I am with a dear friend of yours, Evelyn Elliott. I am sorry to tell you that Miss Elliott has fallen gravely ill with the Spanish Flu. She is feverish and struggling to hold on but she begged me to send word to you to tell you she loves you dearly and that she wishes you the happiest of lives with your doctor.
I am so sorry to have to send these words to you. The disease is rampant here, as I believe it is throughout much of Europe. That so many survived the years of war only to be struck down at the last by a strain of influenza is especially cruel.
I will stay with Miss Elliott until the end, and hope you will join me in praying for her.
Sincerely,
Rose Blythe
From Thomas to Rose Blythe
13th October, 1918
Rose,
They won’t let me in. I begged your colleague to bring this note to you. Can you speak to your superior or someone on my behalf? I’ve scaled the fence around the back, but was caught. I desperately need your help. Please, Rose. I must see her. I beg you.
Tom
From Rose Blythe to Thomas
13th October, 1918
No, Tom. It isn’t safe. You must say your goodbyes another way. I am so sorry.
Rose
From Thomas to Evie
13th October, 1918
My darling girl,
I am a mess of tears and regret, of utter devastation. I tried to see you but was prohibited by the quarantine. I raged at the blockade like a madman—three men had to hold me back. I don’t care if I contract the disease. God in heaven, Evelyn Maria Constance Elliott, I am nothing without you. Nothing!
Your last letter broke my heart and what a stubborn idiotic fool I was not to reply to you instantly. My stupid pride wouldn’t allow it.
Damn it, Evie. All this time I didn’t realise, I swear I didn’t know. Yet it is so clear to me now. And then Abshire forwarded a letter from you, written at Christmas 1915. It was lost these last years and recently returned to you in Richmond. That it made its way to me now is a miracle. The stubborn wall inside me melted away, and emotions that were trapped behind it have poured forth, unrelentingly.
My darling Evie. I have loved you since the first time you threw rocks at the pigeons on my lawn, pigtails flying. I loved you when you beat me at cards, and raced me on horseback, and read poetry by candlelight while your brother and I listened on, mesmerised by the cadence of your voice. And now I love the woman you have become—full of laughter and hope, yearning to make her mark on the world.
When Hopper said you were to marry him, I felt as if a black curtain had fallen and the only cord tethering me to this wretched, God-forsaken earth was gone. Like a fool, I believed him, and now I may lose you. My bull-headed behaviour may have cost me everything. I should have known you could never love a man like Hopper. You are too pure of heart, too intelligent for him. Too beautiful. Will you ever forgive me? After all that Shakespeare I was nothing but a foolish Romeo.
This war has changed me. You have changed me—opened my eyes to the beauty left in the world, to the hope that pulses deeply inside us, come what may. You’ve opened my eyes to the honour in bringing truth to others, and sharing who we are for some greater purpose. Most of all, you have shown me how to love.
Fight, my darling! Please, Evie, you have to fight with all your strength. I fought as you commanded, now it is your turn. Fight! I don’t know how to go on without you. Give us a chance to take flight, my love, like your soaring birds. I will be here, waiting for you on the other side.
With all my heart,
Tom
November 11, 1918 at 11:00 A.M.
Armistice Day
“At eleven o’clock this morning came to an end the cruellest and most terrible War that has ever scourged mankind. I hope we may say that thus, this fateful morning, came to an end all wars.”
—Prime Minister David Lloyd George
Paris
24th December, 1968
Christmas Eve.
It was always her favourite day of the season. She loved the anticipation—the promise of things to come—of what might be.
I think of us that second Christmas after the war ended. Christmas 1919. Together at the top of the Eiffel Tower, just as Evie had always dreamed we would be. Of course, she had always imagined Will and Alice would be with us. Will, we remembered as we looked at the stars glittering back against the Seine. Alice, we wished good luck for the impending birth of her first child.
Evie said it was perfect at the top of the tower that evening with the snow falling around us, although I complained bitterly of the cold. She only laughed and took me for vin chaud to warm me. It wasn’t the wine that warmed me though. It was being with her, watching her, loving her.
That was when I asked her to be my wife. She said yes before I’d hardly got the words out. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
I cross the bedroom to look out of the window, see the tower again. With each step, I wince. My joints protest, my lungs rasp against their disease, and my will has all but drained from my body. There’s no enjoyment now of the little things to which I looked forward always. A pile of crisp newspapers, fresh from the press; the way the sun streaks the horizon with fire before it slumps to bed; the chatter of songbirds while I savour my first cup of tea in the morning. It has all dulled. I want to join her, forever, the way it should be.
I feast my eyes on the skyline, absorbing it one last time before I close the bedroom door and pull the crinkled envelope from my pocket.
Moving to the mirror, I peer into it and study the lines of my face—a road map of happiness and pain with only one destination remaining. With a steady hand, I pull on my British Army uniform jacket, musty from disuse but somehow as familiar as my own skin. Once each button is clasped, I don my cap. For a moment, I see a vivid stream of memories, the clatter of war I once worked so hard to suppress. When they fade, there is one image left.
Evie.
Her eyes are filled with mirth, her mouth upturned in a mischievous smile. “Of course I will marry you, Lieutenant Thomas Archibald Harding!”
My heart lurches as I sit on the edge of the bed and clutch her final letter to my chest.
Hands trembling, I open the envelope as carefully as I can and unfold the pages. A faint scent of violet infuses the air around me. It is as if she has walked into the room and settled on the bed beside me. I hear her voice as I read her words, feel her ever nearer.
1st November, 1968
My darling Tom,
How can I ever write these words—my last to you? How can I ever truly tell you what my life has been because of you?
And yet write these words, I must. My time draws closer.