Her letters

The moment Anne’s life began was when she became beautiful. She always was an enigmatic child, golden curls and rosy, round cheeks that older women pinched when they told her that she would grow up the prettiest in the village. But that was what they told all the little girls.

The day Anne first realised that she was beautiful it was her tenth birthday. She could not get much sleep, kept waiting for the tiny streak of light to come through the drapes and the sound of crickets to give way to birdsong - for the day to finally come for her to be grown. Beth had said that when you turned ten, you stopped being a child and became a lady. Conveniently, Beth had just turned ten at the time, and since then, Anne’s birthday had become the focus of her life. She was as a sandclock, her only purpose to count down the time. The time to becoming a lady. That was what she wanted, she decided then. But when the streak of light came, with it came a knock. Anne got out of bed, her feet had started reaching the bedframe now, but she liked that, it reminded her that she was not a child anymore. Not as of today.

The knock came again and it was her mother, coming in from the kitchen, with her hair messy and her apron stained, who answered it. Anne perked up. It could have been Beth, maybe another one of the neighbours’ girls, but she couldn’t think who else would come knocking this early hour.

As she was making the bed, Anne heard muffled speech. A man’s voice. She fully pulled away the sheets that separated her bed from the room. She was a lady after all and she had requested privacy, just in time to see her mother step back to reluctantly allow an unknown man in. The man’s eyes landed on Anne, as if it was exactly her that he was looking for, and she thought, instinctively, to pull the sheets back and bury herself in her blanket. But, she remembered, she was a lady.

‘‘Good morning, sir,’’ she offered with her politest of smiles, bowing her head slightly

‘‘Miss Anne,’’ the man said. The first time anyone had called her that, and she felt like he knew it.

‘‘Anne,’’ her mother’s tone was strict, but with something strange underneath it that Anne didn’t recognise at the time ‘‘Go clean up the kitchen’’

Anne complied, hurrying out of the room with one last glance towards the man. Her mother seemed to have been in the middle of preparing them breakfast. As she took it to the table in the room’s center, she heard her father’s voice. More muffled chatter as she wiped butter off the wooden counter. Then it grew louder, tenser. The door shut. The man was gone.

Anne had realised to an extent why the man had been there, and when she’d asked Beth if any men had come to her house, and gotten a curt no, she had realised, she was beautiful. She had cried herself to sleep that night, on her birthday - she did not wish to be a lady anymore.

At the time, Anne wished to see the world - all of the world. She didn’t know how much there was of it, but she wished to see it all. Now, at fourteen, she knew, the only way to do that was to marry a man who could take her. As she was growing older, more suitors came, but simple men, men of the village, ones that wouldn’t take her as far as the next town over, much less show her the world she dreamed of. That changed with the arrival of Sir Robert. A wealthy man from outside the village, where from, Anne did not know, yet she saw him as a vessel.

Anne knew how to read well, even having attended only the first four years of school. Yet she didn’t have many books. But a woman at church did. Some Sundays after service, if she was in a good mood, she would read to the village’s children. Anne did not see herself as a child, nor did anyone else, yet she still attended the readings, sitting amongst the small girls whom she saw her past self in. She wept for them sometimes. The boys most often took no interest in the readings and it was only the girls who gathered in front of the church. Anne felt content during those gatherings. Like she could forget her reality for just a second. The woman would read them stories of explorers and pirates and soldiers and kings, brave knights in shining armour. Soon, Anne stopped going to the readings. It made her dream of things, impossible things, and that was not who she was.

Bethany was the type of girl who reached for the stars. She told stories to Anne of how she was going to be all sorts of impossible things, how both of them would be. It was in these moments that Anne felt the strangest resentment towards her friend. When she turned fifteen, it became clear to Anne that she and Bethany lived in different worlds. While she threaded through this one, Beth lost herself to one unknown to Anne. All she knew was that it was somewhere dangerous.

Robert had been different than the other men. He didn’t try to woo her, he didn’t try to touch her. Just watched from afar. He was tall, with a rugged face and unkind eyes, but he could give her what she had always wanted, to an extent. The closest to freedom she could reach. Bethany could reach more, she thought, and buried this knowledge as deep as she could.

