Kay's Story pt 4 - The End of the Letter

Sylvia continued: “My request then is this: come act as governess to Burt and Corliss.  My father will pay you fifty pounds a month and will reimburse  your passage upon arrival in Scotland.  I realize it is not an excessive amount, but it should certainly be helpful to your family, with your brother in the war and all.  (Have you had news from him recently?)

            “You may wonder why I do not seek a tutor for my siblings from a  nearer vicinity.  It was my father who mentioned your name at the start of this discussion.  It seems he took a liking to you during your stay here, enough to insist we ask you first, although I can’t imagine finding someone here would be easy.  We are more affected by the war than you.  Everybody is needed to make ends meet.  So considering my father’s special request, your affection for this country, and the work opportunity, not to mention what I can only predict would be Burt and Corliss’ absolute rapture, I beg you to consider coming.”

            George hissed out a disbelieving laugh.  “The nerve of that woman!  Writing like she knows you so well!  Well she don’t know how close you are with your family, eh Lianna?  You’d never leave them for that long, would ya?  Not during the war anyway.  Not with Peter away too!”

            But Elianna wasn’t listening.  She read on.  When George realized her determined focus, he shrunk a few inches in confidence and hastened to catch up with her in the letter.

            “And what of our less than harmonious acquaintance, you may ask? Forgive me for being so forward, but, while I always treated you with perfect civility (mainly for David’s sake), I was not unaware of your negative feelings toward me.  Your seeming perfect concord and years of friendship with David are not anything I can compete with, Elianna.  I am painfully aware of this.  However, my prayer is that you might overcome these negative feelings toward me for the sake of the good of both my family and yours.  (You may also be comforted in being so much closer to where David is?  Forgive me if I’ve overstepped here.  I am truly desperate for you to come.)”

            Elianna grimaced, being cut to the heart.  She pitter-pattered her feet anxiously on the ground beneath her.  George looked over her fine, feminine features highlighted by the burning glow of the torch.  Sylvia had hit the nail on the head with that argument mentioned just in passing, though Elianna had likely thought of it the moment she read of Sylvia intimating that she go there.  The chord that bound David and Elianna even across great distances had been stretched long and thin, and now that there was opportunity to decrease this extent of elongated reaching, there was no choice to the matter.  Elianna would go, he knew.  George’s bright kindlings of hope wavered and burned out so quickly, it felt like all the air had been sucked right out of him.  Her face had been the light on his horizon during his two years in the war.  Seeing her again in person was a dream come true and now, as dreams go, he had to wake up and face reality—Elianna would never be his, not while David was alive, even if he was engaged to another woman.  He wondered if Elianna knew this.

            Sylvia’s letter concluded, “Enclosed in this package is my diary from my time there, through to September 1914.  It is my hope that in reading it you might see my true admiration, respect for, and great love for David.  I do not, in my heart of hearts, think there is another man like him on earth, in devoted faithfulness to God or humility in serving.  Even if, while reading, you cannot yet see any kindredness to me as a friend, you should not be able to miss my sincere and true love for David.  I’ve sent the diary in faith that you will come, returning it to me yourself.  The times recorded are some of my dearest pearls of memories—irreplaceable. 

            “Please send me word by the end of the summer if you will come or if I must embark on the near impossible task of finding someone else. 

            Yours sincerely,

                                    Sylvia.”

They sat in silence looking over the calm water, both contemplative, all blithe merriment of reunion darkened by an imaginationless bore of a woman thousands of miles away.  A woman that none here but the Ashmores had admired and delighted in.  To be sure not all the Ashmores had taken to Sylvia—not Frankie (but perhaps he’d been too young), Violet, or Rosemary (For their deep fondness for Elianna bound them in fierce loyalty), but Lord and Lady Ashmore unequivocally, and David himself most surprisingly.  Though the rest of Northridge did not warm much to Sylvia or her brother Eric, she would go down in the community’s annuls as Sylvia—the only girl that ever made Lord Ashmore laugh.  It seemed Sylvia’s huffy Scottish accent and dry humour were the particular mix that uncovered Lord Ashmore’s funny bone.  The community had long since given up hope that he had one in his anatomy.  Everyone liked her a bit more after that, even if they didn’t mean to. 

            “So, what you gonna do, Lianna?  Am I gonna have to say goodbye to you as quickly as I’ve said hello?”

            Elianna turned to him now and took in his goofy uneven features with fondness filling her heart.  The years away hadn’t changed him, though she didn’t know yet all he’d seen.  That was what was wonderful about George—you could count on him to always be jovial George; he brought an optimistic lightness to any situation.

            “I don’t know, George.  It’s a lot to ask.  I’ll have to ask mother and father’s opinion of course and…my Father in heaven, too.”

            “Righto.  I’ll pray for you, too, Lianna,” George smiled small, jumping off the low tree bough on which they’d been sitting and gallantly offering Elianna his arm with grand gesture. 

            She laughed thankfully and took his arm.  Elianna had much to think about but was much too exhausted at that point to begin laying Sylvia’s proposition out before her parents.  George walked her home, for it had become quite dark by now, and Elianna lay down on her bed heavily, not bothering to undress or brush her hair.  She looked out the small window to the supposed “lesser light” of the moon, feeling nourishment course in her from it’s beauty and luminance.  It was only a few short hours until dawn before she finally fell asleep, unable to stop replaying the memories she had written to David about.  When sleep finally claimed her, the comforting sound of Edinburgh’s coast “gushing pearls” played its melody in her dreams.