Hidden Letters

What she finds in a vintage desk sends Anya on a roller-coaster of emotions

I love a thrift store, a boot sale or an up-cycling site. I dress in layers of clothes from different decades, cute mohair cardigans worn over silky skirts or men’s shirts as dresses, all made cuter by my trusty baseball boots.

I bury my nose is in romantic novels and classic books with names and inscriptions on the flyleaf that are not mine. My room is an emporium of vintage furniture: a kidney-shaped dressing table, a tallboy and a beautiful armoire with mother-of-pearl inlay. Yesterday I picked up the cutest Victorian desk at a shop that’s stocked by house clearances. The owner, Poz, had called me, knowing it was just my style.

Cloth in hand with a tin of beeswax fragrancing the air with a lavender-tinged aroma, I set about helping my latest acquisition feel the love. I lifted the little lid to examine the compartments where ink bottles and pens would’ve been stored. As I polished the sloped writing surface which was inlaid with leather, I entertained an image of Austen sitting at this desk to draft Sense and Sensibility, then shook my head at the notion; that was the wrong century.

I crouched and used my cloth to dust around the curls and carvings at the desk’s front, before moving to polish the drawers down either side. Poz had explained to me that on one side they were real drawers, and on the other side false, for symmetry. The bottom drawer was also fake, but as I polished its dark wood to the shine of a new conker, I detected movement of its frontage.

My heart thudded as I examined the front of the faux drawer more closely. Where the ones above had a keyhole, this had raised beading. Pressing the design cautiously with my fingers, I jumped when it sprang open and flapped down; not a drawer, but a trapdoor to a compartment. My excitement increased on realising there was something papery within.

Calm down, Anya, I cautioned; it’s probably an old piece of newspaper.

My fingers had already reached in to pull out whatever the secret compartment had concealed. A tiny bundle of letters, yellowed with age, was tied with a piece of ribbon which had once been pink. Could they possibly be love letters? By the rules of romantic fiction, they ought to be.

Discarding the polishing cloth, I hopped up onto my bed and, with trembling fingers, unfastened the ribbon, which had become stiff with age. Each letter was still in its original envelope, addressed to:

Miss Penelope Winters, The Old Rectory, Bramwell Hill, Hants

The stamps were pretty old - you can Google them later Anya, let’s get to the good stuff!

All morning I was absorbed, reading Penelope’s tender, romantic letters from her beloved Freddie, who’d gone away to train as an officer in the army. I felt a little in love with Freddie myself by the time I floated down the stairs to make a sandwich, and brew a pot of peppermint tea. His words were so sweet and sincere, making me wish the guys of my century took the time to put pen to paper instead of sending text messages or acting disinterested and hoping that girls would come to them.

You don’t know how lucky you are Penelope.

I settled back on my patchwork quilt, chewing the sandwich, and opened Freddie’s last letter.

Darling Penelope

How I wish I could be with you as your birthday approaches, to see you on the day you become a young woman. What an honour that would be.

However, I see you in my dreams. We walk in the meadow by your house, it is filled with buttercups and speedwell that brush against your dress as we wade through the long grass to our spot. Our wishing gate, so many dreams we have shared sitting on it. It’s where I asked you to be my betrothed. We kissed but you said I should wait, to ask your father when you turn twenty-one.

I’m asking again my love, and when I’m home, I’ll ask your parents. My prospects are much improved now I’m an officer. In my uniform they will take me seriously, believe I can provide for you. We could be happy in our own little house. You tending the garden in large floppy hat, me riding the train to work and home every evening. No more working your fingers to the bone in the munitions factory, we’ll just take care of each other dear one -

What’s this? the writing here is in pencil, more rushed and scruffy.

Hastening to post this Penelope. My unit has received orders to move out. I cannot say where. Know that I love you. Wait just a little longer. Each night, I shall look up at our star — I send it, my love, knowing it shines on you. Wherever I am in the world, stars remain constant, as my love remains, unwavering, for you, Dearest.

All my love — Freddie xxxx

Aghast, I flipped the letter over to check the date - June 1916. My heart plummeted when a few taps on my phone told me that was one month before the Battle of the Somme, where almost twenty thousand British men died on the first day alone.

Oh Freddie, please say you came home safely.

I sat and stared at limply the letters spread before me. Pages of cursive script, filled with a young man’s hopes and dreams for a future which probably never transitioned into reality. Penelope had kept his letters, hidden away. Perhaps they were consigned to the desk’s hidden space once she could no longer sustain the hope her young man would return. Had she married another, someone who replaced Freddie in heart, or spent decades keeping her promise to wait until they could be together?

I contemplated the desk, wishing it had never revealed its secret to me.

Read more from Jacinta here …

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