Chapter Text
‘Anne?’
‘Mhm?’
‘Please don’t get cross with me, but I simply have to ask. Are you—sure?’
‘Sure?’ Anne Shirley repeated sharply, throwing her friend Diana Barry a frowning look over her shoulder from where she sat in front of the latter’s vanity table. ‘Really, Diana, what a question to ask of a radiant bride like myself!’ she added with a somewhat strained attempt at jollity.
It was a Saturday in the first week of July, and in exactly a week’s time Anne was set to marry Royal Gardner, with her childhood friends, Jane, Josie, and Tillie acting as bridesmaids and Diana fulfilling the long-promised role of maid of honour.
It was clearly in this capacity that she was speaking now.
‘I know Roy is a good person-’ she begun unconvincingly, and then, abruptly mustering resolve, started again, on a completely different note, ‘Oh, what’s the use of beating about the bush! I suppose—I suppose you will have heard by now that Gilbert is expected home at the beginning of next week?’
Anne, who was occupied in divesting her hair of the innumerable pins with the help of which Diana had constructed on her head an elaborate coiffure by way practicing the wedding hairdo, froze for just a second, and when Diana caught sight of her face in the mirror its sudden, sickly pallor scared her.
The next second, however, Anne went on, her movements, if anything, swifter and more decided than before.
‘I haven’t heard about it, as a matter of fact,’ she said, her voice indifferent and perfectly level. ‘But I completely fail to see why Gil— what his arrival has to do with anything, and why it makes you talk in this ridiculous, nervous way.’
‘I simply—I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret your whole life,’ Diana stammered miserably. ‘You know Mrs Cuthbert thinks you are way too young to marry anyway.’
Anne looked up and met her eyes in the mirror, and her gaze was cold.
‘Too young to marry in general? Or to marry Roy particularly?’
Diana bit her lip. ‘I just want you to know that if you decided to call if all off—even this late—I would be on your side—‘
‘Call it off?’ Anne's voice sounded just a little shriller than usual. She got up and turned to confront Diana, two crimson spots burning high on her otherwise pale cheeks. ‘Why? Because Gilbert Blythe is coming home?’
Diana stood her ground. ‘You know there are some unresolved things between you—‘ she began quietly.
Anne let out a scornful little laugh.
‘There is—there never has been—anything whatever between me and—him. Nothing’ She turned to snatch up her purse from where it was lying on Diana’s bed and took a few abrupt steps towards the door whilst her friend stood looking on with a half-frightened, half-mournful expression. ‘Besides, you have no right to drag out childish confessions I made to you years ago, and in a state of half-insanity at that,’ she added acidly. ‘I’ll be obliged if you never speak about—him—to me like this ever again. See you at church tomorrow.’
***
The weather was cool for July, and by the time Anne had reached Green Gables the feverish colour in her cheeks had died down—which did not mean she was not in a state of complete inner turmoil, because she was. Blotting out all others was the thought, If only he was coming a week later. When it was all over. Then it would be too late.
But it is already too late, a small voice at the back of her head whispered meanly. In a week from now you’ll be Mrs Gardner, and nothing can change that now. Certainly not any Gilbert Blythe nonsense.
This thought came to her just as she was opening the front door, and made her enter the house in a mood of decisiveness mixed with extreme irritation.
Marilla looked up from the table and raised her eyes at Anne’s drawn face. ‘Is anything wrong, child? You look peaky.’
Anne deigned no reply to this. A small grey envelope lying on the dresser by the door caught her eye. It was a telegram addressed to Miss A. Shirley.
She reached for it.
‘Came just a minute ago, by the afternoon post,’ she heard Marilla say as she tore it open.
BORED AS HELL NOTHING TO DO HERE COMING MONDAY AFTERNOON WAIT AT THE STATION CANT WAIT TO SEE YOU HONEY ROY
‘I hope it’s no bad news.’
Anne looked up, her eyes flashing in the dimness of the room.
‘No. It’s not.’
‘I have some good news as well,’ Marilla went on and Anne knew, as soon as she heard the anxiously cheerful note in her voice, what she was going to say. ‘You’ll never guess who’s coming home next week! On Monday afternoon, actually!’
Anne simply looked back at her impassively.
‘Gilbert Blythe! Isn’t that wonderful news!’
Something inside Anne seemed to snap.
‘Wonderful,’ she hissed, meeting Marilla’s searching look with a steely one of her own. ‘Do you know who else is coming down on Monday? Roy. My fiancé. Do you remember such a person, or has the thought of the glorious return of master Blythe erased all else from your mind?’
‘Anne, there’s no need to get upset—‘
‘And you know what, Marilla? I sincerely hope when I go pick him up we might be lucky enough to meet Mr Blythe, so that I might have the pleasure of inviting him to our wedding without delay. You’re welcome to tell that anyone who asks. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to lie down. My head is splitting from all those damned pins Diana keeps sticking in my hair.’
‘Anne! Mind your language, please!’
But Anne was already slamming the door of her room shut, her whole body trembling with anger.
***
As she leant against the closed door, Anne’s eyes inevitably fell onto the biggest object in the room, which was the bed.
She stared and stared at it as though this was the first time she ever saw it, and felt cold, sickly panic rise within her.
In a week from now, this won’t be my bed anymore. I’ll have another bed. A marital bed. A bed I’ll have to share with Roy.
Not just share – perform wifely duties in.
The thought made her want to scream.
Of course she had realised before that intercourse was one of the things marriage entailed. But heretofore it had always been something so distant, and presumably not to be thought of on pain of committing a sin, and better so.
But soon – so soon she could actually start counting the hours – she would be obliged, bound by a holy vow, not just to think about, but to actually do it. With Roy.
And how could she do it, when she had to keep herself from flinching whenever he took her hand in his? When she had virtually cringed the first time he kissed her, and had been doing her best to avoid a recurrence of that activity ever since?
It had been pleasant enough to be singled out by him, to feel admired and wanted, especially after that terrible debacle of a fair which, although it happened so long ago, she still hadn’t, to her extreme shame, managed to get over?
Back then, Gilbert Blythe had made her feel second-best, undesirable, ugly.
Now, Roy was making her feel beautiful and rare. And yet she could not bring herself to contemplate marriage to him as actual lived reality without feeling faint with panic and repulsion.
Perhaps I’m just made that way, she thought desperately. I never liked anyone touching me. I’ll have to get used to it, that’s all.
But she realised immediately this was not true. She did not mind it when Marilla stroked her cheek caressingly, or when Diana hugged her, or when her friends played with her hair.
And, most importantly and shamefully, she had very emphatically not minded it when Gilbert Blythe had touched her, when he had held her hand in his so carefully, delicately, as though it was glass, during that accursed dance practice all those years ago. She had never minded his proximity the way she did Roy’s; instead, it had made her feel as though there was a force drawing her closer to him, just to feel the heat of his skin on hers.
Her cheeks burning at the thought, her heart beating hard with anger and shame, Anne went over to her narrow, white maiden bed and, throwing herself down on it, covered her face with her hands and lay very still.