When Nan opened her eyes that morning, she was exhilarated to find emerald cloth right before them. She hastily sprang out of bed and threw the curtains open to the glimmery light of sunrise. Wasn't 'sunrise' a lovely word? It felt so warm and envigorating one instantly wanted to get up.
Well, not every one. The Ingleside folk liked to sleep long; apart from the poor doctor naturally, who had to be on his feet at every beck and call of his patients. But Susan was at the helm and the poor man could always count for some coffee and his favorite apple pie hidden in the pantry.
Nan was the early riser of the family and Crumble, it seemed, could be numbered among them, too.
"Look what mess you've made of that pillow!" Nan sniffed at the plumage flying around. "Don't you like your new residence?"
When Nan and Di had turned fifteen, Ingleside had been turned upside down, for the parents had decided that the girls needed their own rooms. Thereafter, Di, Walter and Baby Rilla had occupied the upper part of the house together with parents and Susan, while Nan, Jem and Shirley had the garret and its three small rooms to themselves.
Nan had chosen the tiniest den and turned it into as cosy and dainty a nest as any girl could think of. In order to save some space, her white, heavy bed was put in an alcove; at daytime she arranged the pillows and two round, fat bolsters to use it as a sofa for her guests. Hers was also the only window at Ingleside with oriel wide enough to install a window seat. It was very small still, but just about enough for her to curl up with a book; all her favorite ones were kept on a shelf in the recess, together with two pretty photogaphs. In the smaller one she was with laughing Jem, who was putting his arm around her, standing under the White Lady and in the other with Di, tightly clasping Nan in her arms. All the young Blythes had quite a number of photographs in their rooms, as Ken Ford was a keen photographer and had had Jem bitten by the bug.
On the other side of the room there was a white- painted wardrobe, bursting with all Nan's pretty dresses, her little round table with a hidden drawer and a podgy chair. There was her and Di's old dolls' house in the corner and Nan's old favorite doll, an elegant little lady in a blue gown with a white lacy hat on her reddish curls, was seated on the shelf above them, among Nan's decorative boxes and more photographs. The wallpapers were somewhat queer; white, with brushes of dove violet and willow green. Were some arbiter of taste to hear it talked of, he would most probably start tearing his hair out. Were he to be invited to sit in it, he would find it as comfortable and snug as its owner and all her friends did. It spoke of hopes and maiden fancies and Nan had managed to assemble in it all the objects dear to her in one way or another.
She sat on the window seat, hands clasped over knees, her tilted head leaning on them as she was watching the brushes of gold unveil the clearest sky, tinted with pale azure. The Ingleside lawn was smothered with bright yellow of dandelions which Nan had always hated to see dug out. She knew she had to feast her eyes, since Shirley had promised Susan to do just that the following weekend. The trees in Rainbow Valley rustled and whispered to the distant roar of the sea and they were green- green- green; not the fresh and somewhat shy green of spring which she had left in Avonlea, but already the saturated, lush emerald of summer, which seemed to glisten slightly in the morning sun. Jem, Faith and Jerry were going to have splendid weather for their homecoming.
Nan slid down and stamped her foot a few times to make sure that Diana, whose room was right below hers, woke up in time to have early breakfast and make it to the station with the rest of them. A disgruntled growl came from downstairs, making Nan smirk slightly; her twin was as different from her in this respect as in any other.
She sashayed around the room, running her fingers along the well- known furniture. In an effort not to overdress, she put on her new skirt and carefully arranged the cravat under her collar. Then she made sure, counting pulls of her comb, that her dark hair was brushed to perfection. It seemed to be getting darker every day; Mother said that one day it would turn as black as Dad's had with years. When it fell down her back like a glossy cascade, Nan felt perfectly pleased with being countrified and not having it bobbed.
She flew down the stairs and entered the dining room with an effervescent 'good morning' on her lips.
"Ah, Nan- girl, we've missed you at breakfasts," the doctor said. "With Di's yawning and long face in the morning, we all felt only more sleepy."
Nan giggled, approached her parents and kissed them both on the cheeks. She would have done the same to Shirley in one fell swoop, had he not ducked his head with the infallible reflex of a future airman.
