Two letters written by Edmund Hale of Harton Hall and never sent — the first undated, the second partially destroyed — reconstructed from legible fragments by Eleanor Voss, 2024
I have begun this letter four times and destroyed four beginnings. I do not know how to say what I need to say in a way that would not sound like either excuse or accusation, and I intend it to be neither. I simply want you to know certain things, because I think you have a right to know them and because I find, at this particular juncture, that the thought of continuing to not say them has become more uncomfortable than the thought of saying them.
The first thing is that I have known about Thomas since the month of his birth. I was told, and I did not come, and I have known for nine years that I did not come, and I know that this is not something that can be corrected or explained. I am not going to attempt to explain it. I am only going to say that I have thought about it every day since, which is not a mitigation but which is, I think, the truth.
The second thing is that the financial arrangement — which I know you consider insufficient and which you are right to consider insufficient, as it was made by my solicitor and reflects what my solicitor thought was practicable rather than what I thought was right — is not, and was not, the thing that I wanted to do. What I wanted to do is not something I am able to do. What I wanted to do was something I did not have the courage to do. Those are not the same statement, but they are both true.
The third thing is more difficult to say. I am going to say it anyway, which is perhaps the only honest thing I have done in the writing of this letter. The third thing is that Thomas — his name, the fact of him, the nine years of his existence that I have not been part of — is not something I have been able to set aside, and I do not believe I will be able to set it aside. I do not expect this to matter to you. I think you have arranged your life very sensibly around the assumption that it does not matter to you, and I think you are right to have done so. I am telling you because it is true. I cannot think of another reason to say anything.
[Reconstruction, E.V.: The first portion of the letter — approximately eight lines — is consumed. The legible text begins mid-sentence, the subject of which is unclear but appears to concern a decision recently made or communicated.]
— and I have decided that it is better not to come, which is a decision I have made for reasons I believe are sound and which I will not, in this letter, attempt to enumerate, because I have tried to enumerate them already in my own mind and found that they do not enumerate satisfactorily. The short version is that I think my appearing would cause you and Thomas considerably more difficulty than my not appearing, and that my own difficulty in the matter is not a factor that ought to be weighed in the calculation. I have weighed it anyway. I mention this only in case it is useful.
I want to say something about Thomas that I do not know how to say. He is nine years old. I know very little about what he is like — only what I have been able to learn from —————your letters, which were not written for that purpose and which I have therefore read very carefully for anything that might ——— incidentally ———— describe him. He likes ———————. He is ——————. I think, from what you wrote in the —— letter, that he is kind. I hope he is kind. Kindness seems to me the one quality that makes everything else ——————.
I am writing this because I want there to be something. Some record, however inadequate, of the fact that I knew about him and that I ———thought about him and that I ———————. I do not expect this letter to be kept. I do not expect ——————————.
[Reconstruction, E.V.: Three lines are legible in fragments at the lower edge before the fire takes the remainder. The fragments read, in sequence: "the land will still be" — possibly a reference to the family motto — followed by something which may be "Thomas" or may be a word of similar length — and finally, in the last legible line, what appears to be "I am sorry". The final line is the most clearly written. It was written last.]
I spent three sessions with Letter II under the multispectral imager before I was satisfied that I had recovered everything recoverable. The burn is deliberate — the char pattern shows the paper was held by one corner and the flame applied to the opposite corner, which is not how accidental fire damage looks. Someone burned it, partially, and then stopped. Or someone began to burn it and changed their mind. I don't know which. The fact that it was kept, in the condition it was in, alongside the complete letter, inside a sealed sheet, inside a deed-box that Edmund Hale apparently left no instructions about — I find I keep returning to the word kept. He kept it.
I have rendered the burned passages as lacunae rather than leaving them blank, because I thought the shape of the gaps was part of the document. I have been careful to distinguish between what I can read under the imager and what I am inferring. The three final fragments — the land will still be, what may be Thomas's name, I am sorry — are the imager's reading, not mine. I am recording this distinction because I think it matters which of us is responsible for what.
Neither letter has an addressee. The editors believe they were written to Clara Marsh. This is an inference based on the content. It is possible we are wrong. I note that it is also possible that they were not written to be sent to anyone, and that Edmund Hale wrote them to himself. I have thought about this often. I think, on balance, that he meant to send them. I think he could not. I think kept was what was left when sending became impossible.