At Number 15 Willowmere Avenue, there was a tension that hung over the residents. It didn’t take over their lives, but made them very cautious of what they said to one another. Clive and Arthur were very sorry for upsetting Izzy, but it did not prevent them from firmly believing that the other was wrong and they weren’t sorry for fighting with each other. Muriel had taken them both aside and spoken to them in her gentle, yet firm and convincing way.
Supper had become a rather quiet affair. Clive said grace and then raised his glass. “Shall we have a toast?” His family placed their hands on their glasses and raised them as well. “To our boys in Europe, to Canada, to the Empire and to the King.”
The entire Pettibone family rose dutifully and said, “To the King.”
“So, what did you all do today?” Clive asked when they sat down. The table was silent. Arthur was looking at him, directly but respectfully. Izzy was finding something in her water glass fascinating and Morgan was staring down at his plate and feeding Kitchener. “Morgan,” Clive boomed. “What did you do today, my boy?”
Morgan looked up. “I um-I-ah-I went for a walk.”
“You went for a walk?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All day?”
“Yes. All day.”
“Pray tell us, Morgan. How could you walk around Halifax all day?”
“I-I just did.”
“Hmm. Did your walk happen to take you anywhere near the Citadel?”
“No.” Morgan continued to stare at his plate. Clive kept his rather intimidating gaze on him for a few moments more. He then turned to his older son.
“Arthur, you’ve always been a productive lad. Tell me, what did you do today?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Arthur needs a rest, Clive,” Muriel told him sweetly.
“Well, so do our boys at the front, my dear. I don’t hear any of them complaining.”
“Clive,” Muriel said in a warning tone.
“I’m not complaining, Father,” Arthur began. Muriel silenced him with a look.
An uncomfortable silence followed. Izzy got up from her chair. “I’ll get dessert.”
“Well, Izzy,” Clive said when she returned. “I suppose Cecily will enjoy coming to a meeting of the Junior Red Cross when she visits.”
Arthur turned to his side and looked at his sister in surprise. “You’re in the Junior Red Cross, sis? Since when?”
“I-I joined today,” Izzy stammered.
“But I thought you-”
“Arthur,” Clive rebuked. “Please do not try to influence your sister’s opinions.” Arthur looked away from his father.
“I’m not trying to influence anyone, Father.” He paused for a moment. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come here.”
Clive looked to the other end of the table where his wife was sitting. She was shaking her head.
“I’m going to leave tomorrow,” Arthur continued. “I’m sure I’m needed at the hospital.”
“You don’t have to go, Arthur.”
“You don’t want me here. You don’t want Morgan or I here unless we’re in khaki uniforms.”
Clive looked squarely at him. “That is not true,” he said firmly and deliberately.
“Please,” Muriel said, speaking up. “I’ve tried, I really have. Just get it out. Both of you. Go ahead.”
“There’s nothing to get out, Muriel. Arthur and I simply disagree. That’s certainly nothing new, is it, son?”
“If you would just listen to what I have to say, Father, maybe you wouldn’t be so enthusiastic about the war either.”
“There is nothing to discuss, Arthur. Your stepmother is right. We shouldn’t discuss the war when we’re together.”
Muriel stared at her husband. He and Arthur couldn’t even agree to disagree anymore. She stood up. “Is anyone going to eat their cake?”
No one moved. She began collecting dishes from around the table. Izzy stood up to help her.
* * *
The hours ticked by. That evening, Clive was pouring over galley proofs of The Dervish of Calcutta, biting his pen. Arthur was seated in Clive’s favourite chair reading a book. A rather dilapidated-looking grey striped cat reposed on his lap. The cat had been found prowling near a grocer’s shop in Halifax. Clive had gone to Charlottetown to meet with his publisher for a day and had returned to find the cat situated comfortably in his favourite chair. He demanded of his son what the devil kind of a flea-bitten varmint he was thrusting upon them this time, but eventually relented, after Izzy’s pleas and Arthur’s assurance that the cat did not have fleas, at least not anymore. She was promptly named Miss Elizabeth Bennett, this time by Muriel, and Kitchener only suffered occasional fits of jealousy when he would chase the cat around the house.
Muriel and Morgan were engrossed in the official game of the Pettibone family: checkers. Izzy was dividing her time between looking through a fashion catalogue and playing fetch with Kitchener. She approached Arthur. “What do you think of this colour?”
“Why don’t you ask Morgan,” he asked, without looking up. “I am not an artiste.” Izzy gestured to Morgan and Arthur saw that he was staring Muriel down over the checkerboard.
“Come on, Arthur. I’m serious. Tell me what you think.”
“That would look very nice on you, Iz.”
“Let me see it,” Clive said with an expectant smile on his face. “Oh yes,” he responded when Izzy showed the picture of the dress to him. “I’ll have it purchased straightaway.”
