The Letter

by Ruth Saberton

  “Don’t be absurd. I was just looking at my new dress,” Daisy had said, but she’d caught Nancy’s eye-roll in the mirror and knew the other girl wasn’t fooled. No doubt Nancy would be speculating over the identity of the man who’d won Daisy’s affections. There would be gossip amongst the servants, and if Gem mentioned how Kit had once walked Daisy home then her secret might be discovered. Kit hadn’t said a great deal about his family, but Daisy knew there were tensions between him and his father. She was also realistic enough to understand that the daughter of a doctor would never be seen as a good match for him. She made a vow to be less cheerful (outwardly, at least), but it was proving difficult to suppress her happiness.

  “You need to be careful, Miss,” Gem had remarked the other morning when Daisy, humming to herself on the way back from picking peas, had passed him in the scullery.

  “Careful about what?” Daisy had said.

  Gem wouldn’t be drawn into any further discussion but his blue eyes were dark with concern.

  “You know what about, Miss,” was all he would say. “You know.”

  Troubled, Daisy had stared after him for a moment before the promise of another golden day spent with Kit had made any misgivings vanish like sea mist in sunlight. What on earth was there to be careful about? Gem was just being grumpy – probably because Nancy was always breathing down his neck about getting married. Their relationship seemed like very hard work indeed, especially for Gem, who was constantly having to please his beloved.

  Daisy and Kit, though, were two halves of the same soul and they never argued. They picnicked and walked and read poetry together, each equally amazed by the fact that the other thought and felt exactly the same way. Sometimes Kit shared the poems he was writing, asking her opinion and jotting pencilled notes in the margin of his notebook when she voiced her thoughts; other times he just sat and wrote while she swam. Poetry was his passion and his verses were poignant, catching moments and preserving them as if they were insects in amber. She did the same in her diary but never breathed a word of this to Kit. Daisy knew that her writing was by far inferior to his. Kit had a gift and when she read his work Daisy was certain he was destined to be as famous as his literary heroes.

  She only wished the days they spent together wouldn’t fly by so fast. She had a secret horror that their time together would soon run out. It wasn’t so much the recurring nightmare that had instilled this dread in her, as the realisation that they came from entirely different worlds. At some point Kit would return to his life of garden parties and hunt balls (where willowy debutantes would vie for his slow, sweet smiles), and she would journey back to London and become a teacher. She would never see Kit again except in her memory.

  Daisy’s heart sank at the thought. If only this summer could last forever.

  Although they never spoke of the differences between them – and in any case these didn’t seem to matter a jot when they were together – Daisy was all too aware that Kit was as out of her reach as the stars and the moon. A doctor’s daughter was not Kit’s social equal. Daisy’s papa wasn’t even a smart society physician: he was a doctor who worked with some of the poorest folk in London. Kit’s parents would no more approve of their friendship than her godfather would if he knew about it.

  Yet, even so, Kit understood her and she understood him. They thought the same way and he teased her and she teased him. She never called him “Mr Kit” as Gem did, and Kit never spoke to her the way he did to Gem. Daisy recognised that there was a class barrier between them, and to begin with she’d been very conscious of it – but when she’d raised the subject with him, Kit had brushed it aside impatiently.

  “We’re just people, Daisy,” he’d said, taking her hand and tracing the inside of her wrist with his forefinger, so that her soul ached with longing. “It’s nothing but chance what circumstances we’re born into.”

  “You don’t believe in God assigning each of us a place and wanting us to stay there?” Daisy had asked. Her godfather certainly did. Every Sunday they prayed for the King and Queen and the Rivers family, and Reverend Cutwell was always telling her how women should behave.

  At this suggestion, Kit had spread his hands in a gesture of exasperation. “I don’t think God works like that. No, it’s only a matter of luck that I was born into Rosecraddick Manor and not a slum somewhere. There’s nothing clever about an accident of birth. Being born to a title doesn’t make me any better than anyone else.”

