You asked for it...
CHAPTER XX -Gilbert Speaks
April 12th, Glenaeon Street
I've finally been let go. Though I know what it will cost me I can't say but that I'm relieved. These last months I have felt like a length of willow in another man's hands, bending and bowing to impulses I have no control of. I know now I am not made to take another's man's orders. I must make my own way in the world. If I am to become a doctor -and I mean to- I won't be forging a career in a hospital or sanatorium. It must be my own practice or nothing.
I could do good work, I know I could. Living in this quarter of Kingsport has opened my eyes to a kind of poverty that keeps the good women of the Ladies Aid rightfully zealous. Mother was skeptical about my taking a room at Glenaeon Street -a boarding house run by a man! Is the food wholesome, are your sheets laundered, are you warm enough, Gilbert? Needless to say I don't let her know how warm I am. I can't remember the last time I shut my window, which is a piece of luck considering. The frame is so eaten away with woodworm I believe the glass sits inside it through sheer force of will.
I would come home from the midnight shift and wonder who would give way first, that window or myself. It is a small sort of victory to be fired rather than having to quit. But that MacDonald made work at the Express a misery. Whenever I saw his silhouette inside the manager's office I knew fresh trouble was about to be visited upon me. The lines would jam, the ink would run out, the typeface would be rearranged -he was pitifully unimaginative there. What fun I could have had with yesterday's headline:
Lovely Lucy to live in sin! How it cried out to be: Coy soul inventively ill!
The poor girl only wanted to annul her marriage to a criminal and and marry another man. She said she would rather die of shame than a broken heart. I once thought such sentiment the stuff of fairytales -or kind of novels Anne reads. But now I wonder.
I wonder.
I wonder.
I am so weary of wondering. Which makes me the last man to understand Anne. But I want to. Lord help me, I want to. I want every piece of her. The infinite mystery, the infinite combinations. Every day she is new to me and every day I don't see her is another Anne I will never know.
Heavenly lone iris.
Confound it. I won't let a thug like MacDonald decide my fate, there has to be another way to pay for school next year. I won't lose her now.
Later...
Promising, but not yet certain. The manager of the Daily News was confident there would be a full time place for me this summer though he could not confirm it until after Convocation. By a stroke of Providence it wasn't my skills in the printing room that impressed him so much as my ability to stick it out at the Express. There is no love lost between those two papers, and though there is not much to separate them in terms of content and ethos I can at least depend upon an absence of weasels.
... ... ...
April 14th, Patty's Place -preening prettily for the Redmond Reception
My gown is complete, and Ady it's a dream! I never envisaged such a glorious transformation, but rather suspected that Phil-of-a-Phil would cut the neckline even lower! What she has managed to do, if she ever tires of mathematics she could make a very good living as a seamstress ~although my idea of good living and her idea of good living... Well I suppose I shall see first hand what her aspirations are built upon. Next week I shall be at Mount Holly, and utterly determined to give those Bluenoses a lesson in Island style.
Thank goodness I didn't give into viciousness and have it taken apart. Gorgeous green silk, it wasn't your fault that you didn't fit in Avonlea. Like myself, all you needed was some good old fashioned improving upon. Now the dress doesn't insist itself so much as whisper in your ear. Phil has made the loveliest shift of ivory chiffon to wear over it. I was glad she persuaded me to have the sleeves removed, the sheer fabric over my arms makes the dress both fresh and delicate. I feel like a fairy ~even better, a bloom. A lone iris, born aloft in tall greenness and bursting forth in pale, filmy petals. Quite the thing for a student who came top of English and has been invited to write for the Rave by Dr Kent. And quite the thing for the last Redmond reception of this rather miraculous year. All I need now is someone to tell me if my ends are all tucked in ~and a way to get through this evening so that the only thing that burns into me is candle-light.
… … …
April 15th, Glenaeon St
She was... she was... she was...
There I was thinking how glad I am to have kept up the habit of writing if only because it gave me a place to linger awhile in Anne. And now I am here looking at my journal knowing there is nothing, no word, that ever could convey her loveliness.
I recognised the dress immediately as the one she wore to a party one winter in Avonlea. The one where I drank too much cider, and suffered a sore head and a sorer pride for days after. This time I stayed clear of the refreshment table, but as always I couldn't stay clear of Anne. She was... she is...
Writing won't do. Apologies, Blythe, when you come to this page in the hope of another glimpse of her but my hands are only good for one thing tonight.
... ... ...
April 15th, Patty's Place -too tired to find a light, I write by a sliver of moon...
...and Gilbert looked as usual handsome self. You will laugh, Ady, but there was a moment when he was dancing with Vivienne Moore when I didn't recognise him. Gilbert. Who is one of my oldest chums in the world. There was something different about him tonight, as though he held a secret to himself, instead of just legions of adoring co-eds. I found myself wondering who he was, when before I could define him by the tiniest of details ~to the colours in his eyes. Do you know what they remind me of? The leaves of a tree gone from green to gold to brown. What I like the least is when they go black, when I feel as though he would devour me. All he said was how lovely my dress looked, nothing that a dozen others hadn't said. Yet I felt as though I stood in the room wearing nothing at all.
I'm just tired. I know I promised to write of the midnight ramble I took with my history chums ~and of Millicent Johns falling into the fountain~ but I believe I am good for only one thing tonight. And that I will find in my sweet little bed.
... ... ...
April 17th, Glenaeon Street
I have it! I have been offered that job with the Daily News. Not only as a printer, but a field reporter. The thought of being out in the world instead of confined to the basement makes the loss of an Avonlea summer somewhat easier to bear. Tomorrow I am to view a new room, one that Charlie wants to sublet so as not to lose it next year to another fellow. Apparently there is a little snub nosed co-ed who resides in the house next door.
