"Prince Wisteria, with flashing violet eyes, looked to Cordelia and took her hands in his. Cordelia smiled, her rippling hair of—"
Anne paused in her writing, pencil stopping in its tracks, the furious scratching dying in her ears. She looked over at Susan, who sat in the desk beside her.
"What color hair should Cordelia have, do you think?" Anne asked her.
"I don't know." Susan shrugged a shoulder without looking over. "What difference does it make?"
"It makes all the difference." Anne insisted. "Cordelia is supposed to be lovely! What's the loveliest color hair?"
"Just make it red." Susan glanced over. "Like yours."
"I would laugh at your joke, but you're never intending to be funny. A shame, you're good at it." Anne said, a challenging tone in her voice. Susan didn't respond.
Anne tossed her red curls over her shoulder with annoyance. There was no use ever trying to get a rise out of Susan. Anne's best friend never knew how to argue in a playful manner. She also never had any good story ideas or anything imaginative to say at all. Anne knew deep down they were only friends because they lived across the street from one another.
"Maybe I'll make it blonde, like yours. Or do you prefer the term golden?" Anne tried to smile kindly.
"Either one." Susan began copying what was on the blackboard.
"Wouldn't I be more beautiful with golden hair?" Anne poked Susan with the point of her pencil, trying to entice her. "Just picture it."
"I can't picture it, Anne. I'm trying to write." Susan scooted her desk away just slightly so that Anne's pencil no longer touched her.
"Oh Susan, you never want to pretend anything is how it's not."
"Because that's how things are, Anne." Susan flashed her a look, her blue eyes shining before going back to her work.
The teacher stepped into the room and Anne quickly turned the page in her notebook back to the one she'd already copied the work on.
"Now," The teacher tossed his old tweed jacket onto the hook by the door. It fell into the floor. Everyone laughed, even Anne, as he picked it up and folded it over the back of his chair. He grinned, flashing them all his good natured smile. "Now, now… I didn't hear anyone talking while I was out in the hallway, did I?"
"No, Mr. Shirley." The class chorused.
"No, Mr. Shirley." Anne whispered to herself, unable to bite back a smirk.
Her father, her teacher, caught her eye and winked at her. Anne laughed and bent back over her work. She quickly flipped back to write her story as her father began explaining the prompt on the board.
Anne loved having her father as her teacher. For one thing, she finished her work faster than anyone else, since she always knew what was coming. Walter Shirley would sit by the fire at night and make up his lesson plans, and Anne would sit on the rug down by the hearth and listen in.
He was also there to critique her essays. Her biggest fan and biggest critic, Walter was always trying to make Anne better in her literary work. As a published novelist himself, Walter knew what she needed to hear.
"Cut out the purple prose, Rosebud." He'd laugh.
"I like my prose as violet as the sky at sunset." She'd say right back.
Though lately, at just sixteen, Anne found herself shying away from showing her father her work. School essays were fine, but her novels were becoming increasingly private.
The grand romances she wrote of as a child, with clasped hands between two parties swearing their love, were nothing compared to the romances she wrote now. Anne had described kisses in writing more times now than she'd ever been kissed in real life, which wasn't hard, as she'd actually never done it.
"And we're remembering to underline our titles." Walter Shirley was saying as he came down the aisle. Anne was not paying attention.
"Underline." Mr. Shirley reached out and touched the title of Anne's Cordelia story.
Anne gasped, face flushing as she shut her notebook, narrowly missing closing it on her father's hand. Mr. Shirley yanked his hand back and laughed. Anne stuck her tongue out at him before turning back to the page with the essay prompt she'd copied from the board.
What I plan on accomplishing this year is…
Anne stared at it for a moment, tapping her pencil on the desk as she thought. Susan glared at Anne as the tapping grew louder.
What did she want to accomplish? Anne looked at her father, who was helping another student. She then wondered what her mother was doing. Bertha Shirley was a teacher too, with her younger students just across the hall.
Anne had read more than once about small towns out in the country whose schools had only one room, one teacher. Anne thought it sounded tragical. Wonderfully so, but she was still glad that wasn't the case for her.
"I expect to see these by the end of class." Mr. Shirley said, taking his pocket watch out and checking it.
