Typhoid & Gossip Ch 52: Gilbert - Breaking, an anne of green gables series fanfic

Author's Note:

Previously I hadn't named Uncle Dave's wife… but I figure Maud works well… She's not named in the books that I could find. Did word searches for every time Uncle Dave is mentioned in Anne's House of Dreams and she's not mentioned by name, just as Mrs. Doctor Dave. And woo hoo - the chapter was posted on schedule.

— Gilbert —

Saturday, July 31st, 6:00pm

Home of Doctor Dave, Glen St Mary, PEI

I was gripped with guilt as I cradled Anne running towards the home, forgetting the horse and buggy. Aunt Maud rushed to the porch seeing us rushed out, glancing down at Anne. "Landsakes, Gilbert. I heard a noise…"

"We were fighting." I sobbed as I pushed past her towards Uncle Dave's office, setting her down on his examination table. "The horse spooked and she fell into the ditch and I… I kneed her as we fell… the babe…"

"Now calm down. Nothing we can do one way or the other now but help her rest and pray. Soon as Doctor Dave comes home he'll exam Anne and the babe."

"He's to watch overnight." I glanced towards his medical books, and the one I'd been reading through on pregnancy and human growth. There had to be something to help prevent a miscarriage. The logic in me knew that it was better to accept it as providence working in our lives that we'd not have to try to raise an infant while I completed school. Yet still… Finding the book I leafed through it seeing the instructions for checking the womb. Anne had come around, as Aunt Maud held smelling salts under her nose. Guilt welled up thinking of that memory of Anne begging me to stop. Memorizing all the textbook said, I gulped, Uncle Dave couldn't leave his patient and I wouldn't rest until I knew our child was ok. That I hadn't killed our child. "Anne, Aunt Maud will help but we've got to check you're alright, the babe…"

"Gil I lost the babe." I barely heard her, as my ears were ringing with blood rushing. I glanced down to my white knuckles. "Gil… I tried to tell…"

"Maybe you didn't. Please, I've got to check Anne. Aunt Maud if you could stay?"

"Didn't you need to get some medicine to Uncle Dave? There's nothing we can do Gilbert…"

"No. We'll examine you first. I haven't done it before, not for a human. I've done it for the farm animals often over the years, from what the book says it shouldn't be so hard, just checking the opening and the womb." I went to the water pitcher to wash my hands. What if the truth getting out meant I'd lost my scholarship? My place at the Redmond Medical School? What if I'd never be Doctor Gilbert Blythe? I glanced towards Anne. I'd give it all up to have the real Anne and our children and a future as a farmer, then an empty future as Doctor Gilbert Blythe, grieving it all. Grieving Anne, little Anne. Little Anne had gone beyond the grave, but our child. Perhaps there was still hope. I turned back to her, prepared to imitate the Doctors I admired for their beside manners. "I apologize if my hands are cold Anne…"

She yelped in surprise when my hands pulled up her skirts to reveal her drawers that had tormented me the morning after the bonfire, and I'd woken to find myself a supposedly married man. There had to be an opening. For how else would she relieve herself without removing anything. There it was, simply an overlap of materials and slipping my hands in. I didn't dare look at her face, or Aunt Maud. Instead I focused on the clock over the bookcase ticking away.

Her corset was in the way, but I didn't dare ask her to disrobe. There had to be a way, then remembering when I'd check the plug for the pregnant cow, to make sure she hadn't lost anything. I glanced over at the open book of the pregnant womans anatomy, before slipping a finger inside to find the cervix, labeled in a flowing hand in the drawing. I hit an obstacle before my finger even entered. The opening was too small. What was wrong with Anne? I felt myself flushing as I hurriedly pulled my finger out to glance at the book. No, nothing looked right in the drawing. That was the location of the womb canal. Where our child would exit if they survived…

Did I read the diagrams wrong, that plug a mother would develop in animals carrying did women not have it, yet I thought I'd read it in the book.

"Gilbert?" Aunt Maud broke through my thoughts. "If Anne said she lost, I think a woman would know. Was there blood though."

