wording was characteristic of what he had seen of him and heard of her. But the emotion was not. He still could not imagine them in love with each other at all, let alone so wildly.
Which showed the depth to which he had failed in this case.
He sighed and started to look through the drawers of the desk. There were the usual personal accounts and trivial letters regarding Ramsay’s profession. He read them all as a matter of duty. They were even drier than he had expected, the same pedantic phrases repeated in each one. Perhaps they were meant sincerely, but there was a stiffness about them which made it difficult to believe.
In the next drawer down there were more letters. They were from various people, colleagues, parishioners, friends. He glanced at them. Most of them were several years old, apparently kept because they were of emotional value. Among them he found one from Dominic. It was an invasion of privacy to read it, yet he found he had done so even while the thought was in his mind.
Dear Ramsay,
I know I have said so many times to you when we have spoken, still I wished to put on paper, my gratitude to you for your unending patience with me. I must have tried you sorely at times. I remember in guilt and embarrassment how long you argued with me, and I repeated the same selfish objections over and over. Yet you never lost your kindness towards me nor allowed me to think you valued your time more than you valued me.
Perhaps more than anything you said was your example of what it is to minister to those in need. If I could so follow in your footsteps that one day anyone might feel the joy I do, because of something I have done for them, then my whole life will have a completeness and a happiness I can now only aspire to.
The best thanks I can offer, and which I know would be of the most value to you, will be to try to be as you are.
My gratitude will not fade.
Your devoted friend, Dominic Corde
Pitt refolded it with an overwhelming sadness. For a moment he was at one with Dominic in a way he had never imagined possible. He could understand his hurt now, the lost opportunity that could not be retrieved. The reproach would never leave.
And the letter must have been precious to Ramsay, because he had kept it among the few other tokens of friendship over the years. Some had dates as far back as his university days.
There were none from Vita. Perhaps they had not written to each other, or if they had, then he had kept them somewhere else, possibly in his bedroom. It hardly mattered.
He looked at the drawer below. There were only more letters to do with his profession. Several of them concerned the book he was currently working on. Pitt leafed through them rapidly. They were all brief and exceedingly dry. Then he came upon one in Unity’s hand. He recognized it instantly. It was dated from the end of 1890, just over three months before. It was her application for the position she had occupied.
Dear Reverend Parmenter,
I have read your earlier work with the greatest interest, and a deep regard for your scholarship and your lucid and enlightening explanations of matters hitherto not clearly understood by me, and I must say in honesty, by those more learned than I, to whom I had addressed my questions.
I hear you are to write another work which will require research and translation of early classical letters and papers. I am a scholar in Aramaic and Greek and have a working knowledge of Hebrew. I enclose copies of my qualifications in these subjects, and references from past employment, with names and addresses of those who would confirm my abilities to you.
I would humbly, but with as much urgency as may be judged not too immodest, request that you consider me for the position of assistant to you in this most important undertaking. I believe I have the necessary scholastic skills, and you will not anywhere find a person who has a greater belief in the work, or admiration for you as the only man capable of doing it justice.
I write with the greatest hope, and remain yours faithfully,
Unity Bellwood
He folded that also and put it in with the love letters. It was one thing more which confused him. She had written as a stranger,