Chapter XII
"Can you believe that it's May already?" Di questioned Carl while the two friends had their picnic underneath the Tree Lovers "But I'm glad, now that May is here I feel like I've been waiting for it to come in years." she smiled at the little flower she held in her hand.
Carl grinned back at Di and put the flower he was holding in his own hand into Di's red hair "There, now May really is here." he said and winked at her.
Di chuckled and touched the flower Carl just put behind her ear "And I can almost feel the summer holidays approaching. I think that I really do need a rest after this particular school-year." she sighed.
"Oh, yes, I remember you telling me about your two students who aren't into learning at all." Carl nodded knowingly "I have about five of those in my own class."
"I suppose that after all, you can't make everyone to be better than they already are." Di added wistfully.
"No, no, I think that you can make everyone to be a better than they already are if you try hard enough, but you can't make everyone to actually learn something." he replied and grinned at his friend.
"Maybe you're right." she said and then stretched her arms "What is your Rosalind doing right now? It's a bit strange that you are sitting with me on a Saturday afternoon, while she is… What is she doing?" she asked again and Carl chuckled.
"She's at her shop. Sewing all the time, or so she told me." Carl answered "I don't know how you women are able to sew so quickly and make such perfectly perfect dresses, jumpers, socks and many other parts of clothing." he said and shook his head.
"Well, we are just a bit more patient and precise than men are." Di raised her eyebrow in a funny way making Carl to laugh again "But I'm sure that if you could try hard enough, you would be able to learn how to sew too."
"I don't think that I'm patient and precise enough to do so, I'm a man after all." Carl said and this time it was Di who laughed.
"But coming back to Miss Sutton." she said again more decidedly and she could almost swear that Carl sighed "When am I going to meet her?" she asked.
"I don't know, dear Di." he replied honestly "She's always busy at her shop when I'm free, I'm busy with school when she's free and we see each other twice a week at most so you know, I have no idea when you'll actually will be able to talk to her."
"If she's your friend, she must be very special, I think." she said "Tell me something about her, Carl, you never really talk about her!"
"Rosa is a real talker." he said eventually, a small grin appearing on his face "And she's very entertaining because of that, although she sometimes wanders off so much I can hardly hear a word she says!" he chuckled but Di remained serious.
"Carl, you shouldn't speak like that about your friend." she said to him "And Carl… I don't think I can hold this inside any more…" she sighed heavily and Carl's heart started to beat very fast "There's something I want to ask you."
Carl nodded slowly "Yes?" he asked expectantly.
"Are you… and Rosalind… in love?" she asked him eventually and her own cheeks flushed with red.
"No, I'm not in love with her." Carl replied finally, his voise sounding quite disappointing "How can I be, Di? When… when… when we meet each other only twice a week?" he said the last sentence very carefully and for the first time in her life, Di noticed that he wanted to say something entirely different and the uncertainty over what he actually wanted to say made her shiver.
"Well, if you will be in love with her one day, will you let me know first?" she asked him hopefully.
"Of course." he assured her with a light smile. Carl slightly opened his mouth as he wanted to ask her about Robert and whether they were correspeonding as lovers or friends but he closed his mouth again, concluding that he really didn't want to know the answer to this question. "But there's someone else who is in love himself." he said eventually and laughed at the very thought "Bruce walks in the clouds for about two days now."
Di laughed too although when she stopped she turned all red "Oh, we're horrible, we shouldn't laugh so hard!" she said but Carl continued on chuckling "But Bruce is just sixteen years old, isn't he?"
"Yes, he is." Carl replied "And that is why it is so funny, Di, so don't worry about laughing at all."
"What's her name?" Di asked him with a grin.
Carl smiled back and chuckled again "Holly." he said and started laughing again. Di punched him in the arm but she couldn't hide her own lips forming into a smile.
"Carl!" she scowled at him laughingly "What's so funny? 'Holly' is a very nice name."
"It's just that when Bruce is in his room, and thinks that no one," that's when Carl pointed at himself "-is around, he starts to compose poems for her. And each of those poems stars with "Oh Holly, how can you be so beautiful and holy?"." this made Di laugh as well but when they stopped, she looked at Carl again and a sudden question popped into her head, which surprised her just as much as it would surprise her friend.
"Carl?" she asked.
"Hm?" Carl laid down on his side.
"Have you ever been in love?" she asked him silently as if it was something terribly intimate question.
Carl gazed at her in surprise, he wasn't expecting Di to ask him this question, in fact he didn't expect anyone to ask him this kind of question at all. He never truly thought that anyone could even think that Carl could be, or wanted to be in love, apart from his sister Una of course but she knew everything, even though Carl didn't tell her his secret directly.
