Content warning for period typical racism.
Martyrs' Manse,
Kingsport,
Dec. 1927
Gil,
Another golden girl for you and John to add to the constellation. We met her this evening after the Christmas service. She's a honeyed, caramel-eyed confusion of limbs, and extremely opinionated. Una's promised baby blanket evidently arrived on time (just), because her niece was wrapped in it when we met her. I know precious little about knitting, but at this stage in our collaboration, I'd know Una's shell stitch anywhere.
Sophy – that's the baby – didn't take take to Phil at all. Faith was apologetic and Phil tickled. Doubly tickled when Sophy settled happily with me. Phil says our daughters were just the same as babies. I think she's teasing.
But you mustn't think Sophy isn't social. The Kingsport Contingent and Carlisles pass her between them as if playing pass the parcel. Any reluctance to bless Phil with a smile is twofold. Firstly, she never got over treating babies as breakable. Secondly, she has the coldest hands of anyone I know. They were probably at their worst when Sophy met her since we'd been tramping through the snow.
That's right; Your blizzard reached us. With a vengeance! You might have seen to it, Gil, that you contained it. It started a week ago, with what we thought were the usual fat, Christmas snowflakes, and only got worse. Winds turned into flurries, which became whirlwinds. The radio announced white-out conditions and promptly died for the foreseeable. The Road Advisory people issued warnings to stay home. As if there was a choice! No one can see the traffic semaphores, so The Road Advisory said further to treat all intersections like four-way stops – but we can't see the intersecting roads! They're 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. In the midst of all this – because her brother arrived in 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 your granddaughter had was that she arrived to an audience. The Fox Corner set and Carlisles had been stuck at Larkrise for several days. Faith knew exactly what was happening. She picked up the phone, discovered it dead, and proceeded to talk Mara and Judith through the medical side of a delivery. Jem, apparently got quite grumpy about this and said he knew as well as anyone how to catch a baby.
'So does every idiot and their dog,' said your daughter-in-law. 'It's the afterbirth they forget.'
Jem took this in the spirit of stuff said in labour. He grinned and said, 'You got that from Dad.'
'Well, he's bloody well right,' said Faith.
'Pun,' said your incorrigible offspring, 'unintended, I presume.'
Geordie offered to fetch Mac (that's the old police surgeon) but Faith said she preferred him alive to dead of hypothermia and probably so did his wife. Teddy was stuck at the station house, so in an unlikely turn, Kitty took the children into Faith's home surgery and played dominoes until they and she were sick to death of it. Jem, Mara and Judith helped deliver the baby.
She didn't give them much time. It was over and done with in four hours. Phil makes that excellent going. I take her word for it.
By the time we heard about this, the blizzard the Arctic forgot had died down. We're still pretty buried, though. I nearly cancelled the service. Even after I shovelled the church walk, it was hard going. Martyrs' sits on a hill and it's perilous on a good winter's day. But I wanted to be available to anyone who needed us. So, Phil set up a pot-bellied stove in the church, and decanted mulled wine (a good mulled wine is Phil's one domestic triumph, and her proudest). It was almost cozy.
I didn't expect any congregants, but Helen was an Angel in this year's pageant, and refused to miss her theatrical debut. 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.
After all that, Helen missed her pageant anyway. Weather being what it was, most Patterson St folk stayed home, and I don't blame them. We'll do our Nativity play as soon as the snow clears. Then Helen let slip – in that deliberate way of delighted older sisters the world over – about the baby. So, between that and her dedication to the pageant, we had to come back to Larkrise. As that poem newly in circulation has it, a hard coming we had of it. 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 goes on springs, Gil; He kept leaping up to a height easily three times his body length as he took stock of the people invading his home. Mara pressed teacups into our hands and Judith gave us a minced pie apiece. I don't often say such things, but after the walk we had, it smelled and tasted of heaven, and was worth scorching my fingers to eat.
Happy New Year, Gil, as it will almost certainly be that by time you read this.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch,
Jo
P. S. You'll never guess; the replacement pieces for the radiator arrived. It only took – how long? You can imagine how Simon Hazelhurst, Martin Gibson and myself will be spending tomorrow! We've almost forgot what a warm church is like.
