Chapter Text
Once, there was a time when Anne allowed herself to imagine a world where she could be perfectly, splendidly happy. Where her best bosom friend could live in the same boardinghouse as her while they went to school, educated themselves, together. And where she actually could help Ka’kwet and the rest of the children at the residential schools (she writes letters upon letters upon letters and yet nothing seems to happen). And where she could see Matthew and Marilla every single day and hug and kiss them. Or where she knew who her birth parents were, if her mother had scarlet hair and a smattering of freckles just like hers or if her father had her garrulous, stubborn tongue.
(Or where she and Gil—)
That said, she really does love Queens; it’s a perfectly gorgeous university, and even though a rather sizable portion of her soul longs for (and will always long for) the wide grassy knolls and white blossom trees of Avonlea, Anne manages to find beauty in the cool steel of the city and chattering of pedestrians. In addition, she’s so very close to Cole and Aunt Josephine—she sees them nearly every fortnight, and she gladdens each time she can describe her studies and few social activities to them over tea. Anne smiles when she thinks of her friends, the girls who she grew up with but never really knew until she lived with them. When she prays (which doesn’t happen nearly as often as Marilla would like), she thanks Him for how she now knows the exact melody of Ruby’s shy laughter, how Josie sings to herself under her breath in the morning as she brushes her nearly straight hair, how Tillie clicks her tongue intermittently while she writes letters to her various suitors, and how sweet Jane always folds the corner of the page of whatever book she’s reading as a bookmark.
Frankly, that last one drives Anne crazy, but she still loves her girls.
Again, she loves Queens—she does. But when her first year is over (she wonders if she should have written a letter, tried to find a way to send it all the way across the Atlantic), she feels like she’s missing something.
Something profoundly intellectual, of course.
It’s why, when she returns home to Avonlea after a year of only returning for just a few weeks at a time, she seeks Miss Stacy out.
And so, here they sit, in the parlor of her old teacher’s home, surrounded by dried flowers and aged books. Anne looks about the room, takes it all in and remembers the memories that this space holds for her: this is the place where she learned of her future, where she last saw all of her classmates in one place (Gilbert, even).
“Are you okay, Anne?”
Anne’s head whips up. She doesn’t realize that she was quiet for so long. “I’m fine, Miss Stacy—”
“Muriel, Anne. You’re allowed to call me that, you know.”
The once-student smiles, reassures, “I’m truly fine…Muriel. I just, somehow, feel unfulfilled at Queens. Which is terrible because I’m so blessed to be there, and my professors are lovely except for Dr. Hall who obviously doesn’t think me very serious.” Taking a deep breath, she purposefully slows her breathing, her one-track mind. “I love my studies, but I want to be as good a teacher as possible.”
After a moment, Miss Stacy—in her head, Anne could never just call her Muriel in her mind when “Miss Stacy” sounds so splendiferous—frowns, just a little. She mixes cream into her tea swiftly. “Have you thought about learning at a normal school?”
Anne furrows her eyebrows. “Like, a regular school?”
“No,” Miss Stacy chuckles. “It’s a college especially dedicated to those wanting to go into teaching. Where at Queens you pursue an alternative certification for teaching, at a normal school you can learn different teaching methods and theories, and you student-teach in a real classroom for a year.”
“Thank you, but I don’t want to go to a stuffy place where I’m told to rap on my students’ knuckles and impress upon them societal norms, though.”
In understanding, the older woman nods. “That’s how some are, especially in the country. But in the city—the real city, they care much more for inspiring learning. They’re much more liberal there.” She bites her lip. “I went to school in Toronto, at the normal school there, and you wouldn’t call me stuffy, would you?” Anne shakes her head. “Anne, I know it’s far, but if you were willing, I could write you a recommendation to the Toronto Normal School. If you applied before the harvest, I’m sure they’d accept you, and with your passion and test scores, they would be begging you to come.” A pause. “If it worries you, I’m sure you’d find Gil—friends, friends there, too—friends who love learning and laughter just as much as you do. You could travel, too. I really do think you’d love it.”
Now, she thinks, something in her heart has slid into place.
