The Laidies Aid of Glen met at the Manse. In the kitchen Una Meredith carefully put osborne biscuits, all made with careful following of Borden´s latest instructions, on a West heirloom plate, on which forest violets had been painted, along with a handful of delicate wide teacups, of slim golden rims.
A heated conversation could be heard from the drawing room, and the faint clink of knitting needles. Mrs Marshall Elliott's voice was loud, "Rosemary, you can't be serious when you suggested cooperation with Lowbridge, we stay apart, and so should the Reverend, any kind of ecumenical cooperation, with episcopals, utter nonsense, that it is, not to mention the local methodists here. Reverend Arnold may be of proper sort, but I dare to doubt it, in most severe manner."
Elspeth Kirke remarked in her sly way, "Now that the harvest is finally done, perhaps it's time to have another bakesale?" Elizabeth Crawford of Upper Glen, sniffed, as she challenged, Elspeth in her mild way, as she said " The Junior Reds have handled that side brilliantly. Now that August is turning to September, they can handle it. We can have a harvest sale later in the fall? "
Rosemary's voice sounded conciliatory and soft, "Please, do have more tea, if it suits?"
Elspeth Kirke murmured in sotto voice, "Dearest Rosemary, that raspberry blend of the tea, is fresh, and surprisingly tasty."
Una, wiped faint fingerprints off the plate and carried it carefully to the parlor. One kitten was resting in a spot of light, in an armchair, the only one left, as the others had been given to good homes around the Glen. It was a small, ball of gray striped fluff, with a delicate tail.
Una nodded calmly to the venerable ladies of Glen, as she stood in the crossfire of judging but friendly eyes. And then Mrs. Marshall Elliot said gently, "I understand that a letter has come from Carl, from the hospital, somewhere over there, if I understood Mary Vance correctly, you must be relieved."
Before Una could nod, her assent, Elspeth Kirke cleared her throat and remarked, "But he is disfigured for life, poor, poor Carl. Who would want a half-blind soldier, to be her husband?"
Una's fingers nervously plucked at her apron, as Rosemary said in her sweetly quelling tone, " Carl is alive, and he's coming back to us, eventually and that's enough. It could have been so much worse. And as he himself wrote, a bit shaky hand, " One can look at bugs and all Gods creations perfectly with one eye!"
Elizabeth Crawford sniffed, as she said, "You know I'm quite giddy in the mornings to glance at the latest reports of latests dispatches. Allies seem unstoppable now. New victories come almost daily, or at least it feels that way."
Una placed the plate at exactly the right angle, relative to the teapot and the other plates, and slipped almost silently out of the parlor as she grabbed a large and wide straw hat from the cool and narrow hall rack.
The late August afternoon was calm and bright, as Una walked with efficient steps toward Carter Flagg's store. After making her purchases, with carefully guarded coupons, Una noticed the usual VTC patrol walking the circuit, Clive Howard among others. In a thoughtful way Una glanced at the blond youth, who seemed exhausted and gray, not at all the same as the self-consciously charming youth who had sat for tea on the Manse's veranda a few times.
Una turned as a familiar voice called to her, "Una, are you on Rosemary's errands, one could imagine Laidies Aid tied you to the kitchen stove, even on such a beautiful day?"
Mary Vance, grinned familiarly at Una as she waved a small basket containing what appeared to be a few packages.
Wiping a few strands of hair from her plait, Una remarked, "Are you waiting for Cornelia perhaps? Laidies Aid's meeting is coming to an end soon."
In her impetuous way, Mary Vance nodded, as she lowered her voice, in confidential murmur, " I went to buy Miller some sweets, which I will send him, he is still convalescing somewhere, losing a leg, last year this time, it is not easy. Miller's letters have been melancholy, but I try to cheer him up as best I can, by making plans. He teases me about the French nurses, who, he says, are no match for me. Thank God, he and Carl are out of that bloodbath."
Mary Vance noticed how a hint of temper flashed deep in Una's eyes, but the dark-haired girl said nothing. Conciliatory, and uncharacteristically humble, Mary Vance continued, " When Cornelia broke the news, I cried like a child, I actually howled, because you remember that during the Rainbow Valley era, Carl was one of my favorites, with that way of his, even though you've always been my first heartfriend."
Una held out her gloved hand, and hand in hand the two lasses started walking down the parched, dusty, red road towards the hill where the Manse stood, past the elaborate rows of houses in the Upper Glen.
On the shady veranda, which opened on to a well-kept garden, in whose mulched beds usually grew vegetables, and not roses, or peonies, as in Ingelside, in former times, Mary Vance leaned back in a rattan chair, and gazed with contented eyes at the familiar scene that opened before her in all its glory, as Una carried a tray of teacups, those delicate ones with pale half open roses in them, late Cecilia Meredith´s wedding china, that Mary Vance remembered from years ago and had always admired.
