Thank you one and all for your wonderful reaction to a little part of the story of Tom. I cannot say how grateful I am for the way you have embraced this character!

However, in the interests of fairness, here is a little Gilbert!

With thanks to those I haven't yet been properly able to - this time to caprubia, Fyodora, G and a special thanks to Excel Aunt -

I hope you have your pretty little book of sonnets ready!

Chapter Twelve

Discovering Gold-Mines

"Well, this should be pretty straight forward, then," Gilbert's unashamed grin was firmly in place, and it only widened at Anne's expression of almost comical consternation.

Anne looked helplessly about them. They reclined inelegantly on the floor of the common room of Gilbert's boarding house, chosen specifically because, though not nearly as neat nor as pleasantly decorated as the one at Anne's, nonetheless attracted far less of an audience and – perhaps more fortuitously - far less of an insistence from the powers that be on tidying as they went. So they therefore felt leave to spread all their papers and books far and wide, in the cosy far corner they had commandeered, as they contemplated the Herculean English task before them.

Anne smoothed down her faithful dark green skirt with pale, nervous fingers. She lamented that it was not looking quite so smart as it once had. She wished she had been able to buy a new one whilst in Bolingbroke; she was heartily sick of seeing herself in the same clothes, and surely he was too. Being around Phil and her limitless wardrobe during Christmas – her bedroom housing a veritable Aladdin's cave of silk and taffeta and velvet, accompanied by every conceivable accessory, and even some she'd thought rather inconceivable - had been its own little punishing penance for every tiny prideful thought she had ever had about her own appearance, occasional though they were. She noted Gilbert in a new jumper himself, stitched with obvious love and admirable skill, with a keen awareness for how that particular tawny brown called to the same highlights in his hazel eyes. She paused in her perusal over his dark brows, up to those irrepressible curls, and then her gaze swept down along his strong jaw, already fascinatingly shaded darker in this late afternoon. His lips curved into a small, seductive half smile when lost in concentration, and she wondered that she hadn't ever noticed that before. What couldn't fail to be noticed were his very dimensions, which had been made startlingly potent; the broad shoulders and the disconcertingly expanded biceps, straining against the jumper that was almost too snug, as if its creator had underestimated what a term up and down a football field could do; the tapering into lean torso and hips, and the long, muscled legs stretched out before him. "Describe Adonis," thought Anne, reddening despite herself, "and the counterfeit/Is poorly imitated after you." 1

Gilbert grabbed at the paper nearest him, to better review the notes he had made earlier that week in their first class back after Christmas, and remembered how he had bit the inside of his cheek so as not to grin in mounting joy as the full import of their assessment and what it entailed became clear. It meant a joint presentation before the class on five sonnets – two each and one shared – detailing interconnected themes, symbolism and language, with commentary on structure and syntax, and an exploration of Shakespeare's own relationship to both the sonnets and to his body of work as a whole.

What it really meant was weeks of tantalisingly long, far-from-arduous hours with Anne, his presentation partner, in close and even intimate quarters, as they toiled over some of the most beautiful love poetry in the English language. Gilbert had wondered whether it would be wildly inappropriate to send their blessed English professor a very nice belated gift for Christmas.

Gilbert flicked a glance at Anne under long lashes, distracted by her fingers caressing the material of her skirt, which was such a wonderful color on her. He wished that everything she did wasn't quite so sensual. Sitting here with her, after all those weeks apart, blandly discussing their holidays, and then turning their attention to their work; well, it was its own unique form of torture. How he rolled his eyes now to reflect on that cocky, clueless idiot who had so laughed at his own reflection with such misguided confidence – I will woo her one hundred and fifty four different ways – when certainly the joke was on him given he could now hardly string a sentence together… "Madam…" he sighed to himself, "you have bereft me of all words. Only my blood speaks to you in my veins." 2

Perhaps he could woo her from afar, or organise someone else far better equipped to do it for him – Fred, for instance, that dark horse, who had only come back from Avonlea with Diana on his arm, for crying out loud. The whole process for Gilbert would probably be easier, and certainly his work more productive, if Anne didn't look so beautiful or smell so lovely, and if she didn't do either whilst leaning over so that his erstwhile old friend, the cream blouse with the frills, didn't inadvertently move with her body and thus gape ever-so-slightly right in his direct line of sight, exposing a tantalising glimpse of moonbeam-pale flesh below her throat and he didn't dare hazard to think what else.

Get a hold of yourself, Blythe.

"So how do you recommend we do this?" Anne was shaking her head now, incredulous at the very thought of it.

"I propose an exhaustive statistical analysis comparing the sum total of sonnets available divided by the number of sonnets actually read more than once," he deadpanned.

"Oh, Gilbert!" she laughed, her look wry. "You mean just pick our favourites?"

"Exactly."

Anne rolled her eyes. "But our favourites are going to be everyone's favourites!"

"Not necessarily."

"Well, then, what's your favourite?"

"Not so fast. How do I know you won't be so inspired that you copy me and insist on choosing the same to curry favour?"

She pursed her lips, adorably frustrated. He wished she wouldn't do that. It drew entirely too much attention to them.

