Between the Lines for ladyairy
Title: Between the Lines
Author: starbrowsings
Recipient: ladyairy
Rating: G
Content/Warnings: Spoilers for SC, LB
Summary: Jill, Susan, and Lucy defy paper shortages and hold down the home front.
Author’s Notes: “Susie, what shall I do ― there is'nt room enough; not half enough, to hold what I was going to say. Wont you tell the man who makes sheets of paper, that I hav'nt the slightest respect for him!” ― Emily Dickinson
Between the Lines
~*~3 Oct 1942
Dear Miss Pevensie,
I don’t know if you’ve heard the news by now but I am a friend of your cousin, Eustace Scrubb, and my name is Jill Pole and we have just been to Narnia. Scrubb says that you will be very interested to hear this since you have been there yourself and know some of the places we’ve been. (He’s told me all about your adventures there with him too, but we didn’t go to sea ourselves. I should have liked to.)
I saw one of Scrubb’s postcards and he didn’t tell any of the proper details, which I think you might like to know, of how the adventure began and all the things that happened there.
It began, if you can believe it, with a peppermint...
[...]
...and just when we thought we were going to stay in Aslan’s Country for good, he said that we must go back to our own world for a while. But next time we see Aslan, he promised us we would come to stay. I wonder how long we will stay then, and when it will be.
Caspian seemed ever so happy to see his son again and his old friends and most of all Aslan; you should have seen how his face lit up when he saw him! And then Caspian very much wished to see our world, just for a bit, and so Aslan let him come with us back to Experiment House to rush at the gang with our swords and crop. It wasn’t a very nice view of our world, I suppose, but he seemed glad of it all the same. It was just splendid of Aslan to grant him that wish, don’t you think? I wish you might have seen it, for Scrubb says you all were great friends. I think Aslan could work it out somehow so that you might. We all shook hands afterwards and Caspian was a brick and I would have liked to be better acquainted, but of course he had to go back. He said to say hello to you and Edmund and hoped you were well and happy here.
Well, that is very nearly all to our adventure, for Aslan arranged things so nicely with frightening the Head and the gang - he even showed them his back, which must have scared the dickens out of them - that ever since we have had very little trouble with the horrible people at this school, and I think I shall take up riding again because the Narnian crop is very nice indeed and it would be a shame for it to go to waste. Scrubb says he plans to bury his nice things and hide the sword somewhere to use sometime. Boys! I should like to wear my dress again, I think, for it is quite the prettiest thing I have ever worn.
It has now been several days since I started this letter and I am afraid this packet will be dreadfully stuffed so I’ll have to stop soon.
Scrubb has told me a great deal about you and I hope we shall meet someday. I should love to hear of all your adventures from before, the ones Scrubb doesn’t know much about, and if you have ever been to Harfang or Ettinsmoor or the Ruined City.
Sincerely,
Jill Pole
P.S. Aslan is rather terrifying at first, isn’t he? And then he’s wonderful but still terrifying, but I so wish to see him again, even if I botch things this time too. Scrubb thinks it will be soon, maybe in the next year.
~*~
10 Oct 1942
Dear Jill,
How lovely! Another friend of Narnia! Eustace sent a postcard last week and only wrote a line or two of the barest facts so I was a little cross with him. That is why I was very glad to receive your letter and be properly introduced and hear the whole story. And do call me Lucy, because Miss Pevensie sounds like my sister Susan and I am not at all as grown up as she is.
I hope you do not mind if I share your letter at Christmas with my sister and brothers? Or I may even write to them before. This is very exciting, you know. We haven’t had another person who knows about Narnia since Eustace, and he is a boy in addition to being Eustace, and while he’s a much better Eustace than he was last summer, there’s things he doesn’t understand.
It was very good of you to tell me about Caspian. As you supposed, he is a very dear friend and I miss him ever so much. That is one of the worst parts of Narnia: you meet so many lovely people and you may not ever see any of them again. I was talking with Aslan about that just the other day, how hard it is to never hear from any of my friends and how much I would like to know how things are there, and then your letter came and Caspian sent his greetings and I had the most lovely thrill go over me.
You see, I think Aslan is here! It’s different than Narnia of course; he’s not a Lion here, but there are glimpses here and there when I almost feel his Breath in the wind or hear his roar on the shore during the holidays; I even can see his golden mane in the colours of a glorious sunset.
