The Arrival of Missives (13 page)

'It asks nothing of you! It does not speak of this world, or your responsibility.'

He hesitates. 'It shows humanity,' he says.

'One part of it. One part, one group, with a message that has truth only to those who choose to believe it.'

'It spoke of beauty. I taught you Keats, Shirley Fearn. Trust in Keats if you will not trust in me.'

Keats, Mr Tiller, my father, the men at Taunton, the men on that other Earth: my head swims with them all. None of them can be reasoned with. Not a one, and I want nothing more to do with them. 'I will not trust any of you,' I tell him. 'And you must not continue with this task, no more than I will marry Daniel Redmore.'

'Then you are of no further use to me,' he says, and passes a hand across his eyes. I sit in the silence and wait. I do not know how this conversation will end; I cannot simply leave, and yet there is no way to resolve this impasse. I once believed that there was a way to find peace no matter what the cause of the war, but now I understand. In some circumstances there simply is no middle ground. There is no place where two people may meet.

'I think perhaps—' I begin.

Mr Tiller springs toward me at speed; I expel a breath from my lungs in surprise and then he is upon me, leaning over me. I feel a cruel pain at the back of my head, and my hair is tugged so that my head is thrown backwards. He has my hair; he has me in his grasp, my hair in his fist, and then his other hand is on my neck, and he squeezes. There is no more time for thought. My body reacts. I kick out, and punch, and fight for my breath, for my life.

'Be still,' he demands. 'Be still, before I hurt you.'

The words, not the command, surprise me to obeisance. Does he not consider he is hurting me already?

'There now. I want your complete attention. You must do as you are told, Miss Fearn, and you are told to marry Mr Redmore. Is that so terrible? I know you enjoy his attention. It is obvious to the entire village how much you beg for it. Why would you fight that which comes naturally to you?'

I cannot look at his eyes, I cannot bear it. He is so close to me, and he looks at me with a dispassionate objectivity that reduces me to less than human. It is so wrong for him to be this close to me, and to have no love, no care, no sense of my humanity within him. He is a rock, indeed. He is so hard, and without empathy for the fact that I live, I breathe. I need to breathe.

'If you are disobedient then I will have to find another, more drastic, way to ensure that Mr Redmore's line does not come to pass. Do you understand me?'

He relaxes his grip upon my neck. As if freed from the pressure, I feel water well up in my eyes. There is a terrible sense of shame that overwhelms me for these tears, more so than I ever felt about Daniel's embrace. Shame – for being touched by Mr Tiller, for the way he looks at me as I cry.

'You will burn the letters I wrote to you in good faith,' he says, as he moves away. 'And you will do as we have discussed.' He limps back to the tea chest beside the dresser, and places one hand upon the newspaper within, crumpling it further.

I must find an advantage, I must not be destroyed. 'Will you stay until the wedding, sir?' I ask him. 'I would – prefer it. As you are the reason for it.'

He tilts his head, and considers the request. 'Very well.'

I manage to stand, and take small steps to the door, although my legs tremble, and I cannot imagine how I will get home upon them. He follows me to the door and it comes to me that we have told each other lies, and become equals in that regard. Yes, he is not my master, and now I am free to hate him. I hate him very much, for the way he imagines this world and my place within it to be, and for the way he wants to make the next world.

'Goodnight,' he says. 'I hope I haven't unduly surprised you. Just think on what you have seen, and I am certain you will come to see the need for forthright action.'

'Goodnight,' I say, and I walk down the path, slowly, and with care. Then I put one foot in front of the other for what seems like hours. No, more than hours – a universe of time. An entire universe of time.

*

Imagine losing a war.

Imagine the fear you feel as it seems all you believe in will be lost forever.

Imagine reaching the point where there are no further allies to find, and so, in desperation, you write a message and place it within a bottle and throw it into the ocean. You hope and pray it will reach somebody who will feel the same as you, and who will find a way to aid you across that great expanse of ocean. That maybe they will save you. You pour all your persuasion into that message, and you cast it adrift; you have no inkling as to what kind of person might find it. You can only hope that it is picked up by somebody who shares your beliefs. Perhaps, if you send many such messages, some will wash up on fertile soil.

This is what I imagine, as I sit on my bed and attempt to compose a letter to Daniel. I have received such a message, and I will not let it sow its seeds within me. I will not be a foot soldier for pale old men, no matter where they live or what pretty patterns they weave.

My neck is sore but unbruised, I think; my limbs still quake with fear. But I will write this letter before I climb into my bed tonight. The farm is quiet and my room is as warm and safe as ever it has been; if I cannot write down these things here and now, then I will never do it.

My dearest Daniel

I cannot marry you.

I could provide you with a number of reasons, and I will do so if you wish. It will probably make this easier, because every one of them will give you leave to think me mad. I would prefer it if you decide that you, also, do not want to marry a girl who could be so changeable in nature. We were not meant to be together; will that do?

I suppose it will not, and you will want to draw this out, and meet face to face, and I will oblige. It will not change the outcome.

I would have liked to have gone to Taunton and taken you with me. I would have searched for a way to be together that came without all the usual words. I am sorry that I was cruel to you, on the day of the interview, when I stood upon the smile; for it was cruelty to wilfully misunderstand you at that moment. I hope you appreciate that I am not deliberately being cruel now.

I have one favour to ask of you: do not come to the wedding rehearsal on Sunday afternoon, or speak of this matter to anyone before that time. I would like the opportunity to explain all myself to our parents, in the church, at that appointed time. It would be easier if you were not there to hear my words.