"Try that with Gog and Magog," he grinned smugly, bringing laughter over the table. Shirley was a lad of very few words; but the little he said was always precious.
Nan lovingly ruffled his jet-black hair and plopped on the chair next to him to be fawned over by Susan. Her favorite pancakes were heaped on her plate, literally sunk in maple syrup. Nan noticed, though, that she wasn't the only person at the table honored with her special treat; Shirley had had brown eggs made for him. She didn't mind it- she couldn't possibly mind it. He was and always would be Susan's especial love; and of the three Blythe sisters, Nan had always loved Susan most and was more prone not to begrudge that partiality.
"Now, darling, tell us everything about Avonlea," Mother called her attention. "You went to bed so early yesterday that it left me starving for some news."
"I was tired, Mother," Nan said apologetically. "I had had a very exciting journey."
"We could all see that," judging by the mockery, Di had already returned to the conscious. "Who was that poor, sheep- eyed boy who took your suitcase out?"
The doctor 'ahemed' her eager questions very pointedly, at which the twins exchanged amused glances. Dad was always impossibly funny in such cases, unlike Mother who showed almost undue curiosity and understanding.
Susan was spinning around the kitchen with admirable speed, stirring, chopping and mincing.
"Susan, won't you join us?" Nan cried to her.
"I cannot, Nan dear," Susan almost shouted back. "This is no common day. With you all coming home day after day, think of all the cooking I have to do! When Little Jem comes back home, he will always come to find in it gingerbread and whipped cream, and that you may tie to. And you will have your chocolate mousse... Oh, get out of here, you nasty cat!"
A loud jangle startled the whole family, who slumped in their seats. After a moment, terrified Doc slipped through the door, looking like a cat clouted with a dishcloth.
"Nan," Rilla asked laughingly, turning over from Miss Oliver and Nan marveled at how pretty her glowing face had become in the few months of her absence. "I don't think you even know how lucky you are to come home right now. The Parkers are hosting a big party next week and we're all invited. That is, you are all invited because I can't go, of course," she heaved a sigh of both resignation and impatience.
"Of course," Nan repeated matter-of-factly, much to her sister's frustration. "You're fourteen, Rilla. Di and I were fift- I mean sixteen when we first went to a dance."
She rubbed the hurting ankle, which Di had kicked under the table. The twins had, in fact, attended their first dance without their parents' knowledge, at Queens, and Nan kept forgetting that it wasn't something she couldn't speak of in Mother's presence. Moreover, it would have sent Rilla pestering everyone even more than she did presently.
"I am nearly fifteen, Nan!" she cried indignantly. "I wish you could all see that I'm not a child anymore!"
"Being yelled at won't help us see it, Baby," Di meddled playfully, at which Rilla sulked. "There will be enough fun for you to participate in this summer anyway, don't worry. Walter, Ken and I have made such plans," she turned to Nan excitedly. "There's a surprise waiting for you and Jem in the valley."
"Speaking of," Mother joined the swift conversation, "Do you have any particular plans for the summer, Nan?"
"No, not really. I only want it to be as idle as possible- and I want to spend it here, at home. But... I thought I could invite Jack to stay with us for a week," she ventured somewhat warily. "If that's not troublesome."
"Jack? Why, isn't that lovely!" Di clapped her hands before her parents even had time to speak.
Nan's eyes pierced her twin's face over her glass of milk.
"You're glad?"
"Of course I am!" Di said fervently. "And I certainly do hope he'll make it for the party. I'd like to see him dancing."
"Jack is a very good dancer!" Nan countered; just one bit too vigorously.
Di, not bothered by her outburst, only smirked and focused on her pancakes.
"I'll check that myself, if you allow me."
Whereupon, an uneasy silence fell over the table, which was not an often occurence at Ingleside. Walter shot a surprised glance of his lovely eyes at Di and turned to Nan.
"Did you get Ken's letter? He told me he wrote to you recently, but you never wrote back."
Nan nodded her head, thankful and relieved. She examined Walter's still- pale face and dark- circled eyes concernedly, but decided to spare him another spate of typhoid questions. She knew from Ken how irritated he was because of it happening with his ankle, and Walter was indubitably far more tormented.
