Letters from Loomis

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

Letters from Loomis
written by the creators of the Lynch Family and Janice

She heard the phrase 'Just back from Spain' so many times a day that it made her want to scream. Warm days were in memories clung to while the blustery winds of Scottish Autumn wreaked havoc on the remnants of summer at all. A pile of leaves swirled at the hem of the ochre velvet dress, tossing it up to reveal the beige underskirt, and pale cream petticoat. If the velvet weren't heavy she would be forever in wool. Gray sky still held her attention rapt, though. It was beautiful in its own way, always so thick and massive. When the sun broke through for an instant it made her heart skip. In some ways Janice was still like a maiden, moved by moments resembling written poems.

Other things she missed more than Spain. For a few months earlier in the year she had a household bustling with life at all hours because a young lady should have such a thing. The banter of young boys and Dora's constant attentions. It had been a little family not too unlike what other families were like. After Marius had gone, she rued that Dora had ever left for the puncture of the solitude left a scar in her heart. Even now she was wed again, a similarity the young and old women shared. The secret was close to her heart in the form of a sparrow on a ribbon chord. Her name was Monroe, but the world still knew her as Brabant. She detested the secrecy at the moment because her house was cold, she missed a warm world, and her heart ached.

Only when she turned to go up the step did she notice something jammed in at the window pane by way of the shutters. Prying them out, a child's handwriting coaxed her from the dark back to the jovial light. "Loomis?" she said to the paper as she collected the little treasures and went in to the door of her house in the row. "Loomis..sweet boy.." This was but the first little bundle. She found another, somehow off to the side of the door, each wrapped in twine, signed by a young but strong hand. At the table she sat down devoted to read each and every one. They spoke of his life on the farm, the turn of the seasons, his dreams, his hope and loss. He confided her through them! Why, he even wrote that he missed her. "I miss you, too.." Dora was a seasoned soul who went perpendicular if everyone else went around, around if everyone went vertical. The loss of her husband pained her yet she had not come to stay. Did she wish to remain on the farm then? Had the money she gave to the woman during the night at the tavern helped her? Many of Janice's winnings went to the alms box, to dora, and only a little did she keep for herself.

Instead of telling the air she missed Loomis, she resolved to do something. Being the only one of his family with the ability or the desire, she went to her study for the requisite necessity of paper, pen, ink, and seal to fashion him a letter. Oh she wrote with such zeal! She wrote to him this:

Dear Loomis,

I have found at my home all of the wonderful letters your hands had written, bound, and sealed for me. Did you did you do this while I was away? Perhaps even before, if I was not home or within the Hall? There were so many that it took me no less than a pair of hours to finish one bundle! I look forward to the others. How are you, my young dear friend? I am so sorry that you have lost your father and shall include his soul in my prayers, prayers for your brother, your mother, and yourself. Tell me, did the harvest of your farm do well? It is harvest time and that is something I do miss from country life. The nuns would harvest their vegetables in France, and sometimes, we would help farmers short of hands to do the same. I miss the smell of ripe things.

Now that I am writing you, you can see that I am home! The store is open and it has taken me much work to get it back to good quality again. When you are within town, please come to the Row so that your good eye can look it over for me. I was so impressed with how well you wrote the letters. Such grand spelling! You have always been a good, clever boy though. God willing, we shall see one another soon.

With Love and Friendship,
Janice

***

He came running from the roadway, a page grasped in hand, flapping in a breeze his fast pace stirred up. The post rider dismounted and led his horse to water as the child Loomis ran headlong to his Mother, bare feet slapping down again and again on the dusty path to their cottage. His short black wool pants barely showed beyone his long brown tunic. In a loud clear voice that they could hear back at the cow shed, Loomis yelled, "Ma! I got a letter! My first letter! Miz Janice is back!"

Dora stood at the gate to their kitchen garden tying up harvested onions by their braided stalks to hang and dry in the cot rafters, enough for a winter's stews. She wiped a few stray hairs back into her cap, looking up to see her son wide smiley like a Jack-o-lantern, his black straight cut hair flying off his high forehead, such dark eyes. So like his Father he was, she sighed, glad to see that it had not been a wonderful dream, her time with Clovis.

