The White Sands Hotel Concert

The White Sands Hotel Concert, held in aid of the Charlottetown Hospital, was the most sophisticated public performance Anne Shirley had ever undertaken. Organized by the hotel's summer guests, the concert drew amateur talent from across the surrounding districts, and Anne had been invited to recite alongside a professional elocutionist, Mrs. Evans, whose gown of shimmering gray seemed woven from moonbeams. For Anne, who had previously recited only before the homely, sympathetic faces of the Avonlea Debating Club, this was an entry into a world of electric lights, silk dresses, and critical strangers—a world that threatened to overwhelm her before she had spoken a word.

The Evening and the Audience

Anne dressed for the concert in her white organdy, a soft, frilly, clinging dress that Diana Barry insisted suited her far better than the stiffer blue-flowered muslin. Diana braided Anne's hair in two thick braids tied with big white bows, parted softly over her forehead, and fastened a single white house rose just behind her ear. Matthew had given Anne a string of pearl beads, which she wore around her slim milk-white throat. The east gable chamber, now a dainty nest with apple-blossom paper on the walls and pale-green art muslin curtains, had been transformed for the occasion. Diana, who was not performing, devoted all her pains to Anne, vowing that for the credit of Avonlea she must be dressed and adorned to the queen's taste. Anne rode to the hotel in Billy Andrews's double-seated buggy, sitting on the front seat beside the stolid, admiring youth, while Diana and Jane Andrews sat behind.

Stage Fright and Recovery

The hotel was a blaze of light from top to bottom. In the performers' dressing room, surrounded by the members of a Charlottetown Symphony Club, Anne suddenly felt her simple organdy plain and countrified among the silks and laces, her pearl beads poor beside the diamonds of a big, handsome lady, her single white rose insignificant next to the hothouse flowers the others wore. She shrank miserably into a corner, wishing herself back in the white room at Green Gables. On the platform of the big concert hall, the electric lights dazzled her, the perfume and hum bewildered her. She was wedged between a stout lady in pink silk and a tall, scornful-looking girl in white lace who talked audibly about "country bumpkins" and "rustic belles." When the professional elocutionist, Mrs. Evans, performed with her marvelously flexible voice and wonderful power of expression, the audience went wild, and Anne, forgetting herself for a time, listened with rapt and shining eyes—only to be plunged into despair when she realized she could never follow such an act. When her name was called, she was the victim of an overwhelming attack of stage fright. Her knees trembled, her heart fluttered, a horrible faintness came over her, and not a word could she utter. She felt hopelessly, helplessly ashamed and miserable, and the next moment she would have fled from the platform despite the humiliation that must ever after be her portion. But suddenly, as her dilated, frightened eyes gazed out over the audience, she saw Gilbert Blythe away at the back of the room, bending forward with a smile on his face—a smile that seemed to Anne at once triumphant and taunting. She drew a long breath and flung her head up proudly; courage and determination tingled over her like an electric shock. She would not fail before Gilbert Blythe. Her fright and nervousness vanished, and she began her recitation, her clear, sweet voice reaching to the farthest corner of the room without a tremor or a break.

Triumph and Recognition

Anne recited as she had never done before. When she finished, there were bursts of honest applause. The stout lady in pink silk, who turned out to be the wife of an American millionaire, clasped her hand vigorously and told her she had been crying like a baby. The audience encored her, and Anne, remembering that Matthew would be disappointed if she did not return, tripped back and gave a quaint, funny little selection that captivated them still further. The rest of the evening was quite a little triumph. The pink lady took Anne under her wing and introduced her to everyone. The professional elocutionist, Mrs. Evans, told her she had a charming voice and "interpreted" her selections beautifully. Even the white-lace girl paid her a languid little compliment. After the concert, Anne, Diana, and Jane were invited to supper in the big, beautifully decorated dining room, though Billy Andrews had decamped in mortal fear of such an invitation. When they drove home in the calm, white moonshine radiance, Anne breathed deeply and looked into the clear sky beyond the dark boughs of the firs, feeling the purity and silence of the night wash over her.

Aftermath and Significance

On the drive home, Jane Andrews declared that Anne's recitation was simply great and thought it better than Mrs. Evans's, though Anne quickly rejected the comparison, knowing that a professional could not be measured against a schoolgirl with a little knack of reciting. Diana delivered a compliment she had overheard: an American with coal-black hair and eyes, whom Josie Pye said was a distinguished artist, had asked, "Who is that girl on the platform with the splendid Titian hair? She has a face I should like to paint." Anne laughed, interpreting "Titian hair" as plain red, but the remark confirmed that she had made a genuine impression. When Jane sighed over the diamonds worn by the ladies, Anne staunchly declared that she and her friends were rich—rich in their sixteen years, their happiness, their imaginations, and their love. She was quite content to be Anne of Green Gables with her string of pearl beads, knowing that Matthew had given her as much love with them as ever went with the pink lady's jewels. The concert marked a milestone in Anne's growing confidence and her ability to hold her own in a wider world, even as she reaffirmed her deepest attachments to home and to those who loved her.