“Clive,” Muriel said. “May I remind you that you just purchased a new dress for Izzy for Morgan’s graduation?”
“I bought that a good three weeks ago. It’s time for a new one. Besides, it’s good for the…the economy,” he finished weakly.
“This is from the States, Father,” Izzy said awkwardly.
“Oh. Well,” Clive said, getting up. “I’m off to bed.”
“Yes,” agreed Muriel. “It’s getting late. Children.”
“Good night, Father,” Arthur said. Clive nodded. “Good night, Muriel,” he said and kissed her cheek.
“Good night, Father,” Morgan said. Clive nodded. “Good night, Muriel,” he said and kissed her cheek as well.
“Good night, Father,” Izzy repeated. “Good night, Muriel,” she repeated, and kissed her stepmother’s cheek.
Izzy silently climbed the stairs and shut the door behind her, locking it. She threw her shoes on the bed and took the pins out of her hair. A brush was on her vanity and she sat down on the chair, brushing her long, mahogany-coloured locks. Something on the vanity caught her attention. She had been so accustomed to seeing it there, that she barely even noticed it. It was a seashell that had been placed on top of a doily. She laid down her brush and picked up the seashell, turning it over in her hand. She closed her eyes and remembered hearing the faint, calming murmur of the ocean as she lay in bed at night. She remembered running along the beach after Morgan, Felix and Sara Stanley. Digging up clams, having sword fights with the sticks that lay on the beach, the lighthouse, riding next to her father in the cutter, galloping on Annabelle, her father or Arthur carefully watching her. Autumn bonfires, Christmas in Avonlea, studying with Cecily in the kitchen of King Farm, that deep, never-ending expanse of blue that washed up in foam on her sunburned feet. Her cheeks were wet and she wiped the tears away with her hand, but she smiled. Climbing trees in the King orchard, looking for ghosts by the cliffs, the White Sands Hotel. The memories gradually faded and she put the shell in a drawer on one side of her vanity. She looked at herself squarely in the mirror. That part of her life was over now.
It was well after midnight when Izzy accepted that she wasn’t going to go to sleep anytime soon. She found her dressing gown and threw it over her and then quietly walked down the stairs. As she passed the parlour, she could see the golden glow of a light. She sighed and shook her head. Likely her father had fallen asleep over one of his manuscripts again. She walked into the parlour and stopped. There in a chair sat her brother, in his pyjamas but very much awake, eating pistachios, and reading. He looked up and peered at her from behind his reading glasses, which he wore with increasing frequency of late. “Halloo,” he said cheerily, as if he was glad to see that his sister had finally adopted the good sense to be up at quarter to one in the morning, as everyone should. Izzy didn’t ask for an explanation. She knew he kept odd hours when he was at the hospital, and Arthur had always been rather odd himself. “Nut?”
“No, thank you.”
“What are you doing up, Iz?”
“Oh, nothing. I can’t really sleep. What about you?”
“I’m a German spy,” he replied matter-of-factly. “This will put you to sleep,” he said of the book he held in his hand, which was one of their father’s many books about military history. “It’s fairly the most boring thing I’ve ever read.”
“Then, why read it?”
“Why mope around?” he asked of her.
Izzy looked at him with an amazed and somewhat perturbed expression on her face. “I’m not moping. I’ve never moped. When have I moped?” she asked defensively.
“Well, excuse me, Miss Pettibone,” he replied, pretending to be offended. “It’s just come to my attention that you haven’t been exactly what I would call happy lately.”
“I’m perfectly contented, Arthur. Anyway, what would I have to be upset about?”
Arthur could think of about ten reasons, but he didn’t list them. “If you say so, Iz. I won’t say another word.”
“Fine. I’m going to read.”
Izzy went over to the bookcase that was in the parlour. She picked up a book of biographies of British lords of the nineteenth century and thought it sounded boring enough to put her to sleep. She curled up on the sofa and read for a few minutes.
“You’re very quiet,” he told her. Izzy didn’t respond. “You don’t talk like you used to.” She was still quiet. “Fine, I’ll talk for you. ‘Oh, Arthur,’” he mimicked in a high-pitched voice. “`I love you. You’re my most favourite brother in the whole world.’”
Izzy looked up at him from underneath her eyebrows, but a ghost of a smile played on her lips. “Are you done?” She was interrupted just as she was getting thoroughly into the earls of Cornwall, when Arthur suddenly jumped up from his chair and walked over to the gramophone. He put on a copy of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”
“Arthur!” Izzy gasped. “Do you want to wake everyone?”
