Hello lovely readers, particularly, this week, any fellow Australians feeling the pinch of lockdowns at the moment, as we are in Melbourne. There are several lovely writers from NSW here on this site, and my heart goes out to you. Believe me, we know your pain x
To everyone else, I hope you remain safe and for many of you, I hope you are enjoying a well-earned, lovely northern summer.
With love
MrsVonTrapp x
Chapter Nine
'He taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say'
All was chaos and noise, like a thunderstorm breaking directly overhead; the crackle and hum in the air and the low, menacing rumble up above, the sky quivering with flashes of light. Only the light was the reflection of the flames from a fire raging intensely and at will, and the lightning bolt that struck her straight in the heart was a stab of fear such as she had never before experienced. The pain was so intense she would have gasped from it, only she had no breath remaining and certainly no voice, for the terrifying scream in her ears she realised, belatedly, was her own.
Anne scrambled towards the ruin of the rooftop, beginning to toss aside split planks of wood and broken tiles with a frenzied, near-hysterical urgency, till several hands made a grab for her to pull her away, and one of two men rushing past her barked at her to stay back. So she stood, helpless and horror-stricken, making soundless sobs as helpers and then someone from the fire brigade made quick work of the debris, clearing around a section by the flowerbeds and then motioning for a third man with a stretcher.
It was Gilbert, and he was alive, though worryingly motionless and as pale as the sliver of moon above. She might have fallen on her knees in gratitude if she thought she could ever get up again, so instead she sagged against the woman who had come to comfort her; a kind stranger she would never know. Found on his side and half curled up into a ball, Gilbert, even in semi consciousness, had known to protect his head, and his hands were locked behind his neck and his elbows tight against his ears.
"Gil! Gil!" she shouted, but the men assisting him had loaded him onto a stretcher and were picking their way back through the debris. "Where are you taking him?"
"To Kingsport Hospital, of course, dearie," the woman's soft Scottish burr sounded at her ear.
"I've got to go with him!" Anne gasped, succumbing to a fit of coughing that had her doubling over as they passed her.
"Sure as you'll need to be checked yourself first, lass. But there's many 'afore you to get to the hospital, and in very bad shape too. I'm afraid you'll have to wait your turn."
Shifting to see the commotion behind them, Anne followed in disbelief as Gilbert was loaded into a cart, alongside a collection of poor souls who had somehow made it out of the building, their expressions dazed and their bodies bearing the injuries of their experience inside. Many, awfully, had seared skin and flesh showing through blackened clothing. Others were strewn about the grass of the front garden, either tended to or left to their own devices, their hacking coughs and even intermittent vomiting signifying conditions out in the hallway and on the stairwell had become as awful as they all had feared.
"Gilbert!" Anne ran for the cart now as it drew away, utterly desperate. She looked around her with a new panic. "Please, can someone help me get to the hospital?"
Her pleas fell on deaf ears, as if carried off on the wind. She needed to get to the hospital. She needed to get to him. Nothing else mattered.
Anne joined the throng outside the entrance to the guest house, searching for anyone who might assist her. She had left her little purse in her trunk and had no money on her, and feared she would have to sing or steal for her passage across town, or else start to walk there. All around her was the anxious activity of the many brave men of the fire brigade, beginning to finally gain some control over the blaze, though black smoke billowed from a few of the upstairs rooms, and Anne was certain she saw actual flames shoot from what must have been Jem's room.
Jem.
Oh Lord, where was he? He had slid down the roof with Gilbert making his incredible lunge at him, coming off the edge of it and just caught in time and assisted down the ladder before the roof gave way. Anne searched wildly now, shouting his name, but instead of someone answering, she heard her own name repeated back to her.
"Anne?"
Anne wheeled about on her little heels, blinking in incomprehension.
"Dorothy?"
Incredibly, Dorothy Gardner stood before her, in her fashionable jacket and hat despite the unfriendly hour, looking with amazed hazel eyes so like those of another.
"Anne Shirley, what in God's name?"
Anne's answer was to rush and embrace her friend with a strangled cry, too overwrought for explanation, though her bedraggled appearance and overwhelmed manner rather spoke their own truth.
"Oh, Dorothy!" she wept.
"Anne, don't tell me you were caught up in this? Darling, are you hurt?"
Anne attempted to explain but only ended coughing, barely managing to gasp the most important information of all.
