Slowly the light of spring increased, as did shy green grass, it began to grow from under the snow that had melted, as dark, lushly warm earth thawed, flowers began to bloom, delicate white primroses, crocuses, of jocund daffodils, with white and yellow petals, that turned towards sun. In the library of the Music Association of Redmond, Madeline stopped to listen, behind the large, tall leaded glass windows, the birds seemed to be singing, chirping, a spring symphony, the sky was bright pure blue. She swept notes of Bach's Matthew Passion that were displayed on the small table into better order. It was quiet, only light dust particles seemed to dance in the light.
With a light sigh, Madeline returned to her cataloging. An hour passed, and then another, a pan whistled on the small stove, and Madeline poured fragrant jasmine tea into a jade green teapot. Cup in hand, she walked about in her little kingdom, arranging and fixing, and suddenly she stopped in front of small mirror, it had ornamental braid frames, and the light reflected on its surface, the mirror was the only precious thing in the study, besides the teapot. Madeline glanced in the mirror and was surprised, in the bright, fresh streaming light, she was grayer than she could remember. Madeline sat down on a hard chair, and closed her eyes, and surrendered to the flow of past memories. Claire, dark-haired and dark-eyed, like an Italian painting, graceful and calculating, full of soft charm. Claire had given her both mirror and tea-pot, before she had left Madeline's life for ever, to do, as was desirable, and honorable, marriage, travel, Florence, Rome, Sicily.
Madeline shook her head as she remembered her hopeless wait, walking the streets of Kingsport, between her own little attic apartment and the post office. Maybe today a postcard or a letter would arrive, but that never happened. And a few years later, when she met first Ernestine, and then Dorothy Gardiner, her Gardiner charm was almost painfully familiar in places, and almost against her will, Madeline became a regular in Dorothy's little shady salon, but no one there remembered or knew Claire, so Madeline kept her memory alive alone, all the bitterness had already drained away years ago, and only a momentary, so short happiness had remained.
The cold bitter jasmine tea was like a sign of regret, a penance, and grimacing, Madeline drank the pot empty, and stroking the hems of her dark, practical skirt, Madeline decided to stop dwelling on her memories, because they wouldn't help her today's work get any smaller. Humming softly, Madeleine went back to her beloved books, and score sheets, and shelved volumes, and the subscription slips, and when she got to R, she found that someone had borrowed, Ravel's op 55, the sheet music of Alyosious Bertrand's Gaspard de la Nuit, and the same had happened to Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Shrugging her shoulders, Madeline wished the borrower luck in learning such mixed material, and quietly she crept through shiny, echoing corridors towards the foyer and the concert hall.
And with a small chamois cloth, she wiped the row of photographs, and suddenly stopped, because Madeline had seen a glimpse of the woman in one of the photographs a couple of days ago. That dark haired woman in blue, she had been sitting in a rental car, on the corner of a street with some of Kingsport's wealthiest houses and hotels, sitting next to her was none other than Alice Parker, wearing muted dark shades. The car door had opened and Alice had jumped out, and started walking furiously towards the other side of Kingsport, where Redmond was located, soon Alice had been swallowed up by the crowd on the street, and when Madeline looked again at the corner of the street, the rental car had disappeared from view.
The lobby was quiet, and then the soft, misty underwater Ravel chords slowly began to echo through the concert hall, a little uncertain as Ondine sparkled. And Madeline thought that only once, years ago, in this same space, at a literary evening, had she seen the wife of a now very famous Canadian writer, who resembled a mermaid imprisoned on earth, all burnished gold, with a hint of Crimson and Amethyst on her silks, in which had the scent of distant lands, and in her perfume there was a tint of amber and rose. She had stood by her husband, who had made an excellent speech, but Madeline had got the impression that the stunningly gorgeous woman was not at all used to such occasions, though she covered it well, and was extremely polite, if not very warm. The atmosphere of adoration had been like a field of tension, it had surrounded the couple, and afterwards Madeline had found that the woman's gaze had remained in her mind, it had been, like a resurrected soul, bright and shimmeringly intense. And Adeline Gardiner had suffered a bitter defeat, Dorothy had told Madeleine later, for apparently Mrs. Ford had not attended the lunch with the ladies of Adeline's Laidies Aid, for the Fords had continued on to Prince Edward Island to see some of their old friends. That was a loss that apparently still stuck with Adeline even after all these nearly twenty years.
