Chapter Text
Philippa Gordon frowned when she saw Gilbert walking up Patty's Place's lane, his determined gaze solidly fixed upon Anne. She both joyed and feared what she knew he must be about to do. And, while she heartedly believed the pair was meant to be, she had learned enough of both him and their mutual friend to know that this, now, would not end well for either of them.
She felt it in her soul.
Had she known Mrs. Rachel Lynde of Avonlea she would have known that this moment could have been called "providence". But she didn't, so, instead of dwelling on thoughts about divine intervention, she merely grabbed her hat and coat and rushed outdoors intent on avoiding disaster.
"Anne, honey," she called as soon as she could, pleased to see by both of their faces, one relieved and the other disappointed, that she had made it in time, "I find myself in need of thread. Oh, hello, Gilbert, I hadn't seen you arrive. And with pretty flowers?" She frowned, looking at Anne again, "he never brings flowers to me. I call that favouritism. But, you can make it up to me by walking with us to the store."
Anne beamed at her friend, thankful at having been rescued in the knick of time. "I'll put these in water and get my hat." She paused in her retreat, glancing back to Gilbert's forlorn expression as he slowly rose from his seat, "You will come with us?"
He nodded, not trusting his voice or his composure and allowed that to be answer enough. He looked away from the pair as he heard Anne head back into the house, not wanting to show Phil how he felt towards her in that moment. But as soon as she spoke, it was clear that she already knew.
"Don't be bitter, Gilbert, dear boy, and don't think I did this to spite you." A crooked and knowing grin had spread over her confident face, "I'm really rather certain that my doing this will help you."
He wanted to laugh. What had Mr Harrison said about interfering women? It now seemed to Gilbert that they existed everywhere. "Oh? Is that so?"
Her expression changed and he felt almost reproachful. "I am not blind, Gilbert Blythe. I know you love her and what you set here to do, today. And after two years, I also know her. In the worst ways, she is even less sensible than myself, and that's saying quite a lot, I assure you. She won't let herself see how much she cares for you. And trust me, she does care."
Gilbert took a steadying breath, trying to remove the emotion from this moment enough to see the sense of Phil's words. And he hated that there was sense to them as much as he loved the hope they also bestowed upon him. That another saw in Anne what he had hoped he hadn't only tricked himself into believing was there. "You think she cares?"
"I was telling Gilbert," Anne said gayly, coming back outside, her own hat in place and world again in order, "that Avonlea won't feel the same without him this summer."
"Is that so? Not going home?" Phil almost sang, eyebrows raised and her eyes teasing Gilbert, "And where will you be instead?"
"Here, in Kingsport."
She took his arm, "Well, then, Mr Blythe, with Kingsport and Bolingbroke so close, I think we shall have plenty of opportunities to talk."
~M&M~
Anne's initial gratitude for Phil's timely intervention was short lived and quickly gave way to irritation at her monopolizing Gilbert on their trek to the store. It had quickly become clear to Anne that he had come with the intent of speaking out about the feelings that she had hoped would have long ago subsided. Perhaps, Phil too had seen this and was now taking pity on him. For while Anne knew her Nova Scotian friend admired her old school chum, she felt secure enough not to worry about it becoming anything more. Surely, she could be certain of that! But to hear of them making plans for a summer spent without her…
"Do you have to be so nice to Gilbert?" Anne ventured to ask when they were on route back to Patty's Place after Phil managed to secure both her desired thread and Gilbert's sincere promise to 'not be a stranger' this summer. He had quickly left them, offering one final, hurt-filled look in Anne's direction as he departed. Anne, while initially relieved that she had been spared having to refuse him, she was now keenly aware that despite that momentary reprieve, things between them would never be the same again.
Phil laughed, unafflicted in a way that made Anne's temper flare before taking her arm. "Are you sour that I interrupted what could have been a truly romantic confession of love and affection?"
Anne shook her head, clearing her mind of the clouds that she realized had no right being there. "I thank you for that, Phil, really. I would have been more sour had you not come as then there would be no escaping it."
"Most women, I have been told, should not feel the need to escape from devoted and perfectly charming suitors."
"I think you are forgetting Alec and Alonzo," Anne felt the need to remind, knowing that there was probably something very wrong with both of them. "That's the trouble, Gilbert isn't a suitor. Not really. And while he truly is one of the best of men and is a dear friend, he isn't what I would call romantic."
Phil wisely only shrugged, her thoughts, however, were drawn to a story told to her by Charlie Sloan, who had finally made himself useful one Friday evening when he told of Gilbert giving Anne the Avonlea school appointment so as to make her life easier. It was very clear to Miss Gordon that she and Anne had very different ideas of what constituted romance.
~M&M~
Gilbert felt nervous about calling upon Patty's Place the afternoon before Phil and Anne were set to leave for Bolingbrook, when the former had assured him they would have an opportunity to speak alone. While he knew both himself and his new friend enough to know that this was an innocent meeting, he still wondered if it was entirely honest.
