They stayed long enough for Glen to appear proper and the first chance they got to leave Walter decided to take it.
Rilla had written asking them to come to visit and he had jumped at the chance. Get away from the gossiping busybodies and hideaway in what Rilla described as an oasis that had indoor plumbing.
She wasn't wrong. It was beauty he had never seen. Lush green pine and balsam firs, crystal blue water, he could write hours outside in this haven his now brother in law Ken had found himself.
A large cottage in the middle of nowhere, kerosene lamps and coil-oil stove and an old icebox, because there was no electricity out in the backwoods just yet. He found Ken himself more confident in his surroundings or maybe he was seeing better these days? He did find they employed a housekeeper, as his Rilla was useless in the kitchen, never having to cook in Toronto, to begin with.
"So what is the real story between the both of you?" His sister asks, sitting in a wicker chair legs tossed over the side showing off her dainty ankles. Her dress was a bright summery yellow. Almost too bright, he concludes though he sees his brother-in-law finds her easily, moving to sit in the next chair how his fingers trace down the slope of her stockinged leg.
He's fairly certain his sister is pregnant, though not announcing it just yet. Though it is hard to hide the fact that someone is sick every morning when your bedrooms are down the hall from one another.
Walter still pauses for a moment, the children were napping together in their room, they weren't about so he looks over to Esme. She likes Rilla, despite being nervous at first, Rilla is still rather young, but doesn't let people put her down. She laughs in the face of gossip when she heard the old ladies question her marriage to Ken at a church function. Rilla doesn't like Toronto as much as her letters say they do, but it's better than the island in many ways.
"Most of what we told mom and dad is true," Walter says to his sister. "We may have embellished on a few things, or changed a few things because I don't Glen St Mary would be ready to hear such things."
"Oh, heavens sake tell me," Rilla shakes her ruddy head at him. "I'm married and twenty-one years old. I have a child. I can handle the truth."
"My mother ran a brothel," Esme says with an amused smile.
"A brothel?" Rilla looks to her husband out of habit even if he can't see it truly. But Ken picks up on the slight movement of her body.
"I thought you knew everything," Walter chuckles at his sister.
"A brothel is a place when men go to buy certain services from women," Ken explains quietly to his wife. Rilla blushes brightly.
"But you weren't?" Rilla says trying to grasp everything. Surely Walter was not that type of man.
"Non, Non, I was like the little pet of the girls. They would buy me hair ribbons and let me play with their rouge. Before bedtime sometimes I would count the money and often runabout with pocket watch knocking on doors to remind men of the time. Men knew better than to even consider such a thing, I was the Madame's daughter and I was off-limits." Esme explains to her. "When I found Walter, I nursed him back to health. Mama would come in with her remedies and the ladies would find a way to get things we needed for him, but it was rather quite a sight. A wounded half-naked soldier in a bed surrounded by streamers and curtains of silk and organza. Pillows the thrown about, it was a rather amusing sight. Poor Walter when he awoke, he must have been so confused."
"Really I wondered if I was heaven," Walter grins looking over at his wife. "Though this is a close second," he says looking around to the beauty that surrounded him.
"We do love it here as well, our neighbours are a lovely couple as well. The Snaith's, Barney and Valancy, are older than us but are dear. When we first arrived the wife came along with a basket for herself to introduce herself. They have a set of twins. Jasper and Juniper, they're six so a few years older than Aura but they play with her." Rilla explains to them.
"We usually have dinner and a bonfire at least once a week, I believe they should be back from Montreal this week so we should see them," Ken adds one. "Barney doesn't like to talk of it, but he's a writer under the pen name John Foster."
"I used to have a few of his books," Walter says interest peaked. "It would be interesting to meet him for sure," Walter says.
"We'll go over tomorrow to see if they are home," Rilla tells them as she turns at the sound of little feet.