Shaking her head, Madeline straightened the photographs into a neat row, on a small marble-topped table, unfortunately no photo was taken of the Fords' visits, but in the Kingsport Herald archives might have, some Madeline thought as she walked slowly into her office, which was filled with piles of paper, forms, and swaying stacks of books, and the soft scent of jasmine tea was overpowering in the air still, as the tealeves were in sloppily mess in the teapan. Sighing once more, Madeline carefully scraped off the leaves, and rinsed the teapot, and put it back on the shelf. The golden afternoon light changed, as Madeline sat and wrote, occasionally rubbing her wrist. Silence throbbed, and the only sound was the muffled strumming of the piano, Puccini's tunes echoed, down the corridors, Madeline raised her head, and listened, but no familiar footsteps came, not Dorothy's or Ernestine's, not Alice's, not anyone's.
Di dug two letters out of her pocket. There they lay, on top of a shiny black concert grand piano. The piano that Walter had loved and cherished. With her other hand, Di softly traced the cover of score sheet music, dark, black stylized Asiatic-inspired dragons squirming in an almost oval shape, and in the center, was the text, on a burnt orange background, G. Puccini Madama Butterfly. And carefully flipping through the fragile pages with underlines and markings in red and blue grease pen, Di thought of Persis's letter, the cranes printed on the letter paper, and light pink cherry blossoms, and Persis's handwriting, which was not at all as neat and refined as one might expect.
Dear, Di, of Ingelside, now Redmond. Earlier today I was thinking about our summers together for the first time in years, and after doing my duty as a Red Cross volunteer, is the organization's internal politics as exhausting in Redmond as it is here Di? I thought I'd cheer myself up by writing to you, even though my fingers ache, even holding this pen. The unforgettable, sparkling notes of Puccini's Butterfly can be heard from the living room, Mother is listening to an old creaky recording there, and I think of that summer when we had arrived in Ingelside after our trip to Japan. The previous summer Ingelside crowd had met the Merediths, and your relationship was close, as it should be when you live so close to each other. Ken and the boys were playing ball, and he carelessly got his white silk shirt stained and muddy trying to score, or stop Jem or Jerry from doing it? I don't remember exactly anymore. I sat on the grass, under my red parasol, in my blue silk and I remember describing the tea ceremonies to Nan and also to Una, she sat like a shadow, under the big silver willow, but what I remember most clearly was your expression, in your vivid interchangable eyes there was a hint of awe and rapture. I still don't know what in my story struck you so, perhaps it was the harmony of water lilies and bonsai trees or the snowy silhouette of Mount Fuji. Did you perhaps get a spark of travel fever? Your bright expression soon turned calm as Nan glanced at you and held out a daisy to be braided into a crown - we all had several different flower crowns in our hair during those two weeks.
Sometimes constant social whril of canvassing, collecting, endless demands are so exhausting, but of course they are nothing compared to the suffering of our soldiers. We must keep the faith, as he did ask of us. It is so hard to know that I will never see Walter's bright, shining eyes again. But you have his writings, all of them I think, Ken wrote to me. That he did left all his written work in that magazine to you? I should have written earlier when Aunt Anne wrote to my Mother, but I just couldn't. I know you understand. You and Walter were as close as me and Ken. My brother is now in the throes of perdition, but luckily he writes sometimes, not much and not for long, but still. The blood spilled on the front can never be taken back, and none of us is the same as before.Time cannot be turned back, the clock cannot be stopped. Sometimes I dream of the peace of Rainbow Valley, and the brook that laps there, and the tinkling of Walter's bells, and our golden, carefree childhood. I still have the pink conch you gave me once, it lives in a little lacquer box. Hopefully, someday we can still sit in the garden of the House of Dreams, and maybe also climb the reddish rocks and swim in the waves, like we did in the old days, but we'll probably have to bake our own cookies, if Susan lets me near her domain, ever again, as once I did terrible mess there, do you remember? All that raspberry jam, and little Rillas new frock stained with it, as she had wanted to help. How Susan scolded!