At the beginning of autumn, it’s with heavy sobs that she leaves Marilla and Matthew again—and Diana, who returned for the summer from Paris. (Anne doesn’t have the gall to ask if she’d seen one dark-haired, curly-topped boy there, if she knew why he wasn’t home in Avonlea for the break because Anne is quite afraid of the answer, and her bosom friend doesn’t seem to want to talk about finishing school or boys either.) But she’s left them all before, even if the promise of visitation was much nearer, and once Matthew kisses her hair and helps her put her and her trunk on the train, Anne feels so at peace.
In Toronto, no one will know her. She can write to her friends and tell them about her new adventures, and she won’t have to avoid the topic of a lost love (or perhaps just the possibility of one) with Bash and everyone else, verbally warning them to tell her nothing about it all because what Gilbert Blythe does with his life is not her business.
(Once, she received a letter from him, where he looped the “e” at the very end of her first name on the front of the envelope, and her heart ached. But she couldn’t bear to read it, nor could she tear it up in the same way she did with the one that appeared on her dresser in Green Gables three months into her freshman year. So, it taunts her from the bottom of her periwinkle hatbox.)
And oh, Toronto. She’d never been to a real city before—her home of Avonlea, of course, is as rural as they come, and Charlottetown seems a mouse compared to the incredible bustle and momentous moving of people in Toronto. The shops, the marketplaces, the libraries.
Oh, and she never expected there to be so much green! There are three parks within walking distance to her boarding house, and great big trees line the road to her college. If she reaches up, she can trace her fingers along the leaves, and she can’t wait for fall.
It’s three months in Toronto before she runs into him.
Or rather, he runs into her.
Well, okay, there is very little running involved at all.
In fact, it happens when she’s sitting underneath a great oak tree on the edge of High Park, her dark green skirts all akimbo around her knees in a way that is probably very unladylike but it’s so uncomfortable to sit how she should, how she’s supposed to according to some particularly inane societal standard, and why should she worry herself with rules when this is one of the last warm days of the year. So, with no regard for any onlookers, beneath a long, thick branch she reads what’s supposed to be a scandalous novel by an Irishman. (She doesn’t find it exceedingly scandalous but wholly tragical instead.) To her right lies the Grenadier Pond that she, to herself, calls the Lake of Serendipitous Dreams for his sweeping weeping willows and ducks bob along the shining surfaces.
And then, just as she gets to the part where the beautiful Sibyl performs rather poorly in Romeo and Juliet, she hears her name called in a voice that is oh too familiar.
At first, she thinks it’s merely her imagination—it wouldn’t be the first time that her mind played this kind of trick on her, made her believe that her old friend was there and sounded so excited to see her. But then, when it continues, she looks up and sees that trademark head of dark brown curls and face graced with a sly, sly smile. Her heart skips a beat when he starts moving toward her—no, bounding—and she tamps it down, reminds it that he is very likely engaged to Winifred Rose or married to her perhaps. Even in the case that he is not attached to the blond beauty at all, there is no doubt in the deepest depths of Anne’s soul that Gilbert has lost whatever romantic affection he may have possibly had for her.
“Anne,” he says, nearly breathless. He glances down at her, at her position on the hard soil, but doesn’t seem surprised at her flagrant disregard for propriety. “What are you doing in Toronto?”
His eyes are bright, and Anne smiles. “I’m here for school—I finished at Queens last spring and am looking for my B.A. at Toronto Normal School.” She furrows her eyebrows, realizing where exactly they are. “I would think you’d be in Paris at this time of year. Oh, Champs- Élysées must be beautiful now, with the leaves starting to turn all golden and rust, though it’s assuredly much warmer there than here in Canada.” Without a doubt, she pointedly wishes to avoid the topic of Winifred. She wants to keep this conversation as friendly as they’d ever had conversations; there’s no need to embroil it with tragical romance, not now.
“Well,” Gilbert starts, then stops. He gestures a hand towards Anne. “Is it okay if I sit?” She nods, so he does, in fact, lower himself beside her until his thigh just barely brushes against her knee. Her breath hitches. “I didn’t end up going to the Sorbonne.”
For the first time in quite a while, Anne is speechless. At her uncharacteristic lack of response, Gilbert continues.
“While pursuing medical research is a perfectly honorable endeavor, I found I just didn’t have a passion for it. After Mary and my father, I realized that I can’t control life or death, but I know I can help people—really help them. I think I need to be a real doctor to do that.”
