Chapter 3: Wild strawberries

Gilbert lay on his back, staring up at the cloudless blue sky, feeling delightfully full, warm and content. Anne was sat close by, weaving a crown of daisies and eating intermittent strawberries. They were picnicking in Mr Bell's pasture, in the shadow of the old spruce grove, supplementing the delicacies in Anne's basket with the last of the wild strawberries.

It was like old times, yet deliciously unlike. Many times in the preceding years had they sat in the same spot, eating the same crop; many times had Gilbert attempted to win, first her attention and then her favour. Now he had more than his boyish self could have imagined possible. Anne not only acknowledged him: she loved him!

"Anne," called Gilbert, lazily, "pass me a strawberry, I am too full and content to move."

"Lazy bones," she retorted, throwing the fruit towards him. Gilbert made a half-hearted attempt at a catch, but her aim was inexpert and it sailed well wide of its target.

"Try again," he instructed, "that was poor attempt at a pass. Like this." He demonstrated by sitting up and throwing the strawberry she had passed him up in the air, catching it in his open mouth.

"Well excuse me!" she exclaimed "but pitching is not a skill I have exercised much. If you are too weak and feeble to forage for yourself, I just have to see what I can do. Lie back."

Gilbert lay back expectantly, but instead of the strawberry sailing over his head, he felt Anne's fingers at the corner of his month, gently parting his lips and popping a small, ripe strawberry between them. He shivered a little at the touch and swallowed quickly.

"You seem to have hit upon a technique that doesn't depend on your throw," he drawled, "but I'd like to check that it wasn't just a fluke, any chance you could do it again?"

Anne obliged. But this time her fingers traced a route along his chest, before stopping at his mouth. This time, his lips captured not only the strawberry, but the fingers that held it. He heard her gasp, as he sucked her fingertip; then he bit down on the fruit and savoured the taste of soft warm strawberry, intermingled with soft warm Anne.

She leaned over him. Her hair, loosened from its pins and adorned with daisies, brushed his chin, as she reached over his chest to pluck another strawberry from the patch near his head. This time, she didn't drop it in his mouth, but pressed it into his hand. Gilbert feared that this was a hint that he had gone too far with the previous, stolen, bite.

"I think perhaps it's time you demonstrated your own aim," she said, lying back, in an attitude similar to his. Gilbert propped himself up on his elbows and leaned over her. His fingers reprised the journey hers had taken, running lightly up from her navel to her chest, outlining the swell of her breast, tracing a line along her outstretched neck and chin, and then parting those sweet, red, lips. He placed the fruit gently in her mouth and thrilled at the feeling of her lips capturing his finger as well.

He knew only too well, how much her touch excited him, but this was a bliss almost painful in its rapture. He watched her with awe as she lay, head back, eyes closed. A small trail of strawberry juice was escaping from the corner of her mouth, he captured it with his thumb and thrilled again, as Anne's lips captured the offering, licking the juice and sucking it clean.

She released his fingers only to replace them with his mouth. Weaving her fingers into his hair and drawing his face towards hers. Their lips met hungrily as they savoured the sweet taste of strawberries and the sweeter taste of each other.

Gilbert thrilled at the feel of Anne's arms around him, his neck and jaw tingling with her touch, as she ran her fingers through his, increasingly unruly, curls. He clasped her closer, one hand echoing her own exploration of neck and chin and ruddy tresses, the other snaking down her back, tracing the soft outline of her figure. The gap between them almost entirely closed now. Somewhere, at the back of his mind, Gilbert heard his better self, warning him that kissing Anne like this, and being so kissed, whilst laying alongside one another, was asking for trouble; that he really ought to draw back now. But Anne's touch was too perfect, the taste of her so sweet; to feel her so close: chest, knees, arms touching, was so heady, so exhilarating, he could not move. Instead he deepened the kiss, pressing his body closer to hers.

Abruptly, Anne pulled away, "did you hear a whistle?" She hissed.

"A whistle?" thought Gilbert, dazedly, "I can hear a whole symphony!" He pulled himself from his reverie and gazed, blinking, about him. Sure enough, he could hear the sound of whistling in the distance. He propped himself up on his elbows and peered through the grass that surrounded them. He could see a figure walking up the lane in the direction of the schoolhouse. A few moments later, he could perceive that the whistler was Emmanuel Boute, Eben Wright's hired man, making his way back from the fields.