"I was with Gilbert Blythe. He's been desperately hurt, and I need … to get … to the hospital!"
"Say no more, Anne dearest! I'll will get you there, I promise. Here, you'd better put this on. That thing there reeks like my grandfather's cigar room!"
She relieved Anne of her ruined cardigan, exchanging it for her own jacket, and put an encouraging arm around her once would-be sister.
"Darling Anne, I just need to do one little thing, and then we will take my carriage to the hospital, I promise."
"What are you doing here?"
"Well, I need to find someone, urgently. He was staying in this godforsaken place too. It's my cousin. We missed him when he attempted to call – we've been at the summer house for a month, and were due back yesterday, but we were delayed and here is where he ended up!"
This was indeed awful, horrible news.
"I can help you look for him, but I need to look for our friend as well. I'm afraid he is likely injured, and I've no idea what happened when he – "
"Jem!" Dorothy called, suddenly raising her arm.
"Yes! That's his name! How did you…?"
Jem came walking slowly towards them, clothing torn, eyes agog, understandably believing he was trapped in a surreal nightmare without end.
"D-Dorothy?" he looked from one woman to the other. "Anne?"
Dorothy was the one agog by the time the two other exhausted occupants of her carriage had appraised her of the evening's events, amazed at their meeting under such terrible circumstances and sending a quick prayer of thanks for her cousin's safety to poor, beleaguered Gilbert Blythe. She deemed herself quite speechless, before forcefully and lengthily avowing to get to the bottom of the obvious negligence of the guest house managers, and the wicked treatment of said guests in general and her companions in particular.
Jem could do nothing but silently marvel at the mysterious workings of Fate, thinking how lucky he had been, thinking of how heroic and selfless Gilbert Blythe had been, and thinking regretfully, having learned of the amazing connection, how utterly unequal to the task his older cousin Roy would have been as husband to Miss Anne Shirley.
Anne could do nothing but sigh and nod, numb to every emotion but the pain continuing to pulse through her body at the thought of Gilbert, in one of the hospital wards or even worse, in the operating room at this very moment. The drive to the hospital was not long but felt a century, and she nearly fell out of the carriage in her haste to find him again once they had arrived.
"Anne!" Dorothy warned. "Steady, darling!"
Anne barely heeded her, coughing and spluttering through the entranceway and to the imposing-looking reception area, stopping up short as a veritable tide of patients washed around and past her, with more arriving even as she stood there, bobbing ineffectually like a buoy on the water.
Dorothy and Jem caught up with her, and together they enquired after Gilbert.
They were told, unceremoniously, to wait until more information could be ascertained, and informed in no uncertain terms that this was the hospital's busiest night in many a month, and if they wanted to be helpful they could note down all of Gilbert's particulars for the doctors. After which, as captives of the fire themselves, Anne and Jem should readily present for inspection with the designated nurse attending to the less incapacitated victims of the guest house blaze.
Two hours later, when surely they had viewed every single remaining soul affected cross the hospital threshold, Anne's pacing and worry already having exhausted her, she pounced on an unsuspecting matron, begging for some information and access.
"No visitors after hours," Matron decreed uncompromisingly, "and this is most certainly after hours!"
"But I am – he is – Gilbert Blythe!" Anne croaked, feeling with her scared, scarred heart that this should be explanation enough for anyone. "He is shortly - to start - his medical degree and will be attached to this very hospital! He – is – the Cooper Prize winner!"
Matron patently did not care for hard-won, rarely awarded academic scholarships, but she did care about something else.
"I am Miss Dorothy Gardner," Dorothy raised herself up, with impressive imperiousness, coming to stand by Anne, flanked by Jem. "My family are long-standing and exceedingly generous benefactors of this hospital. We have been waiting patiently and at length for some news. I urge you, Matron, to reconsider your visiting hours in the light of these rather unique circumstances."
Anne reached to squeeze Dorothy's hand in gratitude.
Matron's lips pursed together into a thin, grim line, but nonetheless, with her reluctance and displeasure written into her every movement, she consulted a younger colleague, and then bid them follow her down a series of long corridors and to a quiet far room. There was a doctor in attendance, supervising the nurse who was still straightening sheets around the patient whilst he prepared Gilbert's chart. At the view of several people appearing in the doorway in various states of dishevelment past the midnight hour, he raised eyebrows high behind his spectacles, as Matron gave terse explanation in his ear, before bustling out of the room with a sour parting look.
