Chapter XI

Dear Diary,

I think that this year will go very quickly, even quicker than the year of 1923 did. I think so because today is the first day of February already, and I couldn't quite believe it when I was writing the date on the blackboard in my classroom today.

I can finally say that I can think about other things which aren't connected in any way with Robert Keats from Ottawa. No, I haven't heard from him, and I didn't write to him either as like he said, he needed time after my rejection of his proposal. I miss him dreadfully, his dark blonde curls almost coming into his black eyes when the wind is blowing, his poetic and optimistic view of the world… Well, I suppose that I just have to do as Mother and Father told me to, just wait and see what will happen.

The one thing which I believe I should discuss here, is this funny gossip which I don't suppoe is true but nonetheless I'm not entirely sure about. The gossip is that Carl, our Carl, has a sweetheart.

True, Carl told me that some other day he met, purely by accident, a beautiful girl of the name Rosalind Sutton, and the two of them are meeting up once a week in the cafe since then. Rosalind is British and she's my age. She came to Canada after the war as she married a Canadian in around 1917 but he was killed just before the end of the war and he left her an enormous amount of money (as he didn't have any family of his own). Rosalind then travelled to PEI and although she didn't quite know where she should settle down, she found a friend from Glen and so she came to our small town and opened up a fabric shop just a month ago.

I've never met nor seen Rosalind Sutton yet but Carl talks about her, not too much of course, I don't think he wants me to know what kind of feelings he possess towards her, but he promised me to introduce his "Rosa" to me "sooner than you might think" as he told me with this cheeky wink of his.

If this rumour is true, which I don't think it is, then I will feel really lonely, isolated from the world of love and hopes for the future. I don't know what I will do then, with my only friend who isn't married now, eventually married to someone in the end! But there, I just realised how selfish I am! Not so long ago it was me who was sweethearting and that was Carl who was alone and, like I wrote before, "isolated from the world of love". Therefore I must not think like this, it's not fair towards him, especially because he is my friend, one of the closest I have.

I am happy for Carl, if he really is sweethearting, and all I can do is to hope that Rosalind knows how good he is and that she is good enough for him.

Nan still can't forgive me that I rejected Robert, she reminds me of it ever since I told her that I said "no" to him (which was a month ago!). She told me off immediately and called me "utterly stupid and so very unromantic!". But what can I do? Robert doesn't want to speak to me and maybe he never will. The very thought makes me shiver, especially because I know that he's so far away from me, and that if he really won't write to me I won't see him again, most likely.

The only thing that somehow keeps me hopeful is my teaching and my students who need me, as I realised that I need them too. The other thing that keeps me going is my family of course (maybe apart from my own twin) and my nephews and nieces. Talking about which, my favourite (I must say it) Merry, did something yesterday that made me laugh, really laugh like I did before… well, you know before what.

Merry, being a funny red-headed monster of nearly four years of age, visited Ingleside yesterday with his twin brother and sister, and their parents of course. We were all sitting together in the living room, I was holding and talking to little Julia and Walt was in his father's arms, playing with his hands. Suddenly Faith started looking nervously around the room and jumped "Where is Merry?" she asked us. We didn't know but as soon as we all rushed to stand up and start our search for him, a loud screams of Susan and Mother started coming out from the kitchen (as the two of them were preparing dinner together). We all rushed to the place where the horrific sound was coming from and as soon as we came in to the kitchen we saw Merry, laughing his head off, covered in flour (the rest of the room was covered in flour as well, not mentioning Susan and Mother).

"This little monkey was hiding a… a mouse in his pocket!" Susan squeaked, still under the shock of what Merry was holding in his hand.

Merry patted the mouse in his small chubby hands and started laughing again. Susan then added quickly that it was when she was opening the flour that Merry said to both her and his grandmother "Look what present I brought for you!" and that's why the whole kitchen was covered in a white powder. It was me who started giggling first, Jem followed almost immediately and so did Faith and Mother, along with Father. Only Susan still remained tough, and even underneath her white face, I could see how her cheeks turned positively red.