  Daisy had nodded. Papa often spoke like this, but he and Mama held opinions that lots of others found shocking – disapproved of, even. Reverend Cutwell had called Papa a radical and, on her arrival, had made it clear that he hoped Daisy didn’t hold the same ideas. She wondered what he would say if he knew the lord of the manor’s son shared them. He’d probably be apoplectic.

  “So the fact that I’m the lord of the manor’s son and your papa is a doctor doesn’t stop us being friends, if that’s what you’re worrying about,” Kit had said firmly. “It might matter to my parents and their generation, but times are changing, Daisy, and I believe a day is coming when intellect and ability and character will matter much more than the luck of who one’s parents are.” He paused and looked out to sea, his green eyes troubled. “Especially if war comes. Death is a great leveller.”

  “Do you think there’ll be a war?” Daisy had been frantically reading the back of the Reverend’s paper over breakfast. It was all exceedingly complicated and trying to unpick it all over the marmalade wasn’t doing a great deal for her understanding.

  “I hope not,” Kit had said quietly. His top teeth worried at his bottom lip and his brow furrowed. “My father thinks it’s a possibility and he even sounds quite excited about it. Stupid old fool!”

  “You oughtn’t talk about your father like that,” Daisy had said reprovingly, but Kit had answered her with a bitter laugh.

  “You haven’t met him, Daisy. He’s a difficult man and very hard to reason with.”

  Daisy and Kit’s conversations always flowed as naturally as the tides, and Kit knew all about Daisy’s illness, her grief at the loss of her mother and her passion for the women’s suffrage movement. He understood how frustrated she felt about the restrictions that accompanied her gender, and he sympathised with her desire to write. They’d also discussed at length the increased strain upon his relationship with his father. Kit longed to be a poet and was hoping to take up his place at Oxford, but Colonel Rivers felt his son should abandon these plans and follow the family tradition of joining the army. Although Kit never said as much, Daisy gleaned that these weren’t new conflicts but rather old ones that were being thrown into harsh relief by the increasing tensions in Europe.

  “I suppose it’s hard for him, no longer being able to fight,” she’d offered.

  “Maybe he does feel frustrated,” Kit conceded. “Still, this is no conversation for such a beautiful afternoon! Come on, never mind all that now. Race you to the water!”

  And they’d left talk of war and class and religion behind, unable to think about much more than the sting of cold water on their limbs and the pure joy of slicing through the waves. But today, sitting in what she’d come to think of as their cove, Daisy shivered. In the daylight hours her old night terror was just a stalking horror, but sometimes snatches of it peered out of the shadows. Burning. Dead trees. Terrible, terrible heat. Was war coming after all?

  “You’re shaking. Have you caught a chill?” Kit asked now. “Here, Daisy, have my towel.”

  He reached into his basket and draped a stripy towel over her shoulders, gently patting her down as though she were a horse he was drying off. Daisy shivered again but this time it wasn’t from the cold. She was sure Kit felt the same way, even though he had never been anything but the perfect gentleman. Quite unable to stop herself, she reached out and touched his face, tracing the delicate planes with a wondering finger. His stubble rasped beneath her fingertip and in a heartbeat the ease between them evaporated like the salt water on Da
isy’s skin. Then Kit’s hands were cupping her face and his mouth was on hers.

  The touch of his lips made Daisy’s brain reel. Kit’s mouth was warm and strong against her lips, caressing her, teasing her and exploring. Instinctively, her lips parted as she kissed him back. Kit’s fingers wove into her hair as he kissed her deeply, like a drowning man seeking air. Daisy felt as though she could dissolve into him, and her senses swam with a longing for something she barely understood.

  His breathing ragged, Kit broke the kiss and pulled her close, cradling her head against his chest. Beneath his shirt Daisy heard the drumming of his heart. She held onto him tightly, unable to believe the intensity of what they’d shared.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said.

  Daisy couldn’t speak. She had never known anything could feel this way; she’d had no idea that something could feel so powerful, so overwhelming and so utterly, utterly right. She never wanted to let Kit go. She wanted to stay close to him, hear his heart beating and feel his skin pressed against hers. The dream flickered through her mind’s eye and then vanished, but her heart quailed and she held him even closer.