"You are relatives of this man?" the doctor queried.
Anne opened her mouth ineffectually. Brother and sister was not exactly going to work under these circumstances, and less said about that desperate scenario the better. What could she say instead?
"Miss Shirley here is Mr Blythe's longtime friend and current travelling companion," Dorothy rescued them yet again. "She and my cousin here, Mr Jeremiah Gardner, were caught in the guest house fire tonight with Mr Blythe."
"He saved my life," Jem croaked, the emotion behind his words undeniable.
"Doctor, Mr Blythe and I were travelling back to PEI. He has no family here but us," Anne's voice shook as she forced back tears.
The doctor contemplated them for a moment longer, and then nodded to the nurse, who exited swiftly, giving Anne a fleeting look of sympathy.
"Please, tell us how he is!" Anne was close to breaking.
"I am Dr Johnston, and I have only just finished my initial examination and treatment," the doctor began carefully, his eyes seeming to assess each one in turn to see how much was wise to divulge, given the evening they'd already endured. "It has been an unfortunately busy night, as I know you can sadly appreciate. Mr Blythe is obviously very lucky in many respects. To fall from that height, and under those circumstances, is a mighty thing in itself…." He replaced the chart and came to stand between the trio and Gilbert.
"Mr Blythe suffered some abrasions down his back – likely from the roof tiles – and some cuts along his upper arms. He has dislocated his shoulder, and it had just been seen to before your arrival. He received a deep gash to his lower calf, which has been treated and stitched. These wounds will all heal successfully in time, and he was most fortunate there were no internal injuries."
The pause here was keenly felt.
"But?" Anne rasped.
"Yes," he acknowledged, "there is a but, I'm afraid. Mr Blythe endured a heavy fall, which we take very seriously. He was extremely lucky to land in the garden rather than over an even harder surface, which somewhat cushioned him, but he has still sustained what we call a concussion, or a loss of consciousness. We have examined what we can of his movement but do not yet know whether his neck and spine have been compromised. We also do not yet know about the effect of any head injuries sustained. Additionally, we had to administer a strong sedative, in order to attempt to protect his brain from swelling, and to give his body a rest, as it were. Our hope, and indeed the best possible outcome, is that he regains consciousness of his own accord as he comes out of the sedative, and within an acceptable timeframe. It would be… remiss of me not to inform you that the next twelve to twenty-four hours are critical to his recovery."
Anne had paled to the whiteness of the doctor's coat, grey eyes wide and haunted.
"If you are able to contact his family, I would not hesitate," the doctor advised as kindly as he could.
"I shall arrange a telegram directly," Dorothy ventured, concerned eyes on Anne.
"May I sit with him?" Anne whispered.
"Yes, indeed. Usually we don't allow more than two visitors at a time – and certainly not at this hour – but we are pleased to make an exception here, for a short time, and we must keep noise to a minimum, you understand."
"Thank you, Doctor," Jem and Dorothy both answered, whilst Anne took hesitant steps towards the still figure in the bed.
"Any further questions, please ask for me," Dr Johnston urged, and then paused thoughtfully again, his voice lowering. "I remember reading Mr Blythe's application for the Cooper Prize, and was later delighted he was poised to join us as a medical student. He was a most impressive candidate." He looked to Anne to emphasise his next words. "We will do everything we can for him."
"Thank you," Anne replied, her eyes flooding yet again.
The doctor departed, and Anne felt the silence in the room thereafter could be measured in her heartbeat, loud in her ears.
"Darling, I am going to fetch you and Jem both a tea," Dorothy determined, "and then I am going to see about that telegram."
"I don't know how to thank you, Dorothy," Anne offered weepily.
"Oh, hush!" her friend gave a bright smile, waving the thought away as she strode out.
Anne and Jem were left to sit awkwardly by Gilbert's bedside, both looking on at the too-pale, too still figure. He lay breathing quietly, in an unnaturally deep sleep, as if undisturbed by the heavy bandage that stretched from collarbone to undoubtedly his waist, currently covered by the sheet, though his abrasions and the bright purple bruise worryingly close to his temple were shockingly vivid and on full display.
She reached, tentatively, for his hand, so frighteningly limp, stroking those long, brown fingers, remembering the frisson of feeling as they touched hers when they exchanged his letter…
The letter.