I feel like I can breathe again, not only because I have secured my future at Redmond, but also a future with Anne. There is still enough light left for one last ramble with her. And if my luck continues, as I somehow believe it will, I might find a spray of Mayflowers on the way.
… … …
April 17th, Patty's Place
I had no choice. He gave me no choice.
We could have gone on pretending. I am good at it, or used to be. Constructing new worlds.
But I don't know how to build this one. I don't even want to.
Will I ever forget the look on his face?
There is no word, nothing, to express my desolation.
... ... ...
April 18th, Glenaeon Street
Agreed to room. The fourth floor, which means I will likely have it to myself. It is two dollars a month more, but I can walk to work. I can walk.
Must write to Father. Tell him I have the job. And to sell Domino, he will never to take to a plough. Then we can hire the Buotes for harvest.
Must write to Father. Fred. Must reply to Fred. And sleep.
Blythe, do this. One word after the other.
... ... ...
April 19th, Patty's Place
If I can't build a new world let me at least stretch time. Let that second when I first wake last throughout the day so that I never have to remember what has happened. I keep expecting him to appear, for a letter to arrive, for something. Anything but this.
How can you want this, Gilbert? How can you prefer this? How can you walk away?
Don't you care for me at all?
How could you say that to me? When our friendship has been one of the truest joys of my life. Please, I just want it back.
... ... ...
April 21st, Mayberry Road
Kingsport is emptying for the summer and I am relieved. Tomorrow she goes to Bolingbroke and I never have to think of her. Then perhaps I can sleep. It's the streetcars. The sound of them echoes off the houses as they run up and down the road. I just need to get used to this. Then I can sleep.
... ... ...
April 22nd, Patty's Place
He never wrote me and he never came. I heard he took up a new place on Mayberry Road, but I don't know where. I can't get used to this world where Gilbert is a stranger to me. I used to know everything about him and suddenly I know nothing. I keep hearing the girls laugh and thinking he is here.
It seems impossible that he meant it, that when he said goodbye he never wanted to see me again. I want to shake him, I want to crack something else over his head. He can't really love me. He can't. If he did he would never have done this. I can't comprehend his ridiculous pride.
Your friendship can't satisfy me, Anne.
Perhaps we were never friends. I keep looking back on everything we've done together through the ugly, disfiguring light of that moment. I saw that look on his face and I knew what he was about to say. Don't, I begged him, please don't.
But you can't tell Gilbert Blythe.
I wish I had never gone out to the orchard. I wish he'd never come. I wish we could go back to how we were. I am living in yesterday. He put me there. And I can't forgive him.
... ... ...
April 23rd, Mayberry Road
She's gone. Into the bosom of Bluenoses and their rarefied delights. Maybe now I can sleep. I haven't closed me eyes for more than two hours together since that other life I lived. I ache to return to the printing room to do work that requires nothing more than pulling levers, or better yet, nothing less than my absolute concentration. Instead I spend most of my time outside courts, halls, wharves waiting for someone to talk to me when my head is already crammed with words. If I write now it is only because I cannot endure being taunted by them for another second. I never want to read it, only purge it from my heart.
You won't believe me, Anne, but I never intended to propose. It was the moment you told me you were going to Bolingbroke instead of going home that I began to be afraid. The fear took me over like a fever, all I could think of was what I would lose not what I could give you. I couldn't let you go until you promised to me mine. I'm so angry with myself. And with you. Because you know, Anne, you know, and you want me to go on pretending. But I'm not a prince in your story.
If I had my chance again I would offer you my dreams. Instead I begged.
Things can't go on. Give me some hope. Is there anybody else. Promise me.
Every day my words lacerate me, and every night your words are like salt on my skin.
I can never love you. Never speak of this again.
What should I say to you? What sort of man should I be?
I don't know how to wake in the morning and not think of you. I don't know how to sleep without seeing you each night. I don't know who to strive for, who to prove myself to. I don't know how to live in our world without you, Anne.
The End
... ... ...
To everyone who wrote to me, the loyal crew, the anonymous guests, and everyone in between please let me thank you. This story has been a very different beast to write. I knew when I took it on there would be little comic relief (Come back, Charlie Sloane!) so the fact you hung around for the heartbreak makes me think that sometimes at least I knew what I was doing.
This last scene is so iconic, it was almost scary to try and write about it. All I wanted was to do justice to the complicated, fragile and raw feelings people have when they dare to fall in love. Because falling in love is an act of courage. And it's this I want to write about.
If any of you are wondering if I will continue with RD3, I don't know. Yes, I know it's cruel to leave the story here, but do you really want to see Anne fall for someone else? Do you really want to see Gilbert watch? I think I could make a good fist of Roy and Christine, but I'm just not sure if it makes a good story.
Let me know what you think, about any of it. This chapter too, did it make sense? It couldn't make too much sense, but it had to be coherent -so please say if there was something weird that I didn't notice. If you are wondering about the repetition of words and phrases that Gilbert and Anne both use that was intentional, but anything else I would LOVE to know.
I will say that it says everything I wanted it to. But then I have been writing to music -just like you said, Jenn- so perhaps it hasn't translated as well as I hoped.
Gilbert's music is Infra 5 by Max Richter (strings). Anne's is I Giorni* by Ludovico Einaudi (piano). It is music that not only expresses their character, but expresses what they feel whenever they see or think of one another.
The music to this last chapter was inspired by another iconic 'car crash' scene -Darcy's Letter by Jean-Yves Thibaudet (strings and piano)
*Fangirl Alert. There is another arrangement of I Giorni, an andante by Daniel Hope, that also has both strings and piano which I listen to whenever I think of Anne and Gilbert finally reuniting. Because that's how I roll...
:o)