Interwoven throughout the story and stemming from Jack and Louisa’s letters, these central themes are all touched upon in Jim’s response. And when he did, there is the fiancée waiting – what else could he do?” p. He was engaged before he went overseas, he never expected to get back in one piece but he did. It’s all just the way it looks on the surface. Later on, Louisa is recounting this story to Jim Frarey – a travelling salesman – whom is staying at her hotel and in response to Louisa’s fear that the letters were all a joke played on her he says:
Led to believe by his slightly romantic letters that Louisa’s feelings are reciprocated, we eventually learn – and so too does Louisa – that Jack has been engaged to Grace Horne from before he went overseas. Receiving a random – and somewhat meaningless – letter from Jack (who explains that he knows Louisa from the library though she does not know him), Louisa responds and the two start up a regular correspondence, which leads to Jack asking for a photo of Louisa and her resulting infatuation with him. What powers the story is the initial, epistolary relationship between Louisa – a librarian – and Jack Agnew – a resident of Carstairs who is away at war (the story starts in 1917).
Taken from the collection entitled Open Secrets, this short-story is very much concerned with what is and is not revealed and the secrets and secret lives we keep and lead beneath the lived, visible surface. You could look up from your life of the moment and feel the world crackling beyond the walls.’ p. ‘Now she felt what everybody else did – a constant fear and misgiving and at the same time this addictive excitement.
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