The October sun glowed gently, and Kingsport's old cobbled streets and facades of buildings built in the 18th century were the most solemn sight. Residential streets, alleys, dormitories, and rental houses, full of a variety of students, and co-eds, all possible combinations of subjects. There was blooming glowing nature, not wild and free, as in Glen, but precisely modified, extensive park areas, and a pond, sometimes inhabited by a few colorful birds.
Ancient lime trees overshadowed St. John's Cemetery, the faded gravestones whispered endless tales of past tragedies, loyalty, and everlasting love, of determination and hardship. Walter Blythe leaned against a bumpy tree, a bright, sparkling maple. It was extremely lovely to be in Redmond, but at the same time he felt how all the passers-by were looking at him, as if wondering why he wasn't walking in uniform, yet.
As the weeks passed, and the Autumn had rushed on almost daily, the other boys in Walter's sophomore class interrupted their studies, or came to lectures in uniform. There were propaganda posters everywhere, and heclers too. The Brigade of the White Feathers, they sought out and pressured boys who, for one reason or another, had not yet enlisted. Only last week, Walter had witnessed one scene by chance. It had been utterly unstoppable, few passers-by had only intensified their steps, or stayed to follow the situation. One dark haired man in a fine overcoat and a silk scarf around his neck had said in a clear offhand way "Did you Herman know that Redmond´s curriculum is offering German language studies too, some optional selection. Utterly unberable." And his companion had said calmly, "But Roy, can't you do something about it?" The dark man, Roy had sighed, and said, "Unfortunately I don't, my own influence isn't that wide."
Both men had walked past Walter, and he had seen at a glance, their faces. One of them was blond, and self-conscious, wearing an expensive striped suit, and he was carrying a silver topped Medusa-head walking stick. The darkhaired man had few silvery stripes in his abundant locks as he strolled confidently along the street. He had small waxed mustaches on his upper lip and large dark blue eyes, that seemed cold, but they must have been dreamy once, and in another white fragrant, well-groomed hand was a ring with the letters RG. There was also a white silk scarf, it was fluttering in the wind. A perfumed scent that closely resembled Ken's sandalwood but was somehow more expensive hovered in the air for a little while, after him.
Weeks passed and almost unnoticed Walter found out that he led in his own subjects, as the tutorial scores were posted at the broads. After much deliberation he had chosen English Literature and French, he would have liked to choose German because of Mozart and the divine lied songs, but he did not dare to do that, in these violatile times.
One afternoon, Walter was having tea at his sisters, place. It was utterly charming rentalcottage, named Primrose Hollow, it was not a Patty´s palce, but filled with it´s own unique charm, all worn furniture, and a fireplace, and upstairs rooms had sloped cielings. Nan and Di shared it with Faith and two other girls, neither of them was Alice. Nan offered him fresh bisquit, it was almost as good as those made by Susan, so Di had done it then, and then she suggested "Walt, you seem a little irritable, do you miss playing music? I'm not sure, that you know, but Redmond has a classical music club, and they sometimes have concerts, and they have their own library, it's reportedly quite gorgeous. I heard it from Dad, as he spent several hours there, studying, when he and Mum were enrolled here." And Di chimed in, "It would be so sad to let all Rosemary´s efforts go to waste, and music relaxes you so, you always used to shine so, after those classes at the Manse."
Nan glanced at Di and the girls laughed lightly, and after a while Nan said "Or did you have any other reason to go to Manse so often, Walt?" Walter looked at Di, who was playing with a spoon, and did not look at him. So softly he said "Music and Una's company mainly, as sometimes she played with me, if Rosemary had errands."
"Una!" Nan remarked, "but what about Rosamond's poems?"
Walter just smiled at his sister and said lightly, "Sometimes poems are just poems, of no greater significance, dear Nan." Di's voice was clear, " And sometimes they are more than that, dear brother. Some feelings are better to keep completely to yourself, you don't have to write everything open. God, knows I do not, do that in my own writing." Walter vibrated, and a light red rose on his cheeks from Di's words, he and walked with fastest steps out of the house.
The door slammed shut.