Carl's cheeks turned fiery but no smile of his appeared on his lips, he looked away instead "Not really… No, not exactly…" he whispered out eventually.
Di almost opened her mouth to ask what does he mean by that when she realised that she knew exactly what he meant. Their conversation carried out for another fifteen minutes and then Carl headed home to do some preparation for his Monday's lesson and Di started heading towards Ingleside, her heart pounding inside her chest, tears springing up to her eyes and her hands shaking.
"Oh, Carl!" she whispered to herself helplessly "Why did your heart have to choose me?"
"Oh, Di, please don't worry so much!" Una exclaimed worriedly, while she and Di were out in the garden of Una's and Shirley's house "It's just two children of yours who didn't pass, out of thirty! Besides you said yourself that they didn't care about learning one single bit." she said kindly while she was hugging her sister-in-law.
"Oh, I know." Di said eventually and wiped her tears away "But it's just really sad when I think that this time last year we had a party because all of my students passed to Queen's!" she put her hands to her face as she felt how it was turning red all over again.
Una touched Di's hand and smiled at her "Di, you are a wonderful teacher and a wonderful person, please don't think of it that way." she said comforting her as best as she could "You said yourself that everything happens for a reason. So don't think about it anymore, you accomplished so much even with two of your students not passing, dear it's just two pupils and the other twenty eight are grateful for you right now as they know that they wouldn't be able to pass their exams without their teacher." she smiled at Di again.
Di grinned more cheerfully at Una and kissed her cheek softly "Thank you, dear. Even Nan wasn't as comforting and as understanding as you are right now." she chuckled a bit and Una smiled in satisfaction of making her friend feel better "At least it's summer now, and so two months free of working!"
"Exactly, think about how many books you will read and how many records you will be able to memorise, and not about those two students who didn't pass not because of you but because of themselves." Una replied wisely.
Di nodded in agreement "Besides, they must be all happy and joyful now that they don't have to go to school anymore." she said and both she and Una laughed.
"That's so true." Una agreed "Now, Di, tell me what was it that you wanted to discuss with me today?" she asked her.
Di's cheeks turned pink and she looked at the little Cilia playing with her toys on a blanket next to them "It's something about Carl." she said eventually.
Una smiled at Di knowingly "So you know, don't you?" she said calmly, so calmly that Di was surprised.
"You knew?" Di asked her in disbelief "How, Una?"
"Carl is my younger brother." she explained "I know all about his feelings and how he expresses and hides them."
"But, Una… I don't know what to do about it!" Di exclaimed "I mean, I do love him as a friend, he's wonderful, but I don't love him… in that way." she looked at Una in despair.
"I know that too, dear Di." she replied warmly "Carl is in love with you, and Di, all I can ask you, if you won't get cross with me, is whether do you think you can ever start love him in that way?" she asked her shyly.
Di grinned weakly at her friend "Una, you're so kind, I would never be cross with you." she said calmly "But, no, I don't think I can ever be able to do that." she sighed "You see, Robert and I correspond through letters since April, for two months almost, and I can feel that both he and I start to send each other not just friendly letters but love letters. It's unexpected but I feel like it is the truth, he writes me many poems and compliments me, and I write him back in the similar tone. I think… I think that I might really love him enough to marry him, if he would ask me to." she said eventually, a secret which only she and her own Mother knew about.
Una grinned at Di sadly "Well, I'm happy that you feel like your mind is made up." she answered "I'm sorry however for my brother, as I don't know if he will ever be able to love someone else in this way." her dark-blue eyes got gloomy, her own mind finiding the feelings and thoughts which her brother had in this moment and which she herself had so many years earlier as well.
Di took Una's hand in hers and squeezed it tightly "I know, and I'm awfully sorry, Una dearest." she said "But how could I possibly marry Carl instead of Robert, knowing that I can't love him in that way at all?" she asked her.
Una smiled and chuckled a little wistfully "Funny, that's what I thought I was doing exactly, when I married my Shirley." she said it so unexpectedly, that Di couldn't be more surprised that Una was herself.
"What do you mean?" Di asked her slowly, her hand slowly coming to her lock of red to put it behind her ear.
Una's cheeks flushed with bright red "I didn't mean it like that, Di, I'm sorry. But…" she sighed softly "-now that I said it I have to explain what I really mean or otherwise I will make you cross with me after all." she sat straight and started to put all of her thoughts and secrets in one place before she opened up her mouth again "At the time when I was marrying Shirley, I didn't love him, not in this way anyway. At least I didn't know that I did love him in that way. You see, Di, I was… I was…" she gulped as warm tears sprang into her eyes "I was in love with someone else before I married Shirley, before he asked me to marry him and even before the war started."
