Work Text:
In the years that they believe that Walter is dead, Una discovers some important truths about herself. She is not … the same type of girl that Rilla is (that Nan is. That Faith is. That Di is.)
She helps hem dresses for the upcoming wedding between Kenneth Ford and Rilla. There are a lot stitches that need to be taken care of before their spring wedding arrives, after all.
As they sit in the circle, Miss Cornelia and Mrs. Blythe gently broach the subject that is perhaps not the most acceptable for a preacher’s daughter to hear. (Though, of course, Una has already heard of it from her course at Redmond - under the guise of "wifely duties.") They do cast some glances in her direction.
The wedding night.
Rilla blushes. Her cheeks grow rosier, and they compliment her already lovely complexion.
“It will work out,” Mrs. Blythe says. “As it always does when two people love each other as much as you and Kenneth do.”
Rilla blushes more still, and she squeezes the fabric in her hand so hard that Mrs. Blythe has to tell her to unclench it, lest it be ruined beyond repair.
Later, Rilla and Una walk along the little path in Rainbow Valley they have walked a thousand times before, as children, and the red in her cheeks still remains. “The other girls talk, you know, Una.”
Well, they do not talk to Una about such things, unless it is at class. But perhaps talking to a doctor’s daughter is a different proposition than talking to a minister's daughter.
“Mary Vance says she knows girls who say it hurts terribly. But she says there are other girls who say it depends on the boy.” Rilla looks over at Una. “I cannot imagine that our mothers being so happy if - ”
“Rilla!”
“Well. Can you?”
In truth, Rilla cannot imagine it all. And she finds that she doesn’t want to.
But Rilla does, and as the wedding draws near, she finds companions in Faith and Nan and Di - who are willing to indulge her hopes and dreams about things that Una cannot imagine wanting.
Una returns to her little room and she takes out the worn letter from Walter, and she reads it again. She thinks of Walter, with his grey eyes and soft hands. And she tries to imagine…wanting him the way that Rilla wants Ken.
She does not.
But she loves him, does she not?
~*~
Rilla stands at the little path in Rainbow Valley again with her, the night before the wedding. This little place has always been their sanctuary. That used to be true for all of them - for the Blythe and Meredith children. But soon, Una will be the only Meredith left of their original group. Her baby brother, dear as he is to her heart, does not hold Rainbow Valley with the same reverence that the older Meredith children have.
And soon, there will be no more Blythe children to seek comfort from Rainbow Valley. Una wonders what will happen when their little sanctuary away from the adult cares of the world is no longer as treasured as it once was? Perhaps she too will have to give up childish things.
She will finish her courses at Redmond up in the fall. She has focused on household sciences, unlike her siblings, who have much more ambitious pursuits. Una supposes she will start looking for positions as a governess. Several of her teachers at Redmond have suggested it, since she has no desire to take additional study, and since she had the upbringing of a minister's daughter.
It is not the life she thought she would have, Una thinks as she listens to Rilla talk about Toronto. But it will be a good life.
Rilla turns to her. "Oh, listen to me prattle on."
"It is the night before your wedding. You have every right."
Rilla's rosy cheeks are rosier than ever. "He's just so wonderful, Una." Rilla takes her hand and squeezes it. "May I tell you something that you absolutely cannot tell Mother?"
Una regrets that she is going to say yes, but she says it anyway. "If you must."
"I cannot wait to be married to him so that we may kiss at any time." Rilla laughs. "Oh, the expression on your face, Una! Do you find me that scandalous?"
"No. I suppose a wife should want to kiss her husband. Or enjoy kissing her husband." Una frowns and watches the rabbit across the way. Watching his exercises seems like a much more interesting task than kissing anyone - husband or otherwise, to be very fair.
"Why, Una Meredith! If your father could hear you!" Rilla teases, but she loops her arm through Una's, and Una shakes her head indulgently. It is easy to be indulgent towards Rilla.
"Do you suppose they teach us nothing of the womanly duties at Redmond in our household science courses?" she says, her eyes sparkling, just a tad.
Rilla's eyes widen, and she squeals loud enough that the bunny jumps. It rather hurts Una's head, but the squeal turns into a delighted silvery laugh.
"Oh, you are a delight, Una," she says. "Then if you do not find me scandalous, why do you look at me so?"
Una hesitates. "The kissing ... the ... womanly duties." Una watches the bunny take a tentative step near the brook again. "I cannot imagine ever wanting those things."
"Because of ...Walter, you mean?" Rilla says. And oh, she means well.
But it isn't because of Walter at all.
~*~
Rilla stands at the wedding, with the Blythes and with her family. She watches Rilla kiss Kenneth Ford, and she watches those rosey cheeks grow more red - with delight. With joy.