It was a late summer afternoon when Anne spotted Sir Robert while returning from the market. She was nearly sixteen at that point, she thought finding a husband was necessary soon. She dropped her basket as she neared him, thinking to get his attention. She pretended to have a dizzy spell and stumbled backwards. A few men came at her side, Sir Robert one of them, and she let herself fall into his arms. She wondered if she was not making too much of a theatre, but it ended with just her desired result in mind.

A month later, Anne was engaged. Robert would make her his wife in three nights’ time. Her and Bethany were walking through the village centre, an unusual silence having fallen between them. It was most often Bethany who spoke, and Anne who listened. But ever since the engagement to Sir Robert, something had shifted. Anne was not sure how to fill the void between them. Everything felt off balance. Anne had always thought Bethany would leave first, disappear one night and never be seen again, gone off to that world she had in her mind. Anne was prepared to be left by Bethany, but never prepared to be the one to leave her.

‘‘Are you going to come back?’’ Bethany spoke at last ‘‘To visit?’’ she added, almost unsurely, and Anne looked at her. Bethany was many things: she was kind, brave, stubborn, but not hesitant, not uncertain.

‘‘Yes,’’ Anne spoke without thinking. But she didn’t know whether Sir Robert would allow it, and the freedom she had been searching for all her life now felt trapping. For a moment, a foolish moment, she thought to go to her father and beg him not to give her away. Tell Bethany, no, she wasn’t going to visit, because both of them would get out of this village, out of this world, and go somewhere else, make a new life in a better world, and they’ll never leave each other. Then the moment passed. She wasn’t going to do any of that. She was going to marry Sir Robert, get away from here with him, she would see many places she had never seen before, and then she’ll have children and settle into a beautiful mansion and watch all of them grow up and marry and have kids of their own, and she’ll grow old. It wasn’t at all a bad life for a peasant girl. But she would visit.

It was a lot of preparations for the wedding. Anne had never looked as beautiful, her mother said, as she did in her wedding dress. Of course, she never looked as beautiful, she thought, this dress, Anne felt, cost more than her family’s home. Robert had gotten it for her, of course.

The wedding itself was a blur. She remembered her father handing her over to Robert, the priest speaking, then Robert vowing to love her until death. It was then that Anne’s eyes drifted to Bethany. That was the only moment she remembered clearly. It had felt like time had slowed down just for them. Her friend’s eyes were deep browns, like the bark of the trees that surrounded them, and Anne wanted to stare at them forever. Then she looked at Robert and spoke her vows with the voice of another woman, one she didn’t know. She just knew it wasn’t her. The night had not been awful, but not pleasant either. It had just been. Anne wondered if that’s how everything would be from now on. They left the next morning.

The first months Robert took her to beautiful places, introduced her to important men, and let her buy all of the dresses and jewelry she could have. It was as if she had stepped into another world, one of fairytales and magic. And yes, there was no love, but did it matter when there was so much more? For those first months, she didn’t even think to write home. She didn’t miss it. Until one night when she woke in a haze in the small hours, thinking she was back at her house. When she looked around the unfamiliar surroundings, she almost called out for her mother. Instead, she calmed herself down, put on her robe, and sat down on her husband’s desk. She first wrote the letter to her parents, telling them not to worry, she was safe, she was happy, she loved them. It was the second letter she struggled with. Wrote and rewrote many times. Should she start with a formal greeting, or was that too estranged? Anne tried to imagine what she’d say to Bethany if she were here.

Dear Bethany,

She wouldn’t say that. Anne lay her head on the desk. She was going to write this letter. Beth had always been smart, yet even she could not write like Anne could now. She was going to write the letter like a lady, not a peasant girl. In the past months, she had learned how to be a real lady. She remembered the time she’d thought she had become one. Now it was real. She wanted to impress Bethany, even make her jealous of who she had become. So she wrote.

My friend,

I must apologise. I haven’t written to you as I had promised myself I would. I’ve missed you, I hope you are well. I know I am. My husband has been treating me fairly kindly. I have seen the world, Beth, and it’s beautiful. There is so much more than the village, so much I was not aware of privy to before.

I must ask inquire as to how you have been. How is your family? Are you still helping your father at the stable? Have you gotten any suitors yet? You must tell me all about what has been happening in the village - I believe there is a beauty to such a small life - a certain charm the big city cannot offer. Yet I hope you can experience what I am experiencing.