Anne's eyes flew wide, and her left hand darted to her side, patting down her skirt, unfastening the pocket, seeking fingers searching, closing over the comforting bulk of an envelope, folded over and forgotten until now, but safeguarded last night in her skirt. Thank the Lord, it was still there.
She let out a slow breath, and then reached both hands for his own, enfolding it in hers.
"Oh, Gil!" she sobbed quietly.
Beside her, Jem was aghast.
"I'm sorry, Anne – I mean Miss Shirley. I should… I should leave you to your privacy."
"No, Jem, please – stay! And it's Anne – let none of us stand on ceremony now, after all that's happened!"
He gave a helpless smile, adjusting his position in his seat.
"I do think Gilbert will be uncommonly diverted to learn that you are Roy's cousin," she ventured after a moment, dashing at her tears, desperate for any conversation rather than linger on the upsetting sight of Gilbert's injuries. "It's quite the coincidence."
He gave a reluctant chuckle. "That it is."
Jem flickered a glance over his companion, and then back to Gilbert in the hospital bed. He cleared his throat awkwardly.
"We heard much about you, within the family," he offered sheepishly.
"Did you really?" Anne sniffed, surprised.
"Roy likes to inform us about all his news. He is very good that way. My father and Roy's late father were the only surviving brothers, you see, and he, Dorothy and Aline are my only cousins. My mother was an only child, so we have been… quite involved with the Kingsport side of the family."
"I can imagine," she smiled softly. "Do you have any siblings of your own?"
"I have a younger sister. She is fourteen." He offered a brief smile himself. "She rather dotes on Dorothy."
"She is eminently dote-able," Anne sighed.
"You seem very… close."
"You mean, despite refusing Roy?" Anne queried carefully.
"Forgive me, I don't mean to pry – "
"You are not prying at all, Jem Gardner," Anne sighed softly. "In truth, I value her friendship, perhaps…perhaps above the unfortunate loss of Roy's."
He nodded carefully, giving a slightly chagrined smile of understanding.
Anne looked back to Gilbert, her composure wavering.
"And what were you doing in Kingsport, Jem, if you do not hail from here?" she asked of him, in blatant attempt to take her mind off all else.
"Well…" he looked down to the floor, and then at his hands. "I sought to visit a… friend… who had moved here."
"Really?" Anne noted the color beginning to warm the younger man's cheeks. It was not too difficult to ascertain what type of friend he alluded to. "And did you have a pleasant reunion with your… friend?"
"Yes, thank you," he blushed resolutely now, and then looked up to her.
"Forgive me, Anne, but neither Dorothy nor anyone in the family knows that I…" he fumbled. "Well, that is, they do not yet know about my friend. My friend who moved. They think I came across to see to some arrangements for my course, for when I start at Redmond in September."
"I see." Anne was smiling on the inside for him, trying to be nonchalant. "Will you see them again, then, to tell them about your bravery tonight?"
He flushed, this time unhappily. "Bravery… or stupidity?"
"How so? Jem, you were wonderful! You helped save an entire family! And me!"
"And yet, I could be the reason why Gilbert is here," he argued sorrowfully. "I am very sorry, Anne. I was a hindrance, at the end – not a help."
"I don't believe that, Jem, and nor would Gilbert."
Jem looked into her eyes, and Anne tried to impart her support of him by forceful, resolute stare, fierce in her determination that he did not blame himself. It worked somewhat, for Jem lowered his gaze, sighing heavily.
"Roy once spoke about you as a force of nature, Anne," he admitted. "And I well believe it, now!"
Anne smiled at that, clutching Gilbert's hand tightly.
"I will take that as a compliment!"
"Yes, indeed, for I believe it was meant so, and I repeat it as absolutely so."
Anne paused, and then ploughed on.
"Your friend is a very lucky young lady, I am sure."
His blue eyes found hers again, and he gave a sheepish smile of acknowledgement.
"As is Gilbert Blythe, to have yourself."
Anne froze at his assertion, suddenly reddening, looking back to Gilbert, wishing to explain that the truth of the matter was far more complicated than anyone might imagine… that she didn't dare to presume anything, despite their fevered words to one another, some of which Jem himself had heard and witnessed.
Instead she gulped, throat tight and eyes burning.
"If you pardon my… audacity, Anne," Jem began and then faltered, before making up his mind to continue, "my cousin Roy was not only one poorer for your refusal, but so were we all."