“But can’t you get your medical license at the Sorbonne? Wouldn’t it be easier if you were with—” She cuts herself off.
Gilbert’s attention goes to playing with a fallen leaf on the ground. Chipping at the brittle edges, he says, “I found that I couldn’t quite part from Canada.”
If Anne had been looking at him then, she would have seen that his eyes were not on the ground or the oak leaf but on her. But because she wasn’t aware of his gaze, she merely chuckles. “I can understand that. It’s been hard being so far away from the island, but it’d be much harder if I was on an entirely different continent.”
It’s Gilbert’s turn to suddenly appear confused. “Wait, Anne—you know why I’m in Toronto, but why are you so far away, instead of at Redmond? That’s where I always thought you’d pursue your B.A.”
Anne laughs, and for the next few minutes, she explains how she ended up in the city, and a smile slips so slowly onto his lips that she barely notices it. He asks questions about her year at Queens, and she asks about his year at the university, both dodging any romantic partners at all. For the next hour or so, they converse gaily (surely, some passerby must think the pair improper, especially because they’re tucked away in such a little corner of the park) until Anne glances at the old, worn watch on her wrist.
“Oh, I’m sorry, but I have to get to an observation at one of the local schoolhouses, and I can’t be late,” she says apologetically. At his downturned mouth, Anne offers, “But it’s just a few blocks from here if you want to walk with me.”
Gilbert’s eyes smart at that, and he rises, offers his hand to help her up, which she takes. It’s not a long walk—only half an hour—but it feels much quicker than it should. She doesn’t hold onto his arm and he doesn’t give her the opportunity, because her hands are full of books (even if he does, in fact, ask if she needed any help with them). Over the course of that very short kilometer, they occupy a rather companionable sort of silence, with the two simply enjoying each other’s presence in the amiable autumn day and idly commenting on shops or people they pass.
When they arrive at the steps of Swansea Public School, Anne pauses. “I’ve missed you, Gilbert.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Anne,” and he says this as easily as breathing. The very corner of his lip quirks up. “Anne, do you think we could be friends again?” For some reason, she thinks that he sounds a little pained, but she brushes it off.
“I would like that.”
He grins wholly, and so does she. Reluctantly, they bid farewell and, unbeknownst to Anne, Gilbert’s eyes follow her as she ascends the stone steps to the school entrance. And she, for her part, cannot focus at all during her observation of Mr. Harris’ fourth-grade class. But something within her feels so right, like when she had once tried to complete a jigsaw puzzle yet couldn’t find the final piece to make it all make sense—until she found it beneath one of the table legs and everything just fit.
Over the next few months, both Anne and Gilbert remain tremendously busy with the flurry of their respective degrees, but they manage to see each other often. When they can, they meet for breakfast at a café between their two boarding houses, and she updates him on life in Avonlea according to Marilla and Rachel Lynde’s letters. In turn, he grins and tells her about what Bash has told him about Delphine (once, he even shows her a picture Bash drew of the now toddler), tells her about the bees and honey and orchard. He’s her unofficial shopping partner at St. Lawrence’s Market, whereas she accompanies him to little social gatherings hosted by his college friends.
(He’s asked, at one point, to join Kappa Alpha, and he gladly goes through initiation, parading through the town square in an apron and bonnet. Though he ends up dropping the fraternity right after winter term begins, he does attend some of the mixers Kappa Alpha holds, with Anne as his energetic and whip-smart companion—of course, their constant coupling leads to some of the boys poking fun at Gilbert for his sweetheart, but Anne doesn’t know anything about it.)
Over the course of the term, they fall into an easy sort of academic routine, reminiscent yet distinct to their shared school days; unsurprisingly, Anne finds herself a frequent visitor to the University of Toronto library, taking advantage of their vast collections and quaint study rooms, usually joined by Gilbert. Between gleaning best classroom management practices from pedagogical textbooks, she quizzes him on human anatomy (and laughs at funny bone names like “glabella” and “thorax”). While he studies the causes and potential treatments of spinal consumption, Anne uses him as a sounding board for lesson plans. They fall into this routine of studying together every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, and Anne doesn’t know what she’d do without it (without him). Even though their fields couldn’t be more different and they can’t fall back on their old school rivalry as motivation, they both find their comradeship to be just as effective.
