The Secret Letter

by Debbie Rix

‘Don’t worry – I’ll be there…’

  Freddie’s letter was full of news: he had been selected to fly bombers, training initially on Oxfords and Ansons. It was all very intense, he told her. There was theory to study, in addition to one hundred hours a week of flying experience. He loved it and felt, at last, he was doing something important.

  Included with the letter was a photograph: it showed him leaning casually against his plane on a brilliantly sunny day, wearing his RAF uniform and a pair of aviator sunglasses, looking sophisticated and handsome. Lying on her bed in the dormitory, Imogen propped the photograph against the alarm clock on her bedside table and gazed at it. Disappointingly, he had made no mention of their last meeting in the letter; nor was there was any reference to the brief kiss they had shared. She had spent the previous few weeks day-dreaming about him, and secretly she had hoped for some sort of declaration in this letter – even a ‘PS I love you…’ would have been enough. She turned the letter over and her heart leapt when she saw that he had written an extra note on the back.

  Dear Ginny, meant to post this earlier, but got dragged out to a dance in the town. The locals here are so friendly and the girls are really pretty – so natural. We had a wild time.

  With love,

  Freddie

  She lay back on her bed, her eyes filling with tears. It was as if he had completely forgotten their evening together. He made no mention of the kiss, and certainly no mention of loving her. She felt a fool for having nurtured such romantic fantasies; they were nothing but girlish dreams, she realised. While he was living a glamorous life in Canada, she’d be taking her final exams. Their lives were poles apart. Of course he didn’t love her. He’d simply indulged her that evening. Tearfully, she put his letter, along with the photograph, into the bottom of her suitcase beneath her bed.

  Having missed the school bus, Imogen set off for school on her bike. Half way round the lake, she stopped to watch a flotilla of little dinghies scudding across the sparkling water. Dougie had taken her sailing one afternoon, she remembered. They’d had a lovely time, tacking back and forth across the lake. Now, as sat miserably on the wooden bench in the sunshine, she realised she had not thought about Dougie for months. She had written to him once or twice soon after he’d left for the army, but had never heard back. At the time she’d been relieved that he seemed to have forgotten her. She’d always suspected their relationship wouldn’t last. Now she wondered if she would ever be able to feel such indifference for Freddie. Somehow she doubted it.

  Glancing down at her wristwatch, she realised, to her horror, that she was due at school in five minutes to take the register for the Lower Fourth. Pedalling fast, she careered into the school grounds from the main road, her bike juddering over the cattle grid. As she raced down the gravel drive towards the main door she braked sharply and the bike skidded on the gravel, throwing her off. Her school hat flew up into the air and landed ten feet away on the lawn. Momentarily stunned, she lay quite still, watching the wheels of her bike spinning hypnotically in the sunshine. Closing her eyes, she became aware of a throbbing pain in her lower leg.

  ‘Cosa è successo? Are you all right?’

  Opening her eyes with a start, she was surprised to find a handsome dark-haired young man leaning over her. Imogen didn’t recognise either him or his accent, but it sounded a little like French. She smiled bravely and tried to stand up, but the pain was too severe and she collapsed back down on the gravel drive.

  ‘Let me help you,’ he said, effortlessly picking her up, and carrying her into the school hall where he lay her gently down on a battered old sofa.

  ‘I will get your things,’ he said, returning a few minutes later with her hat and school bag before walking off down the corridor, revealing a red circle on the back of his jacket.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she called out.

  ‘To find someone.’

  The school secretary came bustling out into the hall.

  ‘Oh dear, Imogen. What’s happened to you?’

  ‘I fell off my bike, Miss Fuller. This kind man picked me up.’

  Miss Fuller looked askance at the young man. ‘Oh Sergio – yes. He’s helping in the gardens. He’s Italian,’ she said to Imogen, as if his nationality was all the explanation that was required. ‘You can go now, Sergio,’ she said to him, flapping her hands as if shooing away a flock of birds.

  He removed his cap and bowed low to Miss Fuller, and then again to Imogen.

  ‘At your service,’ he said, in his deep, dark voice.

