Chapter 30
Gilbert stared with a wide beaming grin not at where his name was printed as the winner of the medalist, but at where Anne's name was printed as the winner of the Avery. He had been thrilled when upon arrival with Henry, eyes already scanning for Anne that had intend to walk over with the girls, he had been hailed as the medal winner. Gilbert wasn't to lost to his own celebration to not find out if Anne had won the Avery though. He knew that is own achievement would have been hollow without her achievement next to it. To celebrate in the face of her disappointment would be bitter. Anne was good enough that she would wish him congratulations, but he would know how disappointed and hurt she was. But her name blazoned up next to the Avery made everything ten time sweeter.
"She did it!" Henry exclaimed with exuberance upon reading her name.
"Three cheers for Miss Shirely, winner of the Avery," another student nearby having seen her approaching called out.
"Anne," Gilbert said turning, his eyes twinkling with pride and happiness. His plan was to go to her, but his fellow scholars had other ideas and had hoisted him onto their shoulders. He watched amid cheers as Henry hugged Anne and spun her around again and again, wanting to be over there. Finally making it over to them he proclaimed with a broad grin, "You did it, Anne!" before sweeping her into a hug, crushing her against him with more exuberance than usual.
"We did it," Anne corrected happily and then went up on tiptoe to plant a soft congratulating kiss on his cheek.
Gilbert's win of the medal, had made him feel like his dreams were possible, he could be a doctor, he could someday see Anne looking at him with love in her gray eyes. Her soft kiss, on top of his win, catapulted him to heights he hadn't thought possible.
...
"I knew you could do it, Anne. The Avery. How does it feel?" Gilbert asked happily later that night away from the loud celebration on the lawn.
"How does it feel to be the medal winner?" Anne countered, smiling up at him.
"Good. Bold," Gilbert said laughing. "Like my dreams might come true."
"Which dreams?" Anne asked him.
Rather than answer her Gilbert found himself leaning down and his lips connecting with hers. Anne hesitated at first, but as his lips moved on hers, she kissed him back with untutored enthusiasm. Her response filled with just as much passion as she had brought that slate down on his head with in the past. Gilbert encouraged, gently wrapped his hands around her waist, his hands caressing her.
Henry had headed this way to see what had happened to Anne, after Gilbert hadn't returned with her when the two had seen her wander off from the edge of the crowd towards the quiet dark. Now he saw her in Gilbert's arms being passionately kissed and he managed to forget that he believed with everything in him Anne and Gilbert belonged together. He forgot that Gilbert was his best friend and that he knew had honorable intentions and was head over heels in love with Anne, that he couldn't think of anyone better for Anne, and that he had done eveything he could to encourage the match. Henry forgot all of that and only considered that Anne was being kissed in the dark by a man she wasn't engaged too or even courting. He tapped Gilbert on the shoulder with angry vigor until he got his attention and when Gilbert stopped kissing Anne in confusion and turned to face him, he let his fist fly with enough force to knock Gilbert to the ground.
"Henry!" Anne exclaimed in startled angry reprimand as she dropped to her knees to see if Gilbert was okay, leaning over him.
This time those words Gilbert had thought uncomfortably after the slate incident came pouring out and not inaudibly. "Marry me?" he asked Anne. And then when her eyes widened, he added. "Not right away. But someday. I know I shouldn't ask you until we are older, maybe in college, but promise me, Anne, someday I can ask you to marry me. That you will?"
Anne without saying a word, eyes wide, slowly backed away from him and then rising to her feet dashed off.
"Anne!" Gilbert said sitting up.
"I think you ask her a bit to soon, mate," Henry said with a smirk, but a hint of contrition in his voice. And then laying a hand on Gilbert's arm to stop him from chasing Anne said, "Most girls like to be courted a bit before a fella pops a question like that on them. And what you were doing didn't count as courting."
Gilbert though shook his hand off and dashed off in the direction Anne had gone. Catching up to her where she had stopped, her back to him, arms hugging herself, he said softly, "Anne?"
Anne turned around to face him and the tears in her eyes, nearly undid him. He knew they were his fault but he didn't understand why since she had kissed him back and he knew he hadn't imagined it. Or her concern when Henry felled him.
"Gil, its all changing! Why do things have to change? Henry, his family. He hasn't opened the letter the lawyer gave him. With the term over, it will be time" Anne said with a sniffle.
"Henry won't leave you behind, Anne. Your his family. Not those people. You, Tommy, Matthew and Marilla," Gilbert told her gently.
"And you, Gil," Anne said sniffing. "Don't forget to include yourself."
