It’s finally time to leave Avonlea and move to Kingsport to study at Redmond College for the next four years. Whether she returns to the island is yet to be determined, but she doesn’t mind. She’ll figure it out once she reaches that bend of the road. But since Kingsport is far away, like the time she spent at Queens, Anne will only be able to return Green Gables during the holidays. Fortunately for Marilla she won’t be alone, as she now has company with the young twins and Rachel who’s agreed to move in with them. Poor Davy though, he has grown quite attached to Anne and was devastated to see her go.
But the day before her departure was unfortunately quite a headache. There were at least three nosy ladies that showed up at her door to “talk” to her. That wasn’t actually the case though, they each tried to dissuade her from leaving Avonlea, going on about how ‘women don’t need to pursue higher education’ and the sort. How tiresome! Fortunately she was able to vent about it to Gilbert when he had swung by later that night to hang out with her
And goodness we already knew that Gilbert is a total sweetheart, but I absolutely love how supportive he is when he listened to her vent about the nosy ladies, and how he sought to cheer her up by indulging the wonders of which sparks her imagination. Such was a gem of an single apple tree he had come across in the woods that he wanted to share with her. It was endearing as ever to see him tap into her imagination with the way he referred to a fallen tree with a cushion of moss that would serve as a woodland throne! Chivalrous indeed!
That said, Gilbert had his own troubles this week. There’s a couple of times this week where he has tried to seek chances to at least talk to Anne about their feelings, and even apologized for surprising her for simply wanting to hold her hand to comfort her, but Anne’s far too anxious to have the conversation.
But it’s not that Anne doesn’t have feelings for him, it’s just that she has yet to fully recognize and accept it. There’s been plenty of dabbling hints to show how she can’t stop thinking about him, and finds herself feeling a bit lonesome and anxious when she sees him with other girls. But the most glaring clue was when she subconsciously pictured him in her future dream home. It had completely caught her off-guard, so now she’s constantly trying to shut it down because it’s scaring her. Anne’s so desperate to protect the friendship they right now, that by constantly refusing to have that conversation is making him think perhaps she doesn’t reciprocate the way he cares about her. So until Anne’s ready to accept her own feelings, Gilbert will be stuck waiting a bit longer, and there’s no telling how long that’ll take.
Apart from that, on the day she had to register at Redmond college, she and her friend Priscilla met a fellow student (Philippa Gordon) who initially came off as shy but turned out to be quite… something. Phil as she prefers to be called, hails from Bolingbroke, the place where Anne was actually born. She’s points herself to be an indecisive type, going on about how she’d never be able to pick a guy to among the flocks that love her, going on how she couldn’t love anyone because ‘being in love makes a perfect slave’ as she puts it, which is why she’s not interested in such. Although Anne and Priscilla walked away afterwards discussing how charming she is, there were certainly moments where both of them thought she was a bit much and weren’t entirely sure how to respond or react to some of the things she said.
That’s all I got to say for this week! We’re actually at the point of the series where I don’t remember as much details in the book since it’s been a loooooooooonnnnnnnnggg time since I’ve last read it. The first book is easy to remember because of the sheer amount of times I’ve read it as a kid, its poor spine is absolutely wrecked! So I’m looking forward to going into this arc a tad more blind!
