The Unseen Read Online Free PDF

outline in the near dark. He lies on his back, his eyes shut and his face so resolutely relaxed that Hester guesses he is still awake. The beauty of his face disarms her. That valley between forehead and bridge of nose, the slight pout of his bottom lip. His face gives her an aching sensation she can’t name, as though there is some sprain, some nerve inside her under pressure, in need of release. She reaches out an arm to him, laces her fingers into the hand that lies across his chest. There it is – that subtle change in the rhythm of his breathing, that slight tautening of his frame.
    ‘Bertie? Are you awake, my love?’ she whispers. He does not reply. Once he holds you in his arms, and kisses you, and he is aware of your love and passion for him, then his passion will also rise, and your bodies may conjoin ; so her sister had written. Hester is aware of her own body moving beneath her nightdress, brushing against the cotton fabric, freed from the corsets that confine it all day long. Her hair drapes over her shoulder in a soft, caressing wave. ‘I do so wish you would hold me,’ Hester says, her voice trembling a little. Albert does not open his eyes, but he says:
    ‘It has been a very long day, my love. I am so very tired.’ Hester often hears these very words from her husband. She heard them even on their wedding night.
    ‘Of course. Sleep, darling Bertie,’ she says.

2
    2011
    Leah read the soldier’s letter, a frown creasing the skin between her brows. Ryan stretched out his hand, smoothed the line away with his thumb, making her jump.
    ‘Don’t!’ she gasped, snatching her head away from him.
    ‘Touchy,’ Ryan sighed. He smiled as he leant away, but Leah could tell he was annoyed. She felt a quick flash of triumph, and was instantly irritated with herself.
    ‘But this can’t be the original?’ she asked.
    ‘Of course not – it’s been transcribed. The original paper is incredibly fragile. Where water has got in – and there wasn’t much, he did a great job of sealing the tin – it’s destroyed the envelope. In other words, the name of the person it was addressed to. Our mysterious soldier.’
    ‘And she calls him “Dear sir”. Not very helpful,’ Leah murmured.
    ‘No, but then I wouldn’t need you if she’d given us his name.’ Leah raised her gaze at his choice of words. ‘Intriguing though, isn’t it?’ Ryan said.
    ‘That it is,’ she agreed. ‘How had he sealed the tin?’
    ‘With candle wax, it looks like. Melted and rubbed smooth all the way around.’
    ‘So, would that have been easy to do? Something he would do every day, or did he only take the letter out to read once in a while?’
    ‘Who can say? I think it was a thorough job, probably quitetime consuming. I don’t think he would have opened and resealed it every day.’ Ryan shrugged.
    ‘So it was special, this letter?’
    ‘I would say so, yes. Read it out, so I can hear it again,’ he suggested.
    The Rectory ,
    Cold Ash Holt
    Dear sir ,
    I scarcely know how to begin this letter, since I have sent so many, and received so little answer to any of them prior to now. So little, I say – when I should say none at all. I can’t imagine the situation in which you now find yourself, and can only assume that, when I had thought such would be impossible, it is indeed worse than the situation you left behind. The thought of your constant peril is most dreadful – you and your comrades. Please do try to keep yourself safe, if safe is a word that has any meaning on the battlefield. I discovered your departure to the front only recently, and only by chance – the casual mentioning by an acquaintance of the deployment of men such as yourself. I know that you and I parted on strange terms, and our time together was not the easiest; but even though you did not reply to any of my letters when you were relatively close by, I still feel worse knowing that you are no longer on English soil .
    So, what can I write? What can I