Oh, goodness.
A cursory look will tell you, dear, abandoned reader, that this story was last updated in December 2018. Two and half years ago. Global pandemics aside, I can hardly account for this delay let alone excuse it; I can only say how pleased I am to be back to it and to apologise for treating it like an overlooked middle child; a veritable Jan Brady, if you will, whilst I lavished attention on her little sister ('Let Love clasp Grief') and did my best with her stalwart older sister ('The Land of Heart's Desire'). Let alone adding an upstart cousin ('Down the Rabbit-Hole') into the mix!
May I offer my grateful thanks to all those who started the journey on this story with me so long ago; both my own Anne-girls who are always ready with a wonderful and bolstering review, and those who have kindly dipped into it and the M-rated companion chapters in the interim. An especial thanks for those who have discovered it more recently and left such lovely and encouraging comments. It takes a dedicated reader to invest in something that hasn't been updated for so long. And apologies for leaving the narrative poised at such a delicate moment! So for those I can't thank personally, thank you to Ds, Mabel, aoggfan, Annefan, Luna White, wow, and Curly wurly.
I must also thank the ever-wonderful elizasky for her beta read on many sections of this chapter, though it was so long ago she will hardly remember! I also apologise in advance to her for being unable to find certain salacious book titles for Dellie's back catalogue we had great fun workshopping many moons ago – though if I ever DO discover them again I will be sure to include them!
I am realising more and more what an ambitious project this story is and the very many layers of character, canon and New Canon, family, history and memory I want to explore. Additionally, my loose plan for this story was for it to take place in three acts; the first act, which we are nearing the end of, takes place (as I began writing it) in the northern summer of 2017. The second act I had planned to cover the remainder of 2017 and the next three or so years, and bookending this would be the third act which would take place largely during the northern summer of 2021. When I started writing 'Betwixt' I presumed I would be writing the latter third about the unknown near future; I could hardly conceive that I would be writing it in real time… or that very recent and still current world events would make the fictional world I was writing look almost unrecognisable.
Hello to you, wherever in the world you are and whatever your circumstances, and I hope that you and yours are safe and well and remain so. I hope the second half of 2021 brings forth the very best for us all x
With love,
MrsVonTrapp x
PS If you had read this update not long after it was posted, I posed a question about whether or not to incorporate real world events - chiefly Covid - into this narrative. I respectfully withdraw the question, and apologise if anyone had already answered or was offended by the suggestion. It is not a subject I take lightly and I am very mindful of the devastation it has wreaked.
Chapter Twelve
'Still trusting in a hand that leads me through'
Anne hadn't fallen asleep within the circle of a man's arms since she was twelve, and her father had carried her inside after an unfortunate inline skating incident.
On that occasion, her head had greeted the curb with enthusiasm, the result of which had thankfully not killed her, but had perhaps rendered her (slightly) unconscious. * She had little memory, certainly, of the panicked ambulance call or the dash to hospital; after which she stayed several hours under observation before a sleepy trip home to her father's city apartment – the airy industrial space in the converted warehouse in Toronto's Distillery District, and certainly not the charming Victorian in Cabbagetown, where her mother remained, with their separation by then an open secret.
She could have recuperated in her own bed there (on alternate weekends and every Wednesday, as per interim custody arrangements ) within the bedroom her father had enthusiastically decorated as a surprise, in an uneasy alliance between little girl whimsy and almost-teenager cool. But she had craved her father's warmth and presence too much, clinging to him pitifully and in clear violation of her assurances she was not a child and could handle a bump to the head, and they certainly didn't need to ring her mother. So he sat cradling her on the couch, reciting Longfellow as lullaby…
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I know not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song? **
Eventually, he must have redeposited her, for she awoke under her jade-green covers, with an impressive bruise above her brow and the lingering trace of his aftershave on her skin.