Well, I must finish now, I definitely have to finish marking those last ten "mini-tests" which my students detest with all their heart but for which they will thank me, one day in the future.

Yours,

Di Blythe

"Cilia is getting so big and too soon!" Di exclaimed when she hopped her pretty, plump little niece on her knee while Una put two cups of tea on the table in front of them.

"She did turn one last week, didn't she?" Una replied sweetly, while looking at her daughter with pride and love "And I agree, I think that Cilia changes every day, it seems like only yesterday I heard the nurse saying: "Congratulations, it's a girl!"." she chuckled quietly.

Di smiled at her friend and kissed Cilia's cheek before she put her on the chair next to her, where her tiny book was placed "Time is passing quickly, isn't it?" she sighed deeply.

"It is," Una agreed "-but it passes in a very wonderful way, every day spent with my dear girl and my husband is a day to treasure. I sometimes feel like I don't need anything else in the world but them." she grinned dreamily at Cilia who was giggling at the book she was trying to work out.

Di smiled at her too "I think that your married life changed you, Una." she said suddenly "It changed you for better, you are more open and somehow more happy than I've ever seen you, or Shirley."

Una smiled warmly at Di "I think you might be right." she said "And I like the new me." her cheeks flushed with red a little bit "But there, Di, I wanted to ask you something, before I forget: did you eventually meet Carl's Rosalind?" she asked her.

"No, I haven't met her yet." Di replied in a matter-of-fact tone "But I've seen her just yesterday, with Carl of course but they were talking and I didn't want to interrupt them so I didn't come up and said my "Hello". Besides I had my own marking to do at home."

"And what do you think about her? What's your first impression?" Una asked her again.

"Well, from her appearence I could easily say that she has a style and elegancy in her fingers." she answered and then chuckled "I would never think that Carl would find himself a sweetheart as extravagant as Rosalind Sutton is!" and she slowly stopped laughing as something in her chest started to hurt her.

"I wouldn't say that she is Carl's sweetheart." Una protested calmly "Rosalind and Carl are good friends but I'm sure that Carl would tell me and especially you if there was something else between them than just a plain friendship." she said.

Di sighed "I don't know... But you know Una, when I saw them talking together, I felt that somehow… I'm probably wrong and selfish now but… Somehow they don't suit each other, I think." she said eventually, as she felt that she had to say this thought outloud.

Una smiled at her knowingly "I met Rosalind just today, as you know," she said "-and I must say that I have a simmilar feeling." and she almost wanted to add: "because there is someone else who is meant for my Carl.", but she couldn't say it, not just yet.

"But maybe we're just a bit biased." Di said suddenly "I mean, I haven't even met Rosalind yet! Maybe she's as charming and as wonderful as she looks?"

"She definitely is a very interesting person." Una said kindly, picturing Rosalind's pink feather-hat which she couldn't stop looking at when she talked with Carl and Rosalind a few hours earlier that day "But I think that I have to get to know her better before I should speak about her at all."

Di patted Una's hand "Yes, I think that we should get to know her better and then give our opinion." she agreed although somewhere deep down in her heart she couldn't stop thinking about the feeling she got, this 'worried' feeling, when she saw Rosalind's hand resting on Carl's shoulder.

It was April again, and it rained and rained, as if someone filled up the whole cup of the size of the Earth and tipped it over directly on Glen St Mary.

Di was going back from the school, her arms full of folders and papers, her ancient cloak on her shoulders and a hood on her head, her pretty shoes entirely wet and her eyes exhausted from sleepless nights which were the result of the Queen's exams her students were supposed to be taking the following day. No, Di was not in a good mood that day. On top of everything, Di was "ditched", as she said angrily although she would later regret her tone and the meaning of those words, by Carl who didn't feel well at all for the past few days and took a day off to stay in bed that day, therefore not being able to be Di's companion while walking her back home.