  Imogen’s grazed leg was bathed in iodine and bandaged up in the school sanatorium. As the day wore on, it stiffened and she was let off games and most of her prefect duties. At four o’clock, when she came out of school, she found her bicycle leaning against the front wall of the building, next to the front door. Sergio, she presumed, had left it there. It struck her that he had the same dark good looks as Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorro – a film she had recently seen with Joy. Tyrone Power was a ‘dreamboat’ according to Joy, and Imogen had to agree. She slung her bag into the basket on the front of her bike and climbed onto the seat. But as she began to turn the pedals, the pain in her knee and shin was so severe she had to climb off and limp slowly towards the school gates, wheeling her bike.

  Sergio appeared from the direction of the vegetable garden.

  ‘Hello again,’ he called out. ‘How is your leg? Does it still hurt?’

  ‘Yes – rather a lot, as it happens.’

  ‘Let me help you,’ he said, taking the bike from her.

  ‘Miss Fuller said you’re Italian.’

  ‘Sì– yes.’

  ‘And how did you end up here – in the Lake District, of all places?’ she asked.

  ‘I was shot down in an aeroplane.’

  Imogen looked momentarily confused.

  ‘I was in the air force,’ he explained.

  ‘Oh,’ Imogen said, brightly, ‘what a coincidence, I have a friend in the air force.’ She blushed. ‘How silly of me – he’s in the Royal Air Force, of course.’

  The Italian smiled.

  ‘But you’re not a prisoner, are you? I mean, you work in the garden – that’s hardly a prison, is it?’

  ‘Well at first I was in a camp, but they need help on farms and in the quarries. I like gardening and farm work; my father was a farmer and I’d rather be working.’

  ‘Your English is very good,’ she said, wondering if all Italian farmers had such impressive language abilities.

  ‘I am a teacher,’ he said, as if reading her mind. ‘In Torino. I teach English to school students.’

  At the junction to the main road, he held the bike steady for her climb onto.

  ‘Where do you live?’ he asked.

  ‘Keswick – it’s about two miles.’

  ‘You cannot go so far. Wait here. I will find help.’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ she called after him, as he ran down the drive. A few moments later he reappeared in a truck being driven by Jimmy, the head gardener.

  ‘Hello there, Miss,’ said Jimmy, jumping to the ground. ‘You been in the wars?’

  ‘Yes, I have rather. But this nice man has been a huge help.’

  ‘Well climb in. Sergio will put your bike in the back. I’ll give you a lift back to town.’

  Installed in the cab of the truck, Imogen waved at Sergio as they headed towards Keswick.

  ‘That man… he’s a prisoner, isn’t he?’ asked Imogen.

  ‘Yes. We’ve been assigned a couple of them. Well, there’s no young men left here to do the hard work. Sergio works on a local farm most of the time, but we’re allowed to have him a few hours a week. It’s a big help. I can’t keep up otherwise. He does the vegetable garden for me.’

  ‘And is he nice? He seems nice.’

  ‘Oh Sergio’s OK. Not a big fan of Mussolini, I gather, or Hitler for that matter. He’s a teacher, really. Bit wasted doing the garden. But he’s a good bloke.’

  A few days aft
er she had fallen off her bike, Imogen, out of the blue, received a letter from Dougie.

  Dear Imogen,

  Thanks for your letters. I’m sorry I’ve not replied sooner – your letters take an age to arrive, and it’s hard to find the time to write back – it’s been that busy here… more like hell to tell the truth. I’m not allowed to say where we are, but it’s hot, I’ll tell you that. Hot and dirty and frightening.

  It’s odd to think of you back in the Lakes, with all that rain and water and clean grass. I miss it. I miss you. I thought, joining up, I’d be a man, but truth to tell, I feel like a frightened boy most of the time. I think of you often, and miss you – the softness of your skin, the silky feel of your hair, your laugh. I won’t ask you to wait for me, that wouldn’t be fair. But I hope I get to see you again sometime soon.

  All my love,

  Dougie

  Xxxx

  The letter disconcerted Imogen. It was clear that Dougie was still fond of her and although he had said, sensibly, that she shouldn’t wait for him, she now felt responsible, in some way, for his happiness. She fretted about whether she should reply. He had said he missed her, but she could not honestly reciprocate. She would not lie and pretend to love him. If she loved anyone – however hopelessly – it was Freddie, who was thousands of miles away training to be a pilot in Canada.

