I think this may be the last chapter unless I come up with some new angle. This chapter is mostly about Ken. I had trouble because his character appears so little in the story. Sometimes I feel like I'm writing about a completely new character. A lot of fan fiction portray him as a bit of a player who manipulates Rilla. That seems creepy to me considering how young Rilla is. I prefer to portray him as a person who likes to flirt with girls but ended up getting hurt himself.
'I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun." Jane Austen
Kenneth Ford had come to Ingleside several weeks before the Four Winds party. He had often spent days at Ingleside in his boyhood years but recently his attention had been claimed elsewhere. It was natural that a young man of a family much revered in Toronto society would be invited often to parties and gatherings of people with a much higher social standing than the Blythes.
He was not exactly a snob but neither was he unaware that both his mother and Persis had hopes of him making a match among the wealthiest families. But the society ladies were all so tiresome. It had been exciting at first to see their adoration and admiring looks. They had smiled and flirted with practiced ease. They had fascinated and flattered him with their evident pleasure in his society. Kenneth, though proud was not entirely unaware of the fact that none of them thought of him completely seriously. He had no private fortune of his own and would be entirely dependent on his own labor to earn one. Therefore stories passed about his character as a heart breaker more from fact that he had not fortune enough to cover over their impropriety. He had done nothing truly scandalous but had the cheek of believing himself good enough to flirt with girls who had vast fortunes.
There had been the lovely Louisa Rutherford, of a wealthy American father and a refined Canadian mother, who had captured his fancy until he had been compelled to write stunningly pathetic love letters. She had seemed at the time to be as enchanting as the moonlight on a summer night but soon her character had revealed itself to be slightly more prosaic. Louisa had been charm itself in the beginning and had spoken in sultry tones of his "romantic nature, so like Keats." He would have been tempted to follow in Walter's footsteps and write poetry to the lovely creature. But she had soon be surrounded by hoards of other eligible men and had turned decidedly cold when she found out he was not as rich as she had first dreamed. His hopes of someday winning a great fortune to lay at her feet had been dashed by her sudden marriage to an American businessman many years her senior. He had been heartbroken at first and then gradually grew to be heartily glad to escape. To marry such a woman with no more heart than a jellyfish even if she was perfectly lovely would have been unendurable.
He was sitting by Di who was more engaged in talking eagerly with Nan and Jerry over political philosophy when a figure appeared in the walk and came slowly toward them. It was Rilla Blythe though at first he had not recognized her. She had grown a great deal in the last few months and now seemed far older than her almost fifteen years. Her hair was of a particular ruddy brown that curled about her face in a soft halo and her eyes seemed to glow with warmth and laughter. The skin had a lovely transparent clearness, which nevertheless did not give off the impression of ill health. The rosy lip had a perfect cupids bow and little dent, which made her smile an enchantment. In short Rilla Blythe was a perfect beauty and Kenneth Ford who considered himself an expert in female loveliness was quite inclined to think her one of the prettiest girls in Glen St Mary.
She sat down beside him as there was only one seat available and leaned back staring unseeingly on the grass in front of her. She was normally very talkative but a terrified nervousness had seemed to take over her and she could only remain silent or betray it. Kenneth was not inclined to join in the talk of others. He had no particular interest in Political Philosophy or Middlemarch subjects the others found so engrossing. He considered that Rilla must be incredibly bored with such talk.
"So are you going to Queens, Spider?" he asked her with a smile.
"No. I'm quiteth a dunce and am not ambitious at all." She replied nervously but there was a bitter edge of anger in her tone. She was probably furious over his old name for her. He rather regretted the pet name.
Kenneth could quite forgive her for being a normal girl who did not enjoy study. She was the type who liked good times and parties. Her sisters were so very studious. She rather reminded him of Persis.
"Well, I'm sure there are plenty of things to do. Persis always tells me that she is never happy unless she has three invitations a week and a half a dozen beaus." He replied with a careless laugh.
"Oh yes indeed. That would be delightful. But my parents are so old fashioned and wish me to be sober and studious and know all the all isms." Rilla sighed drearily.
"I think parents always forget they were ever young. Father is always ragging on me for not being serious enough." He replied confidentially and was rather pleased to see that she had seemed to thaw considerably. She still had a rather pained expression on her face that made him feel slightly guilty.
