The Correspondence of Miss Hedy Raan

Writer’s note: My second odd little epistolary piece for this website but I always have fun with them. About 2,500 words, a paltry ten minutes to read.

The Correspondence of Miss Hedy Raan

Dearest sister,

I do have so much to tell you! With regards to the concerns expressed in your last letter, please worry not. Mama is doing very well; you know how she gets when the seasons change, but raising any fears on your behalf was the furthest thing from my mind when I, in so off-hand a manner, referenced her health. Truly, you have nothing to worry for. Papa did call in a man to physic her a few days ago, but only from an abundance of both caution and love.

Now that is said, I can tell you that which my heart soars to write. I can barely believe that I can write it at all – I fear that putting down the words will, in some evil spell, turn them to untruth! I shall just write it, and let the consequences be what they may: Mr Jakob Kornuindus proposed! Oh, Thijs said he would, and Mama and Papa told me to expect it, but I dared not believe them as a defence against the awful possibility that he would not. Yet, there you have it; your sister is to be Mrs Jakob Kornuindus – it sounds handsome, does it not?

I have been writing it, my soon to be name that is, out for the past hour, so that it shall be perfect when I am called upon to sign receipts in the process of running his household – and what a household he has promised me! I am to be given away with a dowry no greater or less than that which you were furnished with and, to that, will be added the two hundred a year that Jakob – I shall call him Jakob, surely I can as his fiancé – receives from his father and which his brother promises to continue upon his inheritance, as well as his military salary.

I will, I am sure you agree, be able to keep a very warm and open household on that amount and, to further our comfort, his father plans buy us a house in the city. Though I should set aside so mercenary a discussion – money is an obstacle in the pursuit of happiness, so we are always told, and it does not do to dwell on it so, be your situation with it good or ill. Regardless, we shall be close to our family and his, with only you, my dear sister, so far away in Perst, though of course you shall be required to come and stay at your earliest convenience and for as long as you can.

Indeed, I hoped that you would perhaps do me the great service of coming to stay with us for the first few weeks after the wedding, to help me settle and set up the household. I told Thijs of this hope and he told me to set it aside – that Jakob shall want me to himself in the early weeks of our marital bliss – but our brother does not understand my concerns. I want everything to be perfect for my new husband and am so fearful, though I know Jakob shall always be kind and understanding, of making things not to his liking or of making some mistake with the staff or the finances or some other aspect of housekeeping. So please sister, let us put the Raan sisters, now Mrs Lootzen and Mrs Kornuindus, under one roof again while I get my bearings.

I wish I could make this letter longer, but I have so much to do. Everyone is arriving to pay me their complements and Mama already wishes to talk of all the particulars of the day and my happiness ever after. So, I shall set down my pen for now – but take it up again as soon I am able.

As a last aside, which seems so at odds with the rest of my happy letter, I should let you know that the king has died, in case word has yet to reach you. I hope, of course, for him to soon find himself set up at Eynas Reito’s right hand. So, all the old men are rushing to elect a new one, or not to elect a new one, according to their persuasions, and the whole city is in uproar. It is rather distracting from the imminence of my nuptials, but that is an awful thing to write so I truly shall stop here before I move on from disrespecting the dead to outright blasphemy.

Your loving sister,

Hedy

Dearest sister,

I write with gravest news. Have you heard? Oh, please tell me I am not the bearer of this news to you – surely I could not be. It is war. War of brother against brother, over so silly a cause as upon whose head a crown should sit, or whether there should be a head for it to sit atop at all.

My nuptials have, of course, been suspended indefinitely and, oh how my heart breaks for him, my Jakob – I call him that now, even in company – sent out with his column to battle. Our goodbye was long and sad and I hated it. Though it was I who was supposed to comfort him, the brave soldier going off to war, in fact the situation was quite reversed. I was besides myself, bawling out my eyes, and it was he who settled my spirits in the end.

Thijs, of course, thought my reaction silly. He envies my Jakob – wishes he could go out and find his glory too. He joined up with the Bruitossel Free Corps the very day war was announced but they are ordered to hold the city while the army goes out, to his greatest irritation. Jakob would never think me silly. He said so himself but promised that he would return safe and that the whole affair would be short and near to bloodless.

On the whole, all the men are rather positive about the thing and the city is abuzz with talk of our brave soldiers. Every man who is not wishes he was one and every woman who is not wishes she were married to one. Some weddings have been conducted with remarkable haste, to allow the brave men their wedding night before they are sent off to battle, but Jakob wouldn’t hear of it. He did not want our wedding rushed or the fear of what might come after to hang over it, nor would he want a wedding where you are absent – truly, he thought of you, knowing how much I would hate it if you missed our happy day. He is so good to me. As he left, Papa and Mama embraced him and called him ‘son’ and the whole scene was so perfect that it made me hate this war all the more for how it keeps us from our happiness.

I would write longer, but I feel tears coming already and wish not to spill them upon the page. Write to me often, sister – your letters are one of the few pleasures that still remain to me. I wish you and your family the greatest safety.

Your loving sister,

Hedy

Dearest sister,

Bugger this war. Excuse so crass a word but I cannot think of it any other way. Daily do we receive updates on the glorious combats and their outcomes. And I shall admit that even I was taken in by the romance of the thing when first they started. I longed to see my Jakob mentioned by name in connection with some great feat of moral courage. How very silly I was, though it was but weeks ago. Now, I cannot think of those lists of names with anything more or less than the deepest dread.