"Come and read it to me, child. I need to get these other herbs in to dry yet tonight. Mistress Janice has returned, you say?" She expected to be bombarded with her little boy's non stop talk and in that she was correct.

"Look! I wrote her every time I had the pages to do so. And tied them with hemp twines, like a sheep fleece. And she found them! I knew she would!" He had high respect for how clever Janice was.

Loomis climbed up atop the rail fence and from the top rail, his legs wrapped about a support stick, he read the letter to Dora, without a single mistake. How would Widow know if he had not? She did not read.

Clovis had made the lad a pot of oak gall ink and Dora cut several pens for him from goose feathers. Since Liam had run off, the parents had done their best to keep Loomis occupied, so he would miss his brother less. It did no good to write to Liam in Ulster for the adopted one had not gone to school enough to learn his letters. Who knew where the army was out in that dangerous territory, anyway?

"May we ask Miz Janice out to our home for the harvest festival? She might like to see how many hay ricks we got in and the new cow; she could milk it if she wanted?" It did not occur to Loomis that there was anything Janice could not do and do well. That she did not own a cow at present time, he was fairly sure, her living in the city and all.

So that evening at the hearth fire while Dora mended gray wool knit socks for winter, Loomis sat at the table and penned his latest letter to Janice.

To my Honored Teacher, Mistress Janice,

I knew you would find my letters if you were at home. We prayed every day that you will be safe and happy. Unlike praying for my Da, there was hope that it was going to work for you. I have not got any taller in the time while you were away, but have kept practicing my writing and reading. Mum gets me penny pages from the Gypsy printer and I have new stories to read as well as every page you gave me. Harvest time is going on already and you should see how well the fields have done. The wheat in and herbs ready now. Soon the beets and carrots will be pulled up and go into the root celler. I asked and my Mum says that if you would like to come, please come to our home and join in the harvest dinner and games. You are most welcome to bring any friends you think will enjoy roast pig and vegetable stew. I will ask Mum to make a cake. I did not miss you as much as I though because the pages you taught me to read were almost like talking to you again, my Teacher.

Respectfully, Your servant and student, LOOMIS
The handwriting was improved; the signature bold and confident. Oh yes, it was written on the back of a posted notice that warned "No Tresspassing. No Hunting Keep Out. Royal Game Preserve".

***

Janice enjoyed the idea of having a little pen-fellow to write to in order to break away things that were the worries of adults, not for the minds of children. In the mind of a child, in Loomis' perfect handwriting, was an innocence liberating from the shackles of all that was proud, vain, and bitter. It made her smile without single regard for anything where the smile would offend another. It was unadulterated the bliss she felt in connecting with and still teaching this sweet boy how to further himself by the advantage of letters. The thoughts in mind were things like: how strange to write in the common language of the people, for when she first learn to read and write it was more than native French. Should she offer to see he could learn the language of legality, Latin? Maybe it would be placed in the words for him to decide on. Such a smart, brilliant boy.

Everyone at one point in their life was a child with similar promise shining, wanting to be cultivated by elder hands. Collecting his newest letter up again, she tucked it in with the rest of his collection, humored to no end that he wrote it on whatever paper he could find, in this case warning him to stay away from the royal game preserve.

In the next letter left for him in their special place he would find a bundle of paper, a pot of ink should he run out, and two quills should he have none:

To the Good and Sweet Loomis:

Thank you for your daily prayers. I feel them in my heart and know that they have given me many blessings. Do not fret over what God has ordained for your father, my young friend. It is sad that he is gone, for I have heard in passing of the terrible situation that claimed him when I went out for my rides in the countryside. I am so, so sorry for this. Know that now your prayers reach him that he might have greater glory in his repose near the Christ and his Mother Mary. They will help cleanse any remnant of his soul, and he will cherish them just as he cherished you, your mother, and brother while living. At all times we can't understand the will of the divine but a good man named Brother Diarmuid O'Corrain told me something that I want you to remember. "We are made of clay, and thus fallible. God fashioned us and so there is always a plain writ in our making."

