Rainbow Valley is the seventh book in the eight-book series
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. This book is a much
underrated one in the series, mostly because neither Anne nor her
children are the main players here; rather, the story is mostly about
the new minister of the Presbyterian church, Mr. Meredith, his
four motherless children named Jerry, Faith, Una and Carl, as well as
an orphan, Mary Vance, who was found by these "manse children" in a
barn and later adopted by Miss Cornelia (who had been Mrs. Marshall
Elliott for about 14 years by then, but her friends still preferred
the old name). Anne's children only appears as the manse children's
playmates (thankfully Nan and Di finally had some worthy playmates
at last, after their misadventures on that in Anne of
Ingleside; but this book and the rest does not contain enough
about them even to tell them apart!), and Anne herself appears only
occasionally, usually in some discussion with Miss Cornelia. In my
opinion, although the book may be accused of not really being an "Anne book"
(which I personally do not agree; I think the fact that this book provides
the necessary characters for the next, Rilla of Ingleside, is
enough of a reason to make it an integral part of the series), it is
still a very lovely book by its own right, and its warmness and
sweetness nicely complements the previous one, Anne of
Ingleside, which also focuses on the life of young children, but
concerns itself more with the chilly troubles of real life.
The story began with Anne's return from a trip to Europe, which had
been promised by Gilbert at the end of the last book. During the time
they were abroad, the village finally settled on a new minister,
Mr. Meredith, who was a widow with four children aged between 9 and
12. Mr. Meredith was a very good man and preached beautifully, but he
indulged in theological matters way too much, often
neglecting his duties as a father. Old Aunt Martha, who was a cousin
of Mr. Meredith's mother, insisted on being the housekeeper, but she
cooked terribly, was too old to be able to do much house-cleaning, and
was of even less help as far as mental matters go. The manse children
were all very kind-hearted, but with no one to teach them propriety,
these children got into scrapes constantly, which caused much danger
for their father's career and much trouble for his supporters such as
Miss Cornelia in defending him. Nevertheless, the manse children and
the Ingleside children (mostly the elder four, namely Jem, Walter, Nan
and Di) soon became good friends, and their favorite place, Rainbow
Valley, named by Walter back in the Anne of Ingleside
days, thus became the book's title.
One day, the manse children discovered Mary Vance, a 12-year-old
orphan run away from her place after being
starved and abused, kindly saved her from starvation (of course,
coming from such a cook as Aunt Martha, no quality could to be
expected), gave her some clothes, and let her stay at the manse.
Mary had not been a bad girl, and she was quite grateful, but her
roughness could not be denied. The absent-minded minister knew
nothing about the matter, so after seeing a funny episode involving
Mary and Rilla (Anne's youngest daughter, about 7 years old then),
Miss Cornelia intervened and decided to send her to
an orphan asylum, lest her bad habits such as swearing affect the
manse children negatively. Mary was very sorry to leave them, but shy
and sympathetic Una understood her, and successfully pled Miss Cornelia to adopt
her instead. Mary proved to suit Miss Cornelia perfectly: her
capable hands helped aging Cornelia much, her food and clothes became
even better than the manse children, her bad habits of lying and
swearing vanished in the new environment, and by-and-by kind-hearted,
frank, sophisticated and gossipy Mary (almost a Cornelia-clone, I have to
say) became a messenger between the manse children and the gossiping
society which they often offended unknowingly.
Meanwhile, the lively manse children kept getting into scrapes, and
when trying to get out of a previous scrape, they often got into new
ones, similar to bad children trying to cover up a sin with
another. To save the situation and their father's career, they
organized a "Good Conduct Club", in which they voluntarily punished
themselves if they did something wrong or hurting their father; their
intentions were good, but they often punished themselves overly hard,
causing Una to faint in church and Carl to catch pneumonia,
which resulted in some dangerous moments and even more gossip.
Seeing his children's struggles without a mother's help, the minister
felt the need to find a stepmother for his children, but he could not
hurry, for he was wise enough to see that he must marry one he loved,
and his love to his first wife Cecilia had never really faded. One day he met
Rosemary West, the music teacher for the Blythe girls, and love
sparked at once between them --- a love with more warmness and
responsibility than ardor, for Rosemary also had a first lover who died long ago
before marriage, but it was beautiful nevertheless --- but Rosemary could not
leave her elder sister Ellen alone, so she had to say "no" when the
minister proposed to her. The love seemed so utterly hopeless, at
least to the minister, and one day he talked his agony aloud to
himself after one more mischief by Carl. Una heard and understood
her, so she hid her misgivings arising from Mary Vance's dire
predictions about stepmothers, and told Rosemary that the minister
still loved her. Meanwhile, Ellen was again on good terms with her
old lover, Norman Douglas, a man whose frankness and generosity and
intelligence much overshadowed his lack of piety and roughness of
manner for politics-loving Ellen, so both pairs happily married at the
end, without fear of leaving the other alone.
Among the four manse children, the boys were fairly ordinary: eldest
Jerry was just the "big brother" type who led his younger siblings in
everything, especially those concerning the "Good Conduct Club"; the
youngest Carl, a great insect-lover, was much loved and "cuddled" by
his sisters. However, the two girls have very distinctive personalities,
and in my opinion they are the most endearing ones of the younger
generation in the series, although Walter and Nan (as the fanciful one
in Anne of Ingleside) come very close.
The elder one, Faith, was an intelligent and spunky tomboy who much
reminded me of the "Naughty Nan" in Little Men. Her
frankness and generosity made her the greatest trouble-maker in the
family, yet even the most malicious gossips could not deny her good
intent. In order to defend her father against gossips, she delivered
an unexpected speech in the church for once, and wrote a long and funny
explanation to the local newspaper for the second time, both giving her
friends much material for laughter and others even more sources of
gossip. In contrast, The younger one, Una, was much like Beth in
Little Women: shy, sensitive and sweet, who did many
heart-touching things in the background for Mary Vance, her father and
others. Indeed, the second-last chapter in which she decided to ask
Rosemary to marry her father in spite of Mary Vance's dire conviction
that stepmothers will inevitably turn her father against her, is one
of the most touching parts of the whole series, and I have reread it
numerous times. What's more, she was
not painted as a little angel, but did have her little faults, such as
her envy to Mary Vance's good clothes after she was adopted, which
made her delightfully human.
The relationship between Ellen and Rosemary West was some food for
thought. Both had rather sad experiences of romance: Ellen had a
quarrel with the then-young Norman Douglas, and Rosemary's engaged
lover died as mentioned above; and after their mother's death, the
sorrow would have been unbearable without the sisterly bond and the
promise that they will never leave each other. However, when each saw
a new prospect for love in this story, the promise much impeded their
search for happiness, for neither could marry and leave the other
alone in the world with a good conscience --- a typical deadlock
situation. This particular case had a nice ending almost by magic,
but such situations are rather hard to deal with in general.
When all is said and done, I much recommend this book despite its
un-Anne-ness. If you like sweet and lovely stories about
pre-teen children, you will probably like this one. Even if you are
so hard-core in reading about Anne only that you want to skip this one,
chances are that you need to read this anyway to fully enjoy the next book
"Rilla of Ingleside", which no Anne-lover probably wants to miss, and
in time you may fall in love with this one in spite of yourself.
This book is available in Project Gutenberg, #5343.