Chapter XIX
It was magical.
Christmas of the year 1942 was certainly the one Hester and her family would remember till the day they die and beyond that too. The war was still on of course, Gil (who returned to the front at the end of November), Marshall, Selwyn, John, Walt, Bruce and Seb were still in danger and participating in the concept of the war and pain but the events which led up to Christmas that year, especially the last three days before Christmas Day, were truly magical and they were most definitely miracles.
The day before Hester's family was about to take all their suitcases, presents and other meaningful belongings of theirs and take on a journey to the old but beautiful Avonlea, Una took a walk through the Rainbow Valley, full in its snowy glory, with her sweetheart Liam and little did she know at the time that once she'd get back home an hour later, she would wear a shining diamond ring on her hand, her cheeks flushed with fiery colour and her eyes twinkling; she would look exactly like she did twenty years earlier. Hester wrote down in her diary that evening that she'd "never in the world forget the look of pure and deserved happiness" on her auntie's face like the one she had on that day of her engagement. Everyone simply couldn't express their congratulations enough to both Una and Liam.
Then, exactly the day after, Faith and Jem got a 'phone call which was arranged by the nurse Cornelia Douglas who with a breaking voice said that her very own fiance and their oldest child, Walt, was found and now she is doing her duty by nursing him back to health from his broken leg, ribs and a few bruises here and there. It was a very moving moment for Faith quite literally collapsed into her husband's arms and both of them cried with relief together. Lily, with tears in her eyes and a huge smile on her lips ran out of the house and put up a flag proudly and thankfully with trembling from joy Marion at her side whose shoulders were embraced by both Hester's and Vance's arms. Smiles didn't fail them at all on that evening.
Then it was finally the awaited Christmas Eve and nobody could help not smiling or talking with one another of how lucky and grateful they all were for the safe coming back from the land of "wounded and missing" of Gil's and Walt's. They all felt thankful and merry about Gil's engagement as well as Una's engagement and they all regained hope in the new year of 1943 coming slowly but surely into their lives.
Hester had one more reason to feel blessed because during Christmas Eve and their dinner, her Group gained its new member of a name Jo who since her friendship with the black-haired Hester started changing into a completely new and a better person. One thing that hasn't changed about Jo though was the fact that she still did everything to look as fashionable as possible, but that was a good thing especially because it wasn't only herself who cared a little about that, it was also the brought-up-in-Toronto miss Hester and the queen of sewing Lily.
Jo, now quite heavily pregnant, glowed in the beauty of her being a mother-to-be and was crying with joy over the gifts for her own baby (the fact in which she still couldn't quite believe) she got from her family. Apart from the knitted clothes, small toys or children's books, there was one particular present over which she was speechless and tears were stuck in her eyes for at least ten minutes straight.
It was a family cot she received from her grandma Anne and grandpa Gilbert which brought tears not only to Jo's but to everyone else's eyes as well. The ancient cot both Mr and Mrs Blythe used for all of their own children and which was later used by Rilla to raise her little Jims who, after all, was not so little anymore. Jo kissed both of her grandparents dearly and thanked them from the bottom of her heart while Hester put her own hand very gingerly on the cot's wooden frame and caressed it with a shine of her own reflected in her eyes and a soft smile appearing on her thin red lips.
That day was glorious. Everyone sang together, even Leslie and Owen Ford did a special recital for their family which positively surprised everyone; Hester along with Lily, Ada and little Delia sang "Winter Wonderland" together and they all danced, every single one of the people spending that Christmas together in the Green Gables' living room danced with one another.
Now it was the last day of the year of 1942, another year which Hester would never forget for it did change her life. Her sweetheart went off to the front, her brother and her cousin went missing and then were happily found, her brother became engaged, she finished school and started working as a private music teacher as well as a help in the orphanage, she became bosom friends with Jo and so the very last person she thought she could ever even talk to on friendly terms, and these were only some of the things that were memorable from that passing year of her life.
Hester was now walking to the mysterious yet magnificent Hester Gray's garden, her very own namesake's garden which she always loved dearly. She knew that her Group was already there, waiting for her to come with the freshly baked cookies by their auntie Una who insisted on taking them for their small picnic in the snowy garden of Hester Gray's.
Hester wasn't in a hurry, she wanted to take it all in so she could see and later write it all down to her brothers, especially to Selwyn, and remind them of the beauty of the world which was, surprisingly to some, still there. She put her hand instinctually on the pocket of her trousers and could feel the paper beneath it, the faded letters once written by the hand of Hester's uncle Walter which she carried around with her everyday and everywhere.
Around her neck was the cello necklace she wore every day as well, a gift from Phillip for her seventeenth birthday. That was the second thing she touched instinctually and smiled at the thought of her handsome friend being safe and sound at his home in New York, studying hard to become a lawyer.
But there was a new addition to her jewellery and that was the Christmas gift she got from her very own sweetheart, Seb. He asked his mother to send a shiny, gold bracelet with a tiny diamond securely attached in the middle of it, straight to him so that he could add his letter to the package and send it back to Canada, to Hester, for her to have it forever with her and to remind her of him. Of course, she would never wish for a greater gift from her sweetheart at the front. She felt very much appreciated to have Seb who made such an effort to arrange it all for her, and now the bracelet rested around her right wrist with no intentions of it coming off any time soon.
She blushed as she looked down at it, while walking alongside the valley of snow leading up to her destination and her friends. Seb didn't say anything of that sort in his letter attached to the bracelet but Hester's imagination got the better of her, as well as her hopes. She considered the bracelet with a certain diamond in the middle of it to be her and Seb's promise of the future they were meant to spend together. It was her own sweet secret and a wish of which only the people who knew her could think she's made.
