The Well by Elizabeth Jolley

cover of the well.
    For some years Hester had regularly sent money to the family of a needy child rescuing it from starvation and, apparently, her cheques were educating it. Sometimes she tried to remember how long this had been going on. The child, she thought it was a boy, in some far-away country, sent little letters and photographs at intervals through an organization distributing the funds.
    One day sitting in the chunky little Toyota outside the post office in town Hester, rifling eagerly through her mail which consisted mainly of bills and advertisements, tore open an envelope containing another little letter and a photograph. As though struck for the first time by an enlightening thought she said, ‘You know, Katherine, I declare it’s all of ten years since I took on this boy, I would have preferred a girl naturally, and look at this photograph, he is still the same size as he was ten years ago. Also his handwriting has not changed.’ She peered with a disagreeable expression at the contents of the letter. ‘I shall not send any more money,’ she said. ‘He should be old enough now to be earning his own living.’
    After their dinner that night Hester, who had been brooding, relented and, loosening the hooks on her ample skirts, she limped to the dresser where, with her scratchy pen, she wrote out a cheque. ‘Put this in an envelope, Kathy,’ she said. ‘The letter and the photograph could well be from a younger brother or sister. They all look alike don’t they and they have such enormous families, these deprived people.’ Katherine did as she was told insisting that Miss Harper was truly the most generous person she had ever known.
    â€˜Trewly Miss Harper, dear,’ she crooned, ‘the mostest generous person Ah ever done knowed, yew trewly air!’
    Later in the evening noticing that Katherine seemed very quiet, subdued even, Hester, looking up from her sewing, asked her what the matter was. Was she not feeling well, she wanted to know. When Katherine did not answer but simply bent lower over her own sewing, Hester patted the sofa. ‘Come and sit by me,’ she said, ‘and tell me what the matter is.’ She moved along to make more room. She thought she could see tears on Katherine’s cheeks, and now they were sitting close she saw and felt them. She brushed Katherine’s hair back from her face with a clumsy but tenderly intended movement.
    Not used to keeping anything back from Miss Harper, Katherine confessed that she had not shown the letter she received that morning. Miss Harper, she said, had been busy with her own mail and she had kept her letter hidden. It was from Joanna who was now out. It was not prison really, Katherine explained, only a place to get better from ‘what she’d been taking Miss Harper, dear, she’s the sweetest most lovely person Miss Harper, dear, I know you’d love her.’
    â€˜Was there anything in with the letter?’ Hester, wanting to know, was unrestrained and direct.
    Katherine was shocked. ‘Oh no Miss Harper, dear,’ she said. She pulled the little childish pink pages out of her pocket. ‘Here it is, of course you can read it Miss Harper, dear.’
    Hester did not take long to read the letter, the handwriting was so big there were not many words on the page. It seemed that Joanna was wanting more than anything in the whole world to see Katherine. A whole page of kisses and hugs endorsed this apparently innocent wish. Katherine watching Miss Harper read began to cry again.
    â€˜For heaven’s sake! Katherine there’s nothing to cry about,’ Hester said, trying not to let her voice show that the letter caused her to feel threatened and afraid.
    â€˜But,’ Katherine sobbed, ‘I, I hope you won’t mind, Miss Harper, dear, I want to see Joanna too. Only we’re so far away from each other. As you see she’s got a place to live … in