How do you tell a girl you're leaving after promising to stay? If you're Gilbert Blythe you don't. You choose to look on the bright side, trust in Providence and believe that same girl will be coming with you. It could happen. If anyone can conjure a miracle Anne Shirley can. This is what he tells himself; that Marilla will be cured and Anne will accept her job offer at the Echo. She can write just as easily at Redmond as she can in Avonlea. When he crosses the Strait in a month's time she may very well be sitting next to him.
He doesn't let himself think on that possibility -the two of them alone in Kingsport- he just spends the time they have before she goes to Charlottetown touching and tasting her as much as possible.
'Anyone would think I was never coming back- stop!' Anne shrieks, and kicks him away.
'Have I told you you have perfect feet?'
'Yes, about two minutes ago- Gil stop! I'm trying to read this-'
'And I'm trying to kiss your toes-'
'Well as owner of said toes I believe I have the last word on the matter. I think you'll find they're out of reach now.' As she says this Anne tucks her knees under herself, her toes peep from under the hem of her chemise.
'I dunno,' Gilbert says, running his hand over his jaw, 'I have awfully long fingers... and they can reach awfully far...'
He walks those fingers up her spine and into the ticklish dip between her shoulder and her neck. There is no way Anne can ignore that. She tosses the book aside and shuffles forward so that Gilbert overbalances and falls on his stomach. Taking her chance she pins him down, her thighs astride his, and blows raspberries all over his back. He giggles like a little boy and when he can stand no more twists round so that she finds herself sitting on his stomach. His hands grip her hard by the hips. When Anne tries to wriggle free she finds that she can't.
Sometimes she likes knowing how much stronger he is than her, sometimes she doesn't. And this is one of those times.
'Let go,' she says, not coldly, but with a tone that tells him she means it.
Gilbert loosens his hold, his hands out wide. 'Anne, I was messing, I'm sorry.'
'I don't like feeling trapped- I never have-'
'I know. I wasn't thinking- most girls like being teased.'
'Like Ruby, you mean?'
Anne slides off him and reaches for her book. It's a copy of Virgil with a letter from Marilla's doctor folded inside. Gilbert kneels alongside her. He brings his hand to his mouth, leans in close and pretends to whisper.
'I'm not one for kiss-and-tell, but I'll tell you this so long as you promise -promise- it goes no further.'
'I promise nothing,' Anne says, mildly.
'I'll take my chances,' Gilbert continues. 'Now I know this might come to a great shock to you, but me and Ruby Gillis? Nothing happened.'
Anne drops her book. 'But she said- scratch that, she says it all the time. Just yesterday she told me the only reason you saved me for last was because you like a challenge-'
'Saved you for last- what, like dessert?'
'If you mention plumpuffs then Virgil and I are going straight back home.'
'Well Virgil can leave anytime he likes.'
Anne shakes her head. Her damp hair brushes over her face and sticks to her cheeks. In high summer the stream is low but that didn't stop them getting sopping wet. Their clothes are on troll rock, their underwear on them. Anne's chemise is almost dry, one strap down by her elbow. She hitches it up impatiently and narrows her shining eyes.
'You are in a very strange mood today, Blythe. Telling secrets, insulting Virgil, what's got into you?'
For a moment he almost tells her:
I told my mother about taking the Avonlea school and she told me about Dr Lavendar. She's stashed away more than a thousand dollars, enough to pay for four years at Redmond.
He longs to say it out loud. Not only because he wants her to know but because his father, his easy-going, unassuming father, hasn't said a word all week. John Blythe's silent fury is another reason why Gilbert grabs every opportunity to take refuge in Anne.
'You're leaving, that's what's got into me.' As soon as he says it he regrets it and grabs the book from her lap and flicks through the pages. 'But if you'd rather wade through the Georgics-'
'I thought Dr Chowdury's letter might interest you at least. I like him, Gilbert. I can't imagine Dr Spencer describing point for point the surgical procedures involved in an iridectomy. But Dr Chowdury welcomes my questions. Promise you'll remember that when you become a doctor. Don't pat your patients on the head and tell them not to worry. A good doctor mustn't ration his knowledge.'
Gilbert nods absently, says as evenly as he can manage, 'What do you think... about me- wanting to be a doctor?'
'I think you'll do a sterling job in Anatomy class,' Anne jokes.
He shuts the book with a clap. 'Don't say that,' he says. 'Not you.'
'Why ever not?'