Anne quickly went to her work again, knowing she needed to write at least something to keep her father satisfied, even though she'd rather write of Cordelia's life over her own.
I plan on experiencing a grand romance.
Anne stared at the page, crossed out romance with force, and rewrote.
I plan on experiencing a grand adventure.
Anne knew she was pushing her luck with even her father as she turned in the paper without only a single line written, so she tried to shove it down under everyone else's as they filed out the door.
In the hallway, Mrs. Shirley was waving out her class, who filed out in a messy line of shoving and tripping. Anne waved to her mother over the little one's heads before following Susan outside.
"What did you write about?" Anne asked.
"How I wanted to accomplish making a dress on my own this year." She said. Anne was surprised by Susan saying something interesting for once. "What about you?"
"Adventure." Anne said. "Though, a lost cause, isn't it? Halifax isn't much known for dragons swooping down or anything."
"No, it isn't." Susan agreed before suddenly quickened her pace to join Bridget and Jenny who were walking just ahead. Anne slowed her pace, deflated as she was left behind before calling out lamely. "Well… see you!"
"All alone, Rosebud?" Walter approached her from behind, papers spilled from the corner of a briefcase under one arm.
Anne looked over her shoulder and grinned at the sight of her parents. She did so enjoy walking home with them more than Susan anyways. Anne stepped in between them and took one of their hands in each of hers.
"Not anymore." She gave them gentle squeezes and beamed up at them.
"Big smile for someone rewriting an essay tonight." Walter smirked.
"Oh, don't tease her, Walter." Bertha sighed. "You know how she gets about writing. She was likely just waiting for the perfect timing to focus, weren't you my dear?"
"Yes." Anne sighed, deciding to accept the homework with dignity. "Everything's perfect now."
Anne finished her essay upstairs in her bedroom, as she smelled her mother finishing dinner down below. Though she was almost done, she decided to dawdle to avoid having to set the table.
She laid her pencil down across her paper and stood up. At the bookshelf, Anne stepped around the unsorted towers of books that were on the floor. She was supposed to be choosing some to give away now that she had too many for her bookshelf, but she hadn't wanted to make the cut yet.
Anne reached to the highest shelf and pulled down her one of father's book. Legends of the Lavellan, Anne's favorite.The white cover was still pristine, even after all this time, and that was because Anne treated her copy very gently. She carefully opened the front cover and read the inscription her father had left.
To my Rosebud, turn pages and spread your wings –Father.
Anne had only been four years old when her father sold his first manuscript and eleven when he sold his second, and though the money had allowed Anne the slightly finer things in life growing up, neither her nor her parents had forgotten what was really important.
Anne touched the writing, fingers brushing over his special nickname for her. She smiled, remembering how he'd read from this copy aloud at night as she snuggled in bed. She liked that better than reading it herself. She could read since she was able to talk, but she liked the way he did the voices.
It was only when her mother called her down to eat that Anne decided to be done with her essay. She reshelved her father's book, scrawled some last few whimsical words onto paper and then dashed downstairs.
She stopped in the dining room, eyeing the dished on the table. Her eyes widened and her heart pounded. Pecan pie. Her mother only made pecan pie when she wanted to break bad news to her.
Last time they had pecan pie, Anne had been told over dinner that their horse had died. Her parents must have had news in a joint effort, as they exchanged worried glances as they eyed Anne frozen in the doorway.
"Pie!" Anne looked between them in alarm. "Is one of you dying!?"
Gilbert's eyes blurred as he stared at the same sentence over and over again in the book. He was trying to make himself small, squashed into the corner down by the bookshelf, hyperaware of his mother moving in the kitchen behind him.
If he looked busy, she'd leave him alone, he told himself. He wasn't sure why he trusted himself to believe that after seventeen years proved it untrue. She sought him out, proven by the damp hand now in his hair.
"Gilbert, why don't you go give your father a hand?"
"Yes, Mother." Gilbert bit back complaints as he closed the book and stood up.
He wasn't sure why it all weighed him down. Yes, his father needed help, but something about seeing it all in person hurt. Still, it was selfish to want to avoid it all.
Gilbert walked around the back of the house, following the dirt trail to what was left of the orchard. John Blythe stood in the empty field, shoveling blackened wood and soot into a wheelbarrow.
