Your Greatest Love
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| Candy and Terry in Candy Candy |
"I won't love like you did!" Terry Grandchester exclaimed, solemnly swearing that he would never love a woman like his father had to his mother. Terry Grandchester is . . . dashing, princely, handsome but also bad-tempered, ill-mannered. A son of a good family which means in the manga world: a rich family. But in Candy Candy, he is Candy's greatest love, her second love after Anthony’s death. Terry’s personality is at the other end of Anthony’s. Candy first mistook Terry for Anthony as she first gaze at him in the dark night effected by the night's foggy air. She had seen him tear and his sad face. She wonders what is bothering him. Candy is warm-hearted, compassionate young female protagonist but Terry is not. When Candy approaches Terry, he gets defensive —jibing, chaffing, hooting at her —calling her "freckled-face" and "flat-nosed." He pokes fun at her. Terry gets off on making Candy upset. But Candy cannot forget his sorrowful tears, her first impression of him. And first impressions lasts.
Terry and Candy attend a boarding school in London. Candy has been sent there by her mysterious benefactor, William Ardley, whose identity is unknown to readers for her best interest. (After Anthony's horrifying death, Candy left the Lakewood house, no longer able to bear to live in the same house full of memories of Anthony.)
London promises to be a good change of scenery for Candy. She still has not forgotten Anthony. Thinking of him while in London, she finds a picture of Anthony in her friend’s album and asks to keep a picture of him while she is with her male friends at the boarding school. Anthony is dear to Candy's heart. (When Candy cried, saddened by Anthony's death, Albert, an older male but good character, consoled her and said to her, "Is this how you're showing your gratitude towards meeting someone like Anthony?" Albert counseled Candy and told her she should come out in the end with her best side, a better person having met a boy like Anthony. Not go on sad but to put her best step forward, putting on your best dress before going to church. Albert lets Candy know that those that leave us are kept alive within us, in our hearts.]
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| Terry Grandchester at London Boarding School |
Annie, her childhood friend from the orphanage, attends the London boarding school also, but she turns away from Candy, pretending not to know her. She asks to be seated next to Eliza instead in class. Eventually, Candy and Annie become friendly again after Annie's secret as a former orphan has been disclosed (to her horror). Candy had been selflessly concerned for Annie all this time. She never doubts Annie, faithfully believing they would become friends again.
Terry Grandchester is known (all right) with his peers. When Terry comes in the room, everyone hushes, turns their heads. He is a rebel: a bad boy with a playboy reputation. A playboy who makes good marks. Aside from his bad behavior, he is from a prestigious family; his father is Richard Grandchester, a family of wealth. Candy meets Terry again (one-on-one) in the grassy planes outside of school’s main campus. Candy likes to lie down on the grass, pretending it is like her hills at Pony's. One day, Neil and a boy tease, intimate Candy, getting physically too close to her. Then (dashing) Terry steps in, helping her against the rowdy boys, making them run for the hills. Terry nullifies his good deed by saying a biting remark: "It's not that I wanted to help you, I just hate people like them." Terry is full of remarks like this. He can be nice but follows it with undercutting comments which can slice the nicety away.
Swinging into Terry's room one night (like a female Tarzan) instead of her other boy friends' rooms at school, Candy finds out the tears behind Terry’s eyes while they were on board the ship en route to London. She finds pictures of Eleanor Baker, a famous actress, and a hand-written message with her signature: "To Terry, my son, who I love much." More than one head shot photos of Ms. Baker (which Terry crossed out in angst) are in his room. Terry catches Candy in the act, and his face darkens, casting a shadow on his visage with anger; consequently he warns her not to say anything to anyone of what she has just seen. Terry is the famous Eleanor Baker's secret child. Candy agrees. One night, Candy hears horses neighing as Terry rides on it late in the dark night. It is Terry. The noise of the horses' neighing sends shock waves to Candy. She faints. Terry finds her and carries her to the nurse. Candy is unconscious and keeps murmuring, calling for Anthony's name. Terry hears her cries for Anthony. Candy's clear and vivid memories recalls every details from every moments in her life including Anthony’s death: the tree leaves danced side-by-side against each other, while the fragrant scent of the green grass pervaded the air on the day Anthony fell off the horse and died. Here in London, she lives the same weather conditions —leaves dancing against the gentle breeze and fragrant grasses— when she hears a horse being ridden on suddenly late at night.
Terry and Candy continue seeing one another at her fake Pony's hill, where she tries to be a good influence on Terry: taking away his cigarettes and replacing it with a harmonica instead. Terry plays the harmonica. Eliza spreads disreputable lies about Candy, calling her a thief, identifying her as once-a-house-servant to her and her family. Terry responds (in his classic style), "Well, tell them I smoke, drink, and fight," retorting with a remark that he is equally as bad as her. Terry comes in bruised and drunk to Candy's room one night after a bad fight. Candy rushes out on the town to get him medicine and upon her travel, she meets Albert again. Albert has been an older, supportive figure to Candy, who says guiding, consoling words to her. She does not yet realize she has the most supportive relationship with Albert. Candy returns to her room but Terry has already left.
