Tea and Sympathy
In which the family at the Manse are introduced; Ken, Walter and Di let loose; and Jem holds on for all he's got
The Manse, Harbour Road; the small hours of August 5th, 1914
A lone lamp flickered by the front door of the Manse and painted a yellow wedge on the cold stone porch. All else was wrapped in darkness except one window that winked like a child pretending to sleep. It belonged to the large front parlour, though it had always and ever been known as the Calling Room. A place where people, inspiration, and God no less, should be always welcome at any hour. Light here showed in chinks from clumsily drawn curtains. This in itself did not mean anyone stirred within. The minister, John Meredith, would often forget to extinguish the lamps and leave at least one candle burning throughout the night. And though it may have given comfort to those driven to his door as a lamb to the shepherd, or evidence to others he earned every penny of his stipend, that the house had never burnt to the ground showed Providence looked with a watchful eye over each and every Meredith.
Tonight Reverend Meredith thought it couldn't hurt to help Providence along and keep the door to the Calling Room firmly shut -no need for anyone else to hear the conversation occurring within. There was, however, no way of preventing its irascible tone reverberate into the hallway and up to the room directly above. Here sat John's wife, who among her many excellent qualities was often described as material proof of the Reverend's belief in 'hope over experience' as gentle hearted folk would say. Or his 'second go at it' by those with the stonier kind.
Her flaxen hair glowed white against the window pane as she waited in her unlit bedroom for the children to return from the dance at Four Winds. Unlit because she knew how Carl would roll his eyes to see Mother Rosemary perched on the window seat waiting up for them. And had it been yesterday Rosemary might have said that if he didn't like it next time she would watch for them all at the gate!
Oh, to return to yesterday when so slight a thing was all there was to trouble them.
In truth she sat in the dark because she did not want to see her face reflected back in the unforgiving window, hollow eyed and blotchy from the tears that had fallen an hour before. Tears that must still show in a dark patch on the lapel of John's black jacket. Rosemary foresaw she would spend many hours here in the coming months waiting for the children to return to them.
She saw two striding toward the Manse just as the handle of the door to her room was turned, and a little boy in crumpled flannel wobbled over to her.
"Bruce, come sit by me, darling," said Rosemary, glad that the dim room hid her face, and gladder still she had a wee, warm body to hold against hers. "Look out the window, do you see? Two little birds come back to us."
"Mother, I heard noises. Mother, what is Marmagebbon?"
"Look, Bruce, down there! Two fine birds at our gate, a black bird and cardinal. What do you suppose they could be chattering about?"
No sooner had she said this than she knew. The serious faces -and worse- not a sweetheart on either arm. The young men could only be talking of one thing. The same subject her husband was now mired in downstairs. Armageddon, indeed. Amos McAllister had no right to parade up here with the Good Book in hand predicting doomsday. And not because the old man sought solace but because he had foreseen this 'Great Reckoning' and wanted acknowledgement of the fact. Not for the first time Rosemary wished that people might remember John Meredith was not only father to his flock, but to his own children. She nuzzled into Bruce's soft, black hair and breathed in the wholeness and purity that was a small child. Could they not have one moment to reflect how war would affect their own before contending with the sanctimony of McAllisters?
"Jerry birdie and Jem birdie have all flown away..." Bruce yawned, and his mother peered out to the gate and saw that her little man was right. Jerry must already be inside, with the rest of the party coming up behind. She carried Bruce to her bed, tucking a thick Welsh blanket round him as he buried his flossy head into outsized feather pillows. A lamp was lit with the tiniest flame before she made her way down the grand old staircase to do what Minister's wives do best, and dole out the tea and sympathy.
… … …
"You'd better put in another spoon, I think," Jerry said, loosening the black bow-tie at his throat and rolling it neatly into his jacket pocket. His father would have dropped it unthinkingly upon the kitchen mantel, Rosemary thought with a little smile, as she dug the silver spoon back into her box of tea.
"The girls will be wanting it milky. And your father and Mr McAllister are taking something rather stronger than tea I expect. Am I to assume someone else is coming, I should have thought the Blythes would be making a beeline for Ingleside?"
