Chapter XXXI
April's sun rays were shining through the gigantic window in the living room of Ingleside straight onto the keys of the ancient piano and its player. The fair, Hester Ford, with her fingers dancing on the piano's keys swiftly, effortlessly whilst creating the sound of a certain beauty called music. Hester always regarded piano as her least favourite instrument from the three ones she could play and yet she loved playing it deeply. In that specific moment, she was playing one of her most beloved piano pieces by the one and only Beethoven and his Sonata No. 1 in F-minor Op. 2 No., Prestissimo into which she gave her whole heart and soul.
Her black, curly hair reached her shoulders and danced as she was moving her head in the deep focus she was giving to that piece, in that moment. A soft grin was reappearing on her face constantly as she was playing her favourite slower flowing parts of the sonata. Her eyes were simultaneously reading the notes in front of her as the fingers danced on the piano's keys. She wore a dress she adored, the one which was sewn by her aunt Una and which was also a perfect deep-green colour with a sweetheart neckline and a dark green belt around her waist. Hester's feet were covered by the shortest high-heels she owned for two years but loved their comfort nonetheless. As simply as she was dressed, whilst sitting at that piano, she looked more radiant than those sun rays coming through the window beside her.
Ken was at work in Charlottetown, Daria was also at work in her office, Rilla was in town doing grocery shopping with her father, Marion was at school teaching, Vance at the orphanage and Hester was playing the piano, enjoying her day free of work. Poppy was with her grandma Anne in the kitchen as "both" of them were baking something simple yet delicious.
Hester was so absorbed in the music she was the reason of that she didn't hear a car pulling over in front of the house. Neither did she hear three people coming into Ingleside's hall and the exclamation of joy coming from her grandmother's lips at the sight of one of them. Hester's lips were composed into a soft yet melancholy smile as she played and played even though a particular visitor was already in the room and watched her with fascination in his green eyes. Hester didn't hear him walking behind her and looking at the notes she played even though he didn't understand them at all. He watched her hands instead, his own lips smiling radiantly at the view he had never seen before that day.
Suddenly, he decided to stand on her left, doing everything not to distract her yet doing exactly that as well. Hester saw a shadow on her left and turned her head slightly, still playing as if from memory. Just as her eyes met his, her own widened and she stopped playing abruptly, her hands off the keys as if she was stricken by electricity. "Marshall!" she exclaimed in both disbelief and joy which quickly spread over her face as she stood up. Upon realising that she was just about reaching the upper part of his broad chest, she blushed slightly but smiled at him nonetheless.
"Surprise, kid." he said to her with a witty grin on his tanned and slightly scarred face "I'm earlier than I was meant to but hopefully you're still at least a tiny bit happy to see the old friend of your brother's anyway." he winked at her from beneath the brown curls falling onto his forehead.
"Of course, I'm happy to see you, Marshall." she said with her voice truly merry, just like her face "Welcome home." she put out her hand towards him and he chuckled softly.
"Come on, kid." he said to her cheerfully "Give me a hug." and he opened up his arms for her. With a second of hesitation and a raised brow, Hester smiled kindly and allowed him to embrace her as she almost shivered from how warm he was underneath that military jacket he was wearing. When they pulled away from each other, Mary and Miller came into the room with Anne and Poppy in her arms, all looking at the tall and handsome Marshall Douglas with true fascination and pure happiness over seeing him there with them, whole more or less and still smiling.
"Hasn't Hester grown, Marshall?" Anne asked him with a smile on her face, looking at both him and her granddaughter with pride "She was only fifteen when you left for the front, if I remember correctly." she smiled knowingly at Hester who gave her grandma a curious yet significant look.
Marshall looked down at Hester again and smiled gently "She most definitely has grown, Mrs Blythe." he said and Hester's cheeks turned slightly pink. In that moment, Poppy stretched out her chubby arms asking for her "Es." and so Hester skillfully took her into her arms. Poppy instinctively put her head full of red curls on her older sister's shoulder, looking curiously at the tall man standing next to her whilst sucking her thumb.
"Marshall gave us a huge surprise this morning." Mary said as she took her son's hand in her own "Only minutes after Vance went off to the orphanage, he was there, at our doorstep!" she chuckled and kissed Marshall's cheek. Even though he blushed slightly at that he didn't protest at all.
