The characters are created by LM Montgomery, and are her property... the original characters & storyline are unique to this story are copyright 2021, by Nell Lime.
Author's Note:
I took some time off work yesterday afternoon, and wrote a lot (advantages of owning your own business), and got ahead to chapter 30 for the first draft. I'm trying to stay constantly ahead and the aim is 60 chapters total according to my outline. Thank you for reading and reviewing and sharing your reactions :D I'm trying to get as far ahead as possible so the posting schedule can be maintained even if work gets busier soon, or if possible to increase the # of chapters per week.
Oz Diva - Yes! Fred has no idea of what's coming up and keep your eye out for it in a couple of weeks… And I'm very tempted to end the story with Davy's birthday party as the final chapter. We'll see. But yes he really should have a birthday party without Dora, just the fellas. Not even Anne will be allowed. It should come towards the end, or at the end... we'll see...
— Gilbert —
Sunday June 20th, 8:30am
Boarding House, Brookfield, Nova Scotia
I woke groggy eyes, my throat parched, and my bladder and intestines ready to burst. "Anne…" I also felt weak, more so then when I'd fallen asleep. We were in a hotel, or boarding house I thought as I tried to piece together. Only my dreams of her had not been innocent, but rather more graphic then normal, and in my dreams she'd fought me, as though she didn't love me, though I'd cringed to the fading hope. I knew I'd have to let go of my dream of Anne Blythe Even in my dream she'd begged me to stop, to… She'd rushed to me, lovely in her green dress. "Water." She helped me sit up, drink, and then moved the chamber pot. It was just a nightmare. She was still here, I hadn't...
She'd set it by the side of the bed, nodded and slipped out of the room. I managed to get on it. Barely. I felt so weak, and sore, and ached all over. Nothing would move though. My bladder was willing to empty, but constipation ruled. So she'd returned at some point finding me still sitting there, my energy about spent trying to push things out.
"Gil?" She knelt before me. "Do you need anything? I probably should change the sheets."
I'd at least sat with my nightshirt covering everything including the chamber pot, so I wasn't completely exposed. "Constipated." I managed. "Just need to keep…"
"Gil." She flushed prettily as she worked on the sheets. "One of the sets of Hammond twins were always constipated, or full of gas. I always had to massage things out. Feed them plums when we could get them, Or warm water to…"
"No." Absolutely not with my recent dreams!
"Well, I was trying to help." She rolled her eyes. "I think you're worse trouble then the Hammond Twins. Well, maybe not all three sets combined. I'll set up another bath for you and leave you to see to it on your own."
She'd then finished stripping the bed finding the billfold under the pillow where I'd slipped it from habit, though I hadn't remembered doing so. Sometimes I kept just the photo, other times the wallet too. I… the dreams were strangely merging with the nightmare of reality. I didn't keep it there in my dreams. I had my Anne-Girl. She didn't open it, instead raised one eyebrow at me, and placed it on the dresser as she stripped the bed to change the sheets.
Anne finished making the bed, without a crease, when she'd picked up the billfold. "Gil, we probably should combine funds. If we want to get you home." She'd not waited for me to respond and began to empty it, pulling out her own purse and dumping the funds. I know she'd find her ring then. But I was too exhausted and too much in pain to speak. I prayed she would not noticed the lining sewed shut with the ring. Or her picture. She found the picture.
It's worn, an old one from her queen's graduation. But still I can recognize her face in it.
"Gil..."
"I..." I gulp. "I sleep with your photo under my pillow. Bad habit. Started as Charlie threw a fit when we moved into our boarding room freshmen year and saw I had it on the night stand. I... I hid it under the pillow after that. Don't sleep well without it now. Trying to break the habit, but I missed my Anne-Girl and I guess, I've my own rooms now, I can put your picture on the night stand now, or one of us…"
Anne glared at me, then flushed red before slowly nodding and slipping just the photo under the pillow. "Fine, I… I'll count the funds later. Let's get you washed. I'll get you one of my more recent photos but not under the pillow."
She'd filled the hip bath with hot water, then coming to me shook her head, and lifted me off the chamber pot, and leaned me over her to half drag me to the hot water where she helped me lower into it, night shirt and all. She'd then informed me she expected me to relax as she talked about the Hammond twins, keeping her back to me. She told me various stories about tending them. The first set were girls, the second boy and girl and the third were boys. The third set had problems with their intestines, and the worst diapers. Then after about twenty minutes she started to lead me back to the chamber pot, my soaking night shirt dripping on the wooden floor and my bare feet. She'd only let me move two steps before she'd turned, bit her lower lip and keeping her face on mine, she'd reached down and removed my night shirt, handed me the towel and maneuvered me back to the chamber pot. I don't think either of us would stop blushing. And were I not in such pain I would have…
I could feel things moving now a little. And groaned suddenly as I felt things push through little, with a loud burst of gas into the pot below me. She'd glanced towards me then, her eyes briefly glancing at my chest that only a month ago had been broad with muscles. Now, from exhaustion, I'd lost much of it. She suddenly touched my right lower rib cage. "Gil, you've a rash. Like rose colored spots."
