High above the city of Montreal, in the pearly gray dawn sky, the sun was fighting a battle to peek through and losing. The day was blustery and cool, with a hint of damp. It was the kind of day that the townspeople spent scuttling from shop to shop while conducting their daily errands, in a hurry to get home. The lucky ones got to stay indoors, in front of their roaring fires. It was not a good day to start a journey.
"It looks like rain," Father said, and Cecilia Blythe shivered and pulled her pea-coat more tightly around her thin frame.
"I don't want to go," she said in a low voice. She didn't exactly mean for Father to hear her, but he did. He smiled at her, but it was a false smile, and when he spoke there was equally false joviality in his voice.
"Not want to go! Of course you do. Cee, you've spent summers on the Island before."
Cecilia lowered her blue-black eyes.
"This isn't an ordinary visit."
Father put his hands in his pockets and jingled his loose change. He looked as if he would speak, but didn't. After a long while, he pulled a few coins from his pocket and pressed them in her hand.
"To buy a treat on the train," he said. "If Miss Branston will let you."
Father's eyes smiled, and Cecilia tried to smile back. Miss Branston, the headmistress of the girls' school, had kindly agreed to accompany Cecilia on her journey. She was notorious for being a modern woman. She rarely gave praise, wore her hair severely bobbed, and thought sweets rotted childrens' teeth.
"Cheer up, pet," said Father. "You've got stamps galore and you can write me every day. I'll send you more. You've got plenty of pocket money, haven't you? I hear there's a cinema in the Glen now. You'll have loads of time to spend with your cousins—I expect by the time I come for you in September you'll all be the best of friends and you won't want to leave. Got your ticket?"
"Miss Branston does."
"Well then." Father jingled his change. "Give me a kiss then—that's my girl—there's the conductor beckoning. Any last words?"
Cecilia gave him a thin white envelope from the pocket of her coat. It was addressed to Mother.
Father's eyes softened when he saw it. "I'll give it to her when I see her. Can I read it, Cee? I don't want to give her anything that might upset her."
Cecilia nodded. She had taken great care with the letter—she didn't want to upset Mother, either. She'd chosen her words carefully. Dear Mother, it said. I hope you will get better soon. I'll think of you every day, under the tree in Rainbow Valley, just like I promised. I hope you think of me, too.
"Cecilia Blythe!" The voice echoed in the cavernous station, and Father gave his girl a little push.
"Love you, pet," said he. "It will be all right. Tell all the old folks I said hello—and I'll keep them up to current when I write. Jem and Nan and Rilla and their broods have promised to set up a party in your honor—no, not right away, in a few weeks, after you've had time to settle in. Di and her chicks are coming up from Avonlea for it. All right, then. One last hug—and another kiss, there's a girl. What will I do without my girl for so long?"
Now the conductor was beckoning, along with Miss Branston.
"Her bark is fiercer than her bite," Father said, touching Cecilia's nose playfully. "It's not a long trip—you can suffer her for that long. But go, now, before steam comes out of her ears."
Cecilia laughed and pressed her father's hand again. She was still smiling when she took her seat on the train and waved and blew a kiss out the window. But as soon as the train left the station, so did the smile leave her face. She didn't feel happy at all. But she hadn't wanted to upset Father. No matter how sad he was, Father liked to leave people smiling.
***
"What a somber child you look!" Miss Branston jabbed a long nail at a picture in Cecilia's photo album as the train jolted along the Canadian countryside. "Don't you ever smile?"
Cecilia examined the picture in her lap. In it, she was about three, with a solemn look on her face. Her black hair was cut in a fringe straight across her forehead, adding to the feeling of severity.
"I was scared of the camera," she defended herself.
"Oh, Cecilia, you surely can't remember back that far." Miss Branston waved her hand dismissively.
"I remember everything," said Cecilia hotly. "I remember being born."
Miss Branston just laughed again and asked the conductor for another drink of water.
Cecilia ordered a soda. "Soda rots children's teeth," said Miss Branston. "Besides, you don't have any money."
"Father gave me some," Cecilia said. "Oh, please, Miss Branston, Father wanted me to have a treat." She reached her hand into her pocket where she'd put the coins Father gave her. They were not there. She must have lost them! Cecilia scrabbled around, checking her other pockets, and then fell back against her seat, defeated.
"Water for both of us, please," said Miss Branston triumphantly.
Cecilia turned back to her photo album.
"Why that's your father at Queens!" said Miss Branston, exclaiming over an old photograph. "He looks somber, too—that's where you must have gotten it. But Shirley was a laugh and half when you got to know him. He was the handsomest boy in school—but only because his brothers Jem and Walter had graduated by then. Ha ha! Look." Miss Branston flipped a few pages until she came to a picture of the two brothers standing side by side. "The red-haired one is your Uncle Jem. And the dark one is Walter."
Cecilia looked closely at the picture. Uncle Jem looked kind. Uncle Walter had a dreamy look on his face, as if he hadn't been wholly present when the picture was taken. She flipped a few more pages until she came to a snap of Aunts Di and Nan—the famous Ingleside twins. Auntie Di looked jolly. She had her head thrown back and was laughing. Aunt Nan was smiling serenely—and somewhat proudly. Father said once that Nan's only downfall was that she knew exactly how pretty she was.
"And there's Rilla and her family," Miss Branston said. "It's amazing how well she's kept her figure after having all those children! But some people say that she wasn't nearly handsome enough to land Kenneth Ford."
"Aunt Rilla is gorgeous," said Cecilia with some spirit. "Uncle Ken was lucky to land her." She turned over the picture and read the names of the children written on the back in Aunt Rilla's slanting script. Rilla and Ken Ford, with Gilbert, Owen, Gertrude, and Hannah.
They looked nice enough. There were also pictures of her other cousins, school pictures of handsome, ruddy children with bright smiles. Walt, Merry, Jake and Nancy, Uncle Jem and Aunt Faith's brood. Joyce and Blythe, Auntie Nan and Uncle Jerry's two. And Bertha and Teddy, Auntie Di's twins. There was a snap of Uncle Bruce, who was at Redmond, and smiling pictures of Grandmother Rosemary and Grandpa Meredith. Snaps of Uncle Carl and Aunt Persis' children, Leslie and Kent. But Cecilia hardly needed pictures of them. They lived in Montreal, too, and Cecilia saw them hardly every day. Or she had. She had a sudden pang of longing for her spirited cousin Leslie. How she wished Leslie were coming with her! She hadn't seen the other cousins in so long—not since Susan was born. That was nearly three years ago! What if they were mean to her? What if they didn't like her?
Cecilia felt a sob well up in her throat, and to quash it—she wouldn't cry in front of Miss Branston!—she turned to the back of her album and looked at her favorite picture of all. It featured a smiling man and woman in front of a beautiful, homey-looking house. To the woman's right was a happy looking brown-boy. To her left, was a sad, dark-haired girl. It was Grandmother and Grandfather Blythe, with Mother and Father on their wedding day.
But now, as Cecilia looked at the picture, she saw that mother looked sad even then. Why? Hadn't Leslie said that a girl's wedding day was the happiest in her life? Had Mother been sad always?
There was one more picture in the book, but Cecilia didn't have the heart to look at it. Instead she closed the book and waited until it was dark so that she could cry, silently, to herself, without anyone seeing.