I lie. I miss the village, at least I had people to love me. I wish I’d never married, I wish I had listened to myself more, I wish I’d been brave like you. The expensive dresses are uncomfortable, and the jewelry will suffocate me. I wish I’d listened to the stories you told me when we were children, and I wish we lived them now. I wish you were here or I was there, with you, it would have all been bearable.

Please Write to me soon! I shall expect your letter.

Love Warm wishes,

Anne

Anne stared at the scratched-out words. She hadn’t known she’d felt that way until just now. But it didn’t matter, nothing could be changed. She rewrote the letter, minus all the parts she had scratched out, and ripped up the original.

Shortly after, Anne received a letter back from her parents. Her mother couldn’t write, but she imagined her father reading the letter to her aloud and then them formulating a response together. It made her smile.

There was no letter back from Beth. Every day that passed without a word from her, Anne worried. She didn’t mention a word of it to Robert. Each time she returned from the post office disappointed, she expected him to ask her what was wrong, and then she would have said she was awaiting a letter from her father. He had asked once, barely paying attention to her response. Outside of their bed, they barely talked. She was a statuette for her husband to show to his friends, a prize.

Just as Anne had begun to consider asking her father about Bethany, a letter arrived at last. Anne went to the empty bedroom to open it, anticipation, joy, fear all battling inside her.

Anne,

It’s good that you are well. I also should apologise for not responding, but you should understand, I was preoccupied, I am getting married, to the younger brother of my sister’s husband. I wish you and Sir Robert a happy life.

Greetings,

Bethany

Anne flipped the paper around and stared in dazzled confusion at the letter for what could have been seconds, minutes, or an hour. Then she buried herself in the sheets of her marriage bed and cried. She did not wish to be a lady.

Two years passed, and Anne settled into the life of a rich man’s wife. She had no children yet, but Robert was patient with her. She still occasionally wrote to her parents, although it had become a painful thing now, they were a part of her old life, ones that did not fit into the life she had now. She’d heard from Bethany a couple of times, mostly shorter letters, but sometimes it almost felt like before. It was when Anne caught news of the birth of her friend’s son that she insisted to her husband that they must go back to the village. It was a couple of weeks of that insistence that had finally made Robert agree.

They made plans to travel a month later, and Anne sent a letter to her father, telling him she was arriving soon. A few days of travelling, that felt like weeks, and through the carriage window, Anne saw her village again. It hadn’t changed. She wanted to jump out of the carriage and kiss the ground. She laughed at the thought of it.

‘‘I’m glad you’re happy, Anne.’’ Robert took her hand stiffly.

A servant helped her out of the carriage when they stopped at last near Anne’s late home. She did her very best not to break out into a run while walking to the house, her husband a few steps behind. She knocked clearly two times. The door opened to her mother, who wrapped her in a tight hug. It was all Anne could do not to weep. She reunited with her father as well, as Robert stood by her side, looking down.

Her parents invited them inside and seemed ashamed to serve them a simple meal, not what Anne was used to now, yet the most delicious food she had tasted in years. She spoke to her parents of her new life in overwhelming positives, missing out on the loneliness and nostalgia. She had made acquaintances with the wives of Robert’s friends. They came for tea sometimes, or invited Anne to their homes to embroider or gossip. She described them as friends to her parents, but Anne only had one friend. At last, she asked them how Bethany was. They told her that her son was born healthy and named Alfred, and her husband had been so glad to have a boy. All the while, Anne could feel Robert tense beside her, no doubt wishing that for himself. But Anne was not thinking of him. She wanted to see Bethany, embrace her, weep to her, braid her hair, laugh with her, kiss her hands.

After the meal, she finally got the courage to go to her friend’s new home. It was strange walking in the village again, people recognised her, they greeted her kindly, but their eyes kept drifting to the jewelry and her expensive dress. Men turned their heads to her even more than before, they whistled and made advances, and Anne wished she had taken Robert with her so they wouldn’t dare.