"We surely wouldn't have the same favourite…" she mused doubtfully. "There are one hundred and fifty four of them."

Gilbert wasn't to be dissuaded. "It would definitely be an interesting psychological experiment. I'd bet that we probably have many common preferences at least."

We have so many things in common, Anne. We are perfect together. Can't you see it?

He ripped off two strips of paper from his notebook with manufactured nonchalance.

"Right then, Miss Shirley. Confession time. Write the number of your favourite. We'll open each other's."

Seemingly bemused, Anne followed instructions, really feeling that when handing over her slip with a silly theatrical flourish she was really handing her heart over. She had recited her sonnet to herself a thousand times whilst she had been away; it was seared on her soul, it spoke to her as none of the others did. Of finding that other who was the missing part of you; of having a love so brave and steadfast and sure it "looks on tempests and is never shaken." 3 To be able to rely on someone so wholly and completely… she had never been able to do that, and wondered if she would ever be able to, though the idea of it was thrilling even as it was frightening.

She grazed Gilbert's fingers as she gave him the paper, and felt a little thrill of a different kind. She tried not to look at his hands, which were rather beautiful, as far as male hands went. She remembered how they had held her so deftly and surely the night of the fundraising dance; how they had drawn her to him when they had exchanged their gifts. She wondered, a little wantonly, what those long fingers would feel like sweeping her brow or caressing her cheek. She then immediately gave herself a little shake in reprimand.

Gilbert counted dramatically to three. Anne opened his slip. She saw her own number written there; 116. 3

She immediately laughed in nervous denial.

"Gilbert! Who told you? Was it Phil?"

Gilbert wore a rather strange expression. "Anne, no one told me."

"Surely they must have! Or I must have mentioned it…" she faltered, thinking to herself that she hadn't recalled mentioning particular sonnets to anyone, and Phil had become so teasing about her opening the collection of them every five minutes when she was in Bolingbroke that she'd given up doing it in her presence entirely.

"It's my own favourite, Anne," Gilbert affirmed quietly.

"It is?" she breathed.

"Of course …" he responded carefully, his eyes on hers. "Who doesn't want a love that lasts forever? That endures even when you're old? That's "not Time's fool"? 3

Anne thought that her heart had crawled up to lodge itself in her throat.

"An ever-fixed mark…" 3 she murmured.

He smiled, small and knowingly. "Yes." He tried to infuse the word with as much hope and meaning as he could.

Anne's pulse thrummed, and her cheeks felt scarlet. "I'm sure that… that it is a popular choice, at any rate…" she hedged.

There was a pause. "Maybe…" he frowned, his brows drawing together.

Gilbert thought that if she kept pushing him away they wouldn't get anywhere. He knew she had so many walls up, built high, impenetrable, and he understood vaguely with her background as to why she would build them, but if she wouldn't let him scale at least one of them and let him peek over…

His frown caught her fingers fiddling again, and they were shaking. His own heart, which he had felt he had just laid bare to her, after keeping it protected himself enough for half his life, seemed to ache a strange accord with her. Perhaps Anne wasn't so much excited by what it was between them, and what could still develop… perhaps instead it made her uncertain and unsure. Perhaps it made her slightly … terrified.

In that moment he hated himself.

He wished he could show her he was a little terrified too. He longed to hold her and for them to be excited and wondering and terrified together.

His look turned soft, as did his tone.

"Is it really such a stretch to think that we might have a "marriage of true minds" 3 Anne? Considering we didn't even come to blows over Dickens?"

His eyes were imploring, but he made his smile teasing, because that's how they both protected themselves… and that's perhaps what she needed from him, right now.

"Well, no, of course not…" her blush deepened, but her smile was relieved. "And we may have even agreed on some things about him."

He shared his smile with her. He would wait as patiently as he could, he vowed to himself. He would be that ever-fixed mark for her… till one of those walls started to crumble. Or at the very least till she showed him there was a window ajar somewhere.

Anne became very business-like thereafter, agreeing that if the idea of favourites was too fraught – and neither of them really liked the idea of dissecting their long-cherished lines in front of Ed Sanderson and company – that a process of elimination would be nonetheless helpful in narrowing the field. Sonnet 18 was out – "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" 4 was clearly too well known to allow them much in the way of critical discovery. The very first and the very last two were likewise dismissed, as it was too obvious a choice to look at those that bookended the collection.

"And I'm sure common decency suggests we bypass Sonnet 151 5 too," he rolled his eyes to the heavens.

"Which one is that?" Anne queried, in the middle of drawing up a list of the more likely contenders that remained. "I don't remember that one offhand."

Gilbert felt the mild flush come to his cheeks. He had perhaps perused it a mite too closely.

"Well, I don't think we should worry about that one, all the same."

She reached for her book of sonnets, giving him an arch of her eyebrow.

"Let me give a second opinion!" she returned imperiously.

"Anne… just trust me!" he shook his head in exasperation, and waited.

There was a very decided silence. Gilbert darted a quick glance at her, and had to bite down on his lip as those grey eyes widened in maidenly horror and the two pink spots on her cheeks darkened dramatically. He wondered which lines would have caused the strongest reaction? And concluded, probably all of them.