The trace memory of that aftershave also lingered on his clothes that she refused to let her mother touch, once he was gone. Back home she kept a bottle of his aftershave in a drawer, inhaling it when feeling particularly low, trying to rally something of his essence in which she could envelop herself.
There was a new scent, now; crisp and clean and tantalising, and she inhaled it wonderingly, trying to place it, before the warm, taut torso on which her cheek rested, began to stir.
"Hey there, Sleeping Beauty," David's mellow rumble greeted, and she felt the vibration of his salutation right down to her toes.
"I thought I was Ariel," she smiled into his t shirt.
"Sorry?"
"The Little Mermaid. Disney."
"Ah…" he shifted slightly, drawing her closer. "Not much up with my animated classics, I'm afraid."
"That's a shame. She's a redhead."
"Oh, well, now you're talking!" he chuckled, low, above her ear, throwing her nerve endings into a frenzied dance.
"I didn't mean to fall asleep, here. Sorry."
"I'm hardly complaining," his broad hand moved from her waist to her hip possessively, further hiking up the sundress that now hovered well above her knees.
"I guess I should go…" she sighed.
"It's not even daylight yet, sweetheart."
"Sweetheart?" she grinned, finally turning to face him, chin now resting where her cheek had been.
"Well, after last night, Anne, while beautiful, doesn't seem enough, somehow."
"And what shall I call you?"
He gave due consideration to this weighty question.
"What's in a name?" he recited loftily. "That which we call a rose by any other name – " ***
"Would still be a Gerald," she deadpanned with a wide smile.
"Oh, it's like that, is it?" he laughed quietly, long fingers prodding her side to elicit a reaction.
"No!" she gasped through her giggles, not daring to break the pre-dawn stillness with an ungainly shriek.
"Surrender?"
"Oh that we would," she sighed, her smile sliding downwards.
"Anne…" David propped himself up on his elbow, the better to study her features.
"Sweetheart didn't last long."
He smiled sadly, acknowledging the parry. "Can we take a moment to be serious?"
Her throat tightened. "Of course."
"You're not… sorry… we are waiting? You're not having second thoughts?"
"My second thoughts have had third thoughts by now…"
He reached down to kiss her forehead gently.
"Your birthday is in March, Anne. Only six months away."
"Yours is in October. I much prefer that timeframe."
Now it was his turn to sigh.
"This gives us time. It gives you time. For us to figure out what this is. To see whether what we have is able to exist outside of this summer, even outside of…"
"This bed?" she raised a teasing auburn brow.
He rolled his eyes, but the chagrined smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "You are determined to test me, Anne Ford."
"I think it's written into my job description," she gave a wistful look up to him.
He gave a choked laugh and clutched her close, attempting to memorise her contours, inhaling her deeply until he could taste the scent of lilies on his tongue. This refusal to give in, to let go, was certainly madness, and it wasn't a dilemma he had ever faced before. But then, had he ever really loved a girl before, truly, madly, deeply, till her? The internal struggle the previous night was an internalised pitched battle that might have gone either way, if not for his battered sense of Blythe ethics. But she was too young… and it was too soon… and the shadow of vulnerability that followed her was something he wanted to help banish, not make stronger.
For now he relished this betwixt-time, sighing softly and closing his own eyes for what might have been five seconds or five minutes, until the first bird of the morning chirped a cheerful interruption to their rest.
"Anne…" he nudged her gently.
"Mmm?" she replied sleepily, nestling again into his side, which was not the best way to help him maintain his equilibrium or his resolve.
David expelled a long, slow breath.
"Anne… it will be light soon."
"Mmm?"
"I hear birds."
There was a pause. "Nightingale," she murmured tiredly against his chest.
He chuckled softly, breaking into a smile, even as the thought of a mere week left with her made his heart constrict.
"It was the lark…" **** he whispered, nuzzling her ear, his pulse hammering in tandem to her soon steady, slumbering breaths.
"What exactly are we doing here?" David laughed later, both having abandoned their awkward breakfast with the parents to traipse down the lane to snatch a glimpse of the old farm that, according to his father, had once belonged to Blythes.
