Spring came fleetly to the Island that year. All at once, seemingly overnight, it seemed the snows melted and the crocuses began to unfurl themselves from muddy ground. Rommel, the Desert Fox, moved for Tobruk in North Africa. Yugoslavia—valiant Yugoslavia—fell to the Axis. How glad they had been for its bravery—what a crushing blow came to their spirit to hear it had been taken!
"There are times," said Penny Meredith with a collapse of spirit, "That I wonder what kind of a world it is that I'm bringing my child into. Will he or she suffer as we have suffered? Will Canada be a German colony—will my baby grow up to be a Nazi?"
"Oh, Aunt Penny, don't speak like that," said Cecilia, beseechingly. "Can't you take any heart from the fact that we have beaten the Germans once? Mother and Daddy's war came out on the side of right—so surely ours will, too."
Penelope smiled at the girl's faulty logic, but did not attempt to point out the flaw in her argument. Perhaps she even did 'take heart' from it—the idea that good will always win out in the end. But then her smile faded.
"Only twenty years between that war and this," she sighed. "Human beings are frail of mind and will never learn. What if we do win this war—and there is another, in 1968? And 1988—and on into the next millennium, world without end, amen. I recall that old story Bruce's mother told me, about his childhood in the first war. 'Tell Jem I'll be along soon to help him fight the Huns.' She thought Bruce would never have to fight, but now he is in France with the Canadian 2nd. His turn has come. My little baby will escape this war—but perhaps he will fight in the next."
"You are tired," said Cecilia. "Lay down here and I'll cover you with this afghan, and read to you for a while. I've just had a letter from cousin Leslie that I know you will enjoy. She's doing V.A.D. work in Montreal—she has three boys wild for her but she doesn't care a whit for them—it's better than a soap opera and it's five pages long. By the time I've finished, you'll be more yourself again."
Penny was asleep by the second page. Cecilia smiled at her correct diagnosis, and leaned down to kiss her shining hair and pull the afghan up to her shoulders. Outside the window, the first of the daffodils were nodding their heads along with the breeze that came up from the gulf. Cecilia smiled—a true smile—and ran out to hold congress with them.
She met Owen Ford coming up the lane. She almost didn't recognize him—how tall he'd gotten! His sandy hair had deepened in color, and his face altogether was more refined, with a deeper sense of character in it than had been there before. How handsome he was getting to be—he had inherited his mother's and his father's good looks. With a pang, Cecilia realized that Owen was not exactly the little imp she had been used to. He had changed at school.
"Owen," she said, going to meet him and holding out her hands. "I didn't know you were home."
"Only for the weekend," Owen said. He smiled—but it was not the unholy grin she was used to. Cecilia was eighteen, which would make Owen seventeen, now. Where had the time gone? Surely it did have wings.
"Cis, can we walk?" said Owen, his throat working. "There is something—I think—I have to tell you."
What could he have to say to her that was grim enough to make his brows lower, thus? "Is it Gilly?" she asked, fear in her chest.
"No—no. It's—something else. Oh, Cis, I've come to make a confession."
"I was just on my way to Rainbow Valley," Cecilia said, thinking of the tall, stately irises that would be in bloom down by the little brook. "We can talk on the way, if you'll come with me."
But Owen did not say a word on the walk over. Instead, he waited until they were seated by the babbling little brook, before he began.
"I heard about what happened with you and Sid Gardiner," he said. "And Cecilia—it's my fault, and I'm sorrier about than I ever was about anything in my life. Don't—don't say a word. I want to get it all out before you holler at me.
"Cecilia—I saw you kiss Blythe on Christmas Eve. Jakie and I were coming back from the woodpile—we—we—we'd 'borrowed' one of Dad's cigars. You won't tell? Well, we snuck out to the woodpile to try it—and we snuck back—and we saw you. 'Bout took my breath away. But I didn't plan to tell—I didn't. I just thought it was the fault of the mistletoe, and chalked it up to something sweet. I didn't think of it again at all until I was back at school. You know Glenn Elliott goes to St. John's too? We were horsing around in the dormitory—I said—I said something about Glenn's sister. Just in jest! It's the kind of thing boy's do—don't look shocked. And it wasn't too bad. I just said I'd like to get to know her better." Owen grinned cheekily, despite his flushed cheeks, and Cecilia found herself grinning back.
"Well, Glenn started in on Trudy, and then he worked his way through everybody in the family and settled, finally, on Blythe. You know some of the boys think Blythe's a sissy because he writes poetry, and doesn't like sports, and hangs out with you girls. 'He's never had a girlfriend,' Glenn said. 'I bet he'll be a nancy like his uncle Walter.' Well, I just saw red over that, Cis. It's bad enough to say things about a man's living family without bringing his dead relatives into it. A dead man can't fight back. My head began to spin and spin—it was like I wasn't myself at all.
"'Shows how much you know, Elliott,' I heard myself saying. And then I told him about the kiss. Glenn hooted and hollered—said likely you were just checking Bly's temperature—and then he said, in this snide tone, 'I wonder what Sid Gardiner would say if he knew what his girl's been up to behind his back?' And I remembered, all at once, that Glenn's mother is a Madison of the Bay Shore. I didn't think he'd actually tell Sid—but when I heard about—about what happened—I knew he had."