Oh, I wish we might meet soon to talk about everything! There is only so much paper and it would be much better if I could hear what you have to say right away, instead of waiting a week or two and then you must wait as well for my response.
But you asked if I had seen some of the places in your adventure. I have indeed! My brother Peter and I spent a good deal of time trying to convince the Ettins Giants that they shouldn’t trample harmless Narnians and should in fact stay in Ettinsmoor. How interesting to hear of these “gentle Giants” who were not gentle at all! Of course there were good Giants who wonderfully kind and lived in Narnia and never harmed a soul, and I gave my handkerchief to one. It does not sound as if you met any of that sort, only the most troublesome kind...
[...]
But I know what you mean; when you’re there it always seems like it would be nice to be home again, and when you are home it would be the best thing in the world to be back in Narnia! Eustace says he thinks you will go back soon and I dearly hope you will.
Affectionately,
Lucy Pevensie
P.S. The first time I saw Aslan, I thought he was very good and very terrible. I still think that to this day.
~*~
20 Dec 1942
Dear Jill,
I hope this letter finds you and your family well. I have been eager to make your acquaintance for some time, for my Lucy has been telling me all about you and your letters and regaling me with your stories of Narnia till I begin to think she actually went there with you herself! I must warn you, Lucy is peering over my shoulder as I write this and sends her warmest regards.
It would be lovely for you to come visit us next summer and then we might have a proper talk about all of the things you discovered and learned in Narnia. (Lucy just did a little dance at that idea.) Until then, however, my advice would be to write down the things you remember about your adventures, even the little things like how to pluck and prepare a bird or not to ride a Centaur, Unicorn, or Talking Horse unless they say you may first (and it is impolite to ask unless there is great need).
You would be amazed at how easy it is to forget such things in such a short time. It was barely a year past our first time in Narnia and I had already forgotten the geography and layout of our own castle! Lucy is reminding me that it changed a great deal in all the years between when we last left it and when we came back, and that I am not to be too hard on myself for being such a blind idiot that day. I am very grateful that I have Lucy to tell me these things. She herself forgot entirely how to swim, and it was a good thing she relearned how to do so at school last term, or she might never have made it to the Dawn Treader last summer when she landed in the ocean!
Fortunately, you will have us to remind you of anything you forget. When you come, we can tell you of our experiences in Narnia and useful things we learned, and if you stay for a good while we might have some adventures here. (As you might expect, Lucy is now pulling out her calendar and demanding to know what week you will come and already planning what we shall do then.)
There are probably a great many things you would like to know for next time, now that you know how it is there. It would be an excellent idea to practice some of them, for there is no telling where you might end up or what supplies you will have. That’s the tricky thing about Narnia - each time is so different. The last time I went, we had almost no food or water with us the first day and I’m afraid I went into something of a panic. Lucy lost her head entirely and thought we could dig up tree roots and eat them. It was not our finest moment! (Lucy agrees but would like to point out that Edmund brought up eating roots first. I am reasonably sure he meant potatoes and that sort of thing.) We managed somehow, mostly through luck at ending up at Cair Paravel with a well and an orchard, and then we had Trumpkin (whom you met as well) to help us when we were on the move, but we might have had a much easier time if we’d remembered our basic wilderness skills.
Also, Lucy reminds me you went to the lands north of Narnia but have not seen the rest of her borders or neighbors, and that even Eustace did not recognize where he was at first on your recent adventure. I am sure this would be a very good thing to discuss, the characteristics of different parts of Narnia and Archenland, the outlying islands, the mountains to the west and the deserts far to the south where Calormen lies. Peter has drawn a quite serviceable map which you may see when you visit.
Mother will scold me if I use any more paper, but there is a great deal more to speak of and I would be happy to correspond with you further if you care to write me at my school address, enclosed here:
[...]
With much love,
Susan Pevensie
~*~
[...]
10 Feb 1943
Dear Jill,
I haven’t much time to write this evening but I did want to respond to your last letter and answer your question for it is something all four of us, and the Professor and Aunt Polly too, have had to think about.