They had meandered along, hands entwined and steps in tandem as the red earth crunched underfoot, in a memory that echoed to her as if the snatch of a song heard on the wind.
They had made their way back to the guest house along the perimeter between two properties, coming across an ancient gate that caused Anne to stop in her tracks, eyes agog and hand in his immediately tensing.
Halfway down the hill a tall lad came whistling out of a gate before the Blythe homestead. It was Gilbert, and the whistle died on his lips as he recognised Anne… *****
The image of him was suddenly so clear… younger than the projection in her mirror… younger even than David was now… She knew that this… this… had been an important moment; an epoch. An end and a beginning. Had he always been her genesis?
She had begged David to stay his side of the gate whilst she went through and paced some steps away from him, turning and whipping out her phone, leading him through various positions that involved leaning on the gate, half opening the gate, passing through the gate with hands in pockets, standing beside the gate and looking wistfully into the distance, and then inadvertently laughing in her direction as if sharing some secret joke. All the while she snapped away and looked as if she might have palpitations.
"Anne, I feel like I'm in a photo shoot!" he shook his head.
"Sorry…" she grinned, unrepentant. "Don't mind me. It's just… I'm having a bit of a strange postmodern moment here…" ******
"Am I meant to understand that at all?"
She smiled, a little more wistfully. "Probably not."
He shook his curly head in mock despair, his hazel eyes aglow in the already bright sunlight.
"In that case, come here, Anne Ford, and let's take some together."
She approached him with a rather rapt expression, and they took some obligatory selfies on both their phones, at the point for her in which present and long-ago past nodded to one another, smiling; the perfect, unlikely intersection of her lives – both of them - played out beside a dilapidated gate along a tumbledown fence in Avonlea.
They farewelled the Blythe men, Amanda Wright and the gently rolling hills surrounding the Green Gables Guest House, following the local red roads to the highway which took them onwards to Charlottetown.
Anne was relieved that her departure from David's room that morning did not seem to have been observed, not relishing the thought of a redundant safe sex lecture now, not when her throat was still tight with the pain of their parting, though they would rendezvous with David and Rob in the Island capital after they had crossed back from Nova Scotia in two days after David's MCAT. And the Blythes would be bringing company with them – two sets of grandparents; Rob's father Dr James Blythe, his mother Linda and David's late mother's parents Tim and Cheryl Meredith, all returning from a celebratory multiple retirement cruise that had been long in the planning and had taken up most of the summer.
Charlottetown was more bustling than Anne imagined or her mother remembered; certainly quaint compared to Toronto, but a fair metropolis in relation to the Glen or Avonlea, and a little more genteel than Summerside. The shopping and attractions were easily covered in a leisurely day and a half, which left more than enough opportunity to schedule an afternoon at a hair stylist, the staff eagerly attending to Tessa's rich brown tresses and exclaiming over Anne's very particular hue.
The following morning was David's MCAT, and Anne sent her first text in days and a flurry of encouraging emojis, before settling in for a nervous seven and a half hour wait. She and her mother saw a movie, endured an overlong lunch and then walked it off – and their tension – on a tour around Great George Street led by an historically-dressed Confederation Player, which obviously – and embarrassingly, according to her daughter – called to Tessa's first job working in her hometown's pioneer settlement, when she was no older than Anne was now.
Collapsing back at their hotel, Anne was awoken from a nap by the buzzing of her phone.
"David!"
"Hi there."
"How did you go?"
"Well, I survived. Barely. It was pretty gruesome. I can't believe there are some people who will sit it multiple times. But, well, OK. I feel pretty good about it. Shattered, though."
"I'm not surprised. There are international plane flights that don't take that long!"
"Remind me to do that instead in the future."
"I'm so pleased you feel good about it. Mom will be too. We've been thinking about you all day. We were so desperate to pass the time we ended up on a walking tour."
