Ingleside,
Glen St. Mary,
May 1936

Jo,

Susan Baker has died. An era went with her. No one ever learned her recipe for a Silver-and-Gold cake, or her secret to hot crossed buns. The way she set the twist on wool is lost to the universe, as is how she polished silver.

Cornelia took it hard; She never expected to outlast that last, long winter, much less Susan. Mary says when the news came up the line, Cornelia pursed her lips and didn't speak for half an hour. Then she picked up her knitting – this in spite of her twisted hands – and said, 'I suppose we will all find the world a mite quieter – and I daresay duller – from now on. There's spice in arguing that keeps things interesting.'

She isn't wrong about the quiet. I didn't appreciated before how much of Ingleside's daily bustle came from Susan. How she banged cast iron skillets or put a wash on with vim.

The worst was telling the children. When Walter died, I told our girls in person. I was halfway out the door to do it again – I felt I owed Shirley that – when I realised I only got away with the scheme before because Susan looked after Anne and Rilla while I was gone. And there was no Susan. That was the whole point. I mean, obviously the deaths were a different colour and shape to one another, but Susan was more than a housekeeper, whatever the Glen says. She was a way of life with us. She was a bastion of support in the dark hours of the war, and she kept us going when Joy died. Before Di moved home, Susan saved Anne and I from clattering around Ingleside like the lose casters on a rickshaw. She doted on the grandchildren, and she was a brick when Di got ill. Afterwards, she was the great champion of Di's recovery.

It has all gone, as leaves on the wind. Or perhaps grass. That's in the Bible, isn't it, All flesh is as grass? A strange thought when the grass is coming through, new and green. Soon Susan's calceolarias will join it flourishing, and there will be no one to love them. Anne will tend them, but it was Susan who mothered them.

Anyway, I couldn't take Anne away to Kingsport because of Susan laid out in her room. Or I could, but that meant leaving Di, Alastair and the children alone with her, and I couldn't do that, either. You can organize a funeral fine on crutches, so Di had her hands full with that. So, I picked up the telephone, feeling like a coward, and thought how stupid this was, considering we've had years since the war to transmit things other than death through the telephone. Except I wasn't transmitting other things, was I?

Iain answered, because Shirley was out on call. Something about Culross and Johnes' Disease. I confess I wasn't fully listening. Eventually, Mara took over the phone, but I felt, oddly, that Shirley ought to hear first.

So, I rang off, and made tea badly; It was weak, watery and not at all Susan's grade. Di and Anne never noticed. Neither did the grandchildren. Hector sat like a statue not drinking his at all, and Miss Abby was the wildest I'd ever seen her, red-eyed and keening. I hugged her hard and she writhed like an eel, and beat her fists on my shoulders. I didn't mind. Eventually, Abby wore herself out and I tucked her into bed. Anne followed, sheepdog fashion with a stricken Hector. When Alastair went to kiss his children goodnight, they were curled around each other like kittens.

I still had to tell Shirley Susan was dead, so risked the long-distance again. This time I got Shirley straight off. I'd say he took the news hard, except of course I wasn't there, and it might have been the infernal pips or static on the line, or anything. I couldn't exactly call back when our time ended and quiz Mara; Some things in marriage are private. Grief can be like that. I didn't know what to say after the worst was over, so just kept on saying how very sorry I was – because that's what you do, isn't it?

Shirley said, apropos of nothing, 'She'll have been pleased to have seen the Silver Jubilee, I guess.'

I didn't know what to say to that at all. He worked that out himself, even miles away. He asked if it was peaceful.

'Like falling asleep,' I said, which was true; Anne thought Susan was asleep when she found her in her rocker. She was halfway through the 20th row of a blanket for Isobel. Anne counted the rows. No one has the heart to finish it. I didn't say that. I could tell Shirley didn't believe what I had said. I don't think he and Jem – and perhaps John's boys, and yours – will ever believe in a peaceful death again.

The pips rattled off the seconds noisily, so Shirley said last thing to be sure and say when the funeral was to be, and he'd be there; They all would.

I called Larkrise next, but no one was home. I supposed they were at Fox Corner, too, and felt childishly grateful that Shirley could tell the others in person. I rang Toronto after that – a tremendous but necessary extravagance– and got Liam, who sounded so grown up I thought I'd got the wrong number. In a voice several octaves deeper than I remember, he told me Rilla was with the sewing circle and could he take a message.

I told him to have Rilla call and reverse charges. Liam said was it urgent, because he could always ring up the manse office and have Miss McLellan loan Rilla the phone. I told him it wasn't. I wanted my baby to be ignorant a little longer. This kind of somnambulant death isn't urgent. Lethargic maybe. It was nothing that wouldn't keep until Rilla returned the call.

