Made and Meant for Each Other (an Anne of Green Gables fanfiction)

Priscilla

So Anne had seen the light at last, had she? Priscilla Grant smiled to herself. Anne was unparalleled for stubbornness and for being unable to see what was right in front of her for the stars in her eyes. Apparently one of those stars had taken on Gilbert's shape, finally, and Priscilla was glad to hear it. The look in Gilbert's eyes sometimes when he had looked at Anne ... Even back in Queen's days, you could see that he preferred her, even when Anne refused to speak to him or even acknowledge his existence. And sometimes—very rarely—you could catch Anne with her eyes on a certain bent head, a puzzled frown on her face as if reality was somehow intruding on her dreams in a way she found not entirely unpleasant.

Next to Anne's letter on the desk was another letter that brought Priscilla sharply back into her own reality—one in which dreams suddenly and unexpectedly beckoned. A connection of Priscilla's father's had a post open, teaching in a Japanese school, and Priscilla had been offered the position. She had been hesitating. Japan was far off; too far to come back if the position didn't suit, too far to lean on familiar shoulders if she found the challenge greater than she anticipated. This decision, once made, could not be taken back. But by the same token, the opportunity, once passed up, was unlikely to come again. And much as Priscilla loved her home and the charming little pupils she had taught in a series of small country schools, the chance to go and teach new students, on the far side of the world, people whose lives were entirely different from anything she had ever known, who perhaps had as little awareness of what her life and those of her friends had been like—to find the differences and similarities between them ... Could she fail to leap at such a chance?

She had been on the verge of regretfully declining the offer when Anne's letter arrived. Her ink and paper were already laid out, the salutation to her father's connection already written. Now she looked again at the two envelopes lying side by side, comparing them. Anne had been lucky—her destiny as embodied in Gilbert Blythe had come knocking again and again and again, because Gilbert was at least Anne's equal in stubbornness, and he had known for certain just what he wanted for a good long time. Priscilla's destiny might not be so determined. It might be dangling a lure into the water once, and once only, and if she didn't leap for it now she would lose it. Of course, another lure might come along, just as shiny; it was hard to say.

How she missed the dear old days of Patty's Place! The four of them curled up studying, Aunt Jamesina and the cats, their cheerful Friday evenings with guests and their even more cheerful Sunday morning breakfasts, just the five of them, talking over the events of the weekend. Things had been very simple then, life bounded by the next test and the next class and the next year to prepare for. Now here they were scattered around, almost certainly never to all be together again in the same room. If Priscilla went to Japan, they definitely never would—making a journey of that distance was enough of an undertaking that she wouldn't want to come back soon.

Priscilla allowed herself a moment to imagine that, years of studying another culture, learning their language and their ways. The idea entranced her as much as the difficulty daunted her. There were other teachers in the school, from English-speaking countries the world around, so she wouldn't be alone in her discoveries; she would have companionship of like-minded souls. In her mind, there was a room for the teachers to gather where they could be cozy studying the Japanese language and preparing their lessons. There would be laughter and mutual support. It might be just like Patty's Place.

She looked at Anne's letter again. What if it weren't like Patty's Place at all? What if the other teachers were standoffish, or distant? Did it matter? "Opportunity knocks but once," she remembered reading once. "If taken at the time 'twill lead to fortune." If Anne had taken Gilbert at the time, at the first knock of opportunity, what years of longing on his part and confusion on hers might they have been spared? They could never know. Nor could Priscilla know what would happen if she took this position if she was too afraid to reach for it.

Determinedly, she reached for her pen. She had never quailed before an opportunity before; she wouldn't do so now. Instead of the "no" she had intended when she began her letter, instead she wrote, "Thank you for your generous offer. I will be glad to take it."