Di came out of her office feeling the usual mixture of joy sadness she always felt whenever a child was adopted. This time it was Mirielle, the baby of the Home. although Di was delighted that the little girl would be able to grow up in a good family, she was going to miss the bright eyes and smile and nonsensical baby-chatter of little curly-haired Mirielle.
Tricia joined her at the front door, blinking away a few tears as the two of them waved goodbye to the happy couple and Mirielle.
"I'm really going to miss her," she said softly.
Di placed a sympathetic hand on the younger girl's shoulder. "I know."
"She was a darling, wasn't she?" added Persis, coming up behind them and waving over their shoulders.
"Come on, ladies," Di said, remembering her responsibilities and turning away. "We still have a number of children needing our attention."
"What will you do when they are all adopted?" Persis inquired mischievously.
"There will always be more orphans than Homes for them," Di replied seriously.
"Well, that's cheerful," was Persis' sarcastic reply.
Tricia had ignored this exchange, still watching the receding figures walking down the street. "I can't wait until I have children of my own."
"Is that likely to happen any time soon?" Persis asked, winking at Di.
Tricia rolled her eyes. "No."
"Really?" Di asked innocently, joining in the teasing. "Then all those thick letters you've been receiving from a certain M. Blair Giraud are meaningless?"
Tricia flushed bright red. "Well, at least I'm still young enough to have children," she snapped. She clapped her hand over her mouth and turned redder red, her face showing her horror at what she'd just said.
Di's own face turned slightly red as she tried to suppress a laugh. Tricia was so rarely angry that it was rather like watching a pet kitten suddenly sprout claws and attack. Persis, she saw, was speechless with shock.
Tricia, still embarrassed, mumbled something inaudible and rushed off. Di allowed herself a laugh once the girl was our of earshot, and Persis slowly regained her equanimity.
"Are we really that old"? she asked in a mock-sad tone.
"I don't know about you," Di answered, her eyes shimmering greenly. "But I just had my thirtieth birthday last week. I believe that officially qualifies me as ancient."
Persis shuddered. "I'm not so far from that grim fate myself."
"It doesn't really bother you, does it?" Di arched one slender eyebrow.
Persis shrugged. "Not especially, but lately I've been wishing I had a family of my own. I had such fun with Paulette and Pierre that night they spent with me this past fall…I'm in no hurry to get married, but I do hate the thought of never having children." She shook herself slightly. "Listen to me, maundering on. I've work to do."
As Persis walked off briskly, Di leaned against the still-open door, her eyes gazing out into the street, not really seeing anything, just letting her mind wander.
Her age really didn't bother her, although it was odd to think that her mother had had four children by the time she was thirty—five if you counted Joyce. Di knew she was getting older, but she was actually almost happy about it. Youth, with its worries and heartaches, was something she was glad to put behind her.
She was still lost in a reverie when a teasing voice said,
"Building castles in the air?"
Di started and found herself looking directly into the laughing blue eyes of Patrick Samuels. She drew herself up and answered with dignity,
"Of course not! A responsible Orphan Home matron does not indulge in such things. I was planning out tomorrow's schedule."
"Mm-hm," Patrick answered skeptically.
Di laughed. "No, I was just day-dreaming. What bring you back here so soon?"
Patrick had stopped by the previous week to give Di her birthday gift: a copy of Walden (they were both fond of Thoreau, and could spend hours arguing over his philosophy).
He held up a letter triumphantly. "This."
Di stared at it blankly. "What is it?"
"It's called a let-ter," he said, speaking slowly and with great emphasis. "It's what two people use to communicate over long distances; children learn to write them at a very young age."
"Very funny," she said dryly. "Who's it from?"
"That's what I wanted to share with you," looking as nervous as a little boy with a secret. "Could we go inside?"
Curiosity piqued, Di led him into her office and closed the door before turning expectantly to him. "Well?"
Patrick licked his lips nervously. "Well…have you ever heard me mention Elizabeth Craig?"
The question was so unexpected that for a moment Di couldn't place the name. She scrambled about in her memory a bit before recalling. "Isn't she one of the Avonlea minister's daughters?"
Patrick nodded and shifted his feet. "I met her when I stayed with Shirley for Christmas. We got along rather well, and we've been corresponding ever since."