To Rilla, it looks as enjoyable as being slobbered by Dog Monday, may he rest in peace.
Still, she sees Jem and Faith hold hands, and she thinks, Well, yes. That I would have enjoyed with Walter. But the minute that Jem moves closer to Faith, in a moment of intimacy that is shared between them as a couple - scandalous, some of the congregation would have said - Una would rather have a second helping of the roasted duck that is being served as the main course than endure that.
But then, the roasted duck is delicious.
~*~
She accepts a position in Summerside that fall, after Rilla's wedding. Henry and Alice Bennett are faithful Presbyterians, and Henry's successful shipping business allows them to be choosey about the type of governess they choose for their two young daughters.
Her days begin early, as she helps the youngest, Ruth, dress and brush her hair. After Ruth and her older sister, Mary, are dressed, Una joins the family for breakfast. Afterwards, Henry leads them in a short scripture reading before dismissing them from the table. It is then that her day truly begins.
The lessons are not difficult. Mary and Ruth are well-behaved children; sometimes while they work on their piano practice and neat handwriting and Una has to bite back a laugh.
Oh, the days of Mary Vance! Oh, the days of Carl nearly dying of pneumonia because they tried to raise themselves so poorly! Oh, the scraps they used to get into in Rainbow Valley ...
Young Mary and Ruth Bennett of Summerside are nothing like the Blythes and Merediths of Rainbow Valley.
Still, the girls giggle as they clutch their sketch pads to their chest and sketch the flowers they are tasked with identifying in the Bennett flower beds. So, Una thinks, perhaps the children have found a sanctuary of their own.
~*~
Two months after Una comes to work for the Bennetts, Mr. Bennett comes home with a more solemn face than he normally does. "It was a difficult day," he says to her. "Perhaps the children will dine with you tonight, while Alice and I discuss some things."
Those "things" turn out to be the death of one of dock workers, Luke Campbell. Luke had worked for the Bennett company since Henry had started it; there is some degree of obligation to the family. Luckily, the previous housekeeper is on the cusp of retirement and the moral obligation that the Bennetts feel towards Luke's widow Agnes is easily soothed by offering her the position.
"I was quite relieved not to have to relocate to Alberta to live with my sister," Agnes says. "Love Kitty to death, but you can love your family and not want to spend all your days with them, Miss Meredith."
Una tries to imagine a world in which she could simply live with Faith for the rest of her days. She does not believe it would be a world that would make either of them very happy; there is much truth to Agnes' words.
"No," Agnes says as she kneads the dough for the next day's bread. "When Luke proposed, his proposal was very practical in fact. He said to me, 'Agnes, I'm going to the Island to work. Nicer weather. Be nice to have a wife. You want to escape Kitty?' Our parents had died some years before, you know, and Kitty... well, she did fancy herself a bit of a mother to me. And once a sister gets into that role, there's no talking her out of it."
Una thinks of poor Carl and wonders if he thinks of her and Faith that way - the poor little dear.
"But you loved your husband," Una says, and then she feels guilty. What a terrible thing to say to someone who has just lost her husband of nearly 30 years. "I'm sorry; I meant - "
"Oh, I know well what you meant, dear." Agnes fashions the bread into the loaf shape and sets it aside to rise. "Now, never you mind. I take no offense. I loved Luke very much. He was very sweet companion of mine. I shall miss him mightily. But I was never one to lose my head over romance; Luke knew that well. He was a practical sort, as was I."
"I grew up in a glen full of people who were always ... very passionate," Una confesses. "Tenderness I understood and craved even - but to get swept away as they did in their longings? That I never could comprehend. I thought ... perhaps there might be something wrong with me that I did not."
Agnes snorts indelicately, in a way that would have made Dear Miss Susan Baker at Ingleside have words and adjust her hair. "Twenty-seven years of making each other happy and being each other's best friends and confidantes. I daresay that matters a bit more than grand bouts of passion, don't you, Miss Meredith?"
It is then that Una thinks of Walter, with his grey eyes and kind words. Steadfast, he'd said.
"Yes," is all she responds.
~*~
Christmas, when it comes, is a much quieter event in the Bennett household than Una remembers it being growing up - perhaps because Mary and Ruth are being raised to by two very present parents, a governess and a housekeeper, whereas Una and her siblings, for many years... had only each other.
Mary and Ruth sit by the fire, playing with their dolls, reading their small gifts that they received, and eating one of the two gingerbread cookies they are allowed. Their hair is pulled back neatly, and the collars of their dresses are folded down primly. Still, their little cheeks are red with exuberance - the same kind that Una and her siblings used to enjoy, back when they ran wild and free.
