Chapter I
Christmas is somehow different each year although the preparations for it are always the same in both quality, quantity, time and volume.
Christmas came incredibly quickly in the year of 1939 for Hester and her family. Too quickly almost even though people might think that Christmas can never come too quickly, but it really can if there's a reason for it and there really was this time.
Nothing changed at the first glance: the fluffy white snow was lying all around Glen and Four Winds, covering everything it possibly could; the wind was freezingly cold and the air was quiet and soundless only when children didn't play anywhere around or when they weren't building a snowman.
But what was changed was the situation Hester and her family were facing in that very moment, the situation which made the Christmas of 1939 less joyous than it always had been. The war broke out just a few months earlier although it seemed to everyone as if it was on forever already. This alone caused the atmosphere of the Christmas table to feel a bit stiff, as if the air itself was stretched out in a painful manner which would be stretched out for a split of a second and then come back to its original shape and then become stretched out all over again.
The war news was known by everyone in Hester's family and her own self too. They all knew about the HMS Duchess and HMS Barham which were sank down by the Germans and they also knew about the fact that the Soviet Army assaulted Taipale as well as that the first Canadian troops have already arrived in Europe. All of those facts and many more were able to make their blood run cold.
The addition to this pain of knowledge about the world falling apart were two boys sitting next to each other and playing cards as if nothing at all could have disrupted their lives although this something would definitely do just that in less than just two weeks' time. Gilly and Marshall enlisted as soon as the war broke out and they both enlisted to the Royal Canadian Air Force and were already past their first training in Canada, waiting to be sent off to England for the next couple of months of further training before facing the reality of going to the front.
It was hard not to look at them and worry over them and yet it was also difficult not to at least smile softly at the picture of hope both of them represented. Gilly had just finished his first year of architecture at the Redmond College when the war started and considered going off to war as a "break from his studies" which he claimed he deserved and in truth everyone agreed with him on that because for all the jolly and silly boy of nineteen that he still was, he was very hard-working and very ambitious, not to mention incredibly handsome (a spitting image of Ken with Rilla's frecles made every girl's heart to melt as soon as her eyes would meet his).
Marshall was also just as cheeky and as mischievous as he was when we last saw him. Although he did "catch" a sweetheart of his own in the form of beautiful but also trouble-making Jo Meredith. Marshall didn't decide to go to Redmond like his best friend did, instead he was happy giving private art lessons and the rest of the time he spent working on the local farm, the farm belonging to Carter Flagg's oldest son.
Hester couldn't help but smile while looking at both of them playing cards together under the Christmas tree. Both of them were so handsome, she knew that Marshall was handsome with his brown curls and green eyes even though he still (unbelievable as it was) teased her and called her a "kid". They were both so happy in that moment, they were less worried about themselves than anyone else from their families which in itself gave hope and faith to others about their uncertain future. But then Hester would notice that boyish glimpse in their eyes and she would sigh nervously, backing the tears coming into her eyes.
"Hester, Hester," Lily put her arm around her friend and sat down next to her on the sofa in the Ingleside's living room with her everlasting smile on her frecled face "-don't you dare think those gloomy thoughts today! It's Christmas! It's the time when nobody should worry about anything, dear." she kissed Hester's cheek readily and giggled as sweetly as she always could.
Lily didn't change much as well. Her spirit was just as wild, just as beautiful and fresh as it alwasy has been. Although she did grow up to be taller and her figure was fuller, she was sixteen after all, and she had to study more as she was in her first yeat at Queen's having a plan of becoming a lawyer all the same in her mind. But there was one other thing that was different about Lily and that was that she was in fact, in love.
Lily's heart had the tendency to start beating as fast as crazy drums whenever she would see John, the son of Nan and Jerry and the best friend of Selwyn and Walt. But her heart would also break just as quickly because she knew like everyone else that John was in love himself, in Vance's sister Cornelia. The hardest part was that Cornelia already had a sweetheart, John's best friend, Walt. That was the reason why John was avoiding Cornelia and especially when she was together with Walt because he didn't want to break his bestfriend's heart even though his own was already broken. But even that wouldn't make Lily miserable, she was too strong for that.
It was incredible that so much changed during that year and a half since Hester, her siblings and her parents moved back to the House of Dreams. She herself didn't change much, although she did get taller, like Lily, and her personality matured even more, if that's possible. She was just fifteen but everyone who knew Hester even just a tiny bit knew that she could speak as wisely as a fifty year old woman when the time was right. Her passion for music grew only stronger and fiercer and her music skills were getting better and better too with each movement of a bow she would make.
"Oh! Look who our girls brought!" Lily exclaimed merrily as both Marion and Vance sat down next to their friends on the sofa with two small babies in their arms assisted by Ada hopping alongside them.
"Aren't cousin Bruce's girls the sweetest?" Marion asked them when she kissed the chubby face of a nine-month old Violet in Marion's motherly manner.
"They most certainly are!" Lily said and cooed over little twin of Violet, Rose who was held by Vance very carefully.
"And they are so calm too." Vance added and smiled softly at Rose.
