Royal Gardner

Royal Gardner is a Redmond student whose handsome appearance, polished courtesy, and romantic attentions make him the apparent fulfillment of Anne Shirley’s long-imagined ideal. Yet his importance lies not only in the courtship he begins: Anne’s response to him exposes the difference between loving a beautiful romantic image and recognizing the quieter affinities that make a relationship feel natural.

Identity and Background

Royal returns to Redmond after an interruption to his education. He had completed his Freshman and Sophomore years two years earlier, then spent the intervening time in Europe; on his return, he intends to finish his Arts course. He tells Anne that he feels he does not yet belong anywhere, an uncertainty that accompanies his resumption of college life. Anne is also in her Junior year, making them classmates as well as fellow students.

Phil Gordon supplies the social background Anne does not know when she first meets him. Royal’s father is dead, and his mother’s failing health had required him to leave college and go abroad with her. Phil says that he was greatly disappointed to give up his class but bore the setback graciously. The Gardner family is among the wealthiest and most socially prominent in Kingsport, and Royal is known there as both clever and exceptionally handsome. Phil’s account frames his absence from Redmond not as a rejection of study but as a consequence of family responsibility.

Introduction and Courtship

Royal’s first encounter with Anne arrives in a sudden November shower. A gust turns her umbrella inside out as she hurries along the harbor road, and Royal offers her the shelter of his. Anne sees a tall, distinguished-looking man with dark, melancholy eyes and a sympathetic voice; to her, he seems so precisely like the hero of her dreams that he might have been made to order. The scene gives his entrance the shape of a romantic coincidence, while its immediate cause is an ordinary mishap and a practical offer of shelter.

Under the umbrella, Royal recognizes Anne by the Redmond colors on her clothing and by her recent Tennyson paper for the Philomathic Society. He introduces himself and explains his return to college; Anne, by contrast, admits that she cannot place him. Their conversation turns their chance meeting into a connection between classmates. Royal speaks of being reconciled to the years lost from his education, and Anne hears in his manner and eyes an added sense of melancholy.

The rain continues for nearly an hour, but the pair find the time brief. When the clouds break and pale November sunshine reaches the harbor and pines, they walk together to the gate of Patty’s Place. Royal asks permission to call, and Anne agrees. She enters the house so absorbed in the encounter that even Rusty, climbing into her lap and trying to kiss her, receives little attention. That evening a box of twelve long-stemmed roses arrives for her, accompanied by a card bearing Royal’s name and a poetic quotation. The meeting has quickly become a courtship in Anne’s imagination as well as in his actions.

Reputation and Social Reception

Royal’s attentions become visible to the young women around Anne. Phil recognizes his name and is astonished that Anne has become acquainted with him; she describes him as admired throughout Kingsport and teases Anne about the roses and their sentimental message. Later, when Royal waits for Anne before a reception, he entertains himself by teasing the Sarah-cat. The cat turns its back on him, but the people at Patty’s Place generally like him.

Aunt Jamesina is particularly won over by Royal’s unfailing deference and his pleading, pleasing voice. She calls him the nicest young man she has ever known and considers Anne fortunate. Such confidence from the household, along with the girls’ assumption that Anne will eventually marry him, makes Anne restive: the romance may be gratifying, but other people’s certainty about its destination is not hers. Royal’s public image—handsome, accomplished, well-born, and attentive—helps make that certainty seem natural to those watching from outside.

Anne’s Response and the Romantic Ideal

Anne’s feelings are intensified by the form Royal’s courtship takes. For her birthday he sends a box of violets and a sonnet that praises her beauty in the elevated language of romantic verse. Anne knows every word and finds the poem respectable of its kind, though she does not rank it with Keats or Shakespeare. Its power for her is personal: the extravagant praise is addressed to Anne Shirley herself, rather than to some distant heroine. The sonnet makes her feel chosen and turns her own features into the material of a romantic poem.

When Phil asks whether she loves Royal, Anne answers reluctantly that she supposes she does. She reasons that he is her ideal and that his dark eyes, appealing voice, and poetic gifts explain her attraction. But her response is not as uncomplicated as the surrounding admiration suggests. She blushes when people mention Gilbert Blythe or Christine Stuart, while talk of Royal does not produce the same involuntary reaction. Anne cannot explain the difference and tries to set it aside by insisting to herself that she is, of course, in love with Royal.

Her comparison of the two men reveals a more particular reservation. Royal does not understand the point of a funny story Anne once tells him; Gilbert shares a companionable laugh with her over it. Anne wonders, despite herself, whether life with a man who lacks a sense of humor might grow dull. She dismisses the worry as unfair to a melancholy, inscrutable hero, but the qualification matters: Royal’s romantic appeal rests partly on an image that requires Anne to excuse what does not fit it.

Narrative Role

Royal functions as a vivid test of Anne’s romantic expectations. The rain, the sheltering umbrella, the roses, and the birthday sonnet all supply the signs of a storybook courtship, and Anne is deeply moved by them. At the same time, her private reservations and her ease with Gilbert complicate the apparent certainty of the match. The contrast is not that Royal lacks charm—Anne and her friends repeatedly acknowledge his attractions—but that charm and idealized poetry cannot by themselves answer whether two people share humor and ordinary companionship. In the scenes traced here, Anne has not resolved that tension; her growing unease is the counterpoint to the romance that first seemed so perfectly designed for her.