Suddenly a strong wind blew straight on her, causing her to struggle to walk and causing her hood to fall off her head, making her own red hair entirely soaked. Di then, in despair to cover her head, put her hand on her head and one of her folders fell straight into a big muddy puddle in front of her. Just then Di stopped walking and started crying instead, she cried so hard that she couldn't even feel whether it was rain or her own tears which were covering her face.

She slowly picked up the folder from the puddle and wiped it with the corner of her cloak. "Oh, darn it all!" she cursed silently and she put on her hood back again "This is most definitely the worst day of my life!" she cried out. Di carried on with walking and she was glad that she didn't have to meet up with her Mother, Father or Susan when she would reach Ingleside. She knew that Mother and Susan were out for dinner at Faith's house and that her Father was out on the call as he always was during that time of the day.

When she eventually reached the front door of her home, wet and hopeless, she decided on checking the post as something told her to do so, although she didn't know why. "To Father," Di started to look through the letters in her hand while she was hiding under the roof of the front veranda "-one letter to Mother from Aunt Leslie, another to Mother from Auntie Diana this time, and…" she stared blankly at the yellow envelope in her hands which suddenly started to tremble "-oh, it can't be!" she said breathlessly, sitting herself at the nearest chair.

The letter was from Robert Keats, Ottawa. Di wasn't sure if she could say his name outloud in fear she would wake up from this dream, for it surely must have been a dream? She slowly opened the envelope and unfloded the small piece of paper in her hands, overwhelmed by the sudden wave of warmth passing through her body. She touched the neat hand-writing of the sweetheart she once could call 'her' sweetheart.

"It's not a dream then." she murmured to herself, astonished "Dear Diana," she started to read the letter outloud "You are probably surprised by seeing my name on the top of the envelope that you're now holding in your hands. I must tell you that I myself am surprised by seeing myself being able to, so very easily, write to you right now, after four months of not speaking to you at all.

"Di, those four months of my life didn't have our wonderful conversations, but they did have you, your voice, your frecled face, your eyes, and your red locks which I still find myself unable to stop loving.

"I hope that I won't ask for much if I will ask you to stay in touch with me? As friends, if you'd prefer that I don't mind, as long as I will be able to write to you, to hear your voice properly again, even through the written words.

"I want you to know that I'm doing very well in Ottawa. I re-opned my company and it's doing splendidly, so spledidly I could easily say that I'm slowly becoming quite a wealthy man, and an overworked man at times too. I have my own apartment and friends and my parents near me, but I feel lonely without you, Diana.

"Don't think that I've forgotten what time of year it is for you, I know that your students are taking their exams this month, and I think of them and I hope that they will not make you any less proud than I am of their teacher.

"My heart is waiting impatiently for your reply,

"With all my love,

"Robert Keats" Di whispered his name eventually and her white face turned positively pink all at once. Her lips turned into a smile and her eyes started to sparkle, it was as if a life was put into a ghost and it turned from a grey floating in the air creature into a woman of body and spirit with flaming red hair and rosy cheeks.

Di stood up from the chair and flew upstairs to her room, to her desk. What should she write him, what should she write, how should she write to him? So many questions which couldn't be answered by anyone but Di herself. Her heart was beating fast, she thought as if she staretd a new life, a life she was waiting for her whole life.

Di used many sheets of paper to start her letter to Robert but each of those letters were somehow not right, in her opinion. Finally, she took her laced napkin which she never used before but always treasured as that was a napkin which Robert gave her just one day after the two of them kissed for the first time, and Di wrote on it with satisfaction: "Write to me Robert, write me a thousand letters, as that's how much I need to able to hear your voice once again.". And Di folded the napkin and put it into the envelope, she forgot about her dirty folder, about her students' exams and her soaked hair, she flew downstairs and started running towards the post office feeling as if someone has given her a new life, a new life under the title of "Love".