But with unrequited love, hope clung tightly despite evidence pointing to the contrary.
She’d begun to look for him on the street, even though she knew he was thousands of miles away. She imagined him coming back for her, showing up at her door.
And every night she went to bed disappointed. If she didn’t let go of him, she would never know peace.
It was time to let go.
Forever, this time.
29
Your Good Friend
London,March 12th, 1829
Sebastian,
I don’t know if this will reach you. I met with your mother a few weeks ago, I returned the ring. (Thank you for finding it, by the way.) She is worried about you but also very proud. I now see who you got your eyes from.
I was surprised to receive your first letter—surprised, angry, confused! I know we’d discussed you sending them, but I thought we’d said goodbye. I thought we’d decided to end ouraffairattachmentfriendship at that time.
But then your letters kept coming and now I am experiencing America through your eyes. I am learning more about you and, oddly enough, even though you are thousands of miles away, I feel that I am coming to be even closer to you.
Your letters have also inspired me. Oh, Sebastian! All the troubles you speak of exist here in England as well. Perhaps they are not exactly the same, but they are here. I visited King’s Foundling Home and although I am impressed with what is being done, I am also appalled by what is not. After my visit, I asked my driver to take me to Cheapside. He walked with me through some of the streets there and I saw the shadows. Those eyes are the same here.
I intend to research what has been done and what has worked in the past. Your mother directed me to some charities that I intend to support. But I cannot stop with that. Having had my eyes opened, I can no longer turn away.
Your letters frighten me, Sebastian. They frighten me because I imagine you in my life. I hear your voice in my head. I long for you at night. I beg of you to stop sending them. My heart will never heal as long as it believes there is hope.
I miss you, but I cannot go on like this.
Your good friend,
Margaret
New York City, April 22nd, 1829
Sebastian readthrough her letter three times. He’d given up hope that she’d write to him and when he’d discovered the envelope in his postal box, he was surprised by the excitement, the hope he’d felt.
But read through it twice now, he would have rather been punched in the gut.
Feeling the cold in the room, he mindlessly lit the hearth in the corner. It always felt damp here, cold, merciless even, they’d had a taste of spring but then the temperature had dropped again.
He’d never felt the bitter cold as harshly as he felt in that moment.
She had received his letters. She’d read them. She’d returned to London. She’d met with his mother even. She was finding herself, putting purpose in her life.
What had he hoped to accomplish by sending them? Although he’d fooled himself into thinking he was sending them for her, he’d written every last one of them so that he could be near her somehow. They’d been a sorry substitute for what he really wanted. He’d wanted her with him, and writing the words, although it had been a sorry substitute indeed, he could almost imagine that she was.
“I beg of you to stop sending them.”
His vision blurred and then seemed to darken around the edges as he contemplated reasons for her request. Had she met someone else? One of those upstanding gentlemen he’d decided could provide all those things that he couldn’t?
That he wouldn’t?
He pulled out the bottle of whiskey.
It shouldn’t matter. It was only right for her to move on, to marry and begin making babies so that she could finally have the family she wanted so badly.
