The Golden Road (The Story Girl #2) by L.M. Montgomery.

The Golden Road (The Story Girl #2)
................................................................................................
................................................................................................


"Once upon a time we all walked on the golden road. It was a fair highway, through the Land of Lost Delight; shadow and sunshine were blessedly mingled, and every turn and dip revealed a fresh charm and a new loveliness to eager hearts and unspoiled eyes.

"On that road we heard the song of morning stars; we drank in fragrances aerial and sweet as a May mist; we were rich in gossamer fancies and iris hopes; our hearts sought and found the boon of dreams; the years waited beyond and they were very fair; life was a rose-lipped comrade with purple flowers dripping from her fingers."
................................................................................................


The Golden Road begins just where The Story Girl left off, in November.

"We had been having a splendid game of Blind-Man's Buff. That is, it had been splendid at first; but later the fun went out of it because we found that Peter was, of malice prepense, allowing himself to be caught too easily, in order that he might have the pleasure of catching Felicity— which he never failed to do, no matter how tightly his eyes were bound. What remarkable goose said that love is blind? Love can see through five folds of closely-woven muffler with ease!"

Beverley, the protagonist, introduces the idea privately proposed by Sara Stanley, so Felicity wouldn't oppose it - that of the kids getting up their own newspaper; Sara pretends to oppose it, as planned, so Felicity promptly goes for it, as does therefore Peter. Dan wasn't sure.

""' Remember it is harder still

"To have no work to do,'"

"quoted Cecily reprovingly.

""I don't believe that," rejoined Dan. "I'm like the Irishman who said he wished the man who begun work had stayed and finished it.""
................................................................................................


A Will, A Way And A Woman is one of the nicer stories from the Island told by Sara Stanley, and the interjections by various listeners, quite telling too.

The Christmas Harp is nice in descriptions of presents, especially relating to those received by Sara Stanley from her father. But then there is description of Uncle Alec and his concern for Cecily, and one wonders if she's going to survive, one would hate it if she didnt - it's too Little Women and its Beth!

But New Year Resolutions begins lovely, with a smile at the boys displeasure about being told by Aunt Janet to escort Sara Ray home.

"We knew perfectly well that next day in school she would tell her chums as a "dead" secret that "So-and-So King saw her home" from the hill farm the night before. Now, seeing a young lady home from choice, and being sent home with her by your aunt or mother are two entirely different things, and we thought Sara Ray ought to have sense enough to know it."

Meanwhile there are resolutions to decide.

""I can't think of any resolutions I want to make," said Felicity, who was perfectly satisfied with herself.

""I could suggest a few to you," said Dan sarcastically.

""There are so many I would like to make," said Cecily, "that I'm afraid it wouldn't be any use trying to keep them all."

""Well, let's all make a few, just for the fun of it, and see if we can keep them," I said. "And let's get paper and ink and write them out. That will make them seem more solemn and binding."

""And then pin them up on our bedroom walls, where we'll see them every day," suggested the Story Girl, "and every time we break a resolution we must put a cross opposite it. That will show us what progress we are making, as well as make us ashamed if we have too many crosses."

""And let's have a Roll of Honour in Our Magazine," suggested Felix, "and every month we'll publish the names of those who keep their resolutions perfect."

""I think it's all nonsense," said Felicity. But she joined our circle around the table , though she sat for a long time with a blank sheet before her."

Later

"Sara and Felix departed and we watched them down the lane in the moonlight— Sara walking demurely in one runner track, and Felix stalking grimly along in the other. I fear the romantic beauty of that silver shining night was entirely thrown away on my misanthropic brother.

"And it was, as I remember it, a most exquisite night— a white poem, a frosty, starry lyric of light. It was one of those nights on which one might fall asleep and dream happy dreams of gardens of mirth and song, feeling all the while through one's sleep the soft splendour and radiance of the white moon-world outside, as one hears soft, faraway music sounding through the thoughts and words that are born of it.

"As a matter of fact, however, Cecily dreamed that night that she saw three full moons in the sky, and wakened up crying with the horror of it."
................................................................................................


Great-Aunt Eliza's Visit, hilarious, and of course the reader knows early on why. But even then the author manages an unexpected last laugh with the recipe for risks by Felicity.

