Jellybean is still missing.
But I finally wrote some more story anyway.
If you are the praying kind, please pray he comes back. He's been gone two months now and it's starting to get really cold outside and it has snowed twice so far. I have- and still am- doing everything possible to find him...I've gotten all the tips about what to do...but nothing is working (yet).
Anyway….So….It's been so long that y'all probably forgot what even happened: Gilbert just had his first day of teaching. He's using his teaching certificate to teach Avonlea school while he does his Redmond courses by correspondence (which is what he and Anne did in the book series). Now he's about to tell Anne how his first day of teaching. Also it's September and their wedding is in December so Anne is working on stuff for their home together too.
"It was...rough," Gilbert said. "Thank you," he added gratefully as Anne poured him some juice.
"Rough how?" she asked, sitting down to join him.
"The older ones keep calling me Gilbert," he began. "They're not being obstinate, they're just so used to me being Gilbert! ...It's so awkward to have to remind them I'm supposed to be Mr. Blythe now."
"Well, you'll have to keep it up," she told him wisely. "They'll never see you as a real teacher if they call you Gilbert the same as if you're still their chum. It's all about establishing yourself as a professional."
"I know," Gilbert nodded. "Just imagine if someone from the school board heard them call me by my first name during class! ...There are a few older ones who are kind of testing me, too. Bully-types. They're seeing if I'll back down when they challenge me. And that's not my only problem," he said slowly, looking down. Quietly, he said, "The younger girls giggle at me and blush when I talk to them."
Gilbert's face was red, but Anne couldn't help laughing. "I'm sorry, Gilbert, it's not funny, really," she said, a grin still on her face. "It isn't your fault you're charming and attractive."
"I'm glad you think so," he said, reaching out to squeeze her hand. "But I don't need the whole school thinking it! I ignore them, but it's embarrassing."
Then something worse hit him. "I hope they don't think I'm the new Mr. Phillips! They're children to me and it isn't becoming of a teacher to pursue them. Ugh. I wish they'd stop."
"They will," Anne assured him. "As long as you maintain a professional distance, they'll stop. And if they don't then surely they'll stop once you and I are married, because you're no longer available. Remember how Ruby finally gave you up?"
"Well, this is like having fifteen Ruby Gillis's all in one room," Gilbert said to her. "But maybe you're right. I hope so."
Two weeks later Gilbert was still struggling, but things were slowly improving.
"You know, it's funny," Anne commented later to Marilla and Matthew. "I thought I would feel jealous of him and I don't. Of course not being a teacher will always be a disappointment to me."
"You're a teacher at Sunday School," Marilla pointed out, thinking that religion was just as important as academics, if not more.
"But it's not the same," Anne explained. "I like having my little class, but...but it's just not the same."
Matthew reached for her hand, giving it a squeeze.
Anne smiled at him and went on, "But I'm not a bit jealous of Gilbert! On the contrary I just feel proud of him! It makes me happy to know he's doing so well."
"Well now," Matthew said, "Seems to me that's when you really love a person- when you're able to be happy for them getting something you didn't."
Anne's eyes were happy. "I do love him. So much. And I'm happy to help him with lesson plans and grading, if he needs it. ….It makes me feel like a teacher, too, just a little bit...or at least, I feel like we're a team. ...I think that must be what marriage is supposed to be about- being a team."
"Being a team is a very nice way to look at marriage," Marilla agreed.
Marilla was pleased that Anne didn't feel left out by Gilbert doing what she'd wanted to do. She'd have been an excellent teacher, that's for certain. But she's an excellent writer, anyway, she thought with satisfaction. And I'm so proud of her.
"Oh, how interesting! A real magazine writer! What is your column about?" the stranger asked, after an already lengthy conversation about her home and her child.
"Mostly how to take care of small children, that seems to be my lot in life!" Anne informed. "I also write about some decorating, a little gardening...things like that. Sometimes bits of poetry and rhymes for children. Advice on teaching them...it's a magazine for mothers."
"Mothers, of course…"
Walter came up behind his mama to see what the lady at the door was here for. He pulled on Anne's skirt. Anne turned to him and introduced, "This is my son. Walter, say hello."
The lady looked down at him for a long moment before she finally pasted a smile on her face. "It's nice to meet you, Walter. I've heard all about you from your mama. You look just as I imagined."
"What are you here for?" Walter asked bluntly.
Anne was embarrassed by his rudeness, but said only: "Walter, she's here to sell magazine subscriptions."
"We don't need no magazines 'cause my mama gets a hundred magazines in the mail every day," Walter informed.
