I know, I'm still woefully behind on quite a few of your projects here. I'm reading them, I promise. But it's been ages and I felt I probably owed you an update. With thanks ever to all of you reading and/or reviewing, and for generally being patient with me.
New Manse,
Glen St Mary,
Sept., 1927
Jo,
The house has gone very quiet. We have just sent Bruce off on the train to Kingsport. He went this morning, on the ten o'clock train, positively ebullient with ambition, in a way that is surely more his mother than myself. She has ever been the one with an active interest the things she pursues, where I more nearly stumble into them. I seem to recall I was in the middle of a Divinity degree before I realised I had skewered my courses that way. I don't regret it; you know better than anyone my love of an excuse to poke about in my books. But they could just as easily have been books on birding and I would never have realised.
The same cannot be said of Bruce at all, who talked all the way to the station about his plans for the coming term, so much so that Rosemary's parting advice was to stop between-times and catch his breath. I do not altogether think he took it in, so perhaps we are a little alike after all.
Anyway, it has left the house entirely too big, and I do not like it at all. You, no doubt, are well familiar with the feeling, having so lately let Naomi go. It was a lovely wedding – in the event I failed to mention it at the time, or afterwards over the shooting excursion. I don't believe I did, but that is no very good measure, and besides, it bears repeating. I suppose you have had her letter from Trinity House by now? We have had Una's, and not being this time under a flood, she's delighted at being able to work alongside her friend again. It's strange, I so often think of Ruthie in connection with Una, all those talks over tea, I suppose. I tend to forget she and Naomi must have worked their share of hours together between your Food Ministry and parochial visits.
If Evelyn St has gained your daughter, the Glen is markedly different without her. A Miss Millicent Drew has taken over the school, and you would not believe the sudden rash of children who have fallen ill in consequence. Nothing serious; in fact, nothing legitimate. Gil says all any of them are suffering is a healthy dose of boredom in the absence of lessons on obscure liturgical practice and the geography of the Pacific. We are host to a hoard of easily worried mothers though, and they are all of them taken in, or have been at least once each. Mary Douglas is the exception, and no surprise there. She'd send her children to school with varicella, given the chance, and that's a whole other source of irritation to Ingleside, as you'll appreciate.
I ought really to leave off here. The house is still too big, and far too quiet, and Rosemary has attempted to stem the worst of it with Sheep May Safely Graze. I owe it to her to at least try and stem some of that difference. Bach is lovely, of course, but not nearly the same thing, and she knows this as well as I do. And for all it evokes some of those evenings I spent listening to her play in the old West House, it doesn't stop my missing Bruce's insights on the railways and inquiries about books in my office. He was in the middle of The Golden Key when he left, and his bookmark – proclaiming him first at some Sunday School function or other years ago – lingers between the pages. I will add it to the parcel of things we intend to send on to him.
Love and blessings,
J.M.
P.S. Do pass on our congratulations to Ruthie. I know I neglected to mention it back in August. Little Hetta makes for a magnificent baby.
Martyrs' Manse,
Kingsport,
Dec. 1927
Gil,
Another golden girl for you and John to add to the constellation. We met her this evening, coming back with Jem and the children after the Christmas service. A honeyed, caramel-eyed confusion of limbs, vociferous in the broadcasting of her opinions. The baby blanket Una had been working for her evidently arrived in time for her (albeit just) because she was bundled up in it when we met her. And while I know precious little about knitting, I have reached a stage in our collaboration where I would know Una's shell stitch anywhere, even were it buried in a heap of twelve dozen other shell stitch blankets at the Martyrs' jumble sale.
Miss Sophy did not take to Phil at all, which occasioned much laughter, not least from Phil, especially as she seemed mild enough with me. Phil says this is exactly as things were with Ruthie and Naomi too, although I do not remember this being the case. All that said, she does seem an agreeable baby; your Kingsport Contingent and the Carlisles passed her between them as one does the parcel of pass the parcel without so much as a murmur. Any reluctance to bless Phil with a smile will be twofold; in the first instance, she never has got over seeing babies as fragile, breakable things, and holding them accordingly. In the second, she always feels cold twice as keenly as anyone else, and is trebly long recovering from it, so was, I suspect, still several degrees of preternaturally chilled at the time the fealty to Miss Sophy commenced.
