Black and White: The Letter

It was a black and white landscape. Ebony ink, ivory parchment. Her hand on the quill was slender and elegant, the skin pale and smooth. Her grip was light and confident, but the letters on the sheet in front of her wavered across the page, as if she was unsure of their truth.

She leaned forward intently, closer to the letter she laboured over so fiercely, and as she moved, light from the tall windows around her poured over her face and gilded her cheekbones with shadows. Her eyes were dark and hidden, rimmed in crimson lines of grief. The afternoon sunshine glimmered on the tears adorning her lashes.

With the back of one hand, she swept the tears from her face. Her expression hardened as she leant over the parchment again. Bitterness forced the words onto the page. Scattered around her were crumbled balls of paper, a thousand drafts of the words she could barely bring herself to write.

As the clock on the wall began to chime, she pushed back her chair and stood up gratefully. One hand rubbing her aching back, she wandered to the window, and looked out on the gardens below. They tumbled down to the river in a maze of lawns and walkways, flowers scattered like jewels amongst the ordered squares of green. The sun was casting tentative shadows across the grass, and the clouds chased each other across the heavens in search of the darkening horizon.

As the clock ceased its gentle song, she drifted back to the chair by the desk, and forced herself to sit once more. Dark skirts fell from her tightly-laced waist and pooled around her feet. Her hair hung loose and unadorned down her back. She pushed it back from her eyes, and tried to catch the heavy locks into a loose plait down her back. But ribbons of hair soon escaped her fumbling fingers, and fell back to frame her face in a dark cloud once more.

On her third finger, the ring still sat, oblivious to the fates tied to its unassuming presence. She held out one hand in front of her, and gazed at the way it wrapped around her finger so possessively. She tried to fix its image into her mind, tried to lock into memory the way the single diamond caught the afternoon light as she tilted her hand from side to side. Then she slipped it off, and let it drop into the waiting envelope.

From the shadows of her doorway, her father stood silently watching. His face was hard and expressionless as he watched his daughter pick up the quill once more. His eyes were as dark as hers, but lacking the warmth and compassion hers held. His lips formed a hard line across his face as he ran a beaded rosary through his fingers.

The girl at the desk seemed unaware of his presence. She rested her heavy head in the palm of one hand, her dark locks falling over her face and shading it from the afternoon sun. Her back was bent with sorrow over the desk, her shoulders heavy and low. Hesitating, she pressed the quill to the page and watched a pool of ink spill over the parchment. Then she sighed, so quietly the man at the door seemed not to hear her, and gently signed her name in long slanting letters.

At length she stood up, and caught sight of the man stood silently watching her. Her face was etched with resentment and grief, her lips bitten red from sorrow. Her eyes rose to meet his, darkened with pain beneath the heavy lashes. The shadows around them lengthened as they remained, locked in each others gaze.

Finally she picked up the envelope and left the room. His eyes followed her across the darkened hall, but still he said nothing.