"Yes, you'll both keep faith-I'm sure of that-you and Una. And so-goodnight. We go over the top at dawn"
The Glen was a sleeping child, nestled in its bed of lush grassy sand dunes with a rust red ribbon of a road weaving its way over the rolling hills. But behind her fluttering eyes were the horrors of a vivid nightmare. One where your legs cannot carry you fast enough and your voice is not loud enough to cry for help. One when the evil wins and you wake in a cold sweat surrounded by an empty darkness.
The skies were a deep purple. The windows were all dark and behind them blanched faces waited in fear while blue tinged bodies coughed out scarlet foam, suffocating slowly in the failed struggle for the air that surrounded them. Five dark crimson mounds of dirt, newly turned, lay still while sparkling grey stones marked their places; delicate pink flowers at their base were watered with tears. Masks, a uniform white, dotted the terrain; and everyone placed their hope in them. On many doors was a sign of the times, one bold word in darkest and most sorrowful ink; QUARANTINED. It meant hope was lost and they were left to die. It meant contagion and disease. It meant the Spanish influenza had come and none were safe.
In the garret window of the manse were a pair of candy blue eyes, wide and hollowed by tears. The girl kneeled, her head bowed and her eyes upturned in hope, her hands clasped in desperate plea. A tear glistened on her cheek and she let it fall, sniffling a little. She felt like a child, dependent and frightened.
We all need to know that something or someone will catch us when we collapse, that the bad in the world will end and the good will endure. Something we all tell children. That there will be a happy ending someplace at sometime and everything will be alright then.
The stars were reassuring; she could believe that there might be a happy end for them all in their presence. But the sight of the vacant windows and in sensing the sordid stench of melancholy in the air, Una Meredith knew that there would be no end. There was no cure and no hope. The boys save one would return to a ghost town, a ghost world, and empty houses. And she could do nothing to fight this invisible foe, the enemy on the home front.
Una wished with a choked throat and heavy heart that she could be brave like Faith. Faith was working at a convalescence hospice in Charlottetown, to care for the sick until they died. The most tragic thing was that there were simply not enough people to care for the stricken; under careful and gentle care there might have been a chance, but there were too many, and the nurses and doctors were not immune either.
But most people could not even make it to the hospital in time; many died it their houses, their loved ones near and powerless knowing that they too may soon fall.
The selfless fire of bravery that blazed in Faith's eyes when she told them all she was leaving again after only just returning from overseas caught and snagged at something in Una's chest. She only just realized how much like her mother Faith was, not in looks, but in spirit. Running out to face an almost certain death, in a reckless and impulsive stunt of courage. They would have made good soldiers Faith and her mother. Not Una. Una hid from danger, too well and too often.
She and her father were not like Faith. She had seen him hide and keep to himself for years after their mother's death and whereas Faith and the others had become independent in his absence, she saw herself hiding out too. People labeled her as quiet and shy, and she hid behind that as well. It excused her from normal activities. It excused her from life. She was allowed to watch from the window, like how Carl watched them play at recess, from the schoolhouse, when his arm was broken.
"Where's Una?"
"She's shy."
"Oh right. Of course."
And nobody asked questions. Everyone accepted that Una could not; she was simply shy. She was a clear-cut shy and nothing else. There was no cause or reason. She just was. They needed that label, to understand and to explain. They went no further than that.
"What's the matter with Una? She looks a little sad."
"She's shy."
"Oh yes how silly of me."
Then she recalled a memory that still stung. Walter had not accepted it. He didn't let her off easy like the rest.
"Why won't you look at me Una?"
"I-I'm shy?" she tried in a mutter, blushing; knowing that the excuse would not work on him.
"No you aren't. Not really." He caught her blue eyes in his gray ones and held them there.
"I-I..."
He waited for her to finish and then said with an uncharacteristic bitterness, "I think you'd like us all to believe that. But I won't. You're just afraid and you don't have to be. There's nothing to be afraid of except what you might miss. I think you're just scared of yourself. That people might see you for what you really are and it might not be good enough-"
"That's not fair!" she let her eyes fall again
"You don't have to step down. You are good enough Una! I-I want to show you that you're good enough. You deserve everything that she does." His eyes were almost imploring
Una let out a little sob of surprise. Was perhaps her second deepest secret that obvious for anyone who cared to look? And then an anger of realization surged inside her. She remembered Walter's fallen face when Jem and Faith started sweet hearting. She was furious. Faith was everything she ever wanted to be, and she was also everything she could never be. Handsome, bubbly, spunky Faith and homely and shy and sullen Una. She started to feel sick and overexposed as though he'd caught her in her nightgown.