It would be my honor to come to your home for harvest festitivies, and I shall perhaps think on some friends. There is another little fellow in an old farm that has just moved with his caretaker that may make you a handsome playfellow.

Yours,
Janice

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

To my Honored Teacher, Mistress Janice, First of October, 1333

It is getting cold so we have a fire each day now, lest the wash water get an ice skin on top. I asked my Mum to cook a chicken for when you come here, as I recall you do not eat pork. Mum asks if you knit. She has some nice white wool spun up fine and we are sending it with this letter. In thanks for the fine ink, pens and pages.

I have had to get a metal box for my papers and pens as the field mice got into the house this season and nibble on anything that smells good. We have the grain bin out in the store house but they seem to like the house better.

We went to a festival and I was tall enough to get things from the table this year. While at the food table, I met another child who might be near my age, name of Edward. He says there are some foods he does not like and that is the case with me; some things just do not have a good taste. Mum says I am being picky but it is so. Gruel is one thing we cannot disagree tastes good, for what my Mum makes has got so little taste, good thing it is hot.

We have got a problem which my Da would have taken in hand long before it got this bad. I wrote a note to the Castle for my Mum, asking for help with a wild boar which is getting into our turnip fields before the harvest time, tearing up the ground and rooting for out foodstuff. It ran off Melvin and Lester, so you know it is big and mean. That boar is smart, too. It finds the traps we have dug for it and runs the other way. Perhaps the harvest meal and the boar hunt will come about the same time?

I still have my pet dog and am keeping Liam's pet as well. I hope and pray he comes back home safe once the war in Ulster is finished. I miss my brother. And I miss you.

From your humble servant,
Your friend and faithful student, LOOMIS


"Mum?" the boy dusted his letter with sand to dry it and carefully folded the page. "May we put some salt in the gruel? It might help." He glanced to the hearth where his mother was stirring a huge black iron kettle, full of her signature dish, plain gruel.

"Salt? Whatever for? Salt is for preserving meat and the like. Not for what is already good enough in itself." Dorie tapped the ladle on the kettle edge, determining this batch was ready for the table. "Now clear off the letter makin's. I have farm workers to feed." She grabbed a stack of carved wooden trenchers off the mantle and set them on the table top, with a loud clatter.

Loomis took the letter and placed it in the metal box, until he could send it with Lester when he went on the fire wood route in the city. Life was good here at the Lynch Farm. Better even with a grain or so of salt, if you had asked Loomis.

*

Janice didn't sit at rough wooden table or even her own table devoid of splinters, sanded down, with long benches and cushions on top. No, she sat beside an ornate beast of a thing in apartments fit for a princess. In Ebony Hall she was something of that; a little royal by virtue of a dead grandmaster, a child born of a legend thus destined to be legend no matter how humbly she'd lived before between shops. She sat on a wagon bench, not a carriage, lived in cottages and not manors. It was not until the time girls became women that she remained longer a girl to become woman in an opulent world of deception and glittering, beautiful illusions. Find the truth in that, you were as good as gold.

Loomis was never written of how hard things were or how they excelled. Instead they talked about the day to day aspects and the heart of other matters. They got to know one another, if children and adults may correspond as simple individuals with no other expectation. His letter got to her by way of one of the Master's messengers overseeing the cleaning and momentary quiet keeping of her house and shop while she stayed in Laurence House once again to be cared for with her better half. Was that something she could put in a letter? Tell your mother that in one year I have married twice and in the second married far better. I collect the advice of women. Multiply married, multiply widowed women? It was as good as any, and she never judged.

She sat at the ornate table serving as a desk, missing her own. At least the letters served a reminder of something simple.


To Good Loomis:

I have only now received your letter from the first of the month, and apologize for the days of delay worth in a reply. I have been very busy of late, and hope that unlike me, you have had time to play. It is important I think for a young man to find reprieve in his life. A farm is a great amount of work I imagine. Thank you in advance for the thought paid to the chicken. I laugh that you remember such a thing. I have only ever eaten pork if it is served at court or on a special occasion. Roast boars seem to be a favorite on tables. It serves to make me ill, so I can not truly indulge in it. I like chicken though very much, and fish. I grew to eat copious amounts of fish as a child. Meat was something that required great time and energy to acrew when I was a child. My mother only favored certain cuts, and certain ways of slaughtering. Even so we ate profuse amounts of vegetables. It prepared me well for staying within, and ultimately living, in a convent for several years. Franciscans abstain from meat as a main source of food unless they must, given the poor vows taken.

