Forbidden Love

Abstract

At home in New Zealand in 1907, Kathleen was out of harmony with her family and without the soulmate who, as ‘Juliet’ indicates, was so essential to her well-being. ‘It is a nightmare’, she wrote to Sylvia Payne. ‘Life here is impossible — I can’t see how it can drag on — I have nobody — and nobody cares to know me....’ For comfort in her unhappiness Kathleen turned (as she did again and again in later life) to memories and dreams, to recollections of a happier period. One letter to Sylvia reveals her trying, as if by, an act of will, to summon up the affection that she found absent in her immediate environment.

I must tell you… that I love you far more than I loved you in England.... I dreamed that I came back to visit College… I asked for you… and then I saw you standing by the window in the waiting room — My dear — I felt I must run and put my arms round you and just say ‘Sylvia’ but you nodded and then walked away — and I did not move. It was a terrible dream.... But I was always afraid then, and I am now, that you do not know me, and when you do, you will hate me…