Timeline - Anne's House of Dreams.
For a shorter narrative, I am combining the events that occur in this book and introducing ideas and characters in a different order. Some characters I am not using at all. It is very helpful to know the events of this book still even if I elect to take liberties here and there.
Chapter 31: Pregnant
Helen Blythe, age thirty, ran her serviceable hands along the edge of the parchment with what Diana Wright later called 'a misplaced reverence'. The black ink was now dry and prominent on the vellum, the script itself a work of art, ready for a Charlottetown gallery instead of the home Helen and Katherine would one day buy.
Diana seemed nervous when she brought Helen into her parlor where it was kept. Her misspent energy lingered until Helen said, "Wow!". The always humble Mrs. Wright had retained her place as one of Prince Edward Island's best-kept secrets. Diana's calligraphy was unequal, even to professional artists. And Helen observed Diana flushing with a tiny bit of pride as Helen's fingers pressed a kiss into the words.
Diana penned Aristotle's famous quote, "Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies" and added the names Helen Blythe and Katherine Brooke directly below the sentiment. With her blue and yellow inks, Diana drew paisleys in the margins, making the lettering more prominent with the border. The added detail of the paisleys had been the hardest part, each one unique and requiring some practice before committing it to the final document.
"It's perfect," Helen announced. "So elegant!"
It said everything Helen wanted it to say to a future caller to her residence. The visitor would know in a glance the female homeowners were espoused to each other. Just like husband and wife, they were married.
Diana's black eyes twinkled under the crown of accomplishment. "I thought the word 'love' might be ambiguous. So, I added your names." Diana faltered a bit at Helen's still stunned expression and strangely, apologized. "I know it's not exactly what you asked for, but I thought it better than mimicking the gobbledygook of a legal document, which no one would read anyway."
"Diana," Helen couldn't believe the uncertainty in the scribe's voice. "I love it and Katie will love it too. I'm sure of it!"
"Good, because it's a relief to be done." Diana relaxed and placed a protective sheet over her work. "Fred and I can store it for a while until you and Katherine are settled. This represents a lot of work. I had to practice the paisleys some first."
"I hope you didn't work too hard, Diana. You must, must take care of yourself first!"
Helen had wondered if Diana was expecting. She questioned the way Diana moved. Now, the fit of her clothing gave her the answer. A seamstress since age ten, Helen couldn't stop her skillful eye from noticing Diana's clothes lacked ease and drape. The horizontal folds gathering at the seams of the bodice shouted there was a baby bump underneath the fabric.
Pregnancy was hard for Diana and she miscarried frequently. Her last child was almost lost as well. It was Bertie that saved small Anne Cordelia with his powers. Maybe the healing was so thorough, he had cured Diana from having any more miscarriages hence. He claimed to have blasted her for all his worth.
Diana swallowed her laughter, forcing an unattractive snort from her nose. The palm of her hand stroked her growing abdomen. "This one won't let me rest, the little dancer she is. Although, I'm glad that the morning sickness is over. And, I'm fine, thank you for asking.
"When is Katherine coming back to Prince Edward Island? I hope before this baby comes."
Helen sighed, happy to hear that the pregnancy was going well this time. "She comes back at Christmas and returns in February. She travels with the Premier as his general secretary and goes wherever he does. She's new to his office so she gets stuck with some of the more unpleasant tasks, which makes her indispensable, I suppose."
Diana nodded as Helen paused.
"She loves her job—and London too."
"It's hard to believe I'm friends with someone so well connected," Diana said. "It's like knowing someone famous! I hope you bring her here one day. You're always welcomed."
Helen was always welcomed at the Wright's, but the invitation had an agenda attached to it. Diana hoped that one day she might introduce Minnie May to Katherine Brooke as another example of a modern career woman. Katherine could mentor her in a way that Diana and her parents couldn't. She was so proud of her little sister, her 'dress-like-a-boy' behavior was only a means to an end. Minnie May skillfully orchestrated their parents' agreement that she might pursue her education after all.
