Welcome, 2022!
What a relief! Well, of course, that's what I initially thought I'd feel… but of course, as we know all around the world, that tide keeps turning, just when we all think we might catch a break.
All we can do, I guess, is hold onto hope, health and any happy we can find.
With love to every Anne-girl and my especial thanks to my faithful readers and reviewers.
MrsVonTrapp x
Chapter Fifteen
Then it doesn't matter which way you go…
…So long as I get somewhere
The flames were wide and high, climbing the drapes and licking the walls. The smoke choked her where she stood, clutching the window frame as Gilbert tied the knotted sheets around her with his sure, deft hands.
"Anne," Gilbert gritted out, drenched in sweat, between a fit of coughing.
"No! I won't leave you, Gilbert!"
"But you already have, Carrots!" he replied tersely.
"What do you mean?" she cried.
"You're off to Summerside! Don't you even remember?"
"No, Gil! Nothing's been signed! Don't YOU remember? I'm your Darling, and you're my Beloved!"
He spluttered, clearly disbelieving. "Where did you hear THAT?"
"You TOLD me!"
"Don't believe everything you hear, Anne-girl," he scowled, hoisting her up onto the narrow windowsill. "And certainly don't believe everything you read."
"But Gilbert! I read your proposal! It was in your letter!"
"Anne, you need to jump out or we'll both die here!"
"But… but Gil! My beloved! I marry you! I said it three times! That means YES!"
"Anne, you never told me about the letter. You made me believe it already burned. And you would never say you would marry me – you told me so, that you could never love me!"
"But I've changed, Gil! My feelings have changed! You have to believe me!"
"Watch the roof tiles on your way down, Carrots!" Gilbert, without further ceremony, pushed her out the window. Her screams sounded loudly in her ears all the way down.
Anne, sitting bolt upright in bed, clutched the blankets to her and felt the scream still in her throat, which was tight and dry and hoarse. She reached for her glass of water with shaking hands, gulping it down, shuddering with the shock of her nightmare. She had not dreamed of the fire once, astonishingly, since their escape, till now – and now it was made more awful still, because she was haunted by her own subsequent cowardice and inaction.
She would not cry… because her ugly, self pitying sobs would be too loud, alerting the Blythes… and Gilbert… next door.
She sunk back into bed, throwing the covers over her, as she had done in her embarrassment when they had spent their night together in the guest house, when at least then she had been brave and truthful. Now… as he had grown in everyone's estimation, she had only shrunk in her own. It was a terrible, telling reversal.
She lay there, silent and staring, prepared to continue so till the dawn came… only, there was a scrabbling noise alerting her, and she leapt out of bed, thinking surely it hadn't been a mouse… to find it had been a message instead.
A paper-thin wall was the only layer between their adjoining rooms in the hotel and within it a door that opened into her quarters, and the comfortable, generous sofa on which he slept was ideally positioned to hear anything loud enough… and Anne's scream had certainly been loud enough to wake him, heart pounding in fright as he focussed on making sense of the jumbled thoughts fighting their way to the surface. It devastated him that she would be dreaming of something so horrifying, likely the fire, even after all this time, and the urge to burst through the door to her was strong, wanting to wrap her in his arms and banish any fears, and worried somehow that they were connected to him.
Instead, he lay on the sofa as he had that time in the guest house; an echo of all that had gone before, only then his parents had decidedly not been sleeping peacefully – and noting his father, also loudly – in the big bed. Sleeping arrangements had been an exacting and protracted discussion for the Blythe family last night and he longed to share the joke with Anne, knowing in other circumstances she would appreciate the absurdity of history repeating. But their day together once he had been discharged from the hospital had not been the charmed enterprise he had hoped it would be, what with his mother still hovering protectively, the Gardners still kindly checking in with them, and all the arrangements to be made regarding their passage back to the Island – his father, thankfully, knocking on the head Anne's brief noises regarding going back on her own, and invoking Marilla's certain displeasure of such a plan into the bargain.