They sipped plain tea in silence.
And then Una said in a thoughtful tone, " Tell me, after the last Junior Reds meeting was over, as we walked, towards Ingelside, accompanying Rilla, as she was full of new plans, as she almost is nowadays, we happened to meet on the verandah, Di Blythe and Alice Parker, they were having tea. The atmosphere became strange, although Rilla had a little debate with Di, as siblings sometimes can, but I noticed that Di's heart was not in it, although usually she does almost everything from her heart, you seemed to be on your guard, and Alice too, in her mourning shades. I haven't seen you like that in years, why now?"
Mary Vance, made staple of her hands, as she cast a cautious, weighing glance in Una's direction. At last Mary Vance said evasively, yet bluntly, in that same pliant way she had used many times to get out of trouble before coming to the Glen, "Well, you know very well that everybody doesn't necessarily like each other. I had some words to say to Miss Alice, for one thing, and they probably rankled a bit, last time we met, few weeks back. Her milk and honey style just rubs me in the wrong way. As for Di she too has become more sharp, well it is the war is it not, it changes us all, but she is perhaps not sharp enough, or careful enough."
Una, glanced attentively at Mary, but she did not press the issue, for Mary's jaw was in a stubborn position, and Una knew that even the stone would crumble before, if she had decided to keep quiet about something. There must have been a good reason for that. Trembling, Una remembered Mary Vance's whispered fragments from years ago in the dusty twilight of Manse's attic, about life in the back alleys of the city.
Mary Vance glanced quietly at Una, as she stirred her tea, and then she laughed lightly and said, "It seems that Rilla has her heart set on getting to Charlottetown, in the fall, there is a moving picture being shown there, there are advertisements for it in almost every paper, some murder mystery Hearts of Worlds, some kind of nonsense, like that. I do not remember the title correctly. I think that moving pictures, or silent flicks, as they are called, are not necessarily immoral, as dear Cornelia claims, but I don't want to go see one, at least not yet. Tell me, what else did Carl's letter to you say?"
Una's fingers rose as if by herself to worry, her clover brooch, which was close to the collar of her practical blue cotton dress, as she recalled her brother's slightly uncertain handwriting, and the thin strips of paper that depicted the daily life of the hospital and the convalesent house, which was strictly structured, and sometimes films were shown, but their contents were not very cheerful, or so Una assumed, for Carl had written, in his looping hand.
Dear Una,
I have written another letter, which is filled to the brim of my usual cheerfulness, for I know you are all worried there. It is suitable for reading aloud. I stand by every word I wrote on it, but I do the same here. My mood is a bit bleak, and unsettled. Nurses say that it shall too pass when I get used to what they describe as "my new circumstances." But when I sit in my bed and I hear my wardmates cursing, or complaining, or worst of all, being completely silent, that silence is like the calm before the storm, I notice my own nerves tightening, and the tremors arrive, in waves, then eddies, fits and starts, even the smallest thing may sometimes cause it, a shadow on the floor, sudden noises. Ironic, because I've been mired in the antechamber of hell, or perhaps in hell itself, for so long that these normal, everyday hospital noises are somehow harder to bear than the worst cannon fire or fierce bayonet attack, when the order arrived, eventually.
As I sit in a darkened room, amid my fellow solider-invalids are with me, and we all stare unblinkingly at the screen, and the projector rattles, a little like our machine guns over there. And the fragments reflected on the spread canvas are true, it's all that I've missed while I'm here, the attacks, the advancement, the mechanized, mechanical warfare, somewhere where blood red poppies are blooming amid the abundant green grass, and spiders weave their sparkling webs, which shimmer in the first rays of the morning, like mother-of-pearl, and ants live their everyday lives, despite the tearing and ungodly armageddon above them. But not many people look at or even think about ants, and I've noticed in my time here how fragile, yet powerful our will to live is.
The other day I was thinking about the pink cherry blossoms, how they bubble like foam in sunlight. Here is a kind of living room where those who are relatively fine fettle can while away hours. I very carefully made my way there, there was a card table with a fine green cloth, and few decks of cards. I could almost feel the pinch of Great-Aunt Martha's bony fingers on my earlobe, for playing cards were one of the greatest sins on earth according to her, as you probably remember. And then a soldier started a scratchy, dented gramophone that looked like a giant clam in golden tint.
Music pouring out of that device was like cherry blossoms in the wind, clear, pure, pristine in a way I can't explain. Afterwards, as the clay-disc had wound down, and the last shimmering notes had run out, the soldier who had chosen the disc, stretched, and touched the bandages covering his face, remarking, "Well, Private, orientalism-exoticism sometimes has its place, Puccini's music is still limpid, fluent and refined as it ever is."
