Chapter Text
Staring at her own reflection in the silvery mirror in front of her created a sense of belonging for the first time in Anne’s life. Her creamy skin scattered with freckles was not her own, but her mother’s. Her scarlet locks were the same shade that her father had painted on her mother’s likeness in the back of the book she had spent her entire evening pouring over. As she glanced down at the blank page in front of her, she began to write:
September 1, 1899
Dear Gilbert,
I look like my mother…
Those fantastical words were so unfathomable to me when I woke this morning - many things that happened today were - and yet, now I can write it with not only confidence, but evidence. Oh, how wonderful to have the fates finally smiling down on me! Once you left for your train, tearing my heart out and taking it with you, Marilla and Matthew came running through the garden with one of the most stunning books I’ve ever seen in my life. I could immediately feel it calling to me as Marilla held it out, begging me to open its brittle old pages to reveal a most unexpected inscription. Under the title, “The Language of Flowers”, was penned a message I never would have dreamed in a million years that I would read: “For my Bertha, So you can share your love of the natural world with your pupils. Love Always, Walter”
My mother was a teacher.
How my heart sings to know that I am like her in so many ways! Marilla and Matthew have given me their lives, and now they have given me my own as well. Tracking down a previous guardian of mine from when I was only but a babe, they somehow managed to rescue this book from old Mrs. Thomas and bring it to me. My mother had written notes in the margins, all of which I have read twice by now, and my father even sketched a portrait of her showing her flaming red hair to match my own. To know that I share her features and passions is beyond wonderful, but to know that they truly did love each other shatters my soul and pieces it back together instantaneously. They didn’t leave me because they didn’t want me; their death separated them from each other as much is it did from me. I still somehow feel the deepest despair when I think of them, but now also a most dazzling elation. It is quite confusing and I believe I will be pondering it for some time, in between classes, trying to make sense of these wild feelings that are overcoming my mind.
Speaking of wild feelings, here are my follow up questions for you:
1. How long have you had these feelings for me? In all fairness, I don’t know if I am capable of answering that question myself, as I have been your friend for so long and I’m not sure the exact moment when it crossed over from comradery to romantical in nature. I do believe it was subconsciously trying to make it’s way to the surface of my heart for quite some time. However, I only just admitted it to myself (and Diana) days before leaving for Queens. It was your question at the bonfire that lit the flame inside my soul, giving those feelings the heat they needed to break through the barrier of my stubbornness.
2. How did you end up attending U of T instead of going to the Sorbonne? I do hope you are happy in Toronto, although I’m sure it pales in comparison to Paris. I would love to hear the story of why you changed directions, quite literally, and hope that it is what your heart truly wanted to do.
3. Was I your first kiss? You were mine, and perhaps it is unladylike to admit that it was superior to anything that my very vivid imagination could have ever conjured up, but that’s the truth of it and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I am already counting the days until I can be in your arms again. Since Toronto is much closer than Paris, I suppose I will be grateful. But just barely.
4. Will you promise to write me weekly, at least? I am so intrigued by what your schooling will be like, not to mention I simply enjoy hearing from you. The arrival of your letters has always given me such jolt of exhilaration, and now I am able to recognize what that sensation was.
Before I go, I must confess that when I saw your letter in my room that fateful day, I tore it up in a fit of rage, something I’ll admit that I am too familiar with, and then threw it out the window to be scattered amongst the field. I tried piecing it back together, but obviously got the message very jumbled which caused me to believe you didn’t have feelings for me. Running into Winnie by chance is the only reason I now know - well, other than your kisses - that I was gravely mistaken and almost ruined our future. Diana explained that you never received my letter either, what a sequence of disastrous events! I simply wrote that I was sorry that I was confused before, but now I know...I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you. When I found out you left before we were able to speak, I truly felt the weight of the truth that love doesn’t conquer all and it crushed me. How wrong I was, and how thankful I am that it evidently does, in fact, conquer all.
Please let me know any countering follow-up questions you may have, and I swear to respond to them honestly and not to bash you over the head with my answers.
Your Amorous Penpal,
Anne
Placing the cap back on her fountain pen, Anne smiled as she slipped it into the special drawer she had designated for the pen and paper in her desk. She folded the pages once, twice, then gently tucked them into the envelope she had prepared with Gilbert’s address, which he had slipped her before he left in a hurry earlier that day. She reached into her mother’s book and delicately extracted a red poppy from one of the pages about wildflowers native to Scotland, slowly sliding the flower into the envelope for Gilbert to admire. Sealing it first with a kiss, then a blob of melted wax, she smiled as she watched the crimson wax drip from the candle onto the crisp white paper. It felt like such a grown-up action, writing to her love and sealing it with the fancy metal seal Marilla let her keep; the same one that they used to seal her letter to Scotland, which eventually led them to find her new favorite book.
Anne blew out the candle that was sitting on her desk and quietly crept over to her bed, trying not to wake Diana as she stumbled across the now dark room. As she climbed into her new bed, in her new room, with her new roommate sleeping next to her, ready to dream of her new love, waking to attend her new college in the morning, she couldn’t help but stifle a giggle. How her life taken so many wonderful new turns in only one day, when her entire life had so far seemed to be nothing but the same suffering over and over again, she wasn’t sure. Letting the warm feelings rush over her and enjoying the sensation, Anne tried to decide what word would best fit her mood at the moment as sleep nipped at the edges of her mind. With one last half-asleep giggle, she decided on the word “blithe” and thoroughly enjoyed her own little joke as she drifted off to sleep.