You will gather from this that your blizzard has hit us with a vengeance. You might have seen to it Gil, that you contained it. It started about a week back, with what we thought was the usual fat, Christmas snowflakes, and grew worse from there. Winds started up, and flurries became whirlwinds. Roads were unsafe for walking, much less driving. You couldn't see your hand in front of your nose, and trying to availed nothing but crossed, teary eyes and icy hands. And in the midst of all this – because her brother had arrived on a heatwave and her sister on a sunburst, one supposes – one Sophy Amelia Blythe thought it optimum time to put in an appearance.
You can imagine the chaos this caused. Obviously you weren't there, being yourself feet deep in snow and cut off from even Douglas Dry Goods. As told to me later by six people at once, the one bit of foresight on your granddaughter's part was that she chose an occasion when two or three were gathered together; the Fox Corner set and the Carlisles having been stranded at Larkrise in the days prior to her birth. This meant that finding the 'phone down, and notwithstanding the storm, Geordie Carlisle went running for Mac (that's the old station house surgeon from before Jem), while Jem undertook to oversee the delivery, Mara and Judith hovering should he need a second or third set of hands. Teddy being stranded at the station house, Kitty took over ministering to the children. As she couldn't reasonably take them out they holed up in what purports to be Jem's study and played dominos. (You should have heard the emphasis your grandson gave dominos. It is obvious that he and Helen consider it as pointless an exercise as Kitty does.)
In fact, nothing did go wrong, and the way Judith tells it, the ordeal was over almost before it started (Faith is disinclined to agree with her, even if 4 hours is as nothing where children are concerned). This meant that Mac, arriving late with Geordie Carlisle, was quite put-out at being surplus to requirements, especially given the blizzard that the Arctic forgot.
Of course, by the time we were hearing about it, the blizzard part had died down, leaving only snowdrifts up to my middle and a bitter cold that stung whatever skin one was foolhardy enough to leave exposed. We came very near not having a church service at all, even after I had shovelled the walk to the entryway. You'll recall Martyrs' sits on a hill and can be a trial to navigate at the best of times. Still, I was determined that we should be available to whatever faithful had need of us, and once Phil had moved one of those portable stoves from the manse and coaxed it into burning at the church, the effect was almost cosy.
I certainly did not expect Jem and family, but had forgotten Helen was rostered on as an Angel in this year's pageant, and I gather absolutely would not be denied. So Jem and Shirley set out a good two hours early, with a child apiece on their shoulders, and trusting care of Faith and the baby to Teddy, Kitty, Mara and wee Iain, all of whom seemed agreed that hypothermia in the name of Communion was an ask too far. (The Carlisles, no doubt, felt similarly, but the Carlisles belong to St Margaret's, so I wouldn't really know.)
Our children being themselves stranded at their own homes, Phil and I had no objection, were happy enough to make the trip back with yours. Once Helen had let slip – very carefully and deliberately in the way of delighted older sisters the world over – about the baby, it was a forgone conclusion that we should. Christmas, after all, is a familial affair, and they are as much ours, I have come to feel, as are any of our children. At the very least they are the nieces and nephews we would not otherwise have had.
So we went to Larkrise, and as that poem newly in circulation has it, a hard coming we had of it, what with snow pooling in our boots and frost stinging our cheeks, and the ice trying to seal our eyes. It was worth it to step into the warm of that house with its Morris wallpaper and Tuesday's vociferous welcome. I swear that dog has springs for feet, Gil; he kept leaping up to a height easily three times his body length as he took stock of the people invading his home. Then we were in the thrush-clad sitting room, Mara was pressing teacups into our hands (have you noticed, Gil, she and Judith are the only people at Larkrise to use the tea service over mugs?) and Judith handing us plates of mince pies, fresh and hot from the oven. I do not often say such things, but after the walk we had had, it smelled and tasted of heaven, and was worth scorching my fingers to eat.
We did not stay the evening, though Jem pressed for it, as I had to take the morning service. But we came 'round to them afterwards, and were treated to Mara's goose – quite as golden and rich as could be hoped for, more of Judith's baking, honeyed and flaky as ever, bacon-and-brussel-sprouts, the crispiness and spice of pigs-in-blankets, honey-glazed carrots and a nut roast that smelled enticingly of coriander, sage and thyme. Teddy had made up a gravy from the goose fat that was aromatic enough to flavour the house, and sent Tuesday writhing in canine ecstasies at our feet, his deep-barrelled chest exposed and feet kicking joyously. The children were half-drunk with sleep-deprivation and gifts, all of which conspired to create a happy Christmas after all. I hope and pray yours was the same. Not to say we don't still miss our children, scattered perforce this year, only to say that yours staunch the gap rather nicely.