You should make sure to keep your metal box of goods in a high place! Mice are wiley creatures and I would not wish them trying to find a way to eat your precious supplies. I am enclosing a good herb that is said to ward away such things as vermin. Has your mother ever considered a cat? Please pay no mind to the rumors that abound of them as consorts to the unseen entities of evil. They are very practical creatures.

How sad it makes me we were at the same festival! At least I believe that we were. I too went to a Harvest Festival that was held in the Cullin Valley at the estate of the fine Lady Apollius. I ate very heartily, drank, and danced. I am so happy you found a friend to enjoy yourself with and pray, keep enjoying yourself, there is nothing more precious as to be a child.

I hope I may call upon you soon,

Warmest Regard, Mistress Janice

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
written by the creator of Dora Lynch

It was his birthday, All soul's Day, and little Loomis Lynch sat at the hearthfire poking at the coals with a stick, waiting impatiently for his mother to finish her chores.

"Four. I am still not old enough for school, am I Mum?" he slid down as he sat on the oak bench curved as if he had no spine, playing catipillar, as he thought of it. "Will the harvest be over soon? I cannot wait for Christmas. We will have pudding and you can sing with me like Da used to do?"

Oh that was hitting in the gut. The child had to mention his recently deceased father. Dora gasped and stood back from the lye soap whe had been cutting into cubes, so recently cooled in its wooden tray. She wiped stands back off her forehead, those few which escaped her tightly tied scarf and paused. "Tis still harvest season, Loomis. You know that. Did you not scribe the counts for the hay ricks on your talley page? Have you listed the turnips yet? Or the rutabegas? Be patient, as the Almighty is when allowing crops to come to yeild one at a time. All things in their good time." Doing a man's work in the fields by day and a woman's chores in evening had Dora exhausted. She could scarce see ahead to the next day, let along off to Christmas. She set the cleaver aside, leaving the soap half finished and settled on the bench beside her child.

"Now son, I know you miss your Da but I have got something he wanted to give you, once you were able to read. He knew back when you was but a bit of a baby, you were going to be schooled to read and write and do sums. Such things are good for the farm. See? You are writing records this year, doing your part for the farm, Tis a grand thing, and being four is good, too. Let me see. I have the carton here somewhere." Dorie searched the keeping trunk, which meant mostly keeping things safe from mice. "Ah, here it is. A gift from your Da, Happy Birthday my Loomis. And I have made you an oatmeal cake with honey."

The mention of cake was not missed entirely by Loomis but the book had is attention.

She handed it into his stubby little hands, clean but scared from his work in the gardens. His fingernails were bitten close to the end, a condition that came about after Clovis died. Dora sat back and observed as her boy took hold of the book. It was a real book, one with some value for it had been kept in a carton by its previous owner, who was killed in the assult on the Skye Gates, some years ago, way before Loomis' birth.

"Let us sell this book and buy us some supplies for the farm." Widow Lynch had said to her husband, back when Loomis was an infant. "No, our child will read one day and he will have a book to do it from." Clovis was adamant. Their boy was going to be educated. King Adam promised schools and Clovis pedged the boy an education, come hail or high water.

Loomis took the book in hand and wiped his hand over its black leather cover, so rough and clean, yet warm and friendly, like holding his Da's hand when they went walking in the town or the woods. That memory linked him with this precious book. "What is in it?" Little Lynch touched the clasp but did not try it, yet.

"I have no idea. I never seen it opened.' Not that she had not tried, but the trick clasp defied Dorie's efforts to pull it open, to shake it loose and any number of tries that did not damage.

Tiny hands he had, a child who was no taller than he had been at three; no heavier than a year ago. Growth seemed to be halted for Loomis, but in these times such things were just written off as natural. Nothing could be done so why worry on it?