“I know you love Lord Byron, Anne-girl, but don’t you think making your students recite the entirety of Childe Harold would be torturous.”
“I resent that notion entirely.”
“If the bubonic plague comes to Toronto, will you please find a way to cure it? I would hate to die of the plague, Gil.”
“Oh, I think I’d cure it for everyone but you.”
“Hey!”
“Anne, you know I couldn’t survive without you.”
“Did you know, Anne-girl, that there are little particles called electrons within atoms? They’re all negatively charged, and they exist in this sort of plum pudding of positive energy. It’s just fascinating.”
“It makes me real hungry for plum pudding, Gil, that’s what it does.”
“Gil, do you think the board would hate me if I wrote a whole unit on Queen Elizabeth I? I just about feel ready to take on the entire Canadian government when I read her speech to the troops at Tilbury.”
“If you don’t end up making an entire curriculum composed strictly of women writers, I would wonder who you are and what happened to my friend.”
Anne wins the gold medal for her first-year class, and she can’t hold in her excitement, runs to the university campus, waiting outside the lecture hall she knows he’s at. Of course, when Gilbert comes down the little stone steps while chatting with one of his classmates, a look of confusion quickly passes over his face before it’s replaced by a wide grin.
“What are you doing here, Anne-girl?” Though she doesn’t know how or when it started, she really does like his nickname for her.
Anne smiles big, tells him about her success, and in a moment of impulsivity, he hugs her tight, picks her up and swings her around. While his friends whoop and holler at this perhaps improper display of affection, she laughs heartily, burrowing her head in the crook of his shoulder. She can’t help grinning into his neck, and when he sets her down, she thinks he whispers, “I’m so proud of you, my Anne,” into her hair.
It’s in moments like these that Anne wonders if maybe he never saw her letter, and maybe he loved her, too.
However, instead of ruminating on this what if, she just grips him tighter.
If he loved her, he’d tell her. If he wasn’t still engaged to Winifred, he’d tell her.
When they finally part, his face is flushed, though she decides it’s just from the bite of the Toronto winter. She walks him to his next class, but he doesn’t let go of her, not really. His arm goes around her shoulder (maybe because it’s so cold) and she finds herself leaning into his touch. Idly, she knows what others must think of them which is silly because they must know about his betrothed in Paris—she ignores every stare, chatting aimlessly with Gilbert about his last lecture (something about germ plasm, which sounds just disgusting but apparently very important to the study of genetics). Eventually, they’ll part and go their separate ways, but it won’t be long before they see each other again.
And that’s how Anne’s first term in Toronto goes.
Soon enough, exams are over and Anne and Gilbert take the train back to Avonlea. It’s a comfort to travel with a friend; of course, it can be a bit romantic to travel alone and she’ll die before admitting she needs a chaperone. When she finishes whatever book she brought for the journey, she’s incessantly grateful to have someone to chat with, especially when that someone is Gilbert.
Though he furrows his eyebrows in confusion at the comradery between the two, Matthew collects the both of them from the station, making small talk with the young man before dropping him off at the Blythe-LaCroix residence.
By all means, Christmas is a rather uneventful affair.
Per tradition, the Cuthberts invite the Bash-LaCroix clan to Christmas dinner, and Gilbert helps her blow out all the candles on the tree. They exchange the smallest of gifts—a lovely fountain pen for Gilbert and a second or third-hand copy of Shirley by Charlotte Brontë for Anne (Gilbert tried to downplay the gift, but it still makes her smile and embrace him tightly).
Though she, of course, enjoys being with Gilbert, much of her winter break is spent with Diana and Ruby and Marilla and Tillie and Matthew and Miss Stacy and even Bash and Dellie, whom she tries to visit every few days because she can’t stop picking the little girl up when she toddles over, arms outstretched. While the rumor mill (Rachel Lynde) must go wild, Anne does manage to go ice-skating with Gilbert every weekend on the pond, and he accompanies her to prayer meetings at the church.
Only two things of note happen during the break: the first, revealed undramatically by Bash, is that Gilbert and Winifred are not engaged, though he doesn’t explain why or how the split came about (a part of Anne convinces herself that it’s all very tragical and that her friend’s heart will be forever broken); the second, and most important, is that Ka’kwet never returned to Avonlea, but from what Rachel Lynde says, she and her family were able to escape from the residential schools. Anne wishes she could write to Ka’kwet, but she knows that it’d put her in more danger if she knew of their location.
