Chapter XLII

A black haired young woman ran. She ran in her hurriedly put on winter coat along with a hat and a scarf in her waving hands. Her face was an overflow of tears of despair which she has never felt before as strongly as she had on that day. It was snowing but not heavily. Small snowflakes were falling down on the ground through the face of the soft and still melancholy world as she ran towards the ancient Lighthouse which she always loved and where she knew she could gather her thoughts, no Rainbow Valley for her this time.

Funnily enough, it was Christmas.

Ingleside was filled with her whole family, well, at least its members who were in Canada at that moment, the rest were somewhere so far away that she thought her heart couldn't reach out for them this far for one more day any longer. Christmas, by tradition, should have been held at Green Gables. However, Anne and Gilbert requested to have it held at their residence again so Jack, Di and their daughter Ada came to Four Winds this time again, with a certain shining diamond on Ada's finger. She announced her engagement to her sweetheart Ben a day before Christmas and it is true that everyone truly rejoiced in this tremendously. Coincidentally, whilst Ada was announcing her happy news, Selwyn and Vance were taking a stroll down the snowy Rainbow Valley and when they came back, all flushed with their eyes shining so brightly that Hester didn't even expect them to say the reason behind it all, she knew it long before they opened their mouths to say it.

Selwyn asked Vance for her hand underneath the leafless Tree Lovers with a soft breeze of a winter promise blowing into their faces so surely and readily that Vance didn't even have to utter a word to let Selwyn know of her answer, the one she held dear in her heart for longer than she could remember. Selwyn bought that pearl ring just a week earlier, after working tirelessly at the office with Daria, to save money for it especially. Vance wore it proudly on her finger and no one could blame her for her eternally happy face.

So there were to be two weddings expected for the following year, or at least somewhere in the nearest future anyway for the war was still there, in the air and the hearts of Hester and her family. Selwyn was to go to Redmond College in January, to achieve one of his long-rooted dreams of having a degree in English Language and Literature. Vance was more than happy to wait for him to finish his degree, of course before their marriage. Ada, on the other hand, was now waiting for her own graduation from Redmond College in July so that she could tie the knot with Ben, and settle down with him as a teacher in Kingsport.

Those two engagements weren't the only reasons for Hester's sudden despair in the very heart of Christmas. They were merely the triggerings to the emotions that were slowly swelling up inside of her heart since her lips were kissed by Marshall's for the very first time. Hester was unbelievably happy for her brother and her two friends, however, the possibility they possessed and the one that she didn't, gave her heart a certain shock that stopped it from beating for what seemed to Hester was an eternity.

She couldn't sleep at all that night. She was looking outside her window, out on the lonely dark road as if awaiting a certain figure of a young man to appear on its horizon. She then changed her position to her desk, a pen in her hand and a piece of paper in front of her, waiting to be filled with words which simply wouldn't come. Hester couldn't write to Marshall, she couldn't put anything that was in her head on the paper. She even didn't quite want to do that either for fear that her dark thoughts would come true somehow, or that Marshall would know how deep her worry and despair really was - she would rather chop her hand off rather than let him know that.

Then Hester tried composing but for the first time in years, the first time in forever really, her head was empty of music and it terrified her soul completely. It was as if she became deaf, without any sign or warning for it. As her cheeks were becoming moister and moister, as well as the paper lying right next to her hand, she thought of how Selwyn felt when he realised he couldn't hear in one of his ears. She now knew what it was to have lost a part of one's soul. It was more than heartbreaking though, it was something she couldn't quite understand.

Without her noticing, she fell asleep with her head on her pillow and woke up at around eleven o'clock in the morning. On her nightstand was a note written by the hand of her father saying that they didn't want to wake her from her peaceful sleep and so they went to Ingleside for early preparations and were waiting for her to join them when she wakes up.

Before doing exactly so, Hester decided to open up the letter Marshall sent her a day before but which she couldn't bring herself to open at all. It was underneath her pillow. She lied down on her bed and held up her hands to read it in the early daylight. It wasn't a long letter and she never minded that, but it was the one that was meant for her heart and soul to read and understand only. She traced the handwriting with her thumb, the handwriting she could have recognised by only touching the paper, as she felt her eyes swelling up with fresh tears all over again.

"You've always reminded me of violets, my honey-kid." he wrote to her in the last paragraph "I'm no poet as you know, so I won't tell you why exactly: it's simply because I'm not eloquent enough to explain to you why you do, you just do. However, this only proves that your very existence, as quiet and timid as it can get sometimes, has touched the very part of my soul I never thought could be touched. You've made me want to know why. I just know, even though I can't say it in words. I will paint this feeling for you one day just as you'll compose it one day. Now I know, what poetry feels like."

Hester looked at the ceiling, a piece of paper still in her hands and tears still falling down her cheeks. She reached for the envelope slowly and out of it fell something extremely light and soft. She frowned slightly and turned her head on her pillow to see what it was. On her bedsheet were tiny violets, slightly withered but not enough for them to get damaged as soon as Hester's hands touched them. She sat up, holding the letter in her right hand whilst she held the violets in her left hand and she suddenly remembered a poem by Roland Leighton and that one day when Selwyn recited it to her dully two days after he came back to Canada, a poem that in that moment caused her blood to run cold:

"Violets from Plug Street Wood,

Sweet, I send you oversea.

(It is strange they should be blue,

Blue, when his soaked blood was red,

For they grew around his head:

It is strange they should be blue.)

Think what they have meant to me -

Life and hope and Love and You

(and you did not see them grow

Where his mangled body lay

Hiding horrors from the day;

Sweetest, it was better so.)

Violets from oversea,

To your dear, far, forgetting land

These I send in memory

Knowing you will understand."

