Her hand shook as she wrote the letter, excused to her room with an unsettled stomach that was only partly fictitious. It was very much on her mind that this could be the last communication she ever have with her family, she was risking this for a man who believed in her, who she loved, who saw more in her than she could even see in herself. Not cold feet, she was fully convinced this was what she wanted – a life away from here, with a purpose, with him – more a sadness that this was the way it had to be done, sneaking away and hoping that one day they may come to see her decision as a good one. The right one. It was down to them, and that made it all the more uncertain.
She signed her name and felt she was signing away the life that had lain before her, a weight on her mind, something for years she had accepted she would have to endure. Before the war at least she could have held hope that she may find a man her father deemed suitable who was kind and tolerant of her politics, allow her a hobby perhaps. As the war progressed it became apparent to her that the aristocratic young men she would eventually be expected to pick from were decreasing in number, her friends, her childhood playmates being picked off one by one. Those that were left were damaged, missing limbs or mentally tortured, mere boys forced into the state of old men.
And then there was Tom. Tom who presented her with a life she would never even have allowed herself to dream of. One in which she would not merely be a wife, if she wanted for more. She would be a mother, but that would not be the end of it. He made her laugh, and taught her things of the world, and was equally receptive to her teaching. He made her feel safe and content. Her skin prickled when he touched her, sensitizing every bit of her. He loved her, would guide her through life as she would him. He was the best friend she had ever had. She would marry him and be so much more than Mrs Branson. A man like him she had never known.
She folded the letter into an envelope and placed it on the mantelpiece. She took a breath and smoothed her skirts, pulled on her coat and gathered up her case and slipped from the room, locking the door behind her. Locking the life she was glad to escape away, long behind her.