He paused, and Di waited for the point. She was surprised to feel a bit of a jealous pang at the thought of Patrick being friends with another woman. She knew it was ridiculous—she had no claim on him—but she didn't like the idea of sharing his friendship.
Patrick cleared his throat. "This is good news…I don't know why it's so hard for me to say. The long and the short of it, Di, is that…well, I wrote and asked Elizabeth to marry me about two weeks ago, and today I received her answer: yes. I'm engaged."
Di felt as though she'd been hit in the stomach—hard. For a moment, she couldn't even breathe. She had no idea why the news that Patrick was getting married was so awful, but her heart wrenched nearly in two.
Then she caught a glimpse of Patrick's face; it was uncertain, hoping for her approval but nervous that she wouldn't understand. Di swallowed her confusing emotions, storing them away for inspection at a later time, and pasted a smile onto her face.
"Congratulations, Patrick!" It sounded flat to her ears, but Patrick's face broke into a relieved smile.
"I wanted to tell you a long time ago, but first I was too embarrassed, and then I was too nervous she'd turn me down. I didn't even tell Shirley…I still can't believe she said yes."
Di was starting to get her second wind. "Come now, don't sell yourself short. But Patrick! I cannot believe you didn't tell me anything at all about this! I didn't know you even knew Miss Craig, and now you're engaged? How did it all happen?"
Patrick laughed, himself again. "I'm not really sure. She is pretty, for one thing—black curls, snapping black eyes, rosy cheeks, dimples—all that. And she's smart, and easy to get along with. She likes to read and sing, loves nature—we just had a great deal in common. She's never been terribly attracted to any of the Avonlea young men, and I've never found a woman I could marry—it just made sense."
"And so you asked her to marry you?" Patrick didn't sound much like a man hopelessly in love. It sounded to Di as though the match were a mathematical equation more than anything else.
He shrugged. "I'm thirty-five, Di. I want to settle down. I hate living in the city—I've always needed plenty of solitude and peace, space to be alone with my thoughts, and room to breathe. I fell in love with Avonlea the moment I drove over the bridge spanning your mother's 'Lake of Shining Waters.' I can teach music there, and farm on the side. We won't be rich, but we'll be happy."
Di felt troubled. She wished she could tell Patrick his reasons for marrying sounded all wrong—but that just seemed too presumptuous.
"I know it doesn't sound romantic, but I've never been an overly romantic person," he said, as if reading her thoughts. "Romance isn't the most important thing in a marriage, Di. I think respect, and admiration, and…appreciation for the other's characters…friendship…those sorts of things, are a more solid base than infatuation."
Di agreed in principle, but she also believed that love grew out of those things. If a relationship stayed perfectly platonic, she wasn't sure marriage was the best choice. A loveless marriage just sounded…well, miserable to her. more importantly, however, it seemed as though Patrick was trying to convince himself as much as her.
"I'm not judging you, Patrick," she said gently. "If you're happy, then I'm happy for you."
"I am happy," he stated firmly.
She hugged him. "Then so am I."
Di sat at her desk for a long time after Patrick left, taking stock of her feelings.
She wasn't in love with Patrick; the idea was too ridiculous. They had known each other for nearly five years, ever since Shirley brought him home for a visit the summer of Jem's wedding.
The two of them had hit it off at once, and were brought only closer by Shirley's love troubles. Both cared a great deal for the youngest Blythe son, and worked together consciously and unconsciously to help him through his hard times.
Their friendship had only grown stronger over the years, but Di knew she wasn't in love with. She loved him, yes, but only as a dear friend.
So why did the news of his engagement hurt so much?
By the end of May, Di had become reconciled to Patrick's engagement. She still felt an odd pang at times over it, but she put those down to a selfish desire to not have share him with anyone, and ignored them.
She also had concluded that the pain she'd felt at the news of his engagement came only through the lack of love she saw in his eyes. She knew what true love looked like—she had seen it on the faces of her parents and all her siblings—and Patrick showed no symptoms. She hated to see him trapped for life in a loveless marriage, but if he was willing to endure such, who was she to stop him?
Still, it did bother her. She didn't say anything to anyone about it, but she worried over it at nights. How could he marry someone he didn't love? And did Elizabeth love him, or was she as blasé about it as he? And what would happen to Patrick's soul once he was irrevocably bound to her? Would he still be Patrick, or would he shrivel up into a dry husk of his old self?
