With Most Gentle Wishes - Chapter 7

Author’s Note:

My husband has been providing his thoughts on each chapter before I share them with you. His thoughts this week were as follows:

“I can imagine this story being studied by an english class - analysing word choices and themes and symbolism. Although I don’t know what a lot of it represents, or where it’s going, it feels like something is building.”

I cannot say he is wrong.

Dear Henry,

I knew it must be Tuesday today, for I heard your letter slip through the postbox this morning before I had even ventured downstairs. I must say I am quite delighted by how regularly we have been writing. Nothing about our letters feels forced in the slightest; it is merely a rhythm that seems to have found us of its own accord, rather than any deliberate attempt to keep pace with one another. I am glad it has simply come to be so.

In the days after posting my reply to you, I find myself making note of even the smallest things you might find exciting, or which I should like to tell you when next I write. There is something rather pleasing in it, sitting at the kitchen table, setting pen to paper, and reading through my little notes of the week, reliving moments so small they might otherwise have slipped away unnoticed. One might accuse me of romanticising the mundane, but I see no great harm in that at all, especially with how much spare time I find myself with, as of late. Arthur has taken lately to calling upon Mrs Whitcombe, our neighbour, in the evenings, as her poor roses have suffered dreadfully with blight, and he declares himself quite determined to see them restored. I do admire his determination but I cannot help but feel slightly disappointed that he is choosing to tend to her garden while ours remains neglected.

It must be terribly frustrating for you, Henry, to feel unable to be of use to your mother just now. She always struck me as more frail than my own, so much in need of your steady presence - passing her slippers, carrying parcels through the village, lending an arm upon the stairs. It is a cruel thing, this enforced idleness, when all one wishes is not indulgence, but usefulness. I imagine it carries with it a kind of shame, the worry of what others might think when we are prevented from doing what is expected of us. Still, you would be of little help at all if you pressed yourself too soon, and I am certain your mother would far sooner have you resting than risking further harm.

And yet, help is not only a matter of physical effort. There is presence, and thought, and attention, and these too are forms of care. After Emmeline’s delivery, she was grateful for all manner of practical assistance, of course, but it was Emmeline’s elderly neighbour who received the greatest thanks, not for fixing or organising or setting the house to rights (those labours fell largely to me, of course), but for holding the baby when Emmeline needed rest, for allowing her a moment to weep, for stroking her hair as she once did with her own children when they were small. It made me wonder whether our worth is so closely tied to labour as we are often led to believe.

You ought not to restrain yourself so carefully in your letters, Henry. You need not apologise for worry, nor feel obliged to present cheerfulness where there is none. I do not require improvement with every post, only honesty. I find that writing one’s thoughts plainly often brings a kind of clarity that thinking alone does not, and I am quite capable of holding such unease without being burdened by it.

We are, I know, taught very early how we are meant to behave, and by whom, though I am increasingly inclined to question all of it. My most recent reading has quite unsettled my notions of what men and women are supposed to be, and I cannot say I mind it - though I imagine Arthur might firmly disagree if I ever mentioned it to him. If a man must be gentle, let him be so. If a woman must speak loudly, allow her. I will not judge you, Henry. Speak as freely as you once did, when we were young and thought nothing of it. To quiet such intelligence and kindness would be a dreadful waste indeed.

I shall seal this now and see it posted before the light fades, and no doubt tomorrow I will begin jotting down the trifles I have neglected to include – a passing remark, a thought overheard, some small occurrence that will seem suddenly worth telling you. It has become rather a comfort, this habit of ours, and I am content to keep it, so long as it continues to suit us both.

With most gentle wishes,
Mabel Harrington

If you wish to further immerse yourself in the world of Mabel and Henry, you can do so here, on my ever-growing Pinterest board.

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