"I didn't have much time recently. And I thought I would just meet him here, since he wrote to me that he would come earlier and wait for me," she answered casually and rather absent- mindedly, as she was busily chiding herself in thought. It made her skip the suddenly attentive look in Baby Rilla's eyes.
("I can't get mad at Di! I simply mustn't- and I don't want to. She doesn't have to like Jack, no matter how much I may want that.")
"I think he'll show up soon."
"I wouldn't be that sure, Nan. He may have some trouble finding time for you with all the Crawford, MacAllister and Elliot girls from the port following him everywhere, with Ethel Reese at the front, to cap it all," Di mumbled, eliciting a peal of laughter from Nan, Walter and the adults at the table; even Susan was heard snickering in the kitchen. Ken's good luck with girls had always been an object of jokes with the Blythes.
Only Rilla kept quiet, suddenly fascinated by the tablecloth.
"It would be difficult for someone more crude to elbow his way through in such crowds and you know how well- mannered Kenneth is," Di went on humorously, until she lifted her head to meet Rilla's eyes. Then her own green ones flashed insightfully. "Just why do you want to kill me, Rilla?" she asked over the table with a little archy note to her voice.
Rilla's mouth pouted miserably for a second; she ostentatiously took her plate away and left the room. Miss Oliver sent Di a sadly reproachful look, excused herself and followed her pet. The very moment, Shirley rose from his chair, noting that they should be heading for the station and, having primped alongside her younger sister in the hallway mirror, Nan went out, feeling rather puzzled about the whole mishap. The air seemed full of secrets and it was something new and strange at Ingleside.
Walter pulled Diana's arm and walked with her a few steps before the rest. Scraps of their visibly intense conversation reached Nan's ears, but she could make as much as nothing of them all.
"You're being vicious to her," Walter whispered hotly, but his voice soon softened. "I don't know why this is, but... it isn't like you, Diana. Has anything happened?"
Di was far more discreet and Nan only caught a few words, which didn't make much sense.
"Plain obvious... You know how Ken is-"
With a shrug, Nan gave up the eavesdropping, feeling quite ashamed for even doing it. She walked on with Shirley and Rilla, who seemed to have recovered and was now strutting on their way to the manse, where they picked Una and Carl. Baby Bruce also firmly insisted on going; he wouldn't miss an opportunity to meet Jem sooner. Nan and Rilla took his hands in theirs and assured Mrs. Rev. Meredith that he was no nuisance at all. At times Rilla peeked with rancour at the two in front of them, already walking with their arms joined, and Nan suddenly wished that Baby could have heard how fervently Walter had defended her.
But her sisterly considerations were soon replaced by more personal ones. On the sight of the railway station, Nan suddenly found that her heart had somehow found its way into her boots, and her tongue was too tied to answer little Bruce's countless questions properly. What in the world was she supposed to do when Jerry got out of that train? She didn't want to talk to him casually and act as if nothing had happenned- she had enough pride to cast aside such a solution- but she also didn't want to go on in this horrid silence. She wished she had asked Di about it. All of a sudden, Carl grabbed her free hand and pulled her behind him, yelling something about their being late and she almost tripped, pulling the two Babies of their families behind her.
When they burst into the platform, the train had just stopped and Jem, grinning joyfully, was throwing the door open from the inside. Nan didn't even stop in her stride; on the contrary, she dashed to launch herself into her brother's waiting arms.
"Jem- my!" she shrieked almost as stridently as the train. Somewhere in the corner of her eye, she saw Faith jumping off the train to grab Baby Bruce in her arms. Then Jem lifted her from the ground with a loud, facetious howl and she couldn't see a thing for a while. She swung her feet and clung to him closely.
In the commotion, she couldn't at first even tell whose limbs belonged to whom. Then Jem moved away, as Walter was putting his arms around Faith. Carl and Una were standing next to him and little Bruce called for Jem's attention.
"My foot, Nan!" Faith cried and they both bumbled around for a while, hugging and giggling chummily. "Look at you! You're almost my height! If you haven't been as busy missing me as you have been growing, I'm going to get miffed."
Nan took a step back and looked at Faith who certainly wasn't the ragtag urchin of yore and not even the pretty tomboy of a year ago any longer. Faith looked almost impossibly lovely and her smart travel suit in a pretty shade of coral gave her a novel, feminine air, but she was luckily still the same old laughing Faith.
