What a long time to sustain the suspense!
I promise it wasn't deliberate, and I apologise profusely for the slow updates these last few months, and assure you we have turned a corner... of sorts!
This chapter is dedicated to all the wonderful readers out there who have given this fledgling writer the audience she never thought she'd have; and also to the guests who are so kind to always leave little notes of encouragement, and who invariably enquire as to an update to spur me on as I am trying to haul another chapter over the line :)
Chapter Seventeen
Drenched in Tears and Tragedy
Dr Martin McCubbin's favourite time was the twilight; as the day tipped its' hat to the evening, and the shadows stretched themselves out across the remaining beams of light to gently envelop and enfold them into night. It was the time heralding the ending of work and the call of home and hearth and the companionship and comfort to be found there. It was the time of quiet reflection on what had gone before and quiet resolution to continue on the next day.
It was not, ordinarily, the time for miracles.
He now observed the three individuals, quiet and still in the new peace that had descended on the room after the battlefront it had served as all day. These three had become especially bound to one another; comrades-in-arms. He didn't quite feel the General amongst them, but it would be a unique and never forgotten moment to now rally these particular troops.
He took a moment with Katherine Brooke, to observe her, calm and still in her bed; very warm, certainly, and weak as a kitten. But alive. Her fever broken, and the infection, which had remained thankfully and mercifully localised, dissipating along with the violent color of her foot, slowly fading from purple to pink before his eyes. He couldn't quite account for it; this barely hoped for change in fortune, except that medicine was sometimes the realm of both Science and God, and who was he to question which entity had been on duty today?
He now bypassed the sleeping red haired girl, pale and exhausted and spent, curled up in the chair she had barely left all day, except to pace the halls and come back to drop to her knees by the bed. He shuffled further over to the lean, long limbed, tousle-haired young man, deputised in his occasional absences when other duties had called him away; someone to do the Blythe name proud, with a certain look of his uncle about him, and a measure of old Dave's doggedness too.
This is whom he nudged awake now, and those hazel eyes blinked, stared and then started; he was instantly at attention; it was always a good sign when the fog of incomprehension cleared quickly; a medic always needed to call on his wits at a moment's notice.
"Sir! I'm sorry! I must have drifted off… how is…?" he struggled to make his body work in tandem with his mind, sitting awkwardly but slipping down in the chair in his haste.
"See for yourself, young Blythe."
The young man regarded him questioningly, askance, and then leapt up, striding to the bed but first throwing the girl in the chair a look of naked worry and longing. He paused by the bed, almost comically pulling up short, and stared, slightly open mouthed and disbelieving.
"What are your observations, Blythe?" the doctor gently demanded.
"Her color!" Gilbert blurted. "Her fever…?"
"Passed."
There was an audible gulp. "And the infection?"
"Clearing. It did not spread."
Gilbert's expression was incredulous, and he looked to the doctor and back again to Katherine Brooke.
"How…?" he gasped.
The older man chuckled tiredly. "I hardly know. And I might save those musings for later. Or I just might leave well enough alone regarding this one."
"So… she's out of danger?"
"She is. I can't see anything on the horizon now. Though her convalescence will be longer this time, and her foot will always be a trouble to her. She'll likely need a cane."
Gilbert nodded, dumbfounded.
"So… I thought you might like to be the one to pass on the fortunate news?" he glanced back meaningfully to the girl, and then again to the boy, and that bright Blythe grin was one he well remembered.
Gilbert knew that no one would now extract Anne from the bedside of the recovering Katherine Brooke until such time as the patient herself demanded their immediate and non negotiable return to Kingsport.
"Anne Shirley," Katherine wheezed, some time on the Saturday afternoon, a clear day and a half after their interminable vigil during which the dark haired woman's life had hung in the balance, "I did not help get you all the way to Redmond College just so that you could forfeit your place to read me bedtime stories."
"Would you prefer Dickens instead?" Anne smiled happily, her relief in the hopeful outcome no one dared believe possible so evident in her newly radiant features.
"I'd prefer you to be consulting the train timetable," came the exasperated reply.
"Katherine…" Anne pleaded. "You gave us the fright of our lives! Please don't chase us away before we have been able to enjoy your recovery for ourselves."
"You could have left this morning," Katherine remonstrated. "You could be back in Kingsport now."
"Kingsport can wait another day."
"The Redmond gossip won't."
At this Anne turned crimson, and stood to fuss with the makeshift library she had procured for Katherine, on a little shelf just along from her bedside table.
"The letters we left will cover the reason for our absence…" she murmured evasively.
"You know that is not exactly the issue here."
When no reply was forthcoming, Katherine pressed on.
"And where is your Mr Blythe today?"
"He is hardly my Mr Blythe, Katherine!" Anne tittered nervously, in a tone that was astonishingly false to the ears of both of them. "And at any rate, he took up Dr McCubbin's kind offer to accompany him on his calls today. He will return with him when the doctor comes to check on you later."
"Well, at least he gets something out of his time here…" there was the very faintest acknowledgement of color in Katherine's once more pale cheeks. "Mr Blythe has been, well, very good."
Anne, still avoiding Katherine's eyes, bit her lip down on her grin. "I am very glad you think so."
"And you know what he has been thinking?" Katherine persisted. "Before my fever, he was talking to me of his… intentions."
