Work Text:
"There is a trick to being a lady," Faith told Una very seriously one morning as she braided her hair, looking her in the face through the dingy reflection of the mirror in the front hallway. "Of that I am certain, but I haven't yet figured out quite what it is." She studied Una for a few moments, then pulled a face. "I'm afraid you might catch on before I do. If you do, let me in on the secret, would you?"
Una studied ladies more carefully after that – not just women, which she had done for as long as she could remember – but the respectable ladies of the church, the ones who were looked up to and admired and imitated by the girls who wouldn't give Faith or Una the time of day. She kept a list, written in tiny neat handwriting, in her pocket for weeks, adding to it with each outfit she scrutinized, each conversation she eavesdropped on. The list was soon too long to be practical, and so she kept looking, because surely if there was a trick to it, then the trick would be easier than to follow a long litany of seemingly arbitrary rules.
It came to her on a weekday night, after prayer meeting, quietly clearing away the dishes from tea as the women gossiped. She listened as she worked to their stories of other women about town, about whose children were getting into scrapes, and who was wearing the same bonnet she'd had for fourteen years, and who was making eyes at the married men again.
Una walked home beside Faith in a fog, watching her shoes get dustier with every step they took, and it wasn't until they reached the house and the boys were safely away that she took Faith's arm and pulled her into a corner.
"I think I've gotten it," she said. "I wondered for a while, but I'm quite certain of it now. I'm afraid the key to being a lady is not to like other ladies very much at all."
Faith looked troubled. "You're certain?" she asked.
Una nodded. "Quite sure, yes." She frowned. "I don't think I'd like to be a lady very much anymore. I don't much like the idea of having to dislike you."
"Me neither," Faith agreed. "I suppose what we'll have to do, then, is to become our own brand of lady."
"Can we do that?" Una asked.
"Of course we can," Faith said. "We can follow all your silly rules, about petticoats and laughter and all the rest – as best we can, at least, because I don't know that I'll be good at it all the time – but we'll be good to other girls, not horrid, no matter how awful they are to us."
Una nodded slowly. "I don't imagine it will be easy," she said, "but I like the idea of being that kind of lady much more than the other."
"It's decided, then," Faith said, looking determined. "We'll be as ladylike as we have to, so as not to cause Father trouble, but we're going to pretend we never learned that last bit at all." She stuck out her hand. "Shake on it?"
Una hesitated."I don't think that's very –" she began, then broke off, looking at the way Faith's fingers curled uncertainly. "Shake," she agreed, and they shook hands in a gentlemanly manner, solemnly vowing to reform ladyhood to their own standards.
______________
Una was sitting at her father's desk, legs swinging, deeply engrossed in the story of David and Jonathan when Aunt Martha came in, and she didn't look up until the lamp flickered to life behind her. "Your eyesight will be destroyed before you are grown, girly," Aunt Martha told her shortly, "and you'll have only yourself to blame."
"Yes'm," Una replied distractedly, and Aunt Martha huffed.
"You couldn't possibly be more your father's daughter, could you?" she asked, then gathered up the wash she'd been carrying.
Una looked up at that, frowning. "You always say that," she said.
Aunt Martha shrugged. "It's true," she pointed out. "You're very like him at your age. At any age," she amended.
"Not like my mother, then," Una said quietly.
Martha paused, then set down the wash again. "Ah," she said, and didn't answer.
"You knew her, didn't you?" Una pressed.
"Only a very little," Martha replied. "But yes."
"And I'm not like her at all?"
Martha's lips twitched. "Cecelia," she said, then paused as if looking for a diplomatic response. "Faith is very much her child," she finally decided on.
Una considered that for a while. "Faith wouldn't make a very good minister's wife," she said. "She's good at many things, but not that, as much as she does try, for Father." She looked down at her father's Bible, touching the edge of it. "Did my mother always want to do that?"
"Be a minister's wife? Cecelia? Goodness, child, no. It was love that made that happen, love and divine providence, as far as I can reckon."
"She wasn't a good woman, then?" Una asked, worried.
"Good? Oh, she was a good woman, Una, don't you fret about that. One of the best I've ever known, in fact. But there was never a child for scrapes like young Cecelia. Not even your sister, bless her."