Candy and Terry share a moment alone in the spring time during the May festival. She dances with him dressed as Juliet (as in Romeo and Juliet) in a fancy costume sent by her unknown benefactor, William Ardley. Candy and Terry dance together. Her heart beats — (BA-BUM, BA-BUM, and BA-BUM), skipping — as he is near. Terry makes Candy forget Anthony and harshly so —taking her on a thrashing horseback ride — forcing her to confront her dark childhood past and horrific image of Anthony’s deathly fall. Then he kisses her pressingly, consummately. He wrings and twists Anthony out of Candy’s mind. Surprised and out-maneuvered, Candy slaps him, calling him a playboy. But Terry’s character will unfold in a way that tells he is none of the things people paint him to be. One, he is not a playboy. He holds a strong opinion on how his father dealt with his mother, Ms. Eleanor Baker, and he has sworn never to love a woman like his father had with his mother —casting her aside, eliminating her from his life. The reason Terry cried on board the ship to London was because his mother told him to go back, urging him not see her, turning him away. Ms. Baker told Terry not to misunderstand her feelings, but he is her secret, which nobody must know. Candy witnesses Terry arguing with his mother, who visits him in London. She hears Ms. Baker’s urging him he must be more understanding. Terry says the harshest words to his mother and Candy cannot take it anymore; she intervenes during their argument. Candy say to Ms. Baker that Terry loves his mother. And it helps Terry's relationship with his mother.
As Terry and Candy's relationship carries on, the reader gets a hint their lives are destined to be apart. They separate in London when angered Eliza (from Terry's ridiculing) sets up Terry and Candy by forging a fake note to meet late at night. The school's head mistress finds them and Candy is sent to school's prison. Terry is let off and resides in his room. When Terry finds out Candy's imprisonment while he surrounds himself in the comfort of his room and her, a dungeon room, Terry goes outside of the school's prison and stays besides her. Thereupon, Terry leaves the school. He cannot drive Candy down the wrong path and has to pursue his life. He leaves a short note to Candy. Candy finds the note and leaves the school also. She sneaks into a ship, boarding the ship by hiding inside a barrel used to load cargoes, purported for commercial shipment overseas. (Candy’s riffraff side is cute, a kid version of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid) She returns to Pony's, her home, her place of birth.
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| Candy sees Terry in Broadway |
Back in U.S., Candy pursues a career in nursing. After Albert writes her a letter during his stay in Africa, he mentions a nurse who resembles Candy and Candy is encouraged to pursue nursing as a career. It suits her. Candy stays in Chicago where a great grand Ardley mansion presides. Her friends surprise her at the hospital. One day, she comes across a newspaper article on Terry, a star in the Broadway production of Shakespeare's play. Candy is happy to learn of Terry's whereabouts. However, mean Eliza shakes Candy's confidence — telling her that a guy like Terry had already forgotten someone as forgettable as Candy — his starring role in a Broadway production of Shakespeare's play is with another beautiful actress, Suzanna. Terry's theater company is due for arrival in Chicago, where Candy now resides. Candy looks forward to seeing Terry again. It has been one year already since they have last seen one another. Time passes that quickly. Candy goes to see Terry in the play but Terry does not see her. He hears her cry out to him —her voice—but her voice amongst a crowd of screaming female fans is reduced to a faint chord. Terry turns around to look but does not see her.
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| Suzanne chases out Candy |
Candy sits outside the water fountain of Chicago’s streets —let-down and sorry for herself. Eliza's harsh words has gotten to her. She too thinks that Terry may have forgotten all about her. Perhaps what Candy and Terry had did not matter much to Terry. She gathers herself, (being the popcorn bouncing off-the-walls, buoyant and cheerful), and says to herself it is his loss. But at her last and final attempt, she visits Terry at his hotel. Meanwhile Terry attends a soiree after the play and hears Eliza's voice. Terry immediately suspects it must have been Candy's voice he heard outside before the screaming female fans. Terry goes searching for Candy at the hospital where she works. Back at the hotel, Suzanna greets Candy but chases her out. Suzanna does this with ease. Candy is easily deceived by Suzanna. Candy is an inexperienced sixteen-years-old. Suzanna likes Terry too, so she lies to Candy that he has tired and is asleep after the play, but she will tell him a fan has stopped by. Ouch, a fan! Not an important person in Terry’s life, but Candy has been reduced to a fan. Candy, disheartened by Suzanna’s referencing her as a mere fan, turns back to the streets of Chicago. Terry waits long outside her hospital but returns to his hotel. He has to make the early morning train. Terry leaves a note with the hospital and learns Candy has skipped out on her job duty to see him in the play tonight. Candy gets the note but it arrives tardy; upon reading his note the next morning, she dashes out to see him at the train station —barely making it in the nick of time as the train hoots its horns, leaving its tracks. Terry stands outside the train while on-board to see if Candy will show. The train starts to move from the station, and just then, the sight of Candy peers into his view—Candy’s running towards the train from around the corner of the train tracks. She runs up to the train, sees Terry and waves. Terry sees it is Candy also; he smiles. Candy is happy to see Terry. Terry is alive! (A romantic and a melodramatic scene in the manga.)