Though Queen's was out of the question. Permission came three weeks into the school term and Queen's had rules impossible to circumvent. But Anne's recommendation secured Minnie May a place at Summerside High School. In return, Minnie May promised to follow the socially appropriate dress code for a Summerside High School co-ed. No more trousers! And she would allow her hair to grow. The Barry's had had enough gossipy backlash from Avonlea matrons.
"I'll see what I can do," Helen said, herself pregnant with a worry that grew with each post from England. "I don't think she really wants to come back to PEI. Kate would be content to stay in England. And if she does stay, your hard work will be for nothing."
"What do you mean?"
"It's just that I can't go with her. I can't leave the island."
"Sure, you can," Diana put an arm around Helen's hunched shoulder and squeezed until Helen straightened. "Let's go have some tea, shall we?"
*/*/*
Diana grabbed the chartreuse kitchen towel to insulate the iron kettle as Helen lowered herself into a chair. A few minutes later, Diana filled their teacups and placed the teapot on the Lazy Susan between them. It swiveled a bit and Helen chuckled at its appeal. It was such an odd and practical device as Diana showed Helen how it went around and around, circling back time and again.
"Tell me again why you believe you can't leave the island?" Diana rotated to Helen the sugar and the milk.
"You know why." Helen dunked a lump of sugar into her hot beverage. She swiveled the sugar bowl back, still marveling at the contraption's utility.
"Actually, I don't." Diana sipped with a sympathetic smile, waiting for her answer.
Helen was sure she had told Diana before, but the poised and attentive face she looked at tested this assumption. Perhaps she hadn't. No matter, there was time to retell it.
"My powers, back when I could see the future, warned me not to leave the island. I was so reluctant to come here because I knew Prince Edward Island would also be my prison. I just know I can't leave."
Diana blinked at first, spinning her mind for a response. "You most certainly haven't mentioned this before. I've never been off the island myself. It makes me so sad to believe you regard your stay here as a prison."
"No—not a prison," Helen tried to edit her statement without much success. "A trap? Sometimes, it doesn't feel that way, but lately—it's ever so much more on my mind. What would happen to me if I try and cross the straight? Ever since finding a home for Bertie and Anne at Four Winds Point, this hunch is reinforced. The ocean is a beast—taking and giving maidens. It's an interchanging wheel of fortune. I just know that I will lose myself if venture off the island."
Diana leaned back into the lumbar of her chair, somehow connecting this phobia to Helen's other magical complaint.
"Helen, does this have something to do with your dory premonitions? Your report about the girl lost at sea haunts me too. To think, it might have been Anne if not for a hole in the hull."
"I think it does. But it's all confused. I mean, how many stories about a girl in a dory does one island have, anyway? But it's easy to forget that history likes to repeat itself, circular like it is." Helen spun the Lazy Susan bringing everything full circle. "I'm sure now it was two different dories and therefore two different girls. But I still sense Anne in both, even if I know it can't be. Anne wasn't even born back then. And the sad girl begs for me to see her story. I keep trying but I can't connect."
Helen animated her frustrations with a shrug and then cradled her temples and eyes. She didn't want to admit it, but more and more of her time was given over to this foreign memory. The desperate girl was running away. Her sorrow unequal to anything Helen had channeled before. Helen needed to know what happened.
"Anyway, I'm afeared if I try to leave the island, like this sad girl, I'll cease to exist, just like her."
"Helen," Diana brought her cup down to respond to the bold declaration. "You have such a beautiful gift. Even without the ability to divine the future, the things you see are so amazing. I can't tell you how your powers work, but, I can tell you that sometimes you're so empathetic, that someone else's feelings become your own. Are you quite, quite sure it is your doom you sense?"
A sweeping peace smoothed the anxious lines in Helen's forehead. "Anne's mentioned that before, that sometimes I get so wrapped up in the another's thoughts I can't know my own."
Without warning Diana cried, "Oh!" and then dropped her focus to her middle. She put both hands on her belly. "He kicks so hard."