Now on another matters, all fond rememberances aside, I have read your essays, which Aunt Anne has cut out and sent to Mother. They are brilliant, even Father says so, and as you know he loved your brother's style. But you, you write like a flowing stream, opaque, and still, refreshingly cold, clear and relentless. That in itself is rare. Here in my room, with the hustle and bustle of Toronto, I sometimes think about the sense of harmony that overflows from Aunt Anne's correspondence, when she sometimes describes your Primrose Hollow, your idyll, but on the other hand, every place has its own storms, and internal alliances. I know very well that certain things are smoothed over to one's own Mother, that is rule in my set anyway! In any case, if the world situation and my work allow it, I would like to see you all someday, but don't take this as a promise, because I'm impulsive, and I try to live in the moment. It's the only option these days, for me at least.
PRF
Di folded Persis letter into its envelope, and as she did so she glanced certain part of Butterfly´s score, and started to play. Soft, welcoming notes that formed Butterfly's leitmotiv, a mesmerizing note, light, hazy like a sunbeam at dawn, when the long-awaited ship, finally, arrives at the port. A sparklingly romantic rising note, where the dark fatal tones were already hidden in all the multi-layeredness. As music echoed through room, Di thought about what Alice had once remarked in passing when they had discussed Puccini. It had been October, relentless rain had flowed and pelted the roof of Primrose Hollow with force. Alice had turned and fingered the window curtain in the living room, she said, in her light-hearted way that she used to have, her features had been as worn with grief as Di´s own. "Una has mastered Mozart, so Puccini's Cio-Cio San, wouldn't be difficult at all for her, I think. And in her voice has that bright, cutting brightness that's needed for that role, but of course she never believe it, so maybe a little persuasion is needed."
Faith had lifted her tousled and curly head from her course books, and her notebooks, and had said confidently, " Una has inherited our mother's voice, and if you happen Alice to give my sister music, you will have my gratitude, for she has not written to me at all. Usually Una writes like clockwork, at least one letter a week, and now nothing for at least a month." Alice had given Faith a serious glance and nodded and gone upstairs.
At Ingelsidean Christmas, Di could have asked Una about Puccini, if she'd remembered, but she'd been busy sorting through the stacks of sheet music her brother had left her. They had been found on the bookshelf in Walter's room, next to Ken's blue-backed Proust, and there had been that Mozart and Schubert or Schumann that she had played with Una at her side.
Shaking her hands, Di carefully moved Butterly aside and placed Persis's letter on top of the score, and as she did so her expressive eyes fell on another letter. Anne Blythe's cursive was neat, and with an irritated snort, Di slapped her hands hard on the piano keys. A shrill discord of various notes echoed in the room. Stretching lazily, Di walked around the stage. Di spread the letter open on the worn stage, and smaller slip fluttered between the pages as she read it once more, in a more calm way. Anne´s words, they ached, there was several wounding hits hidden deeply between the curlicued writing, and in vague sense of pride in her Mothers talent with a pen and art of sentence slowly arose in her heart.
My dear child, for several weeks I have somehow known that this request of yours would arrive. Because Rosemary has told us about Faith's plans, they will let Faith go with a heavy heart, on the condition that she graduates first, which Faith will do this spring. So London and the VAD work is calling Faith, but not you my dear. And this is not class classicism, although you might think so. I have read Jem's letters to Gilbert, in which he describes the blood of the battlefields and the first aid tents, and the mud, the chaos, the crackling of the bone saw, the cries of the wounded, and the oppressive silence. All I could think about was that afternoon when you and Walter played Crimean War. You had persuaded your brother to be wounded, and you imagined yourself to be Florence Nightingale. Even then I could see that you have the same desire to alleviate the suffering of others as your father has, but, my love, the way you write, the way you paint with your words, you can help even more if you just finish your degree in Redmond and who knows what doors may still open for you? Doors that would remain closed if you were on the other side of the Atlantic, overworked and exhausted. Namely, you don't have Faith's sparkling energy, that girl turns adversity and tragedy into strength, while you freeze.
And to be honest, I can't give up my daughters. You three, Nan, you and Rilla, you are the one light of my life, for I will soon have to surrender my last son to the potentially seductive siren call of the Air Force. I never seem to have spoken to you about Joyce, she has been on my mind a lot lately. I think if she had lived she might have written as well as you do now. Her eyes were the same pure gray as Walter's, and her hair was a reddish copper hue. I have lost two children, and I know Joy is looking after her brother, and there is no telling how much longer this war will last, and what more losses we will have to endure.