His attention was claimed by Nan who wished him to confirm her point on living with an author. Not long afterwards he was forced to take his leave and deep in his heart was forced to admit that he was a trifle disappointed not to be able to finish his conversation with Rilla Blythe.
The Four Winds dance had not had any enchantment to him until he had overheard a bit of idle gossip that expressed surprise that the Blythes would allow their youngest daughter to attend a dance. Even then the feeling had been completely momentary and predominant was the annoyance at having a lame ankle, which made dancing quite painful.
He had studiously avoided the attentions of both Ethel Reese and Irene Howard who were two girls he had always been irritating. They were not practiced enough to be successful at flirting nor genuine enough to be taken seriously. Only a few days ago he had been all but forced to walk Ethel Reese home from church by her own obvious attempts. So he leaned against the wall quite content to be ignored and allow his ankle to rest.
It was then he saw Rilla across the room. She was dressed in some soft green drapery of transparent silk, which gave a fairy like appearance to the straight figure. The color was becoming to her complexion and every boy in the room seemed completely aware of her beauty. He was slightly disturbed at the rush of admiration of her beauty. She was too young to be thought of.
It would not be wrong to ask her to dance. In fact it would be rude not to. He made his way toward her with the definite intension of distracting her from the young man who even as he came near disappeared with the older woman who must have been his mother.
"Is it Rilla-my-Rilla?" He asked softly and found himself putting more stress on the words than he had intended. It was an old pet name of Walter's and rather sweet.
"Yeth." The endearing lisp had come back and made her seem more human than before. She was gazing up at him in a disconcerting questioning manner, which made her appear ages older than her real age at the same time an innocent girl without guile.
"May I have the next dance?" he asked despite his ankle.
"Yes." She replied so firmly that it was obviously in an attempt to stop her lisp. But she looked down and all he could see was the soft white lids hiding her eyes and the long lashes resting on her cheek.
They danced a moment in silence and he was quite contented to watch her and hold her quite respectably apart. She was grace itself on her feet and he supposed she must be rather annoyed at dancing with one who could barely dance at all.
He winced once at a fast turn and she looked up in concern and asked quickly, "Are you all right? How is your ankle?"
He was profoundly tired of talking about his ankle and normally replied rather ill temperedly to remarks about it. But he was quite willing to forgive a question delivered by dented lips and soft hazel eyes that were filled with anxious concern.
He filled her in with full particulars and when the dance was ended could not resist going out with her on the rocks and eating the delicate supper with her. It would of course cause gossip for him to pay such decided attention to her but it was not actually indiscreet. He saw the rather wrathful glance Mary Vance turned his way and ignored it. Mary Vance was no paragon of virtue to spend all her evening with Miller Douglas despite Mrs. Elliot's words to the contrary.
He remembered little about the actual conversation for it was quite blurred over by the news that war had come. All he would remember was the soft light of her eyes and the way her lips moved softly as she made some little remark. She was enchanting innocence and so different from the ladies in his circle who were always calculated and never made a remark out of pure enthusiasm.
From that night on he had a distinct admiration of Rilla Blythe. She occasionally intruded herself on his consciousness with a strange intensity but he was preoccupied with war news and his own impatience to join the Army. Everywhere the world had gone mad with war news and here he was forced to sit back and watch.
Nevertheless he received a surprising amount of news about Rilla. His mother and Mrs. Blythe corresponded frequently and what was more natural than his mother should read the letters to Persis and himself. Persis was found of gossip and close friends with the Ingleside girls. And since Rilla was the only girl still residing at home it was natural that Mrs. Blythe should write frequently about her.
It was in that way that he heard about how many socks she knitted and how she organized the Junior Reds. They were small accomplishments but revealed a serious side to her nature he had never suspected. Half unconsciously he had waited eagerly for news of her and when he had heard that she had taken up a war orphan to raise such a wave of admiration for her pluck filled him that he was forced to look out the window lest his mother or sister notice the unwonted emotion on his face.
"Well, I never thought Rilla Blythe was the steady sort but obviously she is. Anne must be very proud of her." His mother folded up the letter and began to knit her sock with considerable energy.
"I could never do it. I despise children." Persis spoke languidly from her couch, which she was draped gracefully across. She was dressed in many bright garments that pooled across the floor in almost deafening intensity.
"Persis! You cannot mean that. Of course you wouldn't feel that way about your own children." Mrs. Ford's tone was horrified and Persis gave a short laugh.
"Perhaps not. But Rilla Blythe has more strength than I gave her credit for."
