Yes, she did – in that she was willing to make sacrifices for the “family” that was being created. But the difference is that, unlike Polly, Agnes’ intellectual self was never squelched; in fact, in was fed by Virgil due to their shared love of writing.
It’s a weird reverse image: Polly had a satisfying physical relationship with Dick (mentioned more than once) but her intellectual life was stunted; Agnes had a robust intellectual life with Virgil but no physical intimacy.
@buenavista, to your point – from p. 430:
I reminded myself that he was still fragile in many ways, that I should let him rant. How did I know this? From watching Polly all these years with her males. I used to get impatient with her for indulging them, but I have learned that letting Virgil express his misery is the quickest path to peace. I’ll have to thank her for demonstrating what to do.
But Agnes is no Polly when it comes to understanding her man. She’s clueless about what’s really in Virgil’s head. I agree with @Colorado_mom – there has gotta be a chapter written from Virgil’s perspective in the reject pile, and I bet it’s enlightening.
Just thumbing through the book and came across this. Agnes writes:
Virgil has completely let go of his reticence and formality. He laughs freely and interposes wit among our remarks. I think he is helping Karen to loosen up. She often comes to the table holding a book – my private discussions are not enough to satisfy her appetite for book talk – and she reads a passage aloud to us and asks us what we see in it. Though Virgil and I have never said so, we have a conceit that she is our little sister, and we are preparing her for life (p. 416).
In hindsight…super icky, right? But note that she says, “Though Virgil and I have never said so…”. I think Agnes was delusional, almost to a disturbing degree. Virgil was definitely “helping Karen to loosen up,” but not in the way Agnes imagined.
On the beach that night, when Virgil tells Agnes, “This is how I always want to feel,” he may have been referring to his writing progress, or even to Karen. Who knows? Agnes says he kissed her under the stars. Or did he?
He kissed me. At least I thought so. Yet now that I am back in my room, I cannot say for sure that it was a real kiss (p. 431).
As a reader, I was so used to the elderly Agnes’ no-nonsense tell-it-like-it-is common sense, that I was duped. Where her relationship with Virgil is concerned, she’s a decidedly unreliable narrator.
Thanks!, @Mary13, for finding those passages to illustrate that, as you put it,
Agnes was pretty clueless about men in general, even though when Virgil died she was I think 42, and I’m not sure about Virgil–maybe 10 years younger? In the end, Agnes says:
I never made love, or even had sex. I’m rather proud of that, to be honest. I am a woman uninterfered with. Or perhaps I don’t fully understand myself.
I think maybe it’s both.
I figured Virgil gave her a friendly peck on the cheek sort of kiss and Agnes over interpreted it. That passage about learning from Polly was illuminating wasn’t it? I was going, “No! No! That’s a bad lesson!”
Here’s how long this book is and/or how bad my short term memory is: When Virgil and Karen are found dead on p. 513, I gasped – having completely forgotten that I read this on p. 100:
The Circumstances had moved off the Point in 1962. There’d been deaths that winter, the town librarian and that odd young relative of the Reeds–Virgil Reed–who had been a source of fascination for her and Agnes right after Agnes’ father died.
Karen enters the story on p. 347. Did I say, “Town librarian, alas, you’re doomed”? Nope!
Interestingly, Karen and Agnes have an exchange about jealousy during their first meeting:
“No, she confronted me at lunch and accused me of being jealous.”
“You weren’t jealous?”
“No! I’m not a jealous person.”
“That’s good. I don’t know if I am or not, I’ve never really had reason to be.”
“Actually, I suppose I haven’t either.”
It’s as if the author is subtly laying the groundwork for a romantic rivalry that Agnes and Karen never even realize exists. (We know Agnes never has a clue how Karen feels, and Karen seems truly sincere about seeing Agnes only as a benevolent “Aunt” to her, Virgil and Nan.)
Agnes remained a virgin, yet when she was younger, the impetus for breaking her engagement to John was that he wouldn’t have sex with her. After seeing her boldness and non-conventional (for the times) attitude towards sex so early in the story, it seems conflicting that she never experienced it at all.