"Courting," Anne replied more shortly than she meant to. "Yes, I know."
There was a long silence, and Anne was unable, for once, to fill it.
"And…?" Katherine's tone was clearly aggrieved, and she struggled to raise herself up against her pillows. "Anne Shirley, am I raised from the dead to have exhausting, evasive discussions about - "
"Katherine! For mercy's sake please don't talk that way!"
"Right, then. Let's talk plainly. That suits me. Has he asked you?"
"I hardly think that was a conversation we were to take time for when everyone was afraid for your life!"
"I don't believe myself in mortal peril now, and I do thank the Lord for it. And Doctor McCubbin. And so I repeat my question."
The two bright spots on Anne's cheeks burned, and her voice was low. "Of course he has not asked yet. It was not the time for him to ask."
"But he will. And then?"
Anne swallowed with difficulty. "I've gone to Redmond for an education, Katherine. To make something of myself. It's what we both worked towards… this is something that I… that I didn't dare even consider… It just seems a weakness, a betrayal to be thinking upon anything that… that…"
"Weak, how? Betraying to whom? Really, Anne, you are the most frustrating girl! I do not intend to live my life through you, Anne Shirley, so you can please stop that nonsensical notion."
"Katherine…?" Anne's mouth had dropped open, rather comically.
Her expression extracted a slight softening in tone and expression from the figure in the bed.
"Anne… your friendship has been my comfort and your success has been my joy. But your happiness will be something I look forward to most of all. Go forth into the world. Live your own life as I now intend to live mine. Marry your Mr Blythe if you must – though pity do wait until after your degree – and uproot to some tiny little hamlet and a house full of children grabbing at your skirts."
"Katherine! I hardly think that courting Gilbert would lead to such extreme eventualities!"
"Stranger things have happened," Katherine frowned deeply.
There was much introspective silence, during which Anne considered and heartily dismissed such a mystifying notion of her future.
"And what of you, Katherine?" Anne gulped.
"I nearly died. I perhaps must look at starting to live, now," she replied in her husky voice.
"Your uncle? Summerside?"
My uncle has been repaid. I've been saving a little for myself of late. I've been so frugal I hardly know what it's like to spend any money. But I might allow myself the attempt."
"Katherine, that's marvellous! You deserve to have some nice new things… some lovely new dresses and - "
"Dresses? Who said anything about dresses? I am going to resign my post at Summerside to travel."
"Resign? Travel? Travel where?"
"I've an idea for Europe. Perhaps Italy."
"Italy? Are you sure you're feeling quite well, Katherine?"
"You look scandalised, Anne! Italy was good enough for your Mr Keats."
"Yes, of course, though he happened to die there!"
"Well at least he saw some of it first."
Anne was too overcome to even roll her eyes at this terribly sardonic humour.
"What will I do without you?" her heartfelt query was pathetically plaintive.
"I'm hardly leaping out of my bed yet. But you can start your preparation for our parting by heading back to Kingsport tomorrow morning."
Those stern amber eyes had softened since Anne had first tried not to cower under their resolute glare over seven years before, but they had not lost the determined will that fired them.
"Yes, Miss Brooke," Anne gave a small, wavering smile, blinking back her tears, and leant to kiss her on her wan, cool cheek.
Gilbert was not sorry to farewell Summerside, to be sure, but the breath he took as the crowded Sunday train chugged out of the station was a little tight, his diaphragm constricting, as he contemplated the extraordinary five nights he had spent there.
He hadn't come for himself; he had come for Anne, and he had stayed for Anne, and he would do it all again in a heartbeat; the broom cupboard and Matron's disapproving look and the helplessness and the panic and the fear. Because he felt he had left Kingsport still a youth, but would arrive back there a man.
It wasn't just that he had kissed Anne under the moon and the stars and felt the final vestiges of his boyhood fall away… it was that he could be there for her in other times as well; to hold her as she sobbed, firstly over her epiphany regarding her growing up at the Home and, even more wrenchingly, as he had awoken her to tell her that Katherine Brooke would live; it was in dealing with an entire set of people who had no idea and no care that he was Gilbert Blythe, President of Freshman Year, Gold Medallist at Queen's, and being humbled by it and not minding, for once, his pride taking a battering; it was in being gifted further pieces of the beautiful puzzle that was Anne Shirley and having them entrusted to his safekeeping; it was in meeting both Katherine Brooke and Dr McCubbin and coming to believe in the magical symbiosis of medicine and faith to create a miracle; and it was, finally, in the realisation that, though he was not a doctor and was a very long way off being one, that he actually could be, in not just belief but in action, too.
He had Dr McCubbin's card in his pocket with an invitation to return to see him at any time, alongside a note from Katherine Brooke; formidable still, though perhaps slightly friendlier given her experiences these past days and his own part in them. He sat next to Anne in the upright seats of the busy carriage, and his mind did cast itself back to their private compartment; as the train rocked he remembered how she had swayed into him, launched as if on a wave. She was all eyes today in her pale face; darkly grey and contemplative, and he knew that if he was in two minds about leaving Summerside, how much more difficult and confusing it must be for her.