His mother rose and said abstractedly, "I must go upstairs and look for the Red Cross pattern. I seem to have misplaced it."
The moment that she had left Persis turned to him and said with marked scrutiny, "My dear brother, I quite approve of your paragon of virtue."
"What? Who? I have no idea what you are talking about." he replied having been shaken out of his curious abstraction caused by seeing in his minds eye a sweet form preforming all those plain unexciting duties so willingly for her country's sake.
"My dear brother, I'm not blind. I can't help but be aware of how your face changes when you hear news of her. You are surprisingly transparent in your feelings. Men always are to sisters. Besides the gossips quite sang about how you spent the whole evening with her at the dance." Persis leaned her head against the arm of the chair and saw him start in surprise with a triumphant smile.
"It means nothing. Rilla is very pretty that is all." He replied.
Persis abruptly sat up and stared at him intently for an instant, " Though I have never been fond of Rilla Blythe I am honest enough to admit she is a nice, sweet girl. She is extremely beautiful but she is young enough to be some danger. Difference in age makes little difference when the girl in question is old enough to know her own mind. Your reputation, one which her father would not be pleased about, is not unknown to Ingleside and what may be for you a harmless flirtation could permanently ruin either her reputation or her heart. Things like that don't matter here but in sleepy little Glen St. Mary it does."
"I won't hurt her. Besides she is surrounded by beaus." He stared moodily out the window and wished his sister's words were not so pointed.
"Even if your intensions are good and you seriously care for her she is still in danger. In fact I would say even more danger. Admiration is remarkably tempting even to a woman of many years and much experience. The beaus you speak of are Glen boys who are afraid to touch the hem of her garment. Be very careful, Ken."
It was easy enough to ignore his sister's warning at the time but the pricks of his own conscious was too much to entirely put aside. How would he have felt about a cad who tried to break his sister heart at Rilla's young age?
For some time he successfully avoided contacting Rilla either by letter or by telephone. When he visited Ingleside she was away and his message to her was so unsentimental and foolish as to leave no impression of lasting feeling. There were also many distractions, most notably the rapidly approaching day in which he would leave his family for the front.
He left them all with the half ashamed excitement which seemed awful in light of their grief. It seemed unfair that he could look upon this event like a summer holiday when they looked upon it as a funeral. There were accounts that could dispel the myth that the war was a grand adventure. Newspaper accounts of causalities and the plunder of countries and civilizations was enough to make even the most careless take note.
He had not intended to call her. It was not within his innate code of ethics most notably called being "square" to call her and put up with that sentimental leave taking which was a thousand times harder on a girl who was forced to either pretend sympathy for one she cared little for or to hide real grief to send her lover away with a smile. It would be far better to leave her be. But the temptation was too strong. To not see her was hard indeed and he assuaged his conscience with the idea that she would not really care. The rumors about Fred Arnold would serve as protection.
She had not seemed particularly glad to hear him. True, it had been a party line and he had been unable to make his meaning as clear as he wished. She had sounded distracted and it seemed foolish indeed to expect a pretty popular girl to care particularly for her brother's best friend.
She had was so overpoweringly lovely as she stood in the moonlight and though she did not talk much he could see the subtle change in her. She looked much the same but her manner was graver and quieter without the frequent lapses into laugher of before. He was relieved that the house was all but empty except for Shirley who never interfered.
"This was better than I expected." He could not help but remark while looking at her significantly. She sat in her seat with her face half screened in shadows but with the eyes fixed on the ground. She did not reply but for an instant her eyes met his with curious depth.
""I was sure someone would be hanging about and it was just you I wanted to see, Rilla-my-Rilla." He hadn't meant to speak in that way but it was such a relief to see her in the moonlight and to be able to gaze on her without any interference from kindly prying eyes.
"It has been rather quiet around here recently." She replied with a slight shudder.
"I'm sure that Fred Arnold rather fills the blank." He replied without removing his gaze from her face. He found himself leaning forward as if drawn by an invisible thread until their foreheads almost touched. Her breath came in quick, short gasps that faintly brushed his cheek. Her fingers were clenching the arm of her chair until the knuckles whitened. She had never seemed more nervous.
She had no time to reply for the child had begun to cry and she was forced to go upstairs and comfort him. Kenneth was rather relieved. Another instant and he might have been tempted to throw caution to the winds and do something he might regret like kiss the softly parted lips. He wondered vaguely if she would be angry and run away or if she would smile and blush in the darkness.
