English
Love Stories
The Love Letter Part 2
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"I was quite a young girl when I first met
Richard Weston. He was an Englishman who boarded
with the Van Rensburgs on the next farm four or
five miles from us. Richard was not strong. He had
a weak chest and the doctors had sent him to South
Africa so that the dry air could cure him. He taught
the Van Rensburg children who were younger than
I was although we often played together. He did
this for pleasure and not because he needed money."
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"We loved one another from the first moment
we met though we did not speak of our love until
the evening of my eighteenth birthday. All our friends
and relatives had come to my party and in the evening,
we danced on the big old carpet which we had laid
down in the barn. Richard had come with the Van
Rensburgs and we danced together as often as we
dared, which was not very often, for my father hated
the Uitlanders. Indeed, there was a time he had
quarreled with Mynheer Van Rensburg for allowing
Richard to board with him but he soon got used to
the idea and was always polite to the Englishman.
Father never liked him."
"That was the happiest birthday of my life.
While we were resting between dances, Richard took
me outside into the cool moonlit night, and there
under the stars, he told me he loved me and asked
me to marry him. Of course I promised I would for
I was too happy to think of what my parents would
say or indeed of anything. However, Richard was
not at our meeting place as he had arranged. I was
disappointed but not alarmed, for so many things
could happen to either of us to prevent us from
keeping our tryst. I thought that the next time
we visited the Van Ransburgs, I should ask him what
had kept him so we could plan further meetings…"
"So when my father asked if I would drive
with him to Driefontein, I was delighted. But when
we reached the homestead and were sitting on the
stoep drinking our coffee, we heard that Richard
had left quite suddenly and had gone back to England.
His father had died and he was now the heir and
must go back to look after his estates."
"I do not remember very much more about that
day except that the sun seemed to have stopped shining
and the country no longer looked beautiful and full
of promise, but bleak and desolate as it sometimes
does in winter or in times of drought. Late that
afternoon, Jantje, the little Hottentot herd boy,
came up to me and handed me a letter. He told me
the English baas had left it for me. It was the
only love letter I ever received but it turned all
my bitterness and grief into a peacefulness which
was the nearest I could get then, to happiness.
I knew Richard still loved me and somehow, as long
as I had his letter, I felt that we could never
really be parted even if he was in England and I
had to remain on the farm. I have it yet with me,
and even though I am an old tired woman, it still
gives me hope and courage."
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"It must have been a wonderful letter, Aunt
Stephia," I said. The old lady came back from
her dreams of that far-off romance.
"Perhaps," she said, hesitating a little,
"Perhaps you would care to read it my dear?"
"I should love to, Aunt Stephia," I said
gently. She rose at once and tripped into the house
as eagerly as a young girl. When she came back,
she handed me a letter that is faded and yellow
with age, the edges of the envelope worn and frayed
as though it had been much handled. But when I came
to open it, I found that the seal was unbroken.
"Open it, open it," said Great-aunt Stephia,
and her voice was shaking. I broke the seal and
read.
It was not a love letter in the true sense of the
word but pages of minutest directions on how "My
sweetest Phina" was to elude her father's vigilance,
creep down to the drift at night and meet Jantje
there with a horse which would take her to Smitsdorp.
There she was to go to "My true friend, Henry
Wilson", who would give her money and make
arrangements for her to follow her lover to Cape
Town and from there to England," where they
can be married at once.
The letter was followed by a final paragraph that
says, "But if, my dearest, you are not sure
that you can face a land strange to you with me,
then do not take this important step for I love
you too much to wish you the smallest unhappiness.
If you do not come and if I do not hear from you,
then I shall know that you could never be happy
so far from the people and the country which you
love. If however you feel you can keep your promise
to me, but is too timid and scared of a journey
to England unaccompanied, then please write to me
and I will by some means, return to fetch my bride."
I read no further.
"But Aunt Phina!" I gasped.
"Why…why…?" The old lady was
watching me with trembling eagerness, her face flushed
and her eyes bright with expectation.
"Read it aloud, my dear," She said.
"I want to hear every word of it. There was
never anyone I could trust… Uitlanders were
hated in my young days… I could not ask anyone."
"But, Auntie, don't you even know what he wrote?"
The old lady looked down, troubled and shy like
a child who has unwittingly done wrong.
"No, dear," she said, speaking in a very
low voice.
"You see, I never learned to read."
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