Dear Jane

October 25th, 1959

Dear Jane,

How lovely it was to hear from you. I am flattered to know that I am your favorite author. I didn't know children still read my books! I am so pleased that you enjoy them. I would be honored to be the subject of your school project, and I enclose my answers to your questions herein.

My brief biography, as you request: I was born Victoria Maria Everglot in 1871, in a very small village in a very small country that ceased to exist after the war. My father was Lord Finis Everglot, descended from one of the very first British families that founded the village centuries ago. My mother was Maudeline Elvstead, also of an old village family. Her father was a decorated general.

(My maternal great-uncle, Torvald, was the village historian. I've enclosed a copy of his brief history of the village for your research and for more background. My family is covered extensively.)

I was married very briefly when I was eighteen. My husband was a minor nobleman. By the time I was nineteen my husband had died—he was quite a bit older than I was. I never remarried nor had any children. As a young widow I worked as a governess and as a lady's maid for several wealthy families. The last woman I worked for was a dowager countess, and she was very kind. We were close, so much that she included me in her will. With that inheritance, along with what I had earned so far from the stories I had published, I was able to provide a sum for my parents and to emigrate to America.

I wanted a new world, you see. I had grown tired of the old one. I had just passed my thirtieth birthday when I sailed on the SS New England for Boston (where you live, I see!). I was on my own for the very first time in my life. I wasn't as frightened as I thought I'd be. I spent a year in Boston, teaching at a school for wealthy girls and writing for magazines. Then I moved to a tiny village along the coast of Maine, where I have lived ever since.

I am writing you now from my two-room cottage near the sea. It's a clear and cool day. The pines are dark green, the sky is bright blue and cloudless, the leaves on the maples are bright red. I have the window open so that I can smell the sea, and the breeze is crisp. The apple tree in my yard is still bearing fruit. I still write stories and essays, and have sold a few lately. I write every morning. I have a sleek black tomcat named George. A girl from town, Ruth, comes in a few days a week to check up on me, cook and clean, all of that. She is a lovely girl and a wonderful baker. I am eighty-eight years old.

Dear me, that was not brief at all. Use of that what you like, Jane, I hope it is helpful to you. To your next question:

My inspiration for the Van Dort sisters came from a number of places. I am very pleased to learn that the stories about them are your favorites. They were my favorites to write. I found that I came to care about them as if they were real people, too, Jane. It made me smile to read that Lydia is your favorite. She is mine, as well.

She and Catherine, the oldest sisters, were inspired by two lovely girls who were my charges at one time. I confess I took their personalities wholesale. I was with them from the time they were six and seven to the time they left for school. Like their fictional counterparts, the only thing they had in common was how much they loved one another, even though they often had strange ways of showing that love.

The younger two sisters came mostly from my imagination. Anne was how I saw myself as a young girl—she is, in fact, largely based on me. And Mary, the youngest, is the girl I wished to have been!

I always received many letters from girls who loved to read about the Van Dort sisters, and each and every one touched my heart. As I said, those characters gave me such pleasure to write and invent stories for.

Your next question, Jane, is a bit more difficult for me to answer. I will do my best. The answer is yes. The Corpse Bride was real. Victor Van Dort was real. He and I were engaged. The village's dead really did come back for that one night. I saw the Corpse Bride myself, and I saw the dead in my parents' house at my wedding dinner. Uncle Torvald was there, too. He wrote all about it in the book I mentioned above, you can look there for details.

It happened, Jane. A living man married a dead woman. And then he drank poison to marry her properly. Even after over seventy years it hurts my heart to write of it. I wasn't there to see, and I left the village soon after with my husband (who, though not a nice man, was not a murderer as far as I was aware. I added that bit for interest).

I suppose that question leads to your next, about why I write, and what inspires me. I took a little break, Jane, while writing to you, so that I could have a tea and think properly and give you an honest answer. What I've come to is this: I write the life I wish I'd had. My very early stories, my romances from when I was barely more than a girl, were all wish fulfillment. My lost love inspires me.

I loved Victor Van Dort, Jane. He was the one who was meant for me. I was sure of it when I was eighteen and I am sure of it now, a little white-haired old woman in a tiny cottage a world away. It's all in my stories, my dear Jane. I needn't explain it to you here. All of my feelings, the love and the anger and the pain, the way I hope Victor felt about me, the life I wish we had had together, the death I wish we had had together. It's all in my stories.

That's why I write. To explore what might have been. What I so dearly wish had been.

I've rambled again, I see. I hope I successfully answered your question. People my age do tend to go on when we're asked questions, especially about our youth! I think I have nearly finished the list you enclosed. As I've written quite a bit already and likely more than you desired to know, I will be as brief as possible with your last questions:

When I am not writing I enjoy gardening, knitting, and taking walks in the pine woods and by the sea. No favorite color, but muted tones please me. Anglican, not practicing. Mr. Adlai Stevenson.

Writing to you has been a true pleasure, Jane. I do hope the answers I gave help you to complete your project successfully. You sound like a bright young lady, and I wish you all the best. I have also enclosed a signed first edition of your favorite of my books, Wedding Flowers. Please enjoy it and read it in good health.

Very sincerely yours,

Victoria, Lady Bittern

P.S.

Yes, Jane, I would very much enjoy being your penfriend. I will look forward to your next letter.

V.