Behold! Another chapter!
Before we begin, I have some notes to give out: this is a story that is mostly told from Walter and Una's points of view. There is method to this madness: in RoI, most everything is from Rilla's point of view, and while we all love the obsession with Ken, a fifteen year old girl might not be the most reliable narrator when it comes to her brother's love life - even if that brother is Walter. So I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that an alternate title to this story could be, "What Rilla Didn't Know."
Also, thank you to kslchen - without her, any romance in this story would have shot ahead at light speed...and we don't want that. Thanks to her intervention, we may actually get to stop and smell the roses.
The roiling skies the next morning were an apt reflection of Walter's mood. He had slept badly, slipping in and out of dreams of war and death and pipers, punctuated by the growls of thunder of the storm outside. Even now, as he made his way down from the house to Rainbow Valley, the sky still threatened rain, and he wondered if he should turn back for a slicker. He had excused himself from breakfast hastily, the music from his dreams still ringing in his ears, and come down to Rainbow Valley in the hopes of clearing his head at least a little.
The sky above Rainbow Valley was not the hundred-fold blue Rilla had described the night before. If anything, it looked angrier than ever, the heavy clouds twisting themselves into ever-changing shapes above. Where it had been a momentarily peaceful haven yesterday, today it was a brooding scene of white, green and grey.
It was also occupied. A dark-haired figure unfolded itself from underneath the large tree across the clearing, and as he approached her, Walter made out the shy smile and shining eyes of Una Meredith.
And suddenly, he wasn't entirely certain what to do with himself. Their year of correspondence had changed things between them. They had always been good friends and comfortable around each other, but in his letters, he had told her things he would have never divulged to another living soul.
So now she stood before him, the keeper of his deepest secrets. How did one greet the keeper of one's deepest secrets, he wondered?
He finally stuck out his hand - a trifle awkwardly, he had to admit. "Hello, Una."
Her hand was small and warm in his, but had a firm grip. "Good morning, Walter." The twinkle in her sapphire-blue eyes was the only indication of her pleasure at seeing him.
"I was going to call at the Manse within the next few days to say hello, but you seem to have beaten me to it," he said.
Una inclined her head. "You sounded...disturbed...in your last letter," she said quietly. Una was always quiet, never pitching her voice much louder than a murmur for as long as circumstances allowed. "You always come here when you need to think," she added. "I had a feeling I would be able to find you here sooner or later."
A chuckle worked its way up and out of him. Of everyone in Glen St. Mary, there were probably two people who knew him best now - Mother and Una. "And speaking of sooner or later…"
"Have you told them yet?" she asked.
They were now seated beneath the same tree they used to do their homework under, its canopy spreading out above them, rustling in the wind.
Walter shook his head. "Truth be told, I'm afraid of telling them. I'm afraid of what it will do to Mother - she's already got Jem to worry about, after all. And Rilla - I don't want to see the look on her face when I tell her I'm -" he broke off, unable to verbalize exactly what it was that he was going to do. Oh, he know what he had to do - follow the Piper. He just wished it weren't so difficult. But if it were easy, he would have left long ago with the rest of them.
Next to him, Una turned her head to look at him, her eyes understanding.
And if he'd left at the first sign of war, he wouldn't be here with her. That was something, he thought.
"What am I going to do?" he asked softly, more to himself than to her.
A small smile twisted her lips. "That's not for me to say - or even to know, Walter. I won't be the one to tell you to go, but I will not be the one holding you back if this is something you believe in."
"Letting me make the difficult decision?"
"If you like." She took a half-finished blanket out of her handwork bag, spread it across her lap, and began to crochet across. "Mrs. McGarrity is expecting another baby by the end of the month," she said by way of explanation. "It's her fifth, and I want it to have something nice that it can call its own."
Walter watched her hands as they looped yarn around the hook, pulled it up, looped it again, and pulled it through. It was restful, watching her work this way, almost like meditation or prayer. He wondered if this was her way of calming down.
"Una - "
She looked up from her work, but her hands kept the same pace they had before. "Yes?"
"Writing to you these past months," he took a deep breath, knowing what he wanted to convey, but for once lacking the words to do so, "writing to you...was one of the few bright spots in my life."
He watched as her hands stilled and a blush, the color of tea roses, slowly warmed her pale cheeks. Her lips parted as though she were about to say something, but had thought better of it. Finally, she looked up at him and said, "I'm glad I could be of help."
"Your letters," he wasn't sure why he was saying this, but something told him he had to get it all out, "were like nothing else I've read. They made me feel like there was still some good in this world."
"Walter, there will always be good in this world," so long as you are in it, she added to herself. "We only need to look to see it - and to realize that sometimes, it is right in front of us."
"Or right beside us."
The oxygen left Una's lungs in a whoosh of air. Had he just…? "Or right beside us," she echoed before standing abruptly, cramming her half-finished blanket, yarn and hook into her bag, squashing them terribly - time enough to iron and untangle later. "I need to go. I've stayed far longer than I intended, and Mother Rosemary wanted me home by ten. And I'm keeping you from your family - they must be wanting to spend time with you after not having you at home all these months. Oh! And it looks like rain -" she haphazardly waved her hand at the sky before grasping Walter's hand in farewell. "Good-bye, Walter. I'll see you after church on Sunday."