He didn't see Gilbert at first, and Gilbert's heart broke at the way his father's face was frozen in grief, arms trembling just slightly around the shovel as he pulled up shovels full of charred wood. He caught sight of Gilbert approaching.
"Hey son." John tried to smile as he pressed the shovel into the Earth and leaned on it.
"Mom…uh, mom said I should help?" Gilbert tried not to look down at his father's injured leg.
"Then shovel away, my boy!" John handed Gilbert the tool with a weary smile, hiding his pain as he lifted the handles of the wheelbarrow with great effort.
"Maybe I should—" Gilbert reached out.
"I've got it. You shovel, I push." John grunted.
"Yes, Sir." Gilbert sighed.
Gilbert tried to keep his own face neutral as she shoveled up the remains of their precious crop. It was absolutely heart breaking that not one tree had survived the fire. Every apple seed was burnt to ash. To less than ash.
"Some of these trees were older than me." John mopped his face with a cloth as Gilbert lifted the blackened Earth into the wheelbarrow. "And just like that—" A snap of his fingers. "The Lord takes them in fire."
"It wasn't your fault, Dad." Gilbert said.
John didn't seem to believe him. He pressed the cloth to his eyes now, as if forcing away tears. Gilbert felt his own face break in anguish as he watched him, but quickly picked up back working so his father wouldn't see Gilbert was watching him cry.
"Better finish up soon…your mother will need help anyways." He mumbled. He walked off to the edge of the field where he finally broke. "God, what are we gonna do this year?"
Gilbert dropped the shovel, soot and mud splattering his boots as he crossed the feel and caught his father by the shoulders. John sobbed, hands pressed to his face.
"We need the crop! We need the money!"
"We'll get by!" Gilbert assured him. "I can stay home this year to work. I'm already so ahead in school…"
"You shouldn't— Not your burden—"
"Boys?" Gilbert's mother called in the distance. "Soup's on!"
"Coming, Dora!"John stood up straight and wiped at his face once more, this time smearing ash into the prominent lines. "Don't forget to wash up, son."
"Yes, Sir." Gilbert was almost impressed by how quickly his father put away all the sadness and grief, but equally impressed that he allowed himself to feel it at all.
He never hid from emotions, good or bad. His mother said that most soldiers returning from war bottled it all up, but John had been different. When he felt something, he left them know, good or bad. Gilbert admired that. The idea that men had to be unwavering strongholds was terrifying, and he was glad he'd get to live instead by his father's example.
How much his father loved his mother, that was another thing Gilbert admired. The pain and even his limp seemed to vanish as they approached the house. John smiled and embraced his wife. Dora Blythe laughed and Gilbert smiled.
His fleeting feelings of contentment did not last. Gilbert stood over his washstand in his room after dinner, washing as much soot from under his nails as possible. It was then that he heard tense voices from his parent's room. He dared investigate.
"Nothing. There's nothing left for me here." John was saying as Gilbert crept closer.
"Nothing?" Dora whispered harshly. "What about me? What about your son!?"
"A burden." John sighed. Gilbert felt his heart break. Did his father mean him? "I'm a burden to him. Even if the land survived, I can't till it. My leg has been getting worse—"
"I can help. Let me into the field." She said firmly.
"Dorothy, there is no field. The land is gone, months…years before it's back." John said. "There is nothing here. Just let me go, and I'll send back as much money as I can. I'll see if I can't maybe find something permanent on the mainland, and then I'll send for you and Gilbert."
"What work?" Dora paused and Gilbert froze as the floorboard creaked underneath his foot. "What work could you possibly do in your condition?"
"Steamships need workers. I did it for years right out of school, and I can do it again now."
"Not if you can't walk!" Dora scoffed. "John, please. You can't go on a boat to God knows where! We need you here!"
"Then what? We're running out of money, and no crop? How do you suspect we survive!?"
Gilbert held his breath. Unlike his father, he'd never been one to cry, but hearing their voices this way was shaking something inside of him. He had no idea things were this bad. After the fire, people in Avonlea sent over food and condolences, and Gilbert just assumed things would be alright.
He recalled now, seeing his father standing by the fireplace the night before and gently lifting his war medal from the case. He often did that in the throes of reminiscence but something told Gilbert now that if he went to look, then the medal would be gone.