Anne closed her copy with a resolute thump.

"Yes…" she ventured, drawing herself up in impressive schoolmarm indignation. She cleared her throat soundly. "We probably don't need to worry about that one."

It seemed as good a time as any to take a break, and Gilbert organised for some tea and snaffled a currant bun unclaimed at lunch for them to share.

Anne and he settled into chairs with their sonnet-inspired debris at their feet.

"So tell me," Gilbert tried to steer well clear of any other innuendo-laden literature, "did you prefer Alec or Alonzo then?"

Anne's surprised laugh threatened her mouthful of bun. She took a necessary moment.

"Isn't the question whom Phil perhaps prefers, or they regarding her?" she gave a leading smile.

"The way Phil tells it – and she had my ear all during Mathematics mind you – it was more along the lines of her threatening to cast you out, Anne Shirley, on account of interfering with the adulation she clearly expected for herself."

Anne rolled her eyes, but her little downturned smile looked a little too pleased for Gilbert's liking.

"Both Alec and Alonzo were charm personified," she now deflected like a master, "and you would have gotten along with them famously, Gilbert Blythe," she parried.

Gilbert blew out a frustrated breath. "Well may you laugh at me, Anne Shirley, but I have depths to me so well hidden even I haven't discovered them yet."

He meant it as another joke, as a joke in a long line of them, though it hurt him to make it.

"I know you have…" Anne's grey-eyed look to him was instantly mollified. "Gilbert – I didn't mean that you – "

"Anne, it's OK," he waved off her apology with his hand. "It was a joke. What say we get back to these sonnets then?"

She watched him gulp down the rest of his tea, noting the new flush to his cheeks that she had put there. Anne was mortified to think she had hurt his feelings so casually. She had spent agonising days – and nights – thinking what she might say to him, and how they might be together, and what – if anything at all – might possibly happen between them, and this is what she offered him? Is this really all she could offer him? Did she not trust herself to offer more? Would she never let anyone – him? - help her see if she could?

"I visited my parents there!" she blurted in desperation.

Those hazel eyes turned to her, astonished.

"Sorry, Anne?"

"I…" she swallowed carefully, made difficult for the welling in her throat, "I visited my parents in Bolingbroke. Well, not visited of course – that is – I went to the cemetery. Where they were buried."

Gilbert had risen to put his tea cup away, but now he sat down carefully, his eyes trained on hers.

"They… they were both teachers, I think I've mentioned," she began slowly. "They met at the school where they both taught. They were still very young, I understand, even when they had me… and they didn't have much money, besides. So when they died… the school put up a little headstone for them, at their gravesite. For their service."

She felt Gilbert's eyes still on her, although she could not meet them.

"They're buried in a pretty little green corner of the old part of the cemetery…" Anne grew very quiet. "I don't remember ever going there before. It's very lovely and peaceful there. They… they are buried together, in the one grave. I think… I rather think they would have liked that."

She impatiently brushed her tears away.

Eventually, she risked a look at Gilbert. His handsome, lean face was shadowed by her story, his brows drawn together, and his eyes were very dark. He wordlessly reached out his beautiful, long-fingered hand to her in silent sympathy, and she let herself clasp it.

They sat like that together, their hands a bridge between them, for what felt a very long time.

On Sunday they put aside their sonnets to gather at Diana's; their first group rendezvous since the Christmas break. There was Jane's engagement to celebrate, though her paramour had hot footed it back to the west to set their summer wedding in motion, leaving Jane behind with her wide smile of supreme contentment and the frighteningly large diamond that had taken up residence on her ring finger. Her token of Harry Ingliss' love and commitment – and wanton lack of decency, so Charlie moaned, for who dared follow that now with their own modest future offerings? – was duly admired by the ladies as the gentlemen stood back, frowning in their vague general discomfort.

Love was definitely a palatable feeling in the air, thought Gilbert, noting the soft looks Fred and Diana shared as she passed around some biscuits and tea cake and feeling something of a paternal pride in seeing them finally together. Anne had obviously been delighted for them both as well; Gilbert had almost stumbled upon her intense, rather tearful exchange with Diana in the kitchen and beat a hasty retreat back to the sitting room. Talk of marriage and courtship did strange things to women – he couldn't dispute Charlie's grumbling logic there.

He was anxious to have Anne alone for a while, as they hadn't really talked since that emotional reveal she had made regarding her parents back on Friday afternoon. He felt as if a huge corner had been turned regarding her trust in him. He sensed how hard it was for her, and yet she had offered that part of herself to him despite it. He was desperate to show her he was worthy of her trust and of her… that he was worthy… well… as a suitor.

There. He had made the leap for himself. He wanted to court her. He wanted to shout his intentions from the rooftops, rather than hide them away in his heart. He wanted to see Anne Shirley not just to discuss sonnets, though he certainly wouldn't mind whispering a few lines in her ear, but to see her whenever and wherever they pleased, and have the whole world know the reason why.

