Anne giving Diana currant wine

The incident in which Anne Shirley accidentally intoxicated Diana Barry with currant wine stands as one of the most consequential and bitterly comic crises of Anne's early life at Green Gables, a catastrophe born of good intentions, a misplaced bottle, and the ungovernable force of Anne's imagination. It threatened to sever the deepest friendship Anne had ever known and placed her, for the first time, in direct conflict with the formidable Mrs. Barry, a woman whose cold disapproval proved far more wounding than the sharpest tongue of Mrs. Rachel Lynde.

The Tea Party and the Mistake

One October afternoon, with Marilla away at a meeting of the Aid Society in Carmody, Anne was granted the grown-up privilege of inviting Diana to tea. The prospect filled Anne with ecstatic visions of pouring tea from the rosebud spray set and pressing preserves upon her guest. Marilla, however, forbade the good china and directed Anne to use the old brown tea set, though she did permit the opening of a little yellow crock of cherry preserves and the use of a bottle of raspberry cordial left over from a church social. Anne, in her excitement, set the tray with a tumbler and the bottle she found on the top shelf of the pantry, believing it to be the cordial. In truth, Marilla had stored the raspberry cordial in the cellar and had left on the shelf a bottle of her own celebrated three-year-old homemade currant wine, a beverage of which certain stricter members of the community, including Mrs. Barry, strongly disapproved. Diana, finding the drink delicious, consumed three generous tumblerfuls. Anne, who had eaten many apples and did not feel like having any herself, watched her friend drink with hospitable satisfaction. Soon Diana grew unsteady, complained of dizziness, and insisted on going home, leaving Anne in tears of disappointment at a tea party that had ended before it truly began.

Discovery and Accusation

The next day, Anne learned from Mrs. Lynde that Mrs. Barry was in an awful state, believing that Anne had deliberately set Diana drunk and sent her home in a disgraceful condition. Mrs. Barry declared she would never let Diana play with Anne again. Anne, weeping, protested that she had given Diana nothing but raspberry cordial. Marilla, marching to the pantry, immediately recognized the bottle as her currant wine and realized her own error in misplacing it. She returned to the kitchen with the wine bottle in hand, her face twitching in spite of herself. "Anne, you certainly have a genius for getting into trouble," she said. "You went and gave Diana currant wine instead of raspberry cordial." Anne, who had never tasted the wine, was horrified. Mrs. Barry, however, remained implacable. When Marilla went to Orchard Slope to explain, she found Mrs. Barry the most unreasonable woman she had ever seen, who refused to believe the mistake and who rubbed in the matter of the currant wine with evident satisfaction. Marilla retorted that currant wine was not meant to be drunk three tumblerfuls at a time and that a child so greedy deserved a spanking, but her words did no good.

Anne's Plea and the Parting

That evening, Anne, bareheaded and determined, walked through the chill autumn dusk to Orchard Slope to plead her case directly. She found Mrs. Barry at the door, her face hardened with prejudice. Anne clasped her hands and begged for forgiveness, speaking of her orphaned state and her one bosom friend, but her dramatic language only irritated Mrs. Barry further. "I don't think you are a fit little girl for Diana to associate with," Mrs. Barry said coldly. "You'd better go home and behave yourself." When Anne asked to see Diana just once to say farewell, she was told that Diana had gone to Carmody with her father. Anne returned to Green Gables calm with despair, telling Marilla that her last hope was gone. The following afternoon, Diana was permitted only ten minutes to say goodbye. The two girls met by the Dryad's Bubble, where Anne, using the most pathetic language she could think of, clipped a lock of Diana's jet-black hair and spoke of their eternal farewell. "I shall never have another friend," Anne informed Marilla afterward. "I'm really worse off than ever before, for I haven't Katie Maurice and Violetta now."

The Reconciliation

The estrangement lasted for weeks, during which Anne and Diana communicated only through notes passed in school. The turning point came when Minnie May Barry fell desperately ill with croup while her parents were away. Diana, frantic, ran to Green Gables for help. Anne, drawing on her experience caring for Mrs. Hammond's three pairs of twins, took command of the situation, administering ipecac and nursing the child through the night until a doctor could arrive from Spencervale. The doctor told Mr. and Mrs. Barry that the little red-haired girl had saved the baby's life. Mrs. Barry, overcome with remorse, came to Green Gables the next day to apologize. She told Marilla she now knew Anne had not meant to set Diana drunk and hoped Anne would forgive her. Anne, returning from her visit to Orchard Slope that evening, announced herself a perfectly happy person. "Mrs. Barry kissed me and cried and said she was so sorry and she could never repay me," she told Marilla. The friendship was restored, and Anne felt that she had, in her own words, "covered the past with the mantle of oblivion."