Such a Merry Christmas God has given us!
Your Mary
August 8, 1702
Dear Lemuel,
I have been melancholy since you left. I so wanted you Home, and then nothing matched my Hopes. I am sorry for the Quarrels and sorry, too, that you made your Departure while we were still quarrelling.
You have made fine Provision for us and left me no Fear that we shall ever fall upon the Parish. The little Flock of Sheep you left has already increased its Number by Five. For this I am grateful. The new House is Tight and Warm, in spite of being so Large. Since you spent so little Time in it, it often feels entirely mine. I cannot picture you at the Table or in the Bed. I never see you, sleeping under a Book in the Parlour, as I did in our old, damp Cottage. And since you chose, much against my Wishes, to send Johnny to School — really, he is not nearly so grown as you think him — it is a quiet House with me sometimes in one End of it, and Betty far away in the other. I find myself missing even Mrs. Nardac.
But I do confess I often enjoy the Size of it. Not when I am dusting, perhaps! But I like a Room up the Stairs. As I write this, from my Desk I look down on the Fields and Lanes and Gardens as if I had the Eyes of the Trees. I look down on all the other tiny Nests of the tiny People. They love, they fight, they dispute, they cheat, they betray, but I am far above it and absolutely untouched. And then Betty comes, with a Scrape or a Slight to suffer over. A Letter arrives from Johnny, and between those Words the Headmaster has allowed him to send, I can read his Misery. I am part of the World again, with all its Hurts and Affections. And I cannot remember why I ever thought it best to be otherwise.
Yesterday Betty found a Fledgling blown from its Nest. She has brought it inside and made the softest Box, but its Wing is damaged and I fear we can never release it. She is kept up constantly, even at night, with feeding. No one is more tender with Small Creatures than a Young Girl, and yet my Heart rebels against a Wild Thing kept forever in a Box.
We complete our Menagerie with Rats! Large as Dogs they sound as they pound over the Roof, but I have engaged a Man to deal with them. Money can buy Men for many but perhaps not all Purposes.
Mary
October 5, 1706
Dear Lemuel,
Where does this find you? This is a Letter I shall have to send in a Bottle with a Cork, by a strong Arm. It will wash ashore some months hence in Paradise and the Natives will read it, wondering if such a Place as green as England can really exist.
I fear my last Letter was uncharitable. I meant to be generous, but forgot. You know my Temper, little as you have seen it over the Years. I wished the Letter back as soon as I had sent it. Likely you did not receive it and are reading this in Wonder of what I might have written.
So I will only repeat that I was disappointed by your hasty Departure, but this time I was not surprized. We no longer seem to fit together, you and I. When you are Meditative, I wish to be Doing: when I am larkish, you choose that Moment to be sober. You are so credulous, I must learn again each time not to teaze. We are two Magnets, with an attractive but also a repulsive Power over one another. I fear the closer we stand, the more the Latter is evident.
“You married a Dreamer,” Mrs. Balnibarb said to me in the Lanes but yesterday, “and no Woman can live in the Clouds.” Yet I think I am one Woman who could, and wait only the Invitation. Time would teach us to mesh again, but Time is the one thing I never have from you.
Betty has a Beau in Mrs. Balnibarb’s middle boy, William. Are you pleased? He calls each Thursday and is as clean and polite as you could ask. He is a Farmer’s Son and I count his Prospects tolerable. Her Feelings are more difficult to discern. She colours if his Name is spoken but makes no effort in his Presence to delight him. She is still so young and I will counsel Delays if my Counsel is sought. I am sure this is as you would wish.
We shall at least want him a more sensible Man than his Father. Mr. Balnibarb often walks the Lanes so lost in Thought, I have seen William forced to cuff him soundly on the Ear, lest he walk into a Tree! And he has now given up that Farming proved over the Centuries, in favour of new Methods of Planting and Irrigation designed by a Scientist in London and circulated in our little County by Pamphlet. This Pamphlet argues the Water will have more Vitality if it is Pumped uphill before being spread downhill. Its Author has surely never seen a Field in his Life. As a result, all the Farms but Balnibarb’s enjoyed a most bountiful Harvest.
Our own Walnut Tree was so loaded with Fruits this year, it was dangerous to walk beneath. Nuts, like missiles, rained down at the slightest Breeze. We sit in front of the Fire and have our Pleasure, picking out the Meats and dreaming away the Evenings.
I do request that you discourage Johnny from going to Sea. I fear your Stories have had the opposite Effect. This is most unfair to me.
Rats on the Roofs, again, but I know just the Man to engage for it.
Mary
February 7, 1708
Dear Lemuel,
A short Letter today, and sad, to inform you of the Death of your Father. Betty and I were able to wait on him in his final Days. I know it is Customary to assure the Bereaved that the Sufferings were slight and not of long Duration. I wish I could, in Honesty, tell you this. Betty wept and wished him back, but I do not. He had already outlived his Health and Happiness, and if ever Death came as a Release, it came so to him. He missed you deeply and spoke of you often.
The Night after his Death he came to me in a Dream. He told me with great Clarity of his Willingness to be shed of a World he had always seen as Wicked. I was greatly impressed by the Vividness of this Dream, but as I have spoken of it, I have learnt that such Dreams are common on the Night of a Death. Whimsical Mr. Lugg believes the Dead have the one Night to return and tell us what needs to be said. I wish I had known to expect him. What Questions you could ask the Dead with a little Forewarning!
There were many at his Funeral, and all so respectful and sorry for your Loss. Johnny stood for you.
Our own Health, mine and our Children’s, continues good. Betty and William have reached an Understanding. They will be married when the Year’s Mourning is over and Johnny, young as he is, will give her to William.
Your own,
Mary
January 23, 1710
Dear Lemuel,
Your last Visit has finally borne its Fruit. I send this Letter to let you know your new Son, Samuel, has arrived. He came somewhat earlier than we anticipated. More than a Month has passed since his Birth, and I am only now able to take up Pen to tell you so. The Passage was perilous this time, but we are in Safe Harbour. Betty insists he favours me, but perhaps your Face is not so familiar to her. For my Part, his Face is exactly that of our dearest Johnny at the same age.
Betty, too, expects her second Child, so Son and Grandchildren will all grow up cozy together. Her little Anne grows daily. I will write again in the New Year when I hope to be stronger and more at Leisure.
Your loving,
Mary
July 5, 1712
Dear Lemuel,
I cannot know if my last Letter arrived, scrawled as it was in my Haste and Panic. But I send this one quickly after to let you know that Samuel’s Fever has ended and his Recovery seems assured. I could not bear to think of a Day without him or to imagine that he might pass from this World to the Next without you once setting Eyes upon his Face. How could you risk it?