The Setness of Theodosia Page #2

"The Setness of Theodosia" by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a captivating tale that revolves around the life of Theodosia, a spirited and imaginative young woman. Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century Canada, the story explores themes of personal identity, societal expectations, and the quest for belonging. As Theodosia navigates her relationships and aspirations, she grapples with the challenges of conformity and the desire for self-discovery. Montgomery’s lyrical prose brings to life the beauty of the natural world and the complexities of the human heart, making this novel a poignant reflection on the journey toward self-acceptance and fulfillment.

• Short story

								

drive him into any cause.

One day he told Theodosia that he was going. She was working her
butter in her little, snowy-clean dairy under the great willows by the
well. Wesley was standing in the doorway, his stout, broad-shouldered
figure filling up the sunlit space. He was frowning and sullen.

"I'm going west in two weeks' time with the boys, Dosia," he said
stubbornly. "You can come with me or stay here--just exactly as you
please. But I'm going."

Theodosia went on spatting her balls of golden butter on the print in
silence. She was looking very neat and pretty in her big white apron,
her sleeves rolled up high above her plump, dimpled elbows, and her
ruddy hair curling about her face and her white throat. She looked as
pliable as her butter.

Her silence angered her husband. He shuffled impatiently.

"Well, what have you to say, Dosia?"

"Nothing," said Theodosia. "If you have made up your mind to go, go
you will, I suppose. But I will not. There is no use in talking. We've
been over the ground often enough, Wes. The matter is settled."

Up to that moment Wesley had always believed that his wife would yield
at last, when she saw that he was determined. Now he realized that she
never would. Under that exterior of milky, dimpled flesh and calm blue
eyes was all the iron will of old dead and forgotten Henry Ford. This
mildest and meekest of girls and wives was not to be moved a
hairsbreadth by all argument or entreaty, or insistence on a husband's
rights.

A great, sudden anger came over the man. He lifted his hand and for
one moment it seemed to Theodosia as if he meant to strike her. Then
he dropped it with the first oath that had ever crossed his lips.

"You listen to me," he said thickly. "If you won't go with me I'll
never come back here--never. When you want to do your duty as a wife
you can come to me. But I'll never come back."

He turned on his heel and strode away. Theodosia kept on spatting her
butter. The little perpendicular wrinkle had come between her brows
again. At that moment an odd, almost uncanny resemblance to the old
portrait of her great-great-grandfather, which hung on the parlour
wall at home, came out on her girlish face.

The fortnight passed by. Wesley was silent and sullen, never speaking
to his wife when he could avoid it. Theodosia was as sweet and serene
as ever. She made an extra supply of shirts and socks for him, put up
his lunch basket, and packed his trunk carefully. But she never spoke
of his journey.

He did not sell his farm. Irving Brooke rented it. Theodosia was to
live in the house. The business arrangements were simple and soon
concluded.

Heatherton folks gossiped a great deal. They all condemned Theodosia.
Even her own people sided against her now. They hated to be mixed up
in a local scandal, and since Wes was bound to go they told Theodosia
that it was her duty to go with him, no matter how much she disliked
it. It would be disgraceful not to. They might as well have talked to
the four winds. Theodosia was immoveable. They coaxed and argued and
blamed--it all came to the same thing. Even those of them who could be
"set" enough themselves on occasion could not understand Theodosia,
who had always been so tractable. They finally gave up, as Wesley had
done, baffled. Time would bring her to her senses, they said; you just
had to leave that still, stubborn kind alone.

On the morning of Wesley's departure Theodosia arose at sunrise and
prepared a tempting breakfast. Irving Brooke's oldest son, Stanley,
who was to drive Wesley to the station, came over early with his
express wagon. Wesley's trunk, corded and labelled, stood on the back
platform. The breakfast was a very silent meal. When it was over
Wesley put on his hat and overcoat and went to the door, around which
Theodosia's morning-glory vines were beginning to twine. The sun was
not yet above the trees and the long shadows lay on the dewy grass.
The wet leaves were flickering on the old maples that grew along the
fence between the yard and the clover field beyond. The skies were all
pearly blue, cleanswept of clouds. From the little farmhouse the green
meadows sloped down to the valley, where a blue haze wound in and out
like a glistening ribbon.

Theodosia went out and stood looking inscrutably on, while Wesley and
Irving hoisted the trunk into the wagon and tied it. Then Wesley came
up the porch steps and looked at her.

"Dosia," he said a little huskily, "I said I wouldn't ask you to go
again, but I will. Will you come with me yet?"

"No," said Theodosia gently.

He held out his hand. He did not offer to kiss her.

"Goodbye, Dosia."

"Goodbye, Wes."

There was no tremor of an eyelash with her. Wesley smiled bitterly and
turned away. When the wagon reached the end of the little lane he
turned and looked back for the last time. Through all the years that
followed he carried with him the picture of his wife as he saw her
then, standing amid the airy shadows and wavering golden lights of the
morning, the wind blowing the skirt of her pale blue wrapper about
her feet and ruffling the locks of her bright hair into a delicate
golden cloud. Then the wagon disappeared around a curve in the road,
and Theodosia turned and went back into her desolate home.

For a time there was a great buzz of gossip over the affair. People
wondered over it. Old Jim Parmelee understood better than the others.
When he met Theodosia he looked at her with a curious twinkle in his
keen old eyes.

"Looks as if a man could bend her any way he'd a mind to, doesn't
she?" he said. "Looks is deceiving. It'll come out in her face by and
by--she's too young yet, but it's there. It does seem unnatteral to
see a woman so stubborn--you'd kinder look for it more in a man."

Wesley wrote a brief letter to Theodosia when he reached his
destination. He said he was well and was looking about for the best
place to settle. He liked the country fine. He was at a place called
Red Butte and guessed he'd locate there.

Two weeks later he wrote again. He had taken up a claim of three
hundred acres. Greene and Cary had done the same. They were his
nearest neighbours and were three miles away. He had knocked up a
little shack, was learning to cook his own meals, and was very busy.
He thought the country was a grand one and the prospects good.

Theodosia answered his letter and told him all the Heatherton news.
She signed herself "Theodosia Brooke," but otherwise there was
nothing in the letter to indicate that it was written by a wife to
her husband.

At the end of a year Wesley wrote and once more asked her to go out to
him. He was getting on well, and was sure she would like the place. It
was a little rough, to be sure, but time would improve that.

"Won't you let bygones be bygones, Dosia?" he wrote, "and come out to
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