Page 80 of One Cornish Summer With You
I don’t mean that to sound bitter, only honest. I realised some time ago that I would never be enough for you. You are an ambitious young man who wants to get on in the world. I’m an ordinary girl from a humble home who simply wants tosettle down and bring up a family. That would have been more than sufficient for me.
I think that will never be enough for you and that is why you don’t seem to be able to return the kind of love and affection I would be willing to offer you.
I can’t say much more. There’s nothing left to say.
Wishing you all the very best,
Yours with affectionate thoughts,
Kathleen
Ruan read Kathleen’s letter several times over before sitting back with a sigh of complete confusion. It was clear that Kathleen had been in love with Walter, yet he hadn’t been in love – or enough in love – with her. She’d given up on him and left Cornwall to live with her parents somewhere. Going by the date, Walter would only have been a young man then, with his whole life before him.
Judging by the fact he’d kept the letter, surely he must have regretted losing Kathleen. With a heavy sigh, Ruan delved deeper into the box and found a small notebook with a stained navy leather cover. It looked as if it hadn’t been opened for decades. Carefully, he prised the pages apart and there at the heart of the book, pressed between two of the leaves, was a flower with another tightly folded piece of paper.
It was a rose, and the head was so fragile that it crumbledeven as Ruan unfolded the letter: and when he read on, it seemed a symbol of Walter’s thwarted hopes and perhaps his grip on any chance of happiness.
This time, the note was full of scrawled phrases, crossed out so hard that the nib had made a hole in the paper and there were blots everywhere. Walter had written it in a state of high emotion – his distress and frustration were clear.
Dear Kathleen,
I don’t know how to say this. I’m the worst person in the world to say it, which is why I’ve put it in a letter.
My dearest Kathleen
I’m not the one for honeyed words. You of all people know that so I’m going to come right out with it.
I’d be the happiest man alive if you would do me the honour of becoming my wife.
My dearest Kathleen,
I feel I have to write down a sentiment I feel I would never have the words to express adequately.
Would you do me the honour of
No. NO. I CANNOT DO THIS!
Ruan set the abandoned proposal aside and placed the fragments of the rose in an empty bowl, feeling despair at all that he’d read. Had Walter bought the roses for Kathleen, intending to propose but never being able to find the courage? Or picked them later in life as a very bittersweet memento? Was that why he was so angry with Hicks for hacking at the rosebush?
Had he tried to find Kathleen? Or had he simply accepted she’d left him and retreated into his house?
Feeling that the letters had only opened up more wounds rather than provided healing, Ruan walked outside and looked up at the house, imagining all the secrets, lies and misery it had witnessed over the decades – especially since Tammy and her parents had left.
She’d said they’d been so happy there, in the early years, playing in the sun in the garden and swimming in the cove. Could such a place ever be happy again after what he’d read?
He’d been allowed a glimpse into the backstory of his benefactor that involved a lost love and a wounded and embittered character who had only himself to blame. Kathleen’s reference to Walter being an ambitious young man resonated too – but was that enough for Walter to have recognised a kindred spirit in Ruan himself? Or had Walter been thinking of the day he’d found a young boy helping his mum in the garden?
With a sigh, Ruan returned to sifting through the contents of the box when a piece of white notepaper, clearlynewer than the rest, attracted his attention. The writing on it was spidery and faint. It had obviously been written much more recently than any of the other communications. He caught his breath when he saw the brief message on it.
Ruan
Do better than I did
W
There was no doubt it was meant for him and from his uncle. It was typical Walter: terse, short, yet blunt in its meaning. It also made Ruan feel like crying.
Walter had known his own mind when he’d made his will yet hadn’t had the opportunity or capacity – or courage – to get in touch with his great-nephew and say it himself. And even though Walter had asked Ruan to ‘do better’ than he had, what exactly did that mean? Be more successful? Live a more fulfilling life – a more loving life?