Now, however, there was more than a door dividing them – there were all the unspoken vows between them, all the miscommunications and misunderstandings and missed opportunities, and he feared they were right back where they started, with him racing through the night to reach her, before she said yes to Roy.
But instead… she had said yes to him.
He had asked and she had answered, but Fate had turned his proposal and her acceptance upside down – and it was up to him to right their world again.
Gilbert lay there, wondering, waiting for inspiration. And then he bolted out of bed, a stupid smile on his face, and padded as silently as possible to the writing desk. Of course the hotel had paper and pen as the excellent Gordons had done all those days ago; and although it took him longer and the lettering, with his shoulder still encased in tight bandages, was decidedly uneven, it was still recognizably his firm, upright hand, and the sentiments were unmistakably his.
If a letter had started all this, surely a little note, now, could help them along?
He folded it carefully and shoved it under the door, sending a prayer along with it.
My Fair Titania,
Your dream is not a desirable one this midsummer night; banish your fears, for I am here, and will surely break down the door if needed, though you will recall stuck windows are not my forte.
Alas we have been in a play within a play of late, unsure of our roles and uncertain of the ending. I liked it better when there was just we two players, and our stage was a quiet shared room, and there were no lines except the ones we were learning to say to one another.
Perhaps we can start again? Anew? Afresh?
Give me my cue, fair Titania, and this ass will journey to you… through dreams… through flames… down rooftops… through a doorway… across any divide. Let me give my messenger a message – that she was there with me, and now I am here with her.
G x
Anne's cheeks were tinged a bright, beautiful pink the following morning as she joined the Blythes for breakfast in the pleasantly situated dining room downstairs in the hotel, and her large grey eyes, though still slightly shadowed, were luminous in the gentle morning light.
Gilbert knew she had taken the note, and seemed not at all averse to its contents, gifting him a radiant grin of greeting and then subsequently conducting a delicious silent conversation with him of daggered looks and secret smiles throughout their meal, all whilst they innocently conversed with his parents as if they were indeed slipping in and out of the mortal realm, soon to both retire back to the enchanted woods of Shakespeare's creation.
It was all fantastically sensuous and secretive, and his heart thundered as if still a schoolboy trying to pass her a candy heart.
After breakfast they made their way back to their rooms; Gilbert would go on to his check up at the hospital and then meet Anne, Dorothy and Jem at a tea room he and Anne used to favour when at Redmond, in the days before his proposal blighted their friendship. The Blythes would go to the train station to secure all their passages back to Avonlea, before enjoying an exploration of the town their son would call home for a further three years.
The day was looking exceedingly promising, and he could not stop his grin, which continued through Anne's accidental collision with him outside the door to the Blythes' room, till he put a hand in the pocket of his jacket, and found a missive there of his own.
Anne lay there in bed as the dawn broke, clutching Gilbert's note wonderingly, feeling her battered heart swell painfully with renewed hope to think here he was, yet again, reaching across the divide to her.
Well, she could reach out in turn.
He had called her Titania and himself the ass, as he had in his proposal letter – was that a teasing illusion to the fact that he knew it had survived, or that at some stage she had read it? Or simply a reference to her dream during the (midsummer) night?
She should tell him she had read it… she knew she should tell him… and stop further burying herself in a great pit of lies, even of omission. Her guilty conscience was shouting loud and clear to her in her dream – and enough for him to hear it besides.
But he was still recovering… so not yet. But that didn't mean she couldn't communicate some of the feelings that assailed her.
She only had to find a clandestine way to get it to him.
Dear G,
You were always clever, impish Puck to me, and never an ass. Alas the ass has been myself… Oh what fool THIS mortal be, to feel a magic flower juice has been painted across my own eyes and I am struggling to ascertain dream from reality now, as you were mere days ago.
If we have been in a play within a play, then I have muddled my lines and forgotten my cue, and not for the first time, though I feel this confusion keenly, now, more than ever. Oh but that we all awake and find things as they should be, and the world come to rights again! But please don't mistake that as a wish for things to go on as they did, and as they've always been, because we have travelled too far down that other road now, and we are not the same, you and I… and despite the confusion and… the miscommunications and missed chances… I wouldn't trade being with you in the here and now for anything.
