“To be honest we don’t know all that much about what happened after she left Cornwall,” says Matt. “That’s why we’re here.”
“I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. I didn’t even know Aunty Daisy had lived in Cornwall,” Dave remarks. “I know she travelled through France and Belgium a great deal and she nursed in London for a while – but she lived in Cornwall? That’s news to me.”
“Maybe I can fill in some gaps?” Matt offers. “I think I explained over the telephone that I work for the Kernow Heritage Foundation and we’re restoring Rosecraddick Manor, the childhood home of Kit Rivers, the war poet? I’m Dr Enys.”
Dave nods. “I Googled you. You used to teach here at Oxford. Modern history, wasn’t it? Specialising in the First World War? Very impressive.”
Matt flushes. “Probably sounds more impressive than it is.”
Dave smiles. “I think you’re being a bit modest there. Anyway, I don’t know much about that, I’m afraid, and I can’t see what any of this has to do with my great-aunt.”
I slide the diary out of my bag. The cloth slips away and the leather-bound journal that Daisy was so proud of sits on her great-nephew’s table. Without saying a word, I pass it to Dave.
“This is your great-aunt’s diary. She lived in Rosecraddick during the First World War and she was engaged to Kit Rivers. He was the love of her life but he was declared missing in action and her story seems to have been lost. I thought I knew everything there was to know about him until this came to light,” Matt says.
“Daisy Alice Hills 1914,” Dave reads out loud as he opens it. He shakes his head in wonder. “And this was hers? She was engaged to a poet? Are you sure? I’ve never heard any of this before.”
Matt nods. “Totally sure. It’s some story and I’m really hoping you may be able to help us piece the rest together.”
While Dave flicks through the diary we sip the bitter coffee (he needs a little more practice on that machine) and tell him everything we know about Daisy and Kit. By the time we’re talked out, a good hour has passed by and Dave’s looking stunned.
“This is absolutely incredible,” he says. “You say there were missing poems too that she’d kept safe?”
“That’s right,” Matt tells him. “Your great-aunt managed to save some of the most important writing of the twentieth century.”
“I’m not surprised she hid those away after that old boot burned Kit’s letters. What a cow. Poor Aunty Daisy!” Dave’s furious on his great-aunt’s behalf and I just know that the way his brows knit and his chin juts out are all hers. “Can you believe she never mentioned any of this? I wonder why she didn’t publish Kit’s poems herself?”
I’ve been thinking long and hard about this and the only conclusion I can draw is that Daisy had felt the poems belonged to Kit. Maybe she was waiting for him to publish them himself when he returned?
“It’s a mystery she took with her,” is all I say.
Dave sighs. “Indeed it is. My parents have no idea about any of this and I can’t imagine Grandpa did either. She certainly kept a lot of secrets.”
Matt swirls his coffee dregs. “There are lots of gaps, that’s for sure.”
“There are, but I think I can help you fill a few in. Mum’s the family-history buff and she knows a few things about Aunty Daisy, although to be honest most of the research she’s done was on my great-grandfather, who was a field surgeon in the First World War. We’re pretty proud of Charles Hills. My mum’s kind of adopted him, I think, even though he’s not a blood relation of hers.”
“He was Daisy’s father,” I say.
“That’s right. My grandpa, Edward Hills, was a doctor too. And my dad before he retired. My big sister’s one too. Just not me. I’m happier with computers. Crap with blood.”
Little Eddie became a doctor. Funny to think of Daisy’s naughty brother having such a serious job.
“You’re a medical family, all right. Daisy was a VAD during the war,” Matt says.
Dave looks blank.
“A volunteer nurse,” I explain. “Officially she was too young, but we think she might have lied about her age.”
“Or maybe your great-grandfather pulled some strings to get her in,” Matt suggests. “Anyway, the point is, she certainly played her part in the war effort. After that we lose track of her though. She simply disappears. You’re the first lead we’ve had.”