Perhaps he would trade off all this talk of engagements and such on the walk back to college with her. Phil, bless her, with a knowing, intuitive smile in his direction, strolled off arm in arm with Pris a friendly distance in front of them; sadly they couldn't shake Charlie no matter what they did. Gilbert was stuck having Anne between them all the way back, as he tried to impart his feelings towards her with the intensity of his eyes and smile alone, his fingers itching to hold hers again, all the while darkly plotting Charlie's downfall, by means deathly if absolutely necessary.

They met again on the Tuesday; they absolutely had to lock in their choice of sonnets in order to notify the Professor in class the following day, and then it would be only a fortnight before the presentations were to begin. And it wasn't as if the remainder of their classes were frozen in time, either; the rate of new topics and new assessments was dizzying, as if their various professors had awoken from a great post-Christmas slumber to find that their students hadn't been worked nearly as hard as they ought, and each sought immediate and exacting ways to rectify their lapse.

Anne feared she had embarrassed herself at Diana's, and not for the first time; crying into her lovely friend's shoulder, hearing from her how another long-ago friend had received the letter she had sent him, drinking in the description of him and building upon the snatches she now knew of him and his life in Avonlea. She didn't know at all how the letter would be received, and Diana hadn't had the time or opportunity to wait for an answer, if there was to be one; he had all her particulars now, however, and Diana's Kingsport address besides; Anne had written that she remembered him frequently and fondly; that she had never forgotten what they had meant to one another; and that she wished him all the very best that life's choices – and chances – could bring him. That he was in the world and faring well was all that she could have ever wanted for him, and she had some measure of peace that she knew this now. Beyond that, Anne didn't dare have any expectations, and could hardly have admitted, even to herself, whether she wanted to.

In the meantime there was work, here, in Kingsport, an entire strait – and perhaps another world – away from Avonlea. And there was Gilbert, stretched out atop the rug on the common room beside her, his hazel eyes very intense on hers.

"What were you thinking, Anne?"

"Just idle thoughts," she smiled a little shyly.

"I doubt you have had an idle thought in your life!" he offered generously. "I, on the other hand, seem to be completely overtaken by them today…"

"Such as, Mr Blythe?"

"Such as sleep." He stretched gracefully, as if emphasising his point. "I miss it. I don't know where it goes to these days… Such as why a cat has nine lives but they only give a dog one… Such as why Shakespeare wrote quite so many sonnets."

Anne laughed, bemused by this side of him.

I have absolutely no experience of cats, or dogs for that matter, so I couldn't possibly conjecture."

"My mother is somewhat overly fond of cats," his grimace was endearing. "My father and I are rather undecided."

"Your mother would love Kingsport, then!"

"Yes!" he chuckled. "The ferocious felines are everywhere!"

They shared a smile and another companionable look.

"I know what you mean by the sonnets, too," she sighed. "Though it pains me to say it."

"We have narrowed it down a little…." Gilbert paused to lean over to see Anne's list. Which was a decidedly foolhardy move, as he was invaded by the scent of lilies, that tantalising hint of home, and had to physically restrain himself from burying his nose in her hair like a pig searching out truffles. He would have quickly withdrawn, disgusted by his weakness, but then he saw her redden, and dart a glance at him under her lashes, and he took advantage enough to lean in a little closer still and trace his index finger slowly down the paper.

Anne's blush remained and so did her eyes on her list for several minutes.

Gilbert smiled to himself. Just because he was trying his best to be patient, needn't mean he had to stop trying altogether.

"Right, then, Miss Shirley. Let's consider. We have around twelve remaining on our list. We need to get it down to five – two each and one we tackle together."

"Should we arrange the hopefuls thematically, stylistically or symbolically?"

"How about alphabetically?"

Anne rolled her eyes.

"Which particular sonnets speak to you, Gilbert?"

"Now you sound like a teacher I had back in Avonlea," he grinned.

"You were a teacher back in Avonlea!"

"Yes, well, when it came to poetry I just told mine to consider them like a mathematical equation. Subject plus rhyme plus meter equals interpretation."

"Oh Gilbert, you didn't!"

"I might have done," his look was smug. "Or I might have been tempted to, at least."

"You are incorrigible."

"Yes, I was told that, on occasion. I may still be able to spell it for you too."

She grinned back and shook her head in admonishment. She could never best him when he was being playful like this. And moreover she was fast losing the will to want to.

His eyes were full of his trademark mischief, and they searched out hers and held them.

"What about symbolism?" Anne squeaked.

"Pardon?"

"Symbolism? In your poetical equation."

"I was never much good at looking for hidden meanings," he murmured. "I'm much better off when I see the beauty of things right in front of me."

Anne reddened to the roots of her hair.

"Shall I get the tea then?" she jumped up, a sprung lock, hardly risking the wait for his reply.

"So obviously the uniting factors of all the sonnets are the passage of time and how it wreaks havoc; the fleeting nature of beauty and how best to memorialise it; and the idea of attraction and… ah… the two shades of it – a perfect, almost idealised love and the… that is the… depiction of passion."

Anne's cheeks had grown decidedly pink.

"That's an excellent summary," Gilbert nodded, his fingers steepled before him. "Should we take a section each, with the joint sonnet being the third theme?"