I just don't know what our AFTER is meant to look like, anymore.
All I know is that you are here with me as I am here with you, and that is miraculous to me, and better than any dream.
A xx
Gilbert floated to the hospital for his Outpatients appointment, or so it felt, and was inordinately cheerful throughout his examination, which saw the removal of the bandages encasing his shoulder and the application of a generous amount of an unfortunately pungent liniment.
His shoulder was still sore and his ribs occasionally tender, but they and the gash on his calf were healing nicely, and the latter had not resulted in any nasty infection to impede his recovery. The young doctor just out of the medical school himself who attended him was peppered with questions about the course and Gilbert felt that, on balance, he at least had milked his unfortunate hospital experience for as many positives as he could.
He did wish for a moment, though, to savour the note Anne had left in his jacket pocket, in an audaciously clever manoeuvre that still had him smiling as he headed from the hospital to the tea room..
We have travelled too far down that other road now, and we are not the same, you and I…
I wouldn't trade being with you in the here and now for anything…
You are here with me as I am here with you…
It was, indeed, better than any dream – and this from Anne Shirley, who had been spinning daydreams and fancies from the moment he had met her. Perhaps her imagination and his practicality were rubbing off on one another… or perhaps, as true kindred spirits, they were meeting somewhere in the middle.
But he had vowed to reach her; and perhaps, well met, one of them would need to step over the final line that divided them.
Anne could intimately describe the pretty floral china service on which they were served; the arrangement of the place settings; the sprig of flowers in the little vase at the centre of the table; the feel and weight of the napkin in her lap; the happy hum of the other diners… but could not, for the life of her, recall anything discussed that afternoon during their tea room tete a tete with any confidence. Only Gilbert's look to her as he joined them, burning a hole through her where she sat, made an impression, and whatever words emerging from her own mouth could have been either genius or jabberwocky* and she would have been insensible to the difference.
She did register, however, that Jem had joined them just before Gilbert with his own guest; a young lady by the name of Lily; pale and pretty as the bloom itself, echoing Jem's fairer coloring and with arresting green eyes. Dorothy's own eyes had been wide at this discovery, but soon the five settled into an amiable and lively conversation – or Anne believed so, at any case, most of their words drifting past her ears as on the current.
Gilbert noted Anne's distraction with a thoughtful gaze, but could not help envying Jem's excitement in his new relationship, seemingly having abandoned any further thought of concealing it in the wake of his escape from the fire. His Miss Lily Robinson would not be starting at Redmond as he would, but had recently moved to Kingsport with her family so that her father could take up a new bank position, and Jem Gardner was clearly anticipating the happiness that would come from them both again being in the same town.
Gilbert sighed to himself. He remembered such hope and excitement and anticipation, four years ago, when he and Anne had set off from home across the strait, and that pang of self-distrust he felt, wondering to himself if I can ever make her care for me. **After four years of earnest, (mostly) happy work… was he really, despite all, on the cusp of a sweet heart won? ***
Well, if he was going to manage anything, he needed to be alone with Anne.
"What are your plans this afternoon, on this fine day?" he asked of the Gardners in thinly-disguised desperation.
Dorothy gave an amused laugh. "You won't believe this, Mr Blythe, but I am headed back to the hospital! I have a completed list of improvements to brandish before them!"
"Well, cheers to that, indeed, Miss Gardner!"
"We thought we'd take a proper turn about the park," Jem answered, looking with calf-eyes to Miss Robinson. "The shore is so pretty, and that walk there from the pavilion is one I've enjoyed on previous visits."
"Yes, we know that walk and the pavilion well," Gilbert couldn't disguise the twinkle in his eye, directing a darting smile towards Anne, who blushed beetroot at his allusion.
"What about you and Mr Blythe, Anne?" Dorothy enquired, in a tone he thought wasn't entirely innocent.
Anne's eyes grew round. "I… I…"
"I believe we are catching up my parents, Anne?" he offered.
"Oh, yes…" she demurred, frowning delicately and most amusingly.