'Because you sound like everyone else and you're not.' He reaches for her hand, rubs her skin and names her bones in his head. 'You're real- this is real- what we have. And nothing can break it, right?'
Anne goes still as still; he can tell she is remembering the life she had before she came here. Then her brow furrows and she shakes her head again. 'I don't know -I don't,' she insists when she sees the look on Gilbert's face. 'You mustn't count on things not breaking, Gil. Things break all the time-'
'Not us,' he says, and clasps her hand, squeezing it almost roughly. 'We won't break.'
'Gilbert, what is it, are you worried I'll take the job and stay in Charlottetown? Because I won't. My life is here in Avonlea, with Marilla... with you...'
The words almost slip from his mouth again and because he hates lying he kisses her in such a way -slowly, softly, biting her bottom lip, caressing her neck- until he is sure there will be no more talking.
In the morning Anne leaves with Marilla and Martin, with courage in her heart and hopes held high. A week later she comes back frightened and defeated, and every hour after Gilbert wishes he had told Anne when he had the chance. Because how can he tell her now?
He might follow the example of Diana Barry, who is marching over to Green Gables with news of her own departure. She's finally resolved to take her teacher's licence and is leaving at the end of the month.
'I brought cake,' she says.
Anne smiles weakly and shuts the front door. 'Let's eat it out here. I don't want to disturb Marilla-'
'Oh darling, what happened? You've been back for two days and I haven't heard a peep. I thought perhaps I should leave you be, give Marilla some peace after such an ordeal. Then I heard Mrs Lynde was sent away. I knew for sure something must be wrong.'
Anne slumps on the porch step and gazes down the drive. Her eyes look sore from too much crying. Her voice is thin, squeezed from a throat that is swollen and raw. 'Wrong? That word is too small to describe these last few days. Do you want to know how I really feel? Punished-'
'Anne, don't say such things. God isn't punishing you-'
Anne looks at Diana coolly. 'Isn't he?'
'Of course not. Dearest, please, I think you should tell me what's happened. It won't do any good brooding like this.'
Anne stares out at the drive again. The lilies that line it hang their heads like white hooded pietas; she can almost make out their desolate wails. She feels Diana's hand clutch at hers. No, she doesn't feel it, she notices it. Her body has gone numb; her voice a mechanical drone as the whole sad truth comes out.
'It isn't glaucoma. Marilla has a growth- a- a small tumour pressing against her eyes. They noticed it when they were operating. When she came round from the ether they told her what they'd found. The specialist believes he can get at it but it means severing the optic nerves. If Marilla decides to have it removed she'll be permanently blind-'
'No- Anne-'
'It was such a mess, Di,' Anne cuts in, anxious to get it all out. 'Because I'd only just returned from the Echo. I arrived at the hospital fretting about how to tell her, while Marilla was lying there fretting about how to tell me, and Martin-'
'Tell her what? What happened at the paper?'
Anne begins to shake her head, slowly at first then with such vehemence the hair that remains in her bun comes loose and falls round her shoulders. 'They don't want me- they don't want me- oh, Diana, they don't want me...'
Fresh tears ensue. Diana pats Anne's hand and makes soothing noises, knowing all too well how much easier it is to grieve the small losses when the big ones overwhelm us.
'What do you mean they don't want you? I read the letter myself, they were practically fizzing with excitement, I don't understand.'
Anne takes a deep breath and forces herself to recall the scene. The flabbergasted faces of the Board members when they realised A. Shirley from Avonlea was a seventeen year old girl. Impossible, they said. Abominable. It wouldn't do at all. The Echo reported scandals, they didn't create them. Hiring a child, a girl, to write advice to single men? They would lose half their advertisers in a week! No self-respecting business would ever be associated with such impropriety. It was when Anne suggested she might assume an alias like Dr Lavendar that the room went silent. Mr Oliver stood up and ordered everyone out of the room.
'Care to expand on that last statement?'
'All I meant was if you can do it for Dr Lavendar why can't you do it for me?'
Robert Oliver strode over to Anne, slowly, as though measuring his words. 'Are you... blackmailing me, Miss Shirley?'
'I would never, this job means too much-'
'Then how is it you know the identity of Lavendar? Speak! Quickly now, because I am this close to throwing you onto the street.'
'Please no-' Anne pleaded. 'I know because I've been here before... In June. I delivered a letter-'
Robert Oliver's pouchy eyes went wide. 'You! You're the little secretary, the one who kept dropping her notebook, the- the- plumpuff!'