All I know is that I will sleep perhaps peacefully at night knowing that you are safe in the large room of Primrose Hollow, among your manuscripts and lecture notes, my dearest Diana. Perhaps you thought I named you after your Aunt Diana, and that's only a part of the truth, when I was waiting for you both, Gilbert read me old myths, and I was inspired by Artemis turning into a deer, and then when I saw your deep, curious gaze, the first time, with Nan sleeping in Gilbert's arms, I named you, with the certainty of an intuition, as Walter and Jem were playing downstairs, their laughter ringing up the stairs. From the first moment Walter was a favorite, and you his. Your relationship was so close, you did almost every thing together, when you weren't around Nan, or Persis Ford when she visited at Ingelside. But your spark for writing and music, the writing is from me, and the music, perhaps from some unknown member of the Shirley family, and you shared that with your brother. That kind of latent talent might be hereditary, or just pure coincidence.
Your father has read this letter and has his own words to say, in a separate slip, that are enclosed in this.
With all my endless love
Mumsy
Di sighed and folded Anne's letter into its envelope, and glanced at the short lines written in Gilbert's clear, upright handwriting.
Di, I cannot in good conscience let you go, as your mother has said her piece, and she has set her mind, there is no moving her, I would not want to try. Even though the work you yearn to do is extremely important, and every pair of hands is needed. VAD leaflets are also here, and their arguments are powerful and inspiring. I suggest that you renew your work with the Red Cross, and take more responsibility there, and organize new and exciting things, and also invest in Perennial, and make use of Gardiner's lad contacts. I do not know if he is good sort or not, but I´ll remember his Aunt Dorothy fondly, she was impish little thing.
Study well, and remember to rest too.
Love
Dads
Di carefully gathered up the letters, and sat down on the piano chair again, and glancing at the book lying on the floor, she shrugged as Bertrand's unforgettable verses about Scarbo, the goblin flashed in her mind. Di glanced again at the notes of Ravel's Scarbo, and the G minor opening, and shook her head, in artistic despair, as the piece was fiendishly difficult. There was repeated leaping notes, for both hands, the double note skales in major seconds, in the right hand, not to mention the glidingly playful progression that stirred like a goblin leaping through the curtains and back to the shadows. Madeline insisted that Walter would have looked at these notes, but Di doubted it, as Ravel might be too modern for her dreamy brother, although he had bought Bertrand's novel in Paris, so perhaps it was possible.
And with a sigh, Di closed the lid of the piano, and went to return the notes to their places. The corridors were quiet, and a distant shaft of light could be seen from Madeline's study. For a moment Di considered going to say hello to the librarian, but Madeline, although she was always very friendly, Di often got the impression that she seemed to be waiting, for something, even when she attended Dorothy Gardiner's salon and was jovial, in that merry crowd. Once when Di had told Alice about it, she'd just tilted her head, and said in her carefree arch way, "It's possible, but it could also be that you're imagining too much, you and your imagination Di, always spinning plots. Madeline is sweetness herself, and she's only helped us in a thousand different ways." Alice had laughed in her soft way and lightly remarked, "We both have our own pasts, and separate histories." A light, slightly nostalgic look had come into her eyes as Alice had been quietly humming Ave Maria Stella, that sea hymn which Rosemary Meredith had also sometimes sung in Rainbow Valley years.
In fresh spring breeze, Di walked towards, Hollow, and on a whim, she stopped by the Episcopal Church, and peered in, but Alice was nowhere to be seen, even if it was soon time for Compline. The church was quiet and the upcoming Easter was almost palpable in the air, the choir seemed to be rehearsing some kind of Easter hymn. As she sat down in the worn bench, and the gentle scent of incence and honey was lingering in the echoing space, Di pondrered at Nan's so surprisingly sudden sincerity. There had been a flash of fear in her twin's dark eyes, which she had not been able to cover with her gentle words, when she had taken Di's face between her warm hands, as that painful half-hearted confession of her feelings towards Alice had almost totally brust out from Di´s heart, she did not have time to say it propely, Nan had stopped her, in a firm, and delicate way.