When she came down with Jims in her arms he sat and watched her without speaking. He had thought her a pretty thoughtless girl, then a brave and plucky one and finally as a sweet and tender woman. The soft maternal look on her face with the child pressed close to her and the bend of her head toward the golden haired infant was indescribably dear. It was the kind of expression which a man about to be sent to face unspeakable horror could dream of. It reminded her of the Madonna picture on his mother's desk. The thought that a woman at such a thoughtless age could hold a child who did not belong to her with such tenderness was delicate proof on the innate goodness of her nature. How much more would she care for her own children and family with deep love.
It was then that he knew he loved her. He gazed upon the sight with almost embarrassment at the intimacy of her expression. She had probably forgotten he existed. She would never know how he would carry the image of her in his heart into the darkest parts of the earth where the light of all good and noble things seem utterly snuffed out.
He wished to explain something of this to her when she came back downstairs after putting Jims to bed. But no sooner than she had sat down then Susan came home and seemed determined to entertain him with the most banal of trivialities She was entertaining and it was hard work not to laugh at her for the old fashioned comments she made about the family. But Susan Baker could take the romance out even the most perfect evening and he wondered if Rilla had asked her to stay so he would not say something that would make Fred Arnold's girl uncomfortable.
Certainly she gave him no reason to hope that she cared for him. She was so quiet and though she was clearly annoyed at some of Susan's comments she made no attempt to get rid of her by some gentle subterfuge. When it grew late enough that he was forced to rise and bid Susan a kindly farewell he was bitterly disappointed.
It was only when he stood on the steps and looked up at her in the soft moonlight with the scent of mint crushed and mingled under his feet that he saw the painful longing in her eyes. She was silent but her eyes spoke a secret language that he could interpret. She cared for him. Fred Arnold must be a rumor.
He placed his hand against her cheek and felt a trace of dampness as if she had been crying. Kenneth did not consider the consequences of kissing her or what her reaction would be. The moment of thinking, of playing the intricate dance of prudence and reason had long ago vanished, and was replaced by the longing of instant pain and separation. Soon this moment would be as far away as the old days in which he had sat in a quiet nursery and played war with toy soldiers. She would be as far away and only this memory would remain. He only knew in that moment he could not go away without the touch of her lips and token of love she would not express in words. He was very tender and gentle, as any man who gives a woman her first kiss ought to be.
"Rilla, you are the sweetest thing." He murmured the words against her cheek and waited to see if she would be indignant.
But she wasn't. Her eyes looked into his with a glance like a shy kiss and he dared to speak in her ear, "Will you promise not to kiss anyone else until I come home?"
"Yes," she spoke shyly and without moving away.
He stepped back and spoke a casual goodnight. Susan must not suspect that anything had happened. He walked down the steps and down the road without another word. Just once he turned and saw her at the gate waving and then he rounded the bend and passed beyond. There were moments when he heard ringing in his ears of Walter's Piper playing soft music in Rainbow Valley. At that moment he heard it and was almost superstitious.
It would be four years before he saw her again. And in those years there was so much change and momentous shaking of the foundations of civilization that it was hard to imagine Glen St. Mary when he thought back on it. He tried to pour out his longing to see her on paper but every time he came up empty. It was not that he could not write but only that he could not write what he longed to write. He wished to write of his pain and weariness at the ceaseless struggle for survival but how could one write of that and at the same time write of joy and love. It was impossible to feel that even love itself had not been tarnished into some dark fantasy by the blood of fallen. It was as if "No Man Land" itself stretched between them and even her homelike letters seemed to widen the gulf between them.
She seemed different from the thoughtless girl of before. Walter's death was a terrible grief and she wrote frequently of her sorrow. In this he almost envied her simple straightforward emotions, which were so different than his own desperate attempts to shut out the horror of war and death. But her letters were not love letters and she might have written them to her brothers. Almost he thought that the scene on her porch was a mere fragment of his imagination.
On that memorable day when he appeared on her porch it was a divided and conflicted person who rapped on her door. He loved her but could love be enough to cover over the scars of the war years? The house itself had changed little and even the garden appeared so remarkably like years gone by he could almost imagine himself a small child visiting his "Aunt Anne." And when Rilla Blythe opened the door it was the same, and yet a different, woman who looked with uncertain eyes at him.