Chapter 2

Sitting by the window, Rilla gazes at the snowy ground below her. She can see part of the garden from here, and the maple grove behind it. Through the leafless treetops, she catches glimpses of the frozen Glen pond, where only yesterday, the village youths gathered for an impromptu game of hockey. Beyond the grove, she knows, lies Rainbow Valley, and further to the north, the shore and the sea, none of which she can see from where she sits.

In the past couple of days, she's spent a lot of time like this, looking out of the window at the wintery scenery below. There's not a lot she can do otherwise, stuck as she is in her room, because the romance novels she used to enjoy seem so trivial now and even if she felt like writing letters, what could there possibly be to write about? She can't possibly mention anything about her current situation to anyone and having not left her room in days, there's preciously little else to report about either.

She isn't grounded, not in the sense of the word, because no-one specifically told her to stay in her room. It was more of an unspoken understanding, a sense that enough damage has already been done and that when she's inside her room, at least she can't make it worse.

Not that Rilla is sure whether there really is a way to make this any worse, but since she's secretly quite glad not to have to face her parents again, her pale-faced mother and her father with his untypically stern voice and grim expression, she doesn't mind staying in her room so much. Normally, it would have made her nervous, being cooped up in here for days, but as it is, her room has become a sort of sanctuary, a place where she can hide from the world as she waits for the other shoe to drop.

She knows, of course, that it won't stay this way. This is but an interlude, like that eerie, windless hour just before the storm hits, but whatever is happening outside her room and however long she will stay here, she knows that something has to happen, and soon. She has, however, no idea what it is, this something, and she's not sure how eager she is to find out, so for the time being, this arrangement suits her fine.

Susan brings her food to her room, breakfast and lunch, tea and dinner. She never says much when she carries up the tray, but it feels to Rilla that she's making an especial effort with the dishes recently. It's nothing noticeably out of the ordinary, because there's a war and they can't be wasteful, but when there are different possible ways to prepare a meal, it seems to Rilla that Susan tends to choose the one she likes best, and she appreciates the small gesture of kindness. If that's what it really is, of course.

With Susan being the one to keep her fed, there hasn't been an opportunity to see her parents since that disastrous conversation in the library. Mindful not to provoke them, Rilla has made sure not to venture out of the room even for brief trips to the bathroom until she could be certain that her parents had gone downstairs and started their day, and thus, hasn't needed to face them since.

They will come to her, she thinks, when they have something to say to her. Until then, she is left to sit and wait and watch the world go by outside her window.

Today is a grey day, with low hanging clouds concealing the sky, and Rilla wonders idly whether there will more snow in the evening. She hasn't yet come to a conclusion, when there's a knock on the door, startling her.

A quick look at the clock on her desk tells her that it's not yet time for dinner, so it can't be Susan with another tray of food. Could it be that it's her parents, finally come to talk to her?

Nervously, Rilla gets up from her chair and calls out, voice trembling slightly, "Come in."

There's a moment of pause, before the door opens to reveal not her parents, but her brother. Not Jem or Walter, of course, who're both fighting a far-away war in France, but Shirley, as yet held back by age and left to them, if not at home, then at least nearby.

Rilla saw him come home from Charlottetown last night, as he usually does for the weekends. Sitting on her chair by the window, she watched him walk up the road from the train station. When he looked up upon nearing the house, she thought he might have seen her, but it was already dusk outside and her room was dark, so she couldn't be sure.

She's also not sure about the last time he came to her room. She can't recall it, so it must have been years, at a time when they had both been children and the world a simpler place.

"Hello," she greets him, slightly surprised at his presence.

"Um, hello." He nods at her, looking a little awkward. It occurs to Rilla that his presence in her room is as unusual to him as it is to her.

Briefly they stand, facing each other, Rilla in the middle of her room and Shirley by the door. Then, as if suddenly remembering, he raises his hand, holding a plate.

