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It’s surprising how quickly the church goes quiet after the end of the service. Before the service, that’s an entirely different question, people arriving at irregular intervals. Some are here an entire hour early, some get in seconds before it begins, each according to their habit. But afterwards, everyone in Avonlea is the same. There are conversations to hold outside the church, paths to walk towards home, and Sunday meals to prepare. It takes less than five minutes for the pews to empty. Muriel sure is grateful for that now.
She’s grateful for a few minutes of calm, before leaving herself. She loves her job, and she’s come to like this town in the months she’s spent here, but the last thing she needs today, of all days, is the constant scrutiny. Sometimes it’s the hostile looks of a parent that isn’t quite sold on her presence yet, sometimes just the curious stare of an admired student. Either way, she can’t be facing that right now. She relishes the quiet, as the voices from outside start to fade in the distance. Just the instant she thinks complete silence has been reached, the door opens behind her. Muriel prepares to feel irked, until she sees whose face peeks in from under a fur hat.
‘Miss Stacy! I don’t suppose you’ve seen my gloves, have you?’ asks Marilla Cuthbert, as she steps onto the aisle.
‘I don’t think so, no.’
Then again, Muriel hasn’t been looking around the church much in her time alone here.
Miss Cuthbert starts scouring around for her gloves. ‘I must have left them here, somewhere. I sent Matthew ahead with Anne, but I couldn’t bear the idea of having lost them.’
As Muriel turns towards Miss Cuthbert’s voice, she notices the gloves on the pew right behind her.
‘Look! Here they are.’ Muriel feels a strange pride at her discovery.
Miss Cuthbert thanks her and goes to get the gloves, then hovers near Muriel as if waiting for something.
‘Well, I best be going then. Disturb you no further,’ says the older woman, not particularly emphatic. ‘Thank you again for the gloves.’
‘You wouldn’t be disturbing!’ Muriel stops her, perhaps a little too eager. ‘If you stayed, I mean.’ She scoots slightly to her left, to allow space for Miss Cuthbert to sit, if she wishes to do so. She feels a bit silly for it, but she probably could use some company right now, and there’s no one whose company she’d appreciate more.
Surprisingly, Miss Cuthbert does take a seat. ‘Matthew and Anne said they’re cooking lunch anyway. They wouldn’t want me around in the kitchen.’
Those are the last words that are spoken for a while. Muriel doesn’t know what to say, not when she can hear her own heartbeat so loudly in her ears. After a moment, she finds she’s become comfortable with the silence. Somehow, it feels more reassuring than when Muriel was sitting on her own. As she glances to her side, in an attempt to do so discreetly, Muriel can make out the other woman’s silhouette against the cold winter light filtering into the church. Her nose is pointing toward the altar, and her chest rises ever so slightly with each breath.
When Muriel thinks her heart has calmed down, and when she thinks she can’t afford to make Miss Cuthbert any later to her family meal, she tentatively gets up. Miss Cuthbert does the same.
‘Would you mind walking with me?’ Muriel asks.
A smile. ‘Not at all.’
The snow murmurs secrets under their feet with each of their first steps outside. As they leave the church behind them, Muriel tells her own.
‘Today is the anniversary of Jacob’s death.’
Miss Cuthbert glances at her. ‘Your husband?’
Muriel nods.
‘How long?’
‘One year.’ Muriel holds her own coat tighter around her torso.
‘Oh.’ The sound escapes her companion’s mouth. ‘I didn’t think it was that recent.’
People never think it is.
‘I moved here as soon after it as I could. Couldn’t bear to live in our house, to see the pity in our friend’s eyes.’
‘It must have been difficult.’ The kindness in Miss Cuthbert’s voice is almost overwhelming. She hasn’t talked about this to anyone since she moved.
‘He was my best friend. We grew up together.’ Is all Muriel can manage to reply.
Miss Cuthbert turns to her with a smile. ‘Lifelong romance. Let’s hope Anne never hears about it, or she will never stop tormenting you until you’ve told her every detail.’
Muriel lets out a chuckle. ‘It wasn’t exactly romantic.’
She only realises her phrasing might not have been the most thoughtful when Miss Cuthbert stops on her steps and gives her a serious look. ‘Was he… an unfit husband?’
