You must not write about these people and their books—God knows what they saw fit to read!
Yours in Christian Consternation and Concern,
Adelaide Addison (Miss)
From Mark to Juliet
March 2, 1946
Dear Juliet,
I’ve just appropriated my music critic’s opera tickets. Covent Garden at 8:00. Will you?
Yours,
Mark
From Juliet to Mark
Dear Mark,
Tonight?
Juliet
From Mark to Juliet
Yes!
M.
From Juliet to Mark
Wonderful! I feel sorry for your critic, though. Those tickets are scarce as hens’ teeth.
Juliet
From Mark to Juliet
He’ll make do with standing room. He can write about the uplifting effect of opera on the poor, etc., etc.
I’ll pick you up at 7.
M.
From Juliet to Eben
3rd March, 1946
Mr. Eben Ramsey
Les Pommiers
Calais Lane
St. Martin’s, Guernsey
Dear Mr. Ramsey,
It was so kind of you to write to me about your experiences during the Occupation. At the war’s end, I, too, promised myself that I had done with talking about it. I had talked and lived war for six years, and I was longing to pay attention to something—anything—else. But that is like wishing I were someone else. The war is now the story of our lives, and there’s no subtracting it.
I was glad to hear about your grandson Eli returning to you. Does he live with you or with his parents? Did you receive no news of him at all during the Occupation? Did all the Guernsey children return at once? What a celebration, if they did!
I don’t mean to inundate you with questions, but I have a few more, if you’re in an answering frame of mind. I know you were at the roast pig dinner that led to the founding of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—but how did Mrs. Maugery come to have the pig in the first place? How does one hide a pig?
Elizabeth McKenna was brave that night! She truly has grace under pressure, a quality that fills me with hopeless admiration. I know you and the other members of the Society must worry as the months pass without word, but you mustn’t give up hope.
Friends tell me that Europe is like a hive broken open, teeming with thousands upon thousands of displaced people, all trying to get home. A dear old friend of mine, who was shot down in Burma in 1943, reappeared in Australia last month—not in the best of shape, but alive and intending to remain so.
Thank you for your letter.
Yours sincerely,
Juliet Ashton
From Clovis Fossey to Juliet