"We could…" Anne faltered. "But neither of us really want to tackle the Dark Lady sequence, and yet that is an entire thematic section unto itself. Would we be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn't directly address it?"

"I don't know…" Gilbert frowned. "But you are talking about 126 sonnets versus only 28 for the Dark Lady – percentage-wise it would be a fair call to concentrate on the Fair Youth ones."

"The poor Dark Lady…" Anne sighed. "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun." 6 And later, in Sonnet 141, here, "In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes/ For they in thee a thousand errors note." 7 It's just an inventory of the ways he finds her unattractive but he will use her shamelessly anyway. Honestly, Shakespeare was abhorrent at times. His language and his tone throughout that sequence is so disappointingly offensive. He really didn't like her very much, or the idea of her very much."

"Or he liked her too much…" Gilbert challenged with a raised eyebrow. "And either hated himself for it or was trying to throw everyone off the scent. Look at your previous sonnet to your first one mentioned…" he shuffled through some papers to pick up his trusty Complete Works, flipping through the pages quickly."Number 129." Gilbert paused, his hazel eyes quickly scanning the darkly passionate language, and he swallowed carefully and paraphrased swiftly. "Er… he talks of a waste of shame… perjured… full of blame…" 8 He realised he could quickly dig another hole for himself, and deflected attention. "And of course this is all supposing there was a Dark Lady to begin with."

"No Dark Lady? No love affair with her? You don't believe there was a real Fair Youth, either?"

"Does it matter?" he offered pointedly.

"Wordsworth was of the opinion that he believed the sonnets were autobiographical – he wrote they "express Shakespeare's own feelings in his own person." 9

"I think that's a great comfort to people, to believe these characters were real, instead of the efforts of a talented writer loving seeing his work in print, and shoring up his patronage for the next twenty years."

"Oh, Gilbert! Really!"

He chuckled now at Anne's horrified expression.

"I fear we are back to Dickens, now," he groaned. "You know you very much personally identify with the works you really like, Anne. Or vice versa."

She was busily rolling her eyes at this new affront, and didn't observe the fond look he gave her.

"This from the person who can recite Romeo and Juliet backwards!" she huffed.

"I can also recite Origin of the Species backwards, but alas it doesn't make me Charles Darwin."

Anne was back to pursing her lips again, but Gilbert steeled himself against their allure.

"Whether there was a Fair Youth or not, Anne Shirley, does it make you love Sonnet 116 any less?" he asked quietly, his eyes drinking hers.

Anne's cheeks heated, but something in her was able to hold his gaze.

"No," she admitted.

"Me neither," he answered resolutely.

They finally decided on their sonnets, and in perfect time too; Gilbert would have the opportunity to walk Anne back to her dorms before they both missed out on their dinner.

The common room was slowly gaining other occupants; it felt to both of them as if their intellectual idyll had been rudely interrupted by uninvited interlopers. Gilbert stretched again and rolled his shoulders; football practice had been rather punishing today. He may have noticed Anne's gaze tracking his movements, which may have made him exaggerate them slightly. But then, her brows drew together as she looked beyond him, and she turned her face away quickly.

"I see our not-so-Fair Youth is still in residence," she muttered in a low voice.

Gilbert glanced back to the doors, and noted the most unwelcome sight of George Peters, just come in with a friend, and giving them a cold-eyed glare before lounging insolently in the other corner.

"Yes, unfortunately, but don't mind him, Anne. He keeps a very low profile these days. At least around me." There was a little something to Gilbert's tone that was proudly defiant.

Anne was flustered now despite herself, and Gilbert put a steadying hand on her arm ever briefly before helping her gather her notes.

"As long as he's not causing you any trouble," Anne expelled a long breath but was still obviously disconcerted.

Gilbert's hand was lightly at her back as he lost no time in ushering her out.

"He might experience plenty of trouble himself, now, you know," Gilbert couldn't resist a smirk. "He's been seen in the frequent company of one Miss Monroe since we came back from Christmas break."

"Well, that's an undoubted marriage of true minds, then," Anne flashed with admirable fierceness, in a way that made Gilbert want to hug her.

Instead he chuckled delightedly, looking down on her with an unrestrained grin and not at all at George Peters as they sailed straight by him.

Anne waited in the foyer of his dormitory for Gilbert, who sprinted through the doors ten minutes' late, having, it appeared, collected clothing and books as he had travelled through the day, without having the chance to unload anything, and thus looked both amusingly preposterous – and fetchingly dishevelled – juggling both his Biology and Chemistry textbooks, his football boots, a folder of notes marked Student Council, a jacket and an umbrella, and something that looked suspiciously like it had once been his lunch.

"I'm sorry I'm late, Anne!" he had the consideration to gasp, for had he not even had the audacity to be slightly out of breath as well – even accounting for being football captain – after such an obviously frantic day Anne might have given up on him entirely and packed herself off home.

"Gilbert! You're only missing the kitchen sink, I believe!" she couldn't help laughing.

"Wait a minute. I think it's here somewhere," he sighed, and then collapsed into the nearest armchair, promptly unloading everything into a scattered heap on the floor.

"I rarely think there are enough hours in the day…" Anne mused, grinning. "But then I think of you, and it makes my life seem quite manageable after all."

