I had intended to rent lodgings with the rest of the crew across town but after Eddie introduced me to my host, Mr. Evans said he’d be insulted if I refused his hospitality.
You would enjoy visiting this bustling city, but it is something of an assault upon one’s consciousness in an abstract sense. Everything is louder, faster, busier than most of England. Of course, so far, I’ve only visited two cities, but this is my perception. I believe there must be serenity in some places, farther inland. And I also hear of the barren nothingness one finds farther west.
I must admit I am disappointed that my identity has been made known. It is ironic to me that in all of their quests for independence, an inordinate amount of society here views the English aristocracy in such high regard.
Many young girls want nothing more than a title. Remind you of anyone?
None of them are you. I miss you, Maggie.
Sebastian.
P.S.
I can receive mail at the following address. I understand if you do not wish to write back to me. It’s possible you aren’t even reading these, which might be just as well, but I long to hear where you are, what you are doing. I miss you, Maggie.
Land’s End,February 13th, 1829
The letters arrived almost regularlyafter she received those that he’d written on board ship. He did an excellent job of describing America to her, more specifically, New York City. He seemed to move about and stay busy almost all the time, but he wrote something almost daily and posted them at least weekly…
He missed her.
And she missed him. Of course, she did! And yet nothing had really changed between the two of them. Had it? It didn’t matter, though, and she eventually gave up on trying to purge him from her mind. It had been foolish to try.
With each letter he wrote, she learned a little more about him. Thoughts and fears that he’d kept to himself, likes and dislikes that she had not known. Sometimes his letters made her laugh and sometimes they set her on the brink of tears. She learned of his excitement and also his disappointments, eagerly reading each one.
Meanwhile, she spent the remainder of the autumn at Land’s End, and the holidays as originally planned, and then an extra month. It had been good for her, and she hoped good for her brother and Penelope as well. Not only because of the hours she’d spent with little Creighton and Louella Miracle, but because she had grown closer to Penelope and Hugh.
Whether due to time, circumstances, or something else, Margaret moved beyond feeling despair over her failure to have given birth to a live baby and was able to be helpful and supportive. The sadness that had been a sharp unending pain for so long had relegated itself to a melancholy ache.
Pregnancy had left Penelope feeling weak and bilious most mornings for all of January, and although she attempted to keep a normal schedule, Hugh had insisted she take to her bed. Margaret was glad that she could be helpful through it all and had even learned a few things from Land’s End’s longtime housekeeper.
Everyone was relieved, to be certain, when, on the first day of February, Penelope rose from her bed with a bloom in her cheeks just as though she’d not been a shadow of herself for over six weeks.
Margaret had stayed on for two additional weeks after that but Pen had quickly regained her energy and it was time to go home—to move forward. She’d waited long enough and was now motivated to add a greater purpose to her life. Lady Sheffield had had the right of it. She did, indeed, have the ability to forge a unique path. It was time.
Sebastian’s letters, in fact, had planted a few ideas as to what she wanted to look into but she would need to be in London to pursue them.
“I hate for you to go,” Penelope commented for the twelfth time that day as the two of them lounged in the drawing room on the last afternoon of her extended visit.
“A part of me does too. It would be so easy to stay but I am ready.” And she was. “Spending this winter has meant more to me than you can ever know. I don’t know what I would have done without you and Hugh—and the babies.” Margaret truly felt like Penelope was her family now
“But you have been a great help to us. I’m only pleased to see some hope in your eyes now. We were concerned, those first few weeks especially.” Penelope halted her knitting. “He has not returned from America?”
“I doubt he will for months, possibly years. He is currently in New York.” Or he had been when she had received his last letter. She had no idea where he might be in that moment.
A strange city. A strange country. So very far away. She stifled the urge to run upstairs and read his letters again.
“What did he say in the last letter?” Penelope ventured to ask tentatively. Penelope’s questions no longer made Margaret uncomfortable. They were friends, now, as well as sisters. Margaret would miss her dreadfully after she’d gone.
“He’s told me about the never-ending busyness that seems to drive Americans—an almost frenzied quest for wealth. But also, of the poverty there. It’s a nation of immigrants.” She exhaled a shivery breath. “And that he misses me.” Margaret held Penelope’s gaze.
“Do you still love him?”
She wished she did not. The pain of his leaving wasn’t as sharp as it had been right after, but it had left an ever-present emptiness. “No. Yes. I don’t know,” Margaret answered honestly. Having loved and lost Sebastian Wright was proving to be bittersweet, indeed. “I think I will probably love him forever.”
Penelope rose and crossed to sit beside her before Margaret could do anything to stem her tears. “I’m all right,” she insisted on a sob. She had thought she was doing so well, but now she was faced with a lengthy and tedious journey herself. When she arrived in London, aside from a few friends, she would be alone—at least until the Season commenced. “I’m sorry to be such a ninny.”
“Hush,” Penelope said into Margaret’s hair. “If I have learned one thing from everything that happened between Hugh and me during the first year of our marriage, it is that sometimes even that which seems utterly hopeless is possible.”
