The Books: Further Chronicles of Avonlea: ‘In Her Selfless Mood’ (L.M. Montgomery)

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51QSH0XX72L._AA240_.jpgFurther Chronicles of Avonlea – “In Her Selfless Mood” – by L.M. Montgomery

A story of the complete sacrifice of a life in order to carry out her mother’s dying wish (her mother who didn’t even really love her that much) … where nobody in the story is likable. Not one person. Not even our martyr – Eunice. Eunice is all hump-backed, and fierce, and loves her mother with every inch of her being. Her mother – Naomi – is kind of a loathsome woman. She lies in bed, dying, and she makes no bones about it: her love is for her son, Christopher. So she, in her last dying gasp, makes Eunice promise that she will always take care of Christopher, that she will never let anyone hurt him, and even when they both go to live at an aunt and uncles- she will make sure that no one lays a hand on him. This will be an uphill job – because, sadly enough, Christopher is kind of an asshole – and is not worthy at all of such attention. Or, maybe he is – maybe we all are – but you wish he at least would LOVE Eunice, or be grateful. He is not. He is openly creeped out by her and her hump and her intense interest in him. He wants her to back off, learn boundaries, whatever. Years pass. Well, eventually – you know – Christopher gets married – leaving Eunice as a boarder at this REALLY unsympathetic aunts and uncles. She has no life. No fulfillment. No purpose. She lives on other people’s charity. Her brother doesn’t need her anymore. I don’t know, the whole thing is kind of depressing. You want to reach into the story and tell Eunice, the hump-back, that she doesn’t HAVE to live at that aunt and uncles – and share a room with their daughter (who despises Eunice). You could run away! But oh no, she cannot do that. Because she needs to be near Christopher – even though he is now a grown man – so that she can watch over him, all the rest of the days of his life.

The whole thing is depressing. Eventually there’s a smallpox epidemic – and Christopher (who no longer needs Eunice, lives with his wife, and thinks Eunice is kind of, uhm, freaky – anyway) comes down with the disease. And this is Eunice’s big moment. Her ultimate fulfillment of that death-bed promise. She goes to nurse him since his wife has been banished from the house.

Blah. Eventually Christopher does die from smallpox – but not before saying to Eunice, “You’re the best nurse ever.” This, for her, is outward confirmation that she has “done good”, as they say, that her mother would be pleased – so instead of facing the rest of her life, empty, bleak, unfulfilled – she lies down and dies. But she’s smiling when she dies. Because she kept her mother’s promise.

Wow, she really took that deathbed promise thing seriously there.

Here is the moment when Naomi dies. The whole thing is depressing. Everyone in the story is twisted, intense, violent, grim … You kinda want to peek your head in the window and say, “Lighten up, Francis!”


Excerpt from Further Chronicles of Avonlea – “In Her Selfless Mood” – by L.M. Montgomery

Outside, in the thickly gathering dusk, Caroline Holland and Sarah Spencer were at the dairy, straining the milk into creamers, for which Christopher was sullenly pumping water. The house was far from the road, up to which a long red lane led; across the field was the old Holland homestead where Caroline lived; her unmarried sister-in-law, Electa Holland, kept house for her while she waited on Naomi.

It was her night to go home and sleep, but Naomi’s words haunted her, although she believed they were born or pure “cantankerousness”.

“You’d better go in and look at her, Sarah,” she said, as she rinsed out the pails. “If you think I’d better stay here tonight, I will. If the woman was like anybody else, a body would know what to do; but, if she thought she could scare us by saying she was going to die, she’d say it.”

When Sarah went in, the sick room was very quiet. In her opinion, Naomi was no worse than usual, and she told Caroline so; but the latter felt vaguely uneasy and concluded to stay.

Naomi was as cool and defiant as customary. She made them bring Chrstopher in to say goodnight and had him lifted up on the bed to kiss her. Then she held him back and looked at him admiringly – at the bright curls and rosy cheeks and round, firm limbs. The boy was uncomfortable under her gaze and squirmed hastily down. Her eyes followed him greedily as he went out. When the door closed behind him she groaned. Sarah Spencer was startled. She had never heard Naomi Holland groan since she had come to wait on her.

“Are you feeling any worse, Naomi? Is the pain coming back?”

“No. Go and tell Car’line to give Christopher some of that grape jelly on his bread before he goes to bed. She’ll find it in the cupboard under the stairs.”

Presently the house grew very still. Caroline had dropped asleep on the sitting-room lounge, across the hall. Sarah Spencer nodded over her knitting by the table in the sick room. She had told Eunice to go to bed, but the child refused. She still sat huddled up on the foot of the bed, watching her mother’s face intently. Naomi appeared to sleep. The candle by her bedside burned slowly. To Eunice, the elfin flame, which flickered gaily, seemed like an impish eye upon her. The wavering light cast grotesque shadows of Sarah Spencer’s head on the wall. The thin curtains at the window wavered to and fro, as if shaken by ghostly hands.

At midnight Naomi Holland opened her eyes. The child she had never loved was the only one to go with her to the brink of the Unseen.

“Eunice — remember!”

It was the faintest whisper. The soul, passing over the threshold of another life, strained back to its only earthly tie. A quiver passed over the long, pallid face.

A horrible scream rang through the silent house. Sarah Spencer sprung out of her doze in consternation, and gazed blankly at the shrieking child. Caroline came hurrying in with distended eyes. On the bed, Naomi Holland lay dead.

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1 Response to The Books: Further Chronicles of Avonlea: ‘In Her Selfless Mood’ (L.M. Montgomery)

  1. Merryn Williams says:

    You’re right, of course. Yet it’s an extremely powerful story. It haunted me for years (I first read it as a teenager and it’s quite a surprise after the sunny tone of L.M. Montgomery’s other work). Yet there were, and still are, women who sacrifice themselves for a ‘revolting object’, as she puts it. Isn’t that worth saying?

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