Yes, as you suspected, Peter and I are also not allowed to come back to Narnia, as we are too old. Last year Lucy thought much as you did - that this must be quite an awful thing, too dreadful to bear. But this is not true at all. Aslan talked with us for a good while and made me feel it’s all right, somehow. I learned what I needed to learn from Narnia: I mustn’t let fear keep me from taking chances or doing things that I secretly want to do. My time there may be over, but my time here has just begun, and there are so many things I should like to do here. I consider myself fortunate to have been to two worlds that needed me, for most people have only one.
But I do understand how you long to see it again, especially now when everything is very hard in England. There are days when I ache to be back in Cair Paravel, to talk with Centaurs and Dryads and Leopards as I did in the old days, or enjoy the times of peace and plenty after the hard early days. Even the hardest times in Narnia were all right because we had Aslan when we really needed him. But oh, Jill, that’s just it! I think he is here when he need him. As Lucy says, it’s not quite the same yet he is the same.
Just the other day I felt it was all hopeless, the constant news from the front, the unending hours of volunteering in the evenings that never seem to do very much good. That very evening, I met the most lovely older woman who works in the Land Army and she thanked me for our chapter sending socks and mittens during the bitter cold of the last harvest. And I can’t help but feel that I saw a little bit of Aslan that day.
As for the rest of your letter, I am very glad to hear you are doing so well in swimming this term. We will go bathing when you come this summer, for Lucy has been practicing as well and tells me she is quite good at it now. With such a head start, you could very well win prizes yourself at it in a year or two. You also mentioned my cousin’s luck at learning archery his first time in Narnia, and I should be glad to teach you while you are here. When you go back, it will be a most useful skill to have acquired and you may tell anyone who remarks upon it that you learned under the tutelage of Queen Susan Bow-arm.
Until next time, I remain affectionately yours,
Susan
~*~
[...]
3 June 1943
Dear Jill,
I've been home only a day and already I'm nearly beside myself with excitement! Susan says she has sent you all the details of how to get here, but Edmund thinks you could use a map of the London bus system and a timetable too. (He knows all about that sort of thing.) So he gave me this one to send to you and I hope it is useful.
And here is our telephone number just in case - oh, Susan says you already have it. There is so much to do to get ready! We have a whole month's worth of things to squash into one little week...not just swimming and archery you know but stories and baking (we have butter AND sugar this month!) and Susan shall teach us how to Charleston and I've been longing to see Casablanca for ages. And that is just the first day or two!
Please try to get here soon.
Impatiently,
Lucy
~*~
29 June 1943
Dear Lucy and Susan,
I am writing to tell you I got home safe and thank you ever so much for the lovely holiday we all had! I didn’t want such jolly times to end. You are both absolute bricks, and your brothers too. It was very nice of them to teach me how to swordfight, even though I wasn’t very good at it. I’ll make sure to practice with Scrubb if I can. He knows a bit about it, I think. I heard Caspian mention something about Scrubb breaking his second-best sword on a Sea Serpent? But when I asked Scrubb about it, he refused to explain and I said he was being ridiculous and then we had a good row because of course he knows all the stupid things I did in Narnia.
Home seems dull and quiet now after the excitement of the last week. I have persuaded Mum and Dad to let me invite Scrubb for a few days, so that will be something. What a long time it will be before we can have more adventures together! I do hope Scrubb and I will get called back to Narnia this term - it’s usually a year or less between going back, isn’t it? And I will keep up all the things you showed me. They are much more interesting than lessons at school!
Thank you again for everything and I so look forward to seeing you both again.
Yours,
Jill
P.S. Lucy, I will follow up on your suggestion and look into joining the Guides. I think you are right - it would be fun if both of us were in it!
~*~
30 July 1943
Dear Jill,
I’m very glad to hear you joined the Guides! You’ll have such splendid times, I’m sure, and the best troops will let you do all sorts of Narnian things, tracking and astronomy and riding and camping and war relief, and not just sit at home and knit all the time. (Although goodness knows we did enough of that last year for the Overseas Gift Project.) I know it won’t be the same as doing it together, but it is rather like being on the same adventure in different places, don’t you think?
We had such fun on our last expedition -- just see from the picture!
Cheers!
