For a little while, they migrated to Rainbow Valley to talk, or to be silent, as fancy took them. Una never said, but he was left with a distinct impression that mother Susan's ideas were not restricted to mother Susan, and he had an uncomfortable feeling they had reached the Manse. If it had, Una was not unduly troubled by it, because their mutual reticence was not tangible, did not have as much presence as Rilla's awful ginger cat -the one that had bolted with the war - nor did silence hang in the air heavily as Walter's ghost had done.

The Dog Days were nearly over and the days had begun to draw in again, when she intercepted him on his way down to the valley and said gently, 'not this evening. Rilla and Ken have remembered it at last. I did wonder that we should never have happened upon them before.'

Una was surprised to find she minded as much as she did, and sincerely hoped she did not look as she felt. She did not for a minute think they had seen her come down, or go away. For they had been sitting beneath the tree lovers, looking heavenward and speaking quietly, as in church, and Una hadn't wanted to interrupt, or to explain how and why she had come to be there. All these thoughts followed in swift succession as she stood now, reaching for further small-talk, so that she was surprised when Shirley offered his arm and said, 'let's walk then. Ingleside is full to bursting with wedding plans and I can't get away from them. Everyone is thinking too loudly.'

That made her laugh, something like one of Coleridge's aeolian harps, it had once been said. Shirley could half-remember this compliment of his brother's, vaguely recalled the night of the Harbour light that had occasioned it, and thought that if he did not quite have the poetry to grasp at what his brother had meant he understood at least the spirit of it. Una took his arm and leaned on it, as if this was a thing they did often, a habit in the same way that tea was. She adjusted without meaning to, to walk at the pace he set, slower than she might have done, and when she said 'people will talk,' her voice was far-away and absent, so that he knew she did not really mean it.

Cautiously he said, 'I thought they'd already begun talking?'

'Had they? I haven't noticed. I think the Glen women have got it into their heads they can't tell me things. It comes of being a minister's daughter.'

After that he relaxed, and allowed himself to let Susan's conversation with him fall to one side, and smiled in spite of himself.

It was on the tip of Una's tongue to say 'what are you thinking,' as Faith had often said to Jem, or Rosemary to her father, but she did not and they walked on in companionable quiet. They had nearly gained the harbour when somewhere, away, away the church bell began to toll the hour.

Una said, 'is that the time? The days really have shortened. A month ago we would still have had light.' They turned, by mutual agreement, back towards the Glen and towards the Manse.


Only once did Susan try to coax Una into talking about it. She had brought round a parcel of tomatoes and carrots from the Manse and in response, she had said so calmly, and with such steady colour, 'we're really only good friends Susan, surely you know that,' that for a moment Susan wavered.

Outwardly she said 'well I leave it to you to convince the Glen otherwise.'

Una said, 'by all means. Is there anything I can do to help?' practically all in one breath, so Susan passed her some onions and a good knife.

'Tell me about this tablecloth.'

'I rather thought Rosemary had told you. It's only whithework.'

Susan sniffed, 'only!' and added, 'Rilla could have done those. you know. She's getting real knacky with cooking. You haven't got to be always doing.'

'I have,' said Una, 'if I'm going to talk. It's always been that way. Rosemary's just the same.'

'About this tablecloth that's only whitework,' said Susan, unrelenting, 'what started it?'

The onions were beginning to get to Una's eyes. 'It was a project. Something to do when it was too late to garden, the washing up was done, and I didn't want to think about Carl's eye or Jerry going away again, or- ' she stopped and thanked God for the onions.

'All right?' said Susan with unlooked for gentleness. Una dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve , found this made her eyes smart worse, and forcibly swallowed the sensation of tightness at her throat.

'It's onions. I was reliably informed by Aunt Martha that my mother was just the same. I know Faith is. Rosemary has a trick, something to do with cutting them away from you, which I've not got the hang of. Not for want of trying.'

'This tablecloth,' said Susan with determination, 'is it nearly finished?'

'Oh ages ago now, didn't Rosemary say? I've put it into my- ' she had almost said 'hope chest, ' which is certainly what Rosemary called it, but Susan was in a Mood, '-in a box in the attic. With mother's wedding dress and things. I expect a lot of it I'll give to Faith when she's married and setting up house. She's never liked embroidery, though she's quick enough at practical things when occasion warrants.'

Susan raised her eyebrows. She had raised them before, over talk of 'boxes' – didn't she know all about boxes in attics?- and she raised them now as she tried to reconcile herself to the idea of a Faith Meredith who could do much of anything with a needle. That would be the war, Susan supposed, more than Rosemary or Una's efforts. After all, if it had grown up Rilla into a sensible creature, why couldn't it have given rosey Faith Meredith a grounding in sewing?

'Don't you think you will want them betimes?' she said, because it seemed somehow more tactful.

'I shouldn't think so,' said Una,' the Manse has its share. Is that enough onions?'

'Lots. You don't think you'll go away from the Manse ever?'

Una cursed whatever had possessed her to sacrifice the onions and settled for worrying a tea towel. 'Where would I go? I feel needed there, and useful.'

'Even with Bruce growing up so big?'