"I thought you just said it was a she!" Helen was pleased to transition the topic to Diana's latest wonder. "Bertie can tell you for sure."
"Really?"
"Oh yes." Helen now grinned.
"He read me when I was carrying small Anne Cordelia and he didn't say a thing."
"That might have been hard to explain at the time with Fred not knowing about his powers."
Helen also knew Bertie's struggled with the concept of if he should tell the expecting parents the baby's gender. When the patient didn't know what he was, him announcing boy or girl was a bit of a surprise.
Diana released another smile and rubbed the spot the baby stubbornly kicked. From Helen's vantage, Diana was positively in love with what was happening to her. The lack of novelty didn't make the experience less wonderful.
"Diana—may I feel?" Helen was already reaching her hand forward when Diana placed it on top of the moving rise. The baby inside of Diana responded with another twitch and his mother laughed along with Helen.
"Helen, can you tell if it's a boy or a girl?"
"No. I used to know when my powers included clairvoyance." Helen's fingers pressed into Diana's belly. Something clicked as she felt the movement within Diana's warm body. The sad girl haunting her had also kept a hand on her abdomen while the current dragged her out to sea.
Anne Blythe oft wondered if her house of dreams was an antechamber to heaven. Gilbert had warned her, there would be no diamond sunbursts or marble halls* at first, but, Anne felt more than compensated for the lack of them. Every day was a day of beautiful views of woodland and ocean. She was surrounded by Mother Nature and all her resplendent glory. Now that October waned, mornings started with a color diluting frost. From her doorstep, Anne watched red roads blush pink as if embarrassed to see the trees' naked boughs.
From her kitchen window, she read a poem of curling waves and sandy shore. Up and down they went with foam highlighting their crests. Way out on the horizon, brave little ships skirted across the North Atlantic. She felt as if she had watched them before, their coming and going, their activity alive like a heartbeat, pulsing with memories that Anne could almost grab. The tale of the schoolmaster's bride and the Royal William was only one of the vivid fables. Goldmines of poetry and prose whistled past her with the four winds. Providence reunited her with this place, with what was her spiritual home, and she would never to sojourn again.
Anne heard Gilbert answer the office phone from her kitchen counter. It was always ringing and ringing. She stopped her food prep and hoped to hear Gilbert conversing. She gave up when she heard the latch of his office door. The words would not carry. Just his tones clanging in an array of pitches. That, with his slight inflections, made Anne pinch her auburn brows together from concern.
The call was longish, which meant Gilbert was trying to diagnosis the patient with questions or it was a social call of an undesirable matter. Since they were expecting company for the weekend, Anne assumed trouble with the latter.
"Was that Gene?" Anne asked of her husband as he strode back into the kitchen to finish his late dinner.
If Anne had bothered to turn around and look, she might have seen his head shake 'no' from behind the cover of one of his medical periodicals. Gilbert turned a page before sitting in his chair.
Dr. and Mrs. Blythe invited their friend, Dr. Eugene Felder to their home on weekends since he was stuck in Summerside, trying his best to defend his late wife's inheritance. The poor professor had to take leave from his job at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Her will declared that Mrs. Pringle's estate was to be liquidated and divided among her offspring's families. But Gene's late wife's siblings aimed to cut him out. Eugene was exhausted from the infighting. Brother against brother, sister against sister, and all of them against him.
"What time does his train arrive?"
When Gilbert did not answer her first question, Anne assumed she was correct, that the caller was their friend. Plus, if the caller had been a patient, Gil would have hurried his black coat on and grabbed one of his medical bags.
"I think around three o'clock." Gilbert put his reading aside and dropped his napkin onto his lap. He reached for his dessert plate. "Sit with me, Anne. Have some of this wonderful pie you made."
"I'm not hungry right now, and, I've got work today." Anne checked the recipe card Geraldine had given her for Gilbert's favorite potato side. Like her son's penmanship, it was almost illegible. She deciphered peel and slice three potatoes.
Anne gathered the roots from her pantry cabinet next to the glossy icebox. She tossed her husband a glance and peripherally watched him chew with his mouth half open, relishing his bites. His tongue tasting the last drop of cherry filling.