One Blythe in particular came to mind. Their autumn coloured daughter -all nut brown hair, rosehip mouth and eyes like the first little blaze on the first squally day. Surely there to be were no more grand announcements tonight or she would have to join John and the port decanter herself.
"Yes and no, it's-
"Jem!" the two said at once.
"Well hit, Mother R. Yes, he's out in the garden," Jerry continued, though Rosemary was to understand that by garden he also meant dog-house.
Another woman might have responded with 'Nothing wrong, I hope?' But after all her years as the shoulder for the Glen to cry on Mrs Meredith knew such platitudes did more harm than good. Obviously something must be wrong for Jem Blythe to be skulking about in the dark with the catmint and phlox. There was only one in this world who could drive such a fellow to that. She found herself thinking of Faith now, their galloping, high-summer beauty, who could no more be parted from Jem Blythe than lightening from thunder.
There was no use muddling it out with Jerry, it was not the first time those two had come to a head over something. A butting of heads, wasn't that how Carl described it? Murder while you do it but lovely when you stop.
"Shall I take him his tea?" Rosemary asked, little knowing what she would say to the young man if she did. Jem Blythe's vivid manner and bright confidence could sometimes claim the sound from her voice.
"No. Faith should be here in a mo'. Might be better if she goes."
Nicely done, Rosemary thought, hiding a smirk in an especially careful pouring of the kettle into the teapot. Jerry Meredith had all the makings of an excellent minister, and she wished she could think of a phrase more apt than 'if the mountain won't come to Mohammed'. John would know, of course. Perhaps if she were to interrupt him with a question of doctrinal importance Mr Fire-and-Brimstone might finally take it upon himself to leave the way he came.
Presently the front door did sound and they were blessed with far more welcome additions, as Faith, Una and Carl came bounding into the hallway.
"Hello! Hello there!" was the silvery call, the lively tripping of three pairs of feet like a drum to all their piping.
In a flash of emerald silk came Faith. "Rose-Mother, what are you still doing up? Did Jerry drag you out of bed to make him his tea?" and she swooped through the dear, battered kitchen, giving her brother a tweak on his nose before kissing her step-mother's cheek.
"You haven't been to bed yet, have you, Mother Rosemary?" said Una, who already had the creamer in hand and poured it just so, from the dash to the dollop exactly as everyone preferred.
"No milk for that one, I think, Una," Rosemary said of the last cup in the queue, and looked at Faith. "That's right, isn't it, love, Jem doesn't take milk in his tea, does he?"
Faith went as white as the creamer's contents and she stole a look at her black-haired brother. Who, drat him, was eyeing up Carl's tie suspiciously -as if he didn't already know his younger brother had helped himself to it earlier that evening. Stop pretending not to notice and look at me, she wanted to cry. Instead she gave a little cough whilst Rosemary and Una stood with sugar bowl and milk jug respectively, all patient anticipation of Faith's answer.
"N-no, he doesn't," she stammered, followed by, "why?"
Oh darling girl! Rosemary thought, longing to take the flustered creature in her arms and squeeze the life out of her. How much easier it was to love a little child who could be depended upon to squeeze you back. Grown ups just seemed to give each other tea.
"Give him this then, there's a good girl," she said, and handed her a mug. Rosemary Meredith knew better than most that the late hour demanded a sturdy cup, when hands needed something strong and warm to hold onto.
Faith began to dart about the kitchen table before noticing Jerry pointing in the direction of the back door. She left the room with a face that was considerably pinker and a good strong brew for the lad who lurked outside. While Carl, Una, Jerry and Rosemary commenced big eyed exclamations at each other as they silently sipped at their own.
… … …
There was no room at the Inn they were told, but they were not so disappointed as they might have been. After Ken slipped the keeper a wad of notes they were then bestowed -in the manner of frankincense and myrrh- with two of the Coach house's best bottles of bubbly. Which Ken saw were not to be sniffed at, though Walter and Di would have happily guzzled it whatever the vintage.