“I really hope I can help.” Leaning back in his chair, Dave twirls a red ringlet around his forefinger. “A lot of this is pretty second-hand and cobbled together from what I’ve been told over the years, but I can tell you that it’s a bit of a family legend that Aunty Daisy had her heart broken and never got over it. She never married and she spent her whole life searching for her fiancé, who’d been lost in action in the First World War.”
“Kit Rivers,” I say, and Dave nods.
“I guess so, but we never knew his name. Now I’m starting to wish I’d asked Grandpa more about it all when he was alive, but to me she was just an old lady I’d never met. She wasn’t very interesting.”
I feel a sting of indignation. “Daisy was funny and clever and brave!”
“I’m sure she was all those things,” Dave says hastily. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound disparaging. I’m afraid I was just a little boy when Grandpa spoke of her, and her story didn’t really interest me. Any pictures I saw of her were an elderly lady who lived all alone.”
“So she never married?” Sorrow clutches my heart like a fist.
“No, never. My dad says she carried sadness with her like a heavy backpack because she’d lost her fiancé in the war. I had no idea he was anyone out of the ordinary, though. Hers was a tragic story, but hardly uncommon; I’ve never really thought to ask about it. So many women lost their men back then, didn’t they?”
“They did and lots of them never married because of the war,” Matt says. “Entire futures were wiped out and family lives never lived because of the loss of a whole generation. I’m always struck by all those private tragedies.”
“Yes, that was definitely the case for Daisy,” Dave remarks. “She travelled a lot, Mum says, searching for her fiancé in case he’d lost his memory and was in a hospital somewhere. She did that for years. Then she wrote letters to the Red Cross and the War Graves Commission. She was pretty tireless by all accounts. The story goes that she always believed her fiancé was alive somewhere and she’d sworn she would wait for him forever, so that was exactly what she did.”
I will love him every day and until my eyes close for the very last time.
I hear Daisy’s words from the journal as clearly as though she were sitting next to me. She had meant it with all her heart. There had only ever been Kit. If there was even a slim chance he might return, of course she would wait for him.
“She had a sad life, didn’t she? She had no children or family of her own,” Dave continues. “I think she helped out with my dad when he was small, which might explain why she settled in Oxford. Dad was the closest thing to a son she had, and Daisy wanted to be near him when she was older. She owned a small house here for a while too, which she bought with the money her godfather left her and—”
“Her godfather left her money?” I sit up at this. Such generosity doesn’t sound like the Reverend Cutwell to me. “Really? Are you sure?”
“According to my dad he left her the lot, so she eventually bought a house in the city and a cottage in Chipping Norton. Grandpa sold them both after she died in the seventies. Dad really wishes he hadn’t. They’d be worth a fortune now!”
I’m not interested in discussing the housing market.
“’Where’s Daisy buried?” I ask Dave. I want to go there. I need to go there.
“She wasn’t buried. She was cremated and she asked for her ashes to be scattered in the sea. I think Grandpa organised it but, again, it was before I was born and he’s long gone too. I can ask my dad. He might know. I bet it was where Daisy met Kit, wasn’t it?”
I glance at Matt and I know he’s thinking the same as me. This must have been at Rosecraddick. Daisy’s been there all along, watching and urging me on. Her ashes were scattered in the cove. I just know it. She’s been there the whole time.
“I think it must have been,” Matt agrees.
Dave checks his watch and sighs. “I’d love to talk more about all this and I know my parents will too, but I really need to get going if I’m to make it to Heathrow. I’ve got a few bits and pieces here which make more sense to me now, and I’m sure they’ll help you. If you take them with you and you manage to figure the rest of it out, then I’d be interested to know more.”
He fetches a carrier bag from the worktop. It’s full of envelopes.
“It’s letters mostly, and a couple of photos,” he says as he hands them to Matt. “There’s some jewellery too that Mum looked out. You’re really welcome to see it but I’d better keep it here just in case…”
The words peter out and Dave’s fair skin flushes.