To which I replied, "My sister does music, not me, but I can admit that it was beautiful, almost like a butterfly resting on a cherry blossom in the morning sun." And you know, Una, that soldier for some reason, started laughing uncontrollably. And as it turned out, the name of that clay disc was Madama Butterfly, isn't that a strange coincidence? It may very well be that you already know that, and are as amused by my distraction and absentmindness as that soldier was. I have given your cinnamon bisquit recipe to a nurse who has been baking them for us, in her off-hours, but for some reason they don't taste the same here as they did "over there."
With all my love to you my dearest sister
Carl
Ps. Can you find a new animal-themed token in Mummy's box, if there are any, because my scarab-beetles have been vanished in the mud of those fields. I think they saved my life because the front pocket of my uniform where they were attached was ripped open, but I will never know for sure.
Una, tasting her already well-chilled tea, as she replied, "Carl is doing as well as is possible under the circumstances."
Mary Vance's gaze was understanding as she touched Una's hand, softly in solidarity, and thought of Miller's letters, the content of which varied, sometimes jubilant, sometimes quite the opposite, especially on days when the walking exercises had not gone well, or the stump of his leg ached and ached.
The verandah door opened, and the Laidies Aid of Glen poured into the Merediths' garden and into the Glen's road, in a voluble mass of craft-bags, and tall hats, and aprons with pretty lace trims.
Cornelia's hand was wizened, as she gently grasped Mary Vance's elbow, as she nodded kindly to Una, her blue eyes twinkling, in still rosy features, and then they walked cautiously at Cornelia's pace towards Four Winds road.
A little later, when the sky was lavender-tinted, Bruce came up to Una's side as she glanced through Rosemary's sheet music. Bruce's dark eyes were pensive and thoughtful as he said in his newly taciturn way, " Una-moon, fairies don't exist, no, I imagined so a few years ago, but it was just childish play. I've decided to name my kitten, it is Stripey. Could you play something for me?"
Una's fingers stopped at one of Elgar's notes, and with a her old moonwistful smile toward Bruce, she slipped notes, in place, starting to play. Strains of Pleading, shimmered as Una's voice, silverybright and wistful with it caressed haunting lyrics of love long lost, now only to be found in the shores of Dreamland. The evening darkened behind the wide ivy shaded windows, to cobalt hue, as Rosemary Meredith heard Una's song to the kitchen and that Elgar piece's wistfulness stung in her heart.
Ingelside was quiet and shadowy.
Anne Blythe surveyed her kingdom with satisfied eyes. It was the last day of August and a couple of days earlier Nan and Di had left for Kingsport with trunks in tow. Anne had noticed that Nan's eyes had been shadowed, and she had seemed tired, despite her pink melon colored traveling dress, as she had glanced towards her twin, whose green-grey eyes had once again retained their earlier starry sparkle, she had been looking very smart and efficient in pale blouse and dark-skirt, her red tresses bound under large hat, though without veil.
The train had been on schedule, as twins had stepped in, Anne had blithely exclaimed, "Dears, safe travels." And two pairs of handkerchiefs were soon waving from the window, before the train curved out of sight, taking yet another piece of her heart with it, its winding rails.
Anne, glancing around Ingelside's parlor noticed that Rilla was intensely writing in her diary. Cautiously, Anne inquired, "Rilla, is something bothering you, if it is, you can tell me, unless it is secret of somekind?"
Rilla looked up, and said softly, softly, "I only wrote a little bit of the news of the past few days, what's been going on here in the Glen. I also put in a few lines about Carl's situation. It's good that the Merediths have had word from him, that's a relief."
Susan carried the tea tray, and placing it on the small occasion table, she remarked, "Where in France are the CEF lads fighting now, I wonder. The newspapers have only been declaring since the 26th that the Battle of the Scarpe is still going on."
Anne cast a secretly amused look in Susan's direction, as she replied, "The Scarpe is a river, I understand, and it's located in northern France, in the same area with the five different areas where the Allied counterattack has been going all summer."
Rilla looked up from her diary and murmured, in faint voice, with a touch of roses in her high cheekbones "Aisne, Nord, Oise, Pas-de-Calais, and Somme."
Teacups clattered as tea was drunk in silence, and then Susan said in a triumphant voice, " When the next victory comes, I shall run up our flag, that can all tie to." Hermes the Tortoise and Jekyll and Hyde both slowly made their way towards the living room, not in sync, and upon seeing the animals Susan exclaimed, "I'm sure those evil creatures over there are planning something cataclysmic."
Rilla burst into a sparkling laugh, with a momentary sense of innocent joy that was almost unknown in these challenging and painful times. Breathless, with laughter, Rilla almost tearfully said, "Oh, Susan, never change!"