After a while, when all the bags and boxes had been taken out, Una finally ventured with a question which had been resounding in Nan's head, but which her lips would never have asked.
"And where is Jerry?"
"Oh, he didn't go with us. He got a scholarship and had to stay a few days longer to set the matters straight," Faith said jauntily, peeking at Jem who whispered to her, almost inaudibly,
"Eight o' clock, in the valley."
As his sister was nodding eagerly and then blushing slightly for her eagerness, Carl playfully nudged Nan's side.
"I wonder whether that scholarship has blue eyes or brown," he grinned significantly.
And, poor boy, he was left to wonder for the rest of the day why would his old pal, Nan Blythe, glare at him as if he was Irene Howard!
"Just don't stay too long, Jem. The evenings are still so cold," Mrs. Blythe was saying at the table, when Jem announced that he was going to spend the afternoon on the shore and have his first swim.
He had already pleased Susan with wolfing down her roast and was now making her even more delighted, shoveling the whipped cream off his gingerbread with all the eagerness of a student who had spent a whole summer semester away from home.
"How about you, darling, do you have any plans for today?" Mrs. Blythe turned to Nan, but Jem answered for her casually, never lifting his eyes from his plate,
"Oh, she's going with me," at which Anne smiled rather ruefully, as she had been hoping to have a long talk with her namesake and tease out of her all the details about her bosom friend and Avonlea. It seemed, however, that Nan's sibilings had missed her as much as her mother, and Anne, with a sigh, granted them the precedence.
"I guess I have now," Nan said mockingly as Jem had not even dropped a hint before. She was fairly sure he had something to talk about in confidence and she quickly finished her mousse. Finally, someone wanted to share a secret with her, instead of shielding it!
She climbed upstairs to pack her new, red and white swimsuit which she had bought with Delia in Carmody. When she came down, Jem was already waiting for her. Shirley was sitting alone on the porch with a little disappointed look on his face.
"Can't we take Shirl with us?" she pleaded, indicating their younger brother with a move of her chin.
"Next time, Kitten," Jem promised, further confirming her conjectures and leaving her almost painfully curious.
They made it to the seaside quite quickly, despite a load in form of a crammed full picnic basket, walking past the closed and sad House of Dreams. Of the Blythe siblings, Jem and Nan had always shared a special 'sea fever'; Jem, as intent on becoming a doctor as he was, still did and always would harbor some of his boyish fancies of following in the footsteps of the Captain he was named after, and Nan derived a sense of freedom from the vastness of sea and its mighty waves.
As Jem was laying out Susan's goods, Nan threw her shoes off and waded in the shallow waters, stirring them with her foot. They had chosen the unfrequented part of the shore and now had it all to themselves. All the young people from the Upper Glen and Mowbray Narrows went swimming in the evenings, so they were free to play like little children, with Jem surreptitiously swimming up to Nan and dragging her underwater by the foot or pushing her under the highest waves to be knocked down and Nan splashing the salty water into his eyes. The Ingleside twins always swam without caps, much to the horror of Susan, who had been on her toes ever since Walter's typhoid, and Mrs. Marshall Elliot.
"As if swimming wasn't daring enough in itself! Nan, dearie, what will Mrs. Alec Davies say?"
"Ah, there's the rub," Nan had replied laughingly. "There are so many nice, nice things which we will never be able to do for fear of Mrs. Alec Davies 'saying something'. The world would be a better place, if the woman was dumb."
In order to reassure the fretful, Nan always took the cap with her, but never put it on. It was a terrible nuisance, always getting carried away with the waves. It came in handy, though, when they were collecting little white seashells for Mother to put around her flower beds.
The afternoon went by in a flash and Jem still didn't seem too talkative. Nan resolved not to force him to speak; she knew he would open up in his own time and she was enjoying his company as much as ever anyhow. She asked him to keep watch while she was changing back to her dress and teased the life out of him when she saw him standing on guard, his arms crossed over his chest, a stern frown on his face.
They walked along the shore barefoot, with a hamper much lighter now, to sit on the wharf in the harbor and watch the distant, mysterious lighthouse and the fishing boats coming in and out.
