My dear Elinor and Robert
It is now almost a month since I had the letter telling me that I should never see my beloved again. All that time I have had it in my mind to write to you again knowing well the sorrow you would be feeling, and yet I've been unable to. I have been unable to think at all. My heart and my mind have been disunited, all I knew was despair and terror and pain so terrible that I lost my hold on life for a bit. Now I am in a beautiful part of Sussex called Billingshurst, not very far from Petersfield, and in the cosiest little cottage and lovely garden and orchard with Eleanor a great peace has come to me, and amongst all the things that he loved I am feeling his nearness. Sometimes panic takes hold of me and I seem to see the years like a long road stretching away and away and me on it stumbling along all alone without him who is my very life and my all, but then it is as if he took my hand in his great strong tender one and held it and gave me courage again. Then the children fatherless having lost such a father. Then I feel a strong resolution to live as he would have me live for them, happy and careless and true. I try to forget my poverty in wanting his voice, his arms about me, his beautiful face and his wise talk, and remember how rich I am in his love and his spirit and all that is eternal, and all that was and is between us that he said again and again "Remember whatever happens all is well between us forever."
Do you know Robert on that fearful day of parting Jan. 11th, in each of our hearts was the conviction that it was the last time we should ever be in each other's arms. Neither of us spoke of it but I knew and he knew in our hearts the our reason bade us hope.
Oh, he was beautiful in his truth and his beauty. And how he was love Such wonderful tributes of love and admiration have appeared in the papers, from people whose love he would have prized and whose admiration he would have been glad to have. And I because of him have been surrounded by love and help and sympathy each offering in his different way the help he had to give. Eleanor came to me and did everything, for my body which had never failed me failed me then. But it is not of me you will want to hear but of him.
With the letter which came from a brother officer telling me of his death on Easter Monday April 9th came one from Edward written on the day before Sunday, bubbling with happiness and excitement. He said "You would laugh to see Horton and me dodging the shells" for he was in one of the most dangerous jobs that the war offers-a forward observation post on the Vimy ridge. `Between the terrific noise of the guns I can hear two hedge sparrows making love' I send you a copy of a letter from his commanding officer. You can't realize what an unutterable comfort it was to me, and when the war is over Merfyn and I are going to France. I wish his dear body lay in English earth, near me too.
His poems (which all are praising so much-one or two having appeared in periodicals) will soon be out, and I am having a very lovely portrait I have of him included If fame comes to him as it seems it may, it will be no false Rupert Brooke sort of fame, but because those who know his work and him do realize that in his poems is the very essence of both.
He has awakened from the dream of life, that is what I say over and over again, and yet this wonderful late Spring of which he only saw the first tiny promise is almost more than I can bear because he is not seeing it and feeling it and hearing it as I am. And yet in a more perfect way he is, he is part of it, he is indeed made one with Nature, such a better step for him that.
When the restriction is over I will send you all that is worthy of him that has appeared in the papers. WI H. Davies wrote a little poem, done in his best most simple vein and in not one line have I read, either in print or in the very many letters I have received have I felt anything but the truest sincerity and heartfelt love. There has been no cant, no sentimentality, people have been true and impulsive. He demanded such truth always and people could give no less.
I told you in my letter how happy his life in the Army had been, and that 'moment of victory' is symbolical.
Terrible things are happening, and every day men come home blind and maimed and insane or mortally injured. Suppose one had been he, with all his pride and super sensitiveness. The thought is unendurable. So I glean comfort where I can, and soon I shall again be able to face life, knowing and realizing more and more clearly that all is well with him, and so for me all is well too.
Baba is the child most like Edward. She has his quick observation and clear mind and imagination. She will follow in his steps I think How proud he was of her. She was dancing for me the other day, and singing a song of her own composition to her own tune, it was about a fish princess at the bottom of the sea. One line I quoted in a letter to Edward all about this wonderful performance of hers. "There are not more roses in the garden, than rubies at the bottom of the sea". She is with me here, happy all day long among the flowers and with a little girl to play with. My love is yours, love me a bit too for his sake who you love and who loved you.
HELEN