“That’s absolutely fine,” Matt reassures him. “I wouldn’t expect you to part with anything valuable to a stranger.”
Dave looks relieved. “It’s not that I don’t trust you or believe you, and I don’t think it’s worth much, but it’s a family ring.”
I lean forward. “A ring? Can I see it?”
“Sure. Help yourself. It’s in a box somewhere at the bottom of the bag, amongst all the other stuff.”
There must be over fifty letters in the bag Matt’s holding, each with just the initials K.R. and a date on the envelope. Every single one is sealed.
“I have no idea what they are,” Dave confesses. “Dad said they were with her when she passed away, so they must have been important, but we’ve never opened them. It didn’t feel right. Are they to him, do you think? Kit?”
“I think they must be.” Matt’s shuffling through the envelopes. “They’re all dated on the same day and it looks as though she wrote one a year. One a year for over fifty years.”
Dave shakes his head. “Poor Aunty Daisy. To think that she missed this guy for the rest of her life. It’s tragic, isn’t it? She just couldn’t move on.”
“She didn’t know for certain what had happened to Kit, so she was never able to stop hoping,” I say.
“Closure, you mean?”
That’s a word Perky Pippa liked to use. At the time I let it all wash over me because I’d been convinced that I was never, ever going to accept that Neil was gone, but now I see she’d been right. All those clichés about time healing were true. I’m not sure if acceptance is the right word because I’ll always rail against the unfairness of losing him; still, at least there’s no doubt about what happened to Neil. I was there to see it, I arranged the funeral and I said goodbye to the plume of grey that danced across the lake. Daisy never had that; she never knew for sure what became of Kit. Of course she never gave up.
“That’s exactly it,” I agree.
“It’s so strange to think of her as a young woman in love,” Dave says quietly. “I never met my great-aunt. I’d love to know more.”
“By rights her diary and belongings should go to her family. We can leave everything with you, if you’d like?” Matt offers, but Dave waves his hand.
“No, don’t do that. You guys found it all and if you hadn’t her story would still be lost. Pass me some photocopies. That way I can share it with my folks. If anything, her diary belongs at this house you told me about, with all the other bits you found. After all, she’s part of the Kit Rivers story, isn’t she?”
“She is the Kit Rivers story. Without Daisy he may not have written as honestly as he did. She didn’t just safeguard his work: she inspired him,” Matt says. “Your Great-Aunt Daisy’s part of the literary heritage of World War One and I promise I’ll do everything I can to make sure her story isn’t forgotten.”
Dave plucks a photo from the bag. “Well, here she is as a girl. Hey! She was beautiful and he was really quite handsome. They look like film stars.”
I lean over and study the picture. A young couple stare out at me across the decades. They’re in a formal pose, the man in his uniform and the girl looking startlingly modern with her direct gaze, wild curls and pretty dress. The bottom right-hand corner of the picture bears the name of a long-lost photographic studio in Truro and the date, May 1916.
“That’s the photo they had taken when they got engaged! Daisy writes about it!”
I may be in an attic flat in the middle of a different city a century later, but it’s that long-ago day in Truro I’m seeing, Daisy and Kit arm in arm as they walk along the street to the grand hotel where they celebrated. When Dave passes me the daisy ring I can hardly breathe. It’s as sparkly now as it must have been then, and to see it for real is incredible. It’s a tangible symbol of a love and a promise that neither death nor time could erase.
I can’t quite believe I’m touching the very same ring that Kit Rivers placed on Daisy Hills’ finger.
Chapter 9
Chloe
To my beloved Kit – how do I miss you?
I miss you in the early hours of the morning, when we used to meet each other at the cove more asleep than awake, and you would hold me in your arms warm and safe until the sun rose. I miss you at breakfast when I give Reverend Cutwell his paper – read first by me, of course! When I despair a little at the world I miss you making me smile and promising all will be well.