"Susan made cookies," he remarks, somewhat unnecessarily so because the plate is clearly laden with cookies. "She said you're unwell."

Unwell.

It's one way of putting it, Rilla supposes. It also reminds her that Shirley must not know about the predicament she's in, so she quickly looks down at herself to find out how obvious her condition is. She's dressed properly, of course, but there's no possible way to make the corset fit anymore, so she has to rely on blouse and skirt to hide the change in her body.

Looking down, it's painfully obvious to her, but she realises that objectively, it's still easy to miss. Besides, this is Shirley and even if he saw anything, how could he possibly know to read the signs?

"Cookies are good," she tells him, because she doesn't want to deny or confirm being unwell. Physically, she's feeling alright, if somewhat off-kilter, but she can't even begin to unravel the state of her mind, so it's easier not to even try.

Prompted by her remark, Shirley holds out the plate of cookies to her, being careful not to step over the threshold into her room, as if it marks some magical line he can't cross. Realising his reluctance, Rilla quickly relieves him off the plate and, with nowhere else to put it, places it on her desk, atop a small stack of letters she has to answer someday soon.

"Can you say thanks to Susan for me, please?" she asks her brother when turning back to him.

Shirley looks at her for a moment, in that curious way of his that makes it unable to tell what he's thinking, but then he nods quickly and takes a step backwards, seemingly glad to be retreating. He closes the door softly behind himself, leaving Rilla alone once again.

Picking up a cookie, she looks after him, wondering what the meaning of his visit was, or, more precisely, why Susan sent him up to her. On the surface, it was to bring her cookies, which she certainly appreciates, but it wasn't a necessary endeavour and recently, the unnecessary hasn't been a big part of her life.

Could that have been the goal, then? For her to see another person who, while not talkative, is at least friendly?

Considering it, she almost wishes Shirley had stayed longer. He's not one to hold long conversations with and because he's so quiet, they were never as close as they perhaps could have been as the youngest two in the family, but Rilla can't remember ever fighting with Shirley either. He used to join Jem in teasing her and she resented him for it at times, but it never stung quite as much, coming from him, and anyway, in her current situation, she wouldn't even mind being teased. It used to appear to her to be the worst thing possible, but looking back, she's not entirely sure why anymore.

Eating her cookie, she walks back to sit on her chair by the window.

Having overcome the early nausea, she's seen her appetite return in the last few days, to the point where she developed a sweet-tooth not hitherto familiar to her. The cookies, therefore, are very welcome, even if she makes a point to eat everything Susan sends up, both to show her appreciation and because she's regularly quite famished at mealtimes.

Not having to force herself into denial about her situation anymore also means that she's slowly allowed herself to notice other changes, too. She's not as tired as she was all autumn, which is a nice change, and while her body continue to feel foreign to her, she's begun to notice its changes with something like interest instead of abject terror.

The reason for those changes is something she still doesn't feel comfortable with and thus, it is something she doesn't think about much, or at all, if she can help it. When she's not careful and doesn't prevent her thoughts from straying there, however, her father's word ring in her head, a discordant sound that somehow got wrapped up eternally with the clanging of the church bells in her memory.

With child.

With. Child.

A child.

She tries to imagine it, she really does, but it remains impossible, unthinkable and completely unimaginable.

A child!

It's madness, pure and simple. She doesn't even like children and now there's supposed to be one… inside of her? She looks down and sees the small dent in her midriff, she even moves her hands to touch it, but it remains abstract, intangible, impossible to make sense of.

She cannot be having a child.

Children need taking care of, do they not? They're living, breathing little people and they need to be fed and clothed and cared for. She knows that, even if she doesn't know much else. She made a point to avoid small children in the past, leaving the cuddling and rocking of babies to her much more eager sisters, but even she knows that a lot of work goes into caring for children. Plainly, she can't see herself doing it. She doesn't know how!

