Diana Wright climbed the creaky stairs to the west gable and paused on the landing. A girl's faint sobs could be heard dimly through the thick wood of the door. Di furrowed her brow. Bertha—staunch, hardy Bertha—was not usually given to tears.
Di put her hand on the door and turned the knob. Inside, she found her daughter sprawled facedown on her bed, clutching her pillow and sobbing. Her red hair was tangled over her tear-streaked face, and her left cheek was red from where Cordelia had slapped her. The sight of it made a sudden fury well up in Di's heart, but she quickly quashed it as best she could and seated herself on the bed, taking Bertha's head into her lap, as she had always done when the twins were very small.
"Oh, mother," Bertha sobbed. "I hate Aunt Cordy."
Di was none too fond of Cordy Wright at the moment, but did not say so. "Hate is a very strong word, dearest," she murmured. "Bertha, I'd like to tell you something. But you must promise to keep it a secret from Dossie—and even from Teddy. Do you think you can do that? I know it is a terrible thing to ask—to keep a secret from your twin—as one twin to another. But I think it will help you understand why Aunt Cordy behaved today the way she did."
Bertha, brought out of her tears by her mother's words, had never had a secret from Teddy before. Why, would such a thing even be possible? She wondered briefly if this was how people grew apart—by growing up, and having grown-up things to keep to themselves. She did not know if she wanted to have a secret from Teddy. She did not want there ever to be anything between them!
But the lure of a good story won out in the end. Something in mother's voice hinted at old tragic times. And she would like to understand what made Aunt Cordy behave the way she did. Why was she so bitter? Why did she persist in treating the world as though it were a dangerous, hurtful place?
"I won't tell," Bertha promised, and at that moment she realized it would be possible for her to keep a secret from Teddy.
Di stroked her daughter's long, red tresses silently for a moment or two. When she spoke again, her voice was dreamy, and a little sad.
"You wouldn't think it to look at her now, but Cordelia Wright was once the most beautiful woman in Avonlea."
Bertha's head snapped up at that. "Oh, mother," she said reproachfully. The very idea of Aunt Cordy—beautiful? With her iron gray hair and her disapproving mouth, and her ever-present spectacles perched on the end of her nose? The idea was too, too ridiculous to be believed!
"Believe it," Di cautioned, "Because it's true. She looked—why, she looked quite like Dorothy does now. Only Cordelia was far more vibrant than Doss can ever be—will ever be. Don't bristle so, Bertha! I'm not running down your dear chum-cousin. It is only that Doss is beautiful like a tall, pale lily in the moonlight. But Cordelia was a rose.
"No one laughed as much as she did—" Here, Bertha started again. Aunt Cordy never laughed. She only made a sharp, harsh sound in the back of her throat—"And sang, too. And danced—every year on her birthday Grandfather Wright threw open the doors of Lone Willow Farm to all the Avonlea young fry, and there was dancing from dusk to dawn, in Cordy's honor. She had the tiniest feet and the tiniest waist, and all the young men sought to be her partner. She had a pair of shoes with golden heels—real gold—from an admirer who had seen her waltz and declared it to be the loveliest sight imaginable."
Here Di paused, to let the picture fully develop in Bertha's mind's eye. Could she see Aunt Cordy that way, Bertha wondered? She didn't think she could. But then her imagination kicked in, and she saw it, just the way that mother had described it.
"Go on," she said. "Please, mother."
"Well," said Di, clasping her hands around her knees in a girlish way. "She had no end in admirers. We all wondered who she would take as a beau. For a while," Here Di cast a sly glance at her daughter, "For a while, we thought that perhaps Jem would win her."
"Uncle Jem!" Bertha was amazed.
"Yes," Di laughed. "She was a good deal older than him but as a youth—before Faith Meredith appeared on the scene—Jem was besotted. He and Cordelia were always writing to each other. I believe they kept it up for a long while, even after…"
"After what?"
But Di did not elaborate. "In the end, it was Timothy Gillis who caught Cordy's eye. He was a Toronto boy by birth, and only came to Avonlea after his grandfather died. Cordy fell in love the first time she saw him in the Avonlea church. I remember, because we were visiting Green Gables at the time. She stopped, caught by the gold of Tim Gillis's hair. He had hair the color of gold coins—the color of ripe wheat. He smiled at her across the aisle and I remember that Cordy smiled back—most shocking, in those days!—and squeezed mine and Nan's hands, and whispered, 'He's the one for me, girls!'