Such questions tormented her at three in the morning, but the rest of the time she was able to push it to the back of her mind.
Meanwhile, Persis was growing visibly more discontented. Di had never expected her to stay so long as a housemaid—it had been over a year now—and so when Persis asked to speak with her one morning, Di was prepared.
"What's troubling you, Persis?" she asked when it became obvious the other didn't know how to begin.
Persis shrugged miserably. "I don't know! I've just been feeling so restless lately." She leaned her elbows on Di's desk and propped her chin up with her elbows. "Do you remember how we all though the War marked the beginning of a new era—how we were going to build a better world than the one before? Do you remember how sometimes the only thing that would keep us going through the darkest hours was the belief that it was all worth something, that something great would come from all the pain and suffering?"
"Of course," Di replied slowly, wondering why all conversations with Persis ended up being so deep, emotional, and passionate.
"Why hasn't that happened? The world hasn't gotten better; it only seems to be getting worse! We aren't building a new world, we're blindly frolicking on the ashes of the old one."
Di blinked. "Poetic exaggeration aside, I don't think things are quite that bad."
"That's because you are doing something. You are taking in children no one else will, and you are instilling values and principles in them. You truly are living up to what we all said we were going to do after the War—building a new and better world."
"I'm flattered, Persis. But I thought the whole reason you started working here last year was so that you could do something meaningful, too. What changed?"
"I don't know," Persis confessed. "All I know is that this isn't enough anymore."
"What would be?"
"I wish I knew." Persis shrugged. "I don't mean to be ungrateful, but I just need something more." She looked at Di helplessly. "What's wrong with me?"
"Nothing," Di laughed. "Persis, ever since we were kids you were always the most adventurous and daring out of all of us—even the boys. Well, maybe not Jem, but you were on a par with him! You always had to be doing something new and exciting. You were never content to just stagnate in one place. I'm actually impressed you were able to stay here for a full year!"
Persis laughed ruefully. "Thanks, I think."
"I'll start looking for another housemaid," Di said. "That way, when you figure out what it is you want to do, you won't have any obligation holding you back."
"Thanks," Persis said again. she sighed. "I will miss the children if I leave…especially Paulette and Pierre."
"They'll miss you too," Di said sympathetically. "But I'm afraid that's just the way it is. You can't have it all, my friend."
Persis pushed her lower lip out in a mock pout as she went out of the room and back to her duties.
As the weeks went by, Di found and hired a new housemaid. The children were heartbroken at first to learn that Miss Persis wasn't going to be working there anymore, but they were soon comforted by the fact that she still came by to see them every day, and now was able to spend even more time playing with them, since she didn't have any chores to distract her anymore. She even took Paulette and Pierre out into the city for the day a few times.
Meanwhile, Patrick was back in Avonlea now that school was done for the summer. He was staying with Shirley and teaching music to the local children. His letters to Di were cheerful, but he sounded, at least to her, to be happier about his early-morning solitary rambles through the woods than his hours of sitting on the manse's front porch with his fiancée.
Di wouldn't let herself ask Shirley about him, and her brother offered no information in his letter, but she dearly would have liked his opinion on Patrick and Elizabeth. Ever since the War, she had come to rely on Shirley's judgment to a surprising degree.
If her brother was silent on the subject of his friend, there was no lack of news about Meggie and Matty. The twins were over a year old now, and their proud papa filled pages with tales of their accomplishment and exploits. Di laughed at him for it, but was secretly just as proud of them as he was. He'd even included a couple of photos in his last letter.
Matty was just as brown and wholesome as his father—even at his young age, he exhibited the same quiet and calm temperament.
Meggie, though she bore Shirley's brown hair and eyes, was much more her mother's daughter. Her little elfin face was all smiles and delight, and she looked as though she held all the secrets of fairyland in her tiny palm.
Shirley wasn't the only one of the family to write of the children. Faith wrote regularly, telling proudly of three-year-old Lily, already the beauty of the family, and Walter, at two a cheerful hellion with his mother's golden-brown hair and his father's hazel eyes.
And Nan also sent frequent updates on her three—handsome Blythe, now three, quiet John Knox, a year old and usually overshadowed by his clever elder brother, and baby Diana Anne, only a few months old but already promising to be quite the beauty herself.
