Wallington, February 1929

Dearest Gertrude,

The sky streaks pale above the soft green of this, our little patch of England. A sky so soft and low and comforting. An English sky, enclosing us as we are enclosed by our woods and walled gardens. Safe within our estate. And beyond a landscape shaped by our will, how many hundreds of years ago? Saplings placed artfully and views envisioned for future generations. The morning mists are rising over our dear English home and I think of you in your adopted home, so far away in Bagdad, where you tell me the call to prayer rises with the dawn from a thousand minarets. I can almost hear it now.

As I look out at our watercolour skies, I think of the deep blues of your desert canopy, almost unimaginable in their deep indigo- such skies as we may only see on high summer days And I think of our days on Redcar beach. Do you remember those, sister dear? You striking off along the pier, walking above the waves, as if striding fearless into your future. And you did walk above the waves, so many waves: waves of books and papers, waves of Alpine rock and ice, waves of sand ... until the final wave washed over you, dear departed sister.

And I think of days with my own family on the lawns here at Wallington, picnicking and playing croquet before the sudden summer rain comes down and we’re running for cover under the oaks and Nanny’s bundling up the children to the nursery for hot baths and dry clothes, ‘or else they’ll catch their deaths’ and the rest of the day spent with dolls houses and toy soldiers, lines upon lines of dead lead, as Charles calls them.

And I think of you with your lines in the sand, with your camels laden with surveying instruments, capturing the shifting landscape into lines of ink on maps. Lines where there were none - like pinning butterflies on the page, where there were no pages.

And I remember you recounting that your guide, Fattuh, sees paths in the desert, and his camels follow their fellows’ tracks long sunken into the sands, smelling water deep below, sensing the sudden green of the oasis melting into the dancing emptiness.

But it was you, dearest sister, who mapped the unbroken line of sand and space, of time and caravans, of trade routes stretching over millennia and continents. You were the pen who wrote nations onto pages, created countries for Kings, serving our own dear King and Country. You, my dear, followed your own line.

Ah - now, here, I look out at the lawns. Spring is not yet with us, but I think of your daffodils in your desert garden. Will they be out now? And then I remember, you are no longer with us, no longer able to reply to my letters or to enjoy Daddy’s daffodils in the heart of Bagdad. Where are you now, dearest Gertrude? Tracking a line on your eternal journey, your own, as always.

Forever in our thoughts,

                        Your loving sister,

                                                Molly