Anne turned towards the draft as heat flushed her face.
"Will you be able to greet him at the station?" Anne wiggled the brown-red skin off a spud with her paring knife as she spoke.
"Oh, that wasn't Gene." Gilbert pushed his plate back. "I'm sorry to say you'll have to feed him without me. I'm taking the train back to Avonlea about when he arrives, but, I can still greet him at the railway station and show him how to find our home. I'll just get a private compartment en route and bi-locate myself back here."
"Gil—that's sort of risky," Anne advised with an eye roll he couldn't see. He still wasn't very circumspect with his powers. "What if you're disturbed? You're a doctor and people can't seem to leave you alone, and that's more likely to happen the closer you get to Carmody. Folks will recognize you and call you out."
"I'll explain it to Gene," Gilbert answered. "Gene isn't some stranger that doesn't know I'm a witch. If someone does wake up my dormant body and shuts down my second, Gene won't be surprised to see me disappear in a flash."
"It still sounds dangerous." Anne dumped another potato skin into the scrap pile. "Ask Captain Jim if he can help. Owen and I are going over a few revisions for Captian Jim's Life-Book. It'd be a blessing not to have the old sailor around interrupting us. You know, he changes his story a tiny bit each time he tells it. It becomes more dramatic. Owen can't keep up.
"Now, what's going on back home?" Anne worried a bit for Diana. Fred's letter to Gilbert said all was well though.
Gilbert's face fell, he hated giving Anne bad news. "You read Dad's letter the other day about rabies making a come-back?"
"Yes," Anne's cheeks stretched out as she formed the worrisome "oh" expression. "Was someone bitten?"
Gilbert's eyes dulled as he grimaced. "Maybe—Anne don't panic. It's probably nothing. Davy found Dora in the barn crying and vomiting and when he tried to touch her arm, she flinched." Gilbert frowned as he watched Anne's face whiten, making the red tones of her hair more prominent in the cascading window light. "Dora told Davy that a barn cat had bit her a few days ago and her arm really hurt."
"So, Davy thinks that Dora has rabies?"
"That is the obvious conclusion, but Davy never said so outright. It's horrible to think about. I guess the way she flinched made him think it was infected, but Dora wouldn't show him. He says he just knows there's more to it." Gilbert added his opinion to calm Anne's clear anxiety for Dora, "But, I think it's very unlikely, Anne-girl. But, even if it is rabies, I can heal it, no problem. But, I have to go there to be sure."
Anne stared back stone-faced and tried to shrug off her trepidation. "You're right. Dora wouldn't be so foolish to allow anything with rabies to bite her." She knew her statement was absurd. Sick animals might attack anything, including good Dora.
"Anne, Dora will be fine."
Anne had her troubled profile to him now as she sliced the peeled potatoes with her cleaver.
"I'd be very surprised if one of Marilla's barn cats were sick with rabies. It's more likely she has a bad infection from the bite and that's what's making her ill. I'll heal her and come back tonight. And then the three of us will have a jolly time."
Anne checked him again and his earnest expression. "Not rabies?"
"I'll know for sure when I get there."
Anne stepped away from the counter, her hands on her hips, wondering. "I'm surprised Marilla didn't call."
"Well, that made me wonder too. But Davy said Dora has been behaving strangely. A few days ago, she disappeared, and no one knew where she was all day long. I don't think he wants Dora to know I'm on my way."
Anne's face contorted with a new worry as she crossed her arms. "That seems very strange. Now, I'm more worried. Dora's always been so predictable."
"Whatever Dora's situation is, it will be alright. It's Dora. She's a tough nut, always has been."
Anne returned to her kitchen counter where the knife and potatoes waited. Anne whittled away at the tuber, making thin slices. She thought of Dora again and the possibility of rabies and lost control of the blade, slicing off the tip of her finger, just missing the nail.