The very breakfast he'd eaten that morning would have come from the money his father had gotten with its pawn. His expression hardened, and it was then that he knew what he had to do.
"I'll go!" Gilbert pushed open the bedroom door. "Let me go work on the ship."
"A ship?" Anne blinked, looking between her parents at the dinner table. "Like a boat?"
"Exactly." Walter nodded, reaching across the table for her hand. Anne put down her pie fork and took his hand. "When the sea breeze blows, that's my muse. The open sea is the perfect place for me to get more writing done."
"What about school?" Anne looked at her mother. "If you're both on a ship, then who will teach your classes?"
"There are plenty of teachers, especially young ones, who'd want the job. They can get experience without having to commit to a whole year." Bertha said.
"If father is going to be writing." Anne looked at her. "…What will you do?"
"Teaching you, of course." Bertha smiled. "That is, if you still want to go to college."
"Of course I do!" Anne knew by her mother's playful tone that she knew Anne's answer well. "This is just unexpected, that's all. We're really all going to go out to sea?"
"We are!" Walter was excited. "You ready for your sea legs, Rosebud?"
The very reality of it all seemed to hit Anne. Forgetting all about pie, she jumped to her feet and squealed. Her heart swelled as the thousands of glorious imagines, adventures and far off places filled her mind.
"When are we leaving!? What sort of ports are we going to!? Oh, tell me everything!" Anne clasped her hands.
"The Osprey doesn't leave for a week, dear." Bertha laughed.
"Oh." Anne stopped bouncing.
"But, the ports include from Canada to England, and more." Walter nodded. "Lots of interesting cargo to pick up, as well as interesting people."
"I can't wait!" Anne sighed. "I'm going to have an adventure!"
Gilbert held back a yawn as he leaned against a railing on the dock of Charlottetown. The Osprey would be docking within the hour, and the sun was only just now peering over the horizon. He shoved his hands in the pockets of the thin coat he wore and felt his hands brush the few coins his mother had given him, pressed into a leather wallet.
It had felt betraying them, the way he raised his voice and demanded they let him go. His mother cried, insisting he had no idea how to work on a boat. His father cried too, but clapped him on the shoulders.
In the end, he knew his mother couldn't change his mind. He refused to stay the night, eat another meal when they couldn't afford it, so Gilbert had taken the only coin they could spare and rode the rails to Charlottetown, just in time for the Osprey.
It didn't feel real, sleeping at the train station over night, walking to the docks before the sun rose. None of it did. His mind yelled, you have a bed at home, what are you doing!? You didn't even bring your school books!
Gilbert squashed down those thoughts and reminded himself of reality, of the feel of flames and the sight of his family's prospects burning up. That was real.
This was real.
Tobacco smoke mixed with the ocean spray as a couple of other workers arrived, their lit hand-rolled cigarettes handing from their mouths.
They were grown men, Gilbert noticed, feeling small. They wore shabby denim overalls and one of them was without a hat. The other man did have a hat, but with patches on the brim.
Gilbert glanced down at his own clothes –similar work clothes, as per his father's recommendation, but his seemed so clean in comparison. He quickly snatched the hat from his head and wadded it into his pocket as the ship approached.
Like a building on the water, Gilbert felt even more intimidated by its size as it grew closer. Finally, it pulled slowly to the dock, dwarfing the other docked ships in size.
A wide wooden plank bridged the gap between the dock and the dark cargo hold of the ship as it opened. Men in dirty uniforms ushered out and began picking up crates and barrels from the other side of the pier.
"Don't drop that!" A man in a jacket holding a tobacco pipe barked as a man ducked back into the hold with a barrel. "We're picking up passengers in a few hours, and you think they wanna wait on a dock that stinks of dead fish!?"
To Gilbert's surprise, the men that he'd been waiting with rushed towards the man with the pipe. He pulled his pipe from his mouth and looked them over. Gilbert walked to stand beside them.
"I said I'd take three from P.E.I." He grumbled, pointing at the two men beside Gilbert and jabbing his thumb towards the remaining barrels. They went right to work hauling. Gilbert's heart pounded as the man finally looked him over. "How old are you, boy?"
"Seventeen, sir." Gilbert said firmly. "I'm strong, I've been working fields my whole life."