Lucy
~*~
15 April 1944
Dear Susan,
Thank you very much for the hair combs! I haven’t had any in ages and they are the prettiest things. I know it is very unpatriotic but I do weary of rationing!
I begged my parents very hard for a bow as my birthday present and at first they did not think I was old enough, but everyone here at E.H. starts some sport or other quite early so that they can be good at it as an upper. My mum suggested tennis. That’s nice! But from her last letter I think I’ve worn them down. I’ll see when I get home. Scrubb said he would make me some arrows if I let him practice with my bow; his parents are pacifists, you know, and don’t approve of owning weaponry. They would be beside themselves if they knew about his sword, so Scrubb always sends it home with me during the holidays and it is very nice to have it all to myself then.
[...]
Yours,
Jill
~*~
25 May 1944
Dear Jill,
You are very welcome for the combs and I’ll send along more when I can. Best of luck in “Operation Archery” with your parents. I think mine were only too glad to see me doing well at something in school; they always seemed anxious to encourage me to continue with it. My marks are dreadful in all the academics but Comp and Art, as exams are my Waterloo and I can never finish them in time. Very soon I shall be done with them for good!
A bit of happy news though - I took first in diving last week. Doris (who is mad about her camera) was able to snap a picture or two during practices this term, which I thought you might like to see.
I of course am second in line on the diving board - you can see me practicing my approach.
Speaking of swimming, there’s a new motion picture coming out this summer, Bathing Beauty, and you’ll never guess who it stars - Esther Williams! We’ll simply have to go see it when you visit this year; as you know, she is my idol. I cut the advertisement out of the newspaper and am putting it in the letter too. Doesn’t it look divine?
Yours,
Susan
~*~30 May 1944
Dear Jill,
I share your panic at the coming exams and wish you all the best of luck on yours! Honestly, sometimes I think I’d rather face a very angry and very stupid Giant than another geography exam. But it has been quite useful, I admit, when I read of places in the news, the Crimea and Romania and the Phillipines and so on, and of course we all know the Atlantic Wall nearly by heart now. Every morning we gather around the radio for any news of the invasion, and every night I hope and pray that our brave men and women will find success when they are sent at last.
As we thought, Peter will be entering the OTC now that he is turned seventeen. We are all very proud and glad for him and of course he shall do brilliantly there, though perhaps the war will be over by the time he is old enough to be sent. Everybody says Operation Overlord will be the beginning of the end. But Peter is so anxious to do his part, as we all must, and if I were only old enough I think I would enlist in the RAF myself. But I know that having Peter there on the front will be something, and he will help them get one step closer to victory.
Oh dear, it is nearly eleven o’clock and I’m yawning. These days I am busy from dusk to dawn and I fear it's only going to get busier. And I still have another letter to finish! I must not nod off...
Funny to remember how of all the things Aslan’s Breath would do, really waking you up was one of them! And the smell, oh Jill, don’t you remember? There’s nothing like it here. If I close my eyes I can almost picture it still.
Yours,
Lucy
~*~10 Aug 1944
Dear Lucy,
I promised I would send pictures of our troop when I had them and now I do! These are from our camping trip at a nearby farm and wood. (They let us camp there in exchange for clearing out the weeds from the field. I have a new respect for the Land Girls!)
I thought the first of them turned out very Narnian, with the sunlight shining through the forest from the hills beyond, and the way the trees seem very knowing, almost like they want to speak. I was just aching for one of them to start whispering, but they never did, just rustled and sighed with the wind.
You wouldn’t know it from the picture, but we had made a campfire and prepared our rations on it.
We also went boating, which was a perfect lark. How funny we must have looked, all flailing about trying to manage sails and knots and rudders and things.
And the last one is of my friends Betty and Eileen trying to start a fire. I could have managed it in no time of course but they needed the practice!
And now the hols are over and it’s back to Latin, maths, and European history. I’m not like Scrubb for I think it is much nicer to be doing real things rather than just learning about them.
I had a funny thought while we were camping, though. What if I had gotten back into Narnia then? By myself, like you did the first time? Or maybe with Betty or Eileen or one of the others? Wouldn’t that be a jaunt?
Yours,
Jill
~*~
19 Aug 1944
Dear Jill,
I listen for the trees to whisper too. I can’t help it. I know they won’t but...