"Well, this is delightful, and indeed close to Redmond," Jem Gardner grinned, looking around them in approval. "Thank you for the suggestion, Gilbert."
"We will see you before you leave us again, won't we?" Dorothy pressed.
"Oh, darling, of course!" Anne finally shook herself from her stupor, taking her friend's hand. "Just tell me what I would have done without you these past days!"
Outside the tea room, they joined the milling crowds before taking their leave of their companions. Turning to her, taking a breath, Gilbert offered his arm.
"Miss Shirley?" he smiled winningly.
"Gilbert… I don't want to put your shoulder out again…" she hedged.
"It's the other one," he affirmed, "and short of dangling off a rooftop again any time soon, I think I can handle it," he grinned.
Her arm through his, this time, was infused with a subtextual frisson, well noted in her searching look to him.
"Where are we meeting your parents?" Anne asked carefully, working hard, he was sure, to muster her enthusiasm.
"Oh, back at the hotel," he answered blithely, having to bite the inside if his cheek. "In about three hours."
Her expression was priceless. "Gilbert!"
His grin remained steadfast and unrepentant.
"So… ah… where to?" she asked unevenly.
"Well, not across there…" he indicated the college in the distance. "And certainly not back to the park and the pavilion…" he quirked a knowing eyebrow. "But I still need to find you a tree, my Fair Titania."
"Tree?" Anne squeaked.
"Yes, tree," he nodded easily, scanning the middle distance for some imaginary destination. "I promised I would find you a tree, in a… well, in that letter I wrote to you," he ducked his head, almost bashfully. "In it I… well, I'll explain it all soon enough, I expect."
Gilbert knew it was wrong to tease Anne in this manner, though he greatly enjoyed her pink blush and agog expression all the way to Spofford Avenue.
Dorothy Gardner had long realized that the impression of authority was just as important as the actual command of it, and so she strode through the waiting room by the reception area without even announcing herself, noting anew with a delicate frown the jaded furnishings, and off up the long corridor past what had been Gilbert Blythe's room, nodding to staff she recognized as she went. The staff lounge was where she had discovered a sleeping Anne many days ago, and knew that if she waited long enough her quarry would come for a quick refreshment himself, before attending to the needs of his patients in the afternoon.
She timed it well, not having to wait long.
"Dr Johnston!" she tried not to lunge at the poor man from her perch in the corner.
"Miss Gardner! This is an unexpected pleasure. You obviously cannot stay away from us!"
"So it would seem, Doctor," she gave a self-deprecating smile. "Perhaps I need to find myself a hobby."
Dr Johnston lowered his clipboard and paused to contemplate her carefully, something in his expression tightening at her response.
"Excuse me, Miss Gardner. I did not mean to imply that you are not welcome here, at any time, and more than most of our benefactors, let me assure you."
Dorothy paused herself, swallowing slowly. She felt not at all entitled to the queer lurch her heart gave at his careful contemplation of her, hoping that her own late musings regarding the good doctor were not betrayed in her own expression.
"Thank you, Dr Johnston," she replied as evenly as she could manage. "And I felt no slight, I assure you."
His quick smile was only meant to acknowledge and reassure, she knew, and yet that queer lurch gathered strength and momentum. Dorothy had no illusions about herself; she was stylish, certainly, but even her own mother would call her handsome rather than attractive, lacking her own and Aline's fine-boned, if slightly pinched, beauty and sharing Roy's dark hair but, somewhat unfortunately, also his height. Her forthright manner she liked to think she inherited from her much-missed father, along with his hazel eyes.
"I… I just wanted to give you a copy of the list of improvements concerning the hospital, for your own records," Dorothy found her voice again. "I understand you are one of the staff delegates on the hospital board. I'm not expecting at all that you would speak to it, of course… your concerns are medical ones and patient care, naturally, and this concerns visitor and staff comfort, and certain… impressions… that are made that are not always favourable or in keeping with such a renowned and well regarded teaching hospital." She handed over her proposal, type written herself on her own stationery. "I have already tabled it with the Board secretary. If you would only kindly emphasize that… it is not my intention to divert any fundraising away from research or hospital equipment and the like… but more so that any ancillary funds could be better directed. The hospital's annual report was certainly disappointing reading, with hardly any thought given to the upkeep of furnishings or general maintenance at all."