A Happy New Year to you and yours Gil, as it will almost certainly be that by time you're in receipt of this letter. As ever, may you be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
Jo
P. S. You'll never guess; the replacement pieces for the radiator have arrived. It only took – how long? You can imagine how Simon Hazelhurst, Martin Gibson and myself will be spending the week before the New Year. We've almost forgotten what a warm church is like.
P.P.S What is the origin-story of Sophy's name? The familial joke from this quarter – about the children being fluent in four languages; English, Gaelic, Yiddish and Shorthand – says nothing about Greek, and yet there seems to be an awful lot of it doing the rounds of Larkrise.
Ingleside,
Glen St. Mary,
Jan. 1928
Jo,
I was going to write and ask where the children were getting their Yiddish, but that was before I recalled Judith's household idiom in talking with the little Carlisles and discovered myself something of a prize idiot. Somehow, I had never quite put the pieces together before now, in spite of having been so generously hosted by her and the Inspector in the days before Fox Corner was in our connection. Needless to say, John and Anne thought it a rather good joke on me, having both previously made the leap. In my defence, neither has Susan, and no one appears in a hurry to enlighten her. She's only now begun to acknowledge that Catholicism might be a shade of Christianity after all, if only so that she can tell Cornelia that little Iain does indeed attend church. As she glosses right over the fact that he and his mother call it Mass, I'm not exactly sure what she'd make of Judith's mixed theology.
All that to say, I fear I am no help with Sophy's name. My best guess is that name-dictionary from years ago. It's that or someone has got hold of John's Greek lexicon – though I should have said if anyone were likely to look there for names it would be your daughter. Not, so far as I can gather, that she has any need of a name dictionary at present. She and Una joined forces on this year's Christmas parcel, something they appear to have relished doing ahead of the young Arnolds' departure for Horley Hall and Ipoh. I suppose it has been a long while since Carl and Una had people to pass Christmas with besides the Evelyn St neighbours.
Your letter arrived in conjunction with a snapshot of mother and baby, courtesy of Kitty. Being Kitty, however, the accompanying letter was shorthand – she was obviously in a hurry writing it – and as we are not nearly so talented as Christopher and Helen in deciphering it your account was much-needed. Di never learned it, being but a photographer at The Chronicle, and I, therefore, safely conclude that without your retelling, Anne should have gone quite mad trying to divine details from that photo'. (We both should have. I shall never forgive myself not being there, even if it was only 4 hours, and even if I concur with Judith about that being nothing, timewise, for a delivery.)
We kept Christmas, as you will probably have heard, with the Merediths, both our houses much diminished in numbers this year for all the reasons you cite. Also with the Toronto Fords , who fought their way through the weather, Toronto having been hit only very mildly this winter with snow, nor was our snowfall quite so severe as you describe. (It came only to my knees, and that was enough). That combined with the absence of a hill from our little church's foundation meant there was never a question of calling the service off. Indeed the worst of it was watching Ken and Rilla at such odds while affecting not to be, coupled with the watchful eye Jims kept on them, as if expecting one or the other to vanish into the snow.
Needless to say, we were very glad of having Di and Alastair both at Ingleside. I find having them near keeps me young, and while the alternative is enticing in its allusion to that first Four Winds Christmas with Anne, I find I cannot go backwards in time. I have grown used to jubilant chaos at holidays and would not swap it for anything.
To this end John and Rosemary came back with us after the evening service. We lit an Applewood fire and inhaled the sweet, smokiness of it over restorative cups of chocolate, made to the old West recipe, which is more chocolate than cream – not milk – and only a dash of that. This we did notwithstanding Susan's concern for decadence. Anne just pressed her hand and said that if ever we could be decadent it was in the name of welcoming the Saviour into the world. Susan looked dubious, being more staunchly Presbyterian, I sometimes think, even than Calvin, but did not argue. Anyway, she couldn't argue, once I had, in my doctoral capacity, declared it vital to the restoration of adequate blood circulation in everyone.
It was rich and warm, rather as drinking an embrace might feel. We nursed our mugs – mother's beloved Royal Albert Yuletide Poinsettia – and traded news of the children. Di had had a normal, non-shorthand letter from Faith, and Alastair one from his sister. The Merediths were still waiting the usual Christmas parcel from Singapore, and Jerry's Christmas card likewise, but a letter from Una dated to November had got through, full of what has since become so much gossip and Glen Speculation.