The pain made Anne scream and the cleaver fell into the sink with a clang. Blood spurted out from her index finger. Her agonizing wail brought Gilbert to her side so quickly Anne later she wondered if flying were a new ability of his. All she could do is hold her finger against herself and crouch over in pain. Everything else was forgotten as she attempted to regain her wits.
"Anne, let me see it!" Gilbert demanded as he tried to draw her hand away from her body.
"Heal it, Gil." Anne managed, as she hung onto his free arm, almost faint with shock. "Please!"
"I'm trying. Hang on."
Gilbert stared at his own hand covering hers, his fingers shaking with his healing magic, but, when he touched her, nothing happened. He felt a block. Providence decided he would not be able to spare Anne this laceration. Gilbert didn't understand as he tried again. Another block. This should work!
"Ow! It hurts, it hurts! Please, Gil. Heal it." Anne sputtered back to his apologetic face. "Why can't you heal it?"
"I don't know. Anne, it's like healing myself, nothing happens." Gilbert explained. "I can stitch..."
Gilbert abruptly stopped talking as what he said bounced off the walls and landed in his ears. He replayed his thoughts once more, testing a theory. It's like healing myself! But that would mean. . ! Hallelujah, it would mean!
"Gil—please," Anne's begged.
"Anne," Gilbert caught her attention and her tear-stained face could do little to stop his eruption of joy. "Did you hear what I said?"
"You can't heal me." Anne grimaced, her breath halting and high in her chest. "Why?"
Gilbert threaded his fingers into Anne's hair, trying to smooth out her pained face. He knew he must be a bewildering sight to behold as he shed his own happy tears. He was so surprised, he figured, when it happened, it would be Anne telling him, not the other way around. He couldn't wait for her to understand what he knew had to be true. He dropped to his knees and put his ear to her belly and hugged her legs.
"Anne, Anne-girl. I can't heal you, because. . ." He kissed her lower abdomen. "I can't heal you because I can't heal myself, and, I'm. . ." He rubbed where her womb was. "I'm a part of you. Right now."
"Gilbert Blythe," Anne's brain was still too jolted to process what he had said, "What are you saying?"
"Anne—you're pregnant. I can't heal you, because, you're pregnant with my child."
Anne's jaw dropped low as Gilbert's reaction as starting to make sense. "Say that again?"
"We're going to have a baby!"
"Oh! Well, if it's all right with you, can you fix my finger first?" Anne pleaded, but her eyes refreshed with sweeter tears as Gilbert's diagnosis started to overtake the residual pain.
Gilbert lifted Anne from the floor and carried her into his office where his medical bag waited, kissing her wherever his mouth landed.
"We're going to have a baby, Anne-girl." Gilbert kept saying. He calmed himself, so he could stitch her laceration, but his smile grew bigger as Anne returned his energy.
"A baby? Are you sure? I haven't noticed anything different." Anne timidly touched the spot Gilbert had caressed.
"Oh, yes, I'm sure." Gil returned to his jubilation as he wrapped Anne's cut in gauze. "I can't heal you, I can't do anything magical to you. Your body is changing and I'm part of that. We're pregnant, Anne."
"We're pregnant?" Anne drew back her finger. "I think you might have failed your anatomy lessons, Dr. Blythe. I am quite certain that the female is the one that gets pregnant."
"You needed me though," Gilbert smiled. "We made love and God approves. Oh, this is wonderful."
"It is wonderful," Anne said as she accepted another kiss, the reality sinking in. "A baby. Oh, but don't tell the folks yet, please. Let's tell them later, maybe for Christmas."
Gilbert could hardly keep his face from cracking into a sunny smile as he drove with Captain Jim to the railway depot. A baby! His dimples were sore from his efforts to stay calm and circumspect. He didn't want to stop gushing on the news and continued to relive it in his head. The discovery had lifted his emotions up to such a happy place, the only sour part was the promise not to tell anyone else. As a medical doctor, he knew that it was wise. Miscarriage happened early on. So, he agreed, but he wanted to sing it out for all his worth.
