The Letter

by Ruth Saberton

  So today, as Matt and I pause in the centre of the rosemary garden, our breath forming white plumes in the icy air, I think about how Daisy and Kit managed to fit a lifetime of love into the few months they were granted. Their story will go on to touch so many lives.

  I hope they’re finally at peace.

  Then Matt inhales sharply.

  “Chloe! Do you see that? Is it real?”

  I follow his gaze and gasp. Lying on the marble is a solitary daisy, as fresh as though it’s just been picked from a summer meadow. A finger of sunlight creeps across the garden, parting the rosemary fronds and lighting upon the little white flower.

  I turn to Matt. I see a smile in his eyes, which I know he must see reflected in mine, because here is the answer I’ve been searching for. This is what Neil was trying to tell me all those months ago.

  Nothing is ever forgotten because love never ends.

  I take Matt’s hand in mine.

  “It’s love,” I say softly, “and there’s nothing more real in all the world. Love goes on forever.”

  THE END

  Dear Reader,

  I really hope you’ve enjoyed this book. It’s a novel that’s very important to me, as it’s a fictionalised homage to my Great-Aunt Ella’s own tragic love story. Her fiancé, Arthur Sidney Bacon, was lost in action in 1917 and Ella spent the rest of her life searching for him and wondering what happened to him. Her loss, one that was sadly not unique, is the inspiration for Daisy and Kit’s story. The author’s notes below explain this in far more detail. This book is written for Ella and Arthur. To unite them here after one hundred years apart means a great deal.

  I spent a lot of time researching the lives of young men and women during the First World War and I feel humbled by their bravery and sacrifice. There are so many stories, from those of the young men who fought in conditions of unimaginable horror, to the women who nursed them at the Front, to those who stayed behind to ‘keep the home fires burning’. Each story is full of courage and paints a picture of a generation who sacrificed everything so that future generations might enjoy the privilege of peace. Wilfred Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth at the start of the book sums up some of the horrors and appalling losses suffered. I would like to thank the Wilfred Owen Association for granting me permission to reproduce the poem here.

  As always, if you enjoyed this book please leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads or any other sites or pages that are relevant. I would also really appreciate it if you could tell other readers about The Letter so that my great-aunt and her fiancé’s story, and indeed the stories of all those brave people who inspired the book, live on in Daisy and Kit.

  x Ruth x

  Notes from the author

  The inspiration for The Letter

  This wasn’t a novel I expected to write. I was set to begin my next Polwenna Bay book (and I was looking forward to it) but one of the strange things about being an author is that books never do what they are supposed to and they all have their own timings.

  My parents were having a clear-out and my mother came across some old family documents, a tin and some pictures. Among these were faded sepia photographs of my great-aunt, Ella Hills, and her fiancé, Arthur Sidney Bacon. I was struck by how young they both were and by how modern they looked. I remembered Aunty Ella as a rather austere and, to my small child’s eyes, scary old lady. She lived alone and had never married. My granny had once told me how Ella’s entire life had been spent hoping her fiancé might return from the war. I didn’t understand back then what this meant but now I learned that Arthur had been declared missing in action during World War One. Like so many soldiers, his body was never found and there was no funeral held for him or grave to visit (hence Wilfred Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth at the start of the novel). Ella had no solid proof that her fiancé had died and no closure. He was last seen in hand-to-hand combat at the Battle of Cambrai on 30th November 1917.

  Ella refused to believe that Arthur was dead and hoped that he may have been in hospital, suffering from memory loss or shell shock. Perhaps he had even been so dreadfully wounded that he didn’t want her to know he was still alive? She spent years searching for him in France and Belgium, always hoping that she would find him in a hospital or sanatorium. She wrote endless letters to the Red Cross and never gave up hope. She even enlisted the help of her Member of Parliament. She left no stone unturned.

  My great-aunt never married or had a family of her own. She never loved another man and, like so many of her generation, the life Ella should have led was ended on the battlefield. I was really moved by her unwavering belief that Arthur was still alive. My great-aunt’s tenacity and loyalty were incredible and the future that was stolen from her was another tragedy of war. She is the inspiration for Daisy.

  Like Daisy, my Great-Aunt Ella enjoyed writing. Some letters and notes in her Bible are all that remain of this pursuit. A 1914 Princess Mary tin, some medals and some faded pictures of her fiancé in uniform were all she had left of Arthur. I have correspondence from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission which states where Arthur’s memorial is in northern France, but no other details of him survive. Theirs is a lost history and a bleak example of futures destroyed by conflict – a tragedy that was repeated millions and millions of times across Europe.

  Ella never wrote a novel or told her story, and I felt that I needed to do this for her before her story was lost. My granny has passed away and my mother and my uncle are the only people left who know the details. Ella left no property or diaries, and much of what I know about her has been gleaned from stories my grandmother told me and what my mother remembers. The character of Daisy Hills shares many of my great-aunt’s characteristics as well as her surname. Like Ella, Daisy Hills is determined, educated and independent.