Nan glanced at her sister and said, "That was a little cruel Di. Did you know, Perennial, that is, Redmond's literary magazine, didn't publish Walter's poems, even though they're vividly delicate like first spring flowers. The letter said, as an argument, that rainbows and fairies and pastoral dreams do not fit the current world situation. Have you read Walter's latest poems? Alice said that she read one of them in the spring, and it made her cry. Di glanced at Nan and said briefly and coolly, "Our brother writes so much that sometimes it's hard to keep up, but moving his poems have always been, though not always sensible."
After that tea, the distance between Di and Walter grew. Of course the siblings were polite to each other, but the former warmth and camaraderie had somehow disappeared. The crack had emerged and it slowly expanded over as the autum term flowed onwards.
Walter went to his lectures, brooded, and took long walks and talked to Alice, for that golden girl had come to Redmond, she was reading philosophy and languages. One afternoon, Alice said a little reproachfully to him, "Walt, sometimes you're incredibly naive to be so smart. If you showed certain poems to Di, she is naturally extremely worried about you.""She's mad at me, in an icy, cold-pale way that hurts."" She really could not be angry with you, at least not for very long. In addition, she is worried about your well-being, and afraid that you will do too much and exhaust yourself, she was almost beside herself when you were in the grip of the typhoid, she barely slept, just haunted Rainbow Valley, in December no less!"
"I've tried to talk and write to her, but she just walks past me. Or when I go to have tea at the Primrose Hollow, the conversation is rigidly formal, devoid of heart." And you respond to that by being capricious, and gloomy. What a pair you, two are!
Your romantic poets gestures are unintentionally comical Walter, really. So be an adult and talk with Di! Even in Latin, or Greek if you don't want anyone to hear, but don't do it near students of classical languages. In addition, dear friend, you're so used to chasing your own dreams that you don't always know or want to put yourself in the position of others, and you imagine everyone is against you if they have the opposite opinion. And then your ideals and reality will meet, collide, and the drop for you will be harsh, as I have said before. The atmosphere here is full of tension. Last week, a boy from my philosophy course was completely covered in feathers, after the lecture, in a completely public place."
Walter looked quietly at Alice's pale, delicate features and he just sighed very deeply and held out his hand, saying, "Shall we go see the swans?" At the end of a narrow dirt road lined with rustling alders and oaks was a rather large pond, with two shimmering white royal swans swimming in it. As well as a worn iron bench, Alice sat down on it and observed silently as Walter watched swans. He seemed pensive, and anxious, and Alice thought, maybe I made a mistake when I told you about the feathers.
A letter arrived at Primrose Hollow.
Doss!
This distance between us hurts you as well as me. You are my dearest sister, my other half. Your own texts have inspired some of my best poems, but you know it, and that's why I call you Doss. You're practical when I dream too much, and you know how to wake me up, if I´m too lost in my dreams, my golden rainbows, or shimmering fancies. And now, I know I did wrong when I wasn't honest with you. But how to describe something for which there are no words, even though I love words. As the wise Greeks said, for you form now on I remain to you; είμαι ανοιχτό βιβλίο.
W.
As Di read it, her eyes were filled with tears, and they dropped, one by one to the letter, and smudged the ink, in small rivulets.
A week passed, then another, and Walter was buried in his papers, there had been no word from Di. One morning after a challenging interrogation of French grammar, Walter walked out from the Department of Modern Languages when he noticed a familiar character waiting for him under a flaming red maple.
It was Di.
The siblings met on the wide mossy green lawn, and Di´s eyes were flickering earnestly green in the noon light as she said "I had to dig up a Greek dictionary to find out what you had written at the end of your letter. Don't anymore hide your heart from me?"Walter nodded and smiled at her in his clear and vivid way. But there was still a small sharp thorn left in Di's heart, a slight suspicion that did not subside.
One day few days after the sisterly harmony had been found again, Walter walked through the worn stairs to a beautiful building with a half-palladium-style architecture, a wide dome on the roof, and light Roman-style columns.
The door opened slowly, as Walter stepped inside. Heavy red curtains, muffled sounds. Small dust particles danced in the shimmering light. There were a few gold-framed paintings on the walls of the tall rooms, whose frames shone in dim light, as well as a chest of drawers with old photographs on top.
Curious, Walter glanced at the pictures as he passed, and then he stopped, bringing one picture to light. It had a slender tall dark-haired woman in a dark, generous dress. The woman had a proud look on her delicate features, and next to the woman was a piano and to her right was a young Gilbert.
