With love,
Ivy
My Dear Rose,
April 10
th
'45
We're coming home! Well, not quite, so don't start packing your bags just yet. We're going to move to Spur, only a few hour's ferry ride away, and on a clear day I will be able to stand at the southern-most point and see our island. My island. Imagine that! I've got tears in my eyes at the mere thought of it. Of course, if you were ever to let me know that you forgive me then nothing would stop me from returning home properly, back to Sorel and to you.
With Edgar's training in cabinet making he shouldn't want for work and I've grown used to cleaning other people's houses, so all we need now is a home. Edgar will travel there later this month to find us one. He's as excited as I am to be returning to island life and I think he actually prefers the idea of returning to settle somewhere different, close enough to home to feel secure but without the memories and complications of actually
being
home. He'd never say that though, knowing as he does how much I love Sorel.
We won't miss our life here on the mainland, though on reflection there have been some good points. I'm pals with a lovely lady called Janet who has a little four-year-old girl (such a beautiful child though even naughtier than I used to be, if you can believe that!). We met when we were queuing for meat in the village (of course, there wasn't any to be had), and we've been thick as thieves since.
I'm knitting you a scarf for your birthday. You have no idea how hard it was to get wool in that colour! I had to trade my fat ration with Mrs Mills from two doors up. That woman is such a hoarder. I hope pink is still your favourite. I'll wear it for you, and keep it safe until I see you again. I have to believe I'll see you again one day.
It's strange but when I picture you it's always as a girl, years younger than you were when we last saw each other. Maybe I simply want to return to a kinder, more innocent time in our lives, before fate and adulthood drove their wedge between us? It scares me sometimes to think that if I saw you now I wouldn't even recognise you, I've become so blinkered. Wherever I go I scan the crowds for a child's figure when I should be on the lookout for a woman's. I'm sure in my heart that couldn't be possible, I'd always recognise my own sister, but in another few years, Rose, when time has carved new faces for us both, it might prove true.
I've recovered from the last miscarriage, and the doctor doesn't see why I can't carry a baby to full term in the future, but three pregnancies lost does make me fear that Edgar and I will never be blessed with children. He bears the pain silently and is such a comfort. I, on the other hand, wail and screech and am furious with the world for weeks afterwards, throwing myself around the house in a fury. I'm sure you can imagine the scenes.
I've felt queasy these last few days so I'm hopeful that I may be expecting again, but it's too early and I'm too nervous to say anything to anybody but you just yet.
Can I tell you another secret? It's not one I can share with anyone here. Only an islander would really understand, and you particularly, knowing me as you do. Edgar and I had a terrible argument a couple of weeks ago; he returned home from work for his lunch earlier than I was expecting and I was using my moonstones to cast a charm to ensure safe pregnancy. He was livid, as I'd promised when we married that I'd never practise spells again. I think my position as the island's charmer had always made him nervous and he can't separate a little white magic from the nightmare image he holds in his mind of a wart-nosed witch delivering hellfire from atop a broomstick. I've tried to tell him that my work never involved anything more exciting than curing trapped wind and lame cows (and, yes, performing the odd love spell), but he can be obstinate and unyielding, and on this subject particularly so.
We don't argue often but this one went around and around for hours. Eventually, I lost my temper and became as unreasonable as he. We went to bed in silence and awoke the next day in silence. When he left for work I turned straight to my book and performed a charm for forgetting. Is that terrible of me? The worst thing is I don't even feel guilty because when he came home that night he brought flowers and apologies and we've been like newly-weds ever since. I'd promised to burn my spell book but I've hidden it instead, buried in the garden next to the forget-me-nots. I was steeling myself to lie to him but he hasn't mentioned it again. It really is like he's dropped the whole argument from his memory. I am determined to do as he wants though, as it would make him happy and making him happy is what I live for. I ripped the spell from my book and enclose it with this letter so that I'm not ever tempted to use it again.
Just think, within a few months at most I'll be less than thirty miles from you, and separated only by air and water. I reckon I could even swim that distance (well, very nearly) if I had to, and you needed me.
I hope the parents are well, and have moved past the stage of cursing the day I was born.
I hope you have.
With my love to you,
Ivy
Spell To Forget
Write down that which you wish to forget onto
a twist of paper.
Dry and powder two knuckle-sized pieces of
Valerian Root.
Place in a bowl with two sprigs of
Crushed Rosemary and a torn
Sage leaf.
Add the paper.
Set the mix alight and breathe deeply of
the smoke it produces.
Forgetfulness will begin to enter your psyche.
When the smoke has cleared take to your bed
and when you awake your troubled thoughts
will have fled.
You may then discard the ashes.
To Make Another Forget:
This should only be attempted with caution and after much consideration for this involves meddling with another's mind.
Add to the bowl a photograph of the one
whom you wish to be relieved of their memory.
Or draw a picture and name their image.
Set the mix alight but
do not
breathe in the smoke.
Take the ashes after the flames have died
and bury them beneath a sapling oak.
Ensure that they are
not ever
disturbed.
