Chapter 39
"Anne?" Charlie asked tentatively as he approached the crying shivering red head. "Here take my coat. Henry and Gilbert would have my hide if I didn't see you back to your boarding house. What on earth are you doing here? And how did this happen?"
"Oh please don't tell Henry and Gil about this," Anne cried gesturing toward her muddy, torn dress.
"If someone attacked you Anne, I can't not tell Gilbert and Henry," Charlie said with a frown.
"I wasn't attacked. Not, not like well your thinking," Anne said sniffling.
"Then what happened, Anne Shirley?" Charlie asked with a frown.
"I was well, it doesn't matter what I was doing and my dress got caught and I thought I was stuck, which would have been embarrassing enough but then this great big dog came up barking and I was so afraid I yanked my dress hard enough to leave part of it behind and tried to run, but the dog tackled me into the mud, and it hurt something fierce. If it feels like that when boys play football, well why would anyone want to get the wind knocked from them like that?"
"Anne," Charlie said testily reminding her he was waiting to hear what happened.
"Yes, well the dog sniffed me and licked me a bit before deciding I wasn't very interesting and let me up. And well then, I realized that I didn't know where I was and I was resolved to ask for help, though I could tell the area was afflicted. I must have looked rather disreputable even for that neighborhood, because when I found a group of children to ask, they threw rocks at me and chased me away. Once they stopped I kept running and I had the misfortune to slip and fall, skinning my knee. I couldn't quite run anymore but I kept moving until the area didn't remind me of well, other less pleasant places."
"I think I'm rather relieved you aren't my problem," Charlie said seriously.
"Before you and Henry came to Avonlea, Gilbert was almost my best friend. It was mostly down to me or Fred Wright, who would be his best friend. Other fellas were likely vying to be his best friend as well but I think I can in all modesty say that if Henry had never of come to Avonlea I think Gilbert would have become my best friend, after all Fred Wright is just a farm boy."
Anne looked incrediously at Charlie for this statement, but choose not to refute it. Gilbert would no more be best friends with pompous googly eyed Charlie over Fred Wright, whose praises Diana had been singing recently, then he would propose to her for any reason other than that her brother had punched him and he thought he had too. Thinking about how he would always see her as the horrid girl that smashed her slate on his head and thereby ruining any chance he could ever love her, Anne started to cry again.
...
Gilbert was relieved after over thirty minutes of increasingly frantic searching he finally spotted a teary eyed, albeit disheveled Anne, though he was less pleased to see her with Charlie Sloan, wearing his coat.
"Anne," Gilbert cried relieved as he ran up and wrapped his arms around her glaring at Charlie.
"I wasn't me!" Charlie said holding his arms up by his chest, hands out. "All I did was give her my coat when I found her like this, I didn't think it would do for anyone to see her dress in the state what is left of it is in. And start to walk her back to her boarding house, naturally. I didn't lay a hand on her. It was a dog and some peasant children and well she never did say what her dress was caught on when she tore it, but she was already like this when I found her. And quiet frankly I'm rather glad she is your responsibility not mine. I wish you all the luck with her, she certainly needs a firm hand on the reins."
Removing Charlie's coat from Anne's shoulders, thrusting it at Charlie and wrapping his own around Anne he said, angry at Charlie's remark, "You need not stick around." Then sighing he added begrudgingly, "Thanks for finding her Charlie."
"Yes. I sincerely hope it doesn't happen again," Charlie said pomposly before walking off gingerly carrying his coat as if worried the mud from Anne had contaminated it.
"Oh Anne-girl," Gilbert said gently planting a kiss on her forehead, causing her to cry more. "Do you really not know how much I love you? How I have been in love with you since your brought your slate down on my head?"
"You—" Anne asked lifting her head to stare at him with wide gray eyes, unable to finish saying such an astounding thought.
"Yes, Anne. I love you. My practical, sensible soul fell in love with you the moment I saw you, while your romantic, dreamy soul refused to see me as anything other than a mean hateful boy. One of us fell in love at first sight and I have been devoutly hoping that someday your romantic soul would give me another look, that you would open your eyes and see me as I have always seem you. "
"I'm so sorry, Gil," Anne said hiccuping. "I was such-"
"Don't be. I was insufferably cocky, thinking I could so easily get your attention. That just because I fell in love with you with one look that I should be entitled to your affection. You quickly showed me that such an assumption was wrong."
"But I do love you, Gil. I don't know how I didn't realize it before. When I realized it, it just seemed like I must have always loved you."
"Anne Shirely," Gilbert said holding her closely and gazing down at her, "Can I court you?"
"Court me?" Anne repeated.
"Yes. I have been hoping to court you, dreaming of marrying you, for years. I had been dreaming of it so long that your brother had to tell me you finally blushed because of me. I had thought to ask to go on a walk, gather some flowers for you and ask you, but when I showed up at your door, you evidently ran off. And I simply refuse to wait any longer to ask you. I do promise to try and give you the romance you deserve in the future but I can't wait another second to ask you to allow me to court you."
"Oh, yes," Anne said beaming up at him through her tears.
"Thank you," Gilbert said and aware of their semi public surroundings didn't kiss her like he really wanted to but contended himself with another kiss to her forehead. And then his tone turning playful he said, "As much as I want to keep you all to myself right now, we should get you home. Phil and Stella have by now probably alerted Henry to the fact that you are missing. And I'm not sure I want to be you once Phil gets her hands on you. I am afraid she really isn't good at keeping secrets and was spilling every imagining you had tormented yourself with. I won't lie when I saw you with Charlie, wearing his coat, if he had taken advantage of your misery to propose to you again and gain your acceptance I was determined it would be the shortest engagement in history and I would fight a duel with him if necessary, but my Anne wasn't marrying that pompous-"
"Oh Gil," Anne said giggling. "Charlie told me if Henry hadn't come to Avonlea, he, Charlie Sloan, googly eyed Charlie, would have been your best friend."
"What?" Gilbert exclaimed. "Why would he? Of all the-"
"He admitted Fred Wright was perhaps a consideration for you, but that you would certianly have chosen him eventually, since Fred was, according to Charlie, just a farm boy," Anne said impishly.
"As if someone just arbitrarly picks out a best friend. Charlie certainly isn't a kindred spirit," Gilbert said with a chuckle.
The end for now at least. i may write more up until they are engaged but I will be out of town for almost 2 weeks so I won't be writing a part two for a few weeks but this seemed like a good stopping point
