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Emily stared after Teddy and Ilse who were walking away in the cooling late summer night. In one of those moments of insight that sometimes arrive in life, she realized that if what she had thought had been between her and Teddy could be swept away so easily by pride and forgetting, turned into a shearing pain, perhaps it had not been love at all. Or if it had, it had been but a young girl’s fancy of love. Perhaps there had been a connection between them which was not only her imagination, but the cruel passage of time had transformed it into something else and left her with – what?
She turned away and walked quietly in the dark garden, feeling the desolation left by the shattering of her youthful illusions. She had thought that dreadful winter years ago had destroyed the worst of them, but knew now many had still remained. She wondered if she would ever outgrow them all – and hoped she would not have to.
Suddenly there were footsteps behind her, and a rustle of skirts, and then she was enveloped by armfuls of Ilse and her sweet scent and golden curls. “Emily, darling, good-bye,” said Ilse’s dear voice, now full of emotion. “I love you as much as ever, but everything is so horribly changed, and we can never find the Islands of Enchantment again. I wish I hadn’t come home at all – but say you love me and always will. I couldn’t bear it if you didn’t.”
Emily looked into that dear face, feeling blessed relief that there was still one person whose feelings for her hadn’t changed and fallen into ashes, and who knew and admitted the horrible drift that had opened between them and the happier years of youth. “Of course I’ll always love you, Ilse.”
They embraced tenderly and Emily kissed that dear face. When she felt Ilse’s lips on her cheeks and forehead, she was suddenly possessed by a strange desire. It seemed to her that she should kiss Ilse’s lips and that it was from those lips, not Teddy’s or any other man’s, that she could draw a potion of happiness. Of course she shook away that perverse desire, but she embraced Ilse once more with fervency, feeling Ilse’s perfume mix with the cooling garden’s scent, and vaguely thinking that somehow, everything wasn’t lost.
****
That winter brought some lovely moments in the form of the publication of her book, but outside the thrill of work, everything felt so lonely and desolate that she began to wonder if she had imagined that hope in the late summer night. There seemed to be nobody at all in her life besides her relatives, whom she loved but who could not fulfill certain aching voids in her. Ilse wrote rarely and her letters were odd. Sometimes a turn of phrase suggested strange ideas to her, but nothing more was written that would tell her if it was just her fancy. She never heard from Teddy. It began to seem to her that the cold wind of time which had blown over her and Teddy’s love had also truly destroyed everything that remained from the fanciful days of youth. The only thing left was her work, which tried to recapture that fancy at least in form of stories that she could tell to people. Perhaps their lives would be more fulfilled than hers if she managed to bring some moments of happiness and faith into them with her work. Or perhaps she would just manage to cheer up some dreary hours – that was worth much, too, she thought.
Then, one weekend in late March, it was suddenly announced that Ilse was there to see her. Emily felt surprised, for Ilse was not expected home for weeks yet, but she received her friend immediately, feeling a strange little thrill inside her as she did. Perhaps it was only because it was so good to see her dear friend after there was so little other excitement in her life.
Ilse arrived, and it did not take any great powers of observation to see that she was greatly agitated about something. Yet she didn’t say what the matter was, merely talked trivialities and laughed nervously in between. Finally Emily, losing her patience, asked her: “What did you come here for? Surely not just to talk about dresses and parties?”
Ilse bit her lip, her eyes flickered around nervously. Then she said in a low voice: “Emily dear, I can’t possibly talk here, not when your pristine aunts might be hearing. Please, let’s go out. I know it’s still dreadfully cold, but I must get outside to talk to you.”
Emily didn’t object, and after a while they were on their way to the Tomorrow Road. It was indeed still a chilly night, but Emily thought the trees were stretching their bare branches out against the sunset-lit sky with plans to burst into leaf any time now.
When they were in the forest, Ilse walked along for a while in silence, then suddenly stopped, turned to Emily and asked: “Emily, tell me. Do you think I should marry Teddy?”
For a moment Emily could only stare. She felt as though she had been hit with a heavy hammer in the face.
“Do you… Do you love him?” she finally stuttered.
Ilse laughed, though it was not a surprised laugh but one that tried to fend off the fact that Emily had some point asking that. “Love him? Oh, no. Not in such a way. Of course I’m terribly fond of him, the dear old friend that he is. Even if his success has made him quite conceited. But I… well, I don’t know. He has asked me and wants me to make up my mind.”