Di's brows furrowed and her eyes became sympathetic and so she put her hand over Una's shaking one "Darling, you don't need to tell me if it hurts you so much. I'm not cross…" she started but Una put her own hand on Di's and shook her head.
"No, Di." she said so sternly that Di almost couldn't recongnise the ever calm and kind Una in the person sitting in front of her "I started and I have to finish now or I will feel cross with myself. I… I've never told anyone. Not the whole story, not all of the details. Only Shirley knows, but apart from him, no one." she put her hand on her cheek again and grinned weakly "You see, I was in love with… with…" she struggled to breathe and Di could see how nervous she was.
Suddenly, something triggered in Di, like some kind of puzzle she was always looking for when she was laughing or talking with Una, something that was missing in their friendship and something which was unsaid. Di's eyes widened and she clasped Una's small hand in hers "Oh, Una!" she gasped suddenly "It was… it was my Walter!".
Una looked in the eyes of Di and she smiled, a happy smile, a thankful smile. She let go of all the emotions inside her and tears started to run down her face and tears of Di appeared on her own cheeks "Yes, it was Walter." she said quietly, not believing that after such a long time she said his name outloud again |I was in love with him before the war, during the war, on the day he died and… on the day when I married Shirley." she said eventually.
Di started to sob by then, not because she felt angry that Una married her brother without loving him, but because of how much she realised she missed her older brother who perished on the land of France almost eight years earlier. She and Una put their arms around each other and cried for a little while before Di eventually pulled away and she wiped her own and Una's tears away "Darling, please tell me more." she said eventually.
Una nodded and grinned at Di "When Walter died, I vowed that I would never love anyone again, that I would never marry because he was the one for me." she said calmly now that all of her tears she was holding inside her were almost as good as forgotten "Then Shirley came back from the war, so… manly, and different than he was before. You know that we always knew about each others feelings and thoughts without speaking, but this time I didn't know what was wrong. I thought that it was the effect of war but it wasn't. Shirley himself told me that it wasn't and the day when he told me this was the day when he told me that he was in love with me. On the Christmas Day in 1919." she said eventually, and she grinned weakly at the memory crossing her mind.
"1919?" Di asked "Why, you weren't engaged until the early 1921!"
"Yes and that's because I told Shirley on that Christmas Day that I didn't love him, although it hurt me and it hurt him terribly." Una continued "I couldn't let go of Walter, and the vow I made to myself when he died. But Shirley asked me to try to love him and he promised that he would do anything to make me fall in love with him. I believed him, I knew that he would try everything, and believe me Di, he did." she smiled to herself and then at her daughter who was still playing on the blanket next to them "But I was a silly goose and thought that there was just one way of loving. I thought that I loved Walter and that that was the only kind of love that I could ever feel towards a man I would want to marry. I still believed this thought when I agreed to marry Shirley and when I actually married him."
"Why did you agree to marry Shirley if you knew that you didn't love him then?" Di asked her.
"Because Shirley told me that he needed me, and that he wanted me to live with him, to talk with him each morning and each evening before going to sleep." Una smiled and soft warm tears started to form in her eyes again "And I didn't want to hurt him any more than I already did. So we married, and it was a terrifying day for me, because I thought that I didn't love him. But one day about seven months after we married, I had a dream. I had a dream that Shirley died in the war as well as Walter did and when I woke up and I saw Shirley lying next to me, Di, I cried like a baby and I kissed him, I kissed him for the first time, really kissed him." she chuckled sweetly "Shirely was confused and I told him that I love him and I think I must have whispered it many times, because the next thing I remember was me and Shirley crying in each others arms." she smiled radiantly at Di, who had tears in her eyes too "So Di, there isn't just one way of loving. There are, I think, just as many kinds of love as there are people in this world. And… believe it or not, I think that I still love Walter, I always will, but I wouldn't change anything in my life: I wouldn't change my husband and my little girl," she took Cilia in her arms and kissed her cheek "-I wouldn't change anything for the whole world."
Di kissed both Una and Cilia and smiled at them "Oh Una, thank you for telling me this secret of yours." she told her thankfully "I will never tell it to anyone, I won't even write it in my diary, but it will be in my heart forever. And I know that from now on, we really are friends, the "bosom friends" as my Mother would call it." she said joyfully and the two girls hugged each other tightly.
"And we always will be nothing but bosom friends, Di." Una whispered into Di's hair "Whatever will happen, and whatever will cross our paths."