He groaned rather loudly, too tired to chuckle. "The penance for teasing is to get the tea, Miss Shirley," he closed his eyes momentarily and tipped his head back against the headrest.

"Very well, then," she leaned in, close to his ear, and before the electric current of her nearness had appropriately shocked him out of his stupor, making him sit up with comical alacrity, she was quickly headed towards the kitchen to place a request with one of the staff on duty, Gilbert turning to watch her go, glad she couldn't see the naked admiration and longing in his eyes.

Goodness, wouldn't she be something to come home to at the end of a long day…

He let out a slow breath.

Anne returned shortly with a tray and even half a dozen little sandwiches.

"Anne, you are a marvel!"

"I bet you say that to all the girls."

"Only the ones who feed me."

She watched Gilbert demolish a cup of tea and five of the six sandwiches with a fondness that pained her. These new little touches of domesticity between them – tea, sandwiches, meeting up at the end of the day – had just crept up on them. They had seen one another in class and out of it so frequently these past two weeks that even the elderly, amiable night porter who would usually start his shift almost as she was leaving knew her name now.

Anne was pleased to note Gilbert's body relaxing and those hazel eyes brighten with their trademark gleam. She felt entirely too bereft thinking this was their last sonnet study session together and that once their presentation was given there would be no excuse to seek out this type of intimacy again. She did not pine over the things she had never had or experienced- she had soon learned that was the easiest path to despair – but she really thought that this … the whole of this with Gilbert … was a beautiful gift that someone had given her by mistake, and they were very soon to come and reclaim it.

She had been watching him but hadn't realised that he had turned his eyes to her, and only his soft words to her now pierced her reverie.

"I'll miss this, Anne," he ventured, reading her thoughts.

She met his eyes and then looked away. "You'll miss me waiting on you?"

"No. I think you know what I mean."

She cleared her throat very carefully. "Yes, I'll miss it too."

He took this as the clear encouragement he had waited for. "So let's not miss it then!" he leaned forward. "Who says we can't go on being study partners?"

She gave a wry smile, though it was a little broken around the edges.

"Study partners who have nothing to study together anymore?"

"We can just study alongside one another. We don't have to study subjects together, although we still have English for a good while yet. And we are on to all those romantic poets next. You'll definitely have to hold my hand through them."

She reddened at his allusion to hand holding, but her blush was a pleased one.

"I guess… I guess we could still study together," she conceded, biting her lip.

His heart beat hopefully, and he gave an encouraging smile. "Settled, then."

They exchanged a long look.

"Well, Anne, I'd better dump all this stuff upstairs, and then we can go over the presentation one more time. We're definitely ready to do it tomorrow."

"Yes, I think so too."

"No one else will volunteer, I'm sure of it. So… after we've dazzled them with our brilliance…"

"Oh, well, yes, naturally!" she laughed.

He paused. He felt the flush to his cheeks, and thought errantly of Fred.

"Well, I was thinking after class, if you would like to join me, Anne, and I would like it very much … well, my suggestion is that we go along to a little tea room to celebrate."

Gilbert waited several beats. He felt all his future happiness hinged on this one plan, and on her answer. In the wake of their wonderful presentation and the clear feelings of triumph its' reception was sure to engender, they would laugh and smile and tease over tea and cream cakes, and then he would ask to court her. Finally.

Oh, that beautiful blush.

"That sounds… rather lovely."

Her grey eyes shone very green. She wouldn't have given that answer so unreservedly two weeks ago, he was sure of it. But he had been very patient, and he had been very gentle, and he had put one foot in front of the other very carefully as he scaled that wall of hers. "…The orchard walls are high and hard to climb…" 10

And now, he was almost at the very top. "With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls, For stony limits cannot hold love out…" 11

It made him catch his breath at the thought. He couldn't wait to see the view on the other side.

The firm knock at the door of his room startled Gilbert out of his chemistry-induced comatose state. He glanced at his clock; it was nearly nine in the evening. Perhaps it was Charlie or one of the other fellows with some sort of query. Quite frankly he would welcome the distraction; he wasn't getting anywhere with his work tonight; his thoughts kept straying to Shakespeare. Well, more accurately, they kept straying to his titian haired comrade-in-arms in all things Shakespeare. Well could he have written the lines of one particular sonnet up on his noticeboard; "Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed." 12

Instead he clung to the tantalising thought…"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…" 13 he smiled to himself, and his smile was still in place when he opened the door.

"Mr Fitzgerald!" Gilbert greeted, flabbergasted.

"Young Mr Blythe…" old Mr Fitz, their night attendant, frowned back at him. He was a known and rather beloved presence to all the young men under this particular roof; he made a definite contrast to the grumpiness of some of the other staff, and he could be generously relied upon to look the other way if you happened to sneak a visitor out just after curfew, though Gilbert was yet to test this particular point.

"Mr Fitz? Is there something I can help you with?"

"This is most unusual, Mr Blythe! I feel it's rather improper… I hardly know what to make of it!"

"Mr Fitz?" Gilbert queried again.