Maybe it would have been smarter to not say anything at all. Still, the concern is heart-warming.
‘On the contrary.’ Muriel reassures, ‘The best of husbands. The best of men.’
The snow is getting deeper as they leave the main path for a smaller one that would lead in the vague direction of both their houses. The hem of Muriel’s dress is getting wet. She does wish she had bee able to wear her trousers, but she doubts that would be an acceptable choice for church. As she moves to raise her skirt so it won’t drag, she accidentally walks into Miss Cuthbert’s path. The woman moves just at the right moment to avoid collision.
Muriel thinks of how kind this woman is, even when she doesn’t know she’s showing it. She thinks of all the love she gives Anne, the child she wasn’t supposed to take in. She thinks of how vehement she was when she came to Muriel’s rescue in the classroom, in front of the Progressive Mothers. How gentle, when she was the only one to talk to Muriel after her suspension, and in the year since. She thinks of how unapologetic Marilla Cuthbert is about being the outsider, how firmly she stands up to those who hold it against her. She remembers sitting with her in Anne’s little hut in the woods, surrounded by wonder.
It might be the winter sun, it might be the cold air on her face. It might be how easy it is to talk to someone on walks, when you don’t have to look them in the eye. Muriel doesn’t know if this is going to be the biggest mistake of her life, but she blurts it out.
‘Jacob… He… loved men…’ Miss Cuthbert stops on the spot. Muriel finishes her sentence before she can look at her reaction and stop herself. ‘… and so do I. Well, no. I don’t. I mean- I- …Women.’
Miss Cuthbert is silent.
Muriel doesn’t dare raise her gaze from the ground. She feels like the earth is shaking under her feet, and it will never stop. As she realises what she’s done, she curses herself. Just when she’d found a place to spend her life and a job she loves, she had to go and spoil it. She had to go and… And to a pupil’s parent, no less.
And to the woman she-
A gloved hand on her arm. A small, kind smile. Everything is alright.
They start walking again, in silence. Past the trees, and amidst the fields. The white sky starts shedding snow. The trees welcome it with arms outstretched. Muriel’s not sure where they are anymore, but she trusts Miss Cuthbert to lead her toward home. And she does. They get to a fork in the road. Green Gables to the left, close enough to be seen, the path home to the right. Time to part.
They stop.
‘Miss Cuthbert, I-’ Just like before, no end to her sentence.
‘Marilla. Call me Marilla, please.’ An offer, more than a request.
‘Marilla,’ Muriel replies, a new sense of security. ‘I’m Muriel.’
That small, kind smile again. Muriel knows it well by now.
‘Marilla, I am sorry for burdening you with-‘
‘-Not a burden, a gift.’ Marilla’s voice arrives faster than expected.
Muriel nods. ‘So you won’t tell?’ – ‘I won’t.’
‘Even though I’m Anne’s teacher?’
The horizon is disappearing in all this white, the little farm remains the only thing Muriel can see in the distance.
Marilla’s reply is gentle and firm: ‘The private life of Anne’s teacher is no concern of mine.’ -Muriel feels red- ‘My friend’s, on the other hand, is. You chose to share it with me, and it will remain private.’
‘Thank you.’ breathes Muriel, as she moves to take the path home, unable to formulate any further speech.
‘Muriel!’ Her first step is interrupted. ‘Please come for lunch.’
As Marilla holds the white gate open for her, Muriel catches glimpses of Anne and Mr Cuthbert preparing the meal through the window. Marilla lets out a sound of amusement, so Muriel turns to her.
‘You never know what kind of trouble those two will get up to when left alone together.’ There is no anger in Marilla’s voice. ‘Especially in the kitchen.’
‘Trouble is the sign of a curious mind.’ The snow has stopped just in time for the footprints on last night’s snowfall to be just barely visible outside the house, under a white veil.
‘And our Anne is nothing if not a curious mind.’ Marilla completes Muriel’s thought.
Said Curious Mind, of course, gives Muriel an enthusiastic welcome. How long her arms look, as she wraps them around Muriel’s shoulders. The girl is all limbs, nowadays, and almost as tall as the adults. Her hair is much longer than when Muriel first met her, and her face already betrays the secret of what she will look like as a woman.
