Hi everyone!
Thanks so much for the words of support on last weeks non canonical modern day slant on the story.
This week is like it again... I did have a little bit of inspiration on it.
I think it was the BBC Version in the 70s which had Gilbert go with Anne to Bolingbrook. I didn't like the reason he was with her in that story line, and I didn't like that production in particular (Although Kudos's for their Phillipa Gordon she was a cracker!) but I did like that he was there. So I reworked it a little, hopefully it all seems a bit more natural that he's there and he's not just imposed on the situation (which to me is how it felt in the BBC 70s version) BUT I wanted this to be part of their bonding process and for him to be privy to that part of her (for obvious reasons in the future) So Yeah hope you all enjoy!
Love Carrots
"Ah!" Gilbert exclaimed as they sat in on their seat on the train. "Not that I haven't enjoyed it, but going home is so good!" He said with a smile to Anne.
"Well you know what they say about home being where your heart is." She said with a grin to him.
"Not to mention my mother's apple crumble!" he exclaimed happily.
"What is it with you and those apples!?" Anne said sitting next to him
"My Great Great Great Great grandfather planted that orchard full of strawberry apples. My Great Great Grandpa who I was named after loved them too, I guess its genetic!" he said with a grin to Anne.
"You know your family history, that's amazing." She said with a smile.
"Well there was the family bible in the attic, my family really has been all way way round the island and back again, before they ended up in the same house all over again. There are diaries up there, and stories one of my ancestors wrote, apparently, she was quite the writer with a huge imagination." He smiled.
"Have you never read them?" she asked him.
"Just haven't got round to it." He admitted. "But my dad used to pull out this family bible and pointed out everyone and everything to me, its really quite detailed. "Except my great great grandpa, his first name is only S. Blythe in it, and his mother who Gilbert was married to was listed as Mrs A. Blythe isn't that funny?" he said with a smile to her.
Anne shrugged "Maybe S's name was a girls name." She laughed.
"Anyway he was a pilot in world war one…"
"Oh then his military record should have his full first name on it!" she exclaimed.
Gilbert smiled as he realised "You know it should!" he said "I'll have to look into that I bet my dad would get a thrill from that!"
"So he was in the war?" she asked.
"Yeah." Gilbert smiled, "he never really settled in one place, had my grandpappy all the way round the island and back." He said with a smile "so he knew family had been in Avonlea at one time or another and the very farm they had sold off was up for sale, so grandpappy bought it, became a farmer said it was in his blood, my dad likewise."
"But not yours?" Anne said with a smile.
"I think I take after who I was named after, he was a doctor too."
"S. Blythe's dad?" she asked.
"Right." He agreed.
"Well, Blythe by name…" Anne agreed.
"Tickets please?" The conductor came round. "To Bolingbrook?" The conductor asked.
"Oh?" Gilbert asked. "Can I see?" he asked. "Yes, apparently, we have a stop over for four hours there before our next train to the port." Gilbert sighed.
"Bolingbrook?!" She exclaimed.
"Do you know it?" he asked her.
"Yes, its where I was born, I lived there the first three years of my life, its where my…" she trailed suddenly going serious.
"Your mom and dad are buried?" he asked.
"yeah." She said quietly.
"We could… we could go and try and find them?" Gilbert asked her.
Anne looked at him bright eyed. "Really?!" she exclaimed.
"We have four hours." He shrugged, "can't think of anything better to do." He said with a smile.
"Any idea where?" he asked.
"Um yeah." She said, "The Presbyterian graveyard."
Gilbert nodded, "okay…" He said to her with a soft smile "That's what we'll do."
"Can I help you?" The Presbyterian minister asked as he saw Gilbert looking gravestone to gravestone.
"Um, Yes, We're looking for the graves of… Sorry I don't know their first names, last name 'Shirley', they died around 2003…" he started.
The minsters eyes looked up at him in a stare "We've had no one look for them in a long time. Bertha and Walter." He said quietly.
"Gil I can't.." Anne interrupted first from afar but then she walked closer with the tulips in her hand Gilbert had bought in a passing flower shop and looked to the minister "I should have known you'd make friends with the locals." She smiled
The minister looked to Anne his eyes wide his mouth ajar a looking at her. "It can't be!" he exclaimed looking at Anne.
