The Three of Us

133. Explosion

"I'll drive you and pick you up today, I think," Mrs. Andrews said one day. "So you won't have to walk."

Jane was surprised. "That's all right, Mother. I'm used to walking."

"But what kind of mother have I been, making my daughter tramp through muddy fields," Mrs. Andrews said, brushing that off. "No, I must take you myself from now on."

"You don't normally drive the buggy yourself. Don't you want to let Father do it?"

Mrs. Andrews knew her husband would not approve of trips to Green Gables at all; he still blamed Anne for what their family had been through.

Mrs. Andrews, however, could not keep away. She could not foresee having any kind of relationship with the Cuthberts, but she felt drawn to the baby and wanted some way to be nearer. Perhaps if she could drive Jane, she might catch a glimpse...

--

And catch a glimpse she did.

When she came later to pick Jane up, she saw Anne standing in the doorway holding the baby.

She wasn't close enough to see anything more than a silhouette, and it wasn't nearly enough for her.

"Why did your mother come, again?" Anne asked, uncomfortable and stepping back into the house, away from the door.

"I don't know. She doesn't like me walking on my own anymore. I'll see you later, Anne. Goodbye, Walter." Jane hurried out to the waiting buggy.

Anne watched as Mrs. Andrews slowly pulled away.

Anne wanted things to be easier, and she wanted there to be no animosity between the two families. But she did not want Mrs. Andrews hanging around her house, either. 

Right now, they were polite- able to appear friendly without being friends. And Anne wanted it to stay that way.

--

"What did you do with Anne today?" Mrs. Andrews asked.

Jane shrugged. "Just talked, mostly."

Mrs. Andrews was hungry: "Did you get to hold the baby?"

Jane just nodded.

Her ride home was uncomfortable.

--

"Anne, I think I ought to tell you something," Jane began.

Her mother was here to pick her up, and she'd waited until now to tell Anne what had been happening lately.

Mrs. Andrews had been pulling the buggy up closer and closer to the house each time she'd come, in hopes of a better view, and now it appeared she was going to come up to the porch to get her daughter.

Anne looked at Jane, surprised at the sudden nervousness in her friend's voice.

"My mother...has been asking about you. Well, about Walter. She's...interested in the things he's doing now."

"The things he's doing?" Anne asked. "He's a baby. He doesn't do anything."

She looked out at Mrs. Andrews approaching the house.

Jane went on, "She's always asking me questions. ...Would you be very upset to find out I've told her things?"

"Told her what?" Anne asked sharply, looking out the window at Jane's mother, who seemed to be hesitating at the porch step, afraid to come up and knock on the door.

"Just about what he does. What he likes. I told her about him walking, and what words he knows..."

There were a lot of things Jane had told her mother, but she stopped there, because she could already tell that Anne was angry.