These thoughts flew through her head and she felt ashamed and disgusted with herself. It was not Faith's fault she was beautiful, it was not Walter's fault for being heartbroken. She scolded herself for believing that Walter Blythe would actually have meant it when he asked her to go for a walk with him. Angry that she had gotten her hopes up, making the wounds all the deeper .She begged her burning tears not to fall.
"I am not Faith." She said calmly and steadily
"No, you are Una. So stop hiding that." He took her hand and she was tempted, oh she was tempted. But she drew hers away. She would not let Walter do this to himself.
"I have to go" she took one last look in his face, it was crestfallen and she sensed a deep disappointment. But she turned on her heel and walked where the tears fell. No one was home, nobody asked questions.
He left a week later. He hugged her just as he hugged everyone else. She held on a little too long. And then he was gone.
She glanced up and saw the shining constellations in the sky. Separate stars forming something bigger than themselves. If they were there for nothing more than to give people faith on earth, then that was enough, they had done enough. She saw her reflection in the glass; the stars shone their fire into her eyes.
There were things worth fighting for; there were things worth dying for. If only to be one sacrifice in a sea of stars than it was enough. Maybe no lives would be saved. But to know that she fought, it was enough, she was good enough. Una knew then and there what she had to do.
Una threw on a coat; the spring air was still chilled with winter's frost. She gathered up some cloth and tied a mask around her small face' breathing in the smell of fabric making it flow in and out with each shuddering breath. She knew that it was unlike her. That people would be confused. But she was past caring. Una refused to hide behind the same old walls. She had built them from the ground up, to keep her in and them all out. They came crashing down.
She was good enough.
Rosemary and Bruce were upstairs in their beds. The light was on in the study. Her father was asleep, his face stuck to a page of a book. Una tip toed in, pulled down her surgical mask and kissed his graying head. He was a good man, she could only ever dream of being half as good as him. But he allowed things to hurt him too deeply in a world where there was so much pain.
She would not hide out from it all anymore. Not like he had, not when people needed her. She blew out his candle and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, and then she headed out the door into the night.
Not knowing exactly where her feet were leading her, she followed willingly along the familiar paths towards Ingleside where she knew Rilla lay in feverish delusion. Rilla, who was always ready to let love into her heart and welcome friends into her soul.
There was a light in the kitchen window; Mrs. Blythe and Susan were awake. Una knocked on the back door and a tired Susan, frail from torment appeared at the window, squinting into the darkness. Una stepped into the light and watched Susan's eyebrows rise questioningly. The door swung open.
"I am here to see Rilla." Said Una unfalteringly
"Come in dear." Susan said soothingly through her white mask with an undertone of sadness
Una stepped in the door and looked around her. Mrs. Blythe saw that this was a woman changed. Something was alight from within her; a white hot flame in her steel blue eyes which looked them in theirs brazenly. Something was there that would not be extinguished by man or disease.
"But you can't see Rilla. S-she's got the flu." Anne said quietly.
"I know Mrs. Blythe. I am going upstairs. You both stay down here and keep your masks on please."
Una headed for the stairs which ascended into darkness, but Susan stood up suddenly.
"The doctor told us that no one should go up there, it's highly contagious... We've done all we can for the poor lamb. There's nothing more you can do Una. Nothing..." Susan spoke softer than Una had ever heard her speak and she could hear plainly that Susan's heart was breaking with all the might it took to keep her in the kitchen from Rilla. Mrs. Blythe's red eyes told the same tale. But Una stayed her course.
"I know Susan. I know it's hopeless. But I know that I've got try. Please don't stop me. And please stay down here, do not follow me. You have the others to think of. I need...I need to do this."
She walked into Rilla room. The shades were closed and all she could see was Rilla's heaving outline, by the light of the moon. She heard her rambling murmurs under her heavy wheezing. Una saw signs that the doctor had been there, but the doctor had gone, there were people everywhere praying that something might be done, that someone might come. But the doctor only had two hands.
Rilla's feet were in a fragrant bath that had cooled down making her shiver though she was sweating.
Una emptied her supplies on the floor. She knew a little about the medicine from Faith's letters. But there was nothing for this stealthy malady. Una took Rilla's feet out of the bath and heard a small groan escape from her mouth; Rilla took on another fit of gurgling coughing.
"Is that you Una?" she said weakly and like one dazed
"Yes Rilla. Shhh. It will be okay now go back to sleep."
Una straightened the covers and brought a glass of water to Rilla's blue lips. Rilla drank thirstily and then collapsed back onto her pillows. Una then set about doing the only thing that she was sure how. She made a mustard plaster.
She knew that modern medicine said they were nothing more than an old wives tale, but no childhood cough at the manse had ever gone passed Aunt Martha's ears without the lot of them being weighed down with the putrid scent of it soaking through the sheets. She took a white cloth from the bag and ran down the stairs past the white faced ladies peering around the landing, to get the mustard powder and the baking soda. They asked no questions only watched her fly by and by anon.