Feeling bewildered by the sheer notion of it, Rilla shakes her head, trying to shake it free from the thoughts. She's been at this point before, arrives at it at least once a day, but never finds a way to move past it. She gets stuck on the thought, turning and turning it around in her head, before finally giving up, because how is one supposed to think about the unthinkable?

Sighing, she reaches forward to take another cookie. She cannot, it seems, solve this, however much she tries, so what use is there in trying at all?

Outside, it is growing darker, which might be due to dusk falling, or else, because the clouds appear even greyer and heavier than before. The snow glistens on the ground, a white blanket to counteract the falling darkness from above.

It must be time for dinner soon, Rilla muses, because at least that is a simple and safe thought to have. Her grumbling stomach is much easier to silence than her whirling mind, and dinner has the advantage of being unquestionably real and tangible.

Her stomach agrees with a low rumble and just when Rilla reaches out for a third cookie to tide it over, there's the expected knock on the door.

"Yes!" she calls out loudly, swallowing half a cookie at once.

The door swings open – but it's not Susan bringing dinner.

It's her mother.

Taken aback, Rilla gets to her feet, coughing slightly as crumbs of cookie gets stuck in her throat. "Mother!"

Her mother dithers on the doorstep, looking oddly uncertain. "May I come in?"

To stunned to say much of anything, but aware that she is in no position to deny her mother anything, much less entry, Rilla invited her to step inside with a vague wave of the hand. Since hers is the only chair in the room, she quickly takes a few steps away from it, clearing it for her mother to sit on if she so wishes.

Anne, however, remains standing and so does Rilla. For several long moments, they just stand there, facing each other, before Anne shakes herself into movement and turns to close the door.

"How are you?" she asks after another brief, awkward pause.

"Hungry," Rilla blurts out, because it's not only the very first thing on her mind, but because her mind is otherwise completely blank.

To her surprise, there's the smallest, most fleeting smile on her mother's face. It's not sympathy, exactly, but a sort of understanding coming from a woman who's been in those very same shoes not once but six times before.

Anne's thoughts, it seems, have followed much the same path, for she catches herself and sobers immediately. All traces of her smile are gone as quickly as it came, so quickly, in fact, that just a moment later, Rilla isn't certain anymore whether it was ever there at all.

With her mother volunteering no further explanation for her presence, Rilla notices herself growing increasingly nervous. Feeling that she must say something, anything at all, she hears her own voice exclaim, "I didn't mean for this to happen."

She thinks it bears saying, because while she has a vague sense of understanding that this is her fault, at least she wants it to be known that she didn't do it intentionally. She didn't intend to end up in the position she's now in, and she didn't truly intend to end up in the situation that brought her here either. It just happened, in the way things happen when you dream, leaving you watching in wonder at the events unfolding in front of you.

"I didn't mean for this to happen," she repeats, more forcefully, when her mother doesn't reply. She is still, even after days of thinking, not completely certain what 'this' is, but whatever it entails, she never meant for it to happen. She knows that, at least.

Looking at her daughter, Anne sighs, shaking her head slightly. Intention, she is aware, plays no part in what is to come, and it is irrelevant to people's judgement as well.

"How did it happen?" she wants to know, even being aware that knowing how it started won't affect how it ends in the slightest.

Faced with the weight of her mother's question, Rilla freezes for a moment. She made sure not to think of the beginning of all this too much and even if she had tried to remember, the memory is too hazy to grasp much of it several months on. Thus, now that she is asked to recall that very evening, she feels suddenly terrified.

Seeing her daughter's face, the wide-open eyes and the drawn-up shoulders, as if she is trying to hide inside herself, Anne realises that now answer will be forthcoming either way.

"Why did it happen?" she thus rephrases the question and they both instinctively know that what she's really asking is, 'Why did you do it?'

It's not easier question than the first one. Perhaps it is even the more difficult of the two, because Rilla is not anymore clearer on the 'why' than she is on the 'how'.

Why did it happen?