Nan answered the phone directly, for which her father's everlasting gratitude. Nan is very strict about that phone and who can use it. I think because of that Janey person. She's worried what she or Miri will let slip over the open line, I guess – even if it is just a particularly demonstrative friendship. You know what small towns are like. Anyway, Nan was making plans and detailing packing arrangements before our three minutes were up. Then she said a very strange thing.

She said, 'Miri will be sorry to miss the service.'

'Miss it?' I said. 'Why would she?'

Nan said, sounding as small and quiet as she did back in the God-bargaining days, 'She's on holiday, Dad. Muskoka – with the Janeys.'

You know how I feel about all that. So does Nan. She said, before I could say it again, 'It's a summer holiday, Dad. She's so nearly 16 she calls herself that. Donald Janey is a reliable 19. Everyone in Struan loves him. He's going to marry Harper's daughter once he's got enough saved; He won't let anything happen to the girls.'

It's not Donald I'm concerned about.

'Couldn't they send her home?' I asked, stupidly.

'Of course,' said Nan. 'It would spoil her holiday. Susan would be livid.'

I was quietly livid that Nan was right. Susan liked the children and grandchildren to have their adventures almost as much as she liked to grumble about the trouble said adventures caused.

No need to tell Di. She took over sitting with Susan after I insisted Anne lie down. As I write, she's still sitting with Susan. I couldn't help but notice a window left open as I went past and were Anne not asleep I might ask her to speculate on what Susan would say about Ingleside being invaded by superstition.

I was about to go searching for Susan and tea when Rilla called back and reminded me Susan was dead. All those telephone calls later it still hadn't taken. It didn't take with Rilla, either. She laughed that short, sharp laugh that dates back to the days of Walter dying and said, 'Susan dead? Susan can't be dead.'

Then she pulled herself together and said, 'Sorry Dad, I must go and ring Little Kitchener.'

I had no idea what she meant. I stared stupidly at the dead line for approximately ten seconds before remembering that was Susan's name for Jims. He's still in Montreal, taking his masters in engineering, but Rilla's right to call him. Susan and her monkey faces were a childhood staple of Jims'.

Love always,

Gil

Martyrs' Manse,
Kingsport,
May,1936

Gil,

I visited Fox Corner shortly after your letter arrived. I found everyone gathered together, and taking Susan's death in different ways. Iain and Christopher didn't think they could cry, but their sisters made up for it in spades. They have no patience for their stoic brothers and refuse to speak for them.

You could see where they got it, though, because Shirley and Jem obviously felt the same. They sat there tight-lipped and white while Faith diagnosed Susan and Mara poured tea. She looked exhausted, and no wonder. Managing other people's emotional fallout can be gruelling.

I sat there as long as I could, which wasn't as much as it should have been, because I had a prison visit scheduled. Shirley looked the way people do when they feel they should have witnessed a death but didn't. Personally, I think he's wrong. Watching someone die is a horrible, draining experience and we don't talk about that enough. Susan wouldn't have wanted Shirley to see it.

Because Shirley wasn't speaking, I didn't say anything either. We just sat there mutely with our tea, until eventually he asked how I was, and how my congregation was. I surprised myself by telling him. So much for noble intentions of doling out comfort. What I said instead was how surreal it still felt.

'Yes,' said Shirley. 'I never knew how strange the world would feel without Mother Susan in it.'

I said there was always an ear and a cup of tea waiting for him at Martyrs', if Shirley wanted it.

Then, regrettably, I had to get on with my prison visit. Shirley was very understanding.

I meant what I said, but I still didn't expect Shirley on my doorstep on Sunday. I was halfway out the door myself when he appeared.

He gave me your grin, the Blythe one, and said he sort of fancied my theology over Rev. Hannigan's, and had I got any bell towers to fix up. I hadn't, so I made us a woeful tea, and we drank it in the kitchen. I can't speak for Shirley, but it cheered me up enormously.

We reminisced, about Phil, and Susan, and how different they were, but how they both understood that to know the Resurrection was to fight or it, even in dark hours. How they both had this incredible ability to carry the Easter light into the dark corners of other people's hearts. Susan didn't do it with Phil's sparkle – no one did anything with Phil's sparkle except my Phil – but she had a wonderful, practical, indelible love. It showed when she lavished baking on her little brown boy, or knit socks for the war. She knew what to say when Jem went missing, and ran up the flag when her people were most downcast. She wept with you over Walter and Joy, and rejoiced in the children's weddings. I still remember her fondly as she was at St. Margaret's when Shirley married, and told him so.