Matthew Cuthbert has taken his place at the table, and is sitting there in his usual quiet demeanour when Marilla announces Muriel is staying for lunch. He looks around like a confused bird and explains that he isn’t sure they’ve cooked enough for four.
‘Fiddlesticks!’ is his sister’s only response as she gets the stew on the table.
The food is warm and comforting after their walk, and Muriel does refer it to the mopey soup waiting for her at home. She doesn’t know if her cheeks are warm from the spices in the stew or from the blue eyes piercing through her from across the table.
Marilla’s sternness manifests itself as she tries to manage Anne’s newfound investment in the fate of a tree the Cuthberts are planning to cut down in the spring. She turns to Muriel for approval of her position that the tree is dying anyway and is only a risk to the farm, but Muriel finds Anne’s passion too contagious to betray.
By the time they have finished eating, the snow has started again. It’s looking less like gentle snowfall and more like a storm this time. Muriel insists that her house is near enough for her to be able to face the weather, and she should be getting out of the family’s hair. Unfortunately, her stubbornness is met with the vehemence of the Cuthbert women, and Matthew’s quiet support behind them, so she is forced to buckle and accept refuge until it all calms down. She will admit, she never got used to winters this bad in the city.
Anne cleans the dishes in the kitchen, while reciting some sort of French tongue-twister, while Mr Cuthbert has gone to rest in his room. Marilla shows Muriel to the parlour, after she’s made her remove the coat she’d put on to make a point that she should be leaving. As they both try to make their way through the narrow doorframe, their arms brush against each other.
Marilla walks past her, and takes a seat on the small sofa, leaving a space for Muriel, who follows suit. Their hands are touching on the sofa. Neither of them moves. Instead, Marilla speaks. She does so with clarity, but almost in a whisper.
‘Would you have been satisfied living your entire life with your husband?’
Muriel is taken aback by how straightforward the question is, but she replies with honesty. ‘I think so. He was the most important person in my life.’ She lets the silence raise for a moment, and then breaks it again. ‘I’ve always admired the was I’ve seen you stand up for your family, from the first time we met.’ If Muriel didn’t know better, she’d think she’s seeing fondness in the other woman’s eyes.
Marilla moves her hand ever so slightly, so that two of her fingers are covering two of Muriel’s. She nods. ‘You had with your husband what I have with Matthew and Anne.’
Once again, the woman is intercepting Muriel’s thought before they have even formed on her lips.
‘I did. I just wish he’d been freer to be with his love.’
‘His love?’
‘Andrea. They met when we were all eighteen, and he had just got off the ship from Napoli. They have been in love ever since.’ Muriel stops to take a shallow breath. ‘Until Jacob’s death. We still exchange letters. We’re the only ones who truly remember Jacob.’
Marilla’s hand moves further, so that her fingers can curl around the edge of Muriel’s palm. The warmth from the fireplace is making her forget how cold the world is outside.
‘What about you?’ she asks.
‘Me?’
‘What about your love?’
Now Muriel understands. ‘Oh, it was different for me. I never found that. Not until-’
‘Not until?’
Muriel needs to move her hand away. No matter how hard her other hand squeezes it when she joins them on her own lap, she feels the separation with unexpected sharpness.
A pause.
Muriel figures if she’s doing this, she’s doing this.
And she does it.
‘Not until I came to Avonlea.’ She tests the waters.
Marilla’s eyes widen in an instant. ‘…to Avonlea?’
Muriel sighs. ‘Avonlea gave me a home. And someone here made me feel like staying was worth it, even when I was still lost. But it’s not… It’s not reciprocated. And I think I am fine with that, as long as I get to stay.’
Marilla’s initial shock gives way to a glimmer in her eyes. ‘How did you meet her?’ Muriel can tell this is the nosier side of Marilla coming out, the side of her that’s been friends with Mrs Lynde for a lifetime. But even her nosy side is unable to be unkind, and the way she says ‘meet her’ breaks Muriel’s heart.
‘She’s the parent of one of my pupils.’ Muriel admits.