With her charges enjoying their gifts and spending time with their parents, Una has some free time. She seeks out Agnes, and offers her help. Agnes puts her to work dicing the vegetables for the evening stew, while Agnes works on finishing up the plum pudding.
"You have quite a way with the little ones," Agnes says to Una.
"My mother passed when I was very young," Una reveals. "I helped to raise my little brother, who as a bit of a handful at times. I suppose we all were, back then. Mary and Ruth are model children compared to the antics we used to get up to in Rainbow Valley."
"Rainbow Valley?" Agnes chortles. "Sounds like a fancy place."
"Oh, no, not really," Una denies. "Just a bit of an ... escape for us children. Full of frogs and tadpoles and mud. Walter is the one named it, I believe." Perhaps she said his name with a bit too much reverence - or longing. Because Agnes pauses in the stirring of the brandy she is warming to look at her.
"Ah," Agnes said. "And this Walter - you are certain you never felt any bouts of passion for him?"
Una flushes. Agnes, in her older age, sometimes talks a might improper for a Presbyterian minister's daughter. But who else is she to talk to it about? Rosemary would never understand, nor would Faith nor Rilla - they have all ... desired... quite hard, and with an ease that Una is sure she will never comprehend.
"For Walter, I felt devotion and a love of spirit," Una says softly. "I enjoyed his company. I looked forward to his presence. I hold his last letter as though it is the greatest treasure on this earth. But never did I understand the type of ... heat that compels others when they speak of those men that they have loved."
And Una sees, as she takes the children out and about on their nature walks so often - lovers so enamored they cannot help but hold each other, even in front of the public. Lovers so enamored that their hands and lips cannot stay off one another.
She knows what her father and Miss Cornelia and Susan Baker would have to say about that; Una does not care in the way that they do, but neither does she see the appeal.
"Hmmm," Agnes says. "And did you feel desire for anyone else, then?"
"No," Una says. And her heart breaks at the truth of the matter. "If there had ever been anyone I would have felt that way for, Mrs. Campbell, it would have been Walter. And yet - "
"And yet, your feelings were strong enough that you are weeping over your turnips. Am I expected to judge that love any lesser because it did not any passion? Come now, Miss Meredith. You are smarter than that."
Perhaps, Una thinks, she might be.
Though, Una supposes, it doesn’t matter. After all, Walter is … gone, and he is never coming back to them.
But then he does.
~*~
Families less dramatic than the Blythe families might have sent a letter.
But on the third Wednesday of the first month of 1921, Walter Blythe rings the Bennett doorbell and asks if he might speak to Miss Una Meredith, without so much as a single previous indication that he had miraculously come back from the dead.
"You have a handsome gentleman to see you, Miss Blythe," Mrs. Bennett says. "Oh, never mind your duties. There is no doubt you are a hard worker, and you clearly aren't expecting him. Go see what he wants, so that we may have a proper gossip session about it afterwards."
Una wipes her hands on her apron, stands up from the flower beds, where the children are enjoying their afternoon plant lesson and goes into the house.
There, in the front parlor, sits a ghost.
"Hello, Una," he says, his voice warm, which isn't fair, because ghosts shouldn't be warm. "I meant to write, but - "
One might mistake fainting as quite passionate, though Una would not.
~*~
When she comes to, Walter is staring at her with a bit of concern, but his grey eyes twinkle. He has a beard. Walter with a beard seems wrong; but it isn't an ugly sight. She knows that people would lose their heads over it.
"I'm quite sorry," he says. "That's even more of an effect than I had on mother."
"They told us you were dead," she says, and she sits up from the couch, because lying on the couch is embarrassing.
Walter nods. "Unfortunately... a lot of people did die in that war. The end of it was very ... chaotic. I had a long recovery for my leg."
Una looks then, and she sees it then - one leg is thicker than the other. She also sees the cane. She gathers her dress, so that he may sit beside her, if he likes.
Mrs. Bennett looks at her kindly. "You may have the rest of the afternoon off, if you like, Una. You and Mr. Blythe have much catching up to do, I'm sure."
That, she suspects, is the understatement of the century.
~*~
"This is lovely," Walter tells her, as they walk along the harbor.
He's not wrong; the tiny harbor is nothing at all like the grand, sweeping view near what Mrs. Blythe once called her "House of Dreams," but it is tiny and framed by modest warehouses. The entire area smells of a mix of fish and tar, and the ocean lazily laps against the shore in frozen bits that are as gray as the sky above. Some of the fishing boats are moored about, but they are peeling and the ropes lie abandoned, coiled along the dock and covered in frost.
It's a tranquil spot, and Una enjoys it often.