"What happened next?" Bertha wondered. She was getting to be drowsy, lulled by mother's sweet voice. The spot on her face had stopped burning. She nestled into Di's skirts and Di began to stroke her hair again.
"They were inseparable for a while—Tim and Cordy. Rumor has it that he asked her to be his bride at dusk, by the Lake of Shining Waters—and rumor also has it that she accepted, although I suppose we'll never know. I don't ever remember hearing her speak of it—but I do think they were engaged. There was something about her eyes, that winter…. I do remember when they quarreled."
"Oh—what about?"
"I don't exactly remember," Di admitted. "I was a little goose, then, and taken up in my own affairs. I remember that it was just about the time of my first year at Redmond. I was up to my ears studying for exams. The War was on, and I was worried sick that Walter would go away to fight.
"Some people say that they quarreled because Tim had grown a moustache—but I don't think that was it. It was a big, beautiful moustache—any girl would have been proud for her beau to have such a distinguished looking moustache! It is nearly thirty years later, and I still remember how splendid it was!
"Some other people say they quarreled because Cordelia danced with Herbert Pye at a party. I think it is far more likely that was the case. Cordelia didn't like the Pyes better than any of the rest of us, but Herb was a delicious dancer and Cordy could never refuse when she'd been asked to take a turn around the floor. It was a friendly encounter—no one could ever accuse Cordelia of making eyes at a Pye—but Tim Gillis had a jealous streak. He told her that she must never dance with anyone but him, and she laughed at him, and told him that he could go to Halifax, for all she cared. And Tim Gillis did an unforgivable thing—he took her at her word."
"Oh, no," breathed Bertha, who had an inkling as to where this story was going.
"Tim Gillis joined the army the next day and shipped out two weeks after that. And Cordy never saw him again. His mother received a telegram after Gallipoli—Tim was listed as 'wounded and missing.'"
"And was he never found?" Bertha was surprised to find fresh tears in her eyes. She brushed them hastily away. "Was he never found, mother?"
"No," Di sighed. "After a while, everyone gave up hoping—everyone except Cordy. She never gave up hoping that he would come striding up the walk. For years after the war she saved magazine articles with stories about soldiers being found in the mountains—on sea islands—about soldiers who had been stricken with amnesia, but suddenly came to their senses—about soldiers who one day just appeared at home, whole and new and good as before. I don't know if she really believed it was possible—but perhaps she made herself believe, because the truth was too hard to bear: that he was dead, and she had never told him she was sorry.
"And after a while," Di continued softly, "I think she really did start to believe—that Tim was out there. Cordy didn't become an old maid overnight, you know—there were several brave souls who found the gumption to propose to her. But Cordy shot them down. She was already engaged—to Tim Gillis. How could she abandon him? She really did not believe that he could be dead.
"Even now, Bertha—sometimes when she gets very still, and cocks her head, a little shiver goes through me, because I know she is listening for the sound of him coming up the walkway. She wakes up every morning really believing that today might be the day that he comes back to her…and goes to be every night with a heavy feeling in her chest, because he didn't. That is why Cordy hates the world—because every day, it disappoints her."
Bertha rubbed her cheeks with her hand. Poor Aunt Cordy! How sorry she was for her! But, she realized, she could never let on to Aunt Cordy that she knew—Aunt Cordy would hate pity above all else. Bertha did not know how she knew this, but she did.
Aunt Cordy is proud, she thought, lifting her red head and raising her chin firmly. Proud, just like me. But oh—I won't be too proud. I won't be so stubborn that I can't try to look at her and see inside the girl she once was. And I won't fly off the handle so easily, after this.
"I just don't know," Bertha mused, "Why Aunt Cordy shouldn't like the idea of me writing to Jordan. He's just a chum. Why should she get so angry about it?"
"Because it scares her," Di said. "Cordy loves you, Bertha—she does—and she is worried for you. Love scarred her life. She does not want the same to happen for you. And I think it scares her that you are old enough to be in love, in your own right. It reminds her of how much time has passed—without him."
Bertha nodded, looking so serious that Di felt her breath catch in her throat. Cordy was not the only who was frightened by the idea of Bertha in love.
"Darling," she asked suddenly. "Are you in love with Jordan Gray?"
Bertha's face creased in a smile. She sat up and took her mother's white face into her hands.
"Dearest mother," she laughed. "Don't be silly! I love Jordan desperately—but only as a friend. When I'm in love—for real—you'll be the first to know."
Di looked at her daughter and found a dreaminess in her face that had never been there before—a glow in her eyes that betrayed her words. And then she thought that perhaps she was the first to know, after all.