"Mum! Look it opens! I just pressed the metal like the sign of a cross and it is open!" What more of a sign that this was meant to be Loomis' book than this? "And there are so many words and little pictures! See?" He held out the book open so that they both might view what it held. Thin parchment pages were covered with line after line of beautiful calagraphy, black inked sentence after sentence, all clear, legible and art in their formation. A few pages started with a banner of tiny pictures, likely illustrations of the words, in endless bright colors of real life. It was wonderous to see.

"Can you read them words? " She gave him a challenge that Loomis was sure to be able to complete.

"Yes. Listen. I will read: 'Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus.'. There is more but I do not know what these words mean. I think this is a different language, like some of Mistress Janice's books." He looked up to his Ma. "I think this means I need to learn another language. But what one? I know! We can go ask Mistress Janice! She will know."

"She will know. I will take you to see her on the morrow; we are going riding on the mule, fast trot." Dora chucked him under the chin. "Now eat your cake and we will sing, like it were Christmas Day. I ain't got the good voice of your Da, but it will have to do."

While Loomis held the book under one arm and the oatmal cake in his other hand, Dora finished her soap making work and they took to singing at the fireplace, the old holiday song.

In the dark farmhouse, by glowing coals, two very different voices crackled out less than accurate verses.

"What Tydynges bringest thou, messenger, of Christes birth this Yolesday?..."

In the morning, Loomis wrote in his best script to Janice, this letter:


To my best friend and teacher, Mistress Janice, Nov. 1, 1333

I hope you are happy today. I have news to tell you that my Mum is taking me to the town next day of this, to visit you, if you are to home, that is. I have been given a book left from my Da, which is in a different language and wish you could tell me what it says. I think this means I am supposed to learn this language and read my book, or something like that.

The turnips are not in yet nor the rutabegas as we have got trouble in the fields with a wild boar. Big and mean with tusks. It run at Cully Bract and cut his arm and his chin. Over to the Naughton place, the boar turned over their cart and trampled the fence. It eats what folks try and store so we have not got the crops in yet. My Mum is going to ask for help for the farms. I will try and visit you when she is in the town.

Stay safe and happy. I pray every day that the Almighty keep watch over you, my friend.

Your humble servant, Loomis Lynch, age 4.

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

December, 1333

Loomis didn't have the chance to see Janice when his mother would come to town not long after All Saints. Life conspired to seperate the pair and others like them who moved in the number two. God looked down from Heaven and saw that his people in Scotland were in need of him. Too small is man to always understand his will.

Snow fell on the ground in fits until at last it stuck long enough to be kicked up under the horse hooves if one went by sleigh, or muddled through by carriage. Getting along was an indiginous trait, no where more so than Skye Isle. Even after the unification of Skye unto Scotland once more and the creation of the Gaelic Nation States in 1333, the rest of the world went 'round on a seperate tempo than life did here. People suffered and died. They prayed and had answer, or suffered more only to find none while all the while harvests were still gathered. What had made people grow afraid in the country for a few heart holding weeks vanished with the morning's dew. All the while the world still went on, the harvests had not been interrupted. Winter came with full silos, things hanging in the smoke houses, full fishing nets, and opulence to spare if you were an opulent sort.

Her whereabouts unknown, when Janice Monroe returned not only to Turas Lan but to court, all that was known was she had spent time in an abbey of Poor Clares. Had a fight with her husband sent her, or his whim? She emerged rested, increased in education, and was rapt to share it with a listening friend. Whatever the full reason prayers purchased a good standing still. Oh, there was talk against the like as there would be for the like. Was she a wife wed by God's sacrament or the base common law? Would the sacrament be honored if it were not so, and why did it matter at all? Some made sure if weddings thus were at hand the ink in the registrar ledger was thick.. It was said that even down to the gentry many a father kept a close eye on his daughter, having allowed her to be educated, would allow her to be no man's wife but in the eyes of God then thus the crown by way of the ink in the ledger. Divorce, an acrimonious word, was flung out only to be pulled apart. Equal mixes of pity cemented in with the newfound respect for the years suffered wallflower. She bloomed under adversity, they said, and even those who had taken joy in making it hard for her to find a place when they were younger came around to see if she might take a place at their table to eat.