  “I love you, Kit,” she whispered. The words fell from her lips before she even knew she was going to say them, but somehow this didn’t matter; she couldn’t have stopped them even if she’d tried. Loving Kit was as natural to Daisy as breathing, and to tell him so was the sweetest relief she’d ever known.

  “And I love you, Daisy Alice Hills,” he said quietly, punctuating each word with a kiss. “I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you. When I’m not in your company I’m counting the moments until I see you again and looking forward to telling you all the things I’ve been storing up. You’re my first thought when I wake up and my last before I sleep. You’re everything to me and you always will be.”

  Daisy nodded. “There will never be anyone else for me. Never.”

  Just as she whispered these words, the sun slipped behind a cloud and a sharp wind whipped across the bay. Shivers rippled her skin and no matter how closely Kit held her or how tenderly he spoke, Daisy simply couldn’t get warm. She had the strangest feeling that she’d just sworn a sacred oath and that the rest of her life would be bound to honouring it.

  Daisy would love Kit Rivers until her eyes closed for the very last time. There would never be anyone else.

  Chapter 6

  Daisy, July 1914

  “You look very pretty today, Miss Hills. Green suits you. You ought to wear it more often.”

  Daisy, who was on her way out of church, looked up, startled by this confident address. Having spent the past hour staring longingly at the back of Kit’s golden head in the front pew and willing the hours to fly by until their next meeting, she hadn’t noticed that a stocky young man had fallen into step with her on the path.

  She recognised him straight away as Nancy’s cousin, Dickon Trehunnist, whose father owned the farm on the westerly side of Rosecraddick and supplied the Rectory with milk and cheese. Dickon was often to be found in the kitchen being fed by Mrs Polmartin and bossing Nancy about. Daisy supposed he was a handsome enough lad, well-muscled from physical work and with a head of thick straw-coloured hair and a determined sun-browned face, but there was something in the mocking curl of his lips and coldness of his blue eyes that made Daisy’s skin crawl. She generally avoided him. He seemed very inclined to chat to her, however, and Gem had teased Daisy on several occasions that Dickon was sweet on her.

  “You’d better watch out for him, Miss,” he’d said yesterday evening, waiting in the scullery for Nancy to finish washing up before he walked her home. “He’s a right one for the ladies, is Dickon. All the girls in Rosecraddick think he’s a catch and he knows it. I reckon you’re next on his list of hearts to conquer!”

  But Daisy’s heart was already conquered; her thoughts were brimful of Kit and the magical kisses they’d shared on the beach and during all their snatched meetings since. Kit was the sun and his brilliance eclipsed everyone else to the extent that she could barely see them. Yesterday they had picnicked on the cliffs, feasting on cold pease pudding, hunks of cheese and crusts of bread washed down with lemonade. As she’d lain on the grass with her head in his lap, Kit had tenderly stroked her face while reading out his poems. This image drifted through her memory, as beautiful and pulse-quickening as the language of his verse. Handsome Kit Rivers – with his extraordinary ability to weave words, those delicious kisses that made her smile inside, and his delicate, heart-shivering touch – was her world, her love and her everything. The very idea of Dickon Trehunnist taking his place was ridiculous. There was simply no comparison!

  “He’s definitely sweet on you,” Nancy had agreed, clattering the china in the sink. “I heard he’s planning to ask you to the next village dance.”

  Daisy had laughed out loud at this idea, but Nancy wasn’t laughing and neither was Gem. Rather, his brow was creased in a thoughtful expression and when he pushed his dark hair out of his eyes he did so with impatience, as though he was pushing worries aside too.

  “Be careful, Miss Daisy. I’ve known Dickon all my life and lads like him can turn when they don’t get their own way or if they notice certain things,” he’d warned. “I’d hate you, or anyone else, to be on the wrong side of him. I reckon he could be right nasty.”