'What,' he said, 'half-horrified and watching the ceremony through her fingers?'

'Happy to see you happy,' I said.

Shirley laughed and said, 'She was, wasn't she? Anglo-Catholic ritual aside.'

Forgive the sermon, Gil. You cannot possibly want one. I have no church now, but I still have a God, and I hope understanding, and all the time in the world for you and yours. I'll always have that ear and teacup handy. Thinking of you, and may you, even through this, be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

Jo

New Manse,
Glen St. Mary,
June 1936

Jo,

It will do Anne and Gil the world of good to see you. It's been a long few days, the children flocking back like sheep. We keep trying to get them all in the same place at the same time, but it wasn't supposed to be like this. Kitty came from Toronto, and Teddy travelled with the rest from Kingsport. ('The rest' included the Carlisles. Kingsport had better hope no one is brutally and ritually murdered this weekend, as I don't think poor Constable Benwick would relish heading that operation.)

Crippled or not, Di organized a funeral that – in Susan-speak – was a funeral. Your Naomi's been a brick throughout, doing the things Di can't on crutches and just sitting with the Inglesideans. Her children are just the same. They get Hector and Abby out of the house and onto the verandah and play Chinese Checkers or Mah-jong, or whatever the game of the hour is. And the noise they make while doing it! Classroom politicking, and ice cream picnics, and fishing excursions – you've never heard the like. Dulce lounges on feet and nuzzles hands. She believes that in the Susan-free era the day has come when she will finally wash someone's face, but it hasn't arrived yet.

No one seemed to believe Susan dead, except Shirley, who just seemed tired. I suppose he knew Susan best, and how unwell she was. They talked every Friday. It was a religious thing, with Susan, that call.

For better or worse, Isobel was too worn out with travelling to have energy for tears. That's true of the whole Fox Corner set. They left the visitation last of all since the Glen appointed Shirley the de facto grieving relative. Even Iain noticed. When I entered the study to write to you, he was asleep on the braid rug. He woke up when I came in, and climbed into my lap to ask me where people go when they die.

You can imagine how that went. This is the same child that once demanded to know why I concluded a service without handing out The Body of Christ like it was a cheese platter. The time I had not joining Gil and the others laughing! This wasn't so different, just less funny. I got out my old Gideon confirmation bible, and I gave Iain John 11. Dangerous, possibly, given, as you've observed before, the literalism of Rome. If it had been Isobel on my knee, I might have opted for God shall wipe away all tears or something.

Iain listened to the end, and then, in spite of the impending funeral – or maybe because of it – posed his usual dozen questions; What did it mean to never die; Would Susan come back, and when, and how long would it take. Would she look the same? Because the disciples didn't recognise Christ right away, and Iain wouldn't want to offend Susan by not recognizing her resurrected self. I let him exhaust himself with questions. Then I asked what he remembered most about Susan. Her fudge, he said, quick as anything. The Susan brand. I told him about the first time we met – it certainly left an impression. That got him to laugh, and from there we got to what it means to carry people with you; How they come back to you in long-after-years. Had he ever heard his grandmother mention his uncle Walter? He had, yes, and Joy also. I asked if he thought he could remember Susan the same way; Iain said he supposed we just had been.

That seemed enough catechising. I sent him home. Iain got as far as the door before he stopped and asked for the verse I'd given him. I gave him my whole pocket bible. The print is too small for me these days, and he'll love it best of the grandchildren. Then I sent him home. I had the feeling that Shirley-like, he probably hadn't thought to tell anyone where he had vanished to.

I'll take stock of Ingleside again later today. I wanted to give them breathing space for a while. There have been so many callers, and I still need to tell Una and Carl. They'll be sorry to miss the service. Hard to believe this time a year ago Rosemary and I were visiting with them. Time like an ever rolling stream does indeed bear us all on our way. Though Anne was quite right that Remembrance Sunday years ago; We don't forget our dead. We resurrect them through memory.

Love and blessings,

J.M.

Ingleside,
Glen St Mary,
June 1936

Jo,

It was a fine day for the service – don't you think? I was glad. Anne hates grey funerals, though Susan wouldn't mind. Susan Baker believed the purpose of a funeral was the gossip. Weather was a secondary consideration.

I write this after encountering Mara, rosary in hand. I haven't seen her like that since Swallowgate. Back then she thought Poppy was dying and demanded honesty of me. I couldn't tell her no one was dying this time, and for a while the only sound between us was the gentle clacking of her beads. Then she lifted both shoulders expressively and said, 'She'd never forgive me changing theological horses now of all times. And someone must do it.'