She doesn’t know what she can do about the residential schools.
One day, she, pacing, explains it all to Gilbert, sitting on a bale of hay in the Cuthbert barn. Jerry is somewhere around, probably listening in, but that doesn’t bother her. Gilbert listens patiently.
“Do you think writing to The Globe would work? We’d be close to the offices in Toronto, after all,” he offers.
Anne shakes her head. “I’ve sent ten strongly-worded letters and haven’t received a single response.”
“What if we wrote to the premier?”
Sighing, Anne plops down next to him, and he lays a comforting hand on her shoulder, rubbing the cloth-covered skin there with his thumb, light. Against her better judgments, she places her own palm on top of his, then rests her head against their joined hands.
“We’re going to figure it out, Anne-girl,” he promises, and she wants to believe him. But she can’t.
Spring term begins, and they easily settle back into their routine of libraries, ice-skating and hockey, and now brainstorming sessions with the sole mission of
Anne’s boarding house only allows suitors on Fridays and Saturdays, from two o’clock to five o’clock in the parlor.
Of course, Gilbert is not a suitor of any kind, but he does start to come every Saturday after his shift as an intern for Dr. Brown, a local physician, around the corner. Her fellow boarders (all young, college-aged females) will sometimes have gentleman callers visiting with them, and Anne hates when they’re there.
It’s not that she doesn’t get along with her housemates—really, they all get on just fine. Philippa is perfectly lovely if a bit boy-crazy and Priscilla is a bit frustratingly beautiful yet kind. But they and the rest of the girls are always so rigid with their beaus in a way that Anne just can’t imagine being with Gilbert, not anymore. She goofs off with her dear friend, giggling over the latest contents of one of their letters from Avonlea. But more often that not, they’re met with judgmental looks from the other residents, so the pair takes to shuffling off to explore downtown or ice skate in High Park. Sometimes, as they amble down the long, winding roads of the city, Gilbert offers his arm, which she’ll take—sometimes—and she’ll lean her cheek against his cloth-covered shoulder.
They’ll stop at vendors along the street, buying some sort of hot snack to warm either of them up, whether it be toasted walnuts or wassail. Once, Anne purchases a warm cup of cocoa with marshmallows on the top, and Gilbert chuckles, wiping at the chocolate above her lip with the pad of his thumb. It’s oddly domestic, and she feels the very tips of her ears glow red. She wonders if the warmth in her chest comes from the sweet drink or the way he looks at her.
His eyes are soft, chancing a glimpse down to her mouth again, though the skin there is clean. She holds his gaze when it floats back up, and she’s reminded of their school days when she was crushing oh so hard on him and they spent a good amount of their time together simply staring at each other, quiet and gawky.
Anne coughs, breaks the tension of the moment.
“So, Anne-girl,” he starts, a little bit awkwardly. “Your birthday is quickly approaching, right?”
She nods, gripping her now-empty cup. “Just a couple weeks now before I turn eighteen.”
“Do you know what you want to do for it?”
“I don’t know. Last year, I went out with a couple of my girlfriends to tea, and it really was lovely, but I don’t know as many of the girls here in Toronto. Frankly, I expect to spend the day sitting in my classes and then retiring early, much before curfew, then staying up late to mourn the last vestiges of my childhood with an almost finished candle and Jane Eyre.” Anne sighs, “But I think I’m actually looking forward to it.” Then she furrows her eyebrows; what’s the reason he asked? A little glimmer of hope sparks in her chest. “Why?”
Gilbert stuffs his hands into his coat pockets. “I just—I have to attend a medical conference that week, so I won’t be able to be there. I’m sorry.”
Her heart sinks, and she tells him that it’s okay, that she’ll be just satisfied spending her eighteenth birthday in solitude. She thinks that maybe it’ll be good practice for the rest of her life, her life of being but an old maid.
When the day comes, she nearly forgets it—for the last few days she has not seen Gilbert, and she would be lying if she says she hadn’t been moping. Not because of Gilbert’s absence, not at all, no matter how much Philippa tries to tease her about it. Phil and Priscilla do wake her up that morning with a small little macaroon; it’s lilac and lovely, and Anne finds herself smiling despite herself.