“And you can’t and are now hoping I will tell you what your mind is?”
“I don’t know, Emily! Just tell me what your mind is.”
“Why should it matter? It’s you who is getting married or not.”
Ilse shifted uneasily. “Still, tell me.”
Emily closed her eyes. What was she supposed to say to that? That her insides felt like they were being torn apart, despite the fact that she had consciously given up on Teddy months ago? That she simply couldn’t bear the thought? She couldn’t say that.
Yet… Here was her one chance to stop it from happening. For she violently did not want it to happen. Not because of Ilse, not because of Teddy - and not because of herself.
“Why would you marry him, if you don’t love him?” she asked to win time.
Ilse sighed. “Oh, Emily dear, people get married all the time without being tremendously in love.”
“Well, if you want my advice, you should tell me why you would consider getting married. Otherwise I won’t know what to tell you.”
“Why does one? I’m starting to feel lonely.” Ilse bit her lip, her pretty face suddenly looking hard and bitter. “And beginning to conclude that marrying for love is not an option.”
“Oh, Ilse…”
“Don’t ‘oh, Ilse’ me. Just tell me what you think.”
“I… Why would you not marry him, then?”
Ilse laughed. “Why, because I still wish I could marry for love, of course. Isn’t that silly?”
“You’re still longing after Perry, aren’t you?” Emily asked sympathetically.
”Perry? I don’t know. I’d like to think I have given up on him. But I guess I haven’t given up on the general idea, not completely. What do you say? Am I more Victorian than I think?”
Emily smiled warmly. “Perhaps you are.”
“What to do, then?”
“Don’t marry him. Wait for the right one.”
“But what if the right one will never come along? Emily, I’m really beginning to feel very lonely. You don’t know what it’s like to be shut up there in the little room in a big city, lots of people around you but not a soul you can connect to, feeling that if you disappeared nobody would care.”
Emily reflected that she did know her own forms of loneliness just as painful, but only said: “Nonsense. People adore you and would miss you right away.”
“Oh, but I’m not convinced of it. Emily, darling, please embrace me!” And Ilse threw herself on Emily, hugging her tightly. Emily put her arms affectionately around her friend, feeling for a while that all boundaries and pretensions had fallen away between them. And just as she let go to look at Ilse’s face again, a strange but tempting idea struck her.
“What?” Ilse asked. “Don’t try to deny it”, she added when Emily automatically shook her head, so surprised by her idea that she didn’t want to voice it. “You suddenly thought of something. I want to know what. Please, Emily, I feel I’m suffocating under all those things everyone around me tells me to do or not do. Give me something else. I know you feel it, too.”
I know you feel it, too… There was an odd thrill about that idea. And yes, Emily did feel it. So she let the Murray pride make way for the Starr impetuousness, and said:
“What if we forgot all about men and marriage, and just moved in together? We know we can have splendid times together and understand each other’s needs, and then we wouldn’t be so lonely.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wondered what on earth had made her say them. But there was an odd sense that she was right, and that sense felt itself confirmed when a sudden surprised delight looked out at her from Ilse’s amber eyes.
“Oh, darling, would you do that?”
“You… You want to do it?” Emily could hardly believe it.
“Why, of course! I’ve had it with men, they’re useless creatures and will never understand us. I’d a thousand times rather move in with you. I’ve thought of asking you sometimes, only I thought you’d never do it.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“New Moon propriety and all that. What would your aunts say?”
“I think I’m past caring what my aunts say. Ilse dear, I’m also growing lonely and disillusioned… And I can’t afford to lose all my illusions.”
Ilse moved to her and took hold of her hands. Emily felt a warm thrill go through her such as she hadn’t felt in another person’s presence for years. “Emily, I like to think that what is between us is more than illusion.”
“I think it’s always been the truest thing in my life,” Emily whispered back. She had a sense that she was vowing herself to something, but she scarcely knew what.
Ilse stayed quiet for once and looked into her eyes. Emily felt like something passed between them that could not be put into words, that was beyond what the sweetest lines of poetry could truly say. There was a strong urge in her to do something that felt natural and eternal as much as it felt strange and new. But she was a little too awed by the realization of this sensation to let it lead to any action. She only felt.
Ilse, too, seemed to sense that at the moment no words or actions could express what was happening. So instead, at length, she returned to the ordinary practical level of things and asked: “But where would we be living?”
“Where?” Emily was still too lost in the euphoria of sudden feeling to be able to return to the earth.