Gilbert in the picture looked young, and pale but the dark eyes sparkled with joy of life, and a little pride, but the look on his eyes was somehow strange, as if something had broken. There was a flower in his coat that was of the same variety as the flowers adorning the dark haired woman´s hair. In front of the picture was a yellowed note that read in an old-fashioned handwriting: Miss , a performer at the Redmond Music Society, and , a companion.
Walter shook his head, as he was carefully lowering the framed photograph into place. It is true that our parents had a past before us this could be related to the near misses in romance that I remembered Nan and Di had overhead Mum telling Rosemary once year, and years ago.
Walter opened a door at the end of a hallway, and stopped at the doorstep. The great room had the most beautiful grand piano, and it was absolutely spotless. As if enchanted, Walter stepped forward, lifting the shiny lid up. His own image was visible on the lid momentarily. Walter breathed once, and then twice deep, down to his toes, as Rosemary had taught and began to play. The soft, virtuous shimmering music glowed in the room, it flooded the hallway.
After that first afternoon, Walter sought to study often in the music library, as it was large and bright, and utterly quiet, and when he grew tired of repeating his lecture notes on general literary history, or Chaucher's production, or French verb structure, he sometimes stopped to play, and he played with chords as if they were verses.
Sometimes Alice was in the library, with him. Her blonde hair was glistening in the light, and sometimes she had ink in her index finger.
One afternoon, Alice said, "Walter, have you noticed that there will soon be charity evening and ticket proceeds are naturally going to aid war effort. Normally there would be Annual Redmond Benefit Ball, but the idea has been abandoned due to circumstances, but there is still dancing there, and all the wealthy and, famous names in Kingsport, are going to be there. Exceptionally first-year students have also been invited to the venue, probably because otherwise there would be too many empty places at the tables."
Walter glanced curiously at Alice, and said slowly, "So you're suggesting we go there? But why, as we don't usually like dancing." Alice sighed, and said in a irritated tone "I got to Redmond on the condition that I find myself a husband candidate here. Marriage doesn't interest me at all, and I love my studies, all that Ancient Wisdom of ages before and the variance and vibrancy of languages, French, German, Italian and Latin, but my mother writes to me every week, and someone told her about this occasion, and now she's calling my boardinghouse at all hours. I have to go there, in effort to get my mother reconciled, and you, dear Walt, are the only one with whom I can go there. "
Walter smiled in a dreamy, light way and said, " What flowers you want, in your corsage." Sudden light, golden laugh flashed in the silence of the library and Walter was glad to note that sparkle had finally returned to Alice´s eyes and in this light they appeared more violet in shade than ever before.
So Walter took a romantic position, by the library desk, and slowly recited Wordsworth´s well known and loved verse.
A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
Alice glanced at him and said slowly, "Pastoral romance, longing, and beautiful flowing form, but I'm not Lucy, and you're not Wordsworth. So you can save that kind of quoting for your evenings, at Perennial's offices, as they huddle there like Olympian Gods. Dear friend, I've heard so much about that grand piano that I want to see it, shall we go there?"
With the softest fingers, Alice touched the keyboards, and said, "I want to sing, something beautiful, right now, can you accompany me?"
Walter nodded, and softly began playing Elgar, as he was perhaps the finest composer of romantic and longing ballads. And as After's longing tones glowed in the epolent room. Alice's voice was bright, dazziling, and creamy, and unspeakably sad, and it had a tone in it that gave the poetry shades of truth, and a deep echo of lived experience, as if Alice, that dear lass really knew of the losses pictured in the ballad, Walter pondered. How strange!
As Alice stopped singing a little out of breath, the light roses glowed on her cheeks, and in her eyes there was a look in them, that seemed, somehow distant, and haunted. So in effort to break the silence that had fallen, Walter said, in a gentle manner, "I didn't even know you could sing, your voice is really good, like a creamy pudding, with fresh cherries."
