Dichroic Reflections

Una's Story

First, a little explanation. I've often said there that I am not a fiction writer, and mostly that's true. I can do the writing part, but creating the characters and finding what's happening to them is not something that my mind generally does. Every once in a while, though, it surprises me. A while back, a couple of the L.M. Montgomery discussion groups were discussing a fanfic about Una Blythe, and what happened to her after Rilla of Ingleside. I don't have the link to the fic, and don't want to give too much away, but in it, Walter turned out to have survived the war after all and eventually all the loose ends from Rilla were tied up neatly. It was well written, and satisfying to have everything end neatly and happily, but it bothered me. My problem was, things don't end happily in wars, and even though Walter-from-the-fic was emotionally scarred, still, having everyone from Ingleside survive seemed somehow to devalue the courage and the suffering and the pain Canadians went through in that war that changed the whole world.

Anyway, I never said I was a good fiction writer; for one thing if I were I'd have done the research to make sure that the area around Toronto has oaks and pine groves. But here's my answer to that fic, to what I think Una really did after the war. It's dedicated to the True Kindreds, with special thanks to my beta reader Maria for her gentle suggestions for improvement.

Oh, one more thing: any suggestions for a fic site to post it on?

Click below for the story

*********** Una's Story

Cavendish Street, near the western edge of Toronto, seemed to have one foot in the country and one in the city. It was not far from the city shops, and the city ‘buses stopped at one end of the street, but the other end of opened into a road that led through an unspoiled pine grove whose breath blew down the road, cooled on summer days by the oaks that arched between the houses. The oaks, which had bordered a farm lane before the city ever thought of growing out so far, whispered secrets to each other on summer nights. Below them, the houses too seemed to be good friends, old enough to be mellow and redolent of the happy families who had lived in them. Their gable windows were always exchanging amused glances at the antics of the children who gathered on their gracious porches at twilight to play games that seemed more adventurous and mysterious in the purple gloaming than they would in the bright day. Impish rabbits whisked through gardens and around corners in the early mornings before the day had wakened to its business, and on sunny afternoons bees hummed so loudly that they seemed to be trying to keep up with the happy shouts of the children playing in front of the houses.

On this day in June, the children's games seemed to have a waiting quality, as if they were expecting something unusual to happen to break the calm of the summer day's spell. When the city 'bus paused to let out a passenger, the expectancy rose to its highest pitch.

"Auntie Una, Auntie Una!" The three freckled Ford boys pelted down the porch steps and along the sidewalk to throw themselves pell-mell on the tall, sweet-faced, black-haired woman coming up the walk from the 'bus stop. Their older sister Leslie followed at a pace that was only slightly more sedate.

Aunt Una submitted happily to the violent bear hugs of the boys and kissed Leslie on the cheek. "Walter, you're nearly as tall as I am! And Gilbert, you're catching up to him!" Taking four-year-old Leo by the hand, she looked at Leslie. "How old are you now, my dear? Fourteen? You look just as your mother did at that age, and you have her coppery hair and creamy skin. I predict by the time you're eighteen you'll be as lovely as she is."

Leslie blushed. "Do you think so, Auntie Una? Mother is so -- so -- she always walks as if she were about to fly. Will I really be like her?"

Una Meredith smiled. "You will. When Rilla was fourteen she was incredibly gangly. Jem and Walter -- her brothers -- used to call her Spider. She hated it." Her dark blue eyes, always shy except with children, smiled too, and dimples flashed at each corner of her mouth.

"I heard that!" said Rilla Ford, coming to the kitchen door as they came up the steps. "Come inside and have a cup of tea, Una. It's so good to see you! It's been months!"

"We know all about Mother's brothers," said nine-year-old Gilbert, as he clumped up the steps, forgetting as usual to wipe the mud from his boots. "We see Uncle Jem and his family every time we visit Grandma and Grandpa at Ingleside."

"And I'm named for Uncle Walter! He died in the war," added Walter. Only Leslie and her mother noticed the shadow that clouded Una's face at the mention of the older Walter.

"And I'm named for Grandmother Ford," interposed Leslie, quickly. "Do you know her, Auntie Una?"

"I saw her whenever your father's family came to visit the old House O' Dreams at Four Winds. Even as a little girl, your mother was only interested in your father," said Una, a mischievous smile brought out her dimples again. "But I used to stare at your Grandmother Ford. She was the loveliest woman I ever saw. Your Grandmother Blythe said it was because she'd known full measure of both sorrow and joy."

"And I'm named for Una and the lion!" shouted Leo, ignoring the adult talk over his head. "Do you have a real lion, Auntie Una?"

"No, dear. That was a different Una, in a very old story." Una rumpled his hair as he scrambled off her lap, shouting, "I'm a real lion! Rrroowwrr!"

"Scoot, you wild animals! If you're going to play circus, play outside!" said his mother, putting down the teacups and opening the side door pointedly. Leo and Gilbert ran out, but Walter lingered behind. "No one *really* has a lion in their house," he said, scornfully, in the voice of one who has put away childish things, at the mature age of twelve. "But, Auntie Una, you don't have any children, either, do you?"

"Yes, I do," answered his aunt. "I have all the children I work with at the Settlement House. They are my children, in a way. And I have you lot," she reached out and rumpled his hair as she had his little brother's, "to dote on whenever I can get away long enough to visit."