“Yes, where? You won’t want to leave Blair Water, I can guess that much. And I can’t say I’m particularly eager to stay in an ugly little city apartment myself. But I’m certainly not moving in with your aunts at New Moon – that would be horrid. No offence meant against your lovely aunts, but I can’t imagine myself living with them and I’m sure they’ll be glad of my failure to imagine it. So what do we do?”
Emily squeezed her hands and smiled. A germ of an idea was just born in her mind. “I’ll arrange it somehow. Don’t worry.”
They returned hand in hand through the darkening forest and watched the evening stars light up on the watercoloured sky. Emily had only one clear thought in her head: that perhaps Isles of Enchantment could be found after all, even if they looked different now from what she had once supposed.
****
The rest of the spring passed with Ilse in town and Emily at home, and only brief letters passing between them in which they alluded little to what had happened and what they had agreed. But under the surface there was a shared understanding. In the summer Ilse returned. Emily met her again in the bush, on a Tomorrow Road where the trees were now in full, luscious leaf and the air was filled with delicious earthly scents and echoes of birdsong and dreams. The Emily whom Ilse saw there was also, after those years of bitter lost hopes and walls built around herself, again a woman in full bloom, her shadowy eyes promising mystery and discovery.
They met without words, holding each other’s hands and looking into each other’s eyes.
“Do you still want to?” Emily asked.
“Of course I do! More than ever. And you still, honey? Haven’t changed your mind?”
Emily only smiled, and let go of Ilse’s hands to take a letter out of her pocket. “I told you I would work out where we would live,” she said, and handed the letter over to Ilse.
Ilse read it:
Dear Star,
I have read your letter with delight. It makes me glad that you have finally grown to be the woman that you were meant to be and are taking your fate into your own hands. The likes of you and Ilse were never meant to be bound to any earthly men. I see it now and am glad you have also seen it. I wish you the greatest happiness on earth and I wish for you to fulfill that House with the bliss and love it was meant to host, so that it will never again be Disappointed.
I now know I cannot hold a star, but I shall be glad to give her a means to happiness, and to gaze upon her and her fair companion’s light on occasion, when it suits them.
Your friend,
Dean Priest.
Emily watched Ilse nervously as she read the letter. Dean had picked up on the hints she had written in her letter to him; but now she was a little afraid that she herself might have understood wrong how things stood between her and Ilse. What if Ilse would be shocked and horrified at the implications? But she should have known her friend better than to expect her to be shocked and horrified at anything. When Ilse finished the letter, she looked up with conspiratory delight. Then she threw herself at Emily’s neck.
“Oh, darling! You got us that pretty house! I’ll love you forever, I promise I’ll keep it neat and lovely while you work at your writing…”
Emily laughed and hugged her tight, knowing she wasn’t going to expect Ilse to be any great wonder at domestic arts no matter how much she might promise now. It didn't matter matter; they would get by. She delighted in domestic duties to balance out her writing work, and Ilse would eventually learn anything she set her mind to.
“Yes, it will be ours, I’ve bought it from Dean with my writing incomes, and we can move in as soon as we like. I don’t suppose anyone will think much about it; they don’t expect me to get married anyway, though of course they will be disappointed that you do not.”
Ilse laughed. “Oh, I think anyone who might have ended up my husband can be extremely glad I’m not getting married. I’d have made a dreadful wife. But, dear Emily, I promise I’ll be the best and most devoted friend and partner to you.”
“I know it,” Emily said heartfully.
“And darned what anyone else thinks.”
“You and I have always done exactly what is right for us, regardless of what anyone else thinks, haven’t we?” Emily said.
“Oh, indeed. That’s why I took a liking to you the first time I saw you and have adored you ever since.”
“We’ll be good for each other, Ilse.”
Ilse looked at the letter in her hand and smiled. “It’s queer – who would have thought that Dean out of all people would understand? No, actually, it’s dreadfully appropriate – he if anyone would. But he always seemed so strange, it’s funny to think of him as the only one who understands…”
“The most important thing is that we understand, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is,” Ilse said, and there was an impish gleam in her eyes that suggested she would no longer wait for what needed to pass between them next. And indeed, in the next moment she closed the distance between them, and Emily suddenly found out that there was much delight to be discovered on their Isles of Enchantment.
They remained a long time in the shadows of the trees, their eyes, hands and lips making promises that seemed as new and eternal as summer morning.