  I couldn’t find out much about Arthur Sidney Bacon. He seems to have slipped from history, but he must have been very special to have held Ella’s heart for an entire lifetime. I had little more to go on than a faded picture of a handsome boy in uniform and my imagination. He served with the 10th Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Corps and died when he was only twenty-five, during the Battle of Cambrai. His name is carved on the Cambrai Memorial in the Louverval Military Cemetery in France. His body was never recovered.

  At this point I was also reading Siegfried Sassoon’s memoirs and Wilfred Owen’s poems. I began to imagine Kit as the heir to a big country estate. He is privileged like Sassoon; like Owen he dreams of being a poet and, like Arthur Bacon, he has a sweetheart he loves dearly. At odds with his traditional father and longing to write, Kit already has issues with family and class expectations. The social differences between Kit and Daisy are intended to add to the tension and the romance. These also explain why their relationship is kept a secret and their story remains unknown.

  Why I chose the title The Letter

  I wrote this book before I thought about a title. To call it after Daisy would give the first third of the novel away. I considered calling it The Window but this title didn’t excite me. It was only once I had finished the book that I realised the hidden letter in the priest hole is the key to the whole story. It also proves that Daisy was right all along: Kit wasn’t dead but less than a mile away from her. In the context of the early twentieth century, Kit truly believes he is doing the right thing for Daisy. Tragically, he underestimates her and the consequences. The letter is the only point where we hear Kit’s voice and it is the final piece in the puzzle, which reunites the young lovers.

  Why I didn’t write Kit’s poems

  I would never presume I could write poetry that would do justice to the horrific experiences young men like Kit, Gem and Dickon witnessed – and I felt very strongly that Kit’s poetic voice had to be authentic.

  As I undertook research for the book, I read the poems and memoirs of Siegfried Sassoon, the poems of Rupert Brooke and, of course, the poems of Wilfred Owen. I had studied Owen as an undergraduate and taught his work countless times at GCSE and A level. Approac
hing his writing with this story in mind, I was staggered by the power and immediacy of the language. He truly does convey the ‘pity of war’. Like Owen, Kit Rivers refines his poetic voice in the crucible of action and slaughter. I have chosen to leave the reader to imagine Kit’s verse and have hinted at poems by First World War poets which contain similar sentiments and subject matter.

  Why does Daisy vanish in the third part of the story?

  Daisy slips away from our sight. In contrast to the vibrant girl we grow fond of, who defies class and convention to see Kit and who has the courage of her convictions to search for him, the Great-Aunty Daisy that Dave Hills talks about is a shadowy figure. We don’t learn much more about her life other than that she became a nurse and searched extensively for Kit. She never married or became a writer but, like so many other women of her generation, lived a quiet and rather lonely life. Daisy’s later years echo my Great-Aunt Ella’s. The future she dreamed of was extinguished by the coming of war. Not all stories have exciting or happy endings. Chloe is upset when Dave doesn’t seem interested in his great-aunt, but to him Daisy was a distant and rather forbidding old lady, just as my Great-Aunt Ella was to me. Chloe and the reader have got to know the real Daisy through the medium of her diary and we see her very differently. Daisy is symbolic of a lost generation. She doesn’t die in action but quietly fades away as the years pass. Of course, she has a whole life and career we never know much about, but she chooses to have her ashes scattered at the place where she met Kit and fell in love. Her entire life is spent missing him.

  Why Daisy didn’t return for her diary or the poems

  Daisy is a pragmatic young woman. Once she leaves Cornwall the search for Kit is her focus. She knows his poems are safe and she has his picture, the engagement ring and her memories to sustain her. By the time the war is over and she has returned to England, her godfather has died. A new vicar would have been appointed to the living of Rosecraddick. Daisy knows Kit isn’t in Cornwall, so there’s no need for her to return there. She’s convinced he’s still alive and she will not rest until she finds him. She doesn’t seek to publish the hidden poems because she believes these belong to Kit. She is the guardian of the poetry and Daisy never feels she has the right to place them in the public domain.

  Why the present frames the past in The Letter

  I didn’t set out to write a historical novel and I don’t view The Letter in this way. Rather, it is a story that includes a journey into the past in order to help the heroine, Chloe Pencarrow, come to terms with her present. I wove details from both periods into each narrative, as I wanted the reader to feel that the past is never far away from our present. When we meet Gem Pencarrow we see aspects of his descendant Neil Pencarrow reflected in him, and we remember that Gem’s name is written in the memorial window. Gem’s future, like Kit’s, is already sealed.

  When I finished writing Daisy’s section of the book I felt a real sense of loss. I shared Chloe’s anger that she had become little more than a barely remembered maiden aunt. My Great-Aunt Ella was once as vibrant and as passionate and as determined as Daisy Hills, and writing the book helped me to see her this way. She is somebody I admire very much.

  Chloe’s interest in the past becomes her means of healing and the start of a new life with Matt, continuing the idea that past and present are hand in hand rather than linear.

