The last pages of the old diary she had found were something that Poppy always liked to reread on the anniversary of the day that Scott had returned safe to her. It was a moment she saved for herself, refusing to share it with anyone lest the slightest remark, well-meaning comment, or off-hand observation would destroy something which had meant so much to her for so long. It was as if, during the dark days of the war, the writer of the diary had become her secret friend, providing Poppy with the reassurance that times like this had passed before, that similar perils had been survived, and that finally against all odds great victories had finally been won.
I am exhausted from all the anxiety, knowing that if by God’s grace my beloved is returned to me it will be a miracle beyond all imagining. Then early this very morning there was a great belting on my door, so loud that I feared it would cave in, but when I opened it, it was to one of the sights I shall always treasure, young Billy Cosworth from the rectory, his grandfather’s old forage cap set back on his thick head of curls, his face wreathed in smiles.
‘Boney is defeated, ma’am!’ he cries. ‘Boney is done for! Father sends to tell you that the battle at Waterloo is won and Boney is defeated!’
Quickly I snatch up my bonnet and shawl and follow Billy down through the woods, past the lake and on to the big house. We are only halfway across the lawns that run beside the lake when the church bells start to ring – the sound we all most longed to hear, the very peals of victory. Billy turns to me and says, ‘I bet they’re ringing out all over England ma’am! Imagine that!’ and indeed I do. I think of that, and feel near to fainting at the very idea of every bell in England sounding for this wonderful day, this great victory, this time of joy that now must follow so much sadness and despair. There cannot be a house or a family in the land that has not suffered the loss of a loved one, not a village that has no memory of some bright handsome boy who has been taken, in the long campaign against the villain Napoleon, not a place anywhere in this land that because of him has not had to learn to live with grief, tears and a sorrow that will never be allayed.
Yet through it all we have always surely known that the tyrant must be defeated, and that we alone had the courage to do it. And because of this great day I swear as we all must do that no enemy shall ever invade this blessed island of ours, not ever. I know we all feel the same. I can tell from the faces all around me – we are determined no one shall ever threaten us again in such a way, but if they do then we shall repel them in just the same way as we repelled Bonaparte. I say to young Billy, ‘You will always remember this day, won’t you, Billy?’ which he will. I can tell from the look in his bright eyes, and from the joy etched on his face that this is a moment he will never forget. Then after the prayers of thanksgiving in the church, and many tears of gratitude shed as we speak them, I quickly leave the congregation and hurry home, where I now sit and await the return of my beloved, for him to return to me and to our little House of Flowers, with God’s grace, I know he most surely will.
Nowadays Poppy always looked up at this moment, because although she knew that the writer’s husband does indeed return safely and heroically, she never read beyond the words Home at last – praise be! So touching were the entries subsequent to the return of the writer’s soldier husband that, after she had read them once, Poppy felt as if she was intruding into a moment that should be utterly private, just like the moment Scott had finally returned to her, and together they had closed out the rest of the world as they shut the doors of the House of Flowers to retire to their bliss within.
So Poppy would always close the diary at this point, retie the faded ribbon that kept it shut and intact and carefully replace it in its hidey-hole at the bottom of the ancient little mahogany box where she had found it. England was at peace, those who would invade her had been repelled, husbands and lovers were returned, and so Poppy would lock the mahogany box back up, hide the key away and quietly leave her little drawing room, as if she was leaving someone she had woken to fall back asleep once more, until the following year.