And with that, she set off towards home, doing her level best not to fall flat on her face.
Walter watched Una go, a look of utter bemusement on his face. She'd said she was going home - but why was she taking the path that went in the opposite direction? She'd stood up as though stung, made some hasty good-bye out of thin air, and raced off as though the hounds of Hell were nipping at her heels.
He'd known Una Meredith since he was ten years old, and he had never seen her act this way. They'd been having a perfectly good conversation - hadn't they? And then up she went, running for the hills.
Was it something he'd said?
He'd mentioned the letters, and writing to her. Racking his brain, he tried to remember exactly what he'd written to her throughout the past year. Several times, he'd written about his cowardice - sometimes with language his father had impressed on him never to use in front of a lady. Those had usually been written late at night, when his mind was so foggy that whatever he wrote went straight from his head to the paper, bypassing his common sense entirely. Then there had been occasional humorous clippings from the newspaper, and the odd caricature drawn by his roommate. Once in a while, he had sent her a poem he'd written - and she would always reply with a few thoughtful lines on his writing.
In his last letters to her, he had confessed that he knew that he would join up. Sooner or later, he had said. Sooner or later, the Piper's call would become too strong to resist, and he would follow him wherever he led.
He wondered if he would be able to write to Una when that happened. With her, he didn't have to be Walter Blythe, university student, or devoted son, or wise older brother. He could just be Walter. And that, he had to admit, felt rather nice.
Now, if only he could figure out what had Una running off like that…
Standing up and brushing grass of the seat of his trousers, he set back off towards home, the strains of the Piper, which had fallen silent during his time with Una, picking up again to haunt him.
Unbeknownst to him, Una was propped up against a pine not too far outside Rainbow Valley, wondering if it was possible for a body's heart to burst out of her chest, and damning the corset that bit into her sides.
Calling herself all sorts of names her father didn't know she knew, she slowly felt her legs give way, letting her slide down the trunk of the tree.
She had been in love with Walter Blythe for more than half her life. But he had always been attracted to Faith, and Una had always simply been his good friend. She had to admit that since the dance in August, the one during which war had been declared, things seemed to have shifted a little - or so she thought, foolish girl that she was. Writing to him during this past year had been wonderful, though. So wonderful that she had allowed it to raise her hopes a little. She had gotten to know him better than she had ever hoped to - but it also meant that their easy friendship of old was gone, replaced with a new awareness.
Not that it meant anything, of course. She was reading too much into it, and the sooner she got over this, the better. Walter likely - hopefully? had no idea she was having these thoughts, and she preferred to keep it that way.
So here she was, sitting on the mossy ground beneath a tree, after having run for the hills at the barest sign of...what, exactly? Certainly not romance. With a soft groan, she let her head drop back against the bark, looking up at the grey sky through the needles above her. Closing her eyes for a moment, she pushed herself up, collected her bag, and set off for home. Self-pity, as her father said, was a cousin of selfishness. And selfishness was sinful.
Besides, Mother Rosemary had wanted her home by ten.
Una made it home in good time, coming through the side door of the Manse just as the grandfather clock rang the quarter hour. She found Mother Rosemary in the kitchen, assembling the ingredients for the remaining meals of the day. Looking up from her cookbook, which was perched on a music stand borrowed from the parlor at the Manse or the choir room of the Presbyterian church, she gave Una a warm smile, followed by an apron and orders to wash her hands.
"You're late," she remarked after Una reemerged from her hand-washing. "Did you have far to go?"
Una shook her head, realizing too late that her stepmother, who had her back turned, couldn't see her. "No," she said, "only Rainbow Valley."
Unbeknownst to her, Rosemary sent a knowing look out the kitchen window, in the direction of an invisible Ingleside. "I hear Walter Blythe's home from Redmond."
A nearly imperceptible catch of breath behind her. "Yes. He is." Choppy little sentences that told her more in their silences than their words did. Rosemary Meredith had known of Una's love for Walter probably longer than Una herself had. In her heart of hearts, she hoped that something might come of it, and that Una's young heart might not be broken as hers had.
But for now, all she could do was wait and see.
Turning away from the kitchen window and her thoughts, she smiled at Una again.
"Hand me that flour?"
Look at that...no quotes!
This chapter's title is taken from the song "The Girl I Left Behind Me", an English folksong dating back to the Elizabethan era, although the first printing of the text occurred in 1791. However, the version I'm using here is from the American Civil War.
And because I love turning the Author's Notes into an impromptu history lesson, this song also has some use in the First World War. British soldiers came up with their own version, containing the following charming lyrics:
Kaiser Bill is feeling ill,
the Crown Prince has gone barmy,
We don't give a f*** for old von Kluck
And all his bleedin' army.
The censoring is mine.
Au revoir (but not good-bye - for those of you who get the reference),
Anne
