Dearest Sophie,
Yes, I’m here. Mark did his best to stop me, but I resisted him mulishly, right to the bitter end. I’ve always considered doggedness one of my least appealing characteristics, but it was valuable last week.
It was only as the boat pulled away, and I saw him standing on the pier, tall and scowling—and somehow wanting to marry
Oh God. This way lies insanity.
Guernsey is beautiful and my new friends have welcomed me so generously, so warmly, that I haven’t doubted I’ve done right to come here—until just a moment ago, when I started thinking about my teeth. I’m going to stop thinking about them. I’m going to step into the meadow of wildflowers right outside my door and run to the cliff as fast as I can. Then I’m going to fall down and look at the sky, which is shimmering like a pearl this afternoon, and breathe in the warm scent of grass and pretend that Markham V. Reynolds doesn’t exist.
I’ve just come back indoors. It’s hours later—the setting sun has rimmed the clouds in blazing gold and the sea is moaning at the bottom of the cliffs. Mark Reynolds? Who’s he?
Love always,
27th May, 1946
Dear Sidney,
Elizabeth’s cottage was plainly built for an exalted guest to stay in, because it’s quite spacious. There is a big sitting room, a bathroom, a larder, and a huge kitchen downstairs. There are three bedrooms and a bath upstairs. And best of all, there are windows everywhere, so the sea air can sweep into every room.
I’ve shoved a writing table by the biggest window in my sitting room. The only flaw in this arrangement is the constant temptation to go outside and walk over to the cliff ’s edge. The sea and the clouds don’t stay the same for five minutes running and I’m scared I’ll miss something if I stay inside. When I got up this morning, the sea was full of sun pennies—and now it all seems to be covered in lemon scrim. Writers ought to live far inland or next to the city dump, if they are ever to get any work done. Or perhaps they need to be stronger-minded than I am.
If I needed any encouragement to be fascinated by Elizabeth, which I don’t, her possessions would do it for me. The Germans arrived to take over Sir Ambrose’s house and gave her only six hours to remove her belongings to the cottage. Isola said Elizabeth brought only a few pots and pans, some cutlery and kitchen china (the Germans kept the good silver, crystal, china, and wine for themselves), her art supplies, an old wind-up phonograph, some records, and the rest were armloads of books.
So many books, Sidney, that I haven’t had time to really look at them—they fill the living-room shelves and overflow into the kitchen hutch. She even set a stack at the end of the sofa to use for a table—wasn’t that brilliant?
In every nook, I find little things that tell me about her. She was a noticer, Sidney, like me, for all the shelves are lined with shells, bird feathers, dried sea grasses, pebbles, eggshells, and the skeleton of something that might be a bat. They’re just bits that were lying on the ground, that anyone else would step over or on, but she saw they were beautiful and brought them home. I wonder if she used them for still-lifes? I wonder if her sketch-books are here somewhere? There’s prowling to be done. Work first, but the anticipation is like Christmas Eve seven days a week.
Elizabeth also carried down one of Sir Ambrose’s paintings. It is a portrait of her, painted I imagine when she was about eight years old. She is sitting on a swing, all ready to pump up and away—but having to sit still for Sir Ambrose to paint. You can tell by her eyebrows that she doesn’t like it. Glares must be inheritable, because she and Kit have identical ones.
My cottage is right inside the gates (honest three-barred farm gates). The meadow surrounding the cottage is full of scattered wildflowers until you get to the cliff ’s edge where rough grass and gorse take over.
The Big House (for want of a better name) is the one that Elizabeth came to close up for Ambrose. It is just up the drive from the cottage and is a wonderful house. Two-storied, L-shaped, and made of beautiful blue-grey stone. It’s slate-roofed with dormer windows and a terrace stretching from the crook of the L down its length. The top of the crooked end has a windowed turret and faces the sea. Most of the huge old trees had to be cut down for firewood, but Mr. Dilwyn has asked Eben and Eli to plant new trees—chestnuts and oaks. He is also going to have peach trees espaliered next to the brick garden walls—as soon as they are rebuilt too.
The house is beautifully proportioned with wide tall windows that open straight out onto the stone terrace. The lawn is growing green and lush again, covering up the wheel ruts of German cars and trucks.
Escorted at different times by Eben, Eli, Dawsey, or Isola, I have quartered the island’s ten parishes in the past five days; Guernsey is very beautiful in all its variety—fields, woods, hedgerows, dells, manors, dolmens, wild cliffs, witches’ corners, Tudor barns, and Norman cottages of stone. I have been told stories of her history (very lawless) with almost every new site and building.
Guernsey pirates had superior taste—they built beautiful homes and impressive public buildings. These are sadly dilapidated and in need of repair, but their architectural beauty shows through anyway. Dawsey took me to a tiny church—every inch of which is a mosaic of broken china and smashed pottery. One priest did this all by himself—he must have made pastoral calls with a sledgehammer.
My guides are as various as the sights. Isola tells me about cursed pirate chests bound with bleached bones washing up on the beaches and what Mr. Hallette is hiding inside his barn (he says it’s a calf, but we know better). Eben describes how things used to look, before the war, and Eli disappears suddenly and then returns with peach juice and an angelic smile on his face. Dawsey says the least, but he takes me to see wonders—like the tiny church. Then he stands back and lets me enjoy them as long as I want. He’s the most un-hurrying person I’ve ever met. As we were walking along the road yesterday, I noticed that it cut very close to the cliffs and there was a trail leading down to the beach below. “Is this where you met Christian Hellman?” I asked. Dawsey looked startled and said yes, this was the spot. “What did he look like?” I asked, for I wanted to picture the scene. I expected it was a futile request, given that men cannot describe each other, but Dawsey knew how. “He looked like the German you imagine—tall, blond hair, blue eyes—except he could feel pain.”
With Amelia and Kit, I have walked to town several times for tea. Cee Cee was right in his raptures over sailing into St. Peter Port. The harbor, with the town traipsing straight up and steeply to the sky, must be one of the most beautiful in the world. Shop windows on High Street and the Pollet are sparkling clean and are beginning to fill up with new goods. St. Peter Port may be essentially drab right now—so many buildings need refurbishing—but it does not give off the dead-tired air poor London does. It must be because of the bright light that flows down on everything and the clean, clear air and flowers growing everywhere—in fields, on verges, in crannies, between paving stones.
You really have to be Kit’s height to see this world properly. She’s grand at pointing out certain things I would otherwise miss—butterflies, spiders, flowers growing tiny and low to the ground—they’re hard to see when you are faced with a blazing wall of fuchsias and bougainvillea. Yesterday, I came upon Kit and Dawsey crouched in the brush beside the gate, quiet as thieves. They weren’t stealing, though; they were watching a blackbird tug a worm out of the ground. The worm put up a good fight, and the three of us sat there in silence until the blackbird finally got it down his gullet. I’d never really seen the entire process before. It’s revolting.
Kit carries a little box with her sometimes when we go to town—a cardboard box, tied up tight with cord and a red yarn handle. Even when we have tea, she holds it on her lap and is very protective of it. There are no air holes in the box, so it can’t be a ferret. Or, oh Lord, maybe it’s a dead ferret. I’d love to know what’s in it, but of course I can’t ask.
I do like it here, and I’m settled in well enough to start work now. I will, as soon as I come back from fishing with Eben and Eli this afternoon.