She stood for minutes at the steps of Bethany’s new home. It was nothing like her grand house in the city, yet she felt inexplicably jealous. She knocked on the small wooden door, unsurely. A voice came from inside, saying something unintelligible. A voice she knew. Then the door opened, and in the doorway was a woman, a baby on her hip. Bethany. Since Anne had last seen her, she had become somebody else. She was always a skinny and pale child. Now her face was rounder, her body plumper, her cheeks pink. Her hair had grown and was tied together in a long braid with small blue flowers tangled in it. She wore the clothes of a woman, she was a woman now, a mother. But when Anne looked at her eyes, they were the same.

‘‘Anne’’ Bethany’s easy smile, that she’d opened the door with, had dropped

‘‘Who is it, honey?'' came the voice of a man from inside the house. Bethany did not respond, and the man came to the doorway. That’s when she seemed to shake off the strange spell that had befallen her, and a smile shone on her face once again. She took the baby in her arms and stepped closer to Anne.

‘‘This is my son, Alfie,’’ she said softly ‘‘Alfie, this is my friend, Anne.’’

Anne looked at the baby’s face. It had Beth’s eyes. She looked away ‘‘He’s beautiful’’

‘‘You are the Anne?’’ the man asked. She had forgotten his presence. He came next to Bethany to shake Anne’s hand. She did not remember a man ever shaking her hand ‘‘Bethany speaks kindly of you.’’

Anne gave the man her sweetest fake smile.

‘‘Wait for me, Anne,’’ Beth said then, unclearly. In a second, she added ‘‘I will put Alfie to sleep and we can go to the market together.’’ and with that, she disappeared inside, leaving Anne with the man, whose name she vaguely remembered from one of Bethany’s letters. Christian invited her inside and offered her tea, which she refused. The house was small, but cozy. Anne could hear Beth singing a lullaby to her child from the other room. She hadn’t known her friend could sing.

‘‘I was very lucky to marry Bethany, she is too good for me.’’ Christian was saying ‘‘I wish we had known each other better as children.’’ Anne had never heard a man speak this way of a woman ‘‘How was she, as a child?’’

‘‘She was… a dreamer,’’ Anne had said, and Christian was just about to reply when Bethany came out of the nursery and gently closed the door.

On the way to the market, they spoke of their lives. Beth mostly spoke of her child and Anne - of her possessions. On the way back, Beth told her about Christian - how well he had treated her, and Anne wondered what had happened to the magical world in her friend’s mind. As they neared Bethany’s house, Anne could not hold herself back.

‘‘Are you happy, Beth?’’ The question seemed to throw Bethany off, as if they were actors in a theater play and Anne had mistaken her lines.

‘‘Of course I am happy. I have a wonderful husband and a healthy child - what more could I wish for? Bethany seemed sure of her words, yet Anne did not believe them.

‘‘And what of all the things you wished of before?’’ Anne asked, and they both fell silent for a couple of minutes.

‘‘After you left, I realised you always were the smarter one,’’ Bethany said, quiet enough that Anne had to strain to hear ‘‘You lived in this world and I lost myself in dreams, foolish ones. This world had to be enough, so I made it enough. Now Anne knew what had happened to the world in Beth’s mind. She had broken it.

A week later, they had gone to leave. Her parents had sent her off, and then she had said her goodbyes with Beth. She had wrapped her in a hug, and Beth had said in her ear - Write to me. And so Anne did. Each week, she wrote a letter, the next she received a reply. She told Beth of everything that happened, from the gossip in the city to her new favourite dress she’d bought. Beth told her of the village and her son. When her nineteenth birthday came and went, and Anne was still not with child, Robert took her to the doctor, who had said she was too frail. Then her husband had sent her off to the sea with a couple of servants, to spend a summer there to get better. It had been a good summer, she had written to Bethany all about it.

A few months after she returned, she was with child. Her husband had been so glad, but she had not known how to feel. Her body soon began to change. Her breasts grew, and so did her stomach. Her arms and legs became softer, her face a bit fuller. She felt ugly, she spent most of the time at the house, embroidering. It had become something she enjoyed. But Bethany seemed thrilled to hear of her pregnancy, so Anne attempted to be as well.

She never felt pain greater than the birth of her daughter. But when she took her in her arms, she’d known it had been worth it. Robert had been disappointed by the birth of a daughter instead of a son, yet he had attempted to hide it. They decided on the name Elena, but Anne called her daughter Ella. The first year had been the worst. She didn’t want a governess raising Ella, didn’t want her to see another woman as a mother, so she tried to do most things on her own. Dark circles had settled under her eyes, and she did not care for dresses and jewelry now. She did not go out, only occasionally did Richard’s friends’ wives come to drink tea. She was exhausted, so she often sent them away on the pretext of being sick. The only thing she looked forward to was Beth’s letters.