Una raised her eyebrows. "Mother?" she asked. "She got in trouble like we do?"
"Oh, heavens yes," Martha said.
"And she had to choose to be good, for Father?" she pressed. "She wasn't like that naturally?"
"I think the choosing happened over some time," Martha hedged, "and wasn't entirely for John's benefit either. But yes, of course she wasn't born perfect, Una. Nobody is." She paused as if waiting for more questions, and when Una didn't produce any, she gathered the laundry up again and headed for the door.
Una looked for a long moment at the photo of her mother atop her father's desk, the curve of her mouth that had always seemed serene, but now almost seemed to have a hint of impishness to it. "I may not be much like you yet," she told the portrait quietly, "but it helps to know that I can choose to be, if I like."
______________
"Aren't you cold out here?" Una stood in the doorway with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, watching Rosemary tilt back and forth in her rocking chair in the dim light of sunset. "I could bring you a quilt, if you like."
"I'm quite comfortable, actually," Rosemary said, smiling and holding up a steaming cup. "Your father brought me some tea." Una nodded and crossed the porch, settling down wordlessly by her side. She could feel Rosemary's eyes on her, and watched the trees changing color instead of looking up. Eventually, Rosemary prompted, "Tell me what you're thinking?"
"I'm thinking…" Una listened to the rhythmic thump of the chair for a few moments before settling on, "I'm wondering who he or she will be."
She could hear the smile in Rosemary's voice as she said, "I was thinking much the same thing." They were quiet for some time, and then Rosemary asked, "May I tell you something, Una? Something I haven't told anyone else?"
"Not even Father?" Una looked up.
"Not even him," Rosemary agreed. "Although he may have guessed."
"Of course you can." She felt the thrill of shared confidences as she leaned against the chair. "We promised to be friends, didn't we?"
Rosemary smiled."We did," she agreed. "And I am so glad that we did, because I think I may need friends soon enough." She looked around, as if searching for eavesdroppers, and lowered her voice. "There is a part of me," she admitted, "that's afraid."
Una wanted to smile, but instead she nodded solemnly. "Of course you are," she said. "Father told me once that all parents are scared, all the time, if only a little, because there are so many things that can happen to us, and no way to stop all of it. It's a good sign if you are – it means you already love little – " she paused. "Have you thought of names yet?"
Rosemary shook her head, looking almost relieved. "Not yet, no. It's just that I've never been anyone's mother before," she said. "I don't quite know how to start."
"We can help you," Una told her. "We brought each other up, mostly, Jerry and Faith and Carl and I. And you should talk to Mrs. Blythe. She's a perfectly lovely mother, and can probably tell you loads of things." She slipped her hand into Rosemary's. "You won't be alone," she assured her, "you might be the only mother the baby has, but he or she will have lots of family, and that's just as important."
"That's true," Rosemary agreed. "They'll be a lucky child, to have you four."
"And we'll be lucky to have them," Una said. She listened to the wind briefly before saying, "I'm glad you and father married."
"As am I."
"I've never known him happy before," Una said. "It suits him quite well. It suits you, too, but I can't imagine you as anything but."
"I haven't always been happy," Rosemary told her.
"No," Una agreed, "I don't expect anyone ever is, all the time."
"Are you?" Rosemary asked. "Sometimes, at least?"
"Sometimes, yes."
Rosemary's laugh was quiet. "How like your father you are," she said.
Una thought back to a day when that wasn't such a comfort to her, and she smiled. "Yes," she agreed, and did not voice the thought that followed – that if he could find such happiness, perhaps it was possible someday for her as well.
______________
They met by accident by the brook, and didn't need to ask what the other was doing there.
"I've never been particularly good at being patient," Mrs. Blythe said.
"I brought an extra book," Una offered, "if you would like it."
They sat in companionable quiet, and together, they waited.
______________
"Una, is that you?" Rilla's voice hadn't changed nearly as quickly as the rest of her, and Una couldn't help but smile at the sound of it calling through the darkness, a bit too loud for the time of night. "Is something the matter?"
"No, no," Una assured her, climbing the steps to the Ingleside porch and holding up a wrapped bundle. "Nothing at all, Rosemary has just made some bread with the zucchini from our garden, and asked me to bring some up so that you could enjoy it too."