He forced Izzy up from her chair and began twirling around the room in a very disorganised cakewalk, singing the lyrics to the song at the top of his voice, under Izzy’s futile protests. Singing was not among Arthur’s talents, and it sounded more like shouting. Gradually, Izzy began to smile. He danced her toward the door and outside, underneath the rain. She was laughing, the first full laugh out of her in months. Her cheeks blossomed into colour. She forgot about her beautiful alto voice and began yelling the lyrics also, jumping around with Arthur, barely able to hear the gramophone inside. She almost imagined herself back in Avonlea; she felt as carefree as she had then.
When the music had stopped, she was dripping wet, and laughing. Izzy stood there and just laughed. She remembered painfully hot days in India, when the three of them would sneak off to the lagoon near their bungalow. She didn't really mind him being a silly and teasing brother. It was the way he had been long ago, before their mother died. She stepped closer to her brother and took his hands in hers. “Don’t go,” she begged.
Arthur looked perplexed. “Promise me you won’t go,” she said. “Promise me you’ll never leave us.” She looked down at the hands she held. Arthur and Morgan had beautiful hands, like their mother. Hands of an artist or a surgeon.
“Izzy,” he began, confused.
“Promise me,” she urged. “Promise me you won’t go.”
“I-I promise,” he said softly and put his arms around her. “I promise.”
He meant what he said earlier. He was leaving the next day. He had been with them for a little over a week, and a tumultuous week it had been. Izzy was sad to send him off, but she knew the tension in her family would decrease once she left. She also knew, however, that the situation between her father and Morgan would become worse with Arthur gone.
* * *
The storm that brought rain to Halifax had gained strength by the time it reached Prince Edward Island to the north. Alec King opened his eyes to feel thunder shake the house. Lightening flashed and for an instant he could see the barn illuminated inn eerie light. He settled back into the pillow and had just drifted off to sleep when he heard a cry from the hall.
“Elbert!”
Felix made his way through the trench, stumbling, holding his gun in his trembling hands. He saw the white flash from the bombs. The ground shook as they fell. The steady, rhythmic tat-tat-tat of the machine guns kept time with the beating of his heart. He had to get to Elbert. They had to stay together, just like they’d promised in training camp. He saw him just down the trench, a terrified expression on his face. “Elbert,” he called again. He was suddenly faced by his officer. “Sir!” he saluted. “I have to get to Private Werts, sir! I have to!” Another bomb exploded. The officer held Felix by the arms. “Let me go! I have to get to him! We have to stay together! I promised! I promised!”
“Felix! Felix, it’s me, son!”
Felix stared into the officer’s face. It was his father. “Felix, calm yourself,” he said, with a look of concern in his father’s eyes. “You’re in Avonlea. It’s all right. It’s just thunder, son. It’s just-it’s just a storm.”
Felix’s breath came quickly and heavily. His mother was standing in the hallway as well, clutching her robe around her, her arms encircled protectively around Daniel’s neck. The only thing keeping him from falling was the fact that his father had a firm grip on his arms.
“A storm?” Felix asked weakly.
“Yes,” Alec replied softly. He placed his hand on his son’s cheek, which was cold and wet.
“I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I’m-I’m sorry.”
* * *
It was seldom that Clive Pettibone went with his wife and children to see a play. “Superfluous, silly things,” he called them, as he preferred to read plays himself, and he thought the latest plays being written were the silliest of them all. Halifax was caught up in a patriotic fervor, and that there was to be an address after the play by a Member of Parliament. Clive went to hear the address, or so he said, and apparently found the superfluous, silly production very much to his liking indeed. The MP spoke self-importantly, and at the end of his speech, it was called upon the audience to sing God Save the King. The audience rose in a body and began the song. Clive sang proudly, until he looked over at his son. He stood, staring at the stage with a determined expression on his face, and his lips were not moving. Clive turned away, and remained silent until the song was over and the Pettibones were filing out of the theatre.
“Never in my life have I witnessed such wilful behaviour out of you, Morgan,” Clive said as they climbed into their Packard motorcar. “You can be as disloyal and insolent as you like, young man, but I won’t have you disgracing this family in public.”
“I’d be disgracing myself if I stood there and sang about that-that person and how wonderful he is! He’s no better than the Kaiser!” Morgan stopped there. He could see his father’s face growing redder and redder and he lowered his head.
“We’ll discuss this at home,” Clive said and drove the motorcar unusually quickly down the street. Morgan took a deep breath and his heart beat faster and faster. An odd sensation filled his stomach when Clive drove the motorcar up to their home. Morgan jumped out first and headed inside before his father could say a word to him.
Clive stalked inside and stood in the hallway, about to climb the stairs when he felt his wife’s gentle hand on his arm. “Let it go, Clive,” she advised calmly.
“’Let it go,’, hmm?” Clive’s mouth set itself. “I’m off to my study,” he announced. Muriel watched him walk off toward the other end of the house. Izzy silently climbed the stairs to her own room.
Muriel stood in the silence of the empty hallway, listening to the ticking of the clock. “Oh, dear,” she said forebodingly.
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