"Hey ho, Hes!" Lily cheered aloud when Hester came into their sight, all flushed, smiling and smelling of fresh cookies she carried in her arms.
Everyone cheered as well and Hester laughed while setting the bowl in the middle of their circle. She sat between Vance and Ada with her usual grace of a cello-player and felt satisfied with her life for once "How are you all? Aren't you cold by sitting here?" she asked them with a grin.
"Well, I was a bit cold and so was Lily," Will chuckled and hugged his knees "-but we raced each other for a bit and now we're both fine, aren't we, Lil?" he asked his cousin who playfully punched his arm and laughed as well.
"Aye, aye, captain!" she said merrily and all of the young people surrounding her laughed with her too "Hes, is Jo going to stay up till midnight today then? Did she tell you?" she asked her black-haired friend who reached out for a cookie from the plate at the same time as David did from her opposite side and they smiled at each other knowingly.
"She said: "Of course, I'm staying"." Hester grinned thinking of the tone in which Jo said that, as if she wasn't to become a mother in less than two months and that she wasn't tired at all, even though dark circles were clearly visible underneath her eyes "And you know Jo, when she makes up her mind on something, she'll do it, no matter what."
"Well, we don't know Jo as much as you do now, Hester." Ada pointed out with her kind smile "But I suppose that she is just like that."
"I wonder if she's having a girl or a boy." Marion said suddenly, her voice dreamy.
"I think it's a boy." Will said decidedly.
"I do as well." David agreed.
"You boys are such... men!" Lily exclaimed and everyone laughed at her statement "I think it's a girl. I'm sure of it." she said while taking another bite of her cookie.
"I think it's a girl too." Marion and Vance said in unison and both smiled at each other timidly.
Hester smiled at them as well but then she shrugged "I think that the most important thing is that the baby will be healthy and that Jo will be too." she said wisely everyone nodded along at her answer.
"Well, of course, we all hope for that too." Lily said and then she jumped up from her seat suddenly "Jolly God, it's cold! Let's go and take a walk! I'll carry the cookies!" she laughed and reached for the plate but was stopped by Will who reached out for the plate as well.
"I will do it, Lil." he said decidedly "I'm a man, after all, as you said yourself." he winked at her and she hit his head with a snowball.
"Cheeky, little man! That's exactly what you are, Matthew William Blythe!" Lily said and everyone fell into a sudden wave of laughter overcoming them like a tidal wave. Echoes of their laughter wandered off through the entire garden and it was as if the ghosts of the people who once crossed the same paths Hester and her Group were crossing in that moment could hear them laughing too. Their presence was almost reachable, Hester thought to herself, as they all now walked together through the snowy kingdom.
"We got a telegram from Gil in the morning." Hester said.
"Oh, Hester, why didn't you say anything sooner?" Vance said merrily, her arm in the arm of Hester's and Ada's. Vance always waited for Hester's news of her oldest brother for he was in the same regiment as her own brother, Marshall, was.
"I don't know really but I'll tell you now anyway." she replied just as joyfully "Gilly met auntie Persis' and uncle Carl's son, Tom, who is also a Wing Commander but for the British army, of course, as you all know, and they along with Marshall," she smiled knowingly at Vance "-spent the whole Christmas together."
"Oh, how lovely!" Ada said cheerfully.
"I am very happy they all met too." Hester agreed "At least they were all with a part of their family for Christmas and that's the most important part of it, isn't it?" she looked at each of her cousins' and friends' faces and they all smiled at each other. Hester was noticing the links they all shared in one another's faces, even in Vance's own who wasn't connected with them by blood but even a connection by soul was just as important as that one by blood.
"Very true." David said kindly to Hester who smiled back at him.
"I can't believe that this year is almost over!" Lily said suddenly with all the energy sitting inside of her "It went so fast…"
"Did it though?" Ada asked her doubtfully "When I think of June and so when I wrote my last exam and when I think of this day when I'm almost halfway through my first year of mathematics at Redmond I think that it went extremely slowly."
"Well, it all depends on your own perspective, doesn't it?" Lily agreed "But it is a bit sad to think that another year is over."
"I think that it's a cheerful event." Hester argued "I am actually really looking forward to the next year, even though I'm still terribly scared of what it might bring." she shivered suddenly and she could almost swear that the people around her did too.
"I agree, Hester." Marion added after a moment of silence "But we should all think of the happy things that could happen next year and also of the ones that definitely will, like Jo's new arrival." she smiled at the thought.
"Oh, I can't wait to kiss Jo's baby's cheeks!" Lily chuckled and so did the others around her.
"Neither can I." Hester agreed joyfully "It's the beginning of a new life, isn't it? The new genaration in our family!" she said wonderingly.
"I wonder who will be next?" Will said all of a sudden "To become a parent, I mean?"
"Maybe it will be your Gil, Hes?" Lily suggested with a grin "He is engaged after all."
"He is…" Hester admitted and then raised her eyebrows in a dawn of realisation "I still can't quite believe it though! Not until I'll see him and Daria standing next to each other while holding one another's hands."
Everyone smiled at her then "It is hard to believe, isn't it?" Lily said "Gil is just so…"
"Not grown-up?" Hester suggested and her friends laughed jubilantly "Yes, he was. I think that now he is, after all, more grown-up. I only hope that he's not entirely so." her eyes got a bit watery and Vance's hand squeezed Hester's in their silent conversation and both looked at each other both meaningfully and knowingly.
"Of course, he's not." Ada said decidedly "I don't think any one of us will ever be!" and she threw a fresh snowball straight into Hester's flushed face. Hester laughed and everyone else spread around the entire garden and so the biggest and the most eventful snow fight of the Hester Gray's garden had begun. Just like that, for the first time in a while, Hester did feel as carefree as she did when she was only ten years old and God, how incredible that feeling was!