The lady smiled. "Yes, your mama told me she's a writer and she's always submitting things for publication! It's all very exciting. I suppose you don't need any and I ought to be on my way, but your mama is such a lovely person I've quite overstayed and chatted too long! I'm sorry to have taken up your time."
"That's all right," Walter said, interested in having a visitor. "Do you got any things besides magazines?"
"Like what?"
"Well...like candy. Or comic books. Or baseball cards. Or marbles," Walter suggested.
"I'm afraid not," she said with a smile. "But perhaps I have…" she opened her small purse and began rifling through it. "I'm sure I have...yes, I knew I'd saved it...I had a truffle left from the box of chocolates my fiancee gave me! I was keeping it in my purse for a little pick-me-up on the ride over. But how could it not go to a darling little boy such as yourself?"
"Oh, no, thank you," Anne shook her head, gently pushing Walter back inside. "He doesn't need any treats."
"But-" Walter protested.
Anne hushed him. "You're not taking other people's treats. That was for her to eat, not you."
Walter grumbled.
"Oh, it's really all right," she smiled. "He's such a handsome little fellow, isn't he?"
Anne shook her head. "Thank you, but I'm trying to keep him from becoming selfish. And I don't want him to think he can have whatever he wants just because he's good looking."
Walter stomped away.
The lady noticed Anne's ring and commented, "Oh- you're married now?"
Anne creased her brow, finding this odd for two reasons. First, saying now implied the lady had known her from before...but Anne couldn't place her. Had they met? And second, why would the lady not have assumed Anne was married from the very first mention of her mothering column?
"Uh...yes, I am," she said, hoping Walter wouldn't pop back up to embarrass her by informing the stranger that his mama was not yet married.
Anne said goodbye to the young woman quickly and headed back toward the kitchen.
Marilla was coming up from the cellar as Anne came into the kitchen. "Who was at the door?" she asked.
"Some lady selling magazine subscriptions," Anne informed. "She wasted her time here; I told her I've already got a dozen subscriptions from when I decided to make writing my career. ...And then she wanted to know all about my column. And that was after she'd already asked all kinds of questions about- oh, about everything. She was awfully nosy!"
Marilla looked out the window to the distance where the carriage was disappearing from sight. "I wonder why a lady like that is selling magazines? She certainly doesn't look as if she needs a job. Did she say what her name was?"
"Margaret something, I think," Anne said absently, taking the cutting board out of the cupboard to begin dinner preparations.
So Margaux had gotten the information she wanted, and without disturbing the peace- Anne never knew that the visitor had any connection to herself.
Anne did not know the name Margaux as she had no reason to know about anyone in Billy's life, and because she preferred to keep it that way, Jane knew not to mention Billy's fiancee in any of the letters she sent Anne.
Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, who desperately wanted to be allowed to stay in their grandchild's life, had made a commitment to keep their relationship with Anne and Walter completely separate from their relationship with their son.
If they ever found out their son's fiancee had come calling at Green Gables with a curiosity to find out more about the child, they'd have taken that secret to the grave.
And so the visit passed with little notice and no complications arose from it...but many years would go by before Margaux would make the unhappy discovery that her husband's relationship with Anne had not been consensual.
"You never gived me nothing," Walter complained after the lady had left and taken her chocolate truffle away with her.
Anne flopped down on the sofa. "My ears are bleeding," she said.
Walter went to the sofa and looked at Anne's ears.
Marilla walked in. "What's wrong?"
"Mama's ears are bleeding," Walter informed her.
"What?" Marilla asked, coming closer, her brow creased in worry.
"I don't see no blood," Walter went on.
Anne shut her eyes. "Walter. You haven't given me anything. Or you never gave me anything. Not you never gived me nothing. You don't see any blood. Not, you don't see no blood. ...This is why my ears are bleeding."
Marilla gave a small chuckle. "I'm guessing a smaller Anne used similar grammar."
"I did not," Anne said, sitting up in indignation. "I don't know where he got that language but it certainly wasn't from me!"
"Well, when he begins school that'll all change," Marilla told her, picking up the throw pillow and plumping it up after Anne had smushed it under her theatrical flop. She shooed Anne away from the sofa and scolded- "Don't be so dramatic; he'll think you're upset with him."
Anne pulled Walter to her, giving him a squeeze. "I'm not upset with you. I just want you to speak like someone who's once seen the inside of a book!"
"Books are boring," Walter announced, trying to pull away from his mother.
Anne, saddened, pointed out: "But you like comic books."
"That's cause you just read the pictures," Walter explained.
"Oh," Anne responded, finally letting go of him.
"I wanna play outside."
"Don't leave the yard," Marilla warned as he ran out. They had only just recently allowed Walter to play outside by himself.
"You know what- speaking of school," Anne said glumly, "When it's time for him to start school, he and Clara won't be together."
