Chapter XIV

Dear Diary,

School has just started (exactly three days ago) and I couldn't be more pleased about my new class. Most of the class are girls and the girls with really interesting names at that. There's Verona, Dominica, Tamsin, Morgan and Sayler, I remember their names but for the life of me I can't remember the faces of those girls yet.

Although I really enjoyed the summer holidays, reading new books, taking walks across the Rainbow Valley and the very wonderful week in August when Robert came to Glen and surprised me… I will miss all of this, but I can't wait for this new school-year as I have a feeling that it will be just perfect.

I still can't quite believe that I'm engaged! To Robert! And that I will become Mrs Keats next July. That's why I'm excited for this new school-year as it willl be my last here at Glen's school with my Queen's class. But nevertheless, I am very happy and this week spent with Robert was simply beautiful. I don't think we've ever been so happy together than during that week in August.

Robert is excited for our wedding too even in his last letter he sent me he wrote that he already started looking for our new home but I told him not to hurry, we still have ten more months! But I must say that the very thought of me and Robert living together in our own sweet home in Ottawa makes my head fill up with such darling dreams!

There, I need to go now, I can hear Rilla's voice downstairs and I can see a knitting set at the corner of my eye. I really have to go!

Yours,

Di Blythe

"I'm so glad that I could take a walk with just you today, Di." Una said quietly to her friend as the two of them walked side by side across the woods "I love the Farm House and spending time with my Cilia but today is the day which I want to spend just with you." she smiled at Di who squeezed her hand gently.

"I'm glad that you could make it." she replied "I always used to walk alone in silence on this day, but I think that I prefer to have you with me. Especially now that I know that both of us loved Walter equally much." Di grinned warmly at Una who put her arm in Di's arm.

"It's been eight years already." Una murmured, her steadfast blue eyes following the red path in front of her "And it feels as if it happened just yesterday."

Di looked in Una's pale face and she felt as if the whole world didn't exist, that it was just the two them, two friends walking together surrounded by the orange and red leaves of autumn, with the soft wind blowing in their faces, as if the Walter's soul was somewhere next to them too, listening and smiling at them. "He watches over us." Di said suddenly "I always only thought that he is, but just now I really believe in it, I can feel that he's near us."

Una looked at Di and smiled with her eyes full of warm tears "I always knew that he is watching over each of us. That's who Walter was, the protective wonderful man with dreamy gray eyes, which I can clearly see in your own eyes, Di." she said and patted Di's hand tenderly.

"I never thought about both Walter and I having similar colour of eyes." Di confessed and then grinned again "But I know that he's happy, up there in Heaven." she smiled through the tears in her eyes and looked up at the clear blue sky with bright white clouds racing each other over it.

"Yes, I think he is too." Una said with warmness spreading across her face.

"I wonder what he thinks about all of the children in our family." Di sighed softly.

Una chuckled lightly "I think that he would like Merry and Gilly. They truly can make everyone happy even if just for one second." she said and Di also chuckled.

"To think about it, Walter actually has much more entertainment in Heaven than we do; he's watching us, what we do, what we think, what decisions we make." Di said with a funny smile and a twinkle in her eyes "But still, I will always miss him and I would much prefer him to be here with us today." she sighed deeply and looked back at Una as she saw how her friend shook her hand and looked at her seriously.

"Di, don't tell me that you lost faith. You musn't. Promise me that you never will." she said passionately, just as passionately as she told Di her secret story a few months earlier.

Di kissed Una's cheek gently and smiled at her assuringly "I promise, dear Una. I will never loose faith." she said and the two friends continued on walking through the woods and somewhere out of their reach the black-haired boy of gray poetic eyes was smiling at them and his eyes weren't just dreamy but they were also very proud.

Dear Diary,

I sincerely apologise for not being able to write for… oh dear! Almost two months! How could I possibly manage that? I am very sorry, but I have an explanation: so much things have happened that my mind wasn't here in Canada or anywhere else in the world, that's for certain.

The very first week of November is gone, and I'm quite sad because of that as the trees loose their leaves, the leaves which give beauty into the world and its colours bring back life to each of us.

I am very busy at school, the class of 1924/1925 is extremely exhausting. All of my students are lazy and they don't pay attention in lessons, the boys tease the girls all the time and the girls complain to me but at the same time, I can clearly see, want the boys to tease them and pay the attention to them all the time (which is very funny at times, but I can't laugh in the classroom, and this makes my teaching even harder). It's not that everyone isn't into learning, but most of my students aren't. However, the interesting thing is that their 'mini-tests' are going really alright, only in the classroom they can be very tiring because they're talking and laughing all the time.