"But you don't have any children of your very own," Walter pushed on, stubbornly. "Didn't you want to have any boys and girls of your own?"

"Yes--" Una bit her lip, tremulously. "But I never married. And anyway," she went on, more forcefully, "The parents and children I work with at the Settlement keep me busy."

"But why..." went on Walter, who had never outgrown his childish habit of wanting to know the whys and wherefores of everything.

"A lot of women didn't marry after the war," his mother interposed. "Too many men ... never came back." She took Walter firmly by the shoulder. "We can talk more about it later. Would you please keep an eye on your little brothers? I think the circus needs a ringmaster."

She sat down and poured the tea. "You take milk, don't you, Una?"

"Yes, thank you. And Rilla -- it's all right. I don't mind the boys' questions." A small smile reappeared on her face. After all, the War is long ago now -- to them it's ancient history. Even Leslie wasn't born until after all the boys came back ... those who did come back, anyway." She blew on her tea, to cool it.

"Speaking of the war, Leslie, did you tell Una about the prize you won?"

"Not yet, Mother." Leslie was clearly bursting with her news. "Auntie Una -- I won First Prize in the High School Story Contest with my story about the war! For the whole city!"

Rilla glowed with pride in her daughter. "No freshman girl or boy has ever won the contest before. I think she inherited her talent from both Mother and Ken's father Owen. Her story is called, “The Piper’s Call”, and she based it on Walter's poem, so it's truly a family triumph. But it’s an uncanny story, for a girl of fourteen to write -- I'm afraid she has inherited something more from Walter than his poetry."

"The Piper--" whispered Una, unnoticed, as Rilla bustled up and stepped out of the room.

"I want to show you the letter that came with the award," she called back.

Leslie sipped her own tea, clearly pleased at being considered grown up enough sit with the women instead of being relegated outside to play with the children. "Auntie Una..." she paused, suddenly diffident at making adult conversation on her own." I wanted to ask..."

"Yes, dearie?" prompted Una.

"Well...I suppose we're just silly girls," hesitated Leslie.

"It's all right, you can ask me anything. I was a silly girl too once, you know," replied Una, encouragingly.

"Well, some of my friends and I were talking about when we get married, someday. And we were wondering if there's a true love for everyone, somewhere in the world. And oh, Auntie Una, what if there is, and he's too far away? Or," she gulped "what if he got killed in a war or something? Oh, Auntie Una, was there ever someone you wanted to marry? And did he get killed in the war?"

"Yes..." Una whispered. "I never told anyone, though - girls had to wait for the boy to speak first, in those days, you know -- and I was always too shy anyway. But I think your mother knew..."

Yes," Rilla reappeared in the doorway, clutching an envelope and a certificate. "I did know. The letter..."

"The letter--" breathed Una. The two women exchanged a glance of understanding, compassionate on Rilla's side, grateful on Una's.

"But I am happy with the work I do at the Settlement House," Una went on, more briskly. "It's work that needs to be done. Rilla, did I tell you I'm thinking of taking nursing training? I can go to classes in the evening, over at the University. Some of those families are in such a condition when we first see them. Those young mothers sometimes have no idea what a baby should eat or how to dress it and care for it. And when Faith visited, she went on my rounds with me and she was such a help! You remember she trained as a nurse while she was with the VAD."

“I’m sure you’ll do well in the training, if you don’t overstrain yourself,” Rilla said. “I’m afraid sometimes you don’t take proper care of yourself, with all your care for others.” She sipped her tea. "But I know how much good you do, and how the Settlement people love you.”

She put her cup down, and looked at her daughter, through the window at her sons, then at her guest. “I have tried to bring up the new generation -- at least my four of them -- to know what has gone before, and to honor the freedoms so many died for. I know the news from Germany is worrying Ken, and I pray every day that peace will endure, that my boys will not have to face what their father and uncles did nor we women endure the anguish of waiting once more. This home and family are my part of making the better world those soldiers died for. But Una, you are making a difference in so many homes."

Again, she looked out the window, whence issued a shrill piping, then turned resolutely away from the sight of the three boys, now marching in military fashion with Walter in the lead. The memories of the girl she had been looked out at Una from the eyes of a woman who still heard an irresistible call. "It is you who have truly 'kept the faith' ".

***********

NotesThis takes place in about 1934, to allow time for Rilla to marry Ken in about 1919, when she would have been twenty, and to have a daughter who is 14 here. I wanted the boys to be old enough for WWII. (Leo isn't, quite. He saved for War Stamps, collected scrap metal, and studied aircraft silhouettes in case the Germans flew over Canada, while keeping a scrapbook of clippings about his brothers' units all through the war.) The Settlement House Movement Una mentions had its peak from the 1880s through the 1930s; it was started in England, spread to the US and Canada. An article about its work in the US is here. There is still an International Association of Settlements. The Settlements provided services for immigrants, refugees, and other poor people, and in some places fought for reform, as well.

At the end of , Una goes off to study "Home Science". I thought she would want to use her training to help those with no advantages and little knowledge of how to keep a sanitary home, rather than keeping house for her father or brother.

Posted by dichroic at June 9, 2005 01:25 PM