Marmee’s arrival.
Oh, now she comes home! Talk about anticlimactic.
But wait a second. If my purpose here had been to save Beth, Beth had been saved.
So what was I doing still in Alcott-land?
Nineteen
Meanwhile, over at Aunt March’s …
There were two things to come out of the time Amy and I spent living there while Beth had scarlet fever: 1) I realized for the first time just what a ginormous suck-up Amy March really was; and 2) Aunt March was buying into the whole thing, resulting in statements like:
“Emily,” Aunt March confided, “I find that I like having Amy here so much more than having Jo.
“Emily,” Aunt March observed, “Amy is so well-behaved. She has such pretty manners.
“Emily,” Aunt March complained, “why can’t you be more like Amy? My word, you’re just as bad as Jo. As a matter of fact, I think you’re even worse than Jo!”
“Worse than Jo!” Polly the parrot taunted. “Worse than Jo!”
Obviously, the parrot was buying into Amy’s suck-up act too.
Oh, and there was one other thing that came out of our time at Aunt March’s, an odd thing. There came a day when I admit I was complaining even more than usual about having to do whatever insane thing it was that Aunt March wanted us to do.
That’s when Amy turned to me and said, “Honestly, Emily, your time here would go much faster and be more smooth and pleasant if only you’d get into the spirit of the thing.”
“Maybe I could make things more smooth here at Aunt March’s,” I said, “but I don’t see how I could ever make it pleasant.”
“I didn’t mean here specifically,” Amy said.
“Then what did you mean?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but then she tilted her head to one side, considering me. “Never mind,” she said at last. “Forget I said anything.”
Twenty
Having returned at Laurie’s urging, Marmee refused to leave Beth’s side, even though Beth was clearly on the mend. But just because Marmee wouldn’t leave Beth, it didn’t stop her from insisting that others do so.
“Laurie,” she instructed, “please go to Aunt March’s to inform her and Amy that I have returned, and that the worst regarding Beth appears to have passed.
“Emily,” she instructed, “please go with Laurie and do your best to stay put at Aunt March’s as instructed until I say that it is safe for you to come home.”
As I left the room, wondering what I was even still doing there since somehow I’d managed to save Beth’s life, I heard her address Meg and Jo. “Honestly, girls. How could you have allowed Emily to visit here when you know she has never had scarlet fever? You should have sent her back to Aunt March’s the minute you saw her face.”
“Allowed?” Jo used a rare scoffing voice with Marmee. “Sent? Have you ever tried to tell Emily to do anything when she has already determined to do the exact opposite?”
There was a brief pause before Marmee finally admitted, “Indeed.”
The first snow was on the ground when I rode with Laurie to deliver the good news to Amy.
“It is too bad,” he said as the carriage bounced along, “that you have not been able to accompany Amy and me on our afternoon outings. I have seen a different side to your youngest sister in the time we have spent alone. Perhaps if you had been there more, you might have seen it too.”
“A different side to Amy? What different side could there possibly be? With Amy, what you see on the surface is definitely what you get.”
“You mean that she is vain and foolish?”
I certainly wasn’t going to disagree.
“Of course she is that,” Laurie continued when I said nothing, “more vain and foolish than any girl I know. But when one spends time alone with her, one realizes that she is also strong and even shrewd.”
Shrewd? Amy???
But then I remembered something else she’d said about a week or so ago when she’d advised me: “Your time here would go much faster and be more smooth and pleasant if only you’d get into the spirit of the thing.”
At the time, I’d interpreted “here” as our stay at Aunt March’s.
But what if Amy had in fact meant something deeper? What if this strong and shrewd Amy, according to Laurie, was instead referring to my time here in Marchville? Had Amy somehow figured out that I didn’t come from here at all?
No, of course that wasn’t the case, I reassured myself as Laurie delivered Marmee’s message and Amy flew