“That