"You look skinny." The man narrowed his eyes at him.
"Please, sir, I'm strong and I promise I'll work hard." Gilbert's brows pulled together in worry. Wouldn't that just be something, to have them not even want him and force him to go back home?
"Fine." He sighed. "Well, don't just stand there, boy! This isn't the farm, we don't just stand around and wait for grass to grow!"
Gilbert scrambled to pick up a crate. It was heavy, but his adrenaline was pumping now. He became a blur with the other men, a cog in a machine as they took all the barrels and crates from the dock. The last one was long, and Gilbert thought nothing of taking one side while another man took the other.
"Just a tip," The other worker whispered, a slight accent in his voice. Gilbert looked up to see dark skin. His heart pounded. "You wanna stay on his good side."
"I didn't know he had a good side." Gilbert replied, lifting his half and resisting the urge to watch over his shoulder as he backed into the hold.
"Funny, but I mean it." The man was unamused. "Someone like you could either be his favorite or his least favorite."
"What happens to the favorites?" Gilbert asked.
"They go up on deck, wash and tend to the passengers. They see the sun without having to sweat in it too much."
"And the least favorites?" Gilbert was almost afraid to ask, and based off the look the other man gave him, he didn't want to know.
They stacked the crate inside with the others, but Gilbert barely had time to rest before the boss was back, yelling into the hold so his voice echoed off the walls.
"Let's go, I want those engines hot before we start to Nova Scotia!"
"Come on," The dark-skinned man gestured for Gilbert to follow him. "The sound of the coal almost drowns him out, so it's worth it."
"How long have you worked here?" Gilbert asked.
"I've been on ships for almost a decade. But, the Oliver? Just a week or three." He said.
"This is the Osprey." Gilbert blinked.
"Whatever. They're all the same after a while." He sighed. "So, why'd a shrimp like you leave the farm?"
"Change of pace." Gilbert shrugged, feeling sweat already blooming on his forehead as they approached the door to the furnace.
"I don't think this pace was such a good idea, boy." The man swung open a large metal door and Gilbert was hit with a wave of heat. The man watched Gilbert shed his jacket immediately with a mix of amusement and pity. "What they call you, anyways?"
"Gilbert." He shoved his two-coin wallet from his jacket into his pants pocket. "Gilbert Blythe."
"Blythe?" The man sighed and stepped into the room. Gilbert followed and they let the door slam behind them. "Yeah, I used to be too."
Anne sat on top of her suitcase, using it as a makeshift bench to people-watch the crowds at the Halifax harbor. The excruciating week wait wasn't made easier in deciding what to pack and what to leave behind.
Finally, she settled on leaving Beary behind. The old stuffed toy's button eye had fallen off anyways. With what to take with her, Anne packed her best dresses her mother had bought her. Her favorite ones sported trim of plaid to reflect her highland heritage.
The scarf she wore now was the same soft red plaid. Anne hadn't expected the wind to be this cold, but the smell of salt told her this was the sea's freezing way of greeting her.
"Take a look out there, Buttercup." Walker leaned over Anne's shoulder, extending out a small brass telescope. "Tell me what you see?"
Anne took her gloves off and shoved them into her fleece coat pocket. She put the telescope to her eye and looked out to the grey water that lashed towards the grey sky. In the distance, she saw something.
"I see it! I see the ship!" Anne lowered the telescope. "It's nothing like the ferry, it's…huge! It looks like someone sent a street's worth of buildings afloat!"
A man nearby waiting to board seemed to chuckle at Anne. Anne was used to adults finding her prose amusing, so she paid it no mind.
"Remember dear, eat your breakfast. We won't get anything on the ship until lunch." Bertha reminded her.
"Yes, Mother."
Anne sat back down on her suitcase and opened up the basket. Bread and a tin thermos of tea reminded Anne of what sailors ate in books. She ate a piece of toast and butter as she looked at the other people on the dock.
Women were holding their hats to keep the wind from blowing them away. Their parasols hung closed down by their sides, not needed on such a cloudy day. Men wore fine jackets and checked nice pocket watches with a huff.
Further back, the people waiting seemed anxious. Their clothes were plain and one women was attempting to hold a pair of crying twins. She had no luggage to sit on.
Anne caught her mother's eye. She'd been watching the woman too. Anne looked to her father, who was in lively conversation with another man.