" 'Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me!' " Nan quoted merrily, watching the ships weave their ways through the water. She shook her head, letting the wind trifle with her hair. Jem thought she looked like some sea creature, ready indeed to listen to the summons. He was no poet, however, so he just said simply,
"You'd better stay where you are. I want to talk to you."
Nan sat silent, with a patient air of a sister who knows her brother well enough not to interrupt him when he's carefully picking his words.
"You won't tell Di?"
She sent him a slightly offended look. She thought of Walter, who read his poems to Diana and shared everything with her; Jem would never sully his good name with writing a poem, but his frequent confessions had always filled her with pride and loyal devotion, which she hoped to be reciprocal. She liked to think that they shared the same bond as her twin and other brother.
"Have I ever blabbed on any of your secrets?"
"Never," he smiled and put his arm around her. "But this is different. And you two madcaps have not seen each other for quite some time; I bet she'll come to sleep with you today and then something might just blurt out. Kitten- do you think I'd make a good husband?"
Butter would have melted in Nan's mouth if she said she was surprised.
"If you address your wife by a proper, christian name instead of choosing animalistic pet names for her, I daresay you'll make the cut."
He laughed out loud, causing two seagulls to fly away in a flush. He poked her in the ribs, but his lips never lost a kind of sheepishness to their smile.
"So that's it, so early? We're losing you to some sophisticated Redmond student with bobbed hair and writing ambitions?" she asked mockingly.
This time Jem positively roared with laughter.
"Not- exactly."
At this point, though, Nan was already beside herself with impatience and started pinching him.
"Come on, Jem, don't torture me! I want to know everything about her- and if you don't tell me, I'll fall of this wharf making guesses."
"She is- crazy, most of all. I'd say just about as much as you are. Everything can make her laugh- and she does everything her own way- and she doesn't care a whit what others may think or say about it- but when she's mad, it's better not to get in her way."
"Is she pretty?"
"No-o-o; 'pretty' is not the word. She's- a rose, yes, a red rose."
Jem turned his head to look directly into her eyes. It was a significant, telling look and Nan knew he wanted her to draw a conclusion.
"She can still climb trees like a wild cat, at the age of nineteen- and she can't cook at all and she's always saying she's going to make a poor wife- but she is the best- erm- rider you'll ever meet, instead. And I'm fairly sure you'd love her for a sister-in-law."
Nan took his hand and shook it with all the might she could muster.
"James Matthew Blythe," she pronounced gravely. "If you have bad intentions, I swear I'll push you off this wharf myself. It's Faith, isn't it?"
To her immense surprise, he drooped his head and his auburn curls hung miserably.
"My intentions could not be better, Kitten. The trouble is, I know nothing about hers."
Nan put her hands to her temples; it was only now that the surprise of it all got to her.
"But Jem- how- when?"
"Don't ask me that, Kitten. I don't know when it happened- I guess- it has always been so. It seems so, anyhow. I only know when I realized it, and it was shamefully late. Remember when we both came home late for Christmas?"
Nan nodded her head so eagerly that her hair fell on her eyes.
"We were on the train, having good time together and all- and then, out of nowhere, appeared some friend from her class. He was very- sweet on her," the way Jem gnarled the word indicated that he would still love to get the poor Freshman in his hands. "She didn't seem to mind it... I did, though. Later, in the spring term, I saw red on every dance party. She used to ask me, you know, why I've suddenly gotten so unsociable."
Nan had to laugh. The thought of Jem as- unsociable!
"And I know that Susan would probably say we're children still- but it was when I started thinking whether she would agree to leave the Glen with me that I knew-"
"Whoa, Jem, wait. What do you mean- to leave?"
Jem bit his lip, as if he was owning up to an offense.
"I'd like to have my practice in Charlottetown. Sixty miles is not that far and it's a big enough city."
Nan sat stock- still, her hands clasped together on her lap.
"Kitten, why are you looking at me like that?" he pressed her hand a little. "You can't have thought we would all stay in Four Winds!"
"I- I don't know, Jem- I've always thought you'd take over father's practice, I guess."
Jem smiled a bit stiffly.
