Saying goodbye to Edward was the hardest. She’d crept into his room before she went down the stairs for the last time. She found him sitting up in bed. He smiled when he saw her and, for an awful moment, she thought he’d forgotten their conversation of the evening before and was just pleased to see her. If Edward did not want her to leave, she could not. She saw his eyes move to the small suitcase she carried with her, calm and happy still. He remembered.
She had returned home from the Bonfire Party she’d attended with Michael, to find Edward still awake, sitting in the shadows of the parlour. He’d been sitting in his usual chair, but on the edge, as if agitated. The fireworks of Guy Fawkes Night had left him weeping, shivering slightly. She stroked his face and he was quieter, seemed soothed by her presence. He’d looked like a child again, and she wanted nothing more than to embrace him and tell him everything would be all right. However, she could not ignore the sheets of crumpled and torn paper around him, covered in his uneven handwriting. They were on his lap, on the floor, on the arms of the chair, on the side table. There were ink blots all over his fingers, even a smudge of ink just above his top lip.
“What’s all this, Eddie?” she’d asked gently. Edward looked at her, watching. She bent to pick a scrap up from near Edward’s foot. All that was written was her name. “That’s my name, Eddie. Is this for me?” Edward did not respond, simply stared at the fragment of paper in her hand. She bent and picked up another. “Is it a letter, Eddie, to me?”
Edward nodded furiously. “A letter. To Evie.”
Evelyn stared. This was the closest to a conversation she’d had with her brother since before he went to war. He barely ever responded directly to questions. “What were you writing to me about? What does this mean, Eddie?” she asked him, turning the paper, with its indecipherable scribblings, to show him. His eyes dropped to look at what he had written, but he said nothing. His right hand began to tremble and Evelyn grasped it between her own, abandoning the scraps of paper for a moment to soothe him. She saw the tears rising in his eyes. Her mind flew back to the last time she’d truly seen him cry, the night before he’d left for the war. The night he’d made her promise.
The realisation dawned suddenly. “My promise.”
“Yes, yes, yes, promise. Evie, promise.” Edward nodded furiously again.
She’d rarely seen him so agitated, she knew she should try to calm him. But she needed to know what he was thinking. She’d barely given the promise a second thought herself. So much had happened since that night. She was so far from keeping that promise. What she had said tonight, to Michael, was the final step. She’d never keep the promise if she married him.
“Is that it, Eddie? That you think I’ve not kept my promise?” Edward stopped nodding and stared at her, but the stare was accusatory. “I still think West Coombe’s too small, just like we always did. But I don’t know how to leave. Do you know what I did tonight? I said yes when Michael asked me to marry him. I said yes. I’m going to be Mrs. Michael Godfrey and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I can’t keep that damn promise, Eddie, even though I want to and you have no business being angry with me about it unless you have some sort of magic and can get me away from here!”
And he had then produced a kind of magic, Evelyn mused. Crumpled from his pocket, a letter in an unfamiliar hand, on yellowed paper. The final letter written by a fallen comrade, a captain of Edward’s regiment, entrusted to Edward to be delivered to his sister in Mayfair, should he not survive. Edward, for reasons he could not explain, had kept the letter for eight years. She’d read the letter with tears in her eyes. Frank Grainger and his sister Lilian were unknown to her, but to read this brief, intimate insight into their life affected her deeply.
Edward had taken a deep breath. “Go!” He paused for a moment, waiting for her response. “Promised!”
“But you can’t go to London, Eddie!” Evelyn was surprised he’d even considered it. “I know you promised this Frank that you’d try, but you can’t.” Edward was suddenly shaking his head again. “It’s all right, Eddie. Maybe we can put the letter in the post, or enquire if Lilian still lives there.” She reached out a hand and tried to soothe him.
“No!” His voice was loud and Evelyn thought about her parents sleeping in the room above. “You go.”
Evelyn stared at him, realisation finally beginning to dawn. “Me?” Now Edward was nodding, more gently. He knew she understood. “You want me to go to London and take this letter to Lilian Grainger on your behalf.” Evelyn felt her hands shaking. “And you think it would fulfil what I promised, don’t you, Eddie? It will get me out of West Coombe. Away from Michael.” She reached the finally conclusion quietly, almost to herself.
Edward had stopped nodding and was simply regarding Evelyn quietly, calmer now.
“I couldn’t do it, Eddie! Mother and Father wouldn’t allow it and I’ve said what I said to Michael. And I don’t have any money. You can’t just go to London, especially not a woman on her own. What do you expect me to do, just turn up at Lilian Grainger’s door and ask to stay?”
In silent response, Edward had reached into the pocket of his pyjamas. Into her hands he scooped a raggedy heap of folder