Your friend forever,

Miss Shirley Fearn

I put away the pen and ink, and seal the letter in an envelope. It is all I can do. I will hand it to him tomorrow morning, when I go into the village to fetch the bread. And then what?

Sunday afternoon awaits.

*

Not all plans run smoothly.

I would have liked my own company for this task, but my mother decides to come with me, and so we take a slow walk into the village while she grasps the opportunity to talk to me about wedding arrangements: the flowers, the cake, the chimney sweep who will come in the morning, the silver sixpence that must be placed in my shoe. She is working so hard to ward off a disaster that has already happened.

We collect the bread from the bakery, served by a sullen Phyllis, and as we step outside I tell my mother that I have a letter to deliver to Daniel. She raises her eyebrows, but does not comment.

We walk past the school. It is Saturday, and all is quiet within. I wonder what Mr Tiller has taught the children this past week, and whether they have taken every word as truth. Once I thought that a bitter teacher spoils a pupil; I wonder now if it there is not an innate bitterness at the heart of education, which always comes with hidden meanings and a high cost.

We reach the village green, and my mother waits by the maypole, which has not yet been taken down, as I make my way into the smithy's yard. Mr Redmore and Dennis are at work together – one holds a large piece of metal still in tongs while the other hammers it flat upon the anvil – and they look up in unison as I call out a hesitant greeting in between ringing blows.

'He's at market,' calls Dennis. 'Saturday is Taunton day, you know that. Have you lost your brains in the rush to get to the altar?'

Mr Redmore puts down the tongs, wipes his hands upon his stiff leather apron, and then cuffs Dennis around the back of the head, which makes me smile. Of course, Daniel is not here, how could I have forgotten? So much has happened that even the simplest of facts is passing me by. I am disgusted with the relief I feel as I hand over the letter to Mr Redmore. I do not have to see Daniel at this moment, and I do not have to explain to him why I need to record in a letter that which I cannot bear to say in words.

'Would you see Daniel gets this, please, Mr Redmore? It is very important.'

His old eyes flash surprise as he replies, 'Very well, that I can do. Are you well, miss?'

'Yes thank you,' I say.

'Only you look a little wearied, but then, perhaps brides-to-be do. I remember when I got married—' He shrugs. 'Well, enough of that. I must get back to the work in hand.'

I picture him as a young man, in the days approaching the saying of his vows; he has quite the kindest expression I have ever seen. It occurs to me that he has only ever wanted his sons to be happy, and that he wants me to be happy too. I take his hand in mine, and squeeze it.

'Thank you so very much,' I say.

Then I walk away before either one of us can say more.

All depends on keeping the breaking of the engagement as a secret, but my mother takes one look at my face as I meet her on the green and reads everything there.

'Oh, you foolish girl,' she says. 'Foolish, foolish. Quick, go back and retrieve the letter and rip it into pieces, before it's too late.'

I shake my head. I am expecting such rage from her, but instead she puts a hand on my shoulder, and says, 'Why, Shirley?'

'It is too complicated…'

She sighs. I have a sudden feeling that she has been expecting this all along. 'Come. Let's get home.'

We start the walk out of the village, back up the hill that leads to the farm. There are so many things she could say and I am so grateful that she decides to say none of them. I already know my father will be apoplectic. I already know that everyone will laugh, and point, and consider me used and discarded, good for nothing any more. I do not need her to tell me.

Instead she says, 'When I was a little younger than you I met your father at a fayre. He bought me a baked potato without even asking first; he was bold, and bright, and he had a reputation back then – the kind of reputation that does a girl no good and a man no harm at all. He had got a girl into trouble in his own village, was the word, and then had refused to marry her, although nobody could produce the name of this girl when I asked for details. Perhaps it was all a lie. I didn't really care, anyway. My parents forbade it so I sneaked from the house to see him, and got caught, of course, being quite useless at such acts. He agreed to marry me, though, which surprised everyone. It did not seem to matter whether I agreed to marry him.'

She does not say more.

We cross the stile and walk up the edge of the lower field together. How calm she is; how different to what I was expecting.

'Thank you,' I say, although I cannot exactly explain for what.

'I wanted you to be better, to be beyond all this.' She gestures at the ground, the sky. 'But the more you learned, the further you got away from me, until I could not recognise myself in you. I have been so lonely, watching you make your plans from such a distance, with your head in the clouds. And I became bitter as you excluded me. I could not understand it. But this act – this I understand.' She takes my hand, and squeezes it.

'How can that be so? I do not understand it myself.'

'What will you do?'

There is no answer to give her.

'You cannot go to Taunton,' she says. 'Put that out of your mind.'

'I no longer want to be a teacher.'

'Good, because they did not want you. A letter came days ago. They wrote that you did not have the correct attitude for a schoolmistress. I destroyed it before your father could read it, and take pleasure in it.'

They do not want me. They do not want me; well, I hold fast to my thoughts. I do not want them. No more rooms of quiet, seated, suppressed children. No more thoughts that I do not form myself.

'I admire you,' my mother says. We continue to walk to the farm; where else would we go? 'I wish I had your courage. I have long admired it from afar. I will help, as I can, to find a path for you through life.'

Honesty compels me to say, 'Perhaps you should not formulate such thoughts until you discover what I have said in the letter to Daniel.'

She nods. 'Very well. When will you tell your father?'

'Tomorrow afternoon. At the rehearsal. Do not come. Make an excuse, I beg of you. You will find out all later.'

'It will all come out in the wash, and then we can decide what to do. There will be happiness, eventually. I do not doubt it.'