Gilbert swallowed down the urge to reach for her fingers and entwine them in his own; to have that tangible physical connection. He had grown a little used to the feel of her and missed it now… the light pressure of her hand on his arm; the heaviness of her head on his shoulder; the wonderfully maddening way her slight body folded into his and nestled there… and he didn't dare linger on other things… her hair like silk; her scent like a garden; her lips warm and welcoming…
Right. Get your head in the game, Blythe.
He would ask her to court on Wednesday, after they finally gave their presentation, when the dust had settled. He was aware of the irony of asking after what had passed between them. But he would do it a different way… he would take her to a park. He would find a tree. If she wasn't ready he would woo her and wait until she was.
He knew now more than ever how plans could go awry. But surely it was at least best to have one to start with.
It seemed a silliness not to catch a cab together from the station back to Redmond; moreover to arrive separately to the same destination would have felt an acknowledgement of some sort of wrong-doing. So Gilbert accompanied Anne to her boarding house and carried her carpet bag to the main door.
They stood in the quiet of the early Sunday afternoon, torn between saying too little and betraying too much.
"I guess tomorrow we might have to catch up our coursework…" Gilbert ventured. "Would you like to meet on Tuesday to go over our sonnets presentation? I admit I can hardly remember a word of it."
"Nor I…" Anne's small smile was wry. "That sounds a good idea."
"And perhaps… an overdue celebration after class on Wednesday?" His smile was gently knowing but also a little unsure and not at all self satisfied, and it was enough for Anne to attempt to fight her blush, and to fail.
Instead she nodded, and fished around in the pocket of her coat, extracting an envelope.
"Ah, Gilbert… I just wanted to give you this. It's a letter… obviously…I wrote it in Summerside… it was something I began in my head, just trying to get down my feelings… that is, my thoughts… ah, although this… this is rather… an abridged version of things." Anne's cheeks were on fire now.
Gilbert took it, closed his long fingers around it, touched his own fingers to hers.
"Thank you, Anne."
"No – thank you, Gilbert."
He placed it very carefully in his jacket pocket, pressing his palm down upon it, and his hazel eyes looked down into hers meaningfully.
Anne cleared her throat.
"Just please… er… don't open it… in company…"
Right, maybe his smile was a little pleased with itself, then.
"On my word."
He took his leave before he did something completely tempting and utterly scandalous, such as take her in his arms and kiss her resoundingly.
Gilbert found himself back up in his room in his own boarding house shortly thereafter, staring with some dismay and not a little wonderment at the debris of clothes and books that spoke of his hasty retreat so many days ago, everything as undisturbed in its disturbance as he had left it, like a strange fairy tale spell had been cast.
What wasn't in any way imaginary was the mysterious collection of notes and paraphernalia that had been shoved under his door… at first he thought it might have been the work of some obliging and thoughtful classmate, leaving him details of what he'd missed… curiously, no. He leant to pick up the top page, ripped from a notebook and scrawled only that morning.
Gilbert –
We cannot fathom what has happened to you.
Upon your return please IMMEDIATELY make your way over to my rooms. Don't worry what time it will be.
It is very urgent!
Fred
Well, this was most diverting. Fred had made liberal use of capitals, underlining and even an exclamation mark. Which was about as Fred as if he had started to quote Keats.
Gilbert groaned to himself. The very last thing he wanted to do was now to trudge back over the other side of town to Fred's boarding house. But perhaps there was something that had come up. Fred was not one for theatrics, and the unusual tone of urgency made him feel a little uneasy.
He took a despairing look around his room and closed the door on it again.
"Gilbert!"
"Hello, there, Fred. Where's the fire, then?"
Gilbert was ushered inside Fred's room without ceremony. "Where's Anne?"
"What do you mean, where's Anne? At her boarding house where I dropped her off an hour ago."
Fred was looking a little wild eyed.
"Hey, look," questioned Gilbert. "Is everything all right?"
Fred gave a very short, derisive laugh. "No, not really."
"Fred, I'm a bit worried here. I think you'd better sit down."
That short laugh became an exasperated splutter. "I think it's you who will need a seat, Gil."
"Fred, what are you talking about?"
"You really have no idea, do you? I'm talking about you. And Anne. Half of Redmond is convinced you've eloped with her."
Sunday 12th February
3pm
Dear Diana,
I am writing this quickly now and will hunt down a messenger boy to get it over to you straight away, though by the time you receive it Fred may well have seen you first.
What do you think has happened? Our wanderers have returned!
Well, I can scarcely account for it. Pris and I had come in from lunch and were going through to the common room to decide on further tactics re our aforementioned wanderers when in came Anne through the main door, not exactly bold as brass but definitely with the air of someone who HASN'T been trapped down a rabbit hole these past nearly five days, whilst we all wander round calling her name like we've misplaced out favourite puppy.
Pris and I shared a look of staggered incredulity – I really wish you had seen it – and ran over to her but in the same breath our boarding house mistress – well earning her Dragon Lady sobriquet – snatched her up and we ended all ushered together into her back office behind reception where before we could even get a word in, she proceeded to give our poor Miss Shirley such a dressing down that even my own cheeks were flaming at the end of it.
Anne made game if teary reply, talking about letters left both here and at Gilbert's boarding house and so forth (really, do you know anything about that? It was the first we'd heard of it) and trying her very best to explain, even as our own interjections in her defence were roundly silenced. Then Anne was dismissed with threats to pass on the matter to the Dean himself, with mutterings of foreboding along the lines of just because she was an orphan with no parents to answer to didn't mean she could take off willy nilly with not a care for her own reputation, let alone that of the boarding house of which she is still tenuous resident, or the esteemed institution that is Redmond College to which she has caused such affront.