It was the day after Christmas Night when Janice stumbled on a bit of wrong that would turn out to be right. How long had it been since she looked for letters in the brick by the door? How long since she cared if anyone penned? Her life went on in weeks that went on like months, and a month could be a year. Forgive me, she thought, let me see.. Fingers plucked up, unfolded, smoothed creases until the little faded figures from a child's hand made her inhale sharply: Loomis

She had forgotten all about him! Not of his meaning or life, no, but his letters. Their little companionship by words, shared daily anecdotes. This letter written on him on All Saint's made her press it to her heart as she considered that having seen his mother at the Feast of the Peasents just some days past, he was alive. They were alive. No ill will had come to them when the poisons seemed to ransack the most hard working farm hamlets. "Thank you, God," she said aloud in to the frosty morning, as words became ice-smoke, "Thank you.". Janice peered down the street only to dart up over the steps, her lintle post to past, and shut the door. She held a treasure, that one. A treasure.

It was not for a boy to know any more of man's world than he already knew living the life of a farm. His father dead and his brother gone to Ireland to make his destiny as a man-at-arms, he was in a strange situation of being entirely too educated for his place in the world yet content there to never question it. No. Youth would have nothing in his ears of what she had in her ears, poisoning her mind, heart, and soul. No. It was still the season of Christmas tide, laid out among the twelve spectacular days. She went to her desk, took out a fresh sheet of paper, a sharp quill, and ink pot. No doubt the boy thought she was too busy or important to consider him, the son of a former housekeeper.

December the 26th, in the Christmastide, 1333
My dear friend Loomis,

Blessings of the season to you! May the Virgin and her son shine light to you and yours in constant reminder of how miracles begin very small, often ubelievable often to become greater than any can device. You are so blessed. So very small yet so very smart! Have you continued your studies with letters at all, if you can? I know it was harvest time until but a month ago, and after that comes all the preperations of food before the cold months. In all of this I hope you remember to at the very least play in the snow before the rains come to wash it away. Every day is so precious. Did your mother ever solve the problem of the Boar?

I am sorry I have not written to you. It is terrible to leave any letter so long unanswered and I pray you never come to the habit of it. I had business to attend in the country as you know for we were both there around the harvest, but took to being ill. I was ill for some time, but do not worry over it. I am quite well again and home within the city on the Row where it seems I belong.


With this letter comes gifts for you and your mother this Christmas, as well as a little extra for I missed your birthday. When next you come to town think to see me so that thinking becomes living, and we might live a little while together.

Yours Always,
Lady Janice Monroe


When the letter made it to the Lynch farm, it would come with a basket holding the gifts, which consisted of plenty of paper, quills, ink, sand for drying his letters, a lap board, and two primers of letters and reading for the very young from a printhouse. There would be collars and sleeves for good shirts, and the fabric to finish them, gloves for little hands, and a new scarf. For Dora would come a little silver hand mirror, a brush for her fine white hair, a new hair snood for when she sought to show it, new linen caps embroidered for when she did not,a warm new shawl, gloves, and a pair of leather boots that would come just beneath her knee, for warmth and simply because she knew the Lynch woman had a peculiar talent for losing her shoes betwixt fall and winter. There would be sleeves for a new dress, and instead of its fabric trusting she would sew her own son's shirts sooner than her own, the dress itself waited only for the sleeves. It was a handsome shade of hunter's green. Little garters could be pinned to the front to lift the front as well as the skirts beneath it from the snow, leaving the olders lower, and lacings up the side were of a good strong leather. It was not something for the field, yet it was good enough if she elected for Church or the rare occasion where Lynch came to the city adorned in any way. Lynch was a woman of the gentry, but her fingers were worked so hard and without a man, she endured as women do. She was not well monied or well birthed before. Janice new that she was too proud, good Lynch, to take charity of others. She found ways to pay her hired farm hands even it it meant she went without. So this once, just this once..she would not have to.