her face to the sky.
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[15 Sep 2005|08:26pm] |
When the girls got back to Echo Lodge they found that Miss Lavendar and Paul had carried the little square table out of the kitchen to the garden and had everything ready for tea. Nothing ever tasted so delicious as those strawberries and cream, eaten under a great blue sky all curdled over with fluffy little white clouds, and in the long shadows of the wood with its lispings and its murmurings. After tea Anne helped Charlotta wash the dishes in the kitchen, while Miss Lavendar sat on the stone bench with Paul and heard all about his rock people. She was a good listener, this sweet Miss Lavendar, but just at the last it struck Paul that she had suddenly lost interest in the Twin Sailors.
"Miss Lavendar, why do you look at me like that?" he asked gravely.
"How do I look, Paul?"
"Just as if you were looking through me at somebody I put you in mind of," said Paul, who had such occasional flashes of uncanny insight that it wasn't quite safe to have secrets when he was about.
"You do put me in mind of somebody I knew long ago," said Miss Lavendar dreamily.
"When you were young?"
"Yes, when I was young. Do I seem very old to you, Paul?"
"Do you know, I can't make up my mind about that," said Paul confidentially. "Your hair looks old. . .I never knew a young person with white hair. But your eyes are as young as my beautiful teacher's when you laugh. I tell you what, Miss Lavendar". . . Paul's voice and face were as solemn as a judge's. . ."I think you would make a splendid mother. You have just the right look in your eyes. . . the look my little mother always had. I think it's a pity you haven't any boys of your own."
"I have a little dream boy, Paul."
"Oh, have you really? How old is he?"
"About your age I think. He ought to be older because I dreamed him long before you were born. But I'll never let him get any older than eleven or twelve; because if I did some day he might grow up altogether and then I'd lose him."
"I know," nodded Paul. "That's the beauty of dream-people. . .they stay any age you want them. You and my beautiful teacher and me myself are the only folks in the world that I know of that have dream-people. Isn't it funny and nice we should all know each other? But I guess that kind of people always find each other out. Grandma never has dream-people and Mary Joe thinks I'm wrong in the upper story because I have them. But I think it's splendid to have them. YOU know, Miss Lavendar. Tell me all about your little dream-boy."
"He has blue eyes and curly hair. He steals in and wakens me with a kiss every morning. Then all day he plays here in the garden. . . and I play with him. Such games as we have. We run races and talk with the echoes; and I tell him stories. And when twilight comes. . ."
"I know," interrupted Paul eagerly. "He comes and sits beside you. . . SO. . .because of course at twelve he'd be too big to climb into your lap . . .and lays his head on your shoulder. . .SO. . .and you put your arms about him and hold him tight, tight, and rest your cheek on his head. . . yes, that's the very way. Oh, you DO know, Miss Lavendar."
Anne found the two of them there when she came out of the stone house, and something in Miss Lavendar's face made her hate to disturb them.
"I'm afraid we must go, Paul, if we want to get home before dark. Miss Lavendar, I'm going to invite myself to Echo Lodge for a whole week pretty soon."
"If you come for a week I'll keep you for two," threatened Miss Lavendar.
~ from Anne of Avonlea
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