Things seemed--flat--after Allan had gone.
Mother and Father worried over Juliet. Was this the carefree, happy girl of a few years ago? Carefree didn't seem to be the word to describe her now--care-laden was more apt. Juliet's face, set off by her masses of dark hair, looked even thinner and paler than ever, and there were shadowy circles under her eyes.
She threw herself into her work. She drifted through her last year at the high school as one in a dream. She took part in sewing circles and wrote notes to the soldiers overseas who had no one to write to them. Somehow, the writing had become easier--Juliet just thought of Blair. These lonesome soldiers were not Blair, but they were somebody's child, or brother, or sweetheart.
The fighting intensified every day. At home, in the evenings, the family clustered around the radio. Douglas, who had taken to reading philosophy, said that perhaps Nietzche was right and God was dead. The radio had taken His place.
The only times of near-perfect happiness that Juliet had were when a thin, airmail envelope from Blair or Allan showed up in the day's post. She fell upon those letters--first murmuring a prayer of thanks that the boys were alive to write another day--and then tearing into them. She had another lovely half-hour of penning replies--but then the heaviness of the world seemed to close back in on her again.
* * *
31 March 1943
Dearest Blair,
The Air Nationals have been practicing out of Charlottetown today--every few minutes there is a terrific roar as another 'plane flies overhead. I always look up when I hear an airplane. I know it can't possibly be you--your letters are postmarked England--but I can't shake a childish daydream that perhaps you've pulled a Lindbergh and flown across the sea to collect me in your silvery bird. I imagine you scooping me up--we would fly out to the edge of the horizon--and into the night sky, right into the great, pearly moon, where we'd live forever and be happy.
How peaceful the earth would look from that great distance! But I wouldn't spend a great deal of time noticing--I'd have more important things to do
I love you.
Juliet.
* * *
Germany launched a heavy bombing campaign against England in the summer. There were a few tense days as the Islanders waiting to hear news of loved one. Juliet was wild until she received a letter from Blair. He was all right--thank God, he was all right.
There was one terrible moment in the middle of it, he wrote, when I was hit and my engine started to smoke and fail. This was over the Belgian countryside and down below there were rows and rows of these little cottages. Everyone inside fast asleep. My first thought was of regret that my great hulking plane would smash down and spoil the pristineness of that picture--and then I thought about the people sleeping and my heart pounded to think that some of them would be hurt--killed--when my plane smashed down. Then I thought of myself: all of the things I would never see, Charlotte, and Rae, and Father and Mother--and you. The heartbreak of that thought would surely have killed me if the crash didn't. But then, by some miracle, the engine kicked back in and everything was fine. I flew off and made it back to the base safely but I was shaken--damn shaken.
Aunt Ilse and Uncle Perry had a telegram. Allan had been injured slightly in the leg. It was just a surface wound--he'd been hit by shrapnel when a nearby bomb exploded. He was resting for a few days and would be back in the trenches again before the end of the week.
Oh, how Juliet's heart had plummeted when she heard of the telegram. Telegrams meant only one thing. Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Ford in the Glen had gotten a telegram--and their lives would never be the same again. That's what a telegram meant. Juliet had wept for many hours in relief when she heard that Allan wasn't killed after all, and in terror, because he had come so close.
"I don't see why you're crying so," Bea said peevishly, her own tear-pink eyes narrowed into slits. "You nearly killed him when you refused him months ago."
It was hopeless trying to explain things to Bea. Juliet cried harder.
"But I guess I deserved that," she sobbed, when Bea had gone.
* * *
4 June 1943
Dear Allan,
Again and again, how glad I am that you are well--that you weren't hurt badly--that my dear friend is still among the living! We've all had a terrible time waiting for news--wanting news--and then dreading for it to come.
Oh, Allan, I've terrible news--young Owen Ford is killed. He died in a siege near Brussels on 29 May. I feel terrible writing you this news, but I thought you would want to know--I remember how you loved playing at Ingleside when you were small. His sisters Trudy and Hannah are taking it very hard, and Mrs. Ken Ford is mad with grief. She lost her own brother in the Great War--and now to lose a son! It is too saddening to think of it.
Say a prayer for his soul, Allan dear, but mostly pray for the ones left behind, because they are sick with loss.
I am sending you a miniature that Father did of me in April--it was on display at a gallery in Charlottetown for a month, and it won a prize in the Exhibition. I think I look the prettiest in it that I have ever looked, and no, that's not vanity, because I don't think I am pretty, normally. It's very like that famous one Father did of Mother in the nineteen-teens. It's called The Smiling Girl II. I hope you'll like it, and keep it near to you, and remember
Your dear friend,
Juliet.
P.S. Yes, Allan, I am still wearing your ring--but it is still on my right hand, where it will stay. Oh, my friend, I'm sorry
* * *
The Junior Reds were falling apart. Trudy Ford was sick in bed with grief over her brother's death, and Joyce Meredith was too distracted to boss anyone. Her own brother, Blythe, had been overseas since March. It was up to Juliet and Bella to keep everything running smoothly.
"When our women fail in courage, shall our men be fearless still?" quoth Juliet reproachfully at the stunned, lackadaisical group of girls.
"That's easy for you to say, Juliet Kent," Rhonda Pearl snapped. "Your brother hasn't gone anywhere--won't go. That's cowardice if I've ever seen it, and I'm ashamed of you! You're one to talk."
Juliet looked at her dumbly, shaking with rage. Rhonda Pearl was an only child. She had no brothers to go.
* * *
11 August 1943
oh, Blair, I wanted to smash her face in--I felt my hands twitching to do it. But instead Bea took my arm and Bella the other and they whisked me out of the hall in a blink of an eye. Stupid old Rhonda Pearl has no idea of how things really are--how Doug cries himself to sleep some nights because he feels so impotent--and ashamed. The worst thing about it is that she wouldn't care even if she did go! I long to go to Douglas, and comfort him, but when I do, he freezes up and tells me in this unfamiliar, hard voice to go away. It makes me feel sick inside--Doug and I used to be able to read each other's thoughts. I still can read his--and they are ugly, furious thoughts. But--I don't think he can read mine. I don't think he wants to anymore. He hasn't even guessed about you--though he brings me your letters from the P.O. every week, and I'm sure everyone can tell I love you just from the way I look. I'm so in love that I expect it to be written on my forehead, and when I look in the mirror and see that it's not I feel surprised.
Just because my brothers' at home doesn't mean that I have no one I care about gone to war. Allan seems not to count anymore because I refused him--it's as if everyone expected me to stop caring for him totally. And there's you! Imagine the looks on their faces if I had been able to tell those girls that my sweetheart is holding steady the Western front?
I am your sweetheart, amn't I, dearest?
Love, Juliet.
* * *
The summer began to segue into autumn. On the first day of fall, Douglas handed Juliet a letter that had come in that morning's mail--a letter written in a familiar, loving hand--a letter that made her jump up--then sit suddenly down--then laugh and cry simultaneously. A letter addressed to
Mrs. Juliet King?
* * *
21 September 1943
Blair!
Yes! That's the answer: yes!
Oh, my darling, of course I'll marry you! It is my most perfect, sweetest dream and to know it's yours, too, sends me over the moon. And I don't even need a flying machine to get there, just the wings that your love gives me.
It's the first of autumn, dearest of all Blairs, and I'm thinking of you--and that night on the shore when I met you and realized that I'd loved you all my life. Do--you--remember, too? I keep remembering your kisses, and they make me go all shivery with delight.
How I love you, darling.
Mrs. Juliet King!