Anne nodded miserably. 'It was all a mistake, I never meant to intrude-'
Mr Oliver held up his hand signalling Anne to stop. 'I'm not interested in your story. A piece of work like you could make up anything. All I want to know is who you talked to after that. I want names and I want them now.'
A moment ago Anne wanted to dissolve into the floor. Then she heard his demand and the implication behind it. She rose to her feet, her chin rising with her.
'I told no one,' she retorted, 'and I never will. I didn't come here to trick you, Mr Oliver, I came because you asked me to!'
For the first time in a long time Robert Oliver took a backwards step.
'Then something strange happened, Di,' Anne says. Diana had been licking icing off her finger and it emerges from her lips with a pop. 'He laughed,' Anne tells her, 'he actually laughed. He said he hadn't met a girl with such spirit for years- decades- I forget which exactly- and then... he offered me a job!'
'The column?'
'No, I couldn't change his mind about that. He offered me a cadetship. He wants me to train as a journalist, said if I could inviegle my way into the board room of the largest newspaper in Charlottetown I could get in anywhere. He said I was smart as a tack-'
'You are-'
'Brave as a bear-'
'That too-'
'And unafraid to speak the truth. He told me in all his years he'd yet to meet that mix in any man, let alone a seventeen year old girl.'
'Goodness,' Diana gasps, 'what did you say?'
Anne looks sidelong at her friend. 'I'm ashamed to admit I said I would think about it. Then just before I left he asked for the sample of writing I was supposed to bring. So I gave it to him, I don't know why, by that time all I could think of was getting back to Marilla.'
'Oh darling, it's not fair, it's not- you deserve this chance, you've already given up so much. To think you could have been moving to Charlottetown with me! It's not fair, it's not, it's not!'
The same words have been echoing through Anne's head for the last five days. But as soon as she hears Diana say them she is suddenly compelled to make light of it all.
'It doesn't matter, not really, the cadetship is just some new fancy, I'll forget about it soon enough. It's Marilla I care about. I truly believed I could save her, Diana. If I'd only tried harder, paid more attention, instead of distracting myself with... other things.
For reasons best known to herself it's at this moment that Diana chooses to mention Gilbert. 'He offered up a prayer at Prayer Meeting yesterday. He hasn't done that for ever so long.'
'Gil knows -about Marilla?'
'No one knows,' Diana says carefully, 'we only suspect that something about the operation didn't turn out the way it was supposed to. Don't worry, darling. If anyone is allowed to hide at home and lick their wounds it's you. Though,' she cautions, 'I might invite Mrs Lynde back as soon as you can manage it. You know if she's excluded from something it's all she wants to talk about.'
'It wasn't me who turned Mrs Lynde away, it was Marilla. She turns everyone away -even Martin.'
'Anne,' Diana says, shyly, 'I don't mean to pry but are... Martin and Marilla courting?'
Anne lowers her head and shrugs. 'I used to think so. Now... I don't know- I don't know anything anymore.'
Diana wraps her arms around her friend and hugs her fiercely. 'Oh sweetheart, I just hate to leave you at such a time, I feel so awful-'
'Please don't,' Anne begs, 'you mustn't ever feel sorry for following your dreams. My place is in Avonlea and all things considered it's a rather wonderful place to be. The only thing that matters is Marilla. I want to help her, Di, only... I don't know how.'
'Then you've forgotten the most important thing about Marilla Cuthbert,' Diana says. 'She doesn't take help from anyone.'
Martin Rossi appears to have forgotten that, too. He arrives not long after Diana leaves and finds Anne sitting on the porch, tracing swirls in the icing of uneaten cake. Anne licks her finger absently and gives a start. She hasn't eaten much these past few days; the chocolate is so sweet it makes her wince. Martin notes her expression and takes off his old felt hat. They stare at each the way people who have shared a crisis do. His smudgy brown eyes are remarkably lucid. He presses his lips together, then he clears this throat, steeling himself to speak.
'I don't care what she says this time, Anne, I aim to see Marilla and I'm not leavin' till I do.'
'She's sleeping at the moment, Martin.'
Martin stamps his foot. 'Sleepin' my eye!' he fumes. 'I don't believe you and I don't understand any of it. She went for that operation with a smile on her face, then she comes out and refuses to speak to me. I spent hours in that hospital corridor, days, just waiting to hear one word. It ain't right her cuttin' me off like this, I don't even know what I've done. Well I mean to find out. I'm not leavin', not till she talks to me. You hear me, Marilla Cuthbert,' he yells up at her window, 'I ain't leavin'!'