  The irony of her situation was not lost on her. There were two men in her life: one, a brave soldier boy whose love she could not return, and the other, a handsome airman who she adored, but who was immune, it seemed, to her charms.

  During that final school term, she resolved to put love behind her, and concentrate instead on revising for her exams. To her delight, she was accepted by the School of Architecture in Newcastle, and she began to look forward to a different sort of future – as an adult woman with a career of her own. Her friend Joy had decided to learn shorthand and typing when she left school, and on the afternoon of their final exam, they wandered down to the shores of the lake, and lay down beneath a weeping willow tree tree. They listened to the water lapping rhythmically nearby, as bees buzzed lazily around them.

  ‘Oh Ginny,’ said Joy, ‘isn’t it marvellous? No more school. No more uniform. We’re adults at last.’

  ‘I suppose we are,’ said Imogen, ‘although I don’t feel “adult” quite yet. I’m excited, obviously, about university. But there’s still a war on, remember. Out here in the countryside, you’d hardly know it was happening. But Mummy told me in her last letter that Newcastle has been taking quite a battering recently. And remember – I was nearly blown to smithereens when I went home at Easter. If it hadn’t been for Freddie I don’t know what would have happened.’

  ‘You’re still pining for him, aren’t you?’ said Joy, sympathetically. ‘I noticed you’d put his photograph away.’

  ‘Yes,’ Imogen said sadly. ‘It’s utterly hopeless. He’s thousands of miles away having a wonderful time, and I don’t really think he even knows I exist.’

  ‘But he wrote you a letter,’ Joy insisted.

  ‘Yes. A letter in which he told me he was a having a marvellous time with other girls. He was obviously trying to tell me, basically, to forget him.’

  ‘Oh Imogen. Don’t say that. No man writes to a girl unless he likes her; besides, you’ve still got Dougie. He adores you.’

  Imogen sat up suddenly. ‘Please don’t say that. I feel bad enough about Dougie as it is.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I know Dougie cares for me. And he’s sweet – he really is. But, oh, Joy…’

  She flopped back down and lay on her side, facing her friend, tears in her eyes, ‘I don’t love him. I don’t think I ever did – he was just a crush. It’s Freddie I love, but he doesn’t love me.’

  ‘Oh Ginny,’ Joy leaned over and stroked her friend’s cheek. ‘What a mess.’

  ‘No,’ said Imogen, wiping her eyes. ‘Don’t say that. It’s not a mess. It’s just the way things are. I’ve been thinking about this for a while – and I’ve made a decision. There will be no more men for me, at least not for a while. I’m going to get on with my life, start university, enjoy being at home, and not look back.’

  Joy, lying on the damp grass, listening to the sound of the lake water lapping against the stony shore and the distant bleating of sheep on the hillside, smiled at her friend.

  ‘That’s what I love about you, Ginny. You’re the most optimistic person I’ve ever met – apart from me that is.’ And they laughed.

  On the final Saturday before the end of term, Imogen and Joy met up with Helen in the tea shop in town. It was bustling with housewives taking a break from shopping, and the odd holidaymaker dressed in hiking gear.

  The girls had decided to have one final hill walk before they left the Lakes for good. After two years they were experienced hikers, and were properly dressed for the occasion in corduroy slacks and boots.

  ‘Oh Ginny, do you remember that first walk we did?’ said Helen, pouring tea into their cups. ‘Honestly Joy, you should have seen us – we went off in our school shoes! Do you remember, Ginny? We ended up slipping and sliding. We were lucky we didn’t break a leg.’

  ‘Oh Helen,’ said Imogen irritably. ‘You do exaggerate. But I agree – trousers and boots are best for walking. I’ve got maps and a packed lunch, too. And I bought some biscuits yesterday, although I found some of the fourth form trying to steal them.’

  ‘Mrs Latimer would be proud of us,’ said Helen. ‘Properly prepared at last!’

  ‘She would,’ said Imogen, taking a bite of her toasted teacake. ‘I often think we were so lucky with the Latimers. They were such a sweet pair.’