There's this one girl whom I mentioned in my previous diary entry. Her name is Verona and she is the sweetest student I have ever had. She's quiet and always sits near the window, looking at the clouds with a dreamy look on her frecled face. I once thought that she wasn't paying attention to my lessons but I was wrong, she is my best student and achieves the best grades. The other day I asked Verona what is she thinking about when she looks out of the window and she replied that she thinks about how does it feel like to be a bird and fly so high that the ground would look like something unimportant and insignificant. From that day on, we became kindred spirits.

I will give another reasons why I was so busy that I couldn't write in my diary in almost two months. The second reason, apart from the teaching, is the news of Persis and Una being both pregnant again. Of course it isn't an explanation why I haven't written in here for so long, but this time it really is.

Persis writes to me very long letters, I suspect about three times a week, and I always have to reply to her the day after I get it or otherwise I will get another letter from her asking if she offended me or whether I'm cross with her and whether that's the reason I haven't written to her "in such a long time". I love Persis but sometimes, I think, it would be more beneficial for her if she would just come to Canada for at least four months and talk face-to-face with all of us instead of writing those extremely long letters.

Una is very excited about her second baby as well and she asks me to come over "for a little while" each day. I don't mind at all, but when we start talking about her new baby, or Cilia, or any other topic that comes into our minds after those, I end up going back home so late that I can't even see whether I wrote my name correctly.

I have very interesting and very relieving news about Carl too. He got engaged to Rosalind three weeks ago. That's the interesting part as I wouldn't think that Carl thinks about "Ros", as he calls her, seriously. I was surprised and I asked him whether or not he thinks that she's the one, he simply smiled at me and said "Doesn't Mrs Rosalind Meredith sound perfect?" with this wink of his that always makes me laugh.

This made me think that maybe Carl didn't love me as much as I thought he did. I'm saying this sentence in the past tense as he must have stopped loving me when he got engaged, right? I'm quite sure about that or otherwise Carl would be simply unreasonable and he isn't, he might be a bit wicked and funny as he is, but not unreasonable.

I talked about it with Una and she shook her head and said that as she was sure about him loving me but she's not sure about this engagement at all and that's why she doesn't know the answer to my question. So that's another reason that makes this engagement of Carl's quite strange and it stands next to the big question mark in my mind.

But the relieving part is that because now both Carl and me are engaged and "to be married", we spend more time together and it all feels like the old good times again. I almost cry from happiness as I write this! I eventually gained my friend back and I couldn't be more happy about it, that's why the question mark standing next to Carl's engagement is hardly visible for me right now, when both me and Carl talk and laugh and come back home together after school like we used to.

Carl seems really happy, whenever we meet he smiles and we talk about everything we used to talk about before… well, before I started avoiding him so much. I asked him when the wedding will take place and he said that it will be next year in the summer, and so very near my own wedding. I am excited to meet his Rosalind and I still can't quite believe that I haven't met her yet but then, when I will meet her I'm sure that it will be a wonderful meeting.

But, as always, good moments sometimes tie up with some other more sorrowful moments which can be really stressful.

Robert and I talked on the 'phone a few days ago and I was really surprised that he called me because we made a pact that we will only call each other if something very important is happening. So I had a lump in my throat when I picked up the reciever but Robert sounded really cheerful and that's why I was surprised even more. He called because his uncle Ben died last week and apparently left him a big mansion in his will. That would be simply splendid if Robert didn't add at the end: "in London".

I must say that I don't think I've ever felt so red and nervous in my whole life when I heard him say that the mansion is in London, England. I told him quietly that I don't think I'm quite happy with us moving away so far away from home and across the ocean for that matter.

Robert was disappointed and he was a little angry, he said that he would be able to open up his company back in London and that in such a place like London, his company would be prospering even more than in Ottawa, and with such a big mansion just for us, we would be as happy as no one else in the world is. But I told him that I certainly wouldn't be happy with my family so far away. What if someone would get ill and I wouldn't be there to help? What if all of my friendships with Nan, Una, Carl and everyone else would fall apart while I would be away?

All in all, Robert said that he will give me time to think about it of course. After all, our wedding won't take place until July next year, but still, this decision has to be made and I am simply shaking from doubts and fears. I told Mother about it but I'm keeping it a secret from everyone else for now. Mother thinks that it would be a really fantastic opportunity for Robert but she also said, with hardly visible tears in her eyes, that it would be dreadfully hard for her to let me go so far away with her permission.

So I simply don't know what to do and probably I still won't know what to do on the day when the decision will have to be made. Why is my life so complicated? I understand that most of time life is and will be complicated but… I always thought that my life would be the easiest one posssible and that I wouldn't have to worry about anything. How wrong I was!

Well, Christmas is slowly approaching and I think that this year went definitely too fast, definitely too fast. But I will need some of the Christmas spririt to lift me up a little bit.

Yours,

Di Blythe