  Daisy, unloading the Reverend’s tea tray, had almost dropped a cup and saucer. Did Gem know about her and Kit? Surely not? That would be impossible, given that they’d always been so careful. Nobody could have seen them together. The only thing Gem knew was that Kit had once walked her home after she’d fallen off a bicycle. Admittedly she’d written every detail of her relationship with Kit in her journal, but she’d taken the precaution of hiding it beneath a loose floorboard in her room, further concealed by a rug. Daisy now kept all her treasures there in a pretty biscuit tin Mrs Polmartin hadn’t wanted. In addition to her journal, the cache included a marble stopper from a bottle of picnic lemonade, several seashells they’d collected from the tide’s edge, and two poems Kit had written for her – the paper already worn on the folds and the ink smudged from constant rereading. Although Daisy adored them, Kit was embarrassed by these writings. (“Honestly, Daisy! They’re truly dreadful. The rhyme doesn’t scan and the language is so clichéd!”) These artefacts were worthless to most people but priceless to Daisy; when she was unable to sleep at night and instead sat up in bed with the draughts blowing through the window and her wavering candle causing shadows to leap, she pored over the contents of her tin like a miser would count his gold.

  This was her secret! Her wonderful, incredible, heart-stopping secret. There was no way Gem could know any of it, and Kit wouldn’t have breathed a word. His father was so terribly stern that if he thought his son was spending time with a humble doctor’s daughter he would probably birch Kit, eighteen or not. Kit had spoken a little about his parents’ expectations for him, and Daisy knew that Kit’s romance with her would never feature in his parents’ plans, regardless of her feelings for him. A glittering military career to match the Colonel’s, marriage to a suitable girl with a good fortune, and continuing the Rivers line at Rosecraddick Manor: these were all part of the future that his parents had laid out for their son since birth. It was little surprise that Kit found the weight of their expectations so hard to bear. He baulked at the idea of the army, longing instead to be a poet, and he loved her. A shadow always fell over his face when he talked about how he had to write in secret in a seldom-used part of the manor house. From this place he could see the roof of the Rectory; blushing, Kit had confessed that he’d even carved a little daisy into the windowsill there, to remind him of her. Whenever she could escape her godfather or Mrs Polmartin (who was always finding her sheets to mend or errands to run), Daisy would creep upstairs to her room and wave a handkerchief out of her window just in case Kit could see and know she was thinking of him. If she was able to get away to swim, she would tie one of her red hair ribbons to the latch and let it flutt
er in the breeze, a little streak of rebellion flying in the sky and a silent banner declaring her feelings.

  Although he never said as much, Daisy knew it pained Kit greatly that he had to keep their love secret, and so she never told him how much this hurt. She knew Kit wasn’t ashamed of her, but it made her heart ache to have to hide her feelings when every cell of her body wanted nothing more than to declare them to the world. No wonder Romeo and Juliet had only lasted a day before they’d asked Friar Laurence to marry them, Daisy had once reflected when scribbling in her diary by the light of a cold moon. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine her godfather would be nearly so obliging. He’d be much more likely to send her home on the next train. She’d sighed at this thought. The Reverend certainly wouldn’t understand. Rather, he would give her a big lecture on knowing one’s place. Having already had the misfortune of suffering such a sermon after the Reverend had seen her giggling with Nancy while pegging out washing, Daisy had no desire to be subjected to another. As if his dull Sunday sermons weren’t already torture enough!

  So, apart from this deep and secret sadness, Kit and Daisy talked about everything under the sun. The more they spoke, the clearer it became to Daisy and to Kit that the life mapped out for him was not the life he wanted. Daisy had come to realise just how unusual and how fortunate her own upbringing had been. There might not have been the privileges Kit enjoyed, but Papa (and Mama too when she was alive) had only wanted Daisy and Eddie to be happy.

  Daisy had considered probing further to discover whether Gem did know anything about her clandestine romance, but at this point a loud snort from Nancy had ripped into her thoughts.

  “There’s no reckon about it, Gem! Dickon’s mean and he’s spiteful too. I once caught him drowning kittens just for the fun of it. I begged and begged him not to, but he said they were pests and laughed when I cried. I think he enjoyed watching them suffer and it gave me nightmares for years.”