There was still the matter of where they should go, until they discovered the bicycle. Then Ken played Joseph and naturally Di played Mary, so it was up to Walter to be donkey. And he balanced them all with the necessary skill of a child from a large family and not enough bikes, his sister straddling the cross bar, and sore-footed Kenneth on the back holding onto Walter's middle. With such a weight on the iron frame it took a few solid pushes on the pedals before they got going, but with the momentum of bodies and laughter and Newton behind them they were soon careening down the Harbour Road, and then -more from habit than forethought- clattering over the bridge and flying full tilt past the Manse.
It was on crossing that bridge and on sight of the Manse -or rather the thought of one daughter therein- that Walter began to sing, with a voice that would have brought tears to the eyes of many a guest at the White Sands Hotel.
"Daisy! Daisy! Give me your answer do..."
It was not long before Ken joined in, his velvety baritone resonating through Walter as he sang by his ear-
"I'm half crazy, all for the love of you!"
Di, who was carefully cradling the champagne in her lap with one hand whilst clinging onto the handlebars with the other, took a little more time to get into the swing. And had only just begun to sing how sweet Daisy would look on her seat, when she -and the two others behind her- lost theirs and went walloping into the sweet summer grass grown long in the Methodist cemetery.
Such collisions are never so much fun as they appear. After much rubbing of sore bits and language not meant for hearing, the three decided that if a manger was good enough for the Saviour, a graveyard was good enough for them. They piled around an obelisk crusted with yellow and worked out the cork of the first bottle of champagne.
"I say, Di Blythe, are there no end to your talents? To take a spill like that yet keep both bottles intact," Ken laughed, ignoring gentleman's rules and taking the first swig before passing it to the girl beside him.
"I wish I could say the same for my dress," Di replied, examining where the beaded applique had come unstitched. She did not even want to think about the grass stains, though it wasn't the stains so much as Susan's reaction to them that truly worried her. Wasn't there something about white wine taking out the stains of red? Did the same apply to champagne and grass she wondered, taking a little sip.
"Never mind Di, we'll all be in khaki soon enough. Then you can fall into graveyards as much as you like- Ow! What was that for?" Ken exclaimed.
"If you don't realise what you've just said to my sister, Ken Ford, then I think I will take that bottle off your hands," said Walter sharply. "In fact I don't like it here at all. There's something about gadding about amongst the headstones right now that seems to laugh at fate."
"Walter Blythe -I never took you for the superstitious type," Ken said.
"Full of surprises, that's me. Come along you two, the Valley's just through this woodsy bit. Why don't we go somewhere that stirs up happy memories, in the spirit of those old days?"
The spirit of those days. The phrase seemed to mock at Ken. He had said the very words to Rilla when they had walked along the sandbar... When was it? It felt like last year, yet it had only been a few hours ago.
There was worse to come when the first place they came to was Rilla Blythe's tree tower. Di had already kicked off her slippers and proceeded to climb the planks nailed into the trunk before Ken could convince her otherwise. She wouldn't get him up there, however. Ken could not have borne the memory that dwelled in that place, of a freckled girl in chestnut braids and a little smocked apron. The Rilla of two short years ago. He could see there would be no moving her sister on either (now currently in raptures about the much remembered sweetness and misremembered smallness of the hut in the treetops) and so slumped near the trunk below, pleading his old standby -the ankle. Walter too, preferred to stay on solid ground, but for a different complaint, that Di took almost all the room up there.
They lay in the grass and sent their conversations heavenward, though there was rather more drinking than talking. Di, who had the first bottle, far too busy enjoying the way the bubbles flew so creamily down her throat to even think of grass-stains now. Which is how she came to be asleep while the other two made quick work of the second.
"Di-lemma, darling?" Walter called up, wondering if his sister had any left.
"She's sozzled, look!" Ken laughed. They peered up at Di, whose face peeped over the edge of the treehouse platform, her chin propped on her forearm and eyelids shut in little smiles.
"Women!" Walter exclaimed, lying back and cradling his head in his hands.
"Couldn't have said it better, myself!" said Ken, chasing at a tingly drip that ran down his jaw and under his shirt collar. He tugged on the bow tie at his neck and it fell away easily -cracking work, Mim. The stiff collar was next to go. Would he ever get used to these things, even a clerical collar looked more comfortable, surely that couldn't be fair?