Well, back up in her room we filled in Anne as best we could, as she whimpered tragically and talked about Katherine Brooke at death's door. They were both at Summerside on your Island, Diana, can you imagine? Gilbert went with her in support. What possessed either of them I cannot think. I've heard of this Katherine Brooke – Anne is very close to her and left me at Bolingbroke over New Year's to visit with her – but what business this woman has almost dying (she didn't) and having us all conversely worried and puzzled half to death is yet to be adequately investigated.
So I left Pris with Anne and hurried myself over to Gilbert's boarding house but had no sign of him whatsoever, and can only imagine he has either answered that summons from Fred or else has figured things out for himself and gone straight to the Dean, perhaps throwing himself at his feet begging for clemency.
I have come straight back here to dash this off – please forgive my awful penmanship which has nothing on your beautiful script even at its best – and leave you to figure out whether Anne could squeeze into that little attic room of yours you mentioned yesterday. I have a feeling she may have need of it.
Fond regards
Phil
PS They didn't elope, as you may have gathered. I am very afraid it would have been better, at this stage, if they had.
Mr Gilbert Blythe
c/o Male Boarding House
Redmond College
Kingsport, Nova Scotia
Saturday 11th February
12.45pm
Dearest Gilbert
Love, please forgive my shaky hand – but I am desperately trying to write this quickly so that it may make the afternoon post to reach you hopefully by this coming Monday, so that you may reply at your earliest opportunity. Firstly, your Dad and I are fine – my worry is not concerning us, but for you. We have your letter with us postmarked last Monday, in which you were well and looking forward to such things as your English presentation… and now I meet Mrs Sloane down the street just now, who had this very morning received a letter from Charlie, and it contains such a perplexing postscript as has me quite flabbergasted, and Mrs Sloane, I am reluctant to say, in a state of delighted disbelief and amazement.
Gilbert, Charlie writes that you have been missing from classes for nearly three days – since Wednesday – with not a word to anyone, and that the rumours are now circulating you have ELOPED with a young lady from the college.
Darling, I set no store by gossip, particularly gossip out of the mouth of our venerable Mrs Miriam Sloane, but she of course happened to have the letter on her person and happily brandished it about, and I saw Charlie's words for myself. I cannot think that he would fabricate such a thing as you being absent all that time. I only hope that he is as wrong as can be regarding the reason for your possible and unexpected absence.
Love, if you are in trouble of some kind, we will not hesitate to help you and will stand by you in all things. I cannot believe that you could have any cause to involve yourself with a young lady in this manner and of which we know nothing, not having even courted anyone to our knowledge (although I have our conversation at Christmas ringing in my ears). Of course, you are a man now, of age, and if this comes to pass as having been the situation we will respect your wishes, though it pains us greatly, and we will sorely lament the educational dreams that will be so much harder for you to now fulfil with, dare I think it, a wife in tow.
I haven't yet informed your father of anything, wanting to get pen to paper first, but must do so soon. He would tell me what I am reminding myself of now – we do not have any of the real facts to hand, and conjecture is useless until such time as we do.
Please contact us immediately and put our worry to rest!
Your loving Mother x
Saturday 11th February
1pm
Dear Miss Anne
I do hope you are returned to us soon! We are so worried for you! We are all here to help you if and when you need it, and Gilbert too, so please lean on us. My door is always open.
With love
Pris x
Saturday 11th February
10am
Dear Anne
Darling, WHAT has happened?! And WHERE are you?
We are all going quite round the bend with worry. You are obviously with Gilbert, which is a mild comfort because he would defend you to the death, but I fear that nothing will protect you both from yourselves.
Miss Anne – we've started to hear the ugliest conjecture regarding your disappearance, and though Pris and I are busy trying to put out fires on your behalf, and Fred Wright has been an absolute saint, what will silence all the critics now is your lovely presence here again.
Any of us will help you if you have need of it, woman to woman – myself and Pris and Diana Barry too. So please call on us to do so. And let us know you are back as soon as you return!
Your loving (and panicked) friend
Phil x
Mrs M Sloane
Sloane Residence
Avonlea, PEI
Friday 10th February
1pm
Dearest Mother
Thank you so very kindly for my first Care Package for the year which arrived early yesterday morning, and was indeed a welcome sight awaiting me at the reception desk of the boarding house, where I have instructed them to always leave any packages and correspondence, so that I may share receipt of them with my many chums here.
I have desperately missed your home cooking since Christmas and am dismayed to report that the meals here persist in their oversalted, unimaginative, and often inedible glory. Likewise my rounds of the various Kingsport tea rooms in order to find a new favourite continue to disappoint.
The professors obviously have an unspoken pact to work us to the bone and we are inundated with assignments at every turn. I cannot tell you how often I have stumbled out of bed in the morning, bleary eyed, having been up till 9 and sometimes 10 o'clock at night, plowing through my coursework. Obviously it will all be worth it in the end, to be the first Sloane to be entitled to style himself B.A., but to extend the farming metaphor further, it seems a very hard road to hoe at this stage.