'Oh he accepted long ago that he was doomed to be fussed over by me. When he was eight he said 'I'm not a baby anymore,' and I said he would always be for me because I was his sister and never had to let him grow up. He said, 'well I s'pose that's all right,' -just like that -'but only if you promise to sing 'Gypsy River' and tell me the story of the Pied Piper on the nights when you are in charge of bedtime, for as long as you fuss.''

Susan laughed. 'Did you?' she wanted to know when the laughter had ebbed away.

'Naturally, a promise is a great thing with Bruce.'

Susan said, and tried to say neutrally, 'you don't need to tell me.'

'No, I don't suppose I do; they're a great thing at Ingleside too.' Saying which, Una relinquished the tea towel and made her excuses to get back to the Manse.


But she had not gone directly back to the Manse. She had wandered uneasily through Rainbow Valley, all its nooks and corners, mercifully free of sweethearts, and tried to bring her thoughts into order. She was acutely aware that it had been the far away memory of Walter that had arisen over the onions, that had made Susan look at her anxiously; made her say 'all right?' as if she, Una, were a horse that might startle. She was aware too -uncomfortably so -that it was the memory, more than Susan's gentle and pointed talk, that she minded. That wasn't quite right either; she had made a habit lately of living with ghosts, had learned how to throw them into the shadow. It was the way the memory of Walter had ambushed her, all unlooked for over the diced onions that she minded, perhaps not least because the other evening walking out toward the harbour that that memory and its associated ghosts was receding, settling into a corner of her mind rather than the forefront.

She had gone back to the Manse then, and was relieved to find only Rosemary there at the window, placidly mending a shirt-elbow that stood in testimony to Bruce's latest Rainbow Valley escapade. Ana nodded to her in passing and ascended the stair wanting not tea and a chat so much as the sanctity of her own room. There she hunted out Walter's letter, extracting it from between the leaves of her Bible, the thinness of the pages stuck close with static. When she'd prised them apart and retracted the letter, her eye was caught first not by Walter's imperfect handwriting but the words that leapt incongruously from the page, I will very gladly spend and be spent...She had felt that way once, would she have said so now? Without thinking to do it, Una's attention shifted to the letter, reading it half by memory, half from the words in front of her. There was a traitorous voice hovering at her shoulder, buried somewhere in her psyche, hinting that to keep faith, reeky keep faith, was to live and do it gladly, not to cling to relics of what had been. She sat on the framed cross quilt and thought life could be terrifyingly complicated in spots, and went on reading and re-reading Walter's last letter it until it was no longer readable, no longer individual words but confused ideas run together, and she shut her eyes and prayed about it.


She was brought back to earth by soft knocking at the door, Rosemary's knock, Una thought. Then Rosemary's voice, 'can I come in?'

Ana folded the letter away, tucking it absent-mindedly into the cover of the Bible, so that when Rosemary came in, she found her almost-daughter sitting on the bed with her hands pressed to her eyes to clear them from the sensation of over-reading.

'Can you tell me about it?' asked Rosemary,beginning to comb out Una's hair with her fingers.

It occurred to Una then that if anyone could understand, it would be Rosemary. She sat still on the frame cross quilt, reduced almost to childishness again by the sensation of having her hair dressed by hands not her own, and said, 'I could try. I don't promise to be any good at it. Words and feelings are all Faith's lot -speaking them I mean.'

Rosemary offered some mild, indistinct negation of this declaration but no more. If Faith had been the more demonstrative, it was Una who had been lettable in her girlhood, receptive to kisses goodnight, or the ritual combing out of her hair. It was this perhaps, that had made Rosemary fall into the habit in the first place, sitting there in the girls' room, still sacred to girlish memories and listening as much to the pauses between the words as the words themselves.

'When the war was on,' said Rosemary afterwards, 'I thought -I think we all did -that nothing could be harder than waiting, than the uncertainty that came of not knowing moment to moment what was happening to our world. Since then, I've sometimes caught myself thinking that living is still harder.'

Una dropped a kiss on Rosemary's cheek, cool still from her protracted walk through the valley. Bless you, the sentiment implicit in the gesture, for your gift at talking around the heart of a conversation.

When they began to talk again, they started simultaneously, laughing when each stopped to wait for the other. Then one -or both -of them suggested tea. The idea was seized upon as much because it is a good thought, and a needful thing as for its practicality and the neat terminus it offered to discussions of sentiment.


'You might let me Play Mother today,' said Rosemary half-seriously, when force of habit Una reached for the teapot. 'You are so often doing the pouring out.'

They both laughed this time, and it was good to be laughing like this, over something so inconsequential as who had charge of the Denby teapot. Rosemary took control of it, and as she manipulated strainer and china, said, 'you know, if you'd like to go walking for longer, I could settle Bruce this evening.'

Una thought it was as well Rosemary had got the teapot, and indeed all of the china, because surely she would have dropped something.

But Rosemary said, 'don't look so like a caught-out schoolchild. I was told very firmly the other evening by Bruce, that just because he didn't have to be grown up to you, did not mean I could baby him always, and would I please sit on the step and not by the bed if I wanted to stay nearby until he was asleep. So I was in the drawing-room watching for you. I never meant I minded.'

Una smiled. 'I ought to let him go too.' Rosemary shook her head.

'You mustn't. The one compensation I had was that I knew I'd be able to tell you and you'd understand.'

Una accepted her teacup and thought how reciprocal the feeling was.