"I wish I knew what they are thinking about right now." Hester said wonderingly looking at the perfect tiny fingernails of Violet's. All the girls surrounding her looked thoughtfully at the twins and sighed deeply into thinking before they realised that Owen Ford started dancing with his wife Leslie right next to them, twirling her around as if they were both two young lovers once again. The sound of the radio was filling the room and everyone slowly started to find partners and started dancing themselves, but because there was hardly any space left in the living room Lily suggested for the girls to go out and take a walk down the Rainbow Valley instead and so they put the twin-girls into Rosemary's open arms and headed off for their small adventure.
"Isn't it the most beautiful day for Christmas?" Ada asked her friends as they walked through the winter valley of snow and heavenly peace.
"It really is." Lily replied cheerfully.
"I hope that this day will never end." Hester said absent mindedly, her hazel eyes turning darker than they naturally were.
Vance instinctally squeezed Hester's shaking hand through the gloves she wore and smiled at her softly "Hester you must be more hopeful." she said calmly, although her own heart ached while thinking about her older brother going off to a far off world full of horror in just a matter of days.
"I know, I know." Hester sighed miserably "-it's just getting harder to do when you realise that they actually will go off to England."
Marion took Hester's other hand and Lily started to walk in front of Hester and faced her so she had to start walking backwards "Hes, they will be careful." she said assuringly "As boyish and childish they both are right now, they will be careful. I'm sure they will." Lily smiled caringly at her friend who smiled back at her, with a bit happier eyes.
"I know that too." she replied with a lighter heart "I'm sorry, girls, I don't want to spoil Christmas time for any of you anymore…"
"Oh, please, Hester, talk to us about anything that bothers you any time." Ada patted Hester's shoulder with a gentle smile on her face which all the girls surrounding her returned back.
"Thank you, dear Ada." Hester said more merrily and then looked at each of the girls again "But let's change the subject now. Let's talk about… Oh! Did you know that Phillip might come to Four Winds for the next summer?" she asked them all, her cheeks turning suddenly redder, and not from the cold air around her.
Lily, Marion and Vance got suddenly more excited and jumped as if they were one "I didn't know!" Lily exclaimed with a happy smile on her face "But then Phillip doesn't correspond with any of us as much as he does with you." she winked at Hester knowingly and Hester's chuckled.
"Oh, Lily, we've talked this over before." Hester said.
"But you must at least have the inkling that Phillip might, just a little bit be in love with you?" Lily said and looked deeply into Hester's eyes, making the other girls laugh and Hester to raise her eyebrows.
"No I don't, Lily." she said decidedly "And can we please start talking about something…" she started with her cheeks blushing again.
"Don't you think that Hester and Phillip would make such a beautiful couple?" Lily said theatrically and other girls giggled "And just think about it: their children would be so sweet!" she laughed merrily herself seeing how Hester's face was growing redder and redder and her eyes were trying to catch a spot on the snow which was safe to look at.
"They would be just so perfect for each other!" Ada exclaimed happily and then she looked at Hester apolegetically "I'm sorry dear, it just slipped out." she said and put her arm into Hester's own.
"Yes, Hes, sorry." Lily said as well and kissed Hester's cheek gently "Please forgive us?" she said.
"I don't think there's a thing I wouldn't forgive you girls." Hester said with her face brightening up again and her embarrassment reflecting in her eyes slowly vanishing "Besides who knows what the future might bring to all of us?" she asked them with a small twinkle in her eyes which each of the girls around her adapted in their own pairs of eyes.
"Girls come back!" Jem shouted out to them from the back garden of Ingleside suddenly "We're about to serve the dessert! And I know you wouldn't want to miss that!"
"Sure we wouldn't, dad!" Lily shouted back and the girls linked their hands together and so all of them started to race each other and pushing one another while running towards the old Ingleside and the Christmas dessert, their youth glowing from them like the stars appearing on the night's sky. They all knew that they needed that small amount of glow for their own good on that day because the days of gloom were somewhere in their future whether they wanted them or not.
Just as suddenly as the month of December started it ended with a flush of freezing air and a spoonful of worry waiting just around the corner. Just as the Japanese troops were counter-attacking China to relieve one of their Divisions, Hester's life was starting to change, and not for the better.
After Christmas most of Hester's cousins came back to their own homes and going-ons. Ada and David came back with their parents Di and Jack to Avonlea, Bruce and his family came back to Kingsport and Jo came back to Redmond College to finish her English degree in which she had no interest at all.
Everyone was simply astonished by Jo's behaviour in that month, the last month of the year 1939. It was official that she and Marshall were courting for almost two whole years and Jo was simply devasted when her "dear dearie" Marshall enlisted. Nobody was surprised to hear the first part of the story of the two of them on the day after Christmas. The first part was that Marshall proposed to Jo which was such a romantic gesture concerning the fact that everyone always thought that Marshall would never want to marry before the age of fifty. However everyone was shocked by the second part to the story which was that Jo rejected his proposal. She laughed at him as if it was a joke and said that she doesn't love him enough to marry him and she's not sure she ever will. Marshall of course had the New Year's Eve ruined entirely because of that and his face was a definition of agony for the first few days after Jo refused him.