Anne could not blink away her tears, and they helped to water the tea Dorothy brought in moments later.
As another hour passed, so too did the necessity to make certain arrangements.
Dorothy attempted to sway Anne to come back with them to the house, if not to sleep at least to wash and change, but knew she had as much hope of that happening as for all of them to fly over the moon. Instead, she elicited a promise that Anne would at least change into some clothes she would arrange to have dropped back to her, including, she mentally noted, trying to rustle up a corset, so Miss Shirley could at least greet the new day with a confidence she could hold herself together, literally if not metaphorically.
Anne wept over her wording of the telegram she passed on for the Blythes, and another one Dorothy would be kind enough to send to Marilla. Miss Gardner had a full day before her of running errands and managing affairs on behalf of herself, let alone for Jem, now dead on his feet, including enquiring back at the guest house for anything that might have been salvageable for any of them. And this was all before the return of Roy, Aline and Mrs Gardner to Kingsport, Dorothy having gone a day ahead of them with the maid in a move that had been a lucky godsend for Anne, though unfortunately a day too late for Jem.
"Anne, I can stay with you. It would be my honour to," Jem protested ineffectually, stripped down to the vulnerability of his mere eighteen years by the events of the evening, and this was determinedly and kindly rejected by both women, though he then vowed to be back as soon as he could.
Dorothy hugged the slight figure of her friend to her fiercely.
"I never said how grateful I am you were spared," Dorothy was now dangerously close to tears herself. "Let alone for Jem. And I just know your Mr Blythe will pull through this, Anne."
"I wish I could be so sure," Anne, utterly spent, was now overtaken by all her fears and doubts, terrified of the possibilities she could not bear to consider.
"I am sure. Because he has you waiting for him on the other side of this."
The young nurse who had been checking on Gilbert half hourly appeared as the Gardners took their regretful leave, and Anne was grateful for her presence, if only to prevent her from lapsing into loud and undoubtedly disturbing wailing at his bedside. Anne watched her with stricken eyes as she checked his pulse, took note there was no bleeding through the bandage from his leg wound, tested his shoulder bandage was still firm but not too restrictive, and then checked his extremities to be assured of appropriate blood flow. She peered at the large bump and excessive bruising on the side of his forehead with a sad concern that wasn't, perhaps, strictly professional.
"What is it? Please tell me!" Anne rasped.
"Oh, it's nothing, Miss!" the nurse, startled, turned back to her. "Doctor has just requested I be very… thorough." She moved swiftly to check some notations on his chart.
Anne collapsed on a shaky breath. "Forgive me, I'm sorry."
"Not at all, Miss… Shirley," the nurse answered, having paused leadingly.
"You have a very good memory for names," Anne smiled waveringly.
"Thank you, Miss, I believe that I do." She straightened the already straight bedsheets absently, before turning back. "And for faces, too."
"A valuable skill," Anne continued tiredly.
The young nurse stood between the bed and the door, hesitating, expression strangely expectant.
Anne looked up to her through smarting, bleary eyes.
"Forgive me," she peered at the nurse. "Do we know one another?"
The nurse's pretty, fair face broke into a broad smile.
"By association, Miss Shirley. Mr Blythe was my teacher at White Sands."
Anne rapidly blinked her surprise.
"Oh my goodness!"
"He was my favourite ever teacher, and I wasn't alone in that view…" she explained gently, turning back to Gilbert, and for a moment was not the nurse attending him but a starstruck schoolgirl once again. "There were some tears from all of us when he left, I can tell you."
"I can imagine," Anne smiled softly, allowing the fond thought shine through. "He would be delighted to know he is well remembered."
The nurse's face fell, momentarily. "It is just a tragedy, what has happened. But I assure you, he will receive the very best of care. I will see that he does!"
"Yes, thank you so much." Anne was almost at the point of having to console the young nurse, and not the other way round.
"It will be such a comfort for him to know you are here. He always spoke so highly of you. He claimed to be not half the teacher that Miss Shirley was, over in Avonlea. And to think, you are both together, still!" The nurse, grown almost girlish, practically glowed at such a romantic notion.
Anne opened her mouth to protest this clear misinterpretation, but was interrupted by the doctor's re-emergence, and exited the room whilst they talked over Gilbert's care, creeping back to have the doctor's assurances that she could stay on, if she remained unobtrusive, and that they would reassess the arrangement come breakfast, but that she also must be mindful of her own health and need for rest.
