Anna's Love Letters Page #2

"Anna's Love Letters" by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a delightful coming-of-age story that follows the life of Anna Shirley, an imaginative and spirited young woman. Set in the picturesque community of Avonlea, the narrative explores Anna's journey through romance, self-discovery, and the challenges of adulthood. As she navigates her relationships and the complexities of love, Anna writes poignant letters that capture her hopes and dreams, revealing her heartfelt yearnings and reflections. This charming tale encapsulates Montgomery's signature themes of love, friendship, and the beauty of nature, offering readers a glimpse into the emotional landscape of a young woman's heart.

• Short story

								

holding secure Anna's place in Gilbert's affections until Anna herself
should come to her senses.

When it grew quite dark and Anna had gone lilting down the lane on her
way to prayer meeting, Alma lighted her lamp, read Gilbert's
letter--and answered it. Her handwriting was much like Anna's. She
signed the letter "A. Williams," and there was nothing in it that
might not have been written by her to Gilbert; but she knew that
Gilbert would believe Anna had written it, and she intended him so to
believe. Alma never did a thing halfway when she did it at all. At
first she wrote rather constrainedly but, reflecting that in any case
Anna would have written a merely friendly letter, she allowed her
thoughts to run freely, and the resulting epistle was an excellent one
of its kind. Alma had the gift of expression and more brains than
Exeter people had ever imagined she possessed. When Gilbert read that
letter a fortnight later he was surprised to find that Anna was so
clever. He had always, with a secret regret, thought her much inferior
to Alma in this respect, but that delightful letter, witty, wise,
fanciful, was the letter of a clever woman.

When a year had passed Alma was still writing to Gilbert the letters
signed "A. Williams." She had ceased to fear being found out, and she
took a strange pleasure in the correspondence for its own sake. At
first she had been quakingly afraid of discovery. When she smuggled
the letters addressed in Gilbert's handwriting to Miss Anna Williams
out of the letter packet and hid them from Anna's eyes, she felt as
guilty as if she were breaking all the laws of the land at once. To be
sure, she knew that she would have to confess to Anna some day, when
the latter repented and began to wish she had written to Gilbert, but
that was a very different thing from premature disclosure.

But Anna had as yet given no sign of such repentance, although Alma
looked for it anxiously. Anna was having the time of her life. She was
the acknowledged beauty of five settlements, and she went forward on
her career of conquest quite undisturbed by the jealousies and
heart-burnings she provoked on every side.

One moonlight night she went for a sleigh-drive with Charlie Moore of
East Exeter--and returned to tell Alma that they were married!

"I knew you would make a fuss, Alma, because you don't like Charlie,
so we just took matters into our own hands. It was so much more
romantic, too. I'd always said I'd never be married in any of your
dull, commonplace ways. You might as well forgive me and be nice right
off, Alma, because you'd have to do it anyway, in time. Well, you do
look surprised!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Alma accepted the situation with an apathy that amazed Anna. The truth
was that Alma was stunned by a thought that had come to her even while
Anna was speaking.

"Gilbert will find out about the letters now, and despise me."

Nothing else, not even the fact that Anna had married shiftless
Charlie Moore, seemed worth while considering beside this. The fear
and shame of it haunted her like a nightmare; she shrank every morning
from the thought of all the mail that was coming that day, fearing
that there would be an angry, puzzled letter from Gilbert. He must
certainly soon hear of Anna's marriage; he would see it in the home
paper, other correspondents in Exeter would write him of it. Alma grew
sick at heart thinking of the complications in front of her.

When Gilbert's letter came she left it for a whole day before she
could summon courage to open it. But it was a harmless epistle after
all; he had not yet heard of Anna's marriage. Alma had at first no
thought of answering it, yet her fingers ached to do so. Now that Anna
was gone, her loneliness was unbearable. She realized how much
Gilbert's letters had meant to her, even when written to another
woman. She could bear her life well enough, she thought, if she only
had his letters to look forward to.

No more letters came from Gilbert for six weeks. Then came one,
alarmed at Anna's silence, anxiously asking the reason for it; Gilbert
had heard no word of the marriage. He was working in a remote district
where newspapers seldom penetrated. He had no other correspondent in
Exeter now; except his mother, and she, not knowing that he supposed
himself engaged to Anna had forgotten to mention it.

Alma answered that letter. She told herself recklessly that she would
keep on writing to him until he found out. She would lose his
friendship anyhow, when that occurred, but meanwhile she would have
the letters a little longer. She could not learn to live without them
until she had to.

The correspondence slipped back into its old groove. The harassed look
which Alma's face had worn, and which Exeter people had attributed to
worry over Anna, disappeared. She did not even feel lonely, and
reproached herself for lack of proper feeling in missing Anna so
little. Besides, to her horror and dismay, she detected in herself a
strange undercurrent of relief at the thought that Gilbert could never
marry Anna now! She could not understand it. Had not that marriage
been her dearest wish for years? Why then should she feel this strange
gladness at the impossibility of its fulfilment? Altogether, Alma
feared that her condition of mind and morals must be sadly askew.
Perhaps, she thought mournfully, this perversion of proper feeling was
her punishment for the deception she had practised. She had
deliberately done evil that good might come, and now the very
imaginations of her heart were stained by that evil. Alma cried
herself to sleep many a night in her repentance, but she kept on
writing to Gilbert, for all that.

The winter passed, and the spring and summer waned, and Alma's outward
life flowed as smoothly as the currents of the seasons, broken only by
vivid eruptions from Anna, who came over often from East Exeter,
glorying in her young matronhood, "to cheer Alma up." Alma, so said
Exeter people, was becoming unsociable and old maidish. She lost her
liking for company, and seldom went anywhere among her neighbours. Her
once frequent visits across the yard to chat with old Mrs. Murray
became few and far between. She could not bear to hear the old lady
talking about Gilbert, and she was afraid that some day she would be
told that he was coming home. Gilbert's home-coming was the nightmare
dread that darkened poor Alma's whole horizon.

       *       *       *       *       *

One October day, two years after Gilbert's departure, Alma, standing
at her window in the reflected glow of a red maple outside, looked
down the lane and saw him striding up it! She had had no warning of
his coming. His last letter, dated three weeks back, had not hinted at
it. Yet there he was--and with him Alma's Nemesis.

She was very calm. Now that the worst had come, she felt quite strong
to meet it. She would tell Gilbert the truth, and he would go away in
anger and never forgive her, but she deserved it. As she went
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