"Humm, looks like we're going to have company soon," Gilbert murmured. Anne sat up, blushing, and attempted to restore order to her hair. As she had completely forgotten about the garland of daisies she had crowned herself with earlier, her attempts met with markedly little success.

Gilbert, musing primarily on Sloanes, and then ruefully thankful for the providential appearance of Emmanuel Boute, whose presence had provided the constraint that his own conscience had been unable to supply, got slowly to his feet. He bore the greater part of the conversational burden in the brief interchange that followed, Anne evidently still confused into unusual silence at having been so nearly found lying in a lover's embrace.

As Emmanuel walked on, Gilbert turned to Anne, putting his hand in hers and pulling her to her feet. "It's probably time we headed homewards ourselves, Marilla will be expecting you."

"I suppose we ought to get back." said Anne, reluctantly. "Marilla will expect me when she sees me, but Mrs Lynde has been awfully twitchy about our spending so much time together since you arrived home. Apparently Mrs Hiram Sloane was at the station when you arrived on Saturday and reported my scandalous lack of decorum directly to Rachel Lynde at the earliest opportunity. Rachel has been muttering ominously about us being 'joined at the hip' and that 'no good can come out of being always in each other's pockets'. I fear we might be causing some Avonlea scandal, which today's episode will no doubt fuel."

"Well, let us be thankful that, whenever we stand on the brink of impropriety, there are always Sloanes to set us back upon the narrow way!" observed Gilbert with a wry smile. "And let us not invoke the wrath of Mrs Rachel Lynde within the first week of our glorious summer. I shall deliver you back to the safety and sanctity of Green Gables without delay."

With that Gilbert took up the empty picnic basket with one hand and held his other out to Anne; clasping his hand in hers as they set off together on the path towards Green Gables.

After a while Gilbert broke their companionable silence. "You know Anne, Mrs Lynde need not be over anxious, however much I would like to, I can't remain in your pocket all summer."

"What do you mean Gil?" Responded Anne anxiously, "You are not going away? We promised that we would both be home for this summer at least."

"Oh, I'm not going away, I am definitely home for the summer; but Kingsport boarding houses don't pay for themselves, so I do need to work. I will be working for Mr Haram Andrews for the next couple of weeks. Then I may give Fred Wright a hand with his summer planting. You are looking at Avonlea's latest hired boy!"

"That's a relief, I thought for one awful minute that you were going to say you'd taken a post on the Enterprise and were off to Charlottetown and I might only see you at the weekends."

"No fear of that," Gilbert assured her, "I promised you, and my folks, that I would be home for summer and that's where I mean to stay. But we won't have so many whole days to ourselves anymore. The Cooper prize has covered most of my expenses for this year and next, but I need to get enough put by this summer to pay my way to the end of the course."

"But what about next summer" asked Anne, "do you not plan to work then? Oh Gil, do you mean for us to have a whole summer off together? How wonderful!"

"Well, not exactly," returned Gilbert, hesitantly, unwilling to dampen Anne's rapture, "but you know," he continued confidentiality, "I happen to be getting married in a couple of years' time and, whilst my wife-to-be assures me that sunbursts and marble halls are not required, even the tiniest house of dreams must be furnished. We need to live somewhere Anne, and I must have the means to provide it."

Anne sighed, torn between disappointment, at the popping of a small bubble of hope for an idyllic, idle summer, and joy, as she immediately began to start mentally furnishing her, long imagined, house of dreams.

They walked on in silence for a little longer, tracing their steps back back through the shadowy bower of the haunted wood, towards the Green Gables gate, each wrapped in delightful dreams of their future home. As they approached the lane, Anne stopped and turned to face Gilbert, unwilling to leave the privacy of their fern scented, pine clad bower for the open road.

"I suppose, since I must sacrifice you to Mr Harmon Andrews tomorrow, I had better bid you a lasting adieu." With that she wrapped her arms around Gilbert's neck and leant up to kiss him.

It was some minutes before they emerged from the trees into the lane. Gilbert lingered as the gate, as he so often did but, mindful of the day's labour on the morrow, and an implacable Mrs Lynde within, curtailed his stay. With a whispered promise to meet again at the same spot tomorrow evening, he dropped a light kiss on Anne's cheek before waving her off up the drive towards the lighted porch.

Anne raced up the drive, turning at the door to blow kisses towards the gate. Gilbert waved again, returning the kiss and, noting the twitching curtains, blew another in the direction of Mrs Rachel Lynde's parlour window. The curtains closed with a snap and Gilbert, chuckling softly to himself, turned on his heel and set off for home.