Beginning, Section II
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Chapter 17
Anne stared pensively around herself as she dusted down the chalkboard and neatened the desks and chairs. Anne was still gazing around pensively as she gathered together her books for the last time. Anne was nearly crying when she pulled the schoolroom door closed behind herself and locked it for the last time.
The last two years had been fun, interesting, sad...they had been life.
Anne dropped the key into her pocket an moved slowly away, swinging her satchel as she walked. The sun had ducked behind a fortuitous wisp of cloud and now the weather somewhat matched Anne's mood. Even the sadness of knowing she would never return to that little schoolroom could quite quench the bubble of glee which bobbed around inside her.
"With one last tearful farewell, onward she walked....and I can't remember the rest." The voice came from directly behind Anne and she gave a muffled shriek before spinning to face the tall young man who was lounging against the fence.
"Gil!" Anne gave Gilbert a warm hug by way of greeting. "You're a creep not warning me."
"Sorry." Gilbert appropriated Anne's satchel with a grin which wasn't at all repentant. "I hardly thought a warning necessary since you had walked passed me."
"Why should I be looking for you?" Anne looked up challengingly as he looped her hand through his arm and started to move towards Green Gables.
"I couldn't say, but rich, tall and handsome seems to do for most people."
"You are an arrogant snob Gil." Anne gave a sniff and looked away.
"Well maybe the observation that Prometheus awaits us is more to your taste."
"Prometheus?" Anne blinked in surprise.
"Anne!" Gilbert looked desolated. "You promised me just over a week ago that you'd help me tackle Prometheus this evening."
"Don't you dare mention Apples and Cocoa." Anne dug an elbow into his ribs.
"Of course not my Lady." Gilbert looked wounded. "You know where you're boarding in Kingsport yet?"
"Priscilla's going to be there and we were going to board on Davy Street."
"You've got a good deal for yourself, Davy Street is good."
"You, Gil, are full of surprises. Where are you boarding?"
"Wilson Street. Why am I full of surprises?" Gilbert's brows knit slightly.
"You haven't left the Island in six years and yet you know where is a good place to board in Kingsport."
"I've got a few friends and even more relatives in the Kingsport region."
"Then why not stay with them instead of boarding?"
"Thanks, but no thanks. Relatives can be the devil." Gilbert spoke bluntly and met Anne's shocked gaze blandly. "Ask anyone who has them in abundance and most will probably agree."
"Charlie Sloane doesn't."
"Charlie is entirely a different matter because he is surrounded by his permanently. When your relatives surround you it is not a requirement that you kiss all your aunts when you meet them, and never forget your cousins names and always send prompt thank you notes for unwanted presents and advice."
"You have a lot of cousins?"
"My mother's family is extensive around Kingsport." Gilbert made the admission somewhat reluctantly.
"Oh." Anne pondered briefly the option of asking why Gilbert and his mother hadn't returned to Kingsport years ago when his father died, but opted against the thought. Gilbert had always been incredibly touchy and sensitive about his family. Even Fred dared not ask questions.
"So, can you come tackle dear old Prometheus with me? Or does Miss Cuthbert and her eternal cake making win?"
"Marilla has given me the afternoon off, so stop being rude."
"Sorry." Gilbert pushed the gate open and waved easily to Marilla Cuthbert who was on the front porch talking to Louisa Lynde, recently widowed and moving to live with Marilla at Green Gables. The passage of years and the death of her husband had done much to mellow Mrs. Lynde, but her tongue was still sharp when she chose to apply it. "Afternoon Miss Cuthbert, Mrs. Lynde. Sorry Miss Cuthbert but I'm stealing Anne for the afternoon."
"I'll only object if she does." Marilla gave a slight smile. "Tea Mr. Darcy?"
"No thanks." Gilbert sank onto the railing, waiting patiently for Anne to return from dropping her things in her room.
"In my day one never refused tea." Mrs. Lynde spoke depressingly.
"True, but in your day it was unlikely that you'd have already drunk seven cups of tea to avoid being rude." Gilbert smiled. "I was hoping that as an old ghost I might be excused from drinking."
"You're excused." Marilla gave a small smile. "I am well aware that your afternoons of Latin and Greek consume most of your poor mother's stock of Apples and heftily impacts on cocoa supplies for frosting."
"One must have something." Gilbert slid from his perch as Anne returned. "Enjoy your afternoon ladies, I will return her for dinner."