Dr Johnston's eyes flew to his forehead. "You've read the annual report?"
"Ah… yes. I'm sorry if it's not politic to do so…" Dorothy hedged. "It's only that the report comes to my brother, Mr Royal Gardner, as one of the benefactors, you see… before him it came to my late father, Mr Gerald Gardner, who…"
"There's a bequest in his name," the doctor suddenly interrupted, his eyes searching hers.
Flustered, Dorothy cleared her throat, moving aside for a nurse and another doctor, and not daring to look around in case Matron Burgess made an appearance.
"Yes, that is well noted," Dorothy found herself flushing. "My father served on the Board himself but was also, ah, treated here… for a time."
Those enquiring eyes on hers grew kind.
"I'm very sorry for your loss, Miss Gardner. I'm sure he would be proud to know how you are following in his footsteps."
Dorothy, annoyingly, felt her cheeks grow warmer.
"That is very kind and appreciated, Dr Johnston, and I thank you… only, regarding the Board, I believe it will be my brother who will be putting himself forward for a position come its reconvening in September."
"Why?"
Dorothy's own eyebrows migrated upwards.
"Why?"
"I understand a member of your family would nominate for the board, but I don't see that it has to be – or even should be – your brother."
Dorothy's hazel eyes grew wide.
"Well, doctor, I would have thought… that is, I would expect that… can a woman even nominate?"
"Most certainly, Miss Gardner. And regardless, I have a feeling I don't believe you being a woman would have ever stopped you previously, in this or any other endeavour."
Dorothy spluttered out an amazed cough which she did her best to contain.
"I believe you have more faith in me than I do in myself, Dr Johnston."
He gave a rather knowing smile. "We'll see, Miss Gardner."
He took her typewritten sheet, taking time to peruse it again, before placing it carefully underneath his clipboard notes.
"Thank you very much for your proposal, Miss Gardner. It will be my pleasure to speak to it at the next Board meeting."
"Oh, well, thank you!"
"And if you decide you will nominate for the Board, I will gladly second your nomination."
Dorothy very much feared her eyes were out on stalks at this point.
Noting her flabbergasted silence, Dr Johnston felt leave to continue.
"You are interested, thoughtful, astute and observant, Miss Gardner. You are confident, well spoken and well connected, and have a personal history with this hospital. You would be an asset to this institution or any other."
Dorothy made a point to close her gaping mouth.
"I'm afraid that duty calls…" he inclined his head, somewhat ruefully, "but Board applications can be found at Reception. Visit with us any time, Miss Gardner, as a valued patroness, and naturally to have me sign and second your nomination."
He nodded to her, gave a far from polite, perfunctory smile, signalled an underling and continued down the corridor.
Dorothy, rather incredulous, followed him moments later, stopping by the reception area for the appropriate paperwork as if drifting through a dream. She was used to being the supporting act, not the main attraction. It was usually Aline or her mother with the demands for attention, and Roy with his name above the metaphorical and often actual marquee.
It would take all her gumption and resolution just to win over their support for her nomination, she mused. But then, she realized she neither sought nor required it. Squaring her shoulders as of Gilbert Blythe, and raising her chin defiantly as Anne was wont to do, she strode, smiling, back out the main doors.
Chapter Notes
This week's chapter title is from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and shared by both the Cheshire Cat and Alice in Ch 6 'Pig and Pepper'.
*Meaningless speech or writing is the dictionary definition, but of course this stems from Lewis Carrol's nonsense poem 'jabberwocky' in the Alice sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1872)
**Anne of the Island Ch 2 'Garlands of Autumn'
***Anne of Avonlea Ch 30 'A Wedding at the Stone House'
With grateful thanks to everyone who kindly reviewed the last chapter or one of my other stories in recent times. I'm sorry to not get a reply to you before I put this out - but I wanted it to still be the new year when I did!