The Wife
The main character is a young wife in London sitting home alone in December of 1899. She remains unnamed and essentially undescribed as the narrative first establishes that outside her home the famous London fog has already made the transition into the post-Industrial Revolution sticky, unromanticized brownish-yellow smog. Her story begins with a knock on the door.
The Telegram Messenger
The knock at the door is described as sharp; it is the work of a professional. The one person that a young wife of the type just described hopes least to see arrive at their door: a messenger bearing a telegram. Even by then, the telegram had already taking on the dark mythology of bad news. Good news gets delivered in person by someone you know; only bad news knocks on the door in the form of a stranger paid to deliver it. And the news is the worst possible.
The Postman
A day after receiving the telegram with the bad news, the only kind of good news not delivered in person arrives: when the person with the good news is geographically incapable of delivering it. Instead, the news arrives by proxy in the form of the official daily mail carrier who is this day delivering a letter written by the woman’s husband from his position in South Africa as a soldier during the Boer War. The letter reveals a man in high spirits counting down the days until he returns home and filled with big plans comprised of simple pleasures.
The Husband
As simple as those pleasures may be—walks down by the stream together—they will never be realized because the bad news in the telegram delivered by the messenger is, of course, news that he has died on the battlefield. The irony of receiving a missive from lively husband who was already dead before it was opened gives the poem’s second section its subtitle.