Una almost teared up at the desperateness of it all. She laid the plaster on Rilla and felt her forehead. She was burning and Una's heart was frozen as it sunk. Absently she called downstairs for some Quinine, after a revelation of its virtues. Una remembered Faith saying they gave it to the men who had la Grippe. It was worth a shot.
She retrieved it from Susan's trembling hand and gave a dosage to Rilla who took it without complaint. She straightened Rilla's sheets and pulled up the quilt. Rilla's breathing was uneven and raspy, but the sharp intakes of breath grew closer together and more steady as she drifted into an uneasy sleep.
"Please Rilla. Fight it," her voice wavered into a whisper, "you're a fighter."
Una pulled up a chair and soaked a cloth in a basin of water she'd retrieved and then she dabbed at Rilla's brow. Her actions stopped having preliminary thoughts, consequences or correlation. All she knew was that Rilla needed to get better. The women downstairs ceased to exist and Una felt her consciousness floating off to join the better days. It was just a nurse and her patient in their truest form that night. One was healing and one being healed, no thoughts or feelings of elsewhere, only an instinct to cure and heal. Time lost all place in their world. Una waited patiently and gradually the fever subsided and Rilla fell into a deep sleep.
Una swept up her things and moved on. She asked Susan to let her Father know that she would not be home for a while. She went first to the houses where she knew that someone was sick; she did all she could for them and then continued ever on, floating by the awestruck bystanders. The word spread of the quiet angel who shed light with a gentle hand and her starry eyes. Una went on for days without rest. She ended up in a poor fishing village, where she went door to door, family to family, person to person, soul to soul. Doing whatever she could, and it was enough.
Faith got leave from the hospital in Charlottetown to return home for a few days. The head nurse said she looked run off her feet, in truth everyone did; but Faith was grateful. She took the train to the Glen station, its rhythmic roar a soundtrack to her journey along the coast of Abegweit. Once she arrived she was greeted by Dog Monday's kisses.
"Don't worry Monday, he'll be home soon. I just know it." she said patting the mutt's head affectionately
She waltzed home through Rainbow Valley, its nostalgic air still as rich with myth and enchantment as ever, but she could not help expecting to see the old crowd, just beyond that tree or only a few steps ahead around that bend. She pictured them all as children still, though they were all young men and women now. As if the past several years were only a frightening dream that she would wake up from and Una would squeeze her hand and tell her that it would all be okay. The woods still had that effect on her; she shook her pale curls and walked on.
A white naked birch tree stood up ahead, its bows swaying in time to the howl of the sea. Faith's eyes scanned the white landscape inhaling the sweet-smelling pine and the distinct scent of salty snow.
She saw something out of the corner of her eye that made her drop the book she was holding, to where it splashed into a puddle and lay face down, the words drowning in the mud. Faith's heart seized up and she held up her skirts as she ran towards the motionless heap, crying out in heartbreaking sobs. It was a girl, crumpled over and on her side. Her sky blue skirt was spread out beneath her and her masses of black hair fanned across the ground.
Faith reached her and turned her over roughly. She gathered up her sister's small body in her arms and rocked her gently back and forth shaking her head and weeping freely. She stayed there for a long time until she was released from the grip of shock.
"Wake up Una. Won't you wake up?" Faith sobbed, her voice became louder and she broke out into hysterics. Tears caught in her throat. "I need you to wake up Una. Please, please just open your eyes. Please?"
She had treated thousands of nameless soldiers, gotten over the initial shock of gore and death and tragedy and a bit her lip and braved it all. But she could not remember protocol for her only sister. The sister who she'd left at home alone so she could take on the world by herself. She could not bring herself to look at Una's sweet face. All she could do was kneel there rocking her sister and holding her close and tightly, her eyes and throat stinging but she was at a loss, and she stared up into the coldgrey sky.
There were no happy endings, because there were no endings at all. Everything was a beginning of something new. All anybody ever had to decide was what to do with the middle once things had begun. It was so simple and yet so difficult. Una's end was a beginning, a happy one, perhaps only atiny star in a sky full of them,but she played a part and she had kept faith. Nobody ever asked anything more from anyone.
Faith took a deep breath and looked down upon her sister's face. Asmile on Una's purple lips extended to her eyes and soul. Her colorless mask lay torn in two on the ground beside them.
She had let go of everything and she had done her best. And it was enough.
"The 1918 has gone: a year momentous as the termination of the most cruel war in the annals of the human race; a year which marked, the end at least for a time, of man's destruction of man; unfortunately a year in which developed a most fatal infectious disease causing the death of hundreds of thousands of human beings. Medical science for four and one-half years devoted itself to putting men on the firing line and keeping them there. Now it must turn with its whole might to combating the greatest enemy of all--infectious disease," (12/28/1918).