“Come, Anne! You have to see what’s arrived for you,” Priscilla says right as the newly eighteen-year-old girl has finished pinning her hair up into a particularly successful pompadour style (she’s really very proud of it).
“Give me just a moment, Pris.”
In all honesty, Anne doesn’t know what could be there for her. Perhaps a package from Avonlea? But Matthew and Marilla have already sent their birthday gifts for her, and Diana’s letter from Paris arrived just last Friday. She bites her lip, wondering what odd surprise is in store.
Not a single part of her believes that it would be Gilbert—fate isn’t that kind to her—so imagine her surprise when she appears in the parlor and she sees her old friend, standing by the davenport with a bouquet of white lilies of the valley clutched in his left hand, slightly obscuring the large grin that stretches across her face.
“Surprise,” he says with a sly smirk, and the only reason Anne doesn’t run and hug him tightly is the withering look the boarding mistress gives her.
The old woman, who is decidedly not a kindred spirit, says through gritted teeth, “As a reminder, Miss Shirley-Cuthbert, suitors are only allowed on Fridays and Saturdays, and today is neither of those days.”
“Oh, he’s not a suitor!” Anne explains quickly, and she doesn’t see the way Gilbert’s face falls for the briefest of moments.
“In any case, Miss Shirley—” Oh, she wouldn’t even call the girl by her full name! “It is not visiting hours, and I must ask your… gentleman friend to leave.”
Anne rolled her eyes, grabbed Gilbert by the wrist and led him outside to the porch, where they paused just long enough for her to throw her arms about his neck and bury her face into his collar. His hand not holding the bouquet drifts to her waist, tighten there, and they embrace for much longer than is proper.
She thinks their whole friendship is improper, but she’s never cared for propriety. In an impulsive beat, she presses a very short kiss to his cheek, and she feels her cheeks redden. Over the past few months, she thinks about how comfortable they are—can be—with each other; fifteen-year-old Anne could never have held him like this or kissed his cheek as easily and unthinkingly as she does now.
“Happy birthday, Anne-girl,” he says when they part, him blushing ever so slightly.
Anne murmurs her thanks, and then he lifts the bouquet up between them so that she smiles real big. “Gil, why are you here?”
Grinning, he offers his arm to her, and she places her hands at the crook of his elbow as they walk through the yard to the lane. While she does care what he has to say, she zones out, captivated by grape hyacinths that line the path. She interrupts him, “Do you know how hyacinths came into existence?”
Though he furrows his eyebrows, obviously confused but not surprised by her sudden impulsive speech, he nods, nudging her on. Anne continues, “Apollo had a lover—Hyacinthus—and they were playing discus one day, when Apollo threw the discus so hard that it hit Hyacinthus in the head, which is almost an embarrassing way to die. But Apollo was so sad that, when his lover died, he turned him into a hyacinth, and on the petals wrote the letters AI AI, the sound of Apollo’s cries.”
“That’s very sad, Anne. But beautiful, I think.”
“I think if I were to die, I’d like to be turned into a gardenia—they’re so classically beautiful and delicate. But if I’m to be honest, Diana would be a gardenia and I’d likely be a daisy. A little pretty, though common. Sometimes a bit of a nuisance, but fun sometimes anyways,” she explains.
Gilbert slows his pace, scrunches his face together. “Well, I wouldn’t call you common, Anne.” Letting out a slow, deep breath, he tilts his head to the side in ponderance. “If anything, I think you’d turn into a sunflower. So bright and beautiful, standing all tall and proud. No one would ever think of knocking down a sunflower, you know?”
Despite her best efforts, her heart does a little pitter-patter when he calls her beautiful. Confidently, she says, “You'd be reborn as a violet, Gil. There's no doubt about it. For me, it's the flower of forgiveness; Mark Twain once said that 'forgiveness is the fragrance the violet releases as the foot crushes it,' and you, Gilbert Blythe, have offered me more forgiveness and patience than this little orphan has ever deserved."
Gilbert doesn’t respond, but she feels his shoulders loosen and if she glanced up at him, she’d see his eyes soft on her smile.
“Where are we going again, Gil? I wasn’t paying attention before,” she admits.