"Papa!" Aurelia calls out clambering over the small step of the doorway. Her long white nightgown missing as she stood there naked. "Can we go swimming now?"
"Aura!" Rilla shrieked as she grabbed the blanket to cover her child while still not moving from her chair. "You don't run around au natural with company around."
"It's just Uncle Wally?" Aura frowned and Rilla shook her head as the second toddler came running, equally as nude.
"We should probably just take them swimming?" Walter catches his son with his one good arm. It's been six months since he found out he had a son and was taken to fatherhood rather well if he could say so.
Ken merely nods, squeezing Rilla's ankle he was still holding.
"Is that wise?" Esme asks worried looking at the lake. Ken had already picked up his daughter and followed his brother-in-law.
"They'll be fine," Rilla tells her. "Ken is very vigilant to such things, Aura knows to obey him."
Esme only nods her head.
"You can ask about it if you're wondering?" Rilla tells her sister-in-law. "I don't take offence to it."
"He seemed much more cautious in Toronto than he does out here?" Esme says after a moment.
"He feels more at home here than Toronto, or like there is a less chance of embarrassing himself here. Of course, he also has days where it seems like his eyes are better than before but it never lasts. Glasses only do so much so he prefers without them." Rilla explains to her. "As for the memory loss, it's just been a day at a time? He remembers small things here and there, glimpses and flashes that allow him to tap into emotions and feelings of the past."
"It must have been very hard for you?" Esme frowns, thinking about the young woman in front of her. Married at sixteen, not long after her birthday. A year with her husband before he went off war, dreadful telegrams and a baby she wasn't prepared for, then to find him as she did?
Rilla merely smiles sadly and nods her head lightly. "We have managed well enough I think. We were never were ones to heed to patience, you reap with you sow? You lie in the bed that you made?" Rilla says. "We love each other, and that is all that matter, that is still alive in him which is the most import."
Esme nods her head. "Love and happiness are the most important things to a person I believe?"
"This is why I think we will be great sisters-in-law," Rilla says smiling. "You know what while they have the children, will you look over a pattern with me? I ordered this turquoise from the dressmakers and I am just not sure of what pattern to use for it? I'm not a great seamstress but I can manage a simple frock and have a few adjustable patterns?" Rilla asks. "Plus you can tell me all about the clothing in France?"
"Of course," Esme nods her head. "He is he the reason you wear bright colours?"
Rilla just nods her head standing up slowly. "It's easier for him to spot me in crowds, but I didn't set out for it, it just happened naturally?"
The Snaith's made their appearance with their children on the morning after breakfast. The older woman gave greeted Rilla with a warm hug before waiting to be introduced to Walter and Esme.
With the dishes washed, Rilla boiled water for coffee and sent out her housekeeper for the morning off. She gripped the counter looking out the picture window above the sink. Her stomach flipped and turned in a way she never felt before.
"Oh my dear sit down already," Valancy calls her over to the table.
"I'm am sorry, I am not completely well this morning," Rilla sighs and Esme takes notice at the first actual reference to her condition.
"Oh Dear, I thought you planned on waiting a little while longer?" Valancy Snaith doesn't even beat around the bush.
"So we planned, but much like everything else in our lives, something came about," Rilla says sighing. "We are happy, a little worried about the reaction but what else can we do?"
"Pish-Posh you are married," Valancy waves her hands at the mention of her friend's worries. "Don't concern yourself of what others think, I married Barney out of sheer necessity when I was twenty-nine. I swear when I announced that I was expecting a baby they all fainted because they assumed that we didn't have to sort of marriage? Excuse me, why be married if you don't wish for that sort of intimacy?"
"Well, either way, after this one, I will find another method. I am not having seven children, I don't know how my mother did it? Not to mention she was twenty-five when she married Father, and I was little over seventeen when I married Ken," Rilla sits down in a huff.
"Well, what were you using?" Valancy asks the younger woman.