Because he was so kind and talked so nicely, and she felt awfully grown-up when he leaned forward to kiss her. Even then, she wasn't entirely sure whether she wanted to happen what happened afterwards, but it felt too late to back out by then anyway, he was going off to war and how could she have denied him when he was leaving to possibly never return?

None of that, of course, is anything she can tell her mother, because it's all jumbled in her mind already and she senses that if she tried to force it into words, it would make no sense at all anymore. Therefore, she just shrugs helplessly. "It just happened."

There's a flicker of something on Anne's face, perhaps impatience or irritation, but like the smile before, it disappears in an instant. Instead, her expression becomes very intense all of a sudden, getting an almost urgent quality in the process.

Surprised, Rilla takes an instinctive step back, but Anne makes up for it by taking four steps forward, enough so that she can reach her daughter and put a hand on her arm. Her hold is tight, her fingers digging in slightly, and Rilla winces at the contact.

"You need to tell us his name," Anne implores, taking no note of her daughter's reaction. "You need to tell us who it was."

Out of sheer instinct, Rilla shrinks away slightly, as far as her mother's grasp will let her.

"Is it Carl?" Anne wants to know, not even waiting for an answer. "I know you're good friends and –"

Rilla shakes her head, decidedly, almost fiercely so. "Leave Carl out of it!" she cries, feeling a need to defend her old friend. "He didn't have anything to do with this!"

Confronted with her daughter's agitation, Anne makes a soothing noise. "It's alright. I understand. It wasn't Carl."

"No!" Rilla stresses, still shaking her head. "Why do you need to know anyway? What does it matter?"

She wonders, briefly, how it can be that her mother doesn't know, can't even guess, understands her so little. She had but two romantic moments in her as yet short life, one evening spent on the sandbank by the lighthouse and another evening spent on the Ingleside veranda and its living room, and it's suddenly painfully apparent that her mother doesn't know anything about either moment, despite the meaning they both have to Rilla herself.

"It matters because he needs to take responsibility," Anne explains, still with that urgency and clearly unaware of where her daughter's thoughts have wandered. "It's too late to fool anyone we know, but once you're married, you can move away and start over elsewhere. You can have a fresh start, and no-one needs to know how it all began."

Rilla stares at her, increasingly bewildered as the words sink in.

Married?

Move away?

Whatever is her mother talking about?

Unable to make sense of any of this, nor to grasp the implications of what she just heard, Rilla starts shaking her head, first slowly and then ever faster. She doesn't know if it's refusal or denial or merely an attempt to shake the confusion from her mind where it has built to levels of pressure she's not sure she can bear.

"Please, Rilla," Anne begs. "You need to tell us his name!"

"But it won't matter!" Rilla bursts out, the reaction equally terrified and defensive, like an animal backed into a corner it can see no way out of. "It won't matter. He's gone, away in Europe. He's not here anymore!"

She has but spoken the words when her mother visibly deflates, all urgency now gone as her hand drops from Rilla's arm to hang down limply instead. Because while it might yet escape Rilla's own notice, her revelation made it clear to Anne that the situation is indeed inevitable.

Their one way out is a way out no longer and thus, they must see this through to the end, whatever the end may look like.

To Guest No.1:
Rilla is certainly in a tricky situation and as we know now, she will definitely have to face it alone, because the baby's father is at a place where no-one can get him back from. Even writing to him won't do much good at this point, because what good can he do from the trenches of France? There's no miracle rescue to be hoped for from him, even if he wanted to stage one, so you're entirely correct to say that Rilla has a whole lot of growing up to do very soon!
Susan, from the way I read her, has an immense amount of respect for Anne and Gilbert, and while she certainly has her own opinions, we never see her actively interfering with the way they raise their children. That's why I had her inform Rilla's parents right away, because, as you say, it's the Susan-esque way. Direct, no nonsense and to the point. I do think she has sympathy for Rilla, but I don't see her keeping something important like this from Anne and Gilbert, not even for a few days, hence why I had her march down immediately. I'm glad you agree with the way I wrote it =).