"Do, I.. do I know you?" Anne asked the minister with the look on her face which made Gilbert think she had a vague recollection of the man.
"You're Anne, Anne their daughter!" he exclaimed looking at her.
"You know me!" she exclaimed.
"I did, you were only a baby, three years old..." he exclaimed, "Good heavens you look just like your mother!" he told her.
Anne jaw dropped for a moment before tears welled in her eyes "Really?!" she asked. "You knew them? My mom and dad, you knew them?"
"Yes!" he claimed "Just like your mother…" he trailed, "Except that hair, that's like your dad's." Anne nervously laughed before the minister spoke. "Your parents were buried in the newer section of the graveyard." The minister said to them leading them down a path. "I remember your dad sweethearted your mother in one of the nature parks not far from here," he told them "your mother loved nature always found her in the oddest of places, up trees in corn fields, laying in the grass, one day she went missing she'd only gone for a hike."
Gilbert smiled and whispered to Anne "Sounds like someone else I know." He told her.
"But when I remembered how much she loved nature it only seemed fitting to bury them here." He said showing them to a tree with a small plaque under it.
Gilbert smiled at Anne and held his hand open to her indicating to her to go. "I'll be right here." He told her with a smile as she went towards the grave.
He started to walk with the minister to give Anne her privacy. "Thank you for helping." He said politely.
"Oh no, that's okay." The minister said, "Me and my wife, we took Anne in for a few days after it happened."
"oh?" Gilbert asked looking at him.
"She was too little to understand they weren't coming back, when she cried she did it so quietly, calling for her muma." The minister cracked. "I wish we could have kept her but we didn't…"
"you don't need to defend your position, at least not to me." Gilbert told him. He went to speak then shut up again.
"What is it?" The minister asked.
"Well it was 2003, not the dark ages, do you know anyone who might have any pictures of her parents, anything? I know she'd appreciate it." Gilbert asked.
The minister nodded. "Well, there are still a couple of their friends living in town, I can ask around for you."
"Here," Gilbert said pulling out his mobile phone "let me give me, my e-mail address and number let me know what happens, I'd like it to be a surprise for Anne."
The minister smiled pulling out his own phone "sure," he said, "Sorry I didn't catch your name?" he asked.
"Gilbert Blythe, Minster." He said respectively.
"Okay…" The minster said.
"its 902-291-9116." Gilbert said.
"Thank you son." He said with a smile to Gilbert. "It's really nice to see her again." He said then looked at Anne then to Gilbert again "She's very lucky to have a boyfriend like you."
Gilbert turned and looked at the minister to object, but couldn't find it in him to object before he saw Anne stand-up "I better get back to her." Gilbert said gently. "Thank you minister, I mean it I think you've made Anne's day."
He went back over to Anne as the minister walked away into the church and stood beside her.
"Hey." He whispered.
"Hi." She whispered. She read the plaque "Walter and Bertha Shirley Beloved parents and teachers." She read. "They were teachers." She repeated.
"yeah." He smiled.
"That's good." She nodded.
"Yeah." He agreed. He looked to her and saw she was crying heavily "do you need a hug?" he asked her.
"Yes please." She cried turning into him before he knew it she was snugging beneath his chin breathing heavily into him and his t-shirt was wet. His arms wrapped tenderly around her. He knew not to say anything words never needing saying in grief they were felt. He knew becoming friends with Anne would be intense, but if he'd learnt anything this summer it was she felt everything to its limit! Love and Hate, pleasure and pain, Anger and kindness, everything! Gilbert wasn't sure how long they'd been standing there for before the minister came to them again.
"I'm sorry to interrupt." He said to them kindly, "its just I went looking and, we have your Christening on record, I can show it to you, if you like?" he said to them.
"Oh yes please!?" Anne exclaimed a smile returning to her face.
The minister pulled out a paper handkerchief and gave it to Anne. "Sorry." He said to her "Occupational hazard." He said with a chuckle. To which Anne laughed sweetly, the minister looked to her again "Sorry, you really are so much like your mother!" he said shaking his head.