Later that day, Di had noticed that Faith had been watching Nan very contentedly as she ate the carrot rolls that Alice had baked. Alice and Nan had swapped some family recepies, in warm-hearted way, there still was remoteness in Nan, but Alice had floated over it.
Garden-Gate of Primrose Hollow creaked, low plaintive note, in the dusk of the evening garden was like a sparklingly beautiful poem, full of the unspeakable sweetness of early spring, and with a smile Di stepped inside to warm chaos of Primrose Hollow. Amazing sight unfolded before her eyes. Faith Meredith was standing in her usual tidy frock in front of the piano, playing a slightly impure and uncertain, but very recognizable Bach, and at that moment Faith turned and said in her energetic way, and a flash of golden-brown eyes, "Don't worry at all, you'll get your piano back soon, dearest Di. This was just a bet I made with Jem. He didn't believe me when I said I could play even a little Bach, in honor of the coming Easter. I wrote to him saying that Rosemary had managed to teach me something after all, even though Una was her star pupil, and he let Nan and Alice be my witnesses in this matter, that scamp."
Di glanced curiously at her twin, who smiled almost naturally at Alice as she set the teacups on the table. Nan's face had the taut expression that it had since Jerry hadn't been heard from. Rosemary Meredith had written to Hollow and the letter said in her sweet way that Jerry had written to John, perhaps Nan's letter would still come, for the mail was very uncertain these days, but that reply had not helped Nan's tension.
That evening ended with laughter and roaring fun, the likes of which had not been experienced in the Hollow in ages, and the mantle of sadness seemed to slowly dissipate. Even Alice was once again that same regally golden girl, full of shimmering fancies, that she had been years before. Di noticed that sometimes Alice fingered a letter in her pocket, it had arrived from somewhere far away, perhaps it was a reply from Alice's aunt, or cousins, and in undertone she hummed, something low and soft.
One April morning, April 9, there were black headlines in the newspapers. "The fighting at Vimy Ridge has begun, and all four divisions of the CEF are there."
A paralyzing silence fell over Primrose Hollow, and Di worriedly glanced at Nan. Her twins face was white as apple blossoms, and her dark eyes were wide and pained. In those days, when the battle raged at Vimy, pas de Calais, and the village of Thelus, the village of Givenchy-en-Gohelle, no one in the Hollow slept.
In the darkness of their room Nan had turned her back on Di and murmured in broken voice. "If something happens to him, no I won't think, I don't want to think. My imagination is a burden, the biggest burden. I'm afraid as well, now as a child I imagined that certain mansion was full of ghosts, or I got into my head that Dovie was me, but they were a child's fears, and this throbbing, cutting fear is quite another. " Faith walked in her room, Alice kept the daily routine going, making tea and cooking eggs, and soups that no one ate. Only once did Di hear Nan flash at Alice, in a bitter voice, " Could you not hum anything from the Matthew Passion, however thematically appropriate for Easter, it just seems too cruel at the moment, and this is hard to bear, this vague emptiness of dread." Alice had nodded, and deep silence had reined in the house of Primrose Hollow.
Bruce Meredith ran happily on the Glen road, it was soaked by the spring rain. At his Uncle Norman's home, there were puppies, sleepy, and lively, red-nosed, with soft light brown toffee-colored fur, and they squealed and squealed. Their mother was beautiful, red-furred, curvy and bushy-tailed, and with white paws, and Uncle Norman had boasted that his Nova Scotian Duck Tolling Retriver was the best bitch in the whole village, not since that Irish setter of Dr Blythe´s had there been better. Aunt Ellen had clinked her stocking needles and remarked in her dark hued voice, " Mind your language, as there are little pitchers here, but I have to say that almost seems that dog understands politics when Norman and I argue about the course of the war out loud."
Bruce hadn't paid attention to his Aunt's words, as Loyd George, Aunt Ellen handsome half-grown cat had jumped into living room chair. He glanced warningly towards the frolicking puppies, at that moment one of the puppies had bitten into Bruce´s finger painfully with its sharp teeth. Wiping puppy's drool carefully on the striped handkerchief offered by Uncle Norman, and refusing the treats offered by Aunt Ellen, Bruce had left for Manse, as it was almost time for tea. There was Stripey, his cat, who was surely already waiting for him on the piano chair.
