The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [353]
My dear father and mother,
If you read this I shall be dead. I hope I shall have saved other lives before losing mine. You will know that I thought of you steadily, with great love and gratitude, not least for your letting me go my own way, and live a life of study that you would not have chosen for me.
There is a secret I have kept from you. I have a wife, whom you have never met. Her name is Elsie, and she finally agreed to marry me because I was going away. We were married by Frank Mallett in St. Edburga’s Church. We should have told you, and shared this with you, but there was no time.
Elsie is the sister of the potter, Philip Warren. She is a student teacher and I would have hoped, if I had lived, that she could study more widely and deeply.
I am asking you both, with loving apprehension, to go and find Elsie, and take care of her, as my wife. She is very independent, as you will see, and taking care of her is hard, as I have found, myself.
She is not from our “class.” I believe profoundly that this has no real importance. She—more practical—does not believe that you would want to accept or acknowledge her, for this reason. I have more faith in you—in both of you—than that. She does not know you, as I do. You are honourable, and generous, and just, and you will see her for what she is, as I do.
I end with love, again. I have no wish to die, and hope I may come home, and burn this letter, unread.
If not—please forgive me, and please look after Elsie.
Your son
Charles/Karl.
It was a week before they set out, in the Daimler, with an elderly chauffeur, for the cottage at the end of Dungeness. Basil had the idea that they should stop at Frank Mallett’s vicarage, and ask him what he thought of this Elsie. Katharina said this would be unfair, from which Basil inferred that she expected to think ill of the young woman. They did, in fact, drive through Puxty, but the vicar was not home, and Dobbin was away on war work on the land. So they drove on, into the only English desert.
On the outskirts of Lydd they were stopped by sentries as they passed the army camp. They could indeed hear the artillery, practising on the range amongst the shingle and blown bushes. This was a military zone, said the soldiers. They must state their business. They could hear the guns. It would be best to turn back.
Basil was by nature inclined not to reveal his business. He said he had private business with a lady in the cottage, along the Ness. His hauteur annoyed the soldier who said he would need a permit to drive in these parts, these days. Basil said he was visiting the schoolmistress, and the sentry said the army had taken over the school and the teachers had moved out of the zone.
Katharina showed them the letter.
“Our son is dead, this letter tells us. We have found the schoolmistress is his wife. We must see her.”
Katharina’s accent was more suspicious than Basil’s hauteur.
“How do we know you’re not spies? You sound German.”
“I am German. I have lived in England most of my life. I think I am English but that is no help. Please let us go through and look for this person. Our son is missing in Flanders. Presumed dead. It is bad, out there.”
The chauffeur said, in a Kentish voice,
“You can see where we go. You can keep an eye. You’ll see us come back. There’s nowhere to go you can’t see us, it’s all bare.”
So they drove on. Katharina imagined, not incorrectly, Charles/Karl on his bicycle, on the stony path. They came to the cottage.
A young woman was hanging out washing.
The chauffeur opened the door, and Katharina, in her veiled hat and driving-coat, stepped down.
“We are looking for a Miss Elsie Warren.”
“Well, you’ve found her,” said Elsie, finishing the pegging of a towel. Katharina’s voice trembled. She said “Can we go inside? Sit down? Please.”
“If you wish. Come in.”
Basil stepped out of the car, bowed and caped. Elsie gathered her basket of clothes under one arm, balancing it on a hip, and opened the