First I must apologise for not having written before. I could say I have been too busy, but although that is partly true, it is not the whole truth. I think I needed time to come to terms with what I found out that day before I left Southwick. Your help the morning I departed was crucial and I want you to know that.
Looking back, I don’t know how I imagined I would manage without a penny to my name, but I wasn’t thinking clearly, of course. I am very happy in my new life but I will write more of that next time. For now, I wanted to thank you and to say that when I think of you, it is with fondness. Give the boys my best wishes and I hope you are all well.
Your cousin,
Sophy
Patience carefully folded the single sheet of paper back into the envelope before slipping it in her handbag, and then walked across to the window where she gazed out over the garden and drive. It was a sunny morning and the sunlight glancing over the grounds gave a tranquillity and beauty to the day. She drank it in, drawing strength from the birdsong and blue sky. And she would need strength in the coming hour, she thought grimly, when she faced her mother.
Her mother . . . Patience’s thin mouth tightened into a line. How had her father put up with her all these years? Oh, she knew he wasn’t perfect, far from it, but compared to her mother . . . In the space of the last eighteen months her mother had caused Sophy to run away to goodness knows where, and made life so impossible for John and Matthew when they wouldn’t give up their girls that they now resided together in a small flat over a butcher’s shop in Bishopwearmouth – the rent of which they could ill-afford as both were saving to get married. Even David saw to it that he was invited to his pals’ homes over the hols whenever he could so he was rarely at the vicarage. And she had been left living at home, if you could call the four walls within which a silent war was played out day after day, ‘home’. But no more.
Patience dried her face with her handkerchief and straightened her narrow shoulders. Today she was going to do something that would almost certainly result in the doors of the vicarage being closed to her for ever, and she couldn’t wait. She had the rest of her life in front of her and she didn’t intend to waste it. The seed of rebellion against her lot which had been planted the day Sophy had left, had come to flower. It was strange that she had received Sophy’s letter this morning of all mornings, in view of what she intended to do – but she would take it as a positive sign. She was glad the letter had come by first post, which meant that Molly had brought it to her with an early morning cup of tea. It meant her mother knew nothing about it.
She glanced at her trunk packed full with all of the clothes and belongings she wanted to take with her, and her stomach fluttered, whether out of excitement or the thought of the ordeal ahead, she didn’t know. She had arranged for the cab to call at nine-thirty after breakfast and it was now ten past eight. Morning prayers would begin in the drawing room at eight-fifteen and last for exactly fifteen minutes. As a child she hadn’t minded the daily prayers; in fact, she had found them comforting. It seemed right to start the day by asking God to oversee it. But now this ritual grated on her as the height of hypocrisy. Her parents couldn’t stand the sight of each other and yet they sat there in front of the servants every morning as pious and righteous as they came. However, from today she wouldn’t have to endure that any more, along with many other things which regularly got under her skin.
Patience checked that everything was in order before leaving the room. She intended to break her news during breakfast, and if her mother reacted as she expected, she would have no time to do more than collect her trunk and handbag and leave.