At least I will be warmed and comforted by my new scarf, hat and mittens, and though it is indeed a very bright and arresting shade – I perhaps should have looked up vermilion when you asked me – there is no faulting your beautiful workmanship, Mother, and it will be a close enough match, I am sure, for the darker, subtler scarlet of Redmond for one and all to be envious of my college spirit.
It will be a relief to see the end of winter, however. My thoughts fly homeward to Easter in Avonlea already.
Please pass on my love to Father and all the family,
Your dutiful son,
Charles
PS I perhaps should not speak as yet, but the news here this week has been the bewildering disappearance of Gilbert Blythe, who has not been sighted in class or out of it since Tuesday evening. Just as I was about to seal and send this letter I heard the most extraordinary story – that he perhaps has actually run off to elope with a young lady of his acquaintance – and dare I say it, also mine – as she has not been seen either. Certainly they have been very chummy of late and are forever quoting Shakespeare or some poet to one another in the most tiresome fashion. I had once thought that this young lady might have taken a shine to yours truly but I am most relieved after this news to be still a very eligible bachelor, I can assure you.
Friday 10th February
5pm
Dear Gilbert,
We haven't seen or heard from you for days. Or Anne Shirley. Diana is worried sick and Phil and Pris are not far behind. If you are in trouble of any kind please know that you have friends here who would do anything for you.
I can't but think that you have taken off with Anne, though goodness' knows where or why. You normally have a good head on your shoulders but you have been a bit of a blockhead concerning her, and this situation is obviously another excellent example.
Please contact me as soon as you come back. Rumours are beginning to swirl and they are not very nice.
Best, always
Fred
Friday 10th February
4pm
Dear Gilbert
We have been friends for a very long time, and I write to you as a friend now, to please let us know as soon as you can that you are well and have arrived back to Kingsport safely.
Many have started to suspect that you are with Anne and have not behaved honourably, but I know you and know this could never be the case. However, this secrecy and suspicion still reflects badly on you both, and though Fred, Phil and Priscilla are doing everything they can, what we need most is to have you back here, as your confident presence will be your very best defence.
Gilbert, I have only grown to know Anne recently, but she has become a fast friend and I care for her very deeply. I realise that your own feelings for her are very strong – perhaps stronger than you realise or are willing to acknowledge. But please have a care. Anne has not had a simple life and she has encountered many difficulties, and fought them bravely, and she has divulged some of them to me and they would make your heart break. I have seen you with her and you are lovely together but I hate to say that the road for you both would not be a simple one, and although I cannot break her confidence I need to tell you that there are other people in her life, from her past, who are very important to her too (as I KNOW you are to her) and I hope you can be accommodating of them when the time comes, as it will. I am sorry – I do not mean to be so cryptic!
Please contact myself or Fred when you return. He doesn't show it but Fred grows quite demented with worry for you, as do I.
Love
Diana
Friday 10th February
3pm
Dearest Anne
Oh darling! What has happened? We have become aware that neither you nor Gilbert have been in classes or at your rooms for several days. Goodness this has us worried for you. We all hope and pray that you and Gilbert are safe and that you may return to Kingsport soon! I find it hard to imagine what has called away two of Redmond's most dedicated students except it must have been something of grave importance. I hope your leaving has not meant an additional trouble or burden for you – you have had so much to cope with already and I would hate for that to happen to such a sweet soul as yourself!
My only consolation is that it appears that Gilbert is with you – this is a consolation for now, Anne, but I fear it will become a complication for you when you return. Phil has learned – and has passed onto us – some rumours she has gained knowledge of. You certainly don't have to be in Avonlea to find interfering busybodies, obviously. The rumours pain me because I know that Gilbert is not like that, and would have only ever gone with you to help you. Underneath it all he is one of the honourable ones, darling Anne. He is not Fred's friend for nothing.
Fred and I are here – we are all here – waiting anxiously for your return and ready to assist you in whatever way you need it. You can come stay with me, Anne, if you would like, and if that is going to be helpful. There is a little room in the attic that – I'm sorry. I am presuming too much! I will wait to see you and you may judge all this for yourself.
I must sign off so Fred can make his way over to Redmond to deliver this. Know that we love you and have been thinking constantly of you!
All my love
Your friend
Diana x
Friday 10th February
3pm
Dear Gilbert
I have discovered the source – or sources – of the rumours circulating against you both.
I am afraid some past actions have come back to bite you, in the form of a certain Miss Maisie Monroe and especially her new paramour, Mr George Peters.
I rounded on both of them severely today, and might have caused a great and terrible scene, but I did not want to give either of them the satisfaction. I did however loudly and loftily throw about phrases such as 'slander' and 'defamation' (though who knows the difference, honestly?) which had the desired effect of making them both blanche to the roots of their annoyingly perfect flaxen hair and scuttle away rather like the rats they have been imitating.
I am afraid, though, Mr Blythe, that the damage has already been done. We are both social creatures, you and I, and rather good at being social creatures, but perhaps my Bolingbroke has better prepared me than your Avonlea for the unfortunate flip side of all this popularity and success – which is a very strong undercurrent of envy and jealousy. It can come from the most unexpected quarter, too (though not wholly unexpected, obviously, in this case). Gilbert, I urge you to guard yourself a little better in the future, or you will always lay yourself open to those who see you as having everything and wanting to take some of that from you. Furthermore, you are not the only one caught in the crossfire – our Miss Shirley is extremely vulnerable to any threats to her reputation, and although I suspect your absence together has been some chivalrous but misguided attempt of yours to safeguard her, you must be mindful of how this looks and will look for her, whatever your good intentions.