  Where the book is set

  I live in beautiful Cornwall and I am exceedingly lucky to be surrounded by fantastic scenery. From the dramatic coastlines, to secret coves, to rolling countryside – it’s all here. This is also a county where the veil between the past and the present feels very thin. I live near the River Fowey and it gives me shivers to know that Daphne du Maurier walked past my house. Like me, she would have sailed her boat along this creek and out to sea. It’s a timeless place.

  Rosecraddick is my own blend of Talland Bay and Fowey, a seaside town on the Cornish coast where there are plenty of hidden coves and beaches for young lovers to meet. Talland Church overlooks the sweep of Talland Bay and is the inspiration for St Nonna’s. The war memorial can be found on the cliff path halfway between Talland and Polperro. It’s impressive and there’s a real sense of timelessness and peace as the waves roll towards the shore. The names carved on the cross are still borne by local people and friends of mine. It’s truly sobering to see how many families lost members. Some, like the Trehunnists in the story, lost every male over the age of eighteen.

  Military action

  I never intended The Letter to be a war story. It’s a novel about loss and love and the tenacity of the human spirit in the face of what seems like a hopeless cause. The First World War is the catalyst that divides Daisy and Kit, just as it divided Ella and Arthur, and the narrative is concerned with the impact of this rather than with the battles and events at the Front. My interest is centred on the microcosm of the everyday tragedies of lives shattered by the conflict – the Ellas, Anne Trehunnists, Dickons and Mrs Polmartins – rather than the horrors of trench warfare. There are many authors who write powerfully about the action and the trenches, but it was not my aim to take my readers to the Front but rather to concentrate on the private battles fought at home. I have deliberately left out details of battles and offensives.

  Sympathy for Dickon

  As I researched the novel and immersed myself in the world of the early twentieth century, one of the things I realised was that the main characters are very young – the age of the students that I (and Chloe) taught in secondary school. Dickon is eighteen and, like most eighteen-year-old boys, he is filled with confidence and feels invincible. Good-looking, relatively wealthy, and strong, he’s used to being admired and would have been considered a good catch for any young woman in Rosecraddick. When Daisy turns him down he is shocked as well as hurt. Dickon’s spiteful behaviour is a symptom of his immaturity and has consequences he could never have imagined. Dickon is another character whose life is destroyed by the war. He suffers from shell shock and when he returns from action he is utterly changed. We learn that he is consumed with guilt and believes God punished him for his past behaviour. Dickon spends the rest of his life atoning for this. His clumsy attempt to join Daisy and Kit through the daisy in the window is how Chloe begins to explore their story – so, ultimately, he does reunite them. Dickon ended his days a different man to the brash boy Daisy knew, and my feelings for him are sympathetic rather than judgemental. His lesson is a very hard one.

  Premonitions and the supernatural

  The story is filled with a sense of foreboding. Daisy’s childhood nightmare foreshadows the events that take place later in her life. The séance that Daisy attends is symptomatic of the growing fascination with the occult at this time as the bereaved sought to make sense of their losses and find comfort. Mrs Polmartin’s longing to contact her son and Nancy’s desire to reach Gem are understandable – although whether or not one believes in spirits coming through is a matter of personal opinion. Daisy certainly doesn’t, but when Kit doesn’t speak it is an affirmation of some kind that he is still alive.

  For Chloe Pencarrow, it’s a comfort to be surrounded by the world of 1914 and a welcome distraction from her own grief. Her interest in Kit and Daisy becomes a means of healing for her. She speaks a lot to Neil and sees him about the place too, more at the start of the novel than at the end. Is he a ghost or does she imagine him? We know Chloe has had a breakdown and comes to Cornwall to recover and paint. Does Neil vanish because he was only a figment of her imagination and she no longer hallucinates or needs the idea of his presence as she recovers? Or is it only when she begins to live again that Neil can slip away, at peace in the knowledge that the woman he loves is happy? These are questions for the reader to answer.

  My Great-Aunt

  Ella Isabelle Hills

  Ella’s fiancé

  Arthur Sidney Bacon

  Reported as Missing in Action 1917

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  I really hope you have enjoyed reading THE LETTER. If you did I would really appreciate a review on Amazon. It makes all the difference for a writer.

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  You might also enjoy my other books:

  Runaway Summer: Polwenna Bay 1

  A Time for Living: Polwenna Bay 2

  Winter Wishes: Polwenna Bay 3

  Treasure of the Heart: Polwenna Bay 4

  Recipe for Love: Polwenna Bay 5

  Magic in the Mist: Polwenna Bay novella

  Cornwall for Christmas: Polwenna Bay novella

  Rock My World

  The Season for Second Chances

  The Island Legacy

  Escape for the Summer

  Escape for Christmas

  Hobb’s Cottage

  Weight Till Christmas

  The Wedding Countdown

  Dead Romantic

  Katy Carter Wants a Hero

  Katy Carter Keeps a Secret

  Ellie Andrews Has Second Thoughts

  Amber Scott is Starting Over

  Writing as Jessica Fox

  The One That Got Away