"Your young lady, Mr Blythe! She's downstairs. I must remind you that we discourage this kind of behaviour most comprehensively!"

"My young lady?" Gilbert replied blankly, even as his heart skittered.

"Your Miss Shirley!" Mr Fitz's tone had lowered to a dramatic stage whisper, and his clear agitation brought on a paroxysm of coughing.

Anne was downstairs? Gilbert's eyes flew wide in astonishment. He struggled to fix one wayward suspender; he was only in trousers and rolled up shirt sleeves, but he was decent enough, and it looked like Mr Fitzgerald would collapse against the doorframe if he delayed any longer.

"Sorry, Sir, I'll come straight down," Gilbert followed the old man out, impatiently now keeping pace with his laborious journey back down the stairs, which was inhibited by further coughing.

"You're quite well, Sir? That's a dreadful cough there." Gilbert had a naturally inherent concern for coughs now, especially in older folk.

Mr Fitzgerald waved a gnarled, impatient hand in dismissal.

"Had my share of coughs, sonny. This one surely is no better or worse than all the rest."

Gilbert couldn't help admire his resilience, even as he gave him a grateful nod and hastened into the foyer.

"Anne?"

The laughing girl he had seen mere hours ago, with whom he fully expected to enjoy his regular rendezvous – his dreamy assignation in every respect- later that evening, and whom he could hardly wait to see in glorious flesh tomorrow, stood white faced now before him, dressed in her travelling suit, with a rather dilapidated and horrendously hued carpet bag of what may have started life as dead lettuce green but could only now be called pea soup putrid at her feet. Before he had even taken in her appearance fully – the pale hands being rung, the quivering lips, the utterly distracting cascade of glorious hair in a single, thick braid over one shoulder, as if she had not had the time or presence of mind to pin it back up - she had marched quickly towards him, talking with breathless, panicked rapidity.

"Gilbert! I am so sorry! To call – to visit – to come so late! I didn't know what else to do! I'm sorry but I can't possibly do the presentation with you tomorrow!"

"Anne!" he took her elbow, and up close she was trembling. "Whatever's happened?"

"Could you please give my apologies in class tomorrow? Show all our notes if needed to prove we were ready?"

"Anne, please, you're very upset! Don't worry about the presentation! Come and sit down with me for a minute. I'll get you some water."

"I'm fine, Gilbert! I don't have time to sit down!"

"You have a minute," he spoke to her firmly, his voice lowering and his eyes fixed on her. He took her elbow gently and steered her to the few chairs away from the front desk and a rather agog Mr Fitz.

By the time she sat down she was already in tears.

"Gilbert! I can't stay! Thank you for your concern but… I need to go. There's the train at ten. I must be on it!"

"Train, Anne? What are you talking about? The train to where?"

"Summerside."

"Summerside?"

She took a great gasp of air, whether to hold the gush of tears back or to fortify her speech he couldn't say.

"I need to get to my friend in Summerside. Immediately. I had news today after I left you. Matron Burgess from the girl's home wouldn't have contacted me if it wasn't so serious. I had no idea! None at all, Gilbert! When I visited her over new year she was pale but fine – she was recovering from a bad bout of influenza. That's what she told me! I know you can ache badly from that – I never thought anything of it! But it must be so very bad, Gilbert! It's terrible! I have to get to her. If I failed to get to her in time I would never be able to live with myself!"

There were so many things in that one explanation alone that Gilbert had to let slide he didn't know where to start. Anne had never mentioned Summerside. She had never mentioned any other friends outside their own mutual acquaintance. She hadn't mentioned knowledge of any girls' home. She was on named terms with some Matron. She had gone – presumably by herself- to visit this apparent friend over new year - thanks for sharing that detail Philippa Gordon - when she should have been safe in Bolingbroke. His mind reeled with the assault of information he was trying to process.

During his brief mind melt Anne had extracted a crumpled telegram from her pocket. The paper moved unsteadily as she handed it to him.

MISS ANNE SHIRLEY STOP KATHERINE BROOKE GRAVELY ILL STOP REQUEST COME AT ONCE STOP MATRON B END

"Anne – I know you're worried but could it perhaps wait till the morning…?" he faltered. He didn't like the look of any of it, truth be known. Anne was right – no matron hours away in Summerside was going to go to the expense of a telegram, let alone one with descriptions such as gravely ill – without good reason. He quickly scanned the time it was sent – this morning. He swallowed carefully. It might already be too late.

Anne seemed not to have registered his feeble protest at any rate.

"I've left a letter with my boarding house mistress…" she struggled, beginning to lose her composure completely. "There wasn't time to see Phil or Pris – they – they – debating…" she gulped.

"Anne – you're not thinking of travelling hours at night by yourself?"

She stood up like a bewildered jack-in-the-box. "I'll be fine, Gilbert! I will alert the conductor. I… I'm sorry about class…" she moved to her carpet bag.

"Anne! Wait for me! I'll come with you!"

Anne's eyes were a little wild on his.

"Gilbert?"

"I'll come with you. You cannot go alone, Anne."

Anne looked at him uncomprehendingly. "No, Gilbert, you can't!"

"Well, yes, actually, I can and what's more I must. I won't let you go all that way alone. Give me ten minutes."