Ingleside,
Glen St. Mary,
Jan. 1928
Jo,
Yours was much the most cogent letter about Sophy. We're taking guesses about the name. I know we joke about the children being fluent in English, Yiddish and Gaelic, but I can't think where they get the Greek from. And if they don't give me a decent explanation soon, Cousin Sophia will conclude my granddaughter is named after her. It doesn't bother me what Sophia Crawford blathers about, but if she puts that around the Glen, Susan will be mortified.
I'd have thought the predilection for Greek was a quirk of your daughter, who doesn't seem to need baby names as yet. Too busy helping Una construct this year's Christmas parcel before she and Fred head to Horley Hall in Ipoh. Una's been hosting lots lately. Her girlhood self thrived on it; Bet she still does.
Your letter arrived in conjunction with a snapshot of mother and baby, courtesy of Kitty. Being Kitty, the accompanying letter was shorthand– she was obviously in a hurry writing it – and no one could read it. Your account was much-needed. Without your retelling, Anne should have gone quite mad trying to divine details from that photo. As would I. Not for the reason you think, either. Phil's right; Four hours is no time at all for a labour. What I can't do is answer questions I don't have the answer to. Perhaps Phil could sort of hint to Anne when she inevitably writes and mentions my failure as a psychic?
No Kingsport Contingent for Christmas, obviously, but the Fords slogged through the snow – quite the feat with a screaming Anthony! That child has the lustiest wail I ever heard. And the only person who's much good with him is that flatmate of Persis'. You remember, she played the music when Rilla married Ken. She's sort of become an honorary aunt at this point, but not enough so to travel with them. Family of her own, probably. So, what looked to be a quiet Christmas became quite the opposite.
Persis took Anthony to give the exhausted parents a reprieve, and I took the older boys ice fishing. Rilla sat with Susan and wailed about how that would be the death of them. Obviously I was going to drown them. Anne sat with Leslie and laughed over their silliness, and sometimes with Owen and talked writing.
All the while, Rilla and Ken were at spectacular odds and pretending they weren't. Thank goodness for Di and Alastair. Having them around keeps me young, and while the alternative is enticing in its allusion to that first Four Winds Christmas with Anne, I haven't cracked the problem of time travel. (Jims is on that, though.) I'm not sure I want to. I love our jubilant holiday chaos these days, and wouldn't swap it.
John and Rosemary came over after the Christmas Eve service for an Applewood fire and restorative cups of chocolate, made to the old West recipe, which is more chocolate than cream – no milk – and only a dash of that. It's Rosemary's winter cure-all for everything from the common cold to Feuding Fords. It could be worse. It could be Redferns. I let her do it. It was very good chocolate. Susan worried it was decadent (Episcopalian types are, I hear), but Anne said that if ever we could be decadent, it was at Christmas. Susan looked dubious, and muttered things about West Pretensions and Staunch Presbyterianism. No one took it seriously. Sometimes, I secretly suspect Susan is more staunchly Presbyterian than Calvin.
Cornelia called on Christmas Day, after a Christmas luncheon at the Douglas house. Increasingly, Mary and I are trying to persuade her to leave Four Winds for the Glen, but Cornelia absolutely refuses. That big green house of hers isn't practical for her to run, 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! Since it was Christmas, we shelved all that and stuck to news swapping. (This is why Carl's latest escapade is now doing rounds of the village at speed to embarrass a forest fire.) Mary's 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.
She was less pleased about the holiday homes of Alastair's. He plans to finish building them after New Year. They sit on the Shore Road, and between you, me and this letter, Cornelia was never going to like them. It's bad enough that they will be the purview of Interloping City Types. But because he and Di once visited Those Heathen Places (read Singapore), Cornelia's convinced Alastair made them look 'Foreign' and 'Chinese.'
Personally, I think they look more English than Denby Teapots, but what do I know?
