فصل 5

Chapter 5

Queen ‘s College

One day Marilla said, ‘Anne, your new teacher, Miss Stacy, spoke to me yesterday. She says you must study for the examinations for Queen’s College in two years’ time. Then if you do well, you can study at Queen’s in Charlottetown for a year, and after that you’ll be a teacher!’

‘Oh Marilla! I’d love to be a teacher! But won’t it be very expensive?’

‘That doesn’t matter, Anne. When Matthew and I adopted you three years ago, we decided to look after you as well as we could. Of course we’ll pay for you to study.’

So in the afternoons Anne and some of her friends stayed late at school, and Miss Stacy helped them with the special examination work. Diana didn’t want to go to Queen’s, so she went home early, but Gilbert stayed. He and Anne still never spoke and everybody knew that they were enemies, because they both wanted to be first in the examination. Secretly, Anne was sorry that she and Gilbert weren’t friends, but it was too late now.

For two years Anne studied hard at school. She enjoyed learning, and Miss Stacy was pleased with her. But she didn’t study all the time. In the evenings and at weekends she visited her friends, or walked through the fields with Diana, or sat talking to Matthew.

‘Your Anne is a big girl now. She’s taller than you,’ Rachel Lynde told Marilla one day.

‘You’re right, Rachel!’ said Marilla in surprise.

‘And she’s a very good girl now, isn’t she? She doesn’t get into trouble these days. I’m sure she helps you a lot with the housework, Marilla.’

‘Yes, I don’t know what I’d do without her,’ said Marilla, smiling.

‘And look at her! Those beautiful grey eyes, and that red-brown hair! You know, Marilla, I thought you and Matthew made a mistake when you adopted her. But now I see I was wrong. You’ve looked after her very well.’

‘Well, thank you, Rachel,’ replied Marilla, pleased.

That evening, when Matthew came into the kitchen, he saw that his sister was crying.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, surprised. ‘You haven’t cried since . . . well, I can’t remember when.’

‘It’s just . . . well, I was thinking about Anne,’ said Marilla. ‘I’ll . . . I’ll miss her when she goes away.’

‘When she goes to Queen’s, you mean? Yes, but she can come home at weekends, on the train.’

‘I’ll still miss her,’ said Marilla sadly.

In June the Avonlea boys and girls had to go to Charlottetown to take their examinations.

‘Oh, I do hope that I’ve done well,’ Anne told Diana when she arrived back at Green Gables. ‘The examinations were very difficult. And I’ve got to wait for three weeks before I know! Three weeks! I’ll die!’

Anne wanted to do better than Gilbert. But she also wanted to do well for Matthew and Marilla. That was very important to her.

Diana was the first to hear the news. She ran into the kitchen at Green Gables and shouted, ‘Look, Anne! It’s in Father’s newspaper! You’re first . . . with Gilbert . . . out of all the students on the island! Oh, how wonderful!’ Anne took the paper with shaking hands, and saw her name, at the top of the list of two hundred. She could not speak.

‘Well, now, I knew it,’ said Matthew with a warm smile.

‘You’ve done well, I must say, Anne,’ said Marilla, who was secretly very pleased.

‘Look, Anne! It’s in Father’s newspaper!’ shouted Diana.

For the next three weeks Anne and Marilla were very busy. Anne needed new dresses to take to Charlottetown.

The evening before she left, she put on one of her new dresses to show Matthew. Marilla watched the happy young face. She remembered the strange, thin little child, with her sad eyes, who arrived at Green Gables five years ago, and she started crying quietly.

‘Marilla, why are you crying?’ asked Anne.

‘I was just thinking of you when you were a little girl,’ said Marilla. ‘And . . . you’re going away now . . . and I’ll be lonely without you.’

Anne took Marilla’s face in her hands. ‘Marilla, nothing will change. Perhaps I’m bigger and older now, but I’ll always be your little Anne. And I’ll love you and Matthew and Green Gables more every day of my life.’

Marilla could not say what she felt, like Anne, but she could show it. She put her arms round her girl and held her close to her heart.

And so for the next year Anne lived in Charlottetown, and went to college every day. She sometimes came home at weekends, but she had to study hard. Some of her Avonlea friends were at Queen’s too, and also her enemy, Gilbert Blythe. Anne saw that he often walked and talked with other girls. She felt sure that she and Gilbert could have some interesting conversations. But she didn’t want to be the first to speak to him, and he never looked at her.

There were examinations at the end of the college year, in May. Anne studied very hard for them.

‘I’d love to get the first place,’ she thought. ‘Or perhaps I could get the Avery prize.’ This was a prize for the student who was best at English writing, and Anne knew she was good at that. The Avery prize paid for a free place for four years at Redmond College, one of the best colleges in Canada.

When news of the examinations came, Anne waited for her friends to tell her. She heard shouting. ‘It’s Gilbert! He’s the first!’ She felt ill. But just then she heard another shout. ‘Anne Shirley’s got the Avery!’ And then all the girls were round her, laughing and shouting.

‘Matthew and Marilla will be pleased!’ thought Anne. ‘Now I can go on studying, and they won’t have to pay!’