"Let's swear them off, forever, I say!"
"Amen," Ken replied, before realising that Walter was speaking of woman not celluloid. He turned his face skyward, there were no stars to be seen under the canopy they lay under. Just leaf upon leaf, dark and downturned like a million lowered lashes. "Yes," he declared, "no more slow waltzes-"
"No more unsuitable dresses-"
"No to silly slippers!" Ken crowed.
"And their kicking feet," Walter added.
"No more long letters-"
"And no more poetry-"
"No more poetry?-" Ken spluttered, rolling up on his elbow.
Walter laughed. So Kenneth Ford did like his poems after all! "Well, no more high romance then ...No more goddesses or queens or maidens-"
"Definitely no more maidens-"
"Nor quests or warriors of old-"
Ken eyed the boy spurning all he held dear. He knew that bitterness, the one that stamped its foot and declared if it couldn't have one thing then it wouldn't have anything. He began plucking at the grass, firing clumps of it at Walter's head.
"Oh, I don't know," Ken said, as Walter huffed at the green stuff that had fallen into his eyes. "Knights and warriors are rather necessary, don't you think?"
Walter turned so that the grass fell away, looking where it fell and not at his friend. "Quite right, Mr Ford. What would I else would write about if not great battles and fields of blood-" The fun had gone out of him now. What a fraud he was, writing of battles and yet terrified to engage in one.
"Exactly!" Ken said emphatically, not as oblivious as he wished he was to the brooding sound in Walter's voice. "That's the proper thing, isn't it? The stuff of men."
"Well, I'm all for the proper thing."
"Except ...it doesn't sell half so well, Walter," Ken winked at him, "as goddesses and queens and maidens do..." and he lay back in the grass, cradling his head as a certain young poet was known to do.
Dear old Ford. Just when you were in danger of taking yourself too seriously, here was Ken to make you laugh again.
"Well, I suppose I shall just have to be poor." This said as Walter returned the favour and dropped blades of grass all over Ken's head.
A tussle ensued to see who could cram the most leaf litter and dirt into the other's face. When it ended Walter had to remove his own collar and tie to get at the sticks and weeds that had been stuffed down his shirt. Ken could see something of Rilla in him, the way Walter's lashes lay on the topmost part of his cheeks as he felt about for anything else that lingered inside his clothing.
"So you're really swearing women off then?" Ken asked him.
"Said so, didn't I?" Walter chipped back. He began to straighten the lapels of his grey jacket and then stopped. "I have. I did..." his body slumping further with every word that followed. "I told her. Or rather... she told me."
"Faith?"
"Faith-less."
"What?" said Ken, "You mean she-"
"No! Oh God, no -nothing of the sort. I meant I'm faithless. At least Jem thinks I am."
Though neither would have thought it possible, Kenneth Ford was now overwhelmed with the exact desire the good wife of the Presbyterian minister had felt -still felt, as she spied Jerry pacing on the front porch of the Manse- wanting with all his heart to go to Walter and hold him tight. There wasn't even tea to offer him, just an empty champagne bottle lying on its side in the buttercups. And if not these goodly brews then there really was nothing. For if there are a hundred reasons why a mother must hold back, they are ten fold when it comes to the expression of feeling between men. It was a tangled thing this bond between Ken and Walter. And at its centre, inextricable, was Rilla.
"You really love her?"
"When you appear/ all the rivers sound/ in my body, bells/ shake the sky/ and a hymn fills the world/ ...Is that love?" Walter sighed, and flopped down on his stomach. "Do you know she said I write because I'm trying to understand the world. Maybe I am," he mused, dissecting a dandelion's toothy leaf in the manner of Carl Meredith. "Perhaps I'm merely trying to understand what it is to love."
"Well, be sure to let me know when you find out," Ken muttered.
"What? I thought you knew all about it-"
"I know about women, Walter. That is very different."
"What do you know?" he asked, studying him curiously.