Modesty was rotten as I began to feel my heart race. I quickly glanced down, only the towel covering me like a loin cloth there on my chest, rose spots. Typhoid. I gulped and saw her staring at my eyes. "Typhoid."
"Gil?"
"It's Typhoid." I held my tongue out. "Any fuzziness?"
"Yes." I could see the fear I felt forming on her face. "Gil… we should have a Doctor."
"No." I motioned to my bag, this wasn't a dream. Suddenly the memories of running into her on the train. Being sick. Her tending me. The dreams. I hadn't… I wanted to be sick again, but forced it from my mind, medical first. "Notebook. We had a Typhoid epidemic. There were no new cases. They sent me home. Worried I'd catch the next thing being so…" I tried to push out the hardened stool.
She rushed back, kneeing in her green skirt before me. Opening it to stare at my careful notes of the patients, the symptoms, and the notes from the textbooks I'd read on it, between final exams, graduation, and doing all I could to drown out the rumors of her engagement to Roy Gardiner. "Write my symptoms. I… I hadn't thought to check myself." I'd wanted to get it. To die. To not have to live in a world where I didn't have my Anne-Girl. My Carrots. Even I didn't dare call her Carrots to her face usually. Not when there was something to smash on my head.
"Little Anne…" Her finger traced along the last line. "Little Anne. Dead 3:50am."
I felt tears form. "She was only five. Anne. She had chestnut hair, and made me tell her Anne stories. Kept me sane. She had no one left. Her grandmother worked at the clinic and had already died from the Typhoid."
She wiped her own tear aside. "I'll ask the front desk for a Doctor, then Monday we'll go back to Kingsport. The hospital."
"No." I grabbed her hands in mine. Felt my body straining again trying to push. "Promise me, it'll be a weeks long battle Anne. My fever will rise, until either the disease wins or I do. Promise me, promise me that you'll get me home. That when I die it'll be at home with your face being the last I see…"
She was sobbing now, her hands slipping out of mine to cup my face. "Gilbert Blythe don't you dare talk about dying."
"Anne. Promise me, you'll get me home, and that you'll be there until the end. Dr. Spenser or Dr. Blair…" I'd reached up cupping her face. And if I wasn't in the middle of trying to have a bowel movement, and the fear of what I might pass to her with Typhoid. I would have kissed her then. Of course that moment was when my body decided to pass a loud and smelly amount of gas.
She wrinkled her face at the smell and noise. "Fine, I'll be there until the end, but if you think I'll let you die from the Typhoid! I expect you old and wrinkled and gray when you finally go…" she pulled back laughing, though there was a haunting in her eyes. But I was finding my body draining. The rush of energy at the fear and shock of what we faced ahead of us. "Gil, I'll come over every day. I'll tell them we're friends again."
I blinked at her. "Anne… I lov…"
"Gilbert! Let's get you settled down, you must be exhausted…" She flushed, standing up quickly, pulling away. "I'll look to see what we have that might help ease things. Those onions! I'd forgotten about them. You've notes here showing evidence that it helped the fever. I'll just chop them up and we'll set on your chest when you lie down again..."
She kept busy, preparing something for me to eat, finding some candied Rhubarb in a tin she'd bought for Davy's birthday and making me eat it from her fingers as I leaned against the bed still sitting on the chamber pot that was pushing into my buttocks. She'd rambled as she fed me about Rhubarb and how she'd been at her wits end with the twins and constipation, and heard it worked like plums.
I'd finally given up, and wiping with an old magazine she then forced me, half awake, and each step torture to the wash stand. I'd even blushed that she'd held up my drawers for me to step into, then helped me into my undershirt. Not that she'd looked, but kept her eyes it seemed on my ears. She never looked me in the eye, but over my shoulder, my ear, or beyond. She made a long speech of what we'd do once I'd recovered. She'd continued, talking about Mr. Irving, Paul and Miss Lavender returning to Ecco lodge for the summer. Diana and Fred's baby whom they'd planned to name Little Anne, or at least Diana did. She did all this as she washed my hands with scalding water, scrubbed even under the nails, and then half carried me back to the bed to sleep.
The last thing I remembered was her taking the chamber pot out, as I slipped my fingers to grasp her photo.
—*—*—*—*—
Author's Note: Researching men's undergarments at this time. There's both mention of the top being called an undershirt and a vest. For clarity sakes, I'm using the term Undershirt so you're not confused. And now they know it's Typhoid... Stay tuned tomorrow for Anne's Shock. Because she's been through the ringer - this was not the weekend after Phil's wedding she imagined.