To Guest No.2:
Rilla is very much acting childishly here, mainly because she really still is a child. There's nothing to be gained from keeping quiet about the father's name, so it really makes no sense to defy her parents on this particular issue. I don't think she really knows herself why she won't say it, but a lot of her upcoming actions will be irrational or childish because she's really in over her head.
I do really like what you wrote about Gilbert, too! You're absolutely right that this is likely the closest he's ever come to murder ;). More seriously though, you're also right with what you say about him not knowing where to direct his anger. He doesn't want to be angry at his daughter, but her refusal to name names means he's got no other person to direct his anger at, so that can't be a comfortable position for him to be in!

To Guest No.3:
Canon never gives Ken's specific age, so all we know is that he's anywhere between three and almost six years older than Rilla. Irrespective of that, however, I'm absolutely with you! When someone doesn't understand what's going on, be it because of age or intoxication or illness, they can't consent. There's nothing to sugar-coat about that and nothing to sugar-coat about Rilla's first intimate encounter either. Definitely not cool!

To Guest No.4:
Thank you! I'm very glad you do =).

To Guest No.5:
Rilla struggling to recall her encounter is mainly because she tried very hard to forget it happened. For months, she pushed the thought about that evening so far away from her that with time, the memory took on a hazy and unreal quality for her. She wasn't drunk or drugged, though I agree that's something I should try to be clearer about in the story. I will find a way to explain the origin of her haziness better. Thanks for pointing it out to me!

To Guest No.6:
The interesting thing about Ken is that canon never gives us his specific age. In most fanfics, the age gap between him and Rilla is assumed to be six years, but canon only gives us hints as to the ages of both Ken and Persis. We know that Jem was already born when Leslie and Owen married, so at the most, Ken is just a little over a year younger than Jem. Since Jem was 21 at the start of RoI, the oldest Ken could be is 20. On the other end, we know he was old enough to be able to sign up in theory and only held back by his ankle, so he must be at least 18 at the start of the war. Thus, in the summer of 1914, he's anywhere between 18 and 20 year to Rilla's 15. My personal timeline always had him being 19 years old at the start of RoI, but an argument can certainly be made for 18 or 20 years, too.
Now, whether that makes him taking it up with Rilla any better, is certainly up for judgement, but while six years is one option for their age gap, there are other ways to interpret canon as well =).

To Guest No.7:
Such a kind review! Thank you! I know my story strays away somewhat from the sometimes too perfect Anne world that LMM created (though as her short stories show, she was certainly aware that life doesn't always work out the way it does for Anne and family), but I felt it was important to try and get as real as possible with a subject like this. Back then, illegitimate pregnancies caused very real problems not only for the mother-to-be but, as you note, also for her family. There was so much judgement and shaming and gossip to be faced and more often than not, neither mother nor child were allowed by society to move past this and just live their lives. Obviously, that's not something Rilla realises yet, but the adults in question know that a very thorny path lies ahead of her. Yes, there's disappointment, but to me, their actions so far (and also their upcoming decisions) are mainly driven by trying to solve an impossible situation in a way that hurts Rilla the least. They won't always seem sympathetic while doing so, certainly not to Rilla, but can't change the moral bigotry of society around them, so working within the system as best as possible, they're trying to make the best of the situation.

To Guest No.8:
Rilla's refusal to name the name of the man in question is certainly both childish and illogical. She has nothing to gain from silence and whether he'll even be grateful for her 'protection' is anyone's guess. Certainly, he's getting off too easily with her taking on the disappointment and consequences on her own, when he's the one who bears much more of the responsibility due to her age and innocence. However, they're all products of their time and the misogyny and double standards that we abhor today weren't questioned back then. Gilbert, too, is a man of his time and while he's generally uncommonly understanding, gentle explanations sadly aren't the first thing on his mind right now. For him and Anne, it's about damage control at the moment and that's what their thoughts and efforts are concentrated on.