I miss you when I sit in church and your seat in the front pew is empty. I miss you when I walk past Rosecraddick Manor. I always knew you were at the window watching me until I was lost from sight. Now when I walk past I say to myself, ‘Don’t look back – he isn’t there.’ But I do look back, and when I see that there’s no handkerchief at your tower window my heart breaks all over again.
Small things occur in my day and the thought flashes as always, ‘I must tell Kit!’, and so I save up the little treasures to share with you in my letters – snippets from a patchwork of observations that I know you will unpick and stitch back into poems. Then I remember there is no Kit to tell, that you are not going to meet me in our cove or leave a poem in the wall. I don’t know how to tell you any of this now, my love, because I don’t know where you are or how to find you.
When I walk down to the beach I still feel that flutter of excitement as I watch out for you. Sometimes I expect to find you waiting there for me, wearing your jacket with the sleeves rolled up and with the light gilding your hair. The sun shines in my eyes and for a moment my heart lifts because I really do think it’s you. But, my darling, you are not there, and I stumble down the path with my eyes blinded by tears.
I miss that funny little whistling sound you made while you drafted poems. You never could whistle properly, my love, but it always reassured me to hear it as I dozed in the sunshine and listened to the waves. Sometimes I hear a small sound from a bird and my heart leaps as I think, ‘There’s Kit!’ and I expect to see you just around the corner. I try to run to you, scrabbling up the cliff path and with gorse scoring my arms, but I never manage to catch up. You are always, always just out of reach.
Where are you, my darling? Where have you hidden?
Oh Kit, I miss sitting beside you on the rocks, your hand always holding mine. Sometimes you held it so tightly that I had to release my fingers for a moment, always to slide them back into yours. I would never let you go now, Kit, I promise. If you come back and take my hand again I will hold on and for the rest of my life.
Yesterday I swam again in the cold water and then I snoozed on the beach as we so often did. As I awoke I stretched out my hand for you to pull me close, as I did so many times, but there was no you.
I miss a thousand little things which have no being in words. Days and nights have passed since they say you left, my love, but I cannot believe that you are gone. How did I not know? How did I not feel it? Why didn’t you come to me? If you called to me right now I would fly with you into eternity. Gladly. Willingly. But if that is no
t to be then how can I drag myself through the weary days?
You cannot be gone, Kit. You cannot have left me. I would know it. I will find you and we shall meet again, someday and somewhere.
xDx
To my beloved Kit,
You used to say to me, ‘I will love you all of my life’, and you did. You did. You did. And I will love you all of my life too. Then, now and forever.
xDx
To my beloved Kit,
I miss your sense of humour. Always you had me laughing at some foolish thing or other. Anything that happened, you could turn into a funny tale. I hope your men appreciated that, my love? And I hope it carried you through those dark days? Forgive me that I never asked more. They told us that we couldn’t write anything that might help the enemy and sometimes you told me things that they censored. How that grieved me, to think that your thoughts and your beautiful imagery may be buried beneath those thick black lines.
Kit, I miss your protectiveness, your kindness – always putting me before yourself. Sometimes we would argue because you always wanted to give me the ‘best bit’ of everything. Your great generosity. You never wanted to keep things for yourself, only for me. Did you know that I always felt I didn’t deserve you, a Rivers from the big house? And me just a doctor’s daughter, and one with a limp as well. I couldn’t understand what you saw in me, my love, when you were the sun, the moon and the stars. Yet you saw something special and you made me feel so loved and so precious. Our time has been cut so short yet I wouldn’t trade a moment. Every second we spent together is worth the years of loneliness ahead and the endless searching. I will never stop looking for you. Never.
xDx
To my beloved Kit,
It gets worse, my love. I’m so lonely without you and I am ashamed to admit that some days I don’t feel I want to keep trying.
I promise that I will keep your poems safe and guard them forever. You were right: your father and mother would fear them, but your words paint a vivid picture that must be protected for all time. I promise I will keep them safe until you return for them.
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