Hester, who never particularly like Marshall because of him teasing her and calling her names whenever he could, felt sorry for him and could nothing but wonder what was the matter with Jo's personality. Not only she broke the heart of an innocent person, Jo as simply and carelessly left Glen a day before New Year's Eve and came back to Redmond not caring to wish Marshall a good luck before shipping off to England. Jo's parents, Nan and Jerry, spent the whole night after her departure to Redmond discussing where, oh from where, she inherited this kind of personality.
That was another reason why the day of saying farewells to both Marshall and Gilly on that snowy day in January was even harder than it was supposed to be. Marshall had a very blank expressionless smile on his face which was meant to calm down the nerves of his sisters and his parents but it only brought them more sorrow.
Gilly was as jolly as he could be, considering the fact that his best friend had a broken heart, and everyone from the older generations could very easily see the gleam of adventure shining in his still childish eyes which was the same gleam as his father and his uncle Jem had in their eyes twenty years earlier.
Mary and Rilla were sharing knowing looks with each other from time to time, both holding onto their oldest sons and having one of their hands squeezed by their own husbands. Rilla was smiling bravely, all of her nervous tears were shed a night before, and she had her hand in Gil's for the whole hour while at the train station when everyone was nervously waiting for the dreaded train to come which was supposed to take the young almost twenty year old boys of their families to a very different world they still had to learn about.
The whole station was buzzing with whispers of goodbyes between lovers, brothers and sisters, sons and their parents and friends between friends too. Hester was standing right next to her father and her oldest brother, gazing up into his eyes wondering when (and with a small very frightful whisper in her mind "if") Gilly would come back to them.
She was in a way grateful that only her parents, Selwyn, Marshall's parents and his siblings along with Anne and Gilbert where at the train station to say final goodbyes to their boys. It made the farewell easier to transfer in her mind, it made her think that it wasn't that much of an importance as it might have been with their whole family at the station.
Vance and Hester also shared their knowing glances with each other, both looking up to see the faces of their tall, handsome and so very young older brothers. Hester, just like her mother, fought bravely with her own fears and was smiling as widely as she could whenever Gilly would put his arm around her shoulder or wink at her reassuringly.
Selwyn on the other hand had quite a miserable grin on his sweet face. His soul of a poet, so similar to his uncle Walter's, was aching at the thought that the world was facing death and the shed of blood for no reason at all and also that his own brother was going to face it all with his own eyes. But Selwyn's smile always widened a bit whenever Gilly would nudge him at the side and say "Cheer up, Wyn. I'll come back sooner than you think." with Gil's old smirky way of smiling.
All of this, all of this buzzing and whispres stopped as soon as a loud and clear whistle of an upcoming train filled the air and it seemed as if hearts of everyone at the station froze at the sound, and not because the freezingly cold wind just blew onto their faces.
Rilla put her trembling hands on her oldest son's face and kissed his nose ever so tenderly remembering everything about him since the day he was born to this present day at the train station and she knew she had to let him go. Ken hugged his son tightly while telling him to always stay careful with every single step he does and a single tear rolled down his own cheek too, even though Ken swiftly wiped it away.
Gilly was then hugged by both of his grandparents, Anne and his own namesake Gilbert, who wished him all the luck a world can ever give him. Then it was time for the two brothers to share their brotherly warm hug, a wordless goodbye. They both knew well what each was thinking and so no words were spoken apart from Selwyn saying "Be safe." and Gil replying "I will, Wyn.".
Hester's lips were trembling by then and she let small tears fall down her flushed cheeks as soon as Gilly held her up around her waist and she put her arms around his neck "Oh, Gilly, Gilly," she whispered into his ear partly covered by his military cap "-come back to us, come back to us." she was saying desperately.
Gilly put her down on the ground and smiled at her merrily "Of course I will, dear Hes. Take care of everybody you dear girl." and he kissed her cheek one more time before moving up to Marshall's parents and passing Marshall who was moving up to Hester's family to say his goodbyes to them too.
"Hopefully I'll come back to call you a kid once more, Hester." Marshall said to a black-haired girl who looked at him with still glistening tears in her eyes.
"I might be too old for you to call me a kid when you come back." she said to him, trying her best not to think about his teasing tone which could be heard even through his gloomy voice.
"Nah, you'll always be a kid to me, Hes." Marshall managed a small smile and pulled her braid from under her winter hat "Take good care of yourself though." and he headed off to say goodbye to Selwyn.
As soon as it all started, Gilly and Marshall were on the train waving their hands off through the narrow window of the train, only their heads and their hands sticking out of it. Everyone waved, everyone was shouting "God bless! And good luck!" and all Hester could do was to put one hand in Selwyn's hand, her other in Vance's hand and to sqeeze them both hard, feeling that it would be a very very long time before everyone would see those boys, or at least most of them, again.
And so here is the first chapter to the sequel of "Hester of Golden Bells". Hopefully you enjoyed reading it and I would love to know exactly what you think about it so feel free to review it! :)
In advance, I thank you all for reading and I hope that you will enjoy this story as much as I am enjoying writing it for all of you. Until the next time. - Bathsheba Blythe