Eventually, it became better. Ella had become the most precious thing in her life. Two years passed, and Anne started going out once again. Her daughter had started to remind her of Beth. She seemed to live in her own world, she spoke to the pigeons outside the window as if they could understand her, and made up stories and told them to Anne. One night, as she was tucking her daughter in bed, she told her how much she reminded her of a friend of hers.

‘‘Is it Lady Harper?’’ her daughter had asked, and Anne had smiled at her. That had been one of the women who’d come to drink tea with her, whom Ella had met a couple of times.

‘‘No. Her name is Bethany. Anne’s smile turned sad. She last saw Bethany when she was eighteen ‘‘We were friends since I was as small as you. She loved stories like you do. And she had an imagination as wild as yours.

‘‘Can I meet her?’’

‘‘One day.’’

Ella had just turned four when Anne got the news of her parents’ passing. She only cried when her family couldn’t see her. She had not written them a letter in months. Robert had told her they could travel to the village for the funeral.

‘‘Do you miss your mom?’’ Ella had asked in the carriage

‘‘Yes’’

‘‘I don’t want you to die too.’’

‘‘Hopefully not for a long time, dear.’’

It was Bethany whom Anne found waiting for her. She almost stumbled into her friend’s arms, nearly taking them both to the ground, and laughed, she laughed so much, until she wasn’t laughing anymore. She wept for her parents, but mostly she wept because she could see Beth again, she hadn’t seen her in six years. Her affection for her friend had only grown with the distance. Beth had had her second child, a girl, now two years old, and Alfred was six. Anne felt the time that had passed, saw how Beth had changed with it, but the thing between them remained.

She held on to her friend during the funeral, their families beside them. She spent almost all of the time they had in the village with her. She introduced her to Ella, who spent most of her time playing with Alfie. She learned Beth and her husband owned a shop now, and really, it was Bethany who ran most of it. It was on their last evening, as she and Beth were walking hand in hand by the village, that her friend had been awfully quiet.

‘‘What is it?’’ Anne had asked. Beth had not said anything for a while.

‘‘You are so important to me, Anne.’’ She had spoken at last ‘‘How did we end like this? Seeing each other once in six years?’’ Anne had paused at that. She remembered the days before her wedding, so many years ago, when she’d wished to leave everything behind and go away with Beth.

‘‘I’ll come back again. I’ll come back sooner’’ she had said, and she had seen in her friend’s face that she did not believe her. So she reached her hand out, uncertainly, and cupped Beth’s face with her palm ‘‘I will’’ she’d said. Then she’d repeated it. She’d hoped she would.

Three years went by. Ella had grown so much, she was learning to read and write now, and she was learning etiquette. Anne loved to watch her grow. Yet her husband had gotten more and more frustrated as the years passed. He wanted a son. An heir. He blamed Anne, even Ella he blamed. He sent Anne away again to the sea, yet she did not get pregnant after she returned. She begged him to let her visit her village again, but he would not agree. He’d accused her of not trying hard enough for him, for her family.

‘‘You do not care about me,’’ he had said ‘‘You only care about that peasant woman you write to.’’

‘‘I am a peasant woman,’’ she had said, and he had hit her.

‘‘Not anymore, you aren’t. You would do well to forget the village,’’ he had said. Then he’d hesitated. He’d gone to touch her bruised cheek, and she had slapped his hand away.

In the next months, she had stopped receiving letters from Beth. She’d thought her friend was angry with her for not visiting. She went one night to her room and she told Robert that if he didn’t let her visit the village, she would take Ella and she would leave. Less than a month later, they set out to travel there again. The days they took to reach it were some of the longest days of Anne’s life. She was anxious, she wondered how she would apologise to Beth.

When they arrived, nobody waited. Bethany did not know they were coming, of course, so Anne set out to get to her house, Robert and Ella following behind her. Ella was asking if she could play with Alfie again. Anne wondered how Beth will have changed. Anne was going to be twenty-eight in the coming months, Beth twenty-nine, they hadn’t seen each other in nearly four years. She would change that, she thought, next year, she would come again. Beth was going to forgive her now, she had to when she saw her. And if Robert didn’t let her travel again next year, she would take Ella and leave him. Maybe they could live here, in the village. Anne thought about it and decided it suited her. She took a deep breath and knocked.