  ‘How’s their son – James, is it?’ Joy asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Imogen. ‘Last I heard, his leg was healed up and he’d been sent abroad – North Africa I think. God, I hope he makes it. Poor Mrs Latimer, she couldn’t cope with losing him too. She never really got over losing Arthur. I saw her at church last week, weeping over his grave. It was so sad.’

  ‘Have you heard from Dougie?’ asked Helen, pointedly. She had always been rather jealous that Douglas had preferred Imogen to her.

  ‘Not for a while,’ said Imogen, wishing Helen wasn’t always so interested in her personal life.

  ‘I’m surprised,’ said Helen, ‘I thought he was sweet on you.’

  ‘He was, for a bit. I was on him I suppose, but… the war has changed everything, hasn’t it?‘

  ‘Right then,’ said Joy, anxious to steer the conversation away from Dougie. ‘It’s time we were off. Skiddaw here we come.’

  The three girls left the tea shop and set off for the hills in high spirits. The sky was azure blue and the sun shone as they walked past a small hill farm on the lower slopes. They waved cheerfully at the farmer before crossing a beck, which was full to bursting after heavy rain. They jumped nimbly from stone to stone, landing safely on the other side. The track was a gentle incline at first, winding through green fields of grass and bracken. Gradually the hills and fells came into view.

  ‘I’m going to miss all this,’ said Imogen. ‘These hills are so beautiful.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll come back one day,’ said Joy, hopefully. ‘After the war, I mean.’

  As they climbed higher, they crossed streams that bounced and coursed down the shale-covered valleys. They passed a sheepfold that had been set up on the hills, and watched as a shepherd in the far distance drove his flock towards them.

  Gradually, as they climbed higher and higher, mist began to roll across the landscape.

  ‘Oh, I hope it won’t rain,’ declared Helen.

  ‘Well, what if it does?’ said Imogen. ‘We have to get to the top. I’m determined to do this before we leave.’

  They walked along the Cumbria Way with Great Calva to their right, covered in heather, just a few weeks away from flowering. In September the hillside would be swathed in purple. They passed an old stone building called Skiddaw House and headed on across
moorland, reaching Skiddaw Ridge just as the sun broke momentarily through the clouds.

  ‘Can we stop now?’ asked Helen. ‘We must be nearly at the top, surely?’

  ‘No!’ insisted Imogen. ‘It’s not far… that’s where we’re heading.’

  The three looked up towards the looming grey summit, as the sun retreated behind dark, threatening clouds.

  ‘Oh, Imogen – I really think we should go down,’ begged Helen. ‘I thought you had a bad leg, anyway?’

  ‘It’s much better, thank you,’ said Imogen, walking on determinedly. ‘Now, do stop moaning.’ The path became stonier as the group trudged towards the stone column that marked the summit. When they finally arrived at the top, they stood panting, catching their breath.

  ‘We made it!’ said Imogen. ‘Just look at that view.’ Beneath them lay a patchwork of green fields, and nestling on the water’s edge, the little town of Keswick.

  ‘You can just see the school down there,’ said Joy.

  ‘And the church in the distance,’ said Imogen. ‘Shall we sit down and really enjoy it?’

  ‘This might be the last time we ever see this,’ said Joy dreamily, wrapping her arms around her knees. ‘Next week we’ll be back in Newcastle. You’ll soon be off to university, and I’ll start secretarial college. What about you Helen?’

  ‘I’m going to be a teacher,’ Helen replied.

  ‘Really?’ said Joy. ‘I can’t imagine anything worse than working in a school. I can’t wait to get away.’

  ‘I like it,’ said Helen. ‘You know where you stand in a school… rules and so on.’

  ‘Well good for you,’ said Imogen. ‘You’ll be a good teacher, I’m sure.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Helen.

  ‘I know we’ve not always… got on,’ said Imogen. ‘But I am fond of you – you do know that?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Well,’ said Imogen, jumping to her feet, ‘I think we should all be very pleased with ourselves.

  ‘To the future!’ she shouted, the words ricocheting around the ring of grey-green hills surrounding Derwentwater. ‘To love, happiness and excitement!’