Home! Green Gables had never looked so sweet as it did now, when Meg knew she never, ever had to leave again unless she wanted to. She gleefully scattered her belongings all over her little white gable room, thinking that the way she felt right now, she never would want to leave again. She wasn't sure what she wanted to do first—spend an entire day outdoors soaking in the June sunshine, whip up a batch of cherry tarts in the kitchen, run over to Tanglewood to help Polly and Auntie Di sew baby clothes, write to Will to rejoice over the good news in Africa … the possibilities seemed endless.
It was so good to know that she could actually be of use to her family again—helping Polly through her fits of depression as her pregnancy progressed, working with Shirley and Uncle Patrick around the farm (Uncle Patrick was back on his feet but still under doctor's orders to take it easy), and joy of joys, sending Missy Sloane, the hired girl who had helped out around Green Gables in her absence, home with a polite "thank you but we won't be needing your services anymore."
Meg hated letting anyone else interfere in her domain.
In all her happy planning, Meg refused to let herself think about Matt. That very day, the day after they had all returned from Toronto, he had borrowed the truck to go "up to town." She knew—they all knew—what that meant. She simply didn't want to think about it.
More than fear for Matt's life, Meg worried about what would become of her brother, with his gentle nature, in the brutality of war. She couldn't forget Prof. Ashton's harsh assessment of how the military trained its soldiers. Matt hated seeing people in pain; what would it do to him to have that vital part of his nature crushed?
"Meg, love!" Shirley called from downstairs.
"Coming, Papa!" Meg resolutely put all thought of Matt's future out of her mind. What would happen, would happen, and fretting wouldn't change it. She ran downstairs and smiled cheerfully at her father. "What is it?"
"Mail," Shirley answered, brandishing a sheaf of envelopes. "Most of it for you."
Meg took the pile and sorted through it, murmuring aloud. "One from Rose … the postmark is High Valley, so she must be spending the summer there. One from Will … a thin one from Johnny, probably just another couple of lines telling me he's all right … one from Jane … one from Peter, and one from Jocelyn."
Shirley shook his head. "You must be the most popular girl in PEI, love. I never saw anyone receive so many letter as you!"
Meg grinned as she took her stash outside to read them in the sunshine. "I've missed hearing you call me love," she said irrelevantly.
"It's not as if I never called you that during your vacations," Shirley said, following her out.
"I know … but everything sounds sweeter now that I'm home for good."
"It does that," Shirley had to agree. "Well," he said, picking up his hat and placing it back on his head, "I'm back to the fields. Enjoy your mail."
Meg waved absently at him, already deep in Rose's news of the hi-jinks happening in High Valley.
There wasn't much of especial interest in the rest of her mail: Jane had reluctantly let Bran go back to the front, but he had promised her he would return (and Meg, while he hasn't proposed and I don't have a ring, we both understand that we are going to get married when this is all over.); Johnny was, indeed, just writing to tell her he was still alive and fighting; Will wrote cheerfully of how odd it was to move from bloody, brutal fighting to relatively peaceful guarding of prisoners of war—at least until they were all transferred somewhere else; Jocelyn wrote …
Meg yelped. Nothing of especial interest, indeed! She dropped Jocelyn's letter and snatched up Peter's. As usual when it came to imparting important information, his was short, but contained the same news. Meg stared at the letters a moment longer, then sprang to her feet and started running to Tanglewood.
Halfway there, she met Polly, whose swollen stomach made running a bit more difficult these days, and whose face was as alight as Meg had seen it since the war began.
"Did they write—have you read?" she gasped.
"Yes!" Meg shouted triumphantly. She grabbed Polly's hands and whirled her around in an impromptu dance. Laughing helplessly, Polly finally managed to extricate herself and settle to the ground.
"Mum—" she started, when Auntie Di herself came flying down the path. She grabbed Meg, much as Meg had grabbed Polly, and they danced some more.
"Oh, such good, good news!" Auntie Di sang. "I've sent Sel to the fields for the men and boys. I can't wait until dinner to tell them! I feel like I could shout it from the rooftops—oh girls, there is still joy left in the world!"
Linking arms, the three walked back to Tanglewood, where Avery was awaiting them on the porch, and where very shortly Uncle Patrick, Shirley, Roger, and Daniel returned, following Sel.
"Is everything all right?" Uncle Patrick called anxiously as soon as they were within earshot. "Sel just said we had to come to the house at once, so here we are. What's wrong?"
Auntie Di flew into his arms. "Nothing wrong," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. "A letter from Peter—and one from Jocelyn—oh Polly, read them!"
"Meg should read them, Mum," Polly protested, handing the sheets of paper over to her cousin. "She's the one with a trained voice."
"I'm not going to sing them," Meg said.
"Somebody read something, or we'll all burst!" Shirley warned.
And so Meg held Peter's out first and began to read.
"Dear Mum, Dad, Polly, and all the other random youngsters. I thought you would want to know that Polly is no longer the only married woman in the family. As of this morning, the last day before I head back to the front, Jocelyn is now Jocelyn Amelia Samuels, not Reed. I can't think why, but she agreed to become my wife. We were going to wait until after the war so we could have a big family wedding, but after recent events, we decided it was foolish to wait.
"Love to you all,
"Peter."
Into the stunned silence, Meg set Peter's letter aside and read Jocelyn's.
"To my new family,
"Please forgive us for springing our wedding on you without a word. Peter asked me to marry him this past winter, but circumstances were such that we didn't feel it right to announce it just then. We thought we would have plenty of time, but then the order came for Peter's unit to go back to the front, and we both agreed that we shouldn't wait to get married. From the order to our decision to the marriage itself, there was very little time—certainly not enough to write to anyone. So here we are—here I am—proud to call myself your daughter and sister. I hope you will excuse the manner in which our marriage happened, and rejoice with us. Soon, we hope, we will be able to rejoice with you in person.