"That IS desperate! Don't tell Dad or he'll want to do another one when we get back to you."
"No fear! We'll see you tomorrow, then?"
"Absolutely. Dad and all the grandparents want to drag me out to dinner – my Grandpa James is pretty stoked about the MCAT and all, being that he was a doctor back home for forty odd years, and he's only just retired. But I don't think I'll last very long. I just want to crash."
"I understand… well, thanks so much for ringing! We're just so proud of you."
"Thanks, Anne! That means… well, that means a lot. I've really missed you. Even MORE than the missing you when you went to Avonlea."
"Me too. Can't wait to see you."
"I think Dad might quickly ring your Mom, too. Just as a heads up."
"He already has! She walked through to the bedroom about two minutes ago."
"That'll be the next half an hour, then."
"At least!"
"Well… I'd better go…"
"Have a good rest, David."
"You too, Anne. Sweet dreams."
The next morning, Anne and Tessa waited nervously for their delegation of Blythes to arrive, before their escort to meet up with assorted Merediths, which now seemed, from her mother's information via Rob, to include Max and Maddie Meredith and their father Michael, as well as aforementioned grandparents, as all were to converge on the home of the Meredith matriarch, Cordelia.
"Oh, God!" her mother moaned, changing into another dress as perfect as the one she had just rejected. "How am I going to remember them all?"
"Mom, you've met Michael Meredith, briefly, and I know Max and Maddie. And the oldies will just chat amongst themselves anyway. And it's all just family."
"I admire your confidence, love, but just family will probably mean about twenty people! And their dogs, no doubt."
"Mom, I'm impressed!" Anne grinned. "That was almost snipey! And I only count about a dozen people. They'll only have one last name or another. Just don't get them mixed up!"
Tessa blew out a nervous breath. "Just family… just family…" she repeated to herself with determination.
"Our family too! The grandads – James Blythe and Tim Meredith – are first cousins to each other and Dr Blythe is also first cousin to Grandad Tom, don't forget."
"Holy moley, he is, isn't he? Good. If we get struck we can just talk about your Grandad. Anything else you can remember, Anne? I really wish I had paid more attention to Rob's family tree charts now… I'm still not sure how Cordelia Meredith fits in to all this."
Anne whipped out her phone. "I took some photos of the charts before we left the Glen, though Rob is having proper copies for me made. Now Cordelia Meredith was… Jerry and Nan Meredith's middle daughter. They had three – Beatrice, Cordelia and Portia. Oh, I like that! Very Shakespearean. I've always liked Cordelia as a name, come to think of it… Anyway, remember that David is actually named Gerald after Jerry Meredith, so Cordelia is sure to fawn all over him." She looked back up to her mother with a smile. "I think that Rob must have had a lot to do with this Meredith side of the family, to want to follow Jerry into law rather than his own father into medicine."
"Right. Law. Rob and Judge Jerry." Tessa's expression was so serious she might have been cramming for her own exam. "So how is Grandad Tom related to Rob's dad again, love?"
"Well, OK…" Anne scanned her phone again, trying to maximise her photo of Rob's tiny, precise print. "It's… it's through the Blythe side – we're not related to any Merediths. Um… Jerry's wife Nan was a Blythe, and she had heaps of siblings. One of them was Jem and he went on to have, um, Sam Blythe, who went on to have Rob's dad James. And then Nan had a younger sister Rilla, who married Great Great Grandad Ken, who had Great Grandad Gil, who had Grandad Tom."
Anne looked again at her mother, and her expression clouded. "All these people will have known Dad, too," she ventured. "Rob does – um, I mean, did, and maybe David's mother did, and all the other Merediths…you said Dad used to come to the Glen all the time… they would stay at the House of Dreams, and – "
"House of Dreams?" Tessa interrupted with a bemused expression.
Anne colored, putting away her phone. "It's what everyone in the family calls the beach house, apparently. At Four Winds."