I think Agnes could just never “read the room” where a romantic prospect was concerned. I don’t think she would have been morally opposed to an affair or two in the course of her life, but those opportunities never presented themselves. She didn’t like to mix socially, wasn’t pretty (so she says), and didn’t have a very warm personality – so probably not particularly alluring to conventional men of the 50’s (their loss).
It’s a good thing John stepped back. It would have been a bad marriage. He wanted a Polly and Agnes was never going to be that.
Great find ! Well done 
such a nugget
“ Karen enters the story on p. 347. Did I say, “Town librarian, alas, you’re doomed”? Nope!”
@Mary13 ……that is so funny 
You are not the only one who completely missed that.
It was such a throw-away line!
7.Discuss the two epigraphs that open the book. How do they inform your interpretation of the novel’s different themes?
First epigraph:
What is this you call property? It cannot be the earth. For the land is our mother, nourishing all her children, beasts, birds, fish, and all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it belongs to everybody and is for the use of all. How can one man say it belongs to him only? - Massasoit
It’s a wonderful sentiment, beautifully expressed, but a little off-base for Fellowship Point. I never felt like the evils of property ownership and the need for communal land were the prevalent themes of the novel. To open with a quote by a famous Native American when the book isn’t really about Native Americans (except peripherally) seems like a tad too much.
2nd epigraph:
The best mirror is an old friend. - George Herbert
Yep, that one works. 
Early in the book there’s a story about William Lee, great-grandfather of Agnes. I found it sad, but to his family it created a family joke:
He was briefly ill before he died, and gave explicit instructions on his deathbed, an idea man to the end. Unfortunately, his teeth had been taken out for the night, and the nurse, a local girl, who sat by him for the hour the family went to the dining room for supper couldn’t understand his Philadelphia accent, so his last words were left to the imagination.
I thought of this at the end of the book, when Agnes learns that Polly died just after speaking of her–but Agnes doesn’t know what she said. And Agnes told Polly of her epigraph, but never told her what it meant.
Since the two protagonists of Fellowship Point were over 80 years old, I fully expected one of them to die in the course of the story, possibly dramatically, maybe as some sort of plot point. I was so glad it didn’t happen that way. Agnes is still alive, active and fully with it in 2008, five years after the main drama ends, and Polly’s death is clearly recent and peacefully “off-screen.”
Of course, I didn’t know that when reading, so with every tumble, chest pain, or climb up on a chair for Polly or Agnes, I’d have “Is this it?” in the back of my mind. And maybe those little red herrings were there on purpose, as a reminder of how thinking about one’s mortality becomes more frequent as we age.
I was certain that when Agnes lay down in the Sanc to look at nature that she wouldn’t be able to get up and that they’d find her two years later. 
After all has been said, I think that I would give the book 3 stars out of 5. I would recommend the book with lots of warnings and reservations. I am not sure that a young person would like it and appreciate it like I did.
I completely agree. My daughters would happily recommend a book to me with a youthful protagonist, and I would enjoy it. But I would hesitate to recommend a book to them about two octogenarians. Why is that? Maybe because I was young once, so I get the full spectrum, but they’ve never been old, so would be bored by characters living and reflecting in a way they don’t yet comprehend. I don’t know; maybe I’m doing them an injustice. Anyway, for me, a solid four stars. As usual with our discussions, I’ve gained a greater appreciation for the book and discovered things I missed the first time around.
I’d give it a 4.5. I enjoyed it very much, though I do agree with all your mentions of defects – in the plot and in the characters.
I already gave it a three and I’m happy to keep it that way. Too many flaws for me to really enjoy, but I did enjoy the discussion. I think the author bit off more than she could chew.
My rating ranged from two to three back to two with an occasional slide up to five then down again. As you can tell, I had a hard time with this one. My final rating: 3.5 stars upped to 4, after some thought. My biggest problem was its pacing. The urge to pick the book up waxed and waned. Still it had those moments where a sentence/paragraph/section completely captured me. Dark put words to some of my exact thoughts and feelings. Unfortunately those moments got lost again in whatever came next. As @mathmom points out, I think “the author bit off more than she could chew.”
I passed it on to a friend who is 81 and she called to tell me how much she’s enjoying it. I think she’ll enjoy it even more as she gets further into it. My two daughters, not so much.