"With all my love,
"Jocelyn Reed Samuels."
"Well," Shirley said laconically. "Good news indeed. You aren't upset with them, are you, Di?"
"Upset?" Auntie Di lifted her head from Uncle Patrick's shoulder and swatted her brother. "Don't you know me at all, Shirley?"
He grinned.
"You know what the best part of this is for me, Meg?" Polly whispered. "Of course I'm happy for Peter and Jocelyn—but this means that finally people will stop talking about Elliot and me and start talking about them!"
And though Meg couldn't agree that was the best part, she could understand Polly's relief.
The men didn't go back to the fields; instead, they all sat on the porch and discussed the news. Meg darted back to Green Gables for her letters from the newlyweds, and they compared reports. To Meg, Jocelyn had been a bit more forthright in both why they had waited to announce their engagement, and why they had gotten married so suddenly.
Both were because of Polly. When she was still reeling from Pierre's death, and the family reeling from her unexpected union with Elliot Douglas, they hadn't felt right about intruding with their joyful news. Then, when they found out Peter was going back into the thick of things, they didn't want what happened to Polly and Pierre to happen to them.
I told Peter that if he died, I at least wanted the comfort of sharing his name, Jocelyn wrote.
Meg hesitated about sharing that with the rest, but Polly had already guessed that was the reason, and expressed her scorn.
"How foolish of them to not want to tell us!" she said, her eyes bright with unshed tears but her face composed. "If anything good could come out of—what happened with me—then of course I'm going to be glad for it! Nothing will ever make up for losing Pierre—but at least this shows that something good can come of it, after all."
They were all still talking as the sky darkened to twilight and a uniformed young man with a fresh haircut walked down the path from Green Gables.
"What gives?" he called cheerfully as he neared the house. "Home is dark and abandoned, and you all are here chattering like crows! What have I missed?"
Their eyes turned to him, and they all fell silent. Meg bit her lip hard to keep her eyes from overflowing. She had expected no less—but that didn't make this moment any easier.
"Oh, Matt," she whispered.
It wasn't, in the end, as bad as it might have been. Matt was in the RCAF, naturally ("No boats for me, thank you very much, and the old leg would never hold up as infantry"), but as a noncombatant!
He was a mechanic, instead.
"I went in to the recruiters office," he said, stretching out his long legs in Auntie Di's porch chair, "And I told him that I was ready to do my bit for the Allies, but I did not want anything involving killing. He thought I was crazy at first, but after we talked for a bit he came around to my point of view.
"So I signed up as a mechanic—I'll start off stationed at one of the air bases in England, but who knows where I'll end up. They're desperate for mechanics—they can't keep the pilots in the air because of all the problems they have with the planes." He grinned proudly. "So, instead of killing, I get to help keep our people alive. Not a bad compromise, wouldn't you say?"
Meg overflowed with relief. Matt would still be in danger—but he would still be able to be Matt.
Shirley cleared his throat and patted his son's shoulder. "Proud of you, my boy," he said quietly.
Matt coughed and changed the subject. "What were you all discussing when I came up, anyway?"
Polly and Auntie Di both started to explain at once, and in the resulting hubbub, Matt's decision was almost forgotten. On the walk back to Green Gables after supper, though, Meg brought it up again.
The twins were loitering a little behind Shirley, walking hand-in-hand like the children they had been, enjoying the beauty of the June night.
"When do you go?" Meg finally asked simply.
"Two days," Matt said.
"So soon?"
"Like I said, they're desperate."
Meg held back a sigh. "Write to me?"
"Of course. I'll count on you to keep me updated on all the home news … Polly's baby, what's happening with the farm, how Johnny does, all of that."
They were quiet for a few moments. Then Matt said,
"I was thinking today about the day we all went to Echo Lodge for the first time. Remember that? You and Peter found it first, and then we all went there and made it our own, because Papa said it belonged to Grandfather and it wouldn't be a problem for us to fix it up."
"Those were such good days." Meg smiled.
"I've been thinking—when Peter and Jocelyn come back here, they might want a place of their own. We should ask Grandfather if he would sell it to them."
"That's a wonderful idea!" Meg cried. "I thought they would live in England, though."
Matt shrugged. "Maybe they will … but I have a feeling they might want to live here, where the war hasn't touched."
"You're probably right," Meg said. "You usually are."
Matt smiled. "Meg—make sure to give Polly's little one lots of extra love. I know we all love babies in this family, but this one is coming from a loveless marriage, and it will need all the help it can get."
"I will," Meg promised.
"And keep an eye on both Pop and Uncle Patrick. Neither likes to admit they ever need help, and neither is getting any younger. Especially Uncle Patrick."
"Any other instructions?" Meg asked lightly. "Anything for me specifically?"
"Nope," Matt said. "You'll figure your own life out. You don't need my help."
Meg rubbed her face against the shoulder of his uniform. "But I'll always need you."
He rested his cheek atop her smooth head. "Don't worry," he said a little huskily. "You'll always have me."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
And somehow, Meg was comforted by that promise. Matt was the most trustworthy soul alive—if he said something, he would do it.
He'd come home, because he promised.
Author's Note: Matt's story is a special tribute to my grandfather, who was called up four times, and rejected three times because he was partially blind in one eye. He finally told them that he'd had enough, and they had darn well better find something for him to do. So they marked him "noncombatant" and he became an Air Force mechanic. It wasn't just the soldiers who won the war, it was the personnel as well, and all too often they get neglected in tributes to WWII vets! So, to all the mechanics, drivers, office workers, and the like:
Thank You.