Running Wild

Chapter 3

17th March 1885

My daughter,

I hope this letter finds you in good health and that you are applying yourself to your studies. Qualities such as demureness and delicacy are attractive and useful in a lady. These are of course being taught to you. It is my wish that you will heed these teachings in time for your upcoming debut. I also like to hope that you will follow my advice as a daughter should do, especially when regarding her mother.

Gordon is as well as ever with money pouring in like water, though I expect you would wish to hear about your brothers. Thomas and Adelaide are happily settled in Surrey and hope to hear from you soon. James and his fiancé are beside themselves with happiness about their approaching marriage which will be held sometime in August. You will be out of the schoolroom by then and it will make an excellent congregation to gain a proposal. I hope you can at least do that without creating a scene.

Charles is as scandalous as ever and still one of London’s most sought after bachelors. Henry of course sends his love and asks whether the beasts will have let you remain sane by the time you come home to us. He does like his little joke.

You have had prospective suitors picked out for you and many girls are in line for Henry.

I, in turn, look very much forward to your coming out in May and I hope you are practising the requirements of a lady until they are perfect. I do anticipate that you will have grown into a more eligible individual since I last saw you at Christmastime as some of the young men have had to be prodded into dancing with you at various balls by their mothers. No doubt your reputation is in tatters before you have even emerged, something else I will have to salvage.

 I sincerely hope you are not climbing any trees or trying the patience of your tutors. I also chance to think that you have made some friends that will at least steer you in the right direction of a well-mannered young lady. I, as your mother, would aspire for you to be less sullen and rude as you were on your last Assembly day, in the hope that you will uphold our family’s honour with good grace when we next see you.

Do remember that society never forgives and forgets.

You’re ever affectionate

And hopeful,

Mother.

My desire to be alone in the quiet of the school floats away on a current of wind from the door. Numbly, I sit in the nearest chair available and try to lose myself in the hubbub and chatter of adjacent girls. My mother’s writing floats in front of me in her frivolous flowery script, the words cutting, sharp and precisely laced with poison. Their sting joins the many thronging hurts that threaten to overwhelm me. I regret opening the letter at all.

Always. Always! Don’t you ever learn?

Harry would understand. So would the others.

They aren’t here. And they turned you away once so why wouldn’t they again?

That wasn’t their FAULT!!!

The voice fades into the words on the paper. In anger I scrunch it into a ball and lob it into the fire over the heads of some twittering first timers.

Their names ring in my head. Tom, James, Charlie and Harry. Caring, affectionate, loyal and true to the last one.

My heart aches for the time we spent together as children, the time that was measured in light-filled, lazy summer afternoons and sharp, snow-covered winter dawns. In climbing trees and running races, sword fighting and wrestling wars, all blur into an endless kaleidoscope of simple happiness. Where my only worries were of coming last again or getting caught for nicking apples. Of course, all good things come to an end and these things did in the best and worst summer of 1879.