Well, did I ever tell you about the Dryads’ Dance ritual? Even if I did, it’s worth hearing again! You talk so fondly of the Snow Dance, and I wish you could have seen the Spring one, for that is the one so looked forward to by the Trees that it is called the Dryads’ Dance. All the Narnians went if they could, of course, even Aslan, well, especially Aslan. It was a grand ceremony every year on the first day of Spring, when we would all come to the woods around the Dancing Lawn and wait, holding our breaths, not moving a muscle, and the Trees didn’t so much as rustle a leaf or stir a branch. And finally, Aslan would come, his fur so bright and golden you wanted to shade your eyes, and breathed on the Trees and they would come alive. And then, the dancing! It would go on for ages and ages!
[...]
Oh! Oh! We just got word! The French resistance is striking at last! We are all gathered around the radio, just waiting for the next bit of news. The reports are coming in now, of the bravery shown in the face of the Occupation, the efforts to rally the people of Paris to rise up, but I can't help but think of how terrified they must be, how it must feel to be in the city this very moment, about to lose your home and your livelihood and maybe even your family or your own life, all so that your homeland might be free again. I can hardly see the page for the tears in my eyes, and there, I've blotched the page, but no matter; it is a poor vigil for those valiant women and men who are fighting for their lives and country, outnumbered and hard pressed. But then, the Old Narnians were able to prevail under just such circumstances. I pray Aslan will be with the Resistance here and lead them to victory at last.
Faithfully,
Lucy
~*~
2 Oct 1944
Dear Jill,
How strange not to be writing you from the dormitory! One would think that I'd have more time for correspondence these days, but I am even busier now than I was in school. Most weekdays I am in the office pecking away for hours on end; I don't even want to look at my typewriter on my days off. In the afternoons and evenings Mother and I are volunteering at the WVS and at times we have more work there than we know what to do with.
And late at night, I will turn on the radio or play a record or two, though I am usually too tired to practice any steps, but I like to listen to the new songs while I mend or knit this week's basket. I've even found time to cut a new dress for myself out of an old suit that now Edmund has outgrown. I think it rather smart, if I do say so, and no one is the wiser. Make do and mend!
The work always seems to go by much more quickly when I can sit and listen and think about what it would be like to no longer be at war. Somehow the music seems to take me away from the commonplace of the here and now so that I can think about what I'd like to do after the war. At this very moment I have my favorite record playing, "Dream," and I must have listened to it two dozen times now, for it really does set me dreaming about things.
br>
Click to view"Things are never as bad as they seem"...isn't that always the way it goes? When I listen to it, I can almost believe that anything is possible; that the war shall end any day now and everyone may come home, and that perhaps I really shall write someday, or do something grand and interesting of that sort. I don't think I know quite what my dream is yet, but then, I don't suppose many of us at this age do, not until the war is over and we may dream again properly.
I am eager for Saturday night to come, which is quite the best part of the week, for that is when the girls and I get dressed up and go out dancing. You can almost forget the hard work and the endless nights of sewing and scrimping when you're on the dance floor in the arms of a handsome G.I. It's like a fairyland, with the lights and the music and everybody in their finest dresses and uniforms. I can never decide which is the best part, the dressing up or the songs they play or the dancing, but I suppose it is everything at once. I think there's a kind of magic there where you don't need to pretend to be brave or having a good time or grown-up and elegant; those all just come by themselves. I half suspect it even starts with the clothing!
But don't think me vain, Jill. It has been so hard during the war to look one’s best to keep up morale, just at the War Office says. Keeping up our appearances is one way to win the war, in a way, to show that Hitler hasn’t crushed us. It is very civilizing and genteel to be ladylike in appearance and manners, and truth be told I am glad to steal a moment or two of happiness where I may, and to bring some as well to our hard-pressed boys in uniform. Dare I say, I feel queenly on Saturday nights.
Dreamily,
Susan
~*~
29 March 1945
Dear Jill,
We are all on tenterhooks here, listening to the radios whenever we are not in class. I am always hoping for good news - and so much of it has been good lately - but what a relief it will be when it is finally over.
