Thread by @lainasparetime

Alright, I do believe it is time for a #LainaReadsAnne thread! Today we have Chapter Twenty-One (Behind the scenes secret - I keep saying the chaper numbers in the threads solely so I can find them later.)

#LainaReadsAnne School's back!

And who should be starting school but Davy and Dora, which I think will be great for both of them. It could help draw Dora out of her shell and give Davy something to DO which he desperately needs.

#LainaReadsAnne Dora temporarily sits with a 10 year old girl, Mirabel Cotton, until a friend from Sunday school comes to school. This is really exciting for her, though, to be sitting with one of the "big girls".

#LainaReadsAnne Davy is sitting with Milty Boulter, who's been in school a year already, which I think is a great choice - someone who can set an example of how to behave and give Davy an example to follow.

#LainaReadsAnne He finds it a bit hard to sit still, but he is seven so that's kind of to be expected. He says it helps to wriggle his legs under the desk.

Davy needs one of those little bike pedal set-ups under his desk.

#LainaReadsAnne He's also really glad to have other boys to play with, which I again think will be really good for him. The kid needs an outlet for his energy! And to be around other kids!

#LainaReadsAnne Not specifically because they're boys, but I think playing with other kids more often could really help him regulate his behaviour.

Hilariously Dora's the one causing trouble today! Bedtime hits and suddenly she's afraid to go upstairs in the dark alone.

#LainaReadsAnne Apparently Mirabel Cotton has been telling stories about all her dead relatives, including how they looked in their coffins.

She also told Dora about her uncle who "was seen walking around the house after he was buried" and Dora is scared of seeing him.

#LainaReadsAnne Anne stays with Dora till she falls asleep and then the next day, kinda tells Mirabel off for scaring little kids with ghost stories.

#LainaReadsAnne Otherwise, September is uneventful and we move into the real meat of this chapter.

One October evening, Diana comes over to see Anne. They've been invited to tea by Ellen Kimball, who has a cousin visiting as well.

#LainaReadsAnne Apparently the Green Gable pony is having issues, and the Barry horses are busy, so Anne suggests they walk. Going through the woods should take them to the West Grafton road, near the Kimball residence.

#LainaReadsAnne Anne is confident she knows the way,and they can get a ride home. It's around a four mile walk.

So the next afternoon, they set off through the woods, which is in full autumn glory.

I miss autumn. Summer has been a lot this year.

#LainaReadsAnne They're running a little tight on time but Anne wants to drink in all the beauty... and ends up taking a wrong turn when they reach a fork in the road.

#LainaReadsAnne They end up not on the West Grafton road but the base line road in Middle Grafton, at least three miles still from the Kimballs'.

Diana despairingly points out it's already four-thirty and they won't be able to get there by five for tea.

#LainaReadsAnne Then they'll just be showing up late, after tea has been served, and imposing asking for their own. But they've already come this far, so she says they might as well keep going and at least spend the evening there.

#LainaReadsAnne They come to another forked road and neither knows where to go. One way has "a gate and a lane leading right into the wood."

Anne, being quite practical, says this must lead to a house, so they take that one.

#LainaReadsAnne Like I've said before, Anne may get into scrapes, but she's good at handling them.

The lane is "very still and remote, as if the world and cares of the world were far away", shaded by giant old firs.

Sounds beautiful.

#LainaReadsAnne Diana calls it romantic and Anne compares it to an enchanted forest where you'll find a spellbound princess in a castle.

Instead, they are surprised by a little stone house, made of red sandstone, all covered in ivy that's turned bronze and red by autumn.

#LainaReadsAnne Diana realizes this is Echo Lodge, the home of Miss Lavendar Lewis.

I love this house name and I love Lavendar Lewis' name. Both are so good.

#LainaReadsAnne The descriptions of this place are so good. Like the writing is so beautiful and paints such a good picture.

Buuuut we're mostly skipping them - this chapter is really long!

#LainaReadsAnne Obviously they're going to visit even though neither of them know her at all. As you do.

They wonder what she'll be like. Diana says she's said to be "very peculiar" which Anne is excited about, as she likes peculiar people.

#LainaReadsAnne She says this is the enchanted palace, and Diana says Miss Lavendar is "hardly a spellbound princess" as she's a grey old maid of... forty-five.

Yeaaaaah.

#LainaReadsAnne Anne says that's part of the spell and she'd be young again if her prince came. You know, fairy tale stuff.

Diana confides Miss Lavendar was actually engaged to Stephen Irving, Paul Irving's father, when they were young.

#LainaReadsAnne The girls knock and a young girl sees them in. The house is old-fashioned, "but so well and daintily kept that the effect was delicious".