"There is a long day ahead, but he is in a stable condition. Take heart, Miss Shirley."
"Thank you, Doctor."
Doctor and nurse exited, the latter gifting her an encouraging smile, and then, after everything that had transpired, after all the waiting and worry, she and Gilbert were finally alone.
Anne took a long, shuddering breath, sitting herself as close to the bed as possible, taking his hand again in hers, kissing it with a tender touch.
"I'm here, Gil. I won't ever leave you. So don't you leave me!" There she paused, feeling herself opening up to the truth of the coming words as a flower to the sun. "Gilbert, I love you!"
Brokenly she wept over his poor, battered body, praying, pleading, till she searched in the pocket of her skirt for a hankerchief, and was reminded of a letter instead.
She withdrew it slowly, unfolding the envelope, staring at her name by his strong, upright hand.
That's alright, Anne… It will be yours to read when and how you want to… it's just… well, the letter might… change things. There will be no coming back from it. *
What did that mean?
What on earth, now of all times, did such warnings matter?
She needed to read it, even if within these pages he was saying goodbye. Because he meant for her to have it, and they might be the last words he ever spoke to her.
She spent long moments looking upon him, before opening the envelope with shaking fingers, seeing it was indeed, as promised, a missive that ran to five densely packed pages, on the Gordon family stationery no less, and dated the early morning of their departure from Bolingbroke. Was that only two days ago?
Here we are, Gil, she whispered.
Mount Holly, Bolingbroke
At a quite ridiculous hour of the morning
Dearest Anne
I cannot fathom what will come out in this letter to you and how it will be received. I only write because I cannot sleep, I cannot rest, I cannot go on without setting my feelings down. Too often I buried my feelings, keeping them hidden from you and sometimes from myself. Until the time when they burst forth, like a dam breaking its banks, and we both know the devastating outcome of that particular occasion.
But we are older and wiser now, Anne… though I smile as I write, thinking that I am lodged above the former stables, and may well still prove myself a literal ass, as Bottom, whilst you are forever Titania, as mysterious and elusive to me as ever. Might the Queen of the Fairies truly come to love a fool? **
For I feel a fool, Anne, to have you divulge something of a secret to me, and being so stunned I could barely respond, and then lost the opportunity to. OURS… you said 'Ours', Anne… Our wedding. Our Future. Our life together, and for someone who had given up the idea of not just a you and me but an US… that was something to make my head spin. It's still spinning. What made you think of what our wedding would have been? What made you think, even for a second, how our lives may have changed if a 'no' had been a 'yes'?
I've had to pause to think on that myself. I don't like remembering that day in the orchard, and rarely wish myself back there, even to try to do things differently. But if things HAD been different, then what may have also altered as a result?
Well, for one, Anne, there'd be no Cooper Prize, let me tell you. How on this earth could I have sacrificed the time with you in order to pursue it? How could I have justified asking you to be with me always, only to then turn from you to give everything else instead to my studies? And how could I have concentrated, anyway? Believe me, that dream would have quickly disappeared, replaced not with a dream but the wonderful reality of YOU.
So there we would have been, students still, engaged and planning a wedding one week and worrying about our term papers the next. Even as I write it, Anne, the idea seems wrong… and you were right, at that point, to refuse me. Not only because of your feelings, but it was a fool idea at that stage, and I was a fool, then, to ask you. At the time I thought it was the way to show you that I loved you, but of course, it was instead the means by which I lost you.
There, Anne-girl. Let there be no more miscommunications and missed chances. I loved you then and I love you still. You know I like to talk plainly, so then let me be plain. I LOVE YOU, Anne Shirley! With body, mind, heart and soul.
Well, I hope you are sitting down for that, Anne, and I hope writing the words makes them real enough for you. It's what I wanted to tell you as I rushed to try to see you the night Roy proposed. It's what I wanted to say to you at Convocation, when you wore my lilies and gave me hope again. It's what I wanted to whisper in your ear when we danced at Phil and Jo's wedding this evening… and a thousand other times during the start of this glorious summer, when we have become friends again, and so much more than friends… and this time, Anne, I not only hope… but I've begun to believe… your feelings could be the same. I hope they are, and what's more, I hope you are able to face them. I hope writing my own feelings down here for you gives you time to understand your own.