Wordlessly, Anne picked up the picnic basket and she and Bertha approached the woman. The new mother's eyes widened in slight fear and she stepped back, her children wailing.
"I'm sorry to bother you," Bertha said. "It's just that I packed far too much food, and I'm not sure what we're allowed to take on the ship… would you like the extras?"
Anne held out the basket and smiled. The woman looked stunned, and then almost as if she was going to cry.
"May I hold one of your babies?" Anne asked. "I do so adore children!"
Anne held one of the babies as Bertha held the other. The mother ate several pieces of toast as Anne tried to calm the crying shivering child in her arms.
"When we dock in England, I hope things pick up for us." The woman tried to daintily wipe crumbs from her mouth as she took the baby back from Bertha.
"I think they'll like the ship." Anne said, relieved the child in her arms had calmed somewhat. "Maybe we'll see you on board, and I can play with them a bit?"
At this, the woman laughed without warmth, cutting off when she caught site of Anne's shock. She then forced a smile.
"I just don't think we'll see each other, that's all. Thank you anyways." She held out her other arm and Anne reluctantly gave back the baby before following her mother back to the front of the dock.
"What does she mean?" Anne asked. "The ships isn't so big I'd never see her. Maybe she just doesn't want us bothering her?"
"Never mind it, dear." Bertha put her hands on Anne's shoulders but didn't look her way.
The ship grew closer and it wasn't until Walter fumbled for their tickets in his pocket that Anne felt it sink in. The words across the tops of their tickets read First Class. No doubt, that mother's had not. Anne looked back sadly for the woman, but the passenger crowd had already closed in.
The Osprey really was like strip of city atop the water. Anne gasped, her troubles gone in a flash at the sight of adventure. She held on hand to the wool hat over her red hair and tried to take in the sight of the ship that extended down the entire dock, and then some.
Men from the other dock carried crates across a ramp into the hold as the larger staired ramp came down for passengers. A man in a genuine sailor hat checked tickets as people rushed forward. Anne stayed rigid, afraid of being trampled. She held her carryon bag clutched to her chest, her heavy suitcase still at her feet.
Another group of men picked up people's luggage after someone checked their tickets. Women, and even men, let someone else carry their things without a second thought.
Walter seemed to have the same regards as Anne, and held both his and Bertha's bags in his arms. The stack extended up past his face and Anne feared he'd walk right off the ramp without being able to see where he was going. Luckily, Bertha led him by the arm.
Anne did not want to lose them in the crowd. People were already shoving to walk up as others argued who had and hadn't shown tickets yet. Anne heard the twin babies begin to wail once more.
Anne bent down for her suitcase just as one of the worker's did as well. Her hands brushed against theirs and Anne looked up to see a boy who couldn't have been older than she was.
His face was streaked with coal in the corners by his ears, as if he'd done a poor job of cleaning himself up. His grey shirt must have once been white, and his eyes. They held such innocence and hardship, reminding Anne of the new mother.
"I've got it." Anne managed, grabbing hold of the handle and standing so that the suitcase was upright.
"You sure?" The boy stood up.
"Yes." Anne was determined. She lifted the suitcase up, trying not to strain. She then started for the stairs.
He must have been watched her to make sure she really had it, as she could feel his gaze on her as it caused her heart to pound incessantly as she climbed higher. Finally, her arms buckled and Anne dropped the suitcase down with a thud only partway up.
"I got it, Rosebud." Walter had come back down for Anne, grabbing her suitcase and hauling it up. "Follow me. You've gotta pick your bed in the cabin."
Anne reached out to place her arm within the crook of his elbow so she wouldn't lose him, but she kept turned around to watch the dock grow smaller. Her gaze scanned the people below.
The few passengers made their way up and the last of the worker's finished loading. Anne watched a group of them, the boy nowhere in sight.
Anne could not have made him up. Even she did not have that good of an imagination. There was someone her age on the ship, but not as a passenger. Anne wondered what the life of the workers down below was, or if the labor made the sight of sea lose it's magic, but her musings were interrupted by the blowing of the ship's foghorn.
Anne clamped both hands over her ears and laughed, the sea breeze blowing her curls limp and billowing her dress out around her. Her first real adventure was about to begin!