"No…"

"It was at Ecco Lodge." Anne spoke in nearly a whisper. "Gil. I… you had so much on you, I didn't want to add the grief yet until we found a way…"

Then it hit me, the hymen. Anne's hymen was intact.

We never were expecting.

"Anne Shirley if you ever intend to be Anne Blythe I want right now exactly what happened that night in the hotel room. Exactly what did we do and what did we not. Because I don't think you ever were expecting. And right now, I don't know if I can trust you. You're awfully free with lying… You're going to tell me and then I'm bringing back that medicine for Uncle Dave, and take his place watching the boy, because your face is the last I want to see right now…"

"Gil!" She cried, then huffed. "Fine. You were a beast by the way. We were both in our under things, you'd had a nightmare from the grief about that little girl, that patient you lost and I'd fallen asleep in exhaustion rocking you. Woke from a dream where you were King Solomon come to my oasis. You suckled like a babe in the dream, and I woke to find much of it transpiring, well, perhaps not the oasis though we were damp enough from your fever sweat. You kissed me and we were quite indecent, then someone, we now know Mr. Philips walked in and left. Our megar clothing though had been pushed aside, and only your presence on top of me kept him from seeing far too much of myself. I tried to stop you but instead you kept kissing me, calling me Anne Blythe and rocking like in the water of the dream. You then took my maidenhood, Diana told me of the pain but that was nothing to prepare me for what I experienced. Why you would try to milk me like a cow and shutter like you were in pain when you were giving it! You fell back into a fevered sleep, I rolled you off, straightened both our clothes and lost all contents of my stomach at what we'd done. You left a handprint bruise on that breast for weeks after, it's still faint but there. Would you like the evidence."

Her whole speech in anger I'd refused to look at her, instead staring at her feet, she kicked me then forcing me to glance up at her glaring face. "Anne…" I felt my hands squeezing. We hadn't fully consummated the marriage after all. "That's not how one looses ones maidenhood… I'm sorry for squeezing… We didn't consummate the marriage after all… We can wait to marry…"

She reached for the book, grabbing it and hitting my arm. "Gilbert Blythe… Oh you're not going to be milking me again, that's for certain. That's why I didn't tell you. Even I know bleeding means you lost the babe. Mrs. Hammond did once. Between the second and third set of twins. And yes we did. Not only do I remember every detail of your acting on your husbandly rights before our marriage vows, Mr. Philips witnessed too. So everyone knows now I'm spoiled goods. Fine, you can wait. I need to pick up the pieces."

She pushed her way off the table. "Aunt Maud, I'll break a slate or vase on Gilbert's head if I see one more minute of him." She then turned to me, glaring in her best manner since that morning all those years ago I called her carrots. "Gilbert Blythe don't you dare come home before Monday. Send Doctor Dave home. You come home earlier I just might break that slate on your head."

Then with a whirl she was gone, up the stairs as I stared in shock.

Aunt Maud just sighed. "Probably for the best. Pack your bag and fetch what Dave asked for then stay through Monday morning. It's certainly a muddle the two of you are in…"

I sighed. Probably for the best. I packed my carpet bag, then gathered the medicine to go and make right the buggy and horse still abandoned by the ditch. Checking over the horse I saw a potential strain on his leg. Sighing I lead him to the barn, brushed him down, and gave him fresh water before swinging the carpet bag over my shoulder to begin the three mile walk to the Harbor Village. Yet with each step I felt myself tighten. I'd had all my imaginary Annes, some haunting others as balms over the years. Yet the truth was facing the real Anne? I didn't know if I wanted that future. Marriage was for life, until death do us part. This was not the happily ever after. Instead I faced a future with a woman who I didn't know if I could trust.

—*—*—*—*—*—

Author's Note: So the original plan was for Doctor Dave to do the examination… but in the writing this happened… And I think it works better. Now for those wondering… I think Anne and Gilbert are both in shock, and just what's going through Anne's head we'll see in the next chapter.