"Will you be going to see Vance now Marshall?" Anne asked him.
"No, I'll wait after she'll finish work." he replied decidedly with a smile "I shouldn't be walking too much anyway." he said more carefully as he scratched his head.
Mary took his hand swiftly and sat him down on the nearest armchair "Well, then, sit down, you silly boy of mine." she told him sternly yet with another kiss on his cheek "Oh! Oh! I forgot!" she exclaimed suddenly and looked at her husband immediately "Miller, it's today when Rilla and I are meant to go to the meeting of Red Cross in Bright River, isn't it?" she asked him and he put his arm around her waist.
"Yes, I'm afraid it is today, dear." he said to her gently.
"But I can't leave Marshall, he just came back…" she started, however, Marshall put his hand on her own and looked into her eyes with a raised brow of his.
"Go, mum, you'll be gone for just a few hours and then we can talk till midnight if you want." he said to her tenderly and both of his parents smiled at him with pride and joy once more.
"Are you sure?" she asked him fearfully.
"Of course, I am." he said and then looked over at Anne and Hester "If, that is, I'll be welcome to stay over here for a few more hours."
"Of course, you are welcome to stay, darling." Anne said happily, kissing little Poppy on the cheek "But I think that you'll be left alone with Hester and Poppy over here," she looked at both of her granddaughters with a loving smile "-for Gilbert and I will be going off to a meeting at Mrs Richards ourselves. If you don't mind staying with just the two of them, I hope." Hester looked at her grandmother and knew exactly what was going through her mind but remained calm and smiling nonetheless.
Marshall grinned at Hester and Poppy in her arms "Sure I don't mind." he said and then raised an eyebrow at Hester "If you don't mind either, kid."
She smiled at him lightly, her fingers twitching at the sound of a nickname he has given her so many years earlier and which she never enjoyed hearing of "Of course I don't, Marshall." she replied.
"This was a beautiful piece you played, kid." Marshall said to Hester as she came back from the kitchen with a tray with two cups of lemonade and a few biscuits.
She smiled at him gently as she sat down next to him on the couch. She took Poppy into her arms, as she was silently playing with Marshall's military cap. "Thank you." she answered politely "It's Beethoven. My favourite piece for the piano."
He smiled at her and sipped on his lemonade "You play three instruments, jolly God, only one in a few million have enough talent and patience to do that."
Hester blushed a little but put her chin a bit higher nonetheless "I'm glad you've mentioned patience." she said "It's the key to usually everything." she put Poppy against her chest and handed her a cookie as she started to fuss a little "Happy now, darling?" she asked her and kissed her sister on the top of her head.
Marshall smiled even wider "I can't believe I'm looking at a second sister of Gilly's." he said with disbelief "He can't wait to meet her, you know, he told me at least millions of times already."
"I can't wait for him to meet her either." Hester said and grinned at Marshall "They are quite similar: both of them are extremely loud and stubborn."
Marshall chuckled at that "So they are." he said "And how is Daria?" he asked her curiously.
"She's wonderful." Hester said with a wide smile "She truly is just like Gil always used to describe her in his letters."
"He cannot shut up about her, you know." he said with a tender smile and Hester laughed helplessly "Well, I suppose he has a point if she truly is just like he describes her to be like. At least he's lucky enough to have found the woman of his deepest dreams." he sighed slightly at that and Hester realised that he must have been thinking about Jo but before she opened her mouth he looked at her again and as if reading her mind grinned lightly "Although I do thank God every day that Jo didn't agree to marry me." he said and Hester raised her eyebrows a little "It just wasn't right. Now I know, after almost five years of still having that feeling that she was truly the one for me after all, even after she married and then had a baby of her own." he sighed softly again and Hester's face turned a bit worried.
"When did you then realise that Jo wasn't the one, Marshall?" she asked him gently.
He looked up at her almost surprised by the question but smiled at her still "Recently." he replied "It just clicked, you know, kid?"
Hester sighed a little and sat up more straight "I wish you'd stop calling me that." she said finally, not harshly, but even a little ashamedly as her cheeks grew a bit warmer.