"How sweet of her," Rilla said, taking the loaf and sniffing it. "It smells lovely."
"She does make a good bread," Una agreed, "and the garden is half yours – you deserve to have some of it." She leaned against the porch railing and added, "Did I tell you what Bruce had to say about it the other night?"
"I don't think you did, no."
"I found him sitting out on the steps, in the dark, looking at the crops, and he looked like his little soul was troubled, so I sat with him until he spilled what was wrong. He said he was concerned about you telling tales to little Jims."
Rilla blinked hugely. "Tales?" she asked. "Certainly I've been known to stretch the truth at times when it befits the story, but never to Jims, that I can think of!"
"Which is very nearly what I told him," Una assured her. "He was worried, it turns out, that Jims was going to grow up thinking that there was victory growing someplace in our little garden."
Rilla's laugh was bright and careless, a relic of a different time. "Oh, the poor dear," she said."You did set him straight, didn't you?"
"Of course," Una replied."We did tell him all about it, when we started, but he was terribly concerned that little Jims might not be old enough to understand. I explained again, and he became quite excited about the idea of our food going to the boys at the front. 'Do you think Jem has gotten any of it?' he asked me, 'or Jerry?' I think he might be an even more devoted little farmer from here on out."
"Good," said Rilla decisively, "we can use all the help he'd like to give us." A cry sounded from the open window above them, and Rilla smiled tiredly. "That will be the littlest gardener now," she said, and Una noticed with admiration that there was no real annoyance to the words, merely a kind of fond exasperation that she recognized from her father and Rosemary when Bruce had been very small.
"Would you like a hand with him?" she offered, but Rilla shook her head.
"I have it under control," she said with a self-deprecating lift of her eyebrow. "Which are possibly words no one expected I'd ever speak, a few years back. Thank Rosemary for me," she added, gesturing with the loaf of bread, and Una nodded.
"Say hello to Jims," she said, and smiled. "And don't tell him too many wild tales, if you don't want to get a lecture from Bruce."
"Considering that the boy was delivered by the stork in a soup tureen, if he grows up without believing any wild tales at all, it will be a minor miracle," Rilla said. They said their good nights, and Una waited on the porch until she heard Rilla's voice above her, soothing Jims with wordless noises. Only then did she turn from the porch and head for the lane back to the manse.
She walked home in the darkness, thinking of blooming plants and victory.
______________
They were twice a year friends, meeting on a train platform on their way home for the holidays, sitting in companionable conversation as the miles rolled by beside them. They shared common histories, memories, and loved ones lost, but when they arrived at their destinations, they were always swept off into the embrace of family or the bustle of the workplace, and never thought to call on one another outside of those brief interludes.
It may have remained that way indefinitely, the two of them intersecting for a few hours a year, one trip in one direction, another in the reverse, if it were not for the blizzard. They stood there, huddled together against the storm, as the conductor told them with a definitive finality that they would not be going home for Christmas, and Di looked so crushed that it hardly cost Una any bravery at all to take her hand and tell her that they could have their own Christmas, here, if she liked.
Una's apartment was small and cold, and there was hardly any food to be had, but once they had lit a fire and some candles and were huddled under blankets with mugs of tea, listening to the wind howl outside, it felt almost festive and cozy – not like home, but like a different place that it was quite enjoyable to be, just the same.
Di's eyes were big and shining over her mug as she looked at Una and said, "For all that Walter told me of you, I feel that I barely know you at all."
"I feel the same," Una said, "and I think perhaps –" she hesitated, took a sip of tea, and gathered her courage to go on. "I think he might have liked for us to change that."
Di's smile was wistful and sad, but her voice was earnest as she said, "You should tell me all of your stories."
"Oh, I don't have any stories," Una said automatically. "That was always Faith."
"Nonsense." Di's knee nudged hers under the blanket. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that everyone has stories?"
"No," Una said thoughtfully, "I don't suppose anyone ever did."
Di frowned, indignant. "That's perfectly awful," she said decisively. "Then I'm telling you now, Una Meredith. You've got a life full of stories, and we've got all the time in the world. I'd like to hear every one of them."
And Una found, as she sat there in the flickering darkness and started to talk, that the stories rose up out of her, as if they couldn't quite understand why she hadn't been telling them to Di all her life.