Woman in Black- Packet of letters summary

The first packet of letters
To begin with we find numerous letters dated from ‘about sixty years ago’ all addressed to either ‘My Dear’ or ‘Dearest Alice’, immediately we connect this with the recently deceased Alice Drablow. Furthermore they are all signed ‘J’ or ‘Jennet’ who we later learn is the woman in black. This introduces a relationship between the two; what kind however, is still unknown. Later we learn how ‘the writer’ is a ‘relative of Mrs Drablow’ and is in a not unusual predicament, being ‘unmarried and with child’. Although we do not find out directly who he father is we do learn that he can be referred to as ‘P’.
Eventually a ‘son was born to her’ in Scotland, which was where she had been sent to during her pregnancy. Immediately Jennet becomes fiercely attached to him with a ‘desperate, clinging affection’. For a few months there are no letters, as Jennet and her son bond, growing closer and closer, they cut connections with everyone.
When the letters do eventually start again, we see various mood swings, from a ‘passionate outrage and protest’ to later, a ‘quiet, resigned bitterness’. This mood swings are a direct result of ‘pressure’. We discover how Jennet is being put under pressure to ‘give up the child for adoption’, however Jennet adamantly refuses, repeatedly she states how they would ‘never be parted’. Her love for him is so strong that at one point Jennet goes as far as asserting how she would ‘kill us both before I let him go’.
Despite this previous certainty, Jennet’s tone soon changes as the pressure put on her increases. Eventually Jennet is reduced to desperation, not knowing ‘what else (she) can ... do’, as she has become ‘quite helpless’ in the situation. Finally she accepts her predicament but only if Alice and ‘M are to have him’ as she would ‘mind it less’, she realises that ‘it must be’, for them both to have a better standard of living.
At the end of the last letter was can see the caring side of Jennet, the possessive side and the fierce love between a mother and her son. She requests to Alice, that she will ‘love him, take care of his as your own’ however always remember that ‘he is mine, mine he can never be yours.’ To conclude she asks for forgiveness: she asks that Alice will ‘forgive (her)’ because now her son is gone her ‘heart will break’.
In the same envelope Arthur finds the adoption certificate for ‘Nathaniel Pierston, infant son of Jennet Humfrye’ to become ‘the child of Morgan Thomas Drablow of Eel Marsh House, Crythin Gifford, and of his wife Alice.’