Aunt Polly is making great strides with Oxfam - I'm sure you remember me going on in my last letter about all the famine relief efforts they've been organizing here in Oxford and of course good old Aunt Polly is at the head of the charge. I've been helping as much as I can; it seems like the Narnian thing to do, don't you think? I'm even more anxious for the war to be over so that we can get the relief to the people who really need it across the lines. I am restless and impatient these days. Aunt Polly says I secretly want to be a Red Cross nurse. I secretly think she is right.
Restlessly,
Lucy
~*~
9 May 1945
Dear Susan,
Is there anything more wonderful in the world than those four beautiful words, the war is over ? This is the fourth letter I have written today and I think I will never get tired of writing that. Experiment House has been all a-tumble with celebrations since the news broke two days ago, and I don't think we've so much as picked up a book in all that time, for we are all too delirious with happiness to study a lick. At all hours of the day we've been shaking hands and passing papers back and forth and altogether in a state of holiday. We've waited a very long time for this day!
I can hardly remember what is like, in fact, not being at war. I was so young when it began - even younger than when I went to Narnia - and I am so used to life this way that I wonder how things will change now that we are peace. As you say, will we be able to dream freely again? There are a great many things to hope for now, I think.
Jubilantly,
Jill
~*~
[...]
4 Aug 1946
Dear Lucy,
I still have not gotten over our larks together this holiday! I am sorry Susan could not have joined us more, but I suppose that is the boring part of growing up, jobs and bills, being responsible and having people depend upon you for things and so you really must do them and not just as you like. I think it would be nice if we could do all useful things that we liked and not have to worry about money so much. It’s such a bother and does more harm than good
I’m very sorry, Lucy. Scrubb got a hold of my pen and I could not take it away from him. It was a very lucky chance that Mrs. Scrubb called him down to do chores, or else he’d probably still be on about economies and things. As you can see from the postmark, I’ve been staying with the Scrubbs till school starts and we’ve been having jolly times in between rows.
Oh, you wanted to see the new Guide uniform. Here it is! I think it’s just smashing. Even Scrubb approves.
[...]
Yours,
Jill
~*~
2 Sep 1946
Dear Jill,
This will be briefer than usual, for as you know from this summer I barely have time to breathe these days, between my secretarial work and by-the-line pieces for the local rag and leading the WVS chapter (honestly, I think we were less busy during the war!). But the paper does have me covering the home and garden section so I will occasionally get to do a column here or there, though it is all very prosaic and practical. The extra money is very welcome, I must say. Mother thinks me a terrible spendthrift for buying Vogue every month, but how else am I to study couture? I don't intend to be a hack writer forever. I've met a few other journalists at parties and that sort of thing, and I do think making friends in these circles will be my ticket in. They seem to like me very much. I will keep my fingers crossed and my ears open.
Of course you should try for the archery team this year! You have made such great strides these past few years. They would have to be blind not to let you in. It’s a pity that the recommendation of Queen Susan would be of no use whatsoever, as it would have in Narnia. Be sure to write to me with the good news! (I have every confidence it will be good.)
Love,
Susan
~*~
4 Oct 1946
Dear Susan,
I write to you with the good news you requested: I made the team! I still don't think I'm up to Narnian standards, but I do very well for England. I have you and Lucy to thank for all those summers we practiced together, for it did me a world of good and I am nearly to the level of the uppers.
And I have finally saved enough to buy my own phonograph! I found one in a little second-hand shop and it is my prized possession. Since acquiring it, I've found myself very popular with the girls. Can you imagine, Edith Winterblott even deigned to grace my dorm with her presence when she heard I had the record to "I Get a Kick Out of You," which is all the rage here. She and Dorothy and I were so loud that night dancing the jitterbug, we were given a very stern warning by the Prefect on duty and nearly earned a demerit.
All in all, the term is not so bad this year. Scrubb says this is sure to be the year that Aslan brings us back, since we’re so much better at everything and the war here is over and we may have something very important to do there, something only older kids could handle. It’s very logical! And still…I can’t help but wish he would hurry up sometime and let us come.
Good luck with the writing, and do send me some of your articles for I'd very much like to read them.
Yours,
Jill
~*~
21 Oct 1946
Dear Jill,
I knew you could do it! I am exceedingly proud of you and know that you will bring credit to your training. I know how much you’ve enjoyed it and I do hope you continue on with it, whether or not this is the year you go back to Narnia. I do think Aslan will see all that you have been doing, but I also think he would approve of getting about his business here, or anything like his business.
