Soli Deo gloria
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Anne of Green Gables. Noah, buddy, this is for you. Merry Christmas! :)
Anne Blythe, neé Shirley, had been passed from indifferent hands to others so much during her long, harsh early childhood that it was still an amazement in her mind that she had any familial roots to go back to at all. From her earliest memories she was a floater taken along a river she never wanted to row down, with plenty of harsh water and rapids, until she came around a bend and floated gently into the welcome arms of the babbling brook of Green Gables. Bolingbroke and its waters weren't even memories in her mind. So when Gilbert brought up the subject of going there one breakfast on an ordinary early morning in March, Anne couldn't believe her ears—or her husband.
"Visit Bolingbroke, Gil?"
"Yes. This winter has been a long, busy season for me. I won't be the doctor who works himself into a sickness. It's not right." His voice sounded tired, like he was thinking of a sickness he'd had years and years ago. He shook his head and continued. "Anne, you've been working yourself hard over your Ladies' Aid and the children's school. Let me take you on a vacation to Bolingbroke this spring. It'll be beautiful countryside."
Anne hadn't thought of her darling birthplace town in quite some time. Now it flashed back to her, her two weeks there while visiting dear Phil and her stupid, in-love beaus. She remembered the tall woman living in the old, darling old Shirley house. She remembered seeing the small gravestones before divulging in the sweetest, most heartfelt letters of a lovesick Walter to his darling Bertha. She remembered that pilgrimage was a journey she only plodded on, without Gilbert by her side. Some heartstrings of hers began to be strummed like by the bow of a violin.
Anne's logical side fought fiercely with her dreaming, hoping side—there was always a life-long battle between those two sides of her, and it was a rare shock when the logical side won. On one hand, she had six young children and her dear Ingleside with its gardens and household to run; she had Susan to gossip with, committees to be on, cakes to be baked for church sales, an endless pile of delightful child-sized clothing to repair—and Gilbert, the most demanded doctor in all of Glen St. Mary. Her poor husband could barely get a decent night's sleep without getting woken up by a pound on the door with some baby to be birthed or some leg to be fixed after a terrible accident. Their everyday lives had become indispensable routines which could not be done away with. However, her dreaming side roamed far past the walls of her house, back to the past, to the enchantment of a long-past home visited, to the little house and the little graves—and perhaps along the way they could drop in on darling Phil and Jonas. Oh, thrills of excitement shot through Anne like she hadn't felt in quite some time. She looked across the breakfast table, past the mayhem of Jem and Di arguing over the pumpkin preserves and Nan sucking on her spoon and Rilla dutifully dumping spoonfuls of nourishing porridge down onto her skirt and Shirley stuffing his fat mouth with an enormous spoonful of fried potatoes and Walter sipping his milk and looking contemplative over some great philosophical matter, completely unaware of the thick milk mustache lining his upper lip. Anne met her husband's eyes. He wore a matching glint of mischief and excitement.
Susan, who'd been busy listening in on their conversation and cutting up Shirley's ham and wiping off Rilla's face, looked up. Straightening up, she said, "Mrs. Doctor dear, you better take up his offer, or else I will make you." Perhaps Susan, too, was remembering old illnesses of the past—specifically, the time when Anne had given birth to Shirley and had to stay in bed for some weeks after in recovery. Despite having gained the ever-solid affection and devotion of Shirley, Susan wouldn't repeat the experience twice for all the money in the world.
Anne looked at old solid Susan, with her dirty napkin covered in bits of porridge and a knife covered in bits of fried potato, and let her face break with a burst of laughter. "I haven't the debating skills to win against you both," she said.
Gilbert nodded gravely to Susan, who had a face set in stone, like she dared Anne to bring up a single argumentative point. When she was again occupied with Shirley and his liberal use of butter, he winked at Anne.
So the vacation was to be planned. That spring, as Anne's gardens grew and the Glen St. Mary sea skies grew bluer and glowier and Jem brought her his big armfuls of Mayflowers, Anne and Gilbert planned their trip. New luggage was bought for the occasion—a traveling bag or two, a new trunk. Anne's wardrobe was picked over and picked up and tidied and tsked over by Susan. Anne knitted new socks and indulged in a new hat. Di, Nan, and Rilla gathered around with gasps and oohs and ahs when the hatmaker brought along the new hat for Anne to try on. The train tickets were purchased, the trunk and traveling bags carefully packed ever-so-neatly by Susan, who was ready to snap at the ready if Anne dared to ask about the tears streaming aimlessly down her face.
On the day of departure, only three of the children cried at the train station. Jem, as the oldest and the new resident man of the house, kept a solid, impassive face as he shook his father's hand and accepted a kiss on his cheek from his mother. Walter also refused to cry, which was strange, as he was a sensitive lad. He returned the kiss to his mother's cheek and whispered in her ear, "When you're there, listen to the wind for me." Anne knew no logical reason why he should ask her that, but she nodded solemnly and took the charge with the air of all respect and secrecy.
Rilla was a little stone without feeling. She hadn't had orange marmalade for breakfast and was obstinately unfeeling towards her parents' being gone for two weeks. That left Nan and Di and big boy Shirley to weep like wee babes. Susan cooed over Shirley, taking him up in her arms, big as he was, and wiping over his face with her handkerchief. Gilbert hugged his twins warmly and tightly, and Anne tucked their hair behind their ears and gave them warm smiles. Those warm smiles toughened them up like hot soup for their bones, and despite the redness of their eyes and the puffiness in their faces, they straightened and tried their best, despite their trembling shudders, to imitate Jem.