"I want to be a doctor, Kitten, not another Gilbert Blythe. When Aunt Marilla left me Green Gables, I felt positively trapped. I couldn't live there, even if I love the old spot; I would never get over all the missed possibilities."
When Nan didn't answer for a longer while, he said mildly,
"You'll arrive at the sime conclusion one day, Kitten, you'll see. Just wait until you have a go at another life, in a bigger city-"
"Mother and Dad had a go at it, Jem," she broke in hotly. "And yet they settled nowhere else but here."
"True, but the times were different- and they were different than we are," Jem's voice was quiet, with a significant note to it. "Don't dismiss Kinsgport before you give it a chance, Kitten. You'll- you'll feel good there, I'm pretty sure of it. Now, I'm supposed to see Faith today," he glanced at his wristwatch and sprang to his feet. "And I'm already late!"
Nan stood up and pushed him a little.
"Well, then don't stand here like that, hurry! I can carry the basket home myself, it's not that heavy. And you run!"
Jem was already on his way.
"I'll talk to you when I'm home!" he yelled from a distance.
Nan plopped back on the shore, clasping her hands over her knees, feeling dizzy. Jem and Faith- Faith and Jem. It didn't bother her at all; it seemed very natural and simply right, even if it came rather unexpected. Including Faith in the family would be a formality only, for Nan had always thought of her as of another sister; she sometimes wondered whether Joyce, so rarely even spoken of, would have been as good a friend as Faith. And if it was to make Jem happy, Nan would have accepted even Mary Vance. Reluctantly, no doubt, but she would have.
But- to have both of them, both her big brother and a bosom friend, gone somewhere as remote as Charlottetown? It was- unthinkable. Their talk brought back the old tormenting questions- were they to be torn apart in just a few years time? Would their beautiful comradeship turn into mere telephone calls, letters and scarce visits?
And yet- the way Jem spoke of this 'other life' made it seem strangely appealing. Perhaps- with given time and some friends by her side- she would learn to love it? All the promises of a big city now defiled before her eyes; parties grander than those at the Parkers'- fellow students with whom she could discuss books and poems and music and not just whether the hat which the Methodists' parson's wife wore to church was too frivolous or not- cafés in which they could talk of 'the woman question' and that madman Moltke and his figments of 'preventive war' over hot chocolate- dresses like those which Irene Howard wore; Nan hated to admit, but she was always dressed most exquisitely. Perhaps she did, as Jem had said, belong to a life different than that of a small town? Perhaps it didn't have to mean losing some of its spirit- perhaps she could learn to love it as much as she loved the Glen? And maybe- she could, just like Jem, find a kindred spirit-
But- no. She didn't want to think just about that specifically. It seemed somewhat pointless and puerile, as if she was indeed going to Redmond to 'catch a man'.
She remained on the shore until late in the evening, looking out to the sea waters which slowly lost their merry, twinkling shade of light blue and took on a veil of ultramarine. It was an unbroken hue, as the sea had calmed and the waves were no more crowned with white hems. The sun slowly sailed away like a bright, golden, crimson-sashed boat and Nan stood up to watch it just a while longer. The wind whispered softly over the shadowy dunes, cooling her cheeks and further ruffling her already messy hair.
A young man, who had emerged from among the rocks, creeped up and caught one of the unruly locks. Nan threw her hands up, cried fearfully and faltered; she would have fallen had he not caught her in the waist and pulled her back to the steady ground.
"Just where were you going?" asked a well- known voice. From its humorous note, she understood that he had played a trick on her. "Joining the rest of the sea nymphs?"
"Ken! You- horrible- ", for a while she looked as if she wanted to snap him.
But she only flung her arms around his neck with a happy laugh, which Kenneth soon echoed.
well, aren't I terrible, flooding you with my graphomania? so long, too! but it's the reviews, they are truly an irresistible inspiration. thank you all so very, very much! they always make me smile; and this time one of them left me rolling about my room with laughter. LOTRlover- point taken, and I hope this chapter will assure you that Nan will not bob her hair. ;-)
I also hope that you'll like this chapter, but I'm pretty anxious about some parts of it. I'm aware you might find some things too strong or some people out of character. I hope you'll let me know what you think, especially if something doesn't sit well with you.