"Enjoy our afternoon indeed." Louisa sniffed as the pair passed through the gate. "Gilbert Darcy has a very ready tongue Marilla, no good will come from it, mark my words."
"He reminds me of John Darcy at that age." Marilla took a sip of tea. "I have no doubt that he will invariably do right....after all he was born in Avonlea and he did most of his growing here."
"Oh no argument at all. Do you think they'll make a match of it?" Louisa was watching the red and the dark head in close communion as the owners headed down the long drive.
"Who's to know and who is to say." Marilla pursed her lips. "She is only 19."
"I was married with one child when I was 19, Marilla, time is not eternal and a girl can become too educated."
"If any man decides Anne is too educated, he is not the man for Anne to marry." Marilla spoke firmly, ignoring the pang in her heart as the two heads vanished from sight.
"Oh, I quite agree, but if she's too busy getting education she can hardly meet a man."
"If the lord thinks she needs a man, then she shall find one. I'll thank you to avoid such conversations with Anne."
"I still hope she and Gilbert make a match, he is a fine young man and has never been intimidated by her intelligence like so many are."
"I would not consider Billy Andrews as a reliable slice of the world Louisa Lynde. Now, to get back to the quilting party." Marilla firmly steered the conversation back to safer waters. At moments like these she felt old and vulnerable.
Chapter 18
"Priscilla!" Anne fell into her old friend's arms as she came through customs. "Save me from myself."
"Dramatic as ever. Anne, I do belief you've grown again you wretched beanstalk." Priscilla hugged Anne enthusiastically.
"No, I swear I haven't." Anne straightened with a laugh.
"Good grief, is that Gilbert Darcy?" Priscilla was staring in amazement over Anne's shoulder. "Goodness has he grown up."
"That's Gilbert." Anne nodded, her eyes puzzled as she watched some lanky man with an infectious grin swoop on her old chum.
"I wonder what his connection is with Rick Fitzwilliam?"
"That who the lanky grin is?"
"Yes. Trust me Anne, the Fitzwilliams are almost like your Sloanes......except the Fitzwilliams are infinitely higher in class. That family is all money and brains. Old English and now Old Kingsport. I believe the ancestor who came out here was a second son who got in trouble with the law or some such. I believe it was a duel."
"How romantic." Anne sighed and then laughed. "Charlie Sloane is apparently to board with Gil."
"Fortunate Gilbert. One wonders he boards at all if he knows the Fitzwilliams."
"Gilbert Darcy is both arrogant and stubborn and he won't take anything from anyone." Anne picked up her bag. "Let's go Priss, there's nothing else to be seen here."
"Don't you believe it." Priscilla's voice was teasing. "I think we're about to find out the connection between Gilbert Darcy and Rick Fitzwilliam."
"What...?" Anne turned in bewilderment and found herself facing the lanky grin and a Gilbert Darcy she didn't really know, there was a hardness about him she had never seen before.
"Hi Priss." Gilbert nodded. "Priscilla Grant, Rick Fitzwilliam....if your week here hasn't yet made you familiar with his face. Rick is our year, unfortunately. Rick, meet Anne Bennet. Anne, Rick Fitzwilliam, he never speaks seriously but he's got the manners of a bulldozer in a debate."
"He lies monstrously. Pleased to meet you ladies." Rick Fitzwilliam gave a semi-bow and looked quite continental.
"Pleased to meet you as well." Anne nodded back briefly and cast a curious glance at Gilbert because his face had become harder if anything.
"I would invite you to supper, except Gil himself has firmly refused on the grounds of tiredness."
"I will certainly admit to tiredness, so if you'll excuse me." Anne nodded once more before retrieving her bags and nudging Priscilla towards the exit.
"See you another time Gilbert." Priscilla waved over her shoulder as she hurried after Anne. "Must you hurry so much Anne." Priscilla managed to catch Anne and promptly relieved her of a bag.
"Yes, I'm tired, I'm hungry and I was looking at people who didn't really like their relatives."
"You're not saying that Gilbert is related to the Fitzwilliam Clan?"
"I'm not saying or guessing anything." Anne subsided into the taxi Priscilla had flagged down for them. "Take me to the house before I get homesick and go home."
"You are being ridiculous Anne. Our Landladies are utter ducks, and the house is very homelike."
"Boarding houses are never homelike." Anne was determined not to be cheered up. She was feeling homesick and she was going to enjoy it while it lasted.