We were augmented later by Cornelia, who called in after a Christmas spent at the Douglas house. Increasingly, you know, Mary and I are trying to persuade her to leave Four Winds for the Glen, but she absolutely refuses. That big green house of hers cannot be practical to keep running, but she ignores that too, and says that if she can't do her job as intended she had better die and have done with it. Never let anyone accuse Cornelia of mincing her words. Naturally we did not talk of this Christmas Day, rather she joined us in reminiscing and news sharing. (This is, of course, why Carl's latest escapade is now doing rounds of the village at speed to embarrass a forest fire.) Mary is expecting what I make her fourth baby and Cornelia pleased as anything about it, though trying not to be lest it be taken as prideful.
I have said already about Ken and Rilla. Other, gladder news runs that Nan and Jerry are off to the wilds of Labrador, about which I have deep qualms, as it manages to be still more removed than anywhere they have yet gone. That Nan continues in her assertion that she can write Harrington anywhere only moderately reassures me. No one contests the popularity of her latest book; the papers are awash in raving reviews of it. Her father, however, is discomfited by the idea of the lot of them being miles and miles from a serviceable doctor. I don't suppose Labrador will have a Dr Christopherson to keep me abreast of their skinned knees and nervousnesses. I do not like it at all.
All this notwithstanding, we made a jolly set. You would never have guessed from appearances that Cornelia had been spearheading the opposition to the planning application for those holiday houses Alastair has been involved in designing. She had brought an offering of mince pies from Douglas Dry Goods that Susan at first declined to honour with a place on the tea tray but that proved on preparation (Rosemary's) to be more than edible creations.
Ellen and Norman Douglas joined us thereafter , and he wrangled theology with John while she wrestled politics with Cornelia, and Anne, Rosemary and I talked over our children's affairs and tried to order them. No luck, of course, which is exactly as one would expect it. Anne regaled us with a story of Nan's latest adventure in the name of research for Harrington, and Susan ventured an opinion that wee Iain was liable to become spoiled, having no one to divert attention from him at Fox Corner. Somehow none of us laughed, though it took effort. It remains my private theory that Fox Corner will never be ambushed by children as we were. As it was, Di diverted her with talk about trying to salvage our paper from The Lowbridge Herald and reinstating it as a local institution. This had the unlikely effect of uniting Norman, Cornelia and Susan in their resounding approval, which I make a Christmas Miracle.
Since then, I have had two births, one death (expected), and more 'flu cases than I know what to do with. It is times like this I find I miss Jem most. To have had him here alongside me would be an enormous help. He'd come, I think, if I demanded it of him, and yet he'd be missed from his home. And he would miss it himself, much too much so to ever be happy. I cannot ask that. To which end, I am off to run like a lunatic around the Glen delivering tonics and prescriptions, maybe soothing the odd throat. Oh for the day Redfern invents something more medicine than sugar-pill! He's popular enough, goodness knows – it's just that nine times in ten the stuff he comes up with is pure fantasy. It isn't so bad; Bruce Meredith has promised to help a little come summer, and that should leven the load enough to be getting on with.
Take care Jo, you and Phil both. You're bound to have your share of deadwood to cut back and roofs to mend come the new year; forgive me if I take your daughter's side and suggest it need not be all on your shoulders. You might have neglected to mention your brush with influenza last letter, but Phil and Faith between them have made up the difference and I now feel I weathered that ordeal along with them. Suffice it to say I am grateful to your General Assembly for handing off Kilrenny and New Waterford to other people. Go gently, won't you? And thank you for the care you have had of my children so lately. Believe me when I say it is felt heart-deep here.
Love ever,
Gil
New Manse,
Glen St. Mary,
Jan. 1928
Jo,
The Glen is indeed humming with gossip courtesy of Cornelia and the most recent, but one, letter from Singapore. (The latest was the Arnold-Meredith Christmas parcel, finally getting through the backlog.) Not that it wasn't humming before; Cornelia's committee in opposition to the Harbour Holiday House project saw to it that the Glen was fairly buzzing with opinions, but all that is forgot now. It quite pales next to our news from abroad. As you'll appreciate, if explaining the mixed theology of the Carlisle house defies Glen understanding, then accounting for Carl's engagement to a young woman from Chinatown, Singapore, is absolutely beyond us.
I suspect from the report Una appended to the letter it rather defies explanation there also, but cannot be sure. She and Li know each other only slightly, as much ACS and mission work on Una's part, I believe, as an aversion to the Botanic Gardens, erstwhile home of Puck.