Cornelia objected from the moment Alastair's firm announced the build, never mind that put Alastair and Di out of pocket. Cornelia cannot abide them, and what Cornelia cannot abide, she doesn't take lying down. They waded gamely into the thick of a cotnre-temps over the Bryant mince pies, courtesy the Douglas and Flagg pastry counter. At first, Susan tried to shun store-bought goods, but Anne reminded her it wouldn't do to be Crawfordish at Christmas, and that saw to that.
Next, Norman and Ellen tramped through our door without so much as a by-your leave and helped themselves to the mince pies, never suspecting they were store-bought. Norman started on John's sermon and Ellen on the pastry, which was apparently at least as good as Mrs. West Sr's ever was, so that was Susan in High Dudgeon for a quarter hour at least. I stayed well out of that.
Anne, Rosemary and I sat with Owen and Leslie and mused over our children. We tried to order their affairs in the way parents always do, and failed, as parents also always do. It's for the children to run their own lives.
Then Di and Cornelia got started about how someone must get our paper back from The Lowbridge Herald and reinstate it as a local institution. This had the unlikely effect of uniting Norman, Cornelia and Susan in their resounding approval, and we moved on to less complicated conversations.
Since then, I have had two births, one death (expected), and more 'flu cases than I know what to do with. It's times like this I miss Jem most. To have him here alongside me would be an enormous help. He'd come, I think, if asked, but of course I can't. Jem would miss his home too much to ever be happy. So, I'm 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! Tell Bruce to get that degree double-quick and come back before any police surgeons snap him up.
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. Not that it wasn't humming before; Cornelia's committee in opposition to the Harbour Holiday House project ensured the Glen was buzzing with opinions. They all paled next to the news that Carl Meredith is engaged to young Chinese woman.
Cousin Sophia is horrified, Cornelia stunned, Susan incredulous and the former Junior Reds run a mixed gamut. Anxious little Amy McAllister, who was so keen on Carl, goes around weeping. Jenn Vickers is shocked, and Betty placid. She said to give Carl her congratulations. Susan says that's because Betty's brother came out of Vimy with a mission craze laid on him (or words to that effect). I think it's because Betty is the Race that Knows Joseph. I'm not sure I care either way. It was nice to receive a kind word after the Sophia Crawfords of the world. Miranda Milgrave was surprised, but cordial. Olive said she supposed 'One of those Chinese' was all a one-eyed man like Carl could hope for, these days. I leave you to imagine the reactions from the likes of Irene Howard and Ethel Reese. Words don't do them justice.
For my part, it's enough to hear Carl so thoroughly happy. I worried once – in the pre-Raffles days – that Carl would never feel at home in Singapore. Something about city life – perhaps I took for granted that he, like Jerry, no longer had the stomach to survive it. Now, I wonder if he could ever be at home anywhere else. His students love him. Una says he has a reputation for helping his senior classes rib the first-years. The latest of these antics saw Puck in his lecture hall, and the class roaring with laughter.
Between Carl's engagement and Puck's antics, it was quite the letter! After that, my own misadventures look rather anaemic. But here's one for you, anyway.
Thinking of you, I set out this morning intending shovel the church walkway, assisted by Norman and Miller Douglas. I didn't get far, because Bruce summoned me urgently to Abner Crawford's funeral. I had quite forgot!
I made good time to the funeral. That wasn't the issue. The problem was that Abner Crawford planned out his whole funeral service ahead – right down to the Gaelic readings! You can imagine how that went over. As you know, I have far more Greek than Gaelic. 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; I once sat a nightmarish Honours year Greek Sight Translation on that book, and am unlikely to forget it. Psalm 46 was harder. Una has a rare gift for knowing her psalms, but I find psalms like water. They all sound the same. Do you find that? Dont' tell Susan if so, it's probably heresy! Anyway, I stumbled through that, and I don't think they much minded; They joined in with the Gaelic and never minded that I couldn't have read it if I'd wanted to.
John 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 clear sailing. I wondered why they hadn't paired that with Psalm 23, but perhaps they didn't want sheep motifs all round at the service.
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. What was that poem you quoted, A hard coming we had of it indeed!
Love and blessings,
J.M.