"Some sponge?" She says with a sigh. "It said to douse it in Lysol or vinegar, and clearly that did not work."
"Oh dear," Esme says shaking her head. "While those are good for afterwards to wash away the male evidence. A sponge will do nothing to help you much."
"You need to get a cap, learn how to count your cycle and worse comes to worst just don't let him finish inside of you," Valancy explains, as her husband comes in with one of the children under his arm.
"Kids we're going for a swim," he whistles to the girls who were in the next room over playing with their dolls, who came out running.
"But I need to go pee!" The young boy exclaims.
"Then I guess you're gonna learn to use a tree, Jas" Barney says. "Really Moonlight, there are children about. Do we need one of these rascals telling your mother something they should know nothing about?" Barney says before kissing his wife quickly.
"Sorry Love," Valancy blushes. "Have fun," she kisses her dark-haired children before they scamper away. "Junie your suit is on backwards!"
"I'll fix it," Barney calls back.
Rilla shook her head as Aurelia came running in her own swimsuit. A miracle in itself, Rilla thought to herself. Keeping the child clothed with a feat most days.
"Your lincoln logs better be not lying around in the living room," Rilla reminded her daughter who only shakes her head and wiggles away "Be good and listen to your Father and Uncle," Rilla whispers before patting her bottom sending her out the door. She sits for a moment before getting back up and making her way to the bathroom.
"Twins must have been a handful?" Esme muses. "I felt like I could barely keep up with Theo some days as a Toddler."
"It was not easy," Valancy agrees with the sighed. "I miss those days though."
"Oww!" Rilla calls out. "Bloody Lincoln logs" she curses. "I swear I told her to clean up after herself!"
"Are you all right?" Esme asks going to check on her pale sister-in-law.
"Yes, stepped on a toy," Rilla sighs as she comes back walking gingerly on one of her feet.
"Lincoln logs are brutal," Valancy nods her head. "Barney got Jasper and Junie a whole bunch at it just chaos when they are about."
"How did you come about with their names?" Esme asks.
"Oh, well, Barney writes about nature and it felt natural to give them some sort of name that was nature-based. Jasper is a mineral and Juniper is a tree, though we do call her Junie or Junebug most of the time. Which also leads to the confusion of when is their birthday is? Born in the middle of winter, and yet a nickname of Junie. It always surprises people when they weren't born in June." Valancy explains laughing. "My mother is bewildered at their names to this day, Jasper is fair enough, but Juniper is always Junie to her."
"I told Ken he can name this one if he wants," Rilla says sitting down with her cup of tea.
"He must appreciate that," Esme says looking out towards the window. Towards the men who were out by the beach with the children.
Rilla mainly shrugs, Ken hadn't quite had the reaction she had expected from that offer.
"I can barely see Rilla, how will I know what to name a baby!"
"Oh of course, cause I had no idea what to name Aurelia when she was born. Hell almost everyone wondered if I would even care for her!" I yell at him. "I'm sorry I'm trying to give you an experience that you missed last time!"
"Oh yes, who is overreacting now, I'm just trying to be practical about it and you're blowing it out of a proportion," Ken yells back. "You were the one who said it was safe of us anyway and yet now we are here!"
"Oh was it my fault last time as well? I don't remember you trying to not get me pregnant before you left for the blasted war that made me think you were dead for almost two years!" Rilla shouts back.
"He's warming up to the idea," Rilla settles with. "Though I think he's trying to get out of it, he actually suggested calling the baby Blythe if it's another girl. Blythe my maiden name!' Rilla says shaking her head.
"Doesn't it mean happiness or cheerful? I believe that is what Walter told me?" Esme says quietly.
"Does it?" Rilla tilts her head thinking about it.
Happiness
This baby was their happiness at the end of all the hardships they have gone through for three years? Tear well up and she soon finds herself unable to stop herself from crying. The older women were unsure exactly what had happened but were quickly finding handkerchiefs and filling the teapot.