Chapter Text
It was one of those hot August evenings when Anne Blythe, formerly known as Miss Shirley, was sitting on the porch of her little house in Glen St. Mary. In her arms, she cradled a small creature with red hair and chubby cheeks. With a gentle, tender look filled with love, the young mother gazed at her daughter, who was fast asleep. An involuntary smile escaped her lips as her fingers brushed the angelic face, being careful not to wake her. Rilla was her most recent baby, joining the other five now scattered around Ingleside's garden.
A few meters from the porch, the children were playing merrily in the company of the Reverend Meredith's daughters. Una and Faith visited the Blythes every Saturday to practice the piano with the twins. James raced quickly through the garden, chasing Shirley, while Nan and Di chatted with laughter and silly faces with the pastor's girls. However, when the green-gray eyes of the mother were not fixed on the little one in her arms, they turned with curiosity to a black-haired boy. Apart from everyone else, sitting under the shade of a willow tree, Walter Blythe held in his hands, much to Susan's dismay, his poetry notebook.
Walt wasn't the troublemaker among the children; that title belonged to little Jem. In fact, he was a very well-behaved and quiet boy... so quiet that it was almost worrisome. Even to Anne, who had carried him for a long nine months in her womb, the boy remained a mystery. Always shy and withdrawn, Walt lived immersed in his own world of fairy tales, to the extent that it sometimes became difficult to distinguish fantasy from reality.
Since Gilbert had gifted him the story "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" on his birthday, the boy spent his days repeating that the piper would appear and lead all the boys of Glen far away with his irresistible music. At first, no one paid much attention to him; after all, it was just Walter being Walter. But when his delusions became increasingly insistent, to the point of scaring the younger siblings, his father lost patience and decided to put an end to the nonsense by confiscating the book.
Anne sighed with regret as she recalled a conversation she had with her husband when she was still pregnant with their seventh child:
"He is so sensitive and imaginative," the worried mother said.
"Perhaps too much so," Gilbert replied wearily, after having, as the governess put it, three babies that afternoon. "That boy is afraid to go up the stairs in the dark. Spending some time with the Parkers' gang will do wonders for him, and he'll come back a different child."
After the incident with Shirley's birth and the near-death experience Anne had gone through, the doctor didn't want any of the children around when the time came. However, on that early morning, Susan Becker found the black-haired boy sleeping on the doorstep. The poor child had walked ten kilometers from Lowbridge to Glen on a dark night, thinking his beloved mother was dying.
Of all the Blythe children, Walter had the most complex relationship with his father. Of course, the doctor loved his son with all his heart and made no distinction between him and his siblings. Gilbert always acted with kindness and fairness, but there seemed to be an invisible barrier preventing him from connecting deeply with his second son. There was not the same camaraderie and companionship between them that he had with the other boys, nor the heightened sense of protection and indulgence reserved for the girls. This became evident when the father entered the gate, and all the children, except Walt, ran towards him.
Anne watched her husband stroke Jem and Shirley's hair, kiss the foreheads of the twins, and even though he was exhausted from a long day's work, he listened attentively to each of them.
"Daddy! Daddy! Jem ripped the head off my doll!" Di complained in a whiny tone as she hugged his legs.
"It was an accident, Dad; she was in the way when I rode my bike," James retorted, sticking his tongue out at his sister.
"It's okay, Di; we can get another one."
"Daddy, look at the new dress Susan made for me!" Nan exclaimed proudly, performing a clumsy twirl.
"It's perfect, Nan; you should think about ballet."
"I found this in the garden!" Shirley said, showing a small, shiny beetle.
"Just don't forget to wash your hands before dinner, kiddo."
However, as he passed by Walter, who remained absorbed in his thoughts, far from the hustle and bustle of his siblings, the doctor simply nodded in a discreet greeting. As a mother, Anne couldn't help but feel her heart ache at her son's loneliness. She knew that Walt was not like the others, and that's why he often felt misunderstood. His extreme sensitivity and poetic soul made him see things from a very young age that no one else could.
"Dear Mrs. Doctor," Susan had often said to her with a serious and disapproving tone, "if you'll allow me to say so, you and the doctor should put an end to this before it's too late. It's not good for a boy to fill his head with poems and fantasies; it makes them effeminate. If he were my son, I'd throw all those notebooks into the fire!"
"Sometimes I wonder if we really know how to deal with him, Anne-girl," Gilbert's deep voice pulled her out of her thoughts. Now sitting beside her, he gazed at Walt with the same loving, curious, and concerned eyes.
Anne took his hand and gently caressed it. She let out a deep sigh through her half-opened mouth before closing her eyes and resting her head on her husband's shoulder. She had asked herself that same question so many times that she had lost count.
Suddenly, the image of a young man with hair as golden as gold and a smile as radiant as sunlight invaded her mind. Cole Mackenzie. Both of them were equally misunderstood and sensitive to the world in their own way. While Cole expressed himself through painting, Walt found his refuge in poetry. They were indirectly connected, two souls bound together by art.
With a mischievous smile lighting up her face, Anne got up carefully so as not to wake Rilla. She looked one last time at her lonely son before speaking with determination:
"Gil, it's time for Ingleside to receive a visit from an old friend."