Jane Lavinia

"Jane Lavinia" is a short story by Lucy Maud Montgomery, featuring a young girl named Jane Lavinia Parker, who grapples with the challenges of growing up in a small community. The narrative explores themes of identity, self-acceptance, and the complexities of familial relationships as Jane navigates her social environment and her own aspirations. Her journey reflects Montgomery's signature blend of introspection and charm, capturing the trials and triumphs of adolescence with a gentle yet poignant touch.

• Short story

								
Jane Lavinia put her precious portfolio down on the table in her room,
carefully, as if its contents were fine gold, and proceeded to unpin
and take off her second-best hat. When she had gone over to the
Whittaker place that afternoon, she had wanted to wear her best hat,
but Aunt Rebecca had vetoed that uncompromisingly.

"Next thing you'll be wanting to wear your best muslin to go for the
cows," said Aunt Rebecca sarcastically. "You go right back upstairs
and take off that chiffon hat. If I was fool enough to be coaxed into
buying it for you, I ain't going to have you spoil it by traipsing
hither and yon with it in the dust and sun. Your last summer's sailor
is plenty good enough to go to the Whittakers' in, Jane Lavinia."

"But Mr. Stephens and his wife are from New York," pleaded Jane
Lavinia, "and she's so stylish."

"Well, it's likely they're used to seeing chiffon hats," Aunt Rebecca
responded, more sarcastically than ever. "It isn't probable that yours
would make much of a sensation. Mr. Stephens didn't send for you to
show him your chiffon hat, did he? If he did, I don't see what you're
lugging that big portfolio along with you for. Go and put on your
sailor hat, Jane Lavinia."

Jane Lavinia obeyed. She always obeyed Aunt Rebecca. But she took off
the chiffon hat and pinned on the sailor with bitterness of heart. She
had always hated that sailor. Anything ugly hurt Jane Lavinia with an
intensity that Aunt Rebecca could never understand; and the sailor hat
was ugly, with its stiff little black bows and impossible blue roses.
It jarred on Jane Lavinia's artistic instincts. Besides, it was very
unbecoming.

I look horrid in it, Jane Lavinia had thought sorrowfully; and then
she had gone out and down the velvet-green springtime valley and over
the sunny birch hill beyond with a lagging step and a rebellious
heart.

But Jane Lavinia came home walking as if on the clear air of the
crystal afternoon, her small, delicate face aglow and every fibre of
her body and spirit thrilling with excitement and delight. She forgot
to fling the sailor hat into its box with her usual energy of dislike.
Just then Jane Lavinia had a soul above hats. She looked at herself in
the glass and nodded with friendliness.

"You'll do something yet," she said. "Mr. Stephens said you would. Oh,
I like you, Jane Lavinia, you dear thing! Sometimes I haven't liked
you because you're nothing to look at, and I didn't suppose you could
really do anything worthwhile. But I do like you now after what Mr.
Stephens said about your drawings."

Jane Lavinia smiled radiantly into the little cracked glass. Just then
she was pretty, with the glow on her cheeks and the sparkle in her
eyes. Her uncertainly tinted hair and an all-too-certain little tilt
of her nose no longer troubled her. Such things did not matter; nobody
would mind them in a successful artist. And Mr. Stephens had said that
she had talent enough to win success.

Jane Lavinia sat down by her window, which looked west into a grove of
firs. They grew thickly, close up to the house, and she could touch
their wide, fan-like branches with her hand. Jane Lavinia loved those
fir trees, with their whispers and sighs and beckonings, and she also
loved her little shadowy, low-ceilinged room, despite its plainness,
because it was gorgeous for her with visions and peopled with rainbow
fancies.

The stained walls were covered with Jane Lavinia's pictures--most of
them pen-and-ink sketches, with a few flights into water colour. Aunt
Rebecca sniffed at them and deplored the driving of tacks into the
plaster. Aunt Rebecca thought Jane Lavinia's artistic labours a flat
waste of time, which would have been much better put into rugs and
crochet tidies and afghans. All the other girls in Chestercote made
rugs and tidies and afghans. Why must Jane Lavinia keep messing with
ink and crayons and water colours?

Jane Lavinia only knew that she must--she could not help it. There
was something in her that demanded expression thus.

When Mr. Stephens, who was a well-known artist and magazine
illustrator, came to Chestercote because his wife's father, Nathan
Whittaker, was ill, Jane Lavinia's heart had bounded with a shy hope.
She indulged in some harmless manoeuvring which, with the aid of
good-natured Mrs. Whittaker, was crowned with success. One day, when
Mr. Whittaker was getting better, Mr. Stephens had asked her to show
him some of her work. Jane Lavinia, wearing the despised sailor hat,
had gone over to the Whittaker place with some of her best sketches.
She came home again feeling as if all the world and herself were
transfigured.

She looked out from the window of her little room with great dreamy
brown eyes, seeing through the fir boughs the golden western sky
beyond, serving as a canvas whereon her fancy painted glittering
visions of her future. She would go to New York--and study--and work,
oh, so hard--and go abroad--and work harder--and win success--and be
great and admired and famous--if only Aunt Rebecca--ah! if only Aunt
Rebecca! Jane Lavinia sighed. There was spring in the world and spring
in Jane Lavinia's heart; but a chill came with the thought of Aunt
Rebecca, who considered tidies and afghans nicer than her pictures.

"But I'm going, anyway," said Jane Lavinia decidedly. "If Aunt Rebecca
won't give me the money, I'll find some other way. I'm not afraid of
any amount of work. After what Mr. Stephens said, I believe I could
work twenty hours out of the twenty-four. I'd be content to live on a
crust and sleep in a garret--yes, and wear sailor hats with stiff bows
and blue roses the year round."

Jane Lavinia sighed in luxurious renunciation. Oh, it was good to be
alive--to be a girl of seventeen, with wonderful ambitions and all the
world before her! The years of the future sparkled and gleamed
alluringly. Jane Lavinia, with her head on the window sill, looked out
into the sunset splendour and dreamed.

Athwart her dreams, rending in twain their frail, rose-tinted fabric,
came Aunt Rebecca's voice from the kitchen below, "Jane Lavinia! Jane
Lavinia! Ain't you going for the cows tonight?"

Jane Lavinia started up guiltily; she had forgotten all about the
cows. She slipped off her muslin dress and hurried into her print; but
with all her haste it took time, and Aunt Rebecca was grimmer than
ever when Jane Lavinia ran downstairs.

"It'll be dark before we get the cows milked. I s'pose you've been
day-dreaming again up there. I do wish, Jane Lavinia, that you had
more sense."

Jane Lavinia made no response. At any other time she would have gone
out with a lump in her throat; but now, after what Mr. Stephens had
said, Aunt Rebecca's words had no power to hurt her.

"After milking I'll ask her about it," she said to herself, as she
went blithely down the sloping yard, across the little mossy bridge
over the brook, and up the lane on the hill beyond, where the ferns

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