"It's quiet with the others gone," Phil told him, ever the hostess in offering a seat and refreshment. "Stella and Priscilla have already gone for the summer."
"This might be the first time I'm seeing Patty's Place without your legion of followers," he allowed, good natured. He had always admired her ability to draw in so many suitors and keep them all from becoming discouraged through having to share. Perhaps it was his being an only child, but Gilbert couldn't see that sitting well with himself.
"You may be right," she allowed with the attractive ability to laugh at herself. "Perhaps I should enjoy this moment of reprieve because there are heaps more waiting for me at home. At least Anne is well used to me and my following by now.” She inspected his reaction to the name closely and with a delighted, secret smile. He really was obvious. “But it isn't me or my suitors I was hoping we could talk about."
He shifted nervously but couldn't disagree. "I believe I owe you my thanks for the other day," he admitted, having spent long hours thinking it over, especially in light of the pale-faced panic that he had been met with in Anne. "And you were right to do as you did. Charlie told me Anne had rejected him and I got angry and hopeful that she might have done it because… well, and knowing I won't see her this summer because of my job and, needless to say, I realize now I came here that day for all the wrong reasons."
"But, I hope, with the best of intentions." She said cautiously, drawing Gilbert's eyes to her own, and his unspoken truths to the space between them. And she beamed, "I thought as much. And so, you must let me help you."
Gilbert didn't seem as convinced, and his nerves gave way to discomfort. "The last thing I would wish is to trick someone into accepting me."
She looked almost offended, "Who said anything of the sort, Gilbert Blythe? Anne is a wonderful person and a dear friend but her notions of romance and ideal suitors aren't based in truth. So, you must make her see those things in you."
"Anne knows me too well to believe… and I won't lie about myself to woo anyone."
"For a bright lad, you are being rather dull and tiresome. Anne might not have wanted you to propose that day," she confided slowly as though he might not understand her otherwise, "But I feel secure in saying she also wouldn't want you to propose to anyone else."
Gilbert sat back, his hurt pride mollified by that insight. At least it was something. It was a start that he could work with. He glanced at the young woman who chose that moment to innocently sip her tea. "Miss Gordon, how did you propose to help?"
Once again her expression lit up, "Gilbert! Now you’re seeing sense."
It wasn’t long before she had bestowed the instructions for hopeful success that she had long thought about and often consulted the experts within women’s magazines. And it was just in time, for she was just giving him her address in Bolingbroke when Anne and Aunt Jamesina returned home.
Anne’s surprise was clear upon her face when she spied the pair in close confidence, his tucking away something from her with an almost guilty blush. What had she interrupted? She couldn’t reconcile herself to this scene before her as the others around her were abuzz with information and entreaties for Gilbert to stay for tea. But, he assured them both with the most sincere apologies that he was due back to his boarding house for a last evening “do” with all those who were soon to leave as well.
Anne took the moment to see him to the door, “I’m sorry that I missed you today,” she said with nervous honesty, “I don’t think that we’ll have another chance to talk until the fall.”
“I’m sure you won’t even notice,” he tried to tease, “You’ll have green gables and Diana and everyone back home. And, until then, I’m sure Phil will keep you occupied.”
While she knew the truth of his words, she couldn’t help own, in a small corner of herself, that even then, it wouldn’t be the same as having him home. “And what of you?”
“Oh, I’ll have work and there’s a few of the fellows staying. But, I think more than ever, I’ll be depending on letters from those away.”
~M&M~
The first letter came half way through Anne’s stay with Phil in Bolingbroke. Amongst the pile of mail to the young woman was an envelope addressed to Miss Gordon in Gilbert’s unmistakable hand. Until that moment Anne had barely allowed herself to think of him; far too busy enjoying her visit and exploring the place where she was born. The connection with her family delighted her more than she ever thought possible and despite telling Diana and Marilla all about it in letters home, she felt a pang for not feeling able to share it with him - her friend - as well.
She glanced between the letter and its intended reader even as she attempted to concentrate on her own writings, growing more and more annoyed that Phil seemed in absolutely no hurry to read any of her letters, let alone the one from Gilbert. “I do hope it stops raining,” Phil was saying, blissfully unaware of Anne’s distraction, glancing out the window at the weather that had kept them indoors for most of the morning, “Otherwise, we will be stuck with Alec and Alonzo here. They are much more amiable when we’re out and about, don't you think? Although, if we were to stay here, you would get a chance to know them better.”
“I cannot make up your mind for you,” she reminded her friend.
“At least tell me which you prefer, if you were to choose one for yourself.”
The redheaded woman set her pen down, everything else forgotten for the moment, “Please do not tell me you’ve given way to matchmaking! Really, Phil, I will not take whichever one you do not.” She settled back, eyes narrowing, the envelope once again filling her mind, “Perhaps you do not wish to choose one of them because you would then have to face the potential truth that you might not actually love either of them.”