Out of breath, Bruce ran inside, into the Manse, but no one was there to meet him, and there was no tea. Feeling stunned, Bruce wandered through the lofty rooms of the Manse, but it was empty. No one was home. There seemed to be an envelope on the kitchen table, and Bruce carefully got on the chair, and picked it up, the pungent ink smelled, and stained his fingers, and then Bruce heard his Mother's voice, but she had never sounded like this before, "Oh John." Bruce turned and looked at his parents standing in the doorway. His father, who was so gallant and upright, suddenly looked old, and Mother was very pale, and behind them stood Una, as white-faced as that September day when she just lay in her bed, motionless. And quietly Bruce found himself asking in his trembling voice, "Who's dead?" And then the adults' attention snapped to him, and a shudder twisted his father's face, and he went out, and Bruce saw him almost run into the church. And in an extremely gentle voice, Bruce felt his mother stroke his hair as she said in a trembling voice, "Jerry has been wounded at the Battle of Vimy Ridge, we don't know anything else."
Suddenly Stripey's purr shattered the silence and Bruce suddenly found himself hating his cat, he was still able to purr as if nothing had changed. And with a mechanical movement, Bruce lowered himself from his chair and stroked Stripey, its striped fur was soft against his fingers, as always. There was a bright light from the kitchen window. Una was making tea, but she didn't look directly at Bruce, but kept her eyes hidden, so Bruce, tugged Una's apron lightly, and soon Bruce, despite his nine years, was sitting on his sister's lap, and light tears were streaming down his cheeks, and Bruce felt Una's hand stroking his hair tremble slightly.
On the Western Front, in a field hospital of Service de Santé des Armées, Private G Meredith had dreams of opium, of Nan's smiling face and open arms as they loitered hand in hand on the banks of the Glen, and on the wooded paths where the spring primroses bloomed, those images mingled with the great slaughter and sacrificial assault of the Vimy Salient, where he had been involved. And Jerry could hear Walter's voice whispering in his ear, "Jerry, don't give up, go back to Nan."
To her amazement, Solange Plessis, noticed that her dark-haired, scruffy and grimy patient, a slim young man in a Canadian uniform, who was lying on his back on a field bed while his bandages were being changed, seemed to be smiling faintly and muttering something, but since Solange could not speak English, she just gently fixed the pillow with her hands. Then the patient turned his head and Solgange met beautiful dark eyes with red rims, and a sonorous, but very hoarse voice that inquired, Mademoiselle, si dans quelques jours vous pouvez m'apporter un papier et un stylo pour que je puisse écrire à ma famille que je suis en vie, et si je ne peux pas le faire moi-même, pouvez-vous ou l'un de vos compagnons m'aider ?
Solange nodded, and brought her patient some cool water in a tin mug, and she placed a stub of pencil and some torn letter paper to his bedside. Ravens circled in the leaden tinted sky, and through the opening in the tent Solange could see her patient watching them silently, but the sly waxy pallor that had been caused by loss of blood had vanished from the youth's face, and his pulse was steady, if a little rapid, and contented Solange turned her back and resumed her round.
Jerry closed his eyes and thought of Edgar Allan Poe, and of Nan's happy bright laugh when Jerry had bought Poe's collected stories to Ingelside one Christmas. Nan had eagerly read aloud Poe's famous narrative poem Raven.
The wind picked up, as a cool breeze wafted through the tent, and the mumbling of the wounded soldiers faded from Jerry's consciousness as he too drifted off to sleep, the pain of his wound was a distant cloud above him, almost like a rainbow over Rainbow Valley...
A/N: A bit of musical trivia, Ravel's op 55(1908) is a suite of three piano pieces, all composed to the homage of Bertrand´s work Gaspard de la Nuit(1842) and the difficulty level of all the pieces is extremely challenging. Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly,(1904)and especially the aria Un bel di is extremely beautiful, even played on piano alone. Also, I had personal reasons for writing Norman Douglas and Ellen with pets.
Finally, my deepest thanks to all my readers who have read and commented on this story of mine. Your words mean so much to me, really so much more that I can articulate.