Gilbert struggled to keep his face cool as Captain Jim spoke of ports of call in South America. No matter how saturated with humor the old sailor's narrative was, Gil considered only his immediate future. Would the wee one be a boy or a girl? His breath went rocky as he imagined tiny fingers clinging to his own. Gilbert glanced at his hands and the brown reins he held, choking back cloying thoughts of rattles and nappies.
"Well, sir. I reckon dare 'tisn't more to say on that." The old man observed a while ago that he lost his audience. "D'ye wish to talk of something else?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm a bit distracted. We can talk about anything you wish." Gilbert apologized.
"Well, in that case, you ricollect d' night I told you and purty Mistress Blythe about my mate, John Selwyn?"
Gilbert gave the old captain a nod. Of course, he remembered his honeymoon night. Talk about one night not quite living up to his expectations.
He brought Anne home to Four Winds Point following their sumptuous wedding feast and tea-time reception only to find his Great Aunt and Uncle staging a surprise supper with Captain Jim as a guest! He bore up as best he could to that meal, though his appetite was for something else. He would take it to his grave, but, the young doctor felt it was an awful joke he had to suffer through as all he wanted to do was hurry Anne upstairs to their bedroom.
"I'm a mite curious. Jest couldn't tell what you thought 'bout ol' John and his powers." Captain Jim remarked, "Mebbe you jedged Four Winds a safe place for witches on our own. 'Tis always been so. Yer safe here!"
Gilbert pivoted towards him in natural consideration. Did he know that he was in fact, sort of like his buddy John? He couldn't tell by the chap's posture as he tipped a hat to a passing pedestrian.
"All the Glen knew 'bout the schoolmaster's powers, the witch he was. They didn't use that word though. It's true enough, John cast a spell to bring the Royal William to port and Persis Leigh to his side." Captain reviewed Gilbert's now colorless face. "All that walking along the shore was his summing the winds to do his will. Fetching the Royal William. D'ye know dare four winds and witches belong together? A man like John could summon the winds for a big spell, but the winds can do the same and call for a witch. Yer summoned here, I'm sartan on that. 'Cuz yer special."
Gilbert laughed as he suddenly appreciated his Great Uncle Dave's stance to deny witchcraft and supernatural powers at all times. His mentor's approach was consistent, pragmatic and wise, but Gilbert didn't have the heart to imitate it. He really didn't think anything nefarious would come out of Captain Jim knowing about his powers, but, he held back just the same, trying to find the middle ground.
"Sounds like you've made up your mind about me."
"Course I have, Doc Blythe."
"That won't do. Please call me Gilbert, Captain Jim, or Gil."
"Alrighty, Gilbert then, I'll keep tryin' to get yer name right, jest don't hold me to it." Captain Jim remembered how he had to correct the young Doc from introducing him as Captain Boyd the night the newlyweds arrived at the schoolmaster's house. "But ye sorter git me off my point. Yer here for a reason, I knows it."
Gilbert ignored the uncomfortable feelings of exposure and expectation. Captain Jim might be confident in his assumptions, but, they were still only assumptions. Gilbert couldn't think how the old sailor would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that what he alluded to was true. That the current resident of the schoolmaster's house was a witch also. However, that said, Gilbert saw a full circle. What was true in the beginning was true at the end.
His house of dreams was built by a witch. What were the chances of that? It wasn't like being a witch was normal. It was an oddity, a weirdness even. There was something in Captain Jim's comment about the four winds and witches complementing each other. Two witches at Four Winds Point. No—three witches. Gilbert shook his head remembering to include his aged uncle, Dr. David Blythe, with himself and John. It was a mite curious.
As the silence lulled, Gilbert also remembered how another witch, his cousin, found the place. It didn't seem so coincidental anymore. Goosebumps erupted over his arms as he remembered Helen's spooked voice advising that the house was so perfectly suited for him. Gilbert glanced over to Captain Jim. His conclusions didn't seem so foolish. From his point of view, the accusation he made was logical.
to be continued
*Anne of the Island - Chapter XLI - Love Takes Up the Glass of Time.