"Alright, but there's an absolute duck of a cemetery which your room overlooks."
"Ghosties all the time, just what I wanted." Anne sounded gloomy, but not even her stubborn determination to remain miserable could prevent her from exclaiming over the cemetery and later her own bedroom.
"What a day." Priscilla Grant sank onto her heels and yawned widely. "So, do you yet like Kingsport?"
"Ridiculous question." Anne yawned widely. "I've had a week to study it so far and I now have three other people outside of this Boarding House who I know, but didn't know before."
"Let's see, there's Rick Fitzwilliam, there's Phil...who is sort of Lydia with brains, and there's the cemetery...but I'd hardly call that a person."
"True it's hundreds of people. Is anyone coming tonight?"
"Gilbert and Charlie Sloane are mounting the steps as we speak. I wonder what happened to Rick?"
"No doubt Gilbert decided to get rid of him." Anne gave a yawn. "I have found Gilbert to be remarkably ruthless when it comes to most of his relatives and I must admit to wondering why Rick takes so much from him."
"Gilbert wasn't this bad at Queens was he?"
"No."
"Rick muttered something about still running the other day. I think he has a dark secret."
"I think likely he's just still unsettled." Anne shrugged it all aside, not willing to contemplate the somewhat savage change in her friend. It was like Gilbert had become the person she had initially believed him to be when they first met at Avonlea.
My dearest Jane,I begin to settle in here at Kingsport and Redmond. At first everything was all too loud and noisy, but now I can actually take more than three steps without getting lost so I am beginning to like this place more.
How is everything for you?
I am tired tonight and as a result I fear I make little sense. Please do not repeat anything of this letter to anyone else....even Fred if such is possible.
Do write and tell me how Mrs. Darcy is, for Gil will tell me nothing. I feel certain she must miss him living all alone in that vast house with all its ghosts and dreams. It is really peculiar here at Redmond and Gil seems terribly unsettled for some reason he won't talk about. It's like he is becoming permanently what he used to be when he was terribly tired. It's like he's become what I originally believed him to be. He has become high-handed and arrogant and I greatly fear he is deliberately trying to cut himself away from us. He says he is studying, but I don't think he is for he is not at the top of the class and I am currently ahead of him in all but Math.
Priscilla laughs at me and says I am being ghoulied and ghostied by the cemetery across the road. Priscilla is of the opinion that Gil is fine.
Phillipa Gordon is my friend now. Phil is the girl I wrote to you about the day after we became enrolled. It was really quite funny how it has all happened and I fear I am never going to be able to look at old Able's tombstone without thinking of Phil and her hatpins. Phil is plagued by indecision and she really doesn't like to make up her own mind. Hence Phil chooses hats by placing the day's selections on the bed and then poking with a hatpin. Phil wears whichever hat she sticks. This is not to say Phil is not dressy, for she is and she often makes me feel like the country cousin. Phil knows how to talk, she talks even more than I do. Priscilla says she is like Lydia, but a Lydia with brains. Phil is smart, she never seems to study and yet she is in the top ten of every class and looks like remaining there. Phil is charming, she has even won over the History Professor who is a firm believer that women should remain in the kitchen.
Well I am now half asleep and unless I am careful will fall asleep on this which would be a very bad thing to do. So I will go goodnight my beloved Jane.
But please write me if there is anything the matter with Mrs. Darcy for I am concerned about Gil.
Goodnight,
Anne
Chapter 19
Anne thoughtfully studied the front drive. For just over two years now Anne had been living with Priscilla, Phil and Stella in Patty's Place. Lost among mansions it was a house which had stolen Anne's heart the first day she saw it.
"Come on Anne." Phil abruptly appeared next to Anne by the gate.
"What's the matter Phil? You look like you've met a ghost."
"It's not a ghost, it's a Gorgon." Phil looked gloomy. "That Gorgon does not approve of yours truly."
"There's a Gorgon in the house?"
"Yes, and what's more she says she's here to see you."
"But I don't know any Gorgons."
"You must else she wouldn't know your name."
"That's nothing Phil, you can hear names without ever meeting the person. After all I knew Jonas' name very well indeed before I first saw him."
"That is a different matter." Phil stuck her nose in the air before abruptly laughing. "Try and persuade the Gorgon to like me."
"Who is the Gorgon?" Anne looked doubtfully at Phil.