"They will," Marilla said. "Emily wants to hold Clara back a year, remember?"
"That's not what I meant," Anne explained. "He'll be starting when we leave for medical school. He'll have to start school there instead. ...No, wait, that's not right, is it? He'll have had one year at Avonlea school first and then switch to some other school far away…he'll have to leave the friends he makes here, and then he'll have to start all over in a place where everyone else has already had a year to make friends with each other!" Tears sprang to Anne's eyes. "It's very hard to come into a school where everybody knows each other and you have to try to get them to like you!"
Marilla was surprised at her upset until she realized Anne was remembering her own experience. "But he'll make friends easily," she consoled. "Besides, it's just three years, and then when he comes back to Avonlea he'll have the same little friends he made here!"
"What if he doesn't have his friends here anymore, either?" Anne asked fearfully. "Everyone will have had three years to forget about him!"
"I don't think," Marilla said, "That Walter is easily forgotten."
"It isn't just forgetting. It's that they'll have shared all sorts of memories that he wasn't a part of, and he'll feel like an outsider."
"Well, Gilbert's got to go to medical school, doesn't he?" Marilla said more kindly. "And if you want to marry him then you've got to be together. ...Now you could postpone the wedding until he's finished with medical school, but I know you don't want to do that."
"No," Anne said, resigned.
"The only other option is to leave Walter here with us so he can continue on at Avonlea school without disruption."
Anne considered this. Then she was brought to tears again. "I want him, though."
Marilla smiled.
Walter burst into the house followed by Clara. "Look, mama! Clara came."
Anne and Marilla were startled. "Where's your mother, Clara?"
"I came by myself," Clara announced. "I know the way."
"Did your mother tell you you could?" Marilla asked sternly, not believing that a child of not-quite-five would be allowed to come on her own.
"She'll figure it out," Clara said, waving that off. "Walter-"
"We'll just see about that," Marilla said sharply, reaching out and grabbing hold of Clara's hand. "I'm taking you straight back home and you're going to apologize to your mother for running off!"
"Emily must be worried sick," Anne breathed, an ache in her chest from the memory of Walter disappearing.
"Or she will be, when she realizes," Marilla responded, not even stopping to get her hat.
"Mama," Walter asked curiously as they hurriedly left for the Perkins' house, "Why are you crying?"
"Oh," Anne said, rubbing her cheeks. She squeezed him to her. "I was just thinking about a long time from now, when you and I and Gilbert go away and stay in a flat for a while. I just...I hate for you to be away from Clara."
She felt she shouldn't have brought it up at all- why worry him, when it was still so far away?- and quickly said, "We'll have fun, though."
"When are we coming back?" Walter wanted to know.
"Well, we won't go until you're...seven. We'll come back when you're ten." To herself she whispered, "Ten years old. I can't even think of it."
"It'll be here before you know it," Marilla said, rushing the children along.
"And no Clara?" Walter asked.
"We'll write and visit," Anne promised.
"I wish I could come," Clara pouted. "I don't want you to go away for three years."
"My mama says, 'absence makes the heart grow fonder'," Walter said sweetly, turning to Clara.
But Clara frowned. "My mama says, 'out of sight, out of mind.'"
They couldn't help but laugh.
Gilbert and Anne were hard at work on his weekly lesson plans.
"After you've taught three years, you don't have to send them every lesson anymore. They just want, as they put it, 'evidence of planning'."
"What does that mean?" Anne asked.
"An outline for the week showing what topics you intend to cover, instead of writing out detailed plans for each day."
"But…that's after you've taught for three years?"
"Yeah," Gilbert nodded, "The year I stop teaching would have been the year I don't have to write these anymore." He finally laughed.
Anne sighed. "Isn't that always the way! Well, you've got this week done anyway."
"Thanks to you! ...Anne, I don't want to leave you, but I have a paper to write."
"I wish I could help you with your college work..." Anne told him.
"I do, too," Gilbert said. He stood up to go, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. "But Redmond stuff is different."
"I know," Anne said unhappily.
She remembered Gilbert telling her that the Avonlea school board didn't specifically require teachers to create their lesson plans from scratch- it was acceptable to use ideas from others or to find ideas in books. As long as they were good lessons, and they were turned in on time, they didn't care what resources he used to create them. But his Redmond courses were a different story: Gilbert's grades in college weren't earned by himself if Anne did some of the work for him.
"You could come over, if you want to?" he asked, seeing her face.
"No, I'll just keep you from working," she said with a sigh.
"You won't," he promised her. "I'll ignore you completely."
They laughed.
"Well, maybe I will then," she agreed, standing up. "I'd kind of like to look around and see how much I need to do for Walter's room at your house! I might want to buy a lot of new things for him."
