BEGIN AGAIN

April, 1919

'My dear, you're not dressed!'

Anne stands over her typewriter, trying to feed the ribbon into where it has escaped. A loose strand of red hair falls over her face and she huffs it away in frustration. How does anyone manage this without turning every finger black?

'The train isn't due till two,' she says, absently, and wriggles her nose.

She longs to scratch it, but that would no doubt leave an inky moustache. Not that her daughter would mind but her husband certainly would. He stands in the doorway, drumming his fingers on the frame, tap... tap... tap... tap...in time with the ornate carriage clock. Anne glances at the mantle where it sits. Forgetting herself she rubs her upper lip.

'Is that to match your suit?' Royal says, tossing Anne his starched white handkerchief.

He looks so odd without it unfurling from his top pocket his appearance almost unnerves her. 'I take it you don't approve of the colour I'm wearing,' she replies, dabbing at her face. 'We're not going to the theatre, Roy, we're going to the station–'

'To collect our only daughter, whom we haven't seen for two years.'

'Exactly. I doubt she'll care what I'm wearing– besides I thought you liked this?' she says, shrugging the shoulders of her charcoal coloured jacket.

'I do like it... for funerals.'

Anne frowns and slumps into her chair. Royal considers her for a moment and then ventures into her study, crossing the Persian rug as though the garden of lilies concealed hot coals. He plucks at the knees of his trousers and crouches down beside her.

'Forgive me, duck, we've had more than our share of those.' He reaches for Anne's hand and she remembers how she clutched it as they listened to the eulogy for Phil's son and Jane's husband, for Lewis' wife and Jen's mother... The waxy ends of her husband's moustache press into the back of her hand as he brings it to his lips. 'The war is won, our daughter is coming home,' he reminds her, wondering why he should have to. 'She's spent two years in some khaki rag, don't you think she'd want to see her Mamma in something a little more...' Royal drops her hand to make a flourishing gesture, 'chic?' His wife nod mutely and he twits her nose. 'You missed a bit.'

Anne feels she is missing more than that. Instead she smiles. 'You're right, Roy of course, you're right. I haven't given this moment the attention it deserves... I've been so caught up with the draft– the publishers– I just wanted it done before our girl came home. I don't want to waste one moment. We have so much to relearn about each other... This young man she's engaged herself to, for one.'

Royal stands and catches his reflection in the oval mirror above the fireplace. He approaches it, purposefully, his long-lashed eyes lighting upon the photographs Anne keeps in here. They are what he calls 'her lot': the Avonlea dears, the Patty's Place clique, her writers, musicians and poets. His gaze rests on the one image that has always rankled, though he knows it is unreasonable. It is Anne in her cap and gown graduating from Redmond with a bouquet of lily-of-the-valley in her hands. He picks it up, puts it down, and smooths his slicked back hair.

'She is not engaged,' he tells his reflection. 'This 'whoever-he-is' merely asked for her hand. She hasn't accepted him–'

'You mean you haven't accepted him.'

Royal turns to find his wife using his handkerchief to wipe the typewriter keys. He slams his hand upon the edge of mantel. 'No, I haven't accepted him! Who is he to us? Some nobody–'

'He's hardly that, Roy, he's a Captain and a DC.'

'You sound as though you want Dido to attach herself to him.'

Anne can feel Royal's eyes on the back of her head and fervently rubs at the inky sludge. 'I don't have an opinion one way or another, and I don't see how I can be expected to have one when we haven't even met the boy–'

'Your indifference is baffling. One would think you were more worried about your precious books than your own daughter. I don't understand you–'

Anne flings the handkerchief to the floor and glares at her husband, her grey eyes ringed with green. 'And I don't understand how you can be such a snob. It wasn't that long ago when I was considered a nobody.'