It was not Bethany who greeted her. Christian stood in the doorway, and Anne knew when she saw him that something was wrong. He seemed tired, sad. When he saw her, he looked as if he wished to weep.

‘‘Christian, what is wrong?’’ she asked. For a moment, she thought, maybe Beth had left him, and a strange feeling filled her.

‘‘She’s gone,’’ he managed to croak out, and Anne thought she’d been right, Beth had left him. Yet she did not have time to process it, as he spoke again ‘‘She died.’’

‘‘No,’’ was all Anne managed to say ‘‘No, you’re wrong, she wrote to me just-’’

‘‘A month ago, she died.’’

Anne shook her head, and the world blurred. It was not possible. It couldn’t be. She lost her balance. It was Christian who caught her. All the pain she had ever felt - the loss of her childhood when she was a girl, having to leave her home, missing her mother, learning of Beth’s marriage to Christian, the birth of Ella, the death of her parents, the falling apart of her marriage, it was all as a speck of dust now, compared to what she felt. She didn’t know what she felt. She might have screamed Beth’s name. Her daughter seemed scared, but Anne couldn’t bring herself to think clearly. She pushed off Christian’s arms and fell. She wept, like she had not wept before.

She did not cry at the funeral. She did not feel she had tears left. Christian told her he’d pushed it off, in hopes she could attend. She knew she should feel gratitude, but she couldn’t. She had nothing left to feel. Robert had tried to put his arms around her, but she’d shrugged him off. It was after the service, when she was alone, that Christian had come to her. They hadn’t said anything to each other. She knew he must be grieving too, she was his wife, the mother of his children. Although what Anne felt was entirely different.

‘‘She had written you this,’’ he said, pushing a folded piece of paper into her hand. A letter, Anne realised ‘‘We found it after…’’ his voice faded away ‘‘I haven’t read it’’ he added quickly ‘‘She must not have been able to send it.’’

Anne clutched the letter and absentmindedly thanked Christian, then got up. She went in front of the church, where she used to listen to fairytales being read, sat on an old bench, and began reading. She was simultaneously shocked and not entirely surprised by what was written inside, but it made her smile, then laugh, then cry. She was wrong when she thought she had no tears left. It seemed now that was all she had left.

Soon after they arrived back in the city. Anne thought to burn the letter, but could not bring herself to. Instead, she hid it under a floorboard in her room.

Not a week after their arrival back, Anne got sick. She felt cold, and a presence settled in her chest. Then maybe it was an absence. Beth’s absence. The world felt off tilt without her, unbalanced, empty. Robert took her to all sorts of doctors, but none could figure out what was wrong. Two years went by like this, in coldness, Anne’s only light being her daughter. Ella tried to make her happy, sometimes almost succeeded. At least she still talked to the pigeons outside. But the pain in her chest did not go away, and the doctors told Robert she had no more than a couple of months.

It was on her daughter’s tenth birthday that Anne called her to her bedside and looked at her. She was now the age Anne was when she’d stopped being a child. Anne did not wish that to happen to Ella for a long time.

‘‘Ella,’’ she’d started with a raspy voice, and lost herself to a coughing fit. After she’d managed to take a breath, she’d continued ‘‘I want you to promise me something, dear.’’

‘‘Anything mother,’’ Ella had answered, taking her hands ‘‘Anything you wish.’’

‘‘Be kind,’’ Anne began, then reconsidered ‘‘Be brave. Always be brave. Do not ever let your wishes be silenced. What Anne meant to say was -Don’t end up like me. Now Anne knew she was right, those many years ago, this lifetime ago, when she’d thought to take Beth and run. And if she had been brave enough, she would have ‘‘Promise me.’’

‘‘I promise.’’ Ella had said, tears had welled up in her eyes, and Anne had brushed them away and smiled.

That night, Anne felt the end of her life nearing. She felt every heartbeat, every breath she took. She did not care where she went. Just hoped it was to the same place Beth did. And as the clock struck midnight, the absence in her chest overtook her.