I imagine we are back in Avonlea when you read this, under a friendly tree, with the sun on your lovely face lighting up those seven sensational freckles and threading as gold through your hair. Imagine me then, Anne, pacing around like a madman as you read this, up and down the lane, haunting the Haunted Wood, snatching up at any stray blooms to give you, ready to bound back to you, reading your answer in your eyes…
An answer to WHAT? Because it occurs to me, Anne-girl, that I LOVE YOU is most often followed by a declaration of a different kind.
Well, here we are, Anne. I've gone this far.
WILL YOU MARRY ME?
Gosh, I'm shaking just to write that. No wonder I made a pig's ear of it the first time. It's not the question the boy I was should have asked you, but I hope I'm man enough to ask it now. Naturally, I will be wishing to follow up the question properly and in person, Anne-girl. But you have it here, to think over first. I don't want to rush you or corner you or take you by surprise. I don't want to grasp your hand unless you want me to hold it. I don't want to implore you to say yes but have your heart say no.
I'm afraid there's no coming back from that question now, is there? I should just tear this up and go on as we have been… except the word, that little pronoun, is out there, Anne. OURS.
I hardly know what our wedding might have been like. I can safely say it wouldn't have been like the Great Gordon Family Extravaganza. Perhaps a little more like Diana and Fred's; family, food and festivities, surrounded by familiar people and things, with time and space to take a breath.
Or perhaps, knowing your romantic sensibilities, you envisioned getting married in the woods, amongst the trees, a dryad in every possible sense. Or fair Titania, indeed.
Or would you let convention be damned, Anne-girl? To decide then and there, handfasted, *** our promise as good as a vow?
Or even better, I read once that one only needed to declare the intention to make it true; that saying 'I Marry You' three times **** was as good as a reverend's decree.
Well, Anne, my one true love – how amazing to write that! – I have asked the question now, every different way, and await your response.
Please know, Anne, that you are entitled to refuse me, as before. Perhaps this inarticulate note is no less blundering than my other attempt. But it is given with all my heart, and that full, overflowing heart I give to you.
I once told you that "Your friendship cannot satisfy me," ***** Anne, and have cringed at those shameful words every day since. For I have been without your friendship, and believe me, I do not wish to ever be without it again. We WILL go on being friends, Anne. Another refusal won't break me. And I won't let it break you. Only being cut from your life forever could have the power to do that to me now.
Well, Carrots, I had better find you under that tree, now, and let YOU do some of the talking.
Love, forever,
Gilbert
Anne's sobs of sorrow and anguish rent the early morning air, bringing the young nurse running in fright down the long hallway to the far room.
"Oh, Gilbert!" Anne cried, weeping bitterly, head bowed above the still, silent figure, clutching his arm as she had when she had called him her beloved.
"I marry you. I marry you. I marry you!"
Chapter Notes
This chapter title comes from my favourite chapter in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland – Ch 9 'The Mock Turtle's Story' and is naturally courtesy of the Mock Turtle himself.
It is also one of my favourite lines from the entire novel, and I couldn't wait to use it. Could I have placed Gilbert in grave and mortal danger just so that I could use the line? I couldn't possibly say…
*Quoting Gilbert's words to Anne in this story, Ch 7
**Referencing Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, for the uninitiated.
***Handfasting is a traditional practice that will be familiar to Outlander fans and may denote an unofficiated wedding, or a formal and binding betrothal, where an engagement can only be broken through divorce. The couple makes 'fast of a pledge' by the shaking or joining of hands.
****My shameless plundering of a scene in Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain and it's subsequent film adaptation.
*****Gilbert in Anne of the Island Ch 20 'Gilbert Speaks', but you knew that, of course.
And some correspondence…
Guest of 22nd July: I'm sorry indeed for the previous cliffhanger ending! Hopefully you have been able to get your breath back with this chapter!
Astrakelly: Thank you for your lovely words of encouragement! As for Jem, yes indeed, how DO you get Jem from James Matthew? It's a bit of a stretch. I do love the name, though, and love its use in To Kill a Mockingbird, too.
DrinkThemIn: Thank you, as ever, for your lovely words and sharing of 'The Continuing Story' love x
Bright Promise: Thank you so much for your comment! I love that beloved was your favourite part. I'm glad that hit home for you.