"The Gorgon is officially Mrs. Gordon Wickham, but she was before Catherine Fitzwilliam from the very worst branch of the Fitzwilliam Family."
"Oh." Anne had not even managed to last her first year at Redmond without being fully introduced to the Fitzwilliam Family Hierarchy. The nicest Fitzwilliams were actually only quarter Fitzwilliams. The worst of the Fitzwilliams were the direct descent Fitzwilliams. "Why haven't we heard of the Wickham Fitzwilliam's before?"
"Ricky doesn't like them and they've been in Europe until this year."
"So what's she doing in our house?" Anne was now perplexed.
"She's here to see you."
"Why?"
"She's Roy's step-mother."
"Oh. I never realised they were Fitzwilliam Wickhams." Anne frowned at the fishbone walk for a moment. "But Mrs. Wickham wasn't to visit until Friday, this is Wednesday."
"I can't answer Anne dearie, but that Gorgon of a Mrs. Gordon ... nice match ... is sitting in the Living Room being ... Gorgonish."
"Thank goodness your aim is mathematics Phil. What happened to Stella's cooking?"
"Mrs. Gordon is sitting on the chocolate cake, we're hoping she won't get icing on her skirt."
"Pleasant. Well I'd best go in." Anne gave a sigh and trod up the path and entered the house.
"I assume you are Miss Bennet." The woman seated in the armchair was an impressive, yet diminutive figure. Iron grey hair was pulled rigidly back from her face, metal grey eyes stared hard from under heavy black brows and the determined chin jutted forth daring anyone to disagree with her.
"Yes, I am Anne Bennet." Anne had difficulty refraining from gaping, that Roy could count this woman as his saviour from madness stunned her.
"I am Mrs. Gordon Wickham."
"Pleased to meet you." Anne hesitated a moment longer before carefully seating herself, it seemed ridiculous that she should be waiting to be asked to take a seat in her own house.
"A pleasant enough house you have here, the Ardens are decent people." The next statement so stunned Anne that she didn't even attempt to answer, there was clearly no answer to be made.
"Can I get you a drink Mrs. Wickham?"
"No thank you. It pleases me to smell cooking, far too many of you girls are so busy being intellectual you fail to learn the essential things about a kitchen."
"We all enjoy cooking." Anne still couldn't think of a thing to say.
"Roy said you were a healthy girl ... I see he is correct, but you are too thin and you look peaky. Eat more meat."
"Yes Mrs. Wickham." Anne stared helplessly at Gog and Magog, at this present moment there was nothing she wished more than to have a multitude of relatives she could babble rudely about.
"Oh good heavens! When did you get back?" The deep voice had Anne spinning around on her seat to see a far from thrilled Richard Fitzwilliam leaning against the door.
"I am used to your rudeness Richard so I will ignore it. Aline is at home should you wish to see her."
"Right-ho Aunt Catherine, I'll go worship her Royal Highness sometime soon."
"My nephew Richard, Miss Bennet ... I assume you've already met."
"Anne is in my class Aunt Catherine." Rick straightened up and gave a yawn. "You haven't seen Gil have you Anne?"
"Not in three weeks now, and then we only passed in the hall." "Do you speak of Gilbert?"
"As a matter of fact, yes I do Aunt Catherine. Gil promised to lend me a book which he never manages to produce." Rick gave a shrug. "I'll see if he's currently in his hole."
"Tell Gilbert I wish to see him."
"He's rather busy Aunt Catherine." Rick's expression abruptly became wary.
"Don't be ridiculous Richard, just tell him I wish to see him."
"Very good Aunt Catherine. See you in Latin tomorrow Anne." Rick departed and Anne could hear him kick at the fishbone walk the whole way to the gate, there was then a loud clang as he kicked the gate, then the gate banged shut.
"Richard is a good boy, but sadly loyal to his cousin."
"I would never have considered loyalty sad." Anne shifted on her seat, she might not know what to respond on vague topics, but a direct attack on someone she was more than capable of handling.
"In this situation it is sad. Normally I would approve of loyalty, but in this case it can only be reprimanded, Gilbert is far too independent and arrogant for his own good. Gilbert also lacks the Fitzwilliam grace of giving."
"Indeed?" Anne couldn't think of anything else to say, the last thing she would ever have accused Gilbert of was being stingy, but then if Roy's story was totally true ... Anne let the thought drift and wished she could yawn without being rude.