"And me," Gilbert said to please her and was rewarded with a watery smile. "And things change because that's part of life, Anne. Those changes don't have to be bad. Some can be good. Redmond, that's a good change, isn't it?"
Anne nodded her head and then to Gilbert's surprise she flung herself at him, hugging his waist. His arms came to wrap around her and he whispered, "It will be okay, Anne-girl." He had known Anne was only 16 and that she wasn't ready for any serious suitor, especially with the emotional upheval from Henry's faternal relations recently, but he had lost his head and tried to push her. Now he simply held her, grateful she was in his arms and that his rash actions hadn't turned her from him.
He inwardly winced at his asinine proposal. Anne deserved flowers and romance and he'd blurted it out while laying on the ground reeling from her brother's fist. They stood queitly like that for sometime, Anne for the comfort being there provided and Gilbert because he couldn't bear to break the moment and release her from his arms as long as she was willing to be in them.
Finally the noise of others heading their direction broke the moment and Gilbert reluctantly released Anne and said, "Come on, its getting late. We had best start to round everybody up and see them to their boarding houses."
…
After dropping Anne off at her boarding house, and it was finally just the two of them, Henry said wryly, "A light post, Gil?"
"I was inspired by your hair. Did you really want me telling Charlie, Charlie Sloan of all people, with Josie Pye there listening, that you punched me again?"
"No," Henry declared. Then after a deep breath and sighing he said, "I'm sorry you know. I lost my head. I knew, but well seeing it is a bit different than knowing."
"Ya know, that's the third time. Maybe one of these times I can be the one to start the fight," Gilbert said grinning.
"It wasn't a fight that time, you didn't punch back," Henry said rolling his eyes.
"That's because our positions were finally reversed. You have no idea how many times I thought you came out the winner in that first fight because Anne kneeled at your side, seeing if you were okay."
"Oh, I had a pretty good idea the real victory was mine when we walked away and you stood there gaping after us," Henry said chuckling. "But seriously, I overreacted earlier."
"You red heads have a tendency to do that I've come to decide."
"So did you two work everything out? What did she say?" Henry asked curiously.
"In most circumstances about this I'd tell you to mind your own business but we both know I shouldn't have asked her now and like that. It's no surprise she turned me down-"
"She said no?" Henry asked quietly in suprise.
"She didn't say anything," Gilbert said with a sigh.
"So the question is still open ended," Henry mussed. "What did you talk about while you were gone?" Henry asked.
"You. She's scared of this change. Your family-" Gilbert began to say.
"She's my family. Not them," Henry cut him off with.
"I know that. And I think she does too, she just needs to be reassured of that fact.
"What else?"
"That's it," Gilbert said with a shrug.
"You were gone for over half an hour, almost an hour," Henry said in disbelief. "You didn't talk about me for that long."
"No, mate. You only took a handful of minutes," Gilbert said with a cheeky grin.
"Then-"
"None of your buisness, but I can assure you I was a complete gentleman. And that I won't be trying to push Anne for what I know she isn't ready for. Right now she needs a friend and I can be okay with that. She just turned 16 a few months ago, there is no rush."
"So you won't be officially courting her yet when we go back to Avonlea?" Henry asked.
"Not officially," Gilbert said.
"Unofficially still though, like you have been for three years now. Awfully long courtship," Henry teased.
"Worth it," Gilbert retorted.
...
Matthew and Marilla both made it for the commencement ceremony, while Tommy stayed under the watchful eye of Mrs. Lynde. Marilla to her discombobulation shed a few tears of pride. She couldn't help but note how well both Anne and Henry looked. Henry had looked so nervous when they arrived, stuttering out a dejected apology for lying about his name. Matthew had said, "Well that Shakespear fella Anne likes to quote says something about nothing being in a name, so I reckon you ain't got no cause to apologize. "
"You're our Henry whether your last name is Mack or Mackenzie," Marilla had declared briskly, giving him a quick embrace before stepping back embarrassed, saying gruffly, "I wasn't quite sure what to make of that lawyer fella, but his intentions seemed honest and sincere."
"If I take the legacy, I want you to have it. To pay you back for all you did for me, Anne and Tommy," Henry had said seriously.
"Stuff and nonsense," Marilla had exclaimed. "You won't be doing anything of the sort. You will be using that sum to see to your future. You can't pay us back for doing what Providence degreed. Having you three in our lives, well it was more than we ever had a right to expect. Matthew and I are both real proud of you. Real proud. I've never been more grateful for my fit of temper and impulsive actions. It was the Providence's hand guiding me that day, " Marilla said with a nod as if that settled everything. And to her it did. Both of her eldest little stray waifs would go to college and she couldn't be prouder or love then any more than she did.