Our Magazine, the monthly written and edited by children, is illuminating - Felicity, for example, isn't as knowledgeable when she writes an essay on Shakespeare, as she's at household concerns; Peter isn't that much beneath her, after all, despite her consciousness about his being "just a hired boy" and thus lower to her socially.

We Visit Peg Bowen has several predictions by Peg Bowen, and one hopes Cecily shall live! But she squander the wishbone given by Peg Bowen to wish for safe return of the cat!

They went gathering Mayflowers and made sprays and bouquets collected in their baskets each, and came to talk of difficulty of keeping resolutions and of thinking beautiful thoughts.

""That's so," conceded the Story Girl. "There are times when I can't think anything but gray thoughts. Then, other days, I think pink and blue and gold and purple and rainbow thoughts all the time.""

"In later years, when we were grown up, she told me of it again. She said that everything had colour in her thought; the months of the year ran through all the tints of the spectrum, the days of the week were arrayed as Solomon in his glory, morning was golden, noon orange, evening crystal blue, and night violet. Every idea came to her mind robed in its own especial hue. Perhaps that was why her voice and words had such a charm, conveying to the listeners' perception such fine shadings of meaning and tint and music."
................................................................................................


""All the same, I wish something exciting would happen," finished the Story Girl, as we walked up through the orchard, peopled with its nun-like shadows.

""There's a new moon tonight, so may be you'll get your wish," said Peter. "My Aunt Jane didn't believe there was anything in the moon business, but you never can tell."

"The Story Girl did get her wish. Something happened the very next day."

""Tell us right off," implored Felix. "You look as if it was something tremendous."

""So it is. Listen— Aunt Olivia is going to be married."

"We stared in blank amazement. Peg Bowen's hint had faded from our minds and we had never put much faith in it."

While Aunt Olivia and the girls were busy getting their dresses ready for the wedding - Sara Stanley was to be bridesmaid - Peter came and said his father had returned, a changed man due to a revivalist meeting, and was going to take care of Peter and his mother, so they need not work. That's another of Peg Bowen's predictions coming true!

Meanwhile Cyrus Brisk has been not only pursuing Cecily with love letters containing poetry and promises of desperate acts, but threatening to beat up William Fraser if he continues his attentions towards her. Felicity is displeased that Cecily has been proposed to, and that Cyrus didn't prefer her over Cecily. But Cecily's aversion was true, and her problems solved in an unforeseen way by a strict schoolteacher with unorthodox punishments, when he caught a pupil in process of passing a note from Cyrus to Cecily in class, and asked Cecily to write out the contents on the blackboard with the name of the sender.
................................................................................................


Sara Stanley has possibly seen a match, Alice Meade who has a beautiful house with a beautiful garden, with her friend the Awkward Man, Jasper Dale. Sara Stanley saw it happen. 

"Jasper Dale, under all his shyness and aloofness, possessed a nature full of delicate romance and poesy, which, denied expression in the common ways of life, bloomed out in the realm of fancy and imagination. Left alone, just when the boy's nature was deepening into the man's, he turned to this ideal kingdom for all he believed the real world could never give him. Love—a strange, almost mystical love—played its part here for him. He shadowed forth to himself the vision of a woman, loving and beloved; he cherished it until it became almost as real to him as his own personality and he gave this dream woman the name he liked best—Alice. In fancy he walked and talked with her, spoke words of love to her, and heard words of love in return. When he came from work at the close of day she met him at his threshold in the twilight—a strange, fair, starry shape, as elusive and spiritual as a blossom reflected in a pool by moonlight—with welcome on her lips and in her eyes. 

"One day, when he was in Charlottetown on business, he had been struck by a picture in the window of a store. It was strangely like the woman of his dream love. He went in, awkward and embarrassed, and bought it. When he took it home he did not know where to put it. It was out of place among the dim old engravings of bewigged portraits and conventional landscapes on the walls of Golden Milestone. As he pondered the matter in his garden that evening he had an inspiration. The sunset, flaming on the windows of the west gable, kindled them into burning rose. Amid the splendour he fancied Alice's fair face peeping archly down at him from the room. The inspiration came then. It should be her room; he would fit it up for her; and her picture should hang there. 