That Martin has never spoken so many words to Anne is shocking enough, that he speaks them with such passion leaves her speechless.
'Now the cat's got your tongue, too,' he says, kicking at the red dirt under his boots. 'The world really has gone catawumpus when Anne Shirley ain't got somethin' to say.'
Anne's handes twitch and she shifts away from the chocolate cake. 'Mr Rossi, I know this is hard-'
'Hard?' His rumbly voice catches on the word and he looks for something else to kick. 'Do you know what these past days have been like for me? And there's no one I can talk to, not one.'
'Please,' Anne tries again, 'I can't tell you anything about Marilla, not if she doesn't want you to know. But you can talk to me if you like. In fact,' she says, attempting lightheartedness, 'I'd say there's never been a better time. Seeing as I have nothing to say there's a fair chance you'll get a word in edgewise.'
He doesn't need convincing. He sits down and he tells her, just like that, while the sun hits the cake and turns its chocolate peaks to an oily brown slick. Revealing how he'd held a tiny candle for Marilla Cuthbert ever since William Bell accused him of letting the cows into the cabbage patch. Marilla had stormed out of Lawsons and gave William Bell what for. No one had ever stood up for Martin Rossi before. He walked away with his head held high and for the next five years contented himself with admiring Marilla from afar.
'To know there was such a woman in the world was more than enough for me. It wasn't till after the storm that I realised what a big heart she has... To tell the truth it near broke me. Not because we lost the house, that old heap meant nothin' to me 'cept that it was mine. It's womenfolk who make a home but it's menfolk must provide 'em, Anne. Man can't call himself a man till he can give a woman that. So there I was, lost everythin', yet Marilla saw somethin' of worth in me -as a friend, you understand?'
'Better than you know,' Anne murmurs. 'But you were hoping for more than that, I think?'
Martin begins to mangle his hat. 'Just liked bein' in her company. Though it's more than I deserve. See, I know I'm no farmer, nor a builder, I ain't even much of a father. There's nothin' I can offer Marilla, nothin' I'm really good at-'
'Martin, that's not true-' Anne cuts in. She takes his hat from him and squeezes his hand, encouragingly. 'You're good at the one thing that truly matters... You're good at loving her.'
Martin gives Anne a startled look and goes an ugly shade of red. 'Even if that was true, it ain't true any longer. If I was any good at... what you say,' he mumbles, 'she'd see me, wouldn't she, instead of shuttin' me out?' His hand digs into his pocket and he pulls out a crumpled envelope. 'I was plannin' on readin' this to her, even if I had to stand outside her window to do it. She still has her bandages on, I suppose?'
Anne nods mutely, surprised Martin could know this. Marilla's bandages were supposed to come off three days ago but she refuses to let anyone touch them.
'Will you read it to her then?' Martin asks. 'It's nothin' more'n I told you. I just wanted her to know I don't care what those doctor's told her. She's perfect, Anne. Perfect to me.'
He drops the letter on the porch and shuffles down the drive. Anne waits until she hears the click of the gate latch, then she picks up the chocolate cake, lifts it above her head, and smashes it onto the path. It's not enough. Fresh anger pulses through her. She yearns to scream, longs to run; feel the blood in her body pump through her limbs not pool around her heart. All she can think of is going to Matthew, but that means walking by the Blythe place and there is no way Anne is doing that.
Why, why, when Mrs Blythe was so bent on helping everyone else, why did she never try to help Marilla? And where was Gilbert? Why was he offering prayers when he should be here, with her, vowing to stay by her side?
Anne stares up the drive again but there is no sound of boots sprinting up the lane, no lazy whistle to tell her he is here. She falls on her knees, collects the shattered cake then trudges to the pigpen and dumps it into the trough. The walk back to the house feels twenty miles long and she leans against the backdoor till her shoulder starts to ache. Memories come, of Martin with the goffering iron, Dora making tea, Marilla piecing a quilt together, and herself with a dandelion in one hand and a pen in the other.
Anne never believed she could feel so forlorn in her own home, and she falls onto the kitchen sofa and lets out a low lost wail.
'Where are you-where are you-where are you-,' she cries.
She doesn't know it, but she isn't calling for Gilbert. Or Matthew, or Diana, or Mrs Blythe, or even God. Perhaps only the white lilies know Anne is calling to herself, and the dreams that have shrunk so small she can't see them anymore.
...
Thank you so much for reading :o)