Alice glanced at him and said "Well, because you're not an episcopal, of course you don't know. I've been in the local choir for some years, as a one of the mezzo-sopranos despite my Father's opposition, because he doesn't think it completely respectable, even if my voice did raise our standing in the Lowbridge community. Even despite this, my Father won't let me play or practice at home, and that's why he told you to borrow those Elgar's notes. It's true that I don't play the piano at all, so he didn't lie to you. Father is many things, irritable, and he smokes far, too much, but a liar he is not. He is like a gruff old bear, set in his ways, but he adores me, in his own, way, even if he does not show it often at all. "
Walter played the soft, running, light scale, and said "Now is probably the time to go as this place will be closed soonish."Alice took the offered arm lightly, and they walked the dark, slightly illuminated wide streets of Kingsport. After Walter had escorted Alice to her boardinghouse, he wanted to take a little walk in the neigbourhood.
Near the red-brick buildings of Redmond Collage there were framed posters. Charity evening, Redmod Concert Hall, formal evening wear. All ticket proceeds for the war effort. Let´s support our boys in the trenches! The stars shone bright, and the sky was like dark velvet, and the smell of the fallen leaves and the light smoke hovered in the air and Walter looked at the shimmering landscape in front of him, and hummed Mozart when he turned to his own street, where his own boardinghouse lay, he absentmindedly improved his red scarf.
Suddenly, an unknown voice from the darkness said, "That one is not on the front, and he is humming, something bourgeois rubbish. Let´s catch it, and cover it with feathers."
Walter glanced behind him and started running. A hoarse laughter of crude nature, rang in the calm evening. In faint, vague way Walter heard someone else say "Look now, it's running, run harder!"
With a sudden spurt of strenght Walter turned corner, circled the block, and slipped in through the back door.
His hands trembled softly, as adrenal flowed and thrummed in his veins, vivid, living like warm, blood. With trembling legs, he crawled up the stairs to his own room, and sank to the bed. It was plain room.
The table was full of books, and different essay outlines, and there was a small stove in the corner of the room. As the tremors in his hands subsided, Walter made tea, and he glanced into the bumpy mirror. The young man in the mirror had serious gray eyes and the face was pale, there was a light shadow of a stubble on his cheeks, he must remember to shave in the morning.
The hot tea was steaming in a cool room.
Walter rose, lit a gas lamp, and began to write. The letter paper was monogrammed one with the crest of Redmond on it.
Kingsport, Autum-time.
Dear Mother!
The evening is crystal clear, and the stars are shining like small diamonds!
My studies are going well, and girls are doing well too, but you know it because they probably write more often than I do.
I'm going to a charity night soon, with Alice Parker. She's the most golden girl, and did you know she can sing, like a nightingale in the Rainbow Valley, at dusk? I've been looking for my book The Great Poets of Romance recently, if it is at Ingelside, can you post it here? All library copies of that book are on loan. Give my warmest greetings to everyone, at the Manse and at Ingelside, especially to Rilla my Rilla, who did the right thing when she came home with that utterly ridiculous soup bowl, and the baby Anderson. That little dear chap, Jims must be grown so much since I saw him last? Although it still seems strange that our lily of the valley is in charge of another person, but Rilla is now really knacky with him, or so Una´s letters tell me. As Rilla´s own letters understates everything, that concerns Jims, but I think that in time she is warming to him.
I have not written not one verse or new poem after August. I have tried, but I´cant. So I have read and revised some my old work instead, all golden rainbows and pastoral peace.
With all my love
WCB.
Walter closed his eyes as the familiar glamorous music seemed to echo, once again in his ears.
The Piper, was back.
He demanded that Walter take part, to a bloody dance that was fiercely practiced in the ramparts of the Western Front, somewhere in Belgium or France, where there was the most need of British-Canadian voluntary forces. Walter knew that before long he had to do as Piper wanted, but not yet, not quite yet. He wanted to enjoy the beauty of the world, and he wanted to dance, to the accompaniment of violins and piano, not war drums, not yet. War was ugly, horrid, and bloody thing. But as a soldier, and as a volunteer, he would be able to protect, all Rilla´s Una´s and Di´s and Alices of the world. Sometimes indecision seemed to tear him in half, those times Tadzio's memory glowed, in his heart, more vivid than ever. All those too few, lovely moments, full of mutual secrets, and music living, lovely music that shimmered still in his memories twined in with the unspoken, love between them.
A/N: The greek can be translated as To be open book.