Mara was right, and we both knew it. Despite their gentle arguing over kitchens and Romishness, Susan and Mara understood one another. They had Shirley in common to start with. Later, you could see they shared this belief that if you changed your mind on God, you could change it about anything. So, Susan stood Iain's talk of Mass, and Isobel's baptism by Fr Emmery, because it meant Mara wouldn't ever leave Shirley any more than she would abandon God. And that was fine by Susan. She'd ensure little Iain knew cards was gambling and that only the Elect got into heaven, and it sort of came out in the wash. I left Mara to her last rites, and have since discovered she swapped rosary beads for that blanket Susan never finished.

'Something to do,' she said, when I asked.

Are you surprised? I'm not.

Thank you for coming, Jo. I knew you would, but my mother's ghost is hovering. She ordered me to write you a note properly, like the good boy she brought up, and now I can't seem to stop.

What struck me during the service was that dreadful new window the McAllisters donated. Supposedly, it's of Christ on the water in extremely blocky colours. All I could hear while you prayed beautifully, and John sermonized ditto, was Susan grumbling in my ear about how seasick Christ looked, and how that was not what the Good Lord intended, and that she would tie to.

As I say, it was a lovely service. There were calceolarias on the altar, and as the sun came through that terrible window of the seasick Christ, I briefly understood why Susan loved those flowers.

It's the afterwards I'm recovering from. I know summer days are long, Jo, but not this long, surely? Everyone on earth, seemingly, came bearing casseroles, condolences, or memories. Shirley got the brunt of it, so I milled around the refreshment table and pantomimed eating while covertly watching over my children.

Sophia Crawford lobbed grand, Calvinistic opinions at a cold pale Rilla until I intervened. That woman is an amalgam of all the grimmest, greyest bits of our theology under the sun, and that you may tie to.

Somewhere between the Crawford Intervention and a Mary Douglas Ambush, Faith and I sent the grandchildren to bed. They were in a terrible way, and no wonder. Susan was more maiden aunt than housekeeper from their perspective. I got Isobel in one arm and the other around Abby and shepherded them into Bruce's old bedroom while Faith battled with a protesting Hector. She took an elbow to her ear for her trouble. Afterwards, Teddy and Mandy sat vigil over the babies. Mandy's never been keen on crowds, and she's less keen without Miri for back-up. She looks naked without her twin. Anyone would think she didn't expect Miri to come back. It makes me wonder what Miri writes to her in those letters they swap so assiduously. Well, Miri's got to come back, that's just all there is to it.

When Faith and I came back into the manse parlour, Norman was hurtling bombast at Shirley and Cornelia on the receiving end of one of Ellen's tirades. Faith got Norman away from the de facto grieving relative. Cornelia didn't need rescuing, and neither did Jem, Jerry and Nan. They stood in a knot impenetrable to outsiders. Not that that stopped Irene Howard inserting herself. She said she always said Susan was too outspoken for her place and didn't this prove her point. A magnificent Gertrude Grant rode to the rescue, so I didn't have to.

'At least,' said Gertrude, 'Susan Baker never got drunk at respectable people's funerals, Miss Howard.'

Di retreated to the kitchen, whence followed Olive Kirk-Drew (Drew-Kirk?) to observe how bizarre it was that Jims was so unaffected by Susan Baker's death. Perhaps, opined Mrs. Drew-Kirk (Kirk-Drew?) that was what came of being a foundling born in a soup tureen.

Betty gave Olive a look that put Rilla's cold pale tone to shame and said what a heartening sight it was to see Jims looking out for his brothers like that, if anyone wanted her opinion.

Amy McAllister-as-was said Betty needn't take such offence, and I wondered idly why, after all these years, why little Amy still tried to impress Irene and Olive.

'Because,' said Miranda Milgrave, 'some people have no gumption, and no one has less than Amy.'

We traded conspiratorial smiles and went off to disparate interventions. Me to save Anne from Ethel Reese, Miranda to stop Gertrude short of the murder of Miss Howard, because as she said to me grimly, there was a queue forming for the privilege.

Once I'd seen to Anne, I looked for Shirley and saw Mara had got him safely away from Sophia Crawford, still not departed. She was glowering at Cornelia, and Cornelia was channelling Nicolas at Nicaea, and all but boxing that vexed woman's ears. I wish she had. Susan certainly would have.

I wonder what Susan would have made of the funeral. To my horror, Miss Howard's jab got to me. Susan was painfully aware of her place; I worry she would feel we pushed her out of it this afternoon.

Thank you again, Jo. Shirley says he couldn't have got through it without you. He doesn't say that sort of thing lightly, and that you may tie to.

Love ever,

Gil