Their train ride began with Anne waving a handkerchief out the window at the children, and receiving in return a dozen hands waving after them. She couldn't help blinking back a couple of tears as she sat back against the seat. "I don't like leaving them, even for a few days," she said, once Gilbert had finished securing their luggage and joined her.
He grasped her hand and gave it a warm squeeze. "You have an endlessly affectionate heart, Mrs. Blythe."
Anne smiled at that.
The train ride took them across the sprawling fields and landscapes of Canada. Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia appeared on the horizon with a glow in Anne like a heart returning home.
They stayed at an inn once they'd arrived, and that next morning they walked, hand in hand, down the dirt road toward the little Shirley house.
Anne's heartbeat flooded her ears until it was crowded out by her gasp, which burst out of her throat like it had to come out. That yellow house looked the same as it did when she'd visited it in her maidenhood. The same trees overshadowing its roof, the same bushes growing along its sides. It made Anne want to laugh and cry at the same time.
Gilbert did most of the talking to the new owners of the house; Anne couldn't speak as she wandered around the property. Gilbert found her by her shrieks of delight. He full-on sprinted towards her, his years of being a physician immediately leading him to the thought of her having injured herself—imagine his surprise and relief when he found her standing in a hidden alcove covered completely in a carpet of fresh mayflowers. Little white things with outstretched arms, as if begging to be held in one's embrace.
Anne looked up with such childlike excitement on her face. "Look at this mass of beauty, Gilbert! Oh, if only Jem were here! He'd have them all cuddled in his arms in a matter of minutes!" She bent down, her skirts skimming the ground, and gathered some to her nose. She grinned; "They smell so fresh and pure. Aren't the souls of flowers so fresh and pure, Gil?"
Gilbert stuck his hands into his coat pockets and smiled at her. His wife of fifteen years, mother of seven children, awestruck over a wild crop of mayflowers. Would she ever grow old? The answer was no, for her soul was fresh and pure.
Anne suddenly became overcome with a sense of duty as an idea dawned on her. "Gil, darling, help me. Let's gather up a good armful or two. These will look so nice on my parents' graves." She sighed and looked down at the stems as she picked them. "I need to do some housekeeping for them. Flowers always freshen a house up."
Gilbert didn't say a single word; he simply helped his wife gather up enough in their arms to do their son proud.
Gilbert thanked the house owners, who couldn't keep their eyes in their faces as they watched the couple walk away with clouds floating in their arms.
Their little graves were in the corner of the wild Bolingbroke cemetery. Overgrown with weeds intertwined with wisps of yellow wildflowers, it took a moment to unbury the stones from the graves. Gilbert half-stood next to the graves as Anne knelt reverently in front of the two gravestones. They were simple things, words scratched into two rough rocks pulled from some creek, the etchings almost lost to rain and time. Still, Anne could read aloud the words 'Walter William Shirley - 1846-1865 - Beloved Husband, Lost to Fever' and 'Bertha Elizabeth Shirley - 1846-1865 - Beloved Wife, Lost to Fever.' The two poor rocks sat side by side, together for decades and for some time after.
"They were so young, just nineteen. Jem will be nineteen in just a few years. I remember being nineteen. I was a young fool, not a mother." Anne blinked tears. Her parents were so young, and she felt foolish with her dreaming and college while they were just married and working and poor and parents.
Gilbert gently caressed her cheek with his sure hand. "You've got all of their tenacity and youth, Anne."
Anne broke her laugh with a little hiccup. She sat up straighter and set to arranging great wreaths of fragrant mayflowers over her parents' graves. She sat back on her heels once done, and sighed. "I do wish I knew them. I imagine them—I've imagined my parents for years. When I was a little girl, even more after I read the love letters between them. I would've loved to have known them." She cast shining eyes over her husband. "I wish you could've known them. They would've loved to know that their little girl, their 'baby', had married such a respectable, loving man."
"I wish I could've met them. They gave me you, so I owe them an unpayable debt." Gilbert sat next to Anne. She leaned against his shoulder, and a quietness fell over them and the overgrown cemetery. Anne, with her partiality for old cemeteries, was completely at ease. Gilbert, however, had his mind full of other occupying thoughts, and wore such a frowning, thoughtful look over his face that it prompted his wife to inquire after him.
"I was lost in my thoughts," he began.
Anne said, "I understand that entirely. I do it everyday."
"Your parents, Walter and Bertha, were our children's grandparents. Now my mother is gone, and Father is on the decline. Marilla, as well, is an old lady. The generation before us is fading us away, Anne. We've become the next generation. And I wish that our children could've known the generation before us a little better."
Now it was Anne's turn to squeeze his hand. "They've known your mother and father. That's two—that's plenty of grandparents. Our children have been spoiled. Not to mention Marilla and Mrs. Rachel. They're practically grandmothers to them, and oh! Susan? Susan's the best grandparent they could have." Anne's voice was comforting, but she too felt that little aching in her heart as Gilbert did—the little ache that wished their parents could've truly known their children. She leaned against his shoulder more. She felt her pinned up bun falling apart slowly over her shoulders, collapsing after bearing through her flower-gathering so well. She closed her eyes and inhaled the beautiful perfume of the mayflowers and the green grass mixed in with the overgrown weeds and the smell of the fresh dirt over her parents' humble graves and felt the solidness of her wonderful husband's shoulder and the comforting silence of the cemetery wash over her like a warm wave—and they listened to the wind, its whistling, melancholy, longing voice echoing their thoughts.
And all was calm and quiet, and soft and sure, and secure, for that moment.
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