Royal picks up his handkerchief and inspects it carefully. 'A low blow, Anne,' he murmurs, examining the stains. 'His standing has nothing to do with yours.' He calmly folds the cloth and places it on Anne's desk. No doubt she would prefer him to throw it into the fire; what was one silk handkerchief to the literary sensation, A. Shirley-Gardner? She takes her lifestyle too much for granted. Servants, parties, endless jaunts abroad... these things weren't simply summoned from the air like her fairy stories. He clears his throat, as he always does when he is about to make an important point. 'But as you mention your past, then consider, my dear little stray; had your parents lived, who would they would have wanted you to marry? Who did your people in Avonlea want you to marry?'

Anne eyes dart to the mantel, the lilies. She leaves her desk and walks to the door. 'We should continue this conversation later,' she says, coolly. 'I still have to change.'

Royal follows her out of the room, peering up the stairs in case the staff should overhear them. 'There is nothing to discuss. I don't care who he is or what power he thinks he has over Dido, he is not welcome at Alderley. He is not to be invited, he is not to be encouraged. We shall simply collect our daughter from the train, tip our hats, and keep walking. Do you understand?'

'Roy,' Anne exclaims, clutching his arm, 'she's in love! Don't you remember how that felt? I can't believe that you'd do to Dido what your mother tried to do to us–'

'Perhaps I should have heeded her advice.'

Anne jerks away from him as though he burned her, and swipes at sudden tears. A black smudge appears under her eye. Seeing this Royal softens, and he brings his thumb to his wife's face.

'You know you have a talent for making me say things I don't mean. It should be obvious how much I adore you –and Dido. I'm not half as surprised as you think I am that she has done something so foolhardy. No doubt she went through hell in France, it's natural she might mistake her feelings under the circumstances. Any woman would. Which, if you'll remember is another reason why I disliked the idea of her serving in the Ambulance Corps. I gave into her whim against my better judgment and now...' Royal says, gesturing for his wife to continue.

'We must pay for our folly as for our crime,' she recites, dully.

'Exactly.' He wets the tip of his finger to erase the ink from Anne's skin. 'Do you think I want to upset our daughter the moment she steps off the train? Of course I don't. But in the end she'll see her Papa was right.'

He slides his hand down Anne's throat and fingers the amber beads that circle it. His eyes darken as he presses her against the emerald wallpaper in the hall. Her hair forms a halo round her face which is still as smooth and glowing as it was when he married her the day she turned thirty-three. She wears no make up, excepting a ruby stain on her lips that makes her teeth seem even whiter.

'To think we've been married these twenty years and I still haven't managed to tame you.'

Anne sees a rare excitement in her husband's eyes. He is still quite as handsome as he ever was, if blurred round the edges. His black hair is thinning, his chin no longer strong nor his waist so trim. None of this prevents Anne from wishing he would look at her the way he is looking at her now. It's been months since he has given her so much as a kiss, years since he's gone to her room. Yet all she can think of is getting free of him.

'Roy, Morrison could walk by at any moment and I still have to change–'

'Of course,' he mutters, letting her pass to the staircase. 'You'll have to do without Harriet, I'm afraid. She's hanging Dido's new drapes.'

'Oh Royal...' Anne sighs, looking down at him. 'It's such an extravagance when so many people are going without, I thought we had decided to keep the old ones. There'll be nothing left for our girl to return home to,' she says, referring to four poster bed and furnishings that have been purchased for Dido's room.

'Is it a crime to want to make her happy?' Royal replies, sending his wife a brilliant smile.

Anne gives him a small wave and turns away, knowing they are about to break their daughter's heart.

...

*The Red Cross provided nurse aids, ambulance drivers and catering services during the first world war.

*DC is a medal for Distinguished Conduct in battle

Thank you so much for reading my first ever AU. I've always wondered how Call Me Carrots manages to write so many stories simultaneously, and then I accidentally wrote this last night. I am still working on The Last of the Windy Willows Love Letters, but after being inspired by the war story, The Piper, the after the war story, Not As We Were, and especially, The Enamel Heart, I couldn't stop myself imagining this.

I hope you don't think I have stomped all over your story, BrightRiver, it is such a brilliant idea I wanted to try and write my own.

Katherine with a K