Marilla’s mouth stays wide open for a moment, before it emits any sound, and when it does, her speech is more forceful. ‘Well of course it’s unreciprocated, those are all married women!’
Of course, of all the things Marilla Cuthbert learnt today, this would be the one to scandalise her. Good thing it isn’t true.
‘Not this person.’ Muriel feels like she would be grateful if the sofa swallowed her whole right this moment.
‘What do you- There are no unmarried mothers at the school. I’m the only one th-’
And then the penny drops.
Marilla covers her cheeks with her hands and she gets up from the sofa immediately. She doesn’t look at Muriel.
Muriel knows tears are gathering in her eyes. She won’t allow them to fall. She will retain whatever grain of dignity she has intact. She leaves the room before she can’t stop them anymore.
The snow is still falling, inconsiderate of Muriel and her need to leave. Unwilling to add more stupidity to the amount she’s displayed today -surely enough to last her a lifetime- she opts to risk making herself seen by Anne in order to get her coat, which she’s left on a kitchen chair.
Of course, Anne notices her. How could she not.
Muriel just wants to leave more than anything on earth, but she can’t ignore the girl. Especially considering she will probably have to leave the island and never see her again. So she stops when Anne calls her name.
‘Oh, Miss Stacy! My heart is positively bursting with joy to have you here! Would you please answer my questions on chapter eight of my biology book? Please?’
Muriel cannot bring words to her lips, but she nods.
‘Thank you! Oh, I can’t express how thankful I am! My gratitude runs so deep it will never be extinguished!’
The girl runs upstairs, and comes back with a textbook that is erupting with bookmarks, and clearly extremely well loved. Which the teacher has come to expect of Anne.
Chapter eight isn’t supposed to be read until two months from now, in the spring term, but of course Anne has read it, and several times, judging by her questions. Muriel tries her best to reply to each and every one, and she seems to be doing a satisfactory job, judging by Anne’s reactions. She herself wouldn’t know. She is talking of fungi, but her brain is not registering anything she is saying.
All she can think about is the woman in the other room, and how much she wishes to be able to speak to her. Even just to apologise. Or, even better, she wishes to be back in the church, on her own, and for Marilla to have never forgotten her gloves. She wishes to have gone home on her own, and eaten last night’s soup, and lived the rest of her life without ever telling Marilla Cuthbert about her feelings. But that is not the case.
As soon as the girl’s questions have been answered, Muriel lets herself be hugged and grabs her coat. She has no notion of how long she has spent on the textbook, but she figures if Marilla had wanted to come into the kitchen and speak to her, she would have by now.
She wraps herself up in her coat and scarf, and she leaves. The wind hits her with a force that almost hurts her. It’s good. It’s different. The snowfall looks almost heavy, with big, full snowflakes hitting the ground with force. It feels strange that each flake isn’t tearing her in two. She tries not to think of what she will do with her life. She walks as fast as she can.
When she gets to the white gate, she struggles to open it, the weight of the storm adding itself to the weight of the metal and wood. She gives up for a moment. Just a moment. To rest. She will try again in a few seconds.
Except she doesn’t. What happens instead is she hears a voice call for her from the house. She almost doesn’t turn, fearing that she might have imagined it, a trick of the wind in her ear. But when she does turn, a miraculous sight reveals itself to her eyes.
Marilla Cuthbert, wrapped in a cardigan that she’s doing her best to hold close, but no coat, is walking towards her. The snow hits her ankle with each step, as it did Muriel’s.
A noise that sounds like ‘Wait!’
So Muriel waits.
She doesn’t dare walking towards Marilla. She watches her though snowflake-encrusted eyelashes.
‘Wait!’ This time its clear. Marilla is now a couple yards from her. She comes closer. Close enough Muriel could give her scarf if she wanted to. She wants to, so she takes it off and hands it to her, but Marilla doesn’t wear it, she just holds it in her hands while she talks.
‘I just wanted to say… Well, I apologise if I gave you the impression that…’
She pauses. Muriel doesn’t let herself breathe until Marilla smiles at her. The smallest, kindest, of her small, kind smiles.
‘I just wanted to say. It’s not unreciprocated.’