Naturally, the usual line about the people concerned having grown rather attached to one another avails exactly nothing. Cousin Sophia is horrified, Cornelia stunned, Susan incredulous and the former Junior Reds run a mixed gamut, from anxious little Amy McAllister who used to be keen on Carl, and quite his second shadow, to a shocked Jenn Vickers, and a placid Betty. She, by the by, had the grace to pass on congratulations, and Susan theorizes it is all because one of her brothers came out of the war fired up for the mission cause and now has a church in Japan. Or words to that effect. I really don't know. Miranda Milgrave was surprised, but cordial. I leave you to imagine the reactions from the likes of Irene Howard and Ethel Reese.
For my part, it is enough to hear them so thoroughly happy. I worried once – in the pre-Raffles days – that Carl would never feel quite at home in Singapore. Something about city life – perhaps I took it for granted that he, like Jerry, would no longer have the stomach to survive it. I now wonder if he could ever again be at home anywhere else. He is a great favourite among his students, having something of a reputation for joining in with his senior classes in the ribbing of the new students. The latest of these saw Puck in his lecture hall, and the class roaring with laughter to see him handling the chalk and writing on the board. (Puck, I gather, is quite the writer, and his penmanship expert.) Certainly he met with more success there than in Una's kitchen, where Carl has lately attempted to teach him washing-up to no avail. It's not that Puck isn't willing, it's that Una won't let him help. I think she envisions that Gladstone Blue Ribbon falling to its doom from little, clawed hands.
What with unlikely allegiances, the domestic misadventures of Puck, the details of the ACS Christmas appeal, and your daughter's protracted visit to Trinity House, it made quite the letter, as you'll appreciate.
Here the snow is still dense as ever, what little Bruce calls 'packing snow.' Thinking of you, I set out this morning with an intention of clearing the worst of it from our main roads, assisted by Norman and Miller Douglas. I did not get terribly far, as Bruce shortly thereafter summoned me away to Abner Crawford's funeral. I had quite forgot! How you juggle so many projects at once I do not know. Still less do I know how I will get on when Bruce returns to Kingsport.
As it was, I arrived today in good time, only to find the readings selected by the Abner Crawfords had been handed to me in their familial Gaelic! Well, you can imagine how that went over. I could have about done with Shirley's Mara for interpreter, or Alastair. He, at least, has the distinction of being here, though not knowing this particular Crawford family, he was not in attendance. I had seconds to decide how to proceed; it was mangle what was in front of me or trust to memory.
I went with memory, which did well enough for Isaiah (they had gone with the spirit of the Lord God is upon me...); I once sat a nightmarish Honours year Greek Sight Translation on that text, and am unlikely to forget it. Psalm 46 was harder, as I often find psalms like water. I know them by rote snatches. Is it the same with you? Never mind that just about any other language might have given me an idea where I was going. Anyway, I stumbled through that, and I don't think they much minded; they just joined in with the Gaelic and never minded that I couldn't have read it if I'd wanted to.
John of course, was my dissertation subject, in bygone years, so by the time I got there – to Christ as Good Shephard and all the rest – it was all right. I did wonder, a bit abstractly, why they hadn't paired that with Psalm 23, but perhaps they did not want sheep all round at the service. I have an idea the Abner Crawfords are arable farmers, not livestock.
They processed out to the tune of Such Pity as a Father Hath, and wended their way in bleak procession to the graveyard, where the church warden had made the best job he could of a grave under the present circumstances. There was as much snow to move as there was earth, I shouldn't wonder, and that all hard-packed.
Since then Rosemary and I have spent a pleasant afternoon at Ingleside, where the great news is that shortly there will be a baby under its roof again. Gil will be writing to you about it himself, I shouldn't wonder, so you never heard it from me. He is terribly pleased, which is hardly surprising; as Rosemary says, Di has ever been his especial favourite of the children. There is some talk, incidentally of Naomi and Fred taking their holiday at the ACS. After all this correspondence back and forth, Naomi and Una are keen to meet in person, and this seems as reasonable an opportunity as any. Especially as it facilitates the delivery of our latest appeal to Oldham House's doorstep. Rosemary and Anne have both gently hinted they might like the time to themselves, but with no success. Naomi has a healthy mixture of Blake and Gordon stubbornness, and neither was Fred to be dissuaded. He was too young to accompany his father on his last ACS visit, and has spent so long hearing about Naomi's interaction with it, that I really am not all that surprised at his acquiescing. Anyway, he shares with you a willingness to hang the moon for that girl. You can strategize techniques on how best to do this on some looming holiday. Just be sure you count Gil and I in on the project. We're rather attached to Naomi in our way, too.
Love and blessings,
J.M.