What Ken knew was that if he met Walter's gaze he would see those Blythe eyes -Rilla's eyes- staring not at him, but into him. Realising that the reason he couldn't bear such fearless scrutiny was because he suspected there was not much inside him worth seeing. Susan Baker would have clapped her hands together and said, This is what comes of raising children in Toronto!
"Next to nothing -that's what I know," Ken answered.
But he did not add, And how I feel. Because it hadn't been nothing when he took Rilla's hand... Or when they walked along the sand... Or when she sat with him at the Lighthouse. Where she seemed not only with him but within him, filling him with a stupidly wonderful sense of possibility. The champagne did not take the trouble to remind Ken that Rilla could not be carried inside him like a melody or a good meal; that knowing this was not the same as knowing her. A stupidly wonderful smile broke upon his face, the kind that put dimples in his cheeks and a thoroughbred where Rilla's heart had been. One the war, their differences, and all that booze couldn't hope to stifle. Ken didn't even try to hide it. "And whatever you're going to say next," he laughed, "bally well don't!
"Well I can't, can I? We swore them off, remember?" said Walter, who had of course seen everything.
"Good man," Ken grinned. He shuffled next to his friend and gave into lassitude brought on by revelation and too much drink. And in giving in found nothing so sweet as sleep.
While Walter lay there next to him and shut those eyes against all he saw, but still could not.
… … …
Jem Blythe sat beneath a tree as overwhelmed as he was, perched upon a wooden bench that had been placed there with troubled souls in mind. His own soul not inclined to trouble it had not occurred to Jem to seek this place at first. When Jerry left he went to sit on the stone steps by the back door, and would have remained there if his thoughts had stayed still. Instead he paced along the paths cut into the lawn like moats about the garden-beds towering with their harvests. Only when every turn had been taken did he make his way to the little seat tucked under the quince tree bower.
For all mention of bowers, towers and moats the Meredith garden had not been made with romance in mind. It was a Minister's garden and must therefore exemplify those most sturdy of virtues, utility and husbandry. Every green thing had to earn its keep. Even the quince tree, which hung heavy with unripened pears in velvety golden-green. Jem saw Faith immediately, walking in the moonlight straight toward him on a path designed for wheelbarrows not lovers. There would be no chance happening-upon. He had all the time he needed to think of what to say. Which is why he had no one to blame but himself when the first thing he said when she approached him -cup in hand, eyes aflame- was,
"Where's Walter?"
Faith dropped the tea beside him, all thoughts of pressing it lovingly into his hands set coldly aside.
"Looking for Rilla. I thought you would have gone, Jem." She looked as if she was about to do the same.
He reached her hand and Faith recalled that forsaken moment when she had tried to do the same. But it was not within Faith Meredith to hold a grudge, why should she when it was his hand she wanted? Jem allowed himself a deep breath, the first since he had rowed them all so angrily from the Light, as Faith's fingers folded round his and she sat down beside him.
"It's all a bit of a mess, isn't it?" Jem noticed that Faith couldn't quite look at him as she spoke.
"Is it?"
"With you and Walter, and you and me, and..."
"And you and Walter," Jem said coldly.
"I'm not here to talk about your brother!"
Faith was all heat when she spoke of Walter, yet distant when she spoke to him. It couldn't be the war that made her so, Faith would be the first to enlist if she could. Was it -could it really be- that confounded book of poetry? The one that had all the Glen girls swooning, the one that spoke of Faith Meredith in a way that Jem could not. He tried to swallow, but it was like trying to force down one of those lumpen pears that dangled in the branches of the quince tree.
"Speak for yourself, then," Jem said hoarsely, as much to himself as to Faith. Because as he looked at the girl beside him the only words he could think of were the luminous words of his brother-
Like a tree of gold/ swaying her gifts/ Like a wave/ discharging lightening bolts
Walter's poems captured her spirit so perfectly, might they also capture her heart? Jem leaped from the bench and stood before her.
"Why don't you speak?" he demanded. When she still refused to meet his gaze he fell to his knees, weaving his fingers with hers as he had the night they first kissed. "What is it Faith? What's happened?"
