The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [131]
I am glad now, Iris, that you are not here to see your mother arrested and sent to jail. Still, I never stop thinking of you and wondering how you are, what small pleasures fill your days.
Your loving mother, Rose
I checked the date again—1916. This history, told through Rose’s eyes, didn’t seem very far away, and it made me wonder how my own life would have unfolded if I hadn’t been able to study or work or even know the most basic facts about my body. A difficult history was hidden beneath my independence, like the ruins of the factories beneath the tranquil surface of this water. The rights I took for granted seemed suddenly very new, measured against the centuries. I picked up the next letter and began to read.
3 March 1920
Dear Iris,
Today I received a letter from Joseph saying that you were well, that he and Cora were well, that everyone in the household has survived the influenza, though so many have died in the village. For this I am deeply grateful—I trembled to open his letter, fearing it would say otherwise. Today I went to the little church. For many years I did not go at all. I felt I could not, because I was still angry. But I have been to many funerals of late, and after one I stayed when all the people had left. I sat in the silence. I let myself feel all the fear and sadness and anger that had driven me away for so many years. I let myself feel sorry, too, for the mistakes I have made in my life. The silence was great. After a time, I cannot explain it, the silence was a comfort. I felt a little as I used to feel as a young girl. And so I went back. Sometimes I go to the services. And sometimes I go alone and sit in the silence. This morning, when I got the letter saying you were well, this is what I did.
It is hard to express the joy your good health gives to me. Here the epidemic has taken so many. Vivian has been ill for several weeks. I, too, recover slowly. The parties in this house, those fierce, exciting meetings, ended with the war, of course. Now we receive news daily of friends who have been infected with this influenza or who have died. The closest to me, the deepest and saddest loss, is my dear friend Beatrice, who seemed perfectly healthy and who even came to assist when Vivian was so ill, and who may have come to me when I was sick, I can’t remember. But then she herself fell so swiftly into a feverish delirium and did not know who I was. I held her hand, but she did not rouse or speak to us. She died within a day.
So it is with this disease. The world changes overnight.
They say the right to vote will finally pass this year. She did not live to see it.
Frank is nearly inconsolable. Quietly so. He sits in the dark house day after day. His work had fallen out favor and he will not adopt the popular artistic fads, and so he was insular even before this loss. Beatrice was his interface with the world, and his buffer to its blows, and she is gone. I bring him cornstarch pudding and keep him company for an hour or two, but there is not much more I can do. I am 24 and he is 48 and I cannot pretend to know his grief.
30 April 1921
Dear Iris,
I cannot believe it—you are ten years old today. I think of that sweet morning when you were born, the flowers blooming outside the window. The moment I held you I felt that I had known you all my life. Mrs. Elliot is here to visit for two weeks. She is helping pack up the house. She told me she had seen you turning cartwheels and had paused to cheer you on. She also brought a photograph of you dressed in lace and pleated cotton. You are so serious. Maybe Cora told you to be still. I wish I could see you smile. Joseph writes very little, occupied with his business. Locks, the sort that clamp onto a door, the sort both he and I could open with a touch.
Mrs. Elliot told me all this amid the packing.