Avonlea (TV Series)

Return to Me (1996)

Jackie Burroughs: Hetty King

Quotes 

• Hetty King : What's this? Common brawling in the public road! Heavens to Molly, what have the Kings come to?

• Hetty King : So, Gus Pike, this is the lot you choose, is it?

  Gus Pike : [defiantly]  Go home, Miss King. Nothing you can say will change my mind.

  Hetty King : Change your mind? Oh, brass of you. You think I care a wit if you sit here and rot, after making such a fool of me?

  Gus Pike : Fool of you?

  Gus Pike : Yes. I had such high hopes for you, Gus Pike--always! You were bright, you were ambitious, but most of all, you had spirit! Or so I thought. That's why I tutored you and fussed over you and coddled you. And for what? So you could hide away and throw your life to the wind?

  Gus Pike : It was no sense for you and Felicity coming here. If you care about your niece, you'll take her home.

  Hetty King : [furiously gets at his face]  Don't you give me that pious face, or I'll slap you! All along, you've said she was too good for you! Too good for you! Well, now I'm inclined to agree. And not because you've lost your eyesight, boy, but because you're a COWARD!

  Gus Pike : [yells angrily]  I'M NOT A COWARD! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE! YOU DON'T...

  Hetty King : [angrily cuts him]  OH, SHUT UP! You have nothing to say that I want to hear! If you've not the guts to fight back, then go on and... lie down and die, for all I care!

  [Hetty storms off] 

• [Miss Lydie shows Felicity the room where Gus is, Gus is sitting alone with perfectly weaved baskets all around] 

  Gus Pike : [with his back turned]  Miss Lydie, come back from practice?

  [Felicity goes still as Gus turns around and gets up] 

  Gus Pike : Miss, Lydie?

  [Gus turns where Miss Lydie and Felicity are but somehow cannot see them] 

  Gus Pike : [suspiciously]  Who's there?

  Felicity King : [hesitates]  Gus... It's... It's Felicity.

  Gus Pike : [nostrils flaring in anger]  Get out! GET OUT OF HERE!

  Hetty King : [runs in hearing this]  What in heaven's name!

  Felicity King : [in tears]  Gus, no!

  Gus Pike : GET OUT, I SAID!

  Felicity King : [as Gus moves in on them and trips]  Gus, you're going to hurt yourself!

  Gus Pike : [gets up]  DID YOU HEAR ME! GET OUT AND LEAVE ME BE!

  Hetty King : [as they get pushed out of the room]  Gus, you stop that! Stop this!

  [Gus slams the door at their faces] 

  Gus Pike : [crying]  Just go away! Go away!

• Felicity King : [about Gus's outburst, shocked]  Of all the things I imagined... I never expected this.

  Odelia : [gardening with Miss Lydie]  No one thought he'd even live. But I wouldn't leave his side. We all knew, what he tried to do to save the others. After the explosion, a trawler pulled him from floating wreckage--barely conscious.

  Megget Lydie : Child, go on and set. I can finish here. Go on.

  Odelia : [does so, sits on the porch with Felicity, Hetty and Horace]  When he found out he was blinded, and that all but six had died just the same... Well, he went deep inside himself, he wouldn't come out.

  Hetty King : But was no one told he was alive? No authority? No one?

  Odelia : He was found separate from the others. At first, in the confusion, the world thought he was dead. Gus wanted it kept that way. The boys who lived, they knew it was only because of Gus. Gus wanted us to swear to his secret. We did.

  Hetty King : And can he see nothing? Nothing at all?

  Odelia : Light, and shadow. He couldn't stay at the home; the mission needed the bed. That's when Granny asked him here.

  Megget Lydie : Well, that boy has a powerful light inside. If only he'd just let it shine again.

  Odelia : He won't go to the doctor's no more. I got upset and I tried to call you, but he made me swear not to try again, you of all people.

  Felicity King : Why?

  Megget Lydie : Well, that, child, you're going to have to ask him yourself.