"I come here on my afternoons off," she says. "And sometimes, after church. It is not quite the sanctuary that Rainbow Valley was - but it has its own beauty."
"It does," Walter agrees. He looks out across the harbor and says, "I meant to write. I haven't been back long. I just ... had to leave. Everyone in the Glen - it felt like a hug that went on for too long."
"Mm," she says. "Carl used to complain when we gave those."
A quirk of his lips, then. "Then I am in good company, no doubt."
After some time, she leads him to the small row of crates along the water's edge. He sits down and she sits beside him. She laughs softly, when she realizes that she has in fact been caught today in her gardening gloves, likely with dirt still in her hair.
"The children were learning about perennials and annuals," she says. "And the differences between them. That is why I look a mess."
"You look as I remember you, steadfast Una, amidst the mud and grime of our sweet sanctuary in Rainbow Valley," he says. "Your job, as their governess - do you like it?"
He sounds so interested. Rosemary and Father merely inquire if she is doing well, as do her siblings. Rilla asks her if she isn't entirely bored out of her mind. Nobody seems as earnestly interested. It's so ... very Walter of him.
"I do," she admits. "I enjoy working with the children. I have recently come to accept that children of my own are unlikely, so being a governess sooths that particular ... desire."
It doesn't feel scandalous to admit such a thing to Walter.
But he frowns, first at the ocean, and then at her. "Why unlikely?" he asks. "You, steadfast Una, are good and kind, and lovely. I see no reason you should have to settle for raising someone else's children if it is your own that you want."
The silence waits between them. It's not uncomfortable, the way it might be between others.
But she is still a minister's daughter, and some things are still delicate.
"I have realized there are some things I do not ... wish to do," she says finally. "With ... a husband."
Walter tilts his head. The water laps against the shore. "Some things," he repeats.
"Yes."
The water laps again. Walter turns his cane over in his hand.
"While I was in England, recovering," he says. "I had a number of people taking care of me. Amputations are very complex things. I was fortunate to have so many smart and caring people to have helped me."
She does want to squeeze his hand. She wonders if it would be welcome.
She still feels all of the affection she has always felt. But she still feels no desire.
His lips go unbothered, but she does offer her hand. The hand that is not clutching his cane does take it. Fondly, if hesitantly.
"Often, I needed to be lifted. I could not do it myself," he says. "One fellow in particular, Sam - he was quite. Well. Quite helpful. Very ... steadfast. He reminded me of you, in many ways, Una. We grew quite close."
He looks down at their hands. Then he looks out into the ocean. Chunks of ice lap against the shore; Una does not find it as cold as perhaps it actually is - instead, she allows Walter to continue.
"I ... grew to realize there are some things I do not wish to do, as well," he says softly. "And some things I quite wish to do - things we do not speak of in the Glen."
Perhaps the Una that had only ever stayed in Rainbow Valley would not have understood his meaning. Perhaps that Una would have continued to think that one day she would wake up and desire to be swept away with the same intensity as Rilla Ford does when she looks at her husband, and that Una could never have begun to hear the whisper of affection in Walter's voice for a man Una had never met.
"You found beauty there after all," she says. "Even though you did not think yourself capable of it. You did, after all."
He squeezes her hand. "Yes. Yes, Una. Beauty beyond all compare."
Una knows what her father would say. Perhaps Rosemary as well.
Una does not care. "I'm glad," she says instead.
"Truly?"
"Truly."
For a moment, Walter sits with her, and the water laps against the shore as their relationship changes in the face of the knowledge they both hold now of one another. Then Walter says, "Sam could not come with me. He had to return to his parents' home to care for them. But he knew ... of people. People like us, Una, who did not wish to do things with their husband or their wife and married anyway. To reduce questions. For companionship. For children. With the war... there are many children in need of homes."
"Are you asking me to marry you, Walter?"
His grey eyes look at her. "Before I realized ... what I now know to be true, I thought if I came home, perhaps my life would be with you. And now, you tell me that perhaps you are the only one who might ever truly understand me, Una."
Una considers his proposal. "We would marry. And I would not ... need to do the things I do not want to do. And you ... could continue to be the person you want to be."
"Yes," Walter says softly. "And we would still have a home together, and you would still be my very dear, very steadfast friend, Una. With whom I would raise those very loved children."
She considers. She knows that her life cannot and will not be in the Glen - or even in Summerside. It's too small, for the life that Walter and she wish to have. But she knows too that they can visit. Often.
"Alright," she agrees finally. "I have to finish my contract with the Bennetts. It is up in the spring."
"That gives us time to plan our wedding," he says.
~*~
They marry, of course, in Rainbow Valley.