Laughing, Gilbert answers, “I’m happy you’re feeling so whimsical about flowers, Anne-girl, because the conference ended early, so I figured you might be up for the Toronto Flower Festival
Anne can’t help the grin that splits her face in half.
Sure, Anne can only have one bosom friend and that title will always go to Diana (she cherishes each letter she receives from Paris), but she thinks Gilbert is one of the best friends she’s ever had.
After hopping on the trolley (she doesn’t take it often, but she loves getting to see the skyscrapers flying by), they arrive, and the flower festival is just as beautiful as she imagines—blush tulips bursting at the seams, blooming chrysanthemums creating the arch for the entranceway, and even bright yellow peonies that a woman tucks into her hair when they come in.
The pair roams the exhibition hall, with all its colors and natural perfumes, and Anne simply revels in the splendor of it all. However, in the middle of one lane wherein florists have created dresses of flowers (oh, the most beautiful orchids and sumptuous roses), they hear a gasp.
Anne and Gilbert’s attention is pulled to a young couple—perhaps just a year or two older than them—surrounded by a throng of onlookers, with the man on one knee, holding the woman’s hands in one of his. They’re speaking too lowly for Anne to make out the words, but the woman’s quiet sobs are just loud enough to be heard. Public proposals aren’t commonplace, but maybe things are different in the city because the crowd claps politely before dispersing.
But Gilbert and Anne linger there, watching as the pair hugs, overwrought with emotion. Eventually, the two leave, but Anne thinks it romantic all the same.
“Do you think you’ll ever marry?” Gilbert’s question is sudden and shy all at once.
Thankfully, she manages to swiftly recover from her quick shock, replying, “I used to think that I might, but I think I’m destined to be the wife of words and learning. The world seems all too big to tie yourself to one person.” She looks up at him then. “What about you?”
Something in Gilbert’s expression becomes frustratingly unreadable to Anne. “I can only be married to one soul on this earth, but I missed my chance, I think.”
“Oh,” is all Anne can muster.
He must still be hung up on Winifred—Bash never really explained how the engagement fell apart. She wonders if his old love is in Paris, and if Paris is the reason they parted. A part of Anne feels so guilty for having getting so caught up in his potential feelings for her, when perhaps he has been hurting this entire time and she completely missed it (ignored it).
"Well," she offers, "Do you want to see the gardenia sculptures?"
Because she spends much of her time with Gilbert, Anne doesn’t have many other male friends. And, of course, no potential suitors. But then, she’s in St. Lawrence’s, looking at forty-cent silly-patterned neckties (there’s one she’d like to see around his neck with pale peach polka-dots and periwinkle zig-zags), when she starts browsing the entire length of the table and runs into a broad, suit-covered chest.
“Miss Shirley,” says a surprised yet somewhat familiar voice.
Anne glances up, shocked to see one of her classmates. “Roy Gardner!”
“Funny seeing you here,” he replies, smiling something charming. He’s one of the only boys in her entire class at Toronto Normal School, and he has a penchant for geometry. Roy gazes down at the funny necktie she holds in her hands, furrows his eyebrows. “Picking out a gift for your beau?”
“No!” Anne really doesn’t mean to be so passionate in her response, but the denial slips out of her mouth before she can stop it. “I mean, it’s for an old schoolmate and dear friend. It’s his birthday next month.”
Apparently, this is just what Roy wanted to hear, because he grins rather wickedly. “So, he wouldn’t mind if I treated you to an ice cream at Harper’s?”
Despite herself, Anne feels her chest flutter. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks, but I think I’d like that.”
Before she leaves with Roy, her steps light, she buys the necktie and deftly tucks it into her dress pocket.
The ice cream is nice—Anne truly loves the brittle but sweet cones—and Roy is good company. He’s not exactly Gilbert, of course, but no one else could fill his role so resolutely. That said, Roy is lovely and sweet and makes her feel nervous in a way she isn’t used to. They talk about school and their observations of various classrooms around the city.
When they leave the shop, with the door clinking behind them, Roy asks if she’d like to do this again, and she can’t find it within herself to say no.
Idly, she wonders what Gilbert would think of her newfound friend.
But then again, he's probably still pining after Winifred.
It doesn't hurt, Anne tells herself. Not at all.