Miss Bielen found her husband amongst the lists. The wrong list – not that of the decorated but that of the, well, I cannot even write it. Now she merely prays that her father returns to her safely so that she can have the comfort of at least one of those two men most important to her in all the world.

I am afeared every day that my Jakob will find himself on that same list. It is all I think about when my weary head hits the pillow each night. It is my first thought upon opening my eyes. It is terrible, quite terrible. Worse, indeed, for it has been two weeks since last he wrote. We writes me constantly and, though I have been told time and time again by Mama and Papa and even Thijs too that mail from the campaign is unreliable at best, still every day without a letter is another knife plunged into my chest.

The thing I did not expect is how very boing it all is. Do not think me a monster for saying so, it is just that the whole city was so excited when first war was announced. Now, deprived of the best amongst our menfolk, the balls are lacklustre and the company in general sadly depleted. Perhaps it is merely separation from my Jakob that colours the world grey but I see a similar feeling, unspoken, behind the eyes of everyone I meet. Though our bodies remain here, our hearts are on the battlefield. We all live through our brave soldiers and, back here, are little more than shadows.

Thijs is chomping at the bit. Every day he goes out to march and practice at arms with the Free Corps and every day he returns disappointed that they have not yet been ordered out to join the regular army. I pray they never shall be. Better he be safe though frustrated than laid out on some forsaken battlefield. Oh but that was a terrible thing to say, as it has turned my thoughts back to Jakob.

He is safe, I tell myself continuously. I would feel it if he were not, do you not agree? Eynas Idarniso would not squeeze my fragile little heart so only to deliver me a blow I could not possibly take. He is too good for that. I must believe it.

Now, distract me sister. Tell me in your next letter, not of war, but of all the joys of living so very far from the fighting. Of what treasures from the Islands you have found at market or of petty gossip relating to those I have never met and never shall. Anything, sister, truly – just take my mind off of the brutal exercise in masculinity playing out around me.

Your loving sister,

Hedy

Dearest sister,

I received at long last a letter from my Jakob. He is safe, he says, but was captured by the rebels at some battle near Taarlis. He writes that he is in good health and spirits and being treated with every dignity but still my heart breaks for him. I fear that he shall be harmed by them and that he shall not return to me until after this war is concluded – which despite all promises appears to be very far off indeed.

There is, of course, some comfort in knowing. At least he is not, well, at least he is alive. It could be infinitely worse, of course. This is a blessing, I tell myself. He is off the battlefield and out of harm’s way, is he not? Write me words of comfort, sister, for I shall not believe them from anyone else.

He did explain in his letter that any future correspondence would be irregular, as they are rarely permitted by their captors to send any and, any they do, is rigorously checked for hidden messages. Yet still, without regular assurance I fall into the deepest melancholy for him and our future happiness together. To think, if not for all this, we could be married already and deep in our bliss.

Further unhappy news, I am afraid – and rather tired of being the messenger of. The Bruitossel Free Corps were ordered to form up a battalion of men for service on campaign alongside the army. Thijs, of course, was the first volunteer. He leaves tomorrow.

He has enjoyed the whole thing to a frankly uncouth degree. I would have told him as much, but I have not enough malice in me to do so. Four women all but proposed to him themselves last night and, though he enjoyed the attention, none were asked. I am glad for that. The worst thing in the world would be to put another poor soul in my own position.

All soldiers should be bachelors by law, I tell you. Without siblings; orphans too. For it is all very well for them, so eager and excitable, to go off to die for their country, but can they not see that their first duty is to us, their family? And that to get themselves killed over so ridiculous a cause as this would be the gravest sin Eynas Reito ever conceived?

But once again I have turned my thoughts towards eventualities that I cannot dwell on, for now two men of mine are out there and if either of them were lost then I would be lost also.

Keep up your letters, sister. The only correspondence I desire more than Jakob’s is yours, for the few minutes I can lose myself in them is the greatest joy of my sad little life here.

Your loving sister,

Hedy

Dearest sister,

Call your husband to you and sit down before you continue reading. I hope my tears do not render this letter illegible. Steel yourself, sister. I am so sorry to have to write these words.

Thijs is dead. We heard yesterday but I knew not how to tell you. Mama has not stopped howling. Papa said nary a word until this morning. Now he is all very business-like about it but I can see the pain in his every movement. Each of us are in bubbles of grief and writing to you, dear sister, is all I can do to hold together my sanity.

It was near Taarlis, we were told, five days ago as I write this. Some great victory, apparently, though not for us. Is it better, do you think, to lose someone in a great and glorious battle rather than an ignoble defeat? I cannot think that it is. In truth, a part of me never realised that victorious armies take losses too. Now, victory has taken everything from us.

Papa has instructions for you. He wishes to make your husband his heir now that his only son is— now Thijs is gone. He asks you to travel to Bruitossel, so long as it is safe, to make all necessary arrangements. And we should like to hold a service for him a week hence, though of course his body is already cremated and his spirit free to be reborn anew.

Please return to me sister. Hold me in my grief and I shall hold you in yours. I need you. Do you remember when we were little and would grip each other tight, hiding under the sheets, to escape the tyranny of thunder and lightning? I have thought of it often. I wish to hide under the sheets with you again. Hide and wait for it to be over, though I know it shall never be over. That he shan’t ever return to us.

With all the affection and grief in my heart, your loving sister,

Hedy