I posted some of these snippets two years ago, but took the story down as some of the snippets got inserted into their own stories and some turned out not to have happened that way after all. Also, since I made a guessing game out of it, I did torture some sentences to provide pronouns rather names. So here, without the guessing, and with one extra little bit are some Valentine day scenes

Valentines

1932 Beckfoot (Between WDMTGTS and the Picts and the Martyrs. This one probably only makes sense if you have read "Just after Christmas")

It didn't have the full postal address on the envelope. Of course, the Walkers would never pass on her address without her permission. Nevertheless, Captain Curtledge had pieced together enough of the address from what she and the children had said to ensure that the letter reached Molly on the correct day.

"This is not intended as a Valentine in the normal sense, and please do not worry that I intend to express feelings for you in a manner that would embarrass us both. I respect your decision and admire your honesty. I hope you will not think it me telling you how much I enjoyed making your acquaintance – and that to think of you will always make me smile."

It had better remain a-might-have-been, Molly thought. She could offer him no more than affectionate friendship tinged with romance. He deserved more.

"Well," she said aloud to the letter in her hand. "Truth be told, I smile rather fondly when I think of you, too. But you deserve to be first with someone, and I can never give you that."

1938 - London

"Your post, Miss Blackett."

On every other day of term time, post for Nancy and the other "Young lady lodger" (Joan was a first year student from Warwickshire), was placed on the hall table. There was usually plenty of it. Mother, Peggy and John wrote every week and it was an unusual week without at least two other letters. Joan seemed to write to half the girls who had been in her form at school and they wrote back with equal enthusiasm. Nancy, smiled, thanked her landlady with as much charm and dignity as she could muster and went out into the cold February wind with the package tucked into her bag and her hat well pulled down. There was no danger of forgetting to wear gloves today. She could have gone back to her bedroom to read it, but she was not about to give her landlady that satisfaction.

The college library would be as good a place as any to open it. She had plenty of time. Whatever it was, it was more than just a letter.

It was a picture – quite a simple one but done carefully. Cut lengths of straw in different shades colours had been glued down on a piece of dark brown card to show a landscape. There was part of a lake, mountains, a small island with a tree at one end and, minutely, two small boats. One had a sail in the very lightest coloured straw, and the sail of the other was nearly as dark as the background. Perhaps one of the civil war refugees had shown him the technique. You only needed to see the care with which Swallow and Amazon were done to know that he made the picture himself. The neat fragment of paper with it said simply "with love".

She sat thinking for a long time, and was late, after all, for the nine o'clock lecture.

1940

The card was tasteful, but nothing special. It simply said, "Be my Valentine?" It was a card with a light touch. Perhaps a card wary of rejection? A card trying to avoid any commitment? Perhaps merely a mildly flirtatious card? It would be easier to tell, if she knew who it was from, she thought. Peggy was more than usually cheerful for the rest of that day.

1941 (If you have read "Gerry Wimsey falls in love" this makes more sense)

There would be no post for Dorothea that day. There would have been. There would have been a card, a gift, some extravagant gesture that would have made her laugh and say "Oh, Gerry!" and remember briefly that he was a Duke's son before he kissed her and made her forget it again. They hadn't had a single Christmas, a single birthday, a single Easter or a single Valentine's Day. Dorothea wanted to scream at the sheer injustice of it.

There was a letter for her. A recorded delivery with a covering note, thoughtfully phrased, careful to spare her from shock. It could not spare her from grief.

My beloved,

If you are reading this, I'm not around anymore, but I couldn't bear the thought of never sending you a Valentine. I hope Uncle Peter, or more likely Aunt Harriet has sent this in such a way as not to give you too severe a shock…

1942

The dread twisting at her guts when they heard the news was entirely personal. If there was any news of Jim would anyone think to tell her? There was no particular reason why they should. She had no address she could write to. Perhaps Mrs Walker might have the address of the aunt who had looked after him after the collision with the 'bus? Peggy spent two days frozen with indecision - or rather frozen with the dread of what she might hear.

She cried when she received the letter. They were tears of relief. He was alive. He was well enough to write to her. He had not, after all, been in Singapore when it fell. All this mattered so much that what he said in his letter seemed a minor point at first. Then she read it again and it seemed a very far from minor point that he might feel very much the same way about her as she did about him.

1943

The envelope was addressed to her formally. It looked so business-like that Susan had no inkling about the contents until she opened it, although the date, which she had after all only just entered in the drugs book, should have warned her.

You are quite the loveliest person I have ever met. I hope you will not mind me telling you so.

Sisters do not blush. Officers never get flustered. Providing it didn't show, it probably didn't matter. He was probably looking at her now. She would not turn round or glance at him, but she smiled as she slipped the note into her pocket. She was reasonably sure Tom had seen the smile.