While Rilla had no need to write to Di, living as she did only a short distance away, she too boasted proudly about three-year-old Gilly, a joyous little charmer who combined the best traits of both his parents: Ken's dark curls and eyes, and Rilla's chin and dented upper lip. Watching Rilla dote on him, Di was relieved to see that the sorrow that had shadowed her ever since little Aidan died was mostly gone—though there was a misery lurking in the back of those hazel eyes that made her think there was still some healing left to be done.
It was one sultry morning in late June when Persis burst in like a golden whirlwind, her eyes glowing like jewels.
Di was in the front hall giving instructions to Emma, the new housemaid, and looked at her excited friend with surprise and a bit of amusement.
"What is it, Persis?" she inquired calmly.
Persis tossed her hat into the air and caught it again. "I'm moving to France!"
Di just barely caught her jaw before it dropped all the way to the floor. "To France," she repeated, stunned. "Why?"
Persis laughed. "If you could only see your face right now," she mocked. "When Mother and Dad and I were over there last year, I met one of Dad's acquaintances, a Monsieur Séverin. He's an archeologist, just now becoming famous for his discovery of some ancient sites in Burgundy."
She paused and took a deep breath before continuing. In her wine-colored suit, her face alight with joy and life, she was so beautiful Di could hardly bear to look at her. "There's something about archeology that's always fascinated me—to look at a few pieces of broken pottery and learn something about an entire civilization—it's marvelous.
"I talked quite a bit with M. Séverin, and I must have impressed him with my interest and scanty knowledge, because he offered me a place on his staff if I cared to stay and work with him. At the time I just laughed it off, but now I'm going to take him up on the offer! What better way to learn how to build up a new world than by studying everything that's come before?"
By now Di had regained both her breath and her composure. "That's wonderful. What do your parents think?"
"They are pleased," Persis said. "Dad especially—he's known M. Séverin for years, and respects him enormously. He says it's a wonderful chance for me to learn from one of the most brilliant archeologists of the day."
"I'm thrilled you found something," Di said sincerely. "But—France! It's so far away. Will we ever see you again?"
"I hope so," Persis smiled. "I will come for visits, you know. Di," sobering. "There's something else I wanted to broach to you." She glanced at Emma, who had apparently forgotten the dust cloth in her hand and was watching them with eyes agog. "Could we go into your office?"
"Certainly," Di said, curious. She led the way into her private sanctum, closing the door firmly in Emma's disappointed face.
"What is it?"
Persis drew a deep breath. "I want to adopt Paulette and Pierre." She held up a hand, though Di hadn't said a word. "Hear me out before you say anything."
Di nodded slowly, trying to recover from this latest shock.
"I love those two dearly. Let me start with that. They are both children after my own heart. The one thing last week that held me back from writing to M. Séverin and accepting his offer was the thought of leaving them behind. Then it occurred to me—why not take them along?
"I'm well-off; even if the archeology doesn't pay, Dad's settled enough on me to keep me comfortable for the rest of my life. I'm responsible—I'll take good care of them. They'll be in school when I'm working, and once they're old enough I'll take them with me to digs. Just think of how much they'll learn! And they're French—well, French Canadian, at least—and so it'll be grand for them to live in the land of their forefathers."
She drew in a deep, deep breath. "Oh please, Di, please let me take them. I want this so much. I want children of my own, but I don't want to get married simply so I can have a family, and I don't want to be tied down to a husband's whims. But couldn't love any children, even my own, more than those two. Please, Di."
Di had obediently kept silent through Persis' impassioned speech, but she had been thinking hard. When Persis finally finished, her blue eyes fixed imploringly on Di, she simply smiled and said,
"All right."
Persis blinked. "What?"
Di laughed. "All right! You can adopt them. You made a convincing case, and I know you. You wouldn't do something like this unless you were serious. So yes, adopt them. I hope you'll all be very, very happy."
Persis squealed and danced around the tiny room. "May I tell them right now?"
Di smiled indulgently. "Go ahead."
Persis wrenched the door open and dashed off. Very shortly, Di heard more squeals from the playroom, and Tricia emerged, laughing.
"Did you really tell Persis she could adopt the twins?"
"I did," Di nodded.
Tricia shook her head in amusement. "Heaven help France if those three are let loose!"
Author's Note: Things are getting a bit more interesting for Di and Patrick! I'm out of town for the weekend, leave lots of reviews to brighten me up when I get back!