They went into the office "it seems like yesterday they brought you in here." The minister said, "Your father was quite insistent you be called 'Anne'" he smiled "and he was sure it was spelt with an 'e'"
Gilbert grinned at Anne as she gasped for a second "I always do!" she said with a bite of her lip.
"He said it looked more…"
"Eloquent." Anne said with a smile to the minister who said it at the same time. "Well it does!" she exclaimed. She looked down at the baptism papers "Is that their signatures?" She asked him, to which he nodded and smiled.
"Can we have a copy of this?" Gilbert asked the minister.
"Oh yes can I?" She asked him.
"Of course." He agreed.
The two were walking back towards the train station where Anne stopped suddenly. "I know this path." She said looking at the ground then up in front of them. "Do we have the time of another stop?" she asked him.
He looked at his phone for a second then nodded. "Another hour and a half before our train." He nodded. "Sure." He agreed. "we just need to make sure we swing by that shop before we leave to get some food."
She pulled him going down the path quickly she pulled him into some trees "Um Anne?" He questioned. "Do you know where we are going?" he asked her.
"I think so!" She told him going faster the tree branches nearly hitting him in the face "Oh Sorry!" Anne whispered to him.
"no, its okay." He told her "I don't need my eyesight to become a doctor or anything." He joked as she laughed with him, before the woods opened to a clearing. "Wow!" he exclaimed looking around as her hand dropped his. The trees hid a small grove almost covered by trees, the sunbeams coming down through the branches and a long beam of light hit the middle of the brook running through the centre of the grove. Leaves from the tree lay on the ground different colours of greens and reds filled the grove the bubbling brook giving peace to the spot.
"My mom brought me here." She said her breathing unsteady as she looked in front of her. "She'd sit on the ground right there, we had a picnic blanket it was chequered red and white." She smiled "See those rocks over there? Going across the brook?" she grinned further walking over to them stepping on them. She used to tell me not to go across but I'd stand on this one anyway." She laughed.
'Anne, baby girl.' She remembered 'that's dangerous sweetheart come away.' Her mother's face was fuzzy Anne couldn't remember everything, she could remember her spiral curls were in two bunches of pigtails off her face she was wearing a blue and green playsuit.
'not dangerous!' her younger self called back 'water!' she called playfully.
"She scooped me up and we'd have pumpkin pie in our picnic." Anne said taking Gilbert's hand coming down off the rock and walking over to where Anne said the picnic blanket had been sitting on the ground.
Gilbert looked to her his eyebrows knotted "You aren't sad." He observed.
"I was happy." She said softly.
"I love you Anne, my baby girl."
"Why would I be sad about it?" She asked him.
Gilbert looked to her and took her hand "You are an amazing women Anne Shirley." He whispered.
"Thanks." She said back. "You know, the house I lived in, I'm sure wasn't far from here." She said confused looking around. "A little cottage," she said, "it was white with a yellow door. It had lavender growing in the window box and it was covered with leaves… of some kind." She said as if the memory was fading.
"Any idea which way?" he asked her.
"That way." She said pointing in a seemingly odd direction.
Gilbert stood up and put out his hand for her "Come on then." He said.
She smiled at him taking his hand "You're taking the word of the memories of a three-year-old girl." She said to him.
"I know the seventeen-year-old women she grew into." He said to her. "I trust her." He shrugged. Before he knew it she was being pulled up river by her until they came to said cottage no doubt about it, a yellow door with lavender in a window box by the kitchen window. "That's some power of recall there." He said with a grin.
"Thanks." She breathed. "The road we came off runs up there, she said pointing up the drive. I think…" she shrugged.
"Well you've not been wrong so far." He smiled.
'Daddy!' she heard herself called. 'Your home!' she exclaimed. "You made the pennies?'
"I made the pennies." He told her kissing the little image of her there. Anne looked towards the door. "Hello sweet Bertha." Her father said kissing her mother.
"How was your day?" Bertha asked him.
"Nothing my girls can't fix."
Anne smiled at the imagine "my home." She whispered. She squeezed Gilbert's hand. "Thank you for bringing me here Gil." She whispered.