"He was all summer carrying out his plan. Nobody must know or suspect, so he must go slowly and secretly. One by one the furnishings were purchased and brought home under cover of darkness. He arranged them with his own hands. He bought the books he thought she would like best and wrote her name in them; he got the little feminine knick-knacks of basket and thimble. Finally he saw in a store a pale blue tea-gown and the satin slippers. He had always fancied her as dressed in blue. He bought them and took them home to her room. Thereafter it was sacred to her; he always knocked on its door before he entered; he kept it sweet with fresh flowers; he sat there in the purple summer evenings and talked aloud to her or read his favourite books to her. In his fancy she sat opposite to him in her rocker, clad in the trailing blue gown, with her head leaning on one slender hand, as white as a twilight star. 

"But Carlisle people knew nothing of this—would have thought him tinged with mild lunacy if they had known. To them, he was just the shy, simple farmer he appeared. They never knew or guessed at the real Jasper Dale. 

"One spring Alice Reade came to teach music in Carlisle. Her pupils worshipped her, but the grown people thought she was rather too distant and reserved. They had been used to merry, jolly girls who joined eagerly in the social life of the place. Alice Reade held herself aloof from it—not disdainfully, but as one to whom these things were of small importance. She was very fond of books and solitary rambles; she was not at all shy but she was as sensitive as a flower; and after a time Carlisle people were content to let her live her own life and no longer resented her unlikeness to themselves. 

"She boarded with the Armstrongs, who lived beyond Golden Milestone around the hill of pines. Until the snow disappeared she went out to the main road by the long Armstrong lane; but when spring came she was wont to take a shorter way, down the pine hill, across the brook, past Jasper Dale's garden, and out through his lane. And one day, as she went by, Jasper Dale was working in his garden. 

"He was on his knees in a corner, setting out a bunch of roots—an unsightly little tangle of rainbow possibilities. It was a still spring morning; the world was green with young leaves; a little wind blew down from the pines and lost itself willingly among the budding delights of the garden. The grass opened eyes of blue violets. The sky was high and cloudless, turquoise-blue, shading off into milkiness on the far horizons. Birds were singing along the brook valley. Rollicking robins were whistling joyously in the pines. Jasper Dale's heart was filled to over flowing with a realization of all the virgin loveliness around him; the feeling in his soul had the sacredness of a prayer. At this moment he looked up and saw Alice Reade. 

"She was standing outside the garden fence, in the shadow of a great pine tree, looking not at him, for she was unaware of his presence, but at the virginal bloom of the plum trees in a far corner, with all her delight in it outblossoming freely in her face. For a moment Jasper Dale believed that his dream love had taken visible form before him. She was like—so like; not in feature, perhaps, but in grace and colouring—the grace of a slender, lissome form and the colouring of cloudy hair and wistful, dark gray eyes, and curving red mouth; and more than all, she was like her in expression—in the subtle revelation of personality exhaling from her like perfume from a flower. It was as if his own had come to him at last and his whole soul suddenly leaped out to meet and welcome her."

Jasper was in love and slow to recognise it. Here again the author has her favourite romantic ploy - he put flowers, meant for Alice, on the path she took. She knew he'd put them for her, took them, and had liked him after seeing him in church, although she'd heard Carlisle stories about him. They eventually managed to find one another, and were engaged. 
................................................................................................


Sara's father, Blair Stanley, suddenly returned, and while everyone loved him, they were sorry about Sara being taken back with him when he returned to Paris, because he didn't want to miss her any more. 

"There was not in all that vanished October one day that did not come in with auroral splendour and go out attended by a fair galaxy of evening stars— not a day when there were not golden lights in the wide pastures and purple hazes in the ripened distances. Never was anything so gorgeous as the maple trees that year. Maples are trees that have primeval fire in their souls. It glows out a little in their early youth, before the leaves open , in the redness and rosy-yellowness of their blossoms, but in summer it is carefully hidden under a demure, silver-lined greenness. Then when autumn comes, the maples give up trying to be sober and flame out in all the barbaric splendour and gorgeousness of their real nature, making of the hills things out of an Arabian Nights dream in the golden prime of good Haroun Alraschid."

The boys' father wrote to say he'd be back in November and take them back to Toronto. 

""Thank goodness there are no more fathers to come back," breathed Cecily with a vicious earnestness that made us all laugh, even in the midst of our dismay."
................................................................................................
................................................................................................

................................................
................................................

July 30, 2020 - August 05, 2020.
................................................
................................................