Anne's House of Dreams (anne of Green Gables, #5)

This novel in L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series follows Anne Shirley into the early years of her marriage and the joys, sorrows, and friendships that shape her new life by the sea.

Anne sits in the garret of Green Gables, her childhood home on Prince Edward Island, packing away her teaching materials after three years of work in Summerside. Her old friend Diana Wright, now a mother of two, listens as Anne shares her plans: She will marry her long-time sweetheart, Gilbert Blythe, who is taking over the medical practice of his great-uncle, Dr. David Blythe, in the village of Glen St. Mary near Four Winds Harbor. Gilbert has found them a small white house on the harbor shore, with a fireplace, a garden bordered by fir trees and Lombardy poplars, a brook, and a view of the revolving lighthouse. Anne declares it her "house of dreams." Friends and former schoolmates gather for a September wedding in the old orchard. On the eve of the ceremony, Anne visits the grave of Matthew Cuthbert, the beloved adoptive father who raised her alongside his sister Marilla. Marilla watches the couple depart after the wedding with visible grief at losing Anne's daily presence.

Anne and Gilbert arrive at Four Winds Harbor and drive through a radiant evening to their new home. On the drive, Anne notices a strikingly beautiful girl with golden braids driving white geese on a hillside, who watches them pass with veiled hostility. At the little house, Dr. Dave and his wife greet them with supper. Captain Jim Boyd, the 76-year-old lighthouse keeper, brings fresh trout and stays to eat. Captain Jim is a tall, deeply kind old sailor with iron-gray hair and blue eyes who befriends the couple at once, recognizing them as kindred spirits. He tells the romantic history of the house: It was built by a schoolmaster named John Selwyn for his bride, Persis Leigh, whose ship arrived after being eight weeks overdue. John possessed an uncanny gift of vision and saw the ship's return before it arrived. The couple lived happily there for 15 years.

Miss Cornelia Bryant, a plain-spoken, warm-hearted spinster who lives up the road, soon calls on Anne. She carries a chronic "spite" against men and Methodists yet is ceaselessly charitable, always sewing for neglected families. Her sharp-tongued commentary on the community becomes a source of constant amusement. Anne asks about the gray house up the brook, and Captain Jim identifies the occupant as Mrs. Dick Moore.

One October evening on the rock shore, Anne encounters the golden-haired girl: Leslie Moore, who reveals she is Mrs. Dick Moore, 28 years old and married since 16. Leslie is guarded and contradictory, drawn to Anne yet pushing her away. Miss Cornelia reveals Leslie's tragic history. Leslie's younger brother Kenneth was killed at eight in a hay wagon accident that Leslie witnessed. Her father hanged himself when Leslie was 14, and Leslie found his body. She earned her teaching certificate and planned to attend college, but Dick Moore, a hard-drinking sailor, threatened to have his father foreclose the mortgage on the West farm unless Leslie married him. Leslie's mother pressured her into the marriage. Dick sailed on the vessel Four Sisters with his cousin George Moore and never returned, presumed dead, until Captain Jim found him in a Havana boarding house. Dick had sustained a brain injury that left him without memory or reason. Leslie has cared for him as a dependent requiring constant attention for 11 years, living in near poverty.

Leslie begins visiting the house of dreams, where she occasionally transforms into a laughing, eager girl, but upon seeing Anne and Gilbert's happy domesticity the light drains from her face. When Anne confides her pregnancy, Leslie reacts bitterly and leaves, yet later silently delivers an exquisitely handmade white baby dress with the card reading "with Leslie's love."

In early June, Anne gives birth to a daughter she names Joyce. For a few ecstatic hours she experiences transcendent happiness, but the baby dies the same day. Little Joy is buried across the harbor. Anne's convalescence is long and bitter. During her recovery, Captain Jim tells her about "lost Margaret," the girl he loved over 50 years ago who fell asleep in her father's dory and drifted out to sea in a storm, never to be found. He has remained faithful to her memory his entire life, never marrying.

In the garden one day, Leslie confesses she has at times hated Anne, envying her home, love, and happiness. She explains that Anne's loss of baby Joy paradoxically brought them closer because Anne's perfect happiness was no longer a barrier. Anne forgives completely, and they declare themselves friends forever.

That summer, Miss Cornelia arranges for Owen Ford, a Toronto newspaper writer and grandson of the schoolmaster John Selwyn, to board with Leslie. Anne introduces Owen to Captain Jim, who is overjoyed to meet Persis Selwyn's grandson. Owen reads Captain Jim's life-book, a leather-bound record of the captain's voyages, and proposes using it as the basis for a novel. Captain Jim is thrilled. Owen sets up a workshop at the lighthouse and weaves the story of lost Margaret as a thread of romance through the narrative. The summer becomes idyllic, and Leslie is transformed: radiant, witty, her old coldness entirely gone.

On Owen's last evening, he confesses to Anne that he loves Leslie but will never tell her, since she is not free. His cold, formal goodbye devastates Leslie. Days later, Leslie confesses to Anne that she loves Owen and is horrified by what she sees as a hopeless situation. Anne keeps both confidences.

Gilbert has been studying Dick Moore's condition and researching trephining, a surgical procedure to relieve pressure on the brain. He concludes an operation could restore Dick's memory and insists on telling Leslie. Anne opposes this: If Dick regains his senses, Leslie will be trapped in a real marriage with a man she despises. Gilbert insists it is his medical duty, and Captain Jim agrees, saying feelings cannot be the compass for moral decisions.

Leslie, driven by duty, takes Dick to Montreal for the operation. Weeks later, Anne receives staggering news: The man they believed to be Dick is actually George Moore, Dick's cousin from Nova Scotia. The two closely resembled each other because their families were double cousins. Dick died of yellow fever in Cuba 13 years earlier; George had stayed to nurse him and then suffered an injury that destroyed his memory. Captain Jim, not knowing George existed, had mistaken him for Dick. Leslie is free.

Leslie returns home dazed but unshackled. In a joyous reversal, Anne gives birth to a healthy boy she names James Matthew, honoring both Captain Jim and Matthew Cuthbert. Captain Jim, visibly aging, confides his wish to die peacefully at sunrise and asks Anne to care for his cat, the First Mate.

Owen returns to Four Winds. One August evening in the garden, among late red roses, he tells Leslie he loves her, and she accepts. Captain Jim visits that evening and delivers a benediction over the couples, predicting happiness while acknowledging sorrows to come. He says his farewells with unusual tenderness.

When Owen's completed novel, The Life-Book of Captain Jim, arrives in late September, Leslie and Anne bring Captain Jim his copy. The next morning, Gilbert notices the lighthouse at Four Winds Point still burning past sunrise. He and Anne hurry there and find Captain Jim lying peacefully on his sofa, hands clasped over the open book at its last page, a look of perfect peace on his face. Anne believes he died at dawn, as he wished, his spirit drifting out to find lost Margaret.

Owen buys the little house as a summer home. Gilbert proposes buying the larger Morgan place at Glen St. Mary, as the family has outgrown their first home. Leslie and Owen plan to marry at Christmas; Miss Cornelia marries Marshall Elliott, who has finally shaved his legendary beard after his Liberal party won the election. On a final October evening, Anne walks through the stripped rooms, saying goodbye. She kneels and kisses the worn doorstep, whispers her farewell to the house of dreams, and joins Gilbert at the gate as the lighthouse star gleams northward.