Her mother sighed, changing her shoes to compliment her new decision of dress. "There is such a charming touch of whimsy regarding houses on this island. House of Dreams. Ingleside. Green Gables… It makes me wonder whether we shouldn't name our house back in Toronto."
"I think Grandad has cornered the market in whimsical names, Mom. For his boats anyway. Though I don't know who was responsible for naming that lovely old one of his with the green paint job."
Her mother turned from the full length mirror, narrowed brown eyes, but then widened them again in understanding.
"You mean the smallish motorsailer with the cherrywood interior?"
"Yes," Anne accompanied her answer with an eye roll. "The one he doesn't let anyone so much as breathe over."
"That's because that particular boat was a gift," Tessa grinned now. "From one of his two godfathers. It never made any sense to me before, and I didn't know about the connection between the families… but maybe we are sort of related to the Merediths, after all…"
"Sorry Mom, you've lost me."
"The little green boat was once Carl Meredith's."
Now it was occasion for grey eyes to widen, along with Anne's mouth, and she was mute for several moments.
"Carl Meredith? As in Carl and his partner Shirley Blythe?"
"The very same."
Anne gulped, busily processing. "That might explain it, then."
"Explain what, love?"
"Well… years ago, I asked Grandad about the names of each of his boats. When we came to the green one I asked him what Sweet Flag was, but it didn't make any sense."
"Sweet Flag is a type of reed, darling."
"Yes, I know that now, but that's not what he said then."
"What did he say?"
Anne paused for a small, wondering smile. "That it meant… courage."
Dr James Maylock Blythe #, formerly medic of Glen St Mary, now by his own admission Professional Retiree, bounded into their hotel room an hour later with more energy than his grandson and at least as much charm. He had David's curls (a handsome mostly white-grey now, interspersed with a faded pepper hue that might indeed have once been red) and easy manner, that signature wide smile, and those Blythe hazel eyes that were greener than David's or Rob's, and looked at both Ford women who had caught the imagination – or indeed the hearts – of his son and grandson with undisguised interest.
There was a flurry of introductions and then a brief sit down around the coffee table on the plush sofas, Anne seated next to the sweetly solicitous Linda Blythe, who was asking all manner of questions about her trip so far whilst James laughed easily with Rob and her mother, and David made eyes at her from the wing chair to her left, in a clearly misguided and unfair attempt to make her laugh and thus embarrass herself before three generations. He was light-hearted in his manner and clearly relieved to have his study over – for now – and boyish in demeanor, though disconcertingly handsome as ever.
"How have you liked the Island, Anne?" James Blythe now called across to her. "I understand it's your first visit?"
"Oh, it's been brilliant, Dr Blythe! Just beautiful, and full of unexpected highlights."
This made David smirk, and she determined she could not look at him directly for the remainder of the afternoon.
"Good to hear. And how's that grandfather of yours? You'll have to tell him how disappointed we were that he didn't sail you both over."
"He's very well, thank you. Unfortunately he had business back home that couldn't wait. I'm sure he would have loved to have joined us."
Anne bit her lip, thinking that it could have been a family holiday in every respect, but they were not the only ones missing her father. Thomas C Ford might well have considered retirement himself – embraced it wholeheartedly, as his cousin James Blythe – but he no longer had a son to leave the family business to, and his son-in-law, her Uncle Andrew, was a very good person and a fair businessman, but lacked the flair and personality her own father had brought to their company with its manifold literary, commercial and philanthropic interests.
James Blythe nodded understandingly, and a little sadly, and Anne wondered how different things would have been if she had known this extended Island family growing up, with their warmth and their joviality and their effortless connectedness. Back home she had many cousins, at different levels of remove – on her mother's side, certainly, and on her father's side there was her Dad's sister Auntie Carina (Latin for keel – an unsurprising homage to her Grandad Tom's love of messing about in boats ##) and her three children, those particular cousins all under thirteen and all adoring of Anne in the way of an older and extremely indulgent big sister.