As for my writings, well, they are hardly worth including, but since you insisted…
[…]
Proudly,
Susan
~*~
31 May 1947
Dear Jill,
After these last exams, I will be free! I am so thrilled by this prospect I can hardly stand it. I probably should be cramming right now but honestly I couldn’t give two figs at the moment. Operation Save Europe Now is in full swing at Oxfam and they need every hand they can get, with all the runs to the post and food offices for permissions and things. Just look at the new shop front! Isn’t it splendid?
I don’t feel so badly about staying here for the summer knowing that you will be on holiday with your family and not coming for a visit as usual, but oh, I miss you so dearly! We must make plans to meet before the start of your next term. I have already made arrangements for board with Aunt Polly and I’m sure she will not mind if you come for a bit when you get back. Think of what fun that will be! What talks we shall have! I simply cannot wait.
With great excitement at the end of school days,
Lucy
~*~
~*~
26 Sep 1947
Dear Lucy,
Oh dear, only a month into the term and already I'm weary of it all. To think I have two more years of this still left...no, I shan't think of it. I wonder if this will be the term we go back? I am as old as Peter was on your second time there. I am hoping this is the year! Aunt Polly says it will probably come when I least expect it. I suppose I should stop expecting it then! But I keep thinking of how exciting it would be to finally get back and see all the old places and maybe some new ones too. I am prepared this time not to see any familiar faces (I could hardly help it, for Scrubb warns me nearly every year that "it will be ages and ages later in Narnia"). As long as I see Aslan, I think I shall be content.
Jill
~*~
12 Oct 1947
Dear Jill,
The October edition is out and I feel as proud as if I was editor-in-chief myself. Isn’t it like something from a dream? And to think that I am in the middle of it all, working for Vogue!
Of course I am merely a secretary but there are lots of opportunities here later on, and I’ve been to dozens of shows and parties already. Jill, you should see how beautiful the clothes are. You’d think you were in the movies. Or even back in Narnia - do you remember how beautiful they are? Well of course you do; you still have your dress, as you brought to show Lucy and me that first summer. That is how you must picture it, for this place is very nearly as bright and sparkling and full of life as there.
No, it is not quite Narnia. Nothing could be. But there is beauty here too, Jill; there are good people here and wise people and people to help. When I see them smiling and laughing again, after all that we suffered and fought for in the war, my heart feels a note of the joy I felt in Narnia. When I touch fabric that is not threadbare and turned inside out but shimmering and fluid in my hands, I remember the way the Naiads would rise out of the waters and catch the light of the sun on their skin. Even a kind word on a hard day is like a breath of Narnian air. I am meant to be here as surely as I was meant to be in Narnia, for in all these things, I can see glimpses of what I loved there. And I think that is what Aslan would want for me.
Goodness, look at me waxing poetic. I don’t know what came over me! But it is all true, and I very much hope you will find this someday too, Jill.
All my love,
Susan
~*~
3 Nov 1947
Dear Susan,
How happy I am for you that it all has worked out so well! I read your letter several times and each reading makes me more lonesome for Narnia or at least those little bits of it you have found here. You make it sound so easy! Lucy has hit upon the secret of being happy here too, and is doing such lovely things with Aunt Polly, that I begin to grow quite envious of how you two have managed to make England so grand. If only I could take those kinds of lessons from you as I did with archery!
It’s hard, though, just waiting and waiting for it, never knowing anything for sure. I have practiced and prepared everything I can think of to do; don’t you think Aslan would see that? Is he angry at us? At me? I wish I knew what was the matter so I might do something about it!
Pensively,
Jill
~*~
30 Nov 1947
Dear Jill,
I have the grandest plan - why don’t you come stay with me for a few days next summer holiday? Just as we used to, but this time you can come see my new flat in London and we will talk to your heart’s content.
You sound concerned that you are perhaps doing something wrong, that you have forgotten something important that will let you come back. Perhaps this is because of the signs that Aslan gave you last time to remember, when so much happened and you forgot them or did them at the wrong time. But I am inclined to think it’s not that at all. I can’t think of any reason why Aslan would be angry at you this time. You’ve heard us say before the old Narnian saying, he is not a tame Lion, and I used to wonder what exactly that meant, for of course he is not tame, how could he be?