Was it a chill of fate coming down her spine? Was it? Was it, God? She jumped out her bed, her nightgown still on and nervously but without any doubt at all, she put on her tights, shoes, jumper, coat, scarf, hat and gloves and whilst leaving everything else behind, she ran out of the House of Dreams, in the direction of the old Lighthouse where she hoped she could find her land of peace.

She reached the Lighthouse completely out of breath with her mind full of thoughts she wished she could burn or drown in the ocean in front of her. Hester never regarded the thought and possibility of her fiance getting killed too seriously. There was always a piece of her heart that was rejecting this idea entirely. However, on that day she realised that her very own Marshall can share the fate of so many before him, just like Lily's John did not so very long time ago.

John died unexpectedly, with him being always cautious and happy despite the war around him. Lily never thought that he could be injured, so the idea of him getting killed was completely out of the question. Hester knew about this fact which was now penetrating her soul completely. She was terrified of this frightening possibility that her own man she desired to spend her life with could join John in the afterlife, whether she prayed for him or not, whether she hoped he wouldn't or not. It could happen. She always held this possibility in her heart, whenever she was thinking of her brothers, her cousins, her friend Phillip but never about the man who so suddenly stole her entire heart and kept it to himself with her permission. Perhaps, that was the reason why she never thought that anything like that could ever happen to him.

The ocean's breeze was brushing her hair as she closed her eyes and allowed the tears on her cheeks to dry even though she felt them freezing instead. She never felt so helpless as she did in that moment. "Hester!

"Hester! Hester! What are you doing here?!" Her hazel eyes opened and she turned her head only to spot Lily running in her direction, her ruddy locks dancing in the air. She was elegantly dressed, her hair was still tied by a ribbon even though its wildness could not be missed because of the sharp wind.

"Lily!" Hester whispered out thinking that it was as loud as a scream.

Lily cradled Hester into her arms instinctively it seemed and kissed her cheek, still embracing her tightly "I know it's hard, darling. It's hard for me too, without my own heart being here." her voice trembled slightly "But it's Christmas." she looked into Hester's eyes with a soft, breaking smile of hers, her own eyes filled with tears "And we still have souls left at least. We need to show them to the world whether we like it or not." Hester didn't feel another wave of tears rolling down her cheeks as she smiled through them back at Lily, not questioning at all how she knew where she was and why for that matter. She didn't have to question, it was something in the air that answered it silently.

Lily came back to the House of Dreams with Hester and helped her to dress up properly for the Christmas dinner. They didn't talk much, they only listened to Hester's portable radio and her Vivaldi's records, humming along. They didn't think much either but sometimes and in their case then it was better so. They then marched together to Ingleside where the whole family was gathered already by the table and the fire with the smell of dinner and home in the air so strong that it made Hester shiver with a sudden lump of joy in the centre of her throat.

As soon as both of those young women came inside, the room filled with chatter and people they love. Everyone exclaimed with merriness upon seeing them, Rilla grasping Hester's hand and kissing it almost immediately. Then Poppy cried out happily and outstretched her chubby arms to her sister who took her quickly into her arms and kissed her red locks as she sat down in between Daria and Selwyn, both of her siblings smiling at her with the love she knew was priceless.

Hester's mind wasn't quite back to its normal state yet, though, and Hester knew that until the end of the war it will never be the same again. However, she was surprised when a telephone started to ring suddenly. For her family, it was almost like a siren during Blitz for the Londoners, just as terrifying as well as bringing the same question into their minds: what will happen now? Everyone in the room went silent, only the portable radio was still playing "Winter Wonderland" and the sounds of Poppy, Fleur and little Vera were still heard in the air. No one quite knew what to do or say.

Without a trace of doubt on her face, Hester stood up from her seat and marched over to the telephone, picking it up with a steady, ice-cold fingers. "Ingleside." she said into the receiver gravely.

"Hester? Hester is this you, my dearest?" a familiar voice appeared inside of Hester's ear which all of a sudden turned from pale-white to a completely red to its very tips as her eyes filled with warm tears and her mouth filled with laughter.

"Marshall!" she exclaimed happily, in disbelief. Everyone in the room cheered and started to clap their hands together. Vance and Cornelia ran up to the armchair next to Hester and sat down together, their hands and legs interlaced in their usual sibling-way. Mary Vance and her husband Miller stepped out of the kitchen hurriedly with Rilla and Una next to them, all ready and yet unready at the same time to hear a voice from beyond the ocean.

"I actually got in! I called you!" Marshall shouted out merrily into Hester's ear "Gil and I have been trying to do so for hours and we've spent all our money on it too." there was a sudden rush inside of the receiver "Gil, come here you idiot! It's your sister on the 'phone!" then there was a distant joyful exclaim heard "Merry Christmas to you, Hes! And to all of you folks at Ingleside as well!" Gil shouted out jolly and everyone, including Hester, started to shout back the same.

"Merry Christmas!"

"A miracle!"

"I hope you're both well and warm!"

"You dear boys!"

Hester, through the chatter and increasing excitement, turned to the receiver and whispered breathlessly "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, kid." Marshall whispered back "There's not a day when I don't have you in my mind and heart, honey."

Hester smiled through tears rolling down her cheeks "I loved those violets you sent me." she whispered gently.

"I'm glad, take a good care of them." he replied softly "I intend to paint you wearing them in your hair one day."

There was a pausing noise inside the receiver "Marshall?" Hester asked worriedly.

"I'm here still." he answered assuringly "I love you." he whispered again.

"I love you too." she whispered out before Gil, standing apparently next to the receiver on the other side of the ocean, started to sing out loud in a clear, pretendedly deep voice the lyrics of "Deck the Halls" and everyone upon hearing this, including Marshall and Hester, started to first laugh and then join in.

Just like that, the world didn't seem so lonely and hopeless after all.