But here, today, was the wider embrace of family, putting its arms around her and drawing her in; Rob Blythe's spreadsheets made vivid and pulsing and alive. Was this really what had chased her father away? Had that embrace been too suffocating, or had it all been about something else?
But it was too late for those questions now… for there was movement as everyone gathered their things, and then she was ushered out alongside a grinning David, who seemed to note something in her uncertain visage.
"Don't worry! Aunt Dellie's bark is far worse than her bite!"
Anne counted fifteen people paying court to Miss Cordelia Meredith # in her elegant if slightly eccentrically-decorated Charlottetown parlour. David and Rob, plus four grandparents; a multitude of younger Merediths – Maddie, Max and older sister Megan, all dark-haired dopplegangers of father Michael, plus Megan's good natured boyfriend Rick; another two Charlottetown-based cousins of twentysomething age that Anne couldn't quite recall if descended from Beatrice, Portia or a fairy down the bottom of the garden; and her mother and herself.
Well, sixteen, if you counted the disconcertingly large portrait of Judge Jerry Meredith #, resplendent of attire if not completely of stature. He bore the arresting dark looks typical of many subsequent Merediths, including those present today, though they traced their line through a younger half brother Bruce. There was something about Jerry that appealed to Anne greatly; whether it be the knowing look and smirk about the edges of a trying-to-be-serious mouth; the ready intelligence in those lauded flashing dark eyes, inherited by all his three daughters and evidenced in Michael Meredith himself; or the devotion informed by Rob Blythe's wistful smile, as he looked up with obvious fondness at the realistic representation of his beloved mentor.
David, flushed with both relief and success regarding the MCAT, was in exuberant mood, grinning away at Anne whilst being – as suspected – fawned over by Miss Meredith and unable to contain his glee when she and her mother were themselves fully inspected.
"Well, what a surprise it was to learn of some real life Fords darkening my doorstep," Miss Cordelia ("Call me Dellie, darlings") declared at great volume, as if to counteract her deafness. She was a small, indominable figure, aged in her early nineties but only owning to a birthdate at least a decade earlier, wigged and bejewelled, with the fine features of her mother - and possibly once the nut-brown hair – and the still-merry dark eyes of her father. "When Robbie phoned up to say he was bringing some relations from Toronto I knew that could only mean one thing. You were the actress, love?" she indicated to Tessa. "Yes, you have the looks for it, though this daughter of yours is her father all over."
Anne was unsure if the verdict was given in approval or disappointment, but then it was accompanied by a slow, generous smile.
"We never got to know young Alex as we wanted to," Dellie nodded, almost companionably. "But it was tremendous to have another writer in the family."
This time Anne greeted the smile with a wide offering of her own.
"You going to pick up the pen again, Aunt Dellie?" James Blythe grinned at his godmother. #
"Oh heavens, darling, who has the time for that anymore?"
"You… you were a writer, Aunt Dellie?" Anne found her voice, appropriately excited by this news.
"She wrote scandalous Regency romances, Anne," Michael Meredith chimed in with a wolfish, teasing smile.
"She was the Canadian Barbara Cartland, only with much better style" added Rob Blythe generously, with more than a dash of Blythe charm, which earned him a kiss blown by the lady in question.
"Do you… still have any copies of your books here, Aunt Dellie?" Anne mustered up the courage to ask.
"Oh, love, the library's full of them, for what it's worth. They are only taking up space now, though they did see me through two unfortunate divorces. Young Gerald will show you."
Young Gerald gave a chagrined smile – it was perhaps inevitable and expected that Dellie would invoke her beloved father's name here (there would be no going by David today) – and preceded her out of the room and down a long, wood-panelled hallway, pausing to embrace her before a huge oak door.
"I'm afraid once you see this library you'll forget my very existence," he smiled, taking the time to kiss her soundly and resolutely whilst he still had the opportunity.