And if we are all wrong – Diana assures me we are not, but I perhaps must really reserve judgement, having seen you in action not only at the Football Fundraising Dance but more importantly, when you came to me before I left with Anne for Bolingbroke at Christmas – and you HAVE actually done some fool thing such as elope with her, then I wash my hands of you entirely, and you will get no further assistance in Mathematics from me, either.
Your friend in good times and in bad,
Phil
Thursday 9th February
8.30pm
Dear Miss Anne
We haven't seen you for two days! Are you with Gilbert? None of us have any idea what has happened to either of you and it's quite a worry.
Phil and I are doing our best to smooth over your absence, but sweetie, we would rather have you both back in the flesh. That way any nasty gossip might be nipped in the bud.
Please contact us!
Love
Pris x
Thursday 9th February
7pm
To: Miss Philippa Gordon
Dear Phil
I am very sorry to say that I went this morning first thing to enquire after Gilbert, but found him not in his rooms and no one appears to know where he is, even the new (and still rather green) night attendant.
I have just come from trying again this evening with the same disappointing result.
I take it that Anne is likewise still missing and unaccounted for.
I know that Gilbert would never put Anne in harm's way – please be rest assured of this. In fact, I am of the opinion that it is the very opposite, and that something unexpected has occurred, and Gilbert has felt duty bound to accompany Anne to wherever she needed to go.
This however does not assist them when it comes to how these actions will be perceived. I wonder if you might be aware of any talk that is floating around about them?
In the meantime, I sincerely thank yourself and Pris on Gilbert's behalf for all your care and enquiries about them both.
If you have any information please don't hesitate to contact me through Diana.
Warm regards
Fred Wright
Thursday 9th February
6pm
Dear Gilbert
Nearly two entire days and no one has seen you or Anne. Gilbert, what has gone on? Are you with her? It's not like either of you to disappear like this and Pris and I are beginning to worry. I even sent Fred after you this morning via Diana but I haven't heard from him as yet. The poor man has better things to do that wear out his shoe leather back and forth from his own college so please, can you and Anne both make contact with one of us? And where are you both anyway?
Gilbert, I heard a nasty rumour earlier this afternoon. Several people of our mutual acquaintance have told me in no uncertain terms that the word is you have eloped with Anne. I could hardly give any credence to such a stupendously ridiculous idea, excepting that, given your longstanding close friendship with one another and the fact that you are both gone at the same time without explanation… Well, I will do my best to squash such conjecture as best I can, but you have to admit, from an outside perspective, that is an explanation the mind automatically goes to.
Please show yourself and prove everyone wrong!
Your friend
Phil
Thursday 9th February
4.45pm
Dear Diana
I have no idea how Fred's enquiries went this morning but I have rather unfortunate news of my own. Another full day has passed with no sightings of either of our absent friends – not Gilbert in Mathematics, nor Anne with us as she usually is in Art History – and obviously it appears Anne has not arrived on your own doorstep either. I enquired with our boarding house mistress before she left today and she told me in no uncertain terms to mind my own business, though her actual words might have been more along the lines of 'matters regarding the movements of residents were strictly confidential'. So really, no help whatsoever.
Therefore, we must face the likelihood that they have departed for somewhere together.
This would be a bad enough prospect for we, their close friends, to consider, but I am despairing to tell you that others have evidently been paying attention too. I heard from several people this afternoon that the general belief is that Anne and Gilbert have eloped together. Which is a nasty but unsurprising conclusion to draw. What I find most worrying is not only that people who only know Anne or Gilbert vaguely should say such things, but that they should be so firm in their convictions after only two days. It makes me suspect that someone is spreading such a story deliberately and that they are close enough to one or both of our friends to put some weight behind their allegations.
I don't need to tell you how desperate this is all looking for the both of them.
I look forward to hearing from you and to ascertaining whether Fred has any news that will help us.
Yours truly
Phil
Thursday 7th February
7.45am
Dear Gilbert
I went round to you before classes this morning but you were not in and no one seems to know where you are. Even Charlie, whom I passed at reception admiring some enormous package or other just arrived from home hadn't seen you. I actually came to enquire as to whether you'd been with Anne, as Priscilla and Phil were at Diana's yesterday and hadn't seen or had word from her all day. Weren't you meant to do that presentation of yours yesterday? And are you STILL with Anne now?!
I couldn't get a sensible word out of your night porter either who was almost finished his shift – not the older gentleman you have told me about but some new young fellow who hadn't a clue about anything, so I just came up and shoved this under your door myself.
Will you contact one of us, Gil? And have Anne Shirley contact Phil or Diana?
Thanks
Fred
Thursday 7th February
7.30am
Dear Phil
What a worry to not have seen Anne all day yesterday! I agree it does not seem to be like her at all. It was lovely to talk to you and Pris when you both came round yesterday afternoon and I'm only sorry I was late in arriving back and so you had quite a long session with Jane and her wedding plans, of which I am also somewhat unfortunately an expert!