She was shaking her head dazedly. "Gilbert!"

"Anne! You're using up my ten minutes!"

"Gilbert! You… you can't come! It wouldn't be right!"

"Anne!" his eyes stared down into hers. "I'm not concerned about propriety here – I'm concerned about you. It's an issue of your wellbeing. It's an issue of your safety!"

She opened and closed her mouth ineffectually. And then she began to cry.

He led her back to the chair.

"Please, Anne," he let his forehead rest against hers briefly. "Ten minutes."

He fished out his hankerchief and pressed it into her hand. And then he jogged over to the front desk.

"Mr Fitzgerald, thank you for your understanding. As you can see Miss Shirley is most distressed. She received some terrible news about… about a family member." Gilbert paused on this point. He had no idea whom this poor Katherine Brooke was, but Anne's reaction over the news spoke of her close relationship, and it might as well be family for her.

"Could you see that Miss Shirley gets a glass of water and doesn't move from her chair? I need to pack some things quickly, and I'll be back down very shortly. I'll need to accompany Miss Shirley to Summerside to be with her… family."

Oh, that loaded word again. As loaded and meaningful as friends ever was. He wondered, for the very first time, which one he was being to her by these actions now; which role was he finding himself in? Which role or combination thereof would she want him to adopt?

"Mr Fitz, I will have one or two notes for you to pass on for me. It will be most important that they reach their recipients, you understand."

"Very good, young Mr Blythe. You can trust me I'm sure. And… and the nearest cabs, for your information, are the turn left as you head out of the college on the road behind us."

Gilbert nodded his thanks, took a fleeting, agonised look at Anne sitting with her face buried in his hankerchief, and bolted up the stairs.

The panic pressed in on him up in his room, as he flew about dressing himself and shoving possessions into his bag with the random hope he was remembering everything. Was he doing the right thing? Yes, to safeguard Anne he was doing the right thing, and in that moment, and on that very central consideration, he was firm, though his confidence in how others would perceive it was frayed around the edges. And typically, he may have had a friend to run into to consult, but tonight all had been ironically, insultingly quiet and still, with everyone out at activities or retreated to their rooms like rabbits to their burrows, leaving he and Anne and Mr Fitz as the only people who seemed to exist in the world.

Gilbert dashed off two quick notes; to his boarding house master and to their genial English professor, urging that through their own roles these two may make the reason for their absence known to the relevant others.

On his desk sat the two great tomes; the twin influences on his life up until now. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, which stared back at him with mocking reproach; his heart mourned momentarily to think how differently he had envisioned tomorrow to be from the alternative path that was fast forming before him.

The other hefty reference, his favourite among many, and snaffled from Uncle Dave a few years ago, he stared at now with pained indecision he had no time to indulge in. He was definitely no doctor; he was no medical student; he was the son of a farmer, who read and dreamed. But he thought his own borrowed knowledge might at least be equal to that of a matron in a girls' home.

Gilbert added Physicians' Hand-book 14 to his scattered packed possessions and lugged his bag downstairs.

Chapter Notes

" 'You are always discovering gold-mines,' said Gilbert – also absently." Anne of the Island (Ch. 20)

1 William Shakespeare from Sonnet 53

2 William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice (Act 3 Sc 2)

3 from Sonnet 116

4 from Sonnet 18

5 Sonnet 151, part of the so named rather erotic 'Dark Lady' sequence comprising sonnets 127-152, is known for being particularly 'bawdy' and full of sexual innuendo and allusions to sexual passion, as opposed to the nobler, spiritual love directed to the 'Fair Youth' of sonnets 1-126. The speaker in the poem accuses the Dark Lady of infidelity with the Fair Youth ('Then, gentle cheater') even as he himself blames her for him giving in to his own base desires. There is much talk of 'rise' and 'fall' and its clear allusion to male anatomy. I am trusting my version of Anne is quite intelligent enough to get the general inferences, even if she – mostly - lacks the life experience to understand them.

Poor Anne, confronted with lines such as 'For betraying me, I do betray/My nobler part to my gross body's treason' and 'flesh stays no farther reason/But rising at thy name doth point out thee/As his triumphant prize.'

Poor Gilbert, for that matter. Though he probably shouldn't have mentioned this one in the first place.

6 from Sonnet 130

7 from Sonnet 141

8 from Sonnet 129

9 referenced in Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare, William James Rolfe (ed.) (1898)

Though this edition is published a clear decade and a half after my conversation about it takes place at Redmond, I like to feel that Wordsworth's full views on Shakespeare – of whom he was not universally admiring, much preferring Milton – would have been sufficiently in the public domain. Or at the very least known to keen scholars at college.

10 William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet (Act 2 Sc 2)

11 Romeo and Juliet (Act 2 Sc 2)

12 from Sonnet 27

13 William Shakespeare Macbeth (Act 5 Sc 5)

14 Physicians' Hand-book and American medical advertiser (1855)

Courtesy of the database of the US National Library of Medicine

I am using this as inspiration for something Gilbert could have used prior to his actual medical studies, although I somewhat hope he was able to come by a slightly more recent edition