Phil’s own eyes narrowed in response before, once again, being taken over by her usual joviality, “I feel like Alec is more your type. He does, after all, have an appreciation for poetry. And what else did you say of the requirements for your ideal suitor? I believe Alec may be as close as you will find for him.”
Anne shook her head, almost laughing at the thought that Alec, who yes was tall and rich with soft brown eyes and had spent over an hour discussing poetry with her one evening, was anything close to her ideal! Why, he was frightfully dull, which she felt was very different from her preferred melancholy descriptor. Of that, she was sure.
“Alonzo, then? He is rather more…” she paused, looking for the right word, “Milder.”
“He reminds me of a young Thomas Lynde,” Anne admitted with a grin, “Who was a dear old man in Avonlea. He was rather shy, and very happy to be ruled by his bride.”
Phil sighed, sitting down, her fingers picking at her stack of envelopes absently, “So, neither would suit you, Miss Shirley? Well, then, in that case I suppose I should go back to seeing which of them would suit me.”
“Perhaps, Miss Gordon,” Anne dared venture, her eyes stubbornly on her paper while her focus was stuck on the letters - on one particular letter! - that Phil teasingly touched, “The reason you cannot decide which to marry is because you are pining away for somebody else entirely?” She straightened her back when Phil bestowed upon her an amused smile, bolstering her courage, “I’ve noticed that you’ve recently gotten close to Gilbert Blythe, and you have always seemed to delight in noticing his virtues.”
“I don’t understand you, Anne.” She paused, sitting up straight as though thinking of something for the first time, seriousness overtaking her expression, “But perhaps you’re right.”
Anne’s heart tightened, although she would not think why it should. “I am?”
“Yes. I don’t think I would care if you did fall in love with either Alec or Alonzo. I know for certain that I am not half as jealous at the thought of it as you are just now, talking about a man you claim not to love at all. Perhaps I really don’t love either of them.” Shaking her head, almost impressed that she seemed poised to make such a supposition, she stood and left the room.
Anne, confused and more than a little out of sorts, was left alone with much to think about. How could Phil call her jealous? And, why couldn’t she have read that letter!
~M&M~
Despite writing letters to her family and friends, Anne had received none during her stay with the Gordons. She had asked them to wait until she was again with them, so she could hear all of their news then. It was just the thing, she was sure, to shake herself from what she could only call the melancholy that she had found herself more and more falling into, without being able (or perhaps willing) to find a reason.
It was so much so that she decided to leave Bolingbroke a day early and returned to the Island before anyone would be looking for her. It was a relief, that time spent walking alone through her favourite wooded trails, with only nature, her thoughts and ghosts of better times to serve as her company for the journey.
That Marilla brought up Gilbert almost as soon as she had entered the kitchen of her beloved home didn’t help her to feel any better. Considering how many other things they could speak of instead, it was almost worse. But, she bore it as much as possible and hoped to answer as to her friend as well as she could considering how far away from actually knowing she currently was. She recalled that letter and almost felt like telling Marilla to ask Phil instead.
Gilbert hadn’t written her in Bolingbroke, and there was no letter waiting for her at Green Gables. It had been over two weeks of silence, which had become strange to her after finally finding their way to real friendship. That last conversation they never actually had was left hanging between them like an impenetrable darkness. Would it be that which ended their fragile friendship? After everything that she had done over the years that could have and probably should have caused him to finally give up on her, would it really be this thing that never was that would finally drive him away?
“I hope he won’t be lonely,” Marilla said after a time and with a shake of her head, “Being away from everyone who cares for him.”
Anne almost scoffed at that thought, recalling Phil's words on the proximity of Bolingbroke and Kingsport.
“Anne?”
“I’m sorry, Marilla, I guess I’m just tired.”
After so many years learning Anne’s various moods, Marilla knew that being tired alone would not have resulted in the mood of Anne's that she currently saw before her. There was only one thing she knew of that would consistently account for it. “Have you and Gilbert quarrelled again?”
If only they had. Anne was used to arguing with him. They knew how to come back from quarrelling and fighting one another. It was the silences she didn’t know how to deal with.
The weeks that followed failed to provide her answers to this growing problem, for still, Gilbert didn’t write her. She heard from Phil and Diana and even Jane Andrews hints of news that spoke to his engaging in their lives. And somehow, it was their assumption that he was still in hers that hurt her the most. Because he wasn’t. Not in the way that he once was. Not in the way that she had become used to. And certainly not in the way that she had grown to hope he would continue to be.
Gilbert Blythe had somehow become a constant in her life, a pillar from which she could take strength. And without him, finding strength in herself alone reminded her of the days before Avonlea. She felt alone for the first time since stepping off that train. And for the first time since those days, she felt truly afraid.
And so, finally finding something stronger than her stubbornness, she sat in her room that night, gazing out towards Diana’s window through the leaves of the Snow Queen, wishing for the return to simpler days, and wrote.
~TBC~