I sent a note over to Fred after you left urging him to check on Gilbert this morning before first classes start – I know he will get a message to me upon his return.
I certainly hope all is well with Anne – perhaps she took sick yesterday. Or else was with Gilbert for the day? I hope he will have some answers for us.
Very best wishes
Diana
Wednesday 6th February
7.15am
Dear Anne
What do you know, lovely? We won debating last night!
I am convinced that my training and two years' experience as a teacher has now been for the sole purpose of enabling me to stare down any opposition. I wish you had been there to share in our triumph but completely understand if you wanted to rest up before your presentation today. So good luck! Though with Gilbert on board you are both sure to triumph yourselves. He's a very impressive speaker - but don't tell him I said so! He is generally pleased enough with himself already.
Love
Pris x
Tuesday 5th February
10.15pm
Dearest Anne
I did not want to disturb you so will shove this note under your door but I just wanted to inform you of the unlikely and rather brilliant news that, despite your own absence, we managed to win debating tonight!
How we achieved this impressive feat, between Pris's giggling and my own frustrating changes mid argument, I cannot tell you. I certainly hope your Ed Sanderson is not of the belief is was his doing alone. He was rather devastated to realise that, although you were sitting this one out due to your English presentation (a circumstance obviously not bothering him) that you had elected not to make up the numbers in the audience either. His poor face fairly fell from this cruel blow to all his hopes to impress you. Beware he doesn't try to regale you with the entire argument on both sides tomorrow in your English class.
Though I am certain Gilbert would have something to say about that if Ed tried to. Mr Blythe could hardly sit still in Mathematics yesterday for excitement regarding it all. I believe he also made annoyingly oblique reference to some sort of possible 'celebration' afterwards. Trust Gilbert, really, to be organising to celebrate your successful outcome before you have even attempted the task!
Well, love, if he is confident, and is teamed with you, that is more than enough for me!
Good luck and enjoy!
Love lots
Phil x
It took around twenty minutes to thoroughly appraise Gilbert of all the machinations that had taken place whilst he had been away. Fred explained every step in his careful, unhurried and considered manner, with a thankful absence of hyperbole. Gilbert had been leaning on the wall by the window, too agitated to sit, occasionally filling in some information of his own, but at the end of Fred's recount his long, lithe body slid down to an elegant heap on the floor, and there he sat, knees up and head in hands, and moaned mournfully.
"How did this happen?"
Fred, who rather thought he'd just done as good a job as any in explaining that very thing, looked wryly at his friend.
"Gil, you know how this happened. You left Tuesday night with Anne in a tearing hurry and under cover of darkness. No chaperone and no explanations - as far as anyone knew. And then you were in Summerside of all places for days. Of course people were going to talk. Regrettably, the story seemed to circulate unusually quickly. I think Phil will have something to say about that. She's been pretty amazing, actually. You and Anne have a real friend there."
"Yes…" Gilbert colored ever-so-slightly. "As we do in you. Thank you, Fred, for all your efforts. Truly."
"Well…" Fred smiled sheepishly, sitting himself on the bed. "Don't thank me yet. You still might be thrown out of college, you know." His tone was deliberately bland.
Gilbert sighed excessively. "Mr Fitz has had pneumonia?"
"Apparently. But he should be able to at least say where he put those letters you left with him."
Gilbert's brow darkened. "The letters won't be enough, will they?"
Fred shifted his weight uncomfortably, and the springs on the bed protested. "If it was just you involved, I'd say yes. Particularly if you had a quick word to the Dean. But it's not just about you, is it?"
Gilbert's look was now positively thunderous, and he lifted his head in a very Blythe sort of manner.
"We did nothing wrong, Fred! And I'd do it all again tomorrow, too. I wouldn't have ever left her to face all that alone."
"It sounds like quite an experience."
Gilbert raked his fingers through his hair tiredly. "You have no idea."
Fred felt his mouth twitch. "Well, I'm a courting man now, Gil. Perhaps I have some."
Gilbert barked out a laugh, and his hazel eyes lightened.
"There wasn't exactly any mistletoe around, my good fellow."
"When has that ever stopped you?"
Gilbert chuckled, but his expression grew serious. "This is different, Fred. I can't explain it. When I'm with Anne…"
"And here I was thinking they kept you under lock and key at some Girls Home?"
"They did, for the most part. I'm telling you, they had a fierce Matron in attendance. But there was one time… well… Anne and I might have escaped outside during the night…"
"Yes…?" Fred's brows lifted to reach his forehead.
"Well, there was an apple tree, and…"
Fred began to laugh quietly.
"And what's so damned funny about that?"
"You are! You can't have some ordinary romance, can you, Gilbert? There needs to be an apple tree. It needs to feel like your very own Garden of Eden."
Gilbert flushed. "Well, if it did feel that way…" he answered quietly, and his gaze grew thoughtful, "it's only because she made it so."
Fred smiled, and searched his best friend's face for a trace of teasing or irony, and was astonished to find none.
"You're serious, aren't you?" he finally managed.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean… well, you and Anne. You're actually… you're really in love with her."
Gilbert swallowed carefully. "Yes."
Fred seemed to take a moment to process this.
"Well... That's… well, sorry about all this, Gil. This is pretty rotten."