Candy has learned from Anthony's death that as long as that person is alive, you can always see each other again. Being alive is a blessing! She believes as long as you are both alive, you can always meet again. But her belief will soon fall apart. Candy would never see Terry again. She is about to incur a heavy loss that comes with tremendous distress. Terry invites Candy to New York, where another Shakespeare's play will take place with Terry as a leading star. He sends her the ticket. Candy gets her hopes up, excited and happy, to see Terry after anticipating for months of her time with him. The time has finally come! Their lives gets disrupted as Suzanna pushes Terry out of harm’s way during the rehearsal, using all her might in that small body of hers and takes the accidental blow instead, spiraling heavy sets of lights and equipment down on her small, lithe figure. Suzanna survives the accident but loses her right leg. Suzanna has been handicapped. Terry is tormented. This is especially hard on Terry because of his father's love or lack of love for his mother. Terry was supposed to see Candy. He had not expected Suzanna to like him. A slender girl like Suzanna to push him out of way is more than a daring act and throws everything off-crouse. Suzanna, no longer cast in the play, is replaced with a substitute. Terry, overwhelmed with guilt, shows up at the hospital every day and leaves a bouquet of flowers for Suzanna. A splash of dashing Terry for you . . .
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| Suzanne at the hospital |
Meanwhile, Candy— all happy and smiles—arrives in New York. She cannot help but smile in seeing Terry. The thought of seeing him makes her happy. She has been looking forward to seeing him and finally after more than a year has passed; her time is more than past due. Unaware of Terry’s predicament from the melodramatic stage accident, this new plight will sever and separate her and Terry forever. Terry greets Candy at the station but does not disclose his tormented state of mind. Candy, unsuspecting of his troubles, keeps on smiling at him only because she is so happy and so glad to see him. Inevitably, Candy overhears at a party that Suzanna took the fall at the stage accident and is now demanding Terry’s marriage. Candy screams inside: that is not love. She visits Suzanna at the hospital. Candy arrives at her hospital room only to find Suzanna missing in her bed while only a note lay on her bed to her mother. Not a small note, but a suicide note. Candy rushes out onto the roof and finds Suzanna, who is about to throw herself off in the cold, blustering winter. She grasps her legs in preventing her from throwing herself off the roof, holding tightly onto her legs. And there, she learns Suzanna’s right leg is . . . wooden. Suzanna is handicapped. Candy's face is frozen. She is shocked. Suzanna cries and said she would only be an impediment to Terry and Candy’s relationship by being alive. Candy stops Suzanna and right then Terry walks in on top of the roof. Terry carries Suzanna by the threshold and takes her back to her hospital bed. Terry is dashing, isn’t he? He cannot not help but carry Suzanna over by the threshold. Suzanna gets ambitious from his gesture. She wants to live and be with Terry. Of course, Candy cannot be in their way. Suddenly, Candy has now become the other woman. If Candy stays, she would only be an impediment to their relationship. Candy kicks herself out. (Readers surmise her as a doormat at times.) Not literally kicks herself out, but she accepts the fact that she would leave the city. Her heart sinks. She sits down —woeful and grief-stricken— preparing herself to say good-bye to Terry. Terry walks down to meet Candy. Candy puts on her cheerful face. Shrugging it off, she insists on getting back to Chicago. Not wanting to overextend her stay, she hurries down the stairs to leave the building. It is better this way. She does not want to drag out their break-up. Candy rushes down the stairs when Terry stops her, embracing her by holding her by her waistline, drawing her close to him one last time. Candy feels Terry's hot tears drooling down to her hair. She stays motionless. Terry thinks: if only we can hold on still like this. . . If only we can freeze time . . . not Not once turning her head back, Candy keeps on walking forward. She has to stay strong. (Albert has told her she must be strong, as an Ardley family member.) Candy walks out into the cold, snowing wintry night —saddened, dejected, and forlorn. She thinks to herself: Why did I get so revved up and excited to come here . . . just to break up? Candy boards the train en route to Chicago. She finds a seat but her courteous and selfless self finds a married couple with a baby without a seat and gives up her seat for these strangers. By the time the train arrives in Chicago, Candy has been found on the floor of the train: She has fainted. The emotional distress has been too unexpected and too sudden —overall too much. The train conductor finds her name: the Ardley family, an important name. She is swiftly taken to the hospital.
That's the storyline of her 2nd love, her greatest love. And now here is the poem inspired by their story:
Your Greatest Love
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