"Surely I would still favour you over a mere novel, Gerald?" she teased.
"Yep, was waiting for it …" he sighed good-naturedly, shaking his head. "Aunt Dellie is the only one who gets away with that, you know."
"She seems to be keeper of the family flame as much as your dad is," Anne noted approvingly, hugging him tightly.
"You'd better believe it. Captain of Team Meredith and Team Blythe. Right down to her own memorabilia collection…" he quirked a leading eyebrow at her.
"More memorabilia?" Anne exclaimed, her eyes lighting.
"Letters, in particular. From the first Anne in our family to her fiancé at the time, Gilbert Blythe."
"What?" Anne squeaked.
"I knew I'd lose you at that…" he paused for effect, hand tightly on the doorknob.
"David! Let me in!"
"What's the password?" he chuckled.
Anne opened her mouth to protest this loudly, but then thought better of it.
"This," she offered, standing on tip toe to give him a kiss both passionate and full of promise.
"That'll do," he smirked, opening the door with a flourish.
Chapter Notes
My chapter title is from Robert Browning's Pauline;
Still trusting in a hand that leads me through
All dangers; and this feeling still has fought
Against my weakest reason and resolves.
*Referencing, of course, Anne of Green Gables (Ch 23)
**Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from The Arrow and the Song (1845)
***William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet (Act 2, Sc 2)
****Romeo and Juliet (Act 3, Sc 5)
*****Anne of Green Gables (Ch 38)
******a quote from the fabulous mini series Lost in Austen (2008), which is an absolute hoot – funny and clever. For those who know it, the scene from which this reference is taken involves a lake, the hero, and a wet shirt. For those who don't know it, surely that is intrigue enough?!
##referencing Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
# And now a note on Characters and Continuity
I trust by this stage you are all as confused as Tessa is regarding the inter-relationships of these Blythes, Merediths and Fords. Much of the fun of this story for me - and also some of its frustration! - is seeing how all LMM's intermarriages have played out down through the generations – and I know I have certainly not helped matters here either!
What you will find in this chapter especially, and others going forward, is how I am attempting to blend canon continuity, my own universe's internal continuity and elizasky's New Canon continuity as seen in her seminal 'The Happiness We Must Win'. I have already borrowed from this in the discovery of Shirley's letter to Kit (Carl) in the copy of Whitman found at Ingleside in 'Betwixt' Chapter 5 and discussed at length in Chapter 6. As in 'Happiness', Shirley and Carl are gay and were a devoted, long-standing couple, (as I endeavoured to show in the Interlude/Flashback sequence from 1984 found in 'Betwixt' Chapter 8). Not only is this plotline there to help bring Anne and David together, but it becomes important going forward, as we have already seen Anne is linked to the Blythes and Merediths more than she knew, through her Grandad Tom being named by his father Gil Ford to honour both Shirley and Carl (Thomas Carlyle), and for both men to be named as his joint godfathers. And also, I hope people have noted who 'inherited' Carl's love of the sea and beloved boat the Sweet Flag!
In this chapter I have also borrowed James Maylock Blythe (David's Blythe grandfather and Rob's father, also seen in the 1984 flashback) from elizasky - James was seen as a baby in 'The Happiness We Must Win' when his baptism was a big moment in particular for the character of Father Daniel – and Una. As established in 'Happiness', James is the son of Wally Blythe and Zoe Maylock, and his own grandparents were Jem and Faith. Wally is killed at sea during WW2 and the unwed Zoe raises baby James at Ingleside… and eventually goes on to marry his older brother, Sam, who is the person Rob Blythe at present THINKS is his biological grandfather… I dearly hope within the pages of Betwixt to bring you the love story of Sam and Zoe … eventually.
The other character I lovingly borrow here is Dellie (Cordelia) Meredith, middle daughter of elizasky's Nan and Jerry, and also James Blythe's godmother (also established in 'The Happiness We Must Win'). And I may also have borrowed… a certain very large portrait...