I’ve come to think it’s another way to say that his ways are often a mystery and don’t always seem logical or safe. That was why I was so afraid when I came back to Narnia, for England was not at all safe then and I thought it hard that Narnia should be so as well. But Aslan brought me back to Narnia so that I could learn to listen for that faint whisper of his roar even when it frightened me to death. And now? Now I can go forth and be busy and productive here, just as I was there, and I think you should try to do the same if you can, for it is a far wiser plan than worrying yourself to death about when and how you will go back.
But as Lucy says, it is much better to talk about these things in person, so I do hope you may come this summer. There must be something here in England that gives you the same thrill and excitement as Narnia, and we shall work it out together, even if it is just little things like the whizz of arrows as they fly straight and true. Sometimes the little things are the best! And London has so many splendid things to enjoy: gallery openings and strolls through Covent Garden and I may even be able to coax a pair of tickets for the theatre from the office.
I trust you will keep me abreast of all your doings at school this year, for it is sure to be quite busy being your next to last. Summer holidays seem so very far away, don’t they?
Fondly,
Susan
~*~
11 Dec 1947
Dear Susan,
That is a perfectly scrumptious plan and I am very nearly beside myself with anticipation at the thought. I haven’t any time to write a proper letter, for there are end-of-term exams to revise for and Scrubb is calling me away, but I will ask my parents if I may come this summer.
Gratefully,
Jill
~*~
[...]
8 June 1948
Dear Lucy,
I am done, finished, everything that is glorious and over! (For this year, at least.) I’ll be off to home tomorrow for a week and then to Susan’s the week after that. And then I shall be counting the weeks until we can see each other again! Such fun, just like old times.
[...]
I am finishing this letter on the train. Perhaps it is the fatigue of this week, but I have a strange ache in my chest about lots of things. Scrubb and I have not talked about Narnia in weeks. We’ve almost given up the subject, because we always end up fighting about it. I am hoping to have a good long talk with you about it. I should like to hear Aunt Polly too - she was so comforting last year, telling me I was doing exactly right to keep myself busy and learning new things and practicing the old things and remembering everything I could.
But that’s the thing. I’m forgetting so much. I can’t keep it all in my head. It seems like such a long time ago, and I was such a little girl then. It’s all beginning to seem like a dream, one I want very much to remember and all I can see are the bits and pieces that are left. Is it like that for you?
Maybe there’s something we’ve done wrong; Susan thinks not, but I do wonder what is taking so long if I haven’t botched something somewhere. Each year I think that this will be the year...it’s been six years, you know. That’s the longest anyone’s waited to go into Narnia.
Maybe others needed their chance in between. There might be more friends of Narnia, ones we don't know about...think of all the children who've never even been once. I shouldn’t mind waiting in that case, but it would be such a relief to know.
I haven’t the faintest idea if we’ll even get back now, now that we’re so old. I am terribly anxious to know what you think. You know Aslan better than any of us, I think. Should we be asking him for a sign?
I can’t help but think I wouldn’t still have this ache in my chest for just one more ride, one more breath of Narnian air or whisper of Trees, if I were not meant to go back. But perhaps you still have that too.
The train has just pulled in, and I will write you later.
Love,
Jill
~*~
"As they cantered through the Narnian woods they spoke, without turning their heads, telling the children about the properties of herbs and roots, the influences of the planets, the nine names of Aslan with their meanings, and things of that sort. But however sore and jolted the two humans were, they would now give anything to have that journey over again: to see those glades and slopes sparkling with last night's snow, to be met by rabbits and squirrels and birds that wished you good morning, to breathe again the air of Narnia and hear the voices of the Narnian trees.
-The Silver Chair, Ch. 16
~*~
Original Prompt that we sent you:
What I want: Pevensies (Susan especially, but I'd be happy with any one or combination thereof), Jill Pole, Caspian and Rilian, Lady of the Green Kirtle, England fic, Golden Age fic, fic set during or in the aftermath of Silver Chair, gen, femmeslash, het, slash (any of the above in whatever combination or singularly)
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: How confusing is the passage of time between Narnia and our world, both for those that cross over, and those that they encounter?