"You're not wrong, Mr Wright," Gilbert tried to put some effort into their old joke. "Look, it will be fine. I will hunt down the missing letters. I will personally meet with the Dean tomorrow and all of my professors – and Anne's too for that matter. I will write to Summerside. We have any number of people who can offer testimonials for us. We even have a doctor who trained with my Uncle Dave, the one out in Four Winds, for goodness' sake. And I will ask Anne to court, finally, and then all the gossips and naysayers can – "
"Whoa, Gil! Courting? You mean court Anne?"
"Of course I mean to court Anne, you dolt! I would have asked her a week ago, before all this mess."
"Gilbert, have you not listened to a single thing I've just told you?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You can't court Anne now, Gil! Not for ages, till all this has well and truly blown over. Really, you thought the business after the Football fundraiser was bad? That has nothing on all of this! This has been a delightful little scandal for people to sink their teeth into. The only way forward is to diffuse the scandal. Take the wind right out of it. You stick with your story – which is decent and true – of you doing the gentlemanly thing in accompanying a distraught Anne to see her possibly-dying friend. You spent a few days there, chaperoned within an inch of your lives, the friend recovers, and you come back to Kingsport. That's the only thing that is going to save either of your reputations, frankly. Gil – if you turn around in the next breath and court Anne, they are going to think that was your real mission all along. Or worse. No one will have any interest in the real reason. They might not even believe the real reason. If you… if you want to protect Anne, then, and if you love her, I'm sorry Gil, you've got to make the world believe you actually don't."
Gilbert might have been completely distracted by the confident and commanding monologue Fred had just given – probably the longest chain of sentences he had ever linked together – if not for the horrible sense of the advice contained therein.
Fred watched the slow dawn of miserable comprehension light his friend's handsome features. For the first time in his entire life he was not the least envious of Gilbert Blythe.
Late that Sunday night, when Pris had left a tray of food by her desk, urging her to eat, and Phil had brought up a kiss from herself and a note from Gilbert, Anne sat uncomprehendingly on the bed of her dorm room, head throbbing, eyes puffy and exhausted, and feeling for all the world she would walk around the college for the conceivable future having become known as The Scarlet Woman of Redmond.
Her fingers faltered at Gilbert's note. He had been drawn into this awful mess because of her. Just as he had been teased and tormented over defending her honour at the dance, now he had to face the innuendo and ridicule of having accompanied her to Summerside, and the subsequent slur on his own good name and character. Did she really only bring hurt and shame to the men who grew closest to her?
She took a shuddering breath.
Dearest Anne
The moment I left you this afternoon I went back to my room, and there was a note from Fred asking me to see him urgently… I have just come back from meeting with him, and by now I am so sorry to think you have also heard what has transpired while we have been in Summerside, and I am devastated to think this will cause you distress on top of what has already been a stressful and emotional few days.
Believe me, Anne, I left my own letters with our night attendant, Mr Fitz, as you saw yourself. It unfortunately transpires that he took very ill later that night and has been bedridden with pneumonia, and the letters have been misplaced. I am about to search them out myself and then I will go with them to see the Dean first thing tomorrow morning and I will begin to straighten out this horrible tangle…
Anne, I do not regret for one moment going with you to Summerside. Aside from my time with my father in Alberta, they have become the most important four days and five nights of my life.
I will hold our 'book' close to me, Anne. I will safeguard it until we are able to take it down off the shelf.
Until then, I sign this as you were so generous and beautiful to sign yours -
All my love
Gilbert
Anne wiped at her too-ready tears, and then shuffled over to the desk, bypassing the tray and reaching for a collection of other notes and letters. All from her wonderful new friends, even as she was at the bedside of her precious old friend… notes from Phil, and Pris, and Diana… the love and care and concern making the various scripts swim before her eyes. Fred Wright, too, had been a staunch and unwavering support. She was astonished and humbled. She had first left Summerside, and Katherine, feeling all alone in the world… and now it was almost as if the idea of a family was not the fantasy of a broken child, but the reality of the young woman, made proof by the letters, something she could hold and touch.
Here, too, was the second telegram, telling them all was falsely well and not to worry about coming. And if she had received it she would have possibly done as bidden, because that's what she had been trained to do, and they wouldn't have been there – Gilbert wouldn't have been there – and neither would have Dr McCubbin and she would almost certainly be facing a world without Katherine Brooke now. The alternative world in which that occurred was so close it was terrifying; a two-way looking glass.
There was a proper letter, too. Her tired eyes grew wide. Postmarked Avonlea.
She knew any number of people from Avonlea, now. All of them were here in Kingsport with her.
Except one.
Another alternative world bumped against her and threatened to bowl her over. White knuckles clutched the edge of the desk for support. The firm, neat handwriting proclaimed her own name. The reverse side would proclaim the sender.
Family… fantasy… something she could hold and touch.
She turned over the envelope, and stared at the name for a long time.
Tom.
Chapter Notes
"They are so drenched in tears and tragedy that they are excruciatingly funny."
Anne of the Island (Ch. 35)
I hope that readers will forgive two things; firstly, the time of writing included in the various letters here, which is not at all anyone's usual letter writing convention, but was included for means of clarity, particularly as these letters are in reverse chronological order; and secondly, the extraordinary (in this instance) efficiency of the Canadian Postal Service, for helping to advance matters of plot.