Dearest Rose,
January 8
th
'46
We have a daughter! Born last week after an excruciating labour that, at times, I thought was going to kill us both. We're calling her Iris, do you like that name? She's a crotchety little thing, barely opens her eyes before she's yelling for something, and is as velvety-wrinkled as the inside of a pug's ear. Do you remember the time we dressed that unfortunate little creature of Mrs Ellis' in my doll's dress and bonnet, and it ran away before I could take them back off? She refused to admit there was a funny side when she saw her precious poppet shuffling up the garden path like a Victorian matron! She wouldn't hear of you being involved either, as I recall, the fault had to be all mine.
But back to Iris. She has all her fingers and toes, and is in the rudest health, so I'm informed. She's certainly the loudest baby in the nursery and is already attracting disapproving glances from the nurses! âBaby Gilbert, I'll bet,' whisper the other mothers, smugly nursing their own floppy, subdued babes. Can you believe some women are chloroformed when they are in labour? What that must do to those tiny hearts and souls I dread to think. I refused everything but the catnip tea I'd brought in with me, which, I have to say, did less than I was hoping to relieve the pain. I hadn't realised there'd be so much blood. I've been kept to my bed for the last week and I don't mind the rest actually.
Edgar was made to stay in the corridor and he had a terrible time listening to me screaming. He told me afterwards that there were quite a collection of expectant fathers in that night, some pacing the floor alongside him but others playing poker and chatting up the nurses. Can you imagine that? Edgar said that they're probably the ones who are on their fourth or fifth child and joked that when we get to that number he'll be so relaxed that he'll buy a pack of cards for himself!
He is delighted with Iris and spends more time at the nursery mooning over her than by my bed, but I forgive him that. I wanted to name her after you but he wasn't happy about it so Rose is to be one of her middle names.
The snow's piled up outside the windows here, so you must have snow on Sorel too. There's even ice crusting the sea shore, and on Christmas morning when Edgar was walking back from church a bird dropped from the sky and landed at his feet. It must have frozen to death. He brought it home to show me and I held it in my mittens and vowed to share my bread with its fellows every day from now on. I would have buried it if the ground hadn't been as hard as iron, so it went on the compost heap instead. There's a nice collection of people at church, and they're very accepting of us even though I sense some of them recognise our name and know about my past. I think my bulging dress helped with that somewhat, as nobody wants to judge a pregnant woman too harshly. We'll have Iris christened there in the spring.
I can hear my precious girl yelling for her supper so I have to go. Oh, the noise! She really is a tyrant. They'll be glad to see the back of the pair of us here.
Much love to you, as always.
Ivy
Ps.
I've heard your news, Rose. Married! The lady who works in the grocer's has a cousin who lives on Sorel and she said that this cousin dressed your hair last summer when you married. I was too taken aback to hide my shock well and she clearly wanted to probe but Iris started screaming and I was able to escape.
It's strange, and so sad, that neither of us were at the other's wedding. Do you remember when we were young and used to dress up in mother's bridal gown, we both promised that the other would be our maiden of honour when the day came? It was unthinkable then that it could be any other way. I should have been by your side on your wedding day, helping you on with your dress and kissing your forehead when I adjusted your veil. I should have been there.
But I'm so happy for you, I really am, and I hope with all my heart that he's worthy of you and you're happy too.
With love,
Ivy
My Dearest Rose,
September 14
th
'52
I'm snatching a moment between topping and tailing four big bowls of gooseberries, ready for pies and jam. Two bowls down now, two to go ⦠My back aches from bending over the folding table, which I've set up in the garden to catch the evening sun. Iris is standing at the far end, staring over the fence down towards the main road at the end of the lane. She's waiting for a glimpse of cars, and though barely more than one will pass in an hour she'll stand patiently and wait for an entire afternoon at a time. Strange child. To think only a year ago she would have had to be lifted to see over the fence.
I'm pregnant again. To be frank, I can barely summon any excitement this time. Two lost since Iris and god knows how many more yet to lose. Sometimes, when I lie in bed and can't sleep, I stare into the darkness and see them all gathered before me. Their souls flicker like fairies candles, circling the night above my head, each a separate remonstration before merging into one faint parade of light and then fading. There must be something terribly wrong with my womb, that it cannot cradle an infant beyond a couple of months before rejecting it in the cruellest way. My only comfort is the knowledge that this cannot go on for too much longer, as I'm surely past the height of my fertile years.
I heard from Mrs Avery at the grocer's (My pocket spy. Now that I've abandoned all pretence at dignity and beg for news she delights in feeding me what titbits she can glean), about father's death last winter. It was a shock more to the senses than the emotions, the way news of death will always shock, but I haven't cried at all and feel no real grief. We were never close, though, were we? Even
you
had to dance to his tune and I always felt as if I were more of an imposition on his time than anything else. I do wonder if he mellowed over the years, and I do hope that the end wasn't painful for him. How did mother take it? And how did you, Rosy Rose?
I've managed to save our beautiful oak from Edgar's axe (the oak that whispers to me when I go into the back garden to hang out the washing), though it took some persuasion. He said that it would one day prove to be a menace as it's too close to the house, which may well be true, but I know that he was really measuring its size and calculating the weight of logs it would provide. So we've compromised and he's cut down the ash instead, which I don't mind as it partially blocked my view from the kitchen window anyway.
I'm going to finish this letter as it's time Iris left her post at the garden fence and came indoors to wash her hands before tea. Tommy, the lovely young lad who delivers our milk, let me have a quart of thick yellow cream this morning, so we're going to have it with gooseberry tart if I ever finish this damn topping and tailing.