Cecilia had listened to this tale with eyes that grew brighter and brighter. Owen hung his head, but peeped up at her from under his lashes. He would get it, now, for sure!
"I'm sorry, Cis," he said, "If there was anything I could do to take it back, I would."
Cecilia sat and thought for a long moment. She thought of how quickly a tower can come tumbling down, knocked by an errant hand—or breath—or word. But then—the tower does not tumble unless something is wrong with its foundation. She covered her eyes and laughed, and then she took her hands and laid them on her cousin's bright hair, as a benediction.
"Owen, I forgive you," she said easily. "What's more—I should thank you. You saved me from myself. I might have married Sid Gardiner if this had not happened—and think what it would mean for me. I couldn't be happy with a man who has done the things Sid has done. Even if he hadn't done them, the impetus to do them would be there, underneath. We never could have been happy. I might have realized my mistake, years into our marriage—and there would have been nothing for me to do about it, then. You didn't do wrong, honey—you did right by me, and I'm so grateful."
The words had started as just a means to make the boy feel better, but once they were out Cecilia knew them for the truth. She had her whole life ahead of her, now—with Sid she would have grown smaller and smaller until her self disappeared inside somewhere. The door to her heart was opened up and joy rushed in again. She felt light and free and airy as a cloud. There was love in the world—she could still find it—there was hope, and possibility once more.
"Well, if you're glad as that, then I'll try to forgive myself," said Owen. "And Cis, listen up—you might forgive Marshall Douglas since he didn't do anything wrong by you. I went down to see him yesterday and he told me all about it—it's what convinced me finally to speak. That boy isn't fit for human consumption as he stands—he's afraid you'll be mad at him forever. You will go and speak to him, won't you?"
"I will this minute," Cecilia said and jumped up to go.
But halfway down the harbour road she stopped and pictured Marshall's face. His green eyes had snapped so ferociously the last time she had rebuffed him. What if she went to him—and he cut her dead, the way she had cut him? Oh—she deserved it—but all the same, all the same! Her soul still felt so bruised and tender and raw, despite its new inrush of happiness. Her innate shyness welled up and would not let her go a step further.
She had treated him so horribly—and she had been wrong. Marshall had kept her secret, after all. He had been a good friend to her. And she—she had treated him like dirt.
"How can he ever forgive me?" she wondered. "He won't—he won't. And—it's funny—but Marshall has meant so much to me this past year. I wouldn't be able to bear it if he told me to go away.
And she turned her steps toward home again.
________________________
Una and Shirley had been invited to spend Easter at Green Gables, and once again Cecilia would not join them. Aunt Penny had not been feeling well—she had a late cold, and did not want to leave 'home.' So she would stay—and little Romy would stay with them, and the 'old married couple' could go and celebrate unencumbered. Aunt Nan and Uncle Jerry would be going away, too—and Joy, though Cecilia tried to get her to stay. But Joy wanted to show off her ring to cousin Bertha and to talk over wedding things with fresh ears. So it would just be Cecilia and Penny at Red Apple Farm for the holiday.
"Should we stay?" Una asked her sister-in-law, looking worriedly at Penny's flushed cheeks.
"Not on your life," said Penny. "Bruce didn't dump me here to be a burden on you. I won't hear of it, Una. You must go."
"Oh, please go, Mummy," Cecilia begged, deeply excited about the opportunity to 'keep house' and to spend so much quality time with her beloved auntie. After the baby came, Aunt Penny would be too busy for chatting and dreaming, for a while. Cecilia really did see the whole affair as sort of an extended slumber party. "The baby isn't due for three weeks, so there's nothing to worry about, and besides—if anything goes wrong, we'll phone for Uncle Jem. Really, Mother—go, and have fun. We're just going to have a sweet, boring old time here."
Those words that Cecilia spoke in that minute would be repeated over and over again, in years to come—always with laughter, at how wrong they ended up being.
"Well," Una said, "It will be nice to have a break from you little monsters." But she kissed her girl and drew her near when she said it. Of course it was facetious. Una was never happier than when she was being a mother to her girls.
Cecilia stood on the porch and waved her parents off, moving little Romy's hand, too. The baby laughed and gurgled. Cecilia kissed her right at the point where her fair curls broke in a golden wave over her brow.
"You're a sweet sister," she said. "I would say 'the sweetest' but that would be disrespectful to dear Susan. Romy-girl, did you meet my Susan in heaven? Did she keep you company until you came to us? One day, when you're older, I'll tell you all about our girl."
She plopped the baby in her crib for her nap and went down to make a pot of soup for Aunt Penny. Everything was homey and warm. Goodness, what a cold wind was whistling down the chimney—so sharp and biting, when it was supposed to be spring? She shivered, and went to kindle a fire in the hearth. They had not needed a fire since mid-March. A freak of the weather, Cecilia thought. And nothing more.
She could not know it, but at that very moment a severe storm was moving down from the northern territories, and bringing with it the coldest weather in April on PEI in fifty years. Soon she would begin to worry over it. But at that moment, it was only a little chill, and Cecilia went singing around her housewifely duties. How fun it was, to play at being grownup!