They're also very intrigued by the table set with six places and many, many goodies, after a four mile walk through the woods

#LainaReadsAnne Hey, just a tip. If you walk into the woods down an enchanted looking lane, maybe don't eat the food if you would like to, you know, leave.

Or do. It's 2021. Who am I to tell you not to get kidnapped by fairies?

#LainaReadsAnne Miss Lavendar comes down and she's not "the usual type of elderly spinster as known to their experience".

She's forty-five, y'all! Elderly my ass.

#LainaReadsAnne She's small, with pure white hair, but she has "an almost girlish face" and is dressed in a "very dainty gown of cream muslin with pale-hued roses on it . . . a gown which would have seemed ridiculously juvenile on most women of her age".

#LainaReadsAnne Despite how hungry they are, you obviously don't just invite yourself to tea so Diana basically just asks for directions.

Miss Lavendar gives them, but then invites them to stay for tea as they'll be too late for it by the time they reach the Kimballs'.

#LainaReadsAnne See, she isn't actually having guests - she never really has company, being so isolated, so sh was just pretending for herself and Charlotta the Fourth.

(That's the maid, the girl who answered the door - we'll come back to her.)

#LainaReadsAnne Diana thinks this is indeed quite peculiar, but Anne is delighted to find another person who imagines things.

#LainaReadsAnne Miss Lavendar also tells them to go up to the spare room to take their hats off. I didn't realize how much a spare room would be used for non-overnight guests, honestly.

#LainaReadsAnne This gives the girls a moment to talk. Despite thinking she's a little odd, Diana says Miss Lavendar is very sweet and that this "is quite the adventure, isn't it?"

#LainaReadsAnne So reminder, it's about 5pm. In this day, they have breakfast, the main meal of dinner, tea, and supper in the evening.

Tea includes biscuits - the British kind use of the word, I think? - chicken, sponge cake, and doughnuts, at LEAST.

#LainaReadsAnne Again it just wows me how much they eat in a day, and how much work that would take to make. Like they just walked four miles so I get them being hungry, but it's so much cooking. Meanwhile I eat a bagel every single day because I can't deal with breakfast XD

#LainaReadsAnne After tea, they go into the garden and Miss Lavendar shows them why it's called Echo Lodge.

Charlotta the Fourth blows a little horn, and "from the woods over the river came a multitude of fairy echoes, sweet, elusive, silvery".

#LainaReadsAnne She then laughs loudly when prompted and it echos back like "a host of pixy people were mimicking her laughter in the purple woodlands and along the fir-fringed points".

Tbh that is super cool and I would live there.

#LainaReadsAnne Diana finally asks why the maid is called Charlotta the first.

Miss Lavendar explains when her mother died, she didn't want to be alone and she "couldn't afford to pay the wages of a grown-up girl".

So child labour it is!

#LainaReadsAnne She got thirteen year old Charlotta Bowman "to come and stay with me for board and clothes".

Charlotta the First stayed until she was sixteen "and then she went away to Boston, because she could do better there".

#LainaReadsAnne Then the next sister was Julietta, but she looked like Charlotta so much that Miss Lavendar kept calling her that and she was just like, "Sure, whatever."

She went away and Evelina became Charlotta the Third, and now Charlotta the Fourth is actually Leonora.

#LainaReadsAnne She's fourteen and she's Miss Lavendar's favourite, as she's no judgy about Miss Lavendar's imagination.

But she's also the last Bowman girl and Miss Lavendar doesn't know what she'll do when Charlotta the Fourth goes to Boston.

#LainaReadsAnne The girls have to leave as the sun begin to set,but they promise to come back and visit often.

Anne accidentally lets Paul Irving's name slip out, surprising Miss Lavendar, but she recovers well, sending them off with lavender from her garden.

#LainaReadsAnne As they walk to the Kimballs', they note she seems lonely.

Anne thinks it's good she's named Lavendar, as nothing else would suit her, and complains her name "smacks of bread and butter, patchwork and chores".

#LainaReadsAnne Diana counters that she likes Anne's name for it being Anne's name. "I think people make their names nice or ugly just by what they are themselves." And brings up how she no longer likes the names Gertie or Josie because, you know. Pyes.

#LainaReadsAnne Anne says, "Living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn’t beautiful to begin with... making it stand in people’s thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself."

She says it's a lovely idea and thanks Diana for it.

#LainaReadsAnne And that is the end of our chapter! It was a long one today, but it's one of my favourites in the book.

If you enjoyed it, pls RT something you liked so someone else can find it! And if you are able and want to, my tip jar is open ko-fi.com/A0602GN