She went to get her hat.
"There won't be much money at first," Gilbert reminded her, regret in his voice. "I hope you can manage. ...You might wish you'd stayed here at home."
"Being with you will be home," Anne said lovingly. "And I can manage just fine. I've always done without, and I think I can pride myself on being thrifty."
Gilbert smiled at her.
"Besides, you don't need to give me money to spend on Walter," Anne told him. "Whatever I want can be bought using my bank account for him. That's what it's there for."
"You used to refuse to spend their money. What changed?"
"I decided they owe it to me. I wouldn't have to buy anything for a baby if it hadn't been for-" she paused. "Their son," she finally finished.
"That's true," Gilbert agreed, reaching out for her hand to hold as they walked together.
"Yeah. So why should I have to pay for everything?"
"You shouldn't have to pay for what someone else did," Gilbert agreed, but privately he wished he could provide whatever Walter needed. With resignation he admitted he was glad Anne had money to spend on Walter since he was still several years away from a successful career.
"How do you think he'll do, sleeping away from you?" Gilbert asked, changing subjects.
"I'm not sure," Anne responded. "I never wanted him in my room to begin with; Marilla made me keep him there because he was a baby and she didn't want him to be by himself. She said we could move him to the spare room when he was bigger. ...But then he got bigger, and somehow he never did end up moving to the spare room."
"Maybe you just didn't want to be apart from him," Gilbert said warmly.
"I suppose. Though it'll be nice to have my own space now. He's four and he can't be by my side forever."
My own space, Gilbert's mind echoed. He didn't know what to say.
Once they arrived at his house, Anne left him to go upstairs and measure the windows on the room that was soon to be Walter's.
She had decided to buy some new blue material to use in making curtains for his windows, and she needed to know how much fabric to cut. "It'll match the new blue bedspread I'm making for him," she told Gilbert. "I keep talking about how exciting his big boy room will be, so he won't pay much attention to the fact that it means leaving me."
Gilbert worked on his paper steadily for nearly two hours while Anne sat working on Walter's curtains, but his mind kept drifting back to what Anne had said. It'll be nice to have my own space…
"Anne," he finally said when he needed a break. "Is there...anything you wanted to change in the other rooms?"
"Oh- am I changing too much?" Anne asked, realization hitting her. "I don't have to change anything. Your house is nice as it is-"
"No," Gilbert said in surprise. "No, this is going to be your home now and I want it to be how you like it. Anything you want to change is fine!"
After a moment he went on, carefully, "I just...wondered if you wanted to do anything with the other bedrooms…"
"Like what?" Anne asked. "Everywhere else has curtains and bedspreads...unless you think they need new ones."
Seeing that they would not arrive on the same page unless he was more direct, he finally asked, "I wanted to know if you needed your own space. As in...your own room."
He rushed on, "It's fine if you do. I'm not complaining. I just was...unsure...about how you were expecting things to go."
Anne was just staring at him.
"I know we can't...do things," he explained. "But sleeping, I mean- just sleeping- I didn't know if you thought we couldn't be in the same bedroom…?"
Anne tucked a lock of hair behind one ear. She suddenly felt embarrassed but she didn't know why. She and Gilbert has discussed many intimate topics before. "I wasn't thinking of my own room."
"You said you were glad Walter would have a bedroom because it was going to be nice for you to have your own space..."
"My own space, as in, not being right next to my baby," she relayed. "I don't want any space separate from you. ...I want us to be as close as can be. ...Right in there, on that very bed." She turned pink, as if it had embarrassed her to mention their future bed together.
Gilbert smiled. "You're not just saying that so I won't be disappointed?"
"No. I wish we could be closer."
"Well, just being in the same bed is a good place to start," he said with a grin.
"...Maybe someday it can be more."
"Maybe," he said softly, more seriously, tracing the outline of her cheek. "But I'll be happy just being near you."
"Will you?"
"That's how I knew I must be in love, you know...doing nothing at all with you was so much better than being anywhere else."
Seeing her grin, he went on: "Someone could have asked me to go...to go to Paris...to go to the moon, even- and I realized I'd rather just sit in an empty room with Anne."
Anne had warmth in her eyes. She kissed him gently and whispered, "My heart had found its true home long before I knew it."
She has such a way with words, Gilbert thought.
But what she said next made him laugh-
"It was almost as if love hit me right in the face."
Gilbert responded cheekily: "Love did hit me right in the face."
"You'll never let me live that down, will you?" she asked with a shake of her head.
Gilbert could not answer Anne's question, because her mouth was in the way.
They kissed until they realized they'd crumpled Gilbert's essay and the first page would have to be re-written.
