Youve thrown away your university career for this blasted romance! We sent you here to study, not to be married! We never imagined taking a country lass into our home, bellowed my father. The heat of my sons infatuation was to be quelled by a period of separation. At my fathers behest, Victor enlisted.
Ethel Whitford set the house in order. She stripped the old wallpaper, swapped the curtains, and straightened the cramped loft. Ethel loved order; it soothed her spirit.
In the furthest corner of the attic she uncovered a dusty box of Victors letters. How long it had lain unopened! She forgot the chores for a moment and began to readfirst one, then another, then a third
Victor and Ethel had first met at the Cambridge Polytechnic. Victor was a city boy; Ethel had come from a small Suffolk village.
She beguiled him with her striking looks: long dark hair, bright eyes, a lithe figure.
They soon became a couple. For shy, gentle Ethel, boisterous Victor was a whirlwind. Every day he concocted a new scheme to win the fair country girls affection. He left blossoms on the door of her dormitory, slipped a note into her nighttime window, and whispered goodnight from the firstfloor flat.
Rowdy student parties, strolls along the River Cam and stolen kisses made the first year fly by. The lovers were inseparable.
Then Victor let his studies slip. He had never been keen on grinding through academic rigour, and now love had taken hold. He was expelled from the Polytechnic, but that did not dampen his spirits.
Ill find work, then return parttime, and well marry, my love, he told Ethel.
He secured a job at a local engineering works and announced his intention to wed. Ethels parents knew little of it; she visited them a few times.
Victor expected his family to receive the news with joy. In truth, his father and mother had hoped their son would marry the daughter of an old family friend. Their chosen match, Clara Hart, was not one Victor or Clara desired.
Victor imagined he could persuade his parents, that they would see his devotion to Ethel and understand that life without her was unthinkable.
But his hopes were shattered. His family could not comprehend, and their reaction was harsh.
Youve abandoned your studies for this love! We sent you to learn, not to marry! We never intended to take a country girl into our home, raged his father again.
The hotblooded romance was to be halted by a spell of separation. At his fathers request, Victor went off to serve in the Army.
Ethel mourned her absent love. Only Victors tender, passionate letters gave her strength and some comfort.
Then, abruptly, their correspondence ceased. One month, two months, half a year passed with no word. Ethel felt adrift.
It happens; feelings cool in parting. It wasnt love, just a fancy, soothed a fellow student, Tom Benson.
Tom had been Victors close friend. Ethel did not know that Tom had confided in Victor, telling him how he loved Ethel and that they were now seeing each other. He asked Victor to stop writing to Ethel, for they planned to marry.
Ethel acquiesced, threw herself into her studies, and began to mingle with friends. Tom was always near; he had long harboured feelings for her, and Victors enforced goodbye gave Tom a chance to draw nearer.
Toms care and affection were sincere.
Let Tom at least be happy, thought Ethel, and she accepted his proposal.
Ethel placed Victors letters back in the box, unable to toss them, and stored the box out of sight.
She started a new life.
Victors parents soon announced that Ethel had married Tom.
And time flew.
A decade turned into another. Ethel and Victor lived in the same town, yet led parallel lives that never crossed.
Rumours reached Ethel that Victor had married not Clara, but another woman altogether. They had a son.
Ethels quiet, orderly existence brought little joy. With Tom she had two daughters. Childrearing and work became her world; there was no room left for lingering sentiment.
Each trudged his own path without happiness, forgetting that life could still be bright and fulfilling.
Thirtyfive years later the Whitford family fell apart. No matter how hard they tried, a marriage without love could not endure. Tom felt she had never truly loved him. He took a mistress, and the daughters grew up, married, and drifted away. Nothing bound them any longer.
After their divorce, Tom confessed to Victor that he had engineered the separation between Victor and Ethel.
Victors own marriage had also dissolved, leaving him alone.
Ethel opened the very last of Victors letters. Tears and a faint smile came together on her cheeks. Then a fierce curiosity seized her: where was Victor now? How had his life unfolded? She simply wanted to see him, to speak with him.
She wrote a note to his old address, hoping a relative might forward it. Ethel was always decisive. She dropped the letter into the nearest postbox without a second thought.
The next day she berated herself: Why was I so foolish?
Victor, returning home from his shift, peeked into his own mailbox. A letter? Such a thing was a rarity these days. He read the name on the envelope and could not believe his eyes. He unfolded the note; time seemed to rewind.
At the appointed hour he entered the little café opposite his house, heart thudding. The room was empty save for a single table where a woman sat.
Ethel he whispered, almost to himself.
Yes? she turned, eyes meeting his.
He recognised that gaze instantly; it was the same as all those years ago. It was her, his Ethel. They talked, wept, and laughed together.
When they left the café, they walked arm in arm, vowing never to part again.
P.S.
Nearly five years have passed since that reunion. Victor and Ethel live handinhand, counting each day as a blessing.
True love does not vanish without a trace; now they are certain of that beyond any doubt.