"You know, I do remember you at the train station when Gil and I were leaving for the front." he said all of a sudden and Hester looked at him more firmly "You did say that… Um… How did you say it… "I might be too old for you to call me a kid when you come back."." he smiled at her gently.
"And even so you keep on calling me a kid." Hester said with a raised brow "I don't know if you know but I am almost twenty years old, you know. And besides, I was always a bit more mature than others anyway." she said that with a bit of pride in her voice.
He smirked a little "You're right." he said finally "But somehow it makes me feel like things haven't changed although I know that they did. Tremendously." he said a bit bitterly and Hester looked at him again.
She nodded slowly "Things indeed have changed." she said softly and reached out for his big hand, squeezed it "But some of those changes don't have to be horrible." she smiled at him lightly as he squeezed her hand back.
"Does that mean that we can be friends now?" he asked her "After all those years?"
She chuckled slightly "After all those years of you teasing me and pranking me, yes, we can be friends, Marshall." she said to him and withdrew her hand "And I'm glad."
"So am I." he agreed with a smile "And I'm sorry about those teasings and such. It was a habit of mine but now that I am a grown-up man of twenty-four years I suppose that this will be another habit that will go away one day, just like a habit of biting your nails."
Hester smiled wider at that too "I'm glad you've made it clear." she said and he chuckled lightly "How's your head, though? Does it hurt a lot?" she asked him.
"No, not really." he replied and scratched his head instinctively "I still feel a bit unsure about walking too fast and my head spins when I do but I really can walk, contradicting what my mother claims, of course." he and Hester laughed together "Sometimes, though, I get a painful headache but that's getting less and less frequent each day."
"You're so brave." she said with little tears forming in her eyes "You're all so brave." she kissed Poppy's now sleeping red-head to cover the tears slowly getting out of her hazel eyes.
Marshall didn't amiss this and he automatically put his hand over hers, making her look at him again "We are brave, Hester." he agreed gently "But you, all of you here are too."
"How are we brave?" she asked him, her cheeks suddenly flowing with warm tears "We don't do anything but knit for you some socks and write letters. That's all, anyone can do that."
Marshall moved nearer to her and looked deeply into her eyes, his hands on her arms "Not anyone, certainly not that." he said to her sternly "And it's not just that, you keep on hoping, you keep on praying, you keep on doing everything to make us feel better at the front and you do succeed." he smiled at her then and she smiled at him.
"We do?" she asked.
"Yes." he replied softly and wiped away her tears with his hands, still smiling at her "Don't ever think that you're any way less brave or weaker than us." he said decidedly "Because you're not."
She grinned at him "A feminist, are you?" she asked him and they both laughed together, and they continued on laughing for a few more moments as Marshall settled down in his seat again.
"Sure I am." he winked at her and then his gaze fell on Poppy and Hester looked down at her sister too "Someone's very over-worked, I see."
Hester cradled Poppy into her motherly arms even more and kissed her chubby hand as Poppy put her hand on her chest, sighing slightly in her sleep. Both Hester and Marshall chuckled together "I love watching her sleep." she whispered and Marshall looked up at Hester.
"She is beautiful." he whispered back and Hester looked up into his green eyes and smiled gently, her cheeks turning slightly pink "Do you think she'll be musical at all?" he asked suddenly.
"I don't know." she replied gently, caressing Poppy's cheek "It's not something you can force on."
"No," he agreed quietly "-if she'll be into arts I can help her out one day."
Hester looked up at him again, remembering the old sketches Vance had once shown her with the signed M.D. in the right corner of each one. She smiled at him again then "Marshall?" she said.
"Hm?"
"Do you think that you could teach me how to sketch?" she asked him.
He smiled at her from a corner of his mouth "Sure. We have an entire month to practice." he said but then raised his hand suddenly "But," and then put it down "-only if you'll agree to teach me how to play the piano."
Hester chuckled quietly "I won't be able to teach you how to play a piano in a month. It took me ten years to do so!" she said.
"No, I know that, of course, but just teach me some of the nice and easy bits." he said to her with a grin towards the piano in front of them "Besides, I won't be able to teach you how to sketch in a month either." he raised his brow, imitating her and they both laughed quietly.
"Alright then." she said to him finally "It's a deal."
He outstretched his hand and shook it with her own "A deal," and then he smirked again "-kid."
And somehow Hester didn't even mind.