She couldn't help but look at him now, and saw that while his eyes were hot and imploring his body seemed stiff and awkward. He was Jem and he was not. The Jem she knew, the fiery haired, fiery hearted man was not the sort to kneel at her feet. The Jem she knew, who spoke of brotherhood, not the man who laid so coldly into Walter.
"What's happened to you, Jem?"
"Happened to me? Nothing …and every-bally-thing!" It all came out now, released from inside and offered to her with all that he was. "I know now, Faith, I mean I know-"
"What do you know?"
"What I am meant for. To be a real man one must know to his very soul what he was meant to do. And then do it. Fearlessly. With all his heart-"
The sacred chill of truth being spoken rang throughout his body. He thought he'd understood his father's words, proudly offered on the news of Jem's acceptance to medical school. But he didn't know it, not truly, until now. Jem looked to burst with passion and life. So alive the only thing Faith could think of was of the day he would not be. That there might be a white wooden cross waiting to have James Blythe's dear name printed on it, while she must remain in the world they had made without him.
"You were meant to die in battle, were you? You, who knows where to find the first of the mayflowers, and the bluest robin's eggs, the most fragrant honeycomb, and the- the secret tree? Our secret tree. You are meant to leave these things and die in another land!"
"What are you saying -that Walter's right? That-"
"I'm saying I don't want to lose you, Jem!" Faith loosened her hands and cupped his face. The face that was more than handsome to her, but divine and best in all the world.
"So don't!"
"What?"
Jem gazed at her, wide eyed and flushed, pulling her hands into his chest. "Marry me!"
"What!" Faith watched him like one who sees but does not believe, as Jem lifted up one knee and planted his foot on the ground.
"Walter's book... this war... my future, it all comes back to you. I'm in love with you, Faith... I -I love you."
"Love me?"
"Do... do you not?"
A cold shard went into him, one that he knew would numb him eventually, he had only to live with intolerable pain until then. Not the loss of all those faithful mutts, nor the fever that threatened to claim Walter -or the day Jem read his twelve page ode To Rosamond, not even the unknowable and unspeakable horror of the years to come came close to this moment. His heart seemed to stop and did not start again until Faith would speak.
But she wasn't speaking, she was smiling wildly. And in between her smiles raining kisses on his cheeks, his nose, his hair. Her body thrumming with beats proclaiming, Of course, he loves me! Of course, he loves me! Jem Blythe, who lived a life that was bold and blessed, had been overcome with wretchedness for only one reason -the thought he might lose her. Only once she understood did she find her voice.
"Oh, James Blythe, oh my heart, did you not know?" Faith murmured into him. "You, who have always been able to find what is best and beautiful in this world, never once thinking of keeping it for yourself. From that first day we met in the Valley... Oh, I knew it then. And I know it now... There could never be anyone else. Never has been," she said, kissing above one hazel eye, "never will be," kissing the other.
He opened them and looked at her, bringing her fingers to his mouth and covering them with kisses of his own. Not until each fingertip, and the braided river of veins at her wrists, and delicate crease inside her elbows had been anointed did Jem remember he still did not have his answer.
"Do you love me, Faith?"
"Love you? Why else would I be kissing you every chance that I can get-"
"Because I'm good at it?"
"You're good at everything, you're good at life!"
"I'll be a good husband," Jem said, shyly, "What do you say, Faith, my knee's about to give out."
"Gladly, joyfully, yes, yes, yes! I love you, Jem, I love you-"
She pulled Jem up toward her, about to press her lips to his when she laughed into his mouth as they heard faint strains of 'A bicycle built for two' being sung full pelt by two rowdy but rather harmonious voices.
"...Give me your answer do, I'm half crazy all for the love of you!"
The laughter was short lived, consumed by joy far more intense. There were no more words to say, nothing heard but small sighs and the whispering leaves. Jem and Faith standing beneath the boughs holding each other as they had that day they discovered their secret tree. Unfortunately there were quinces to contend with this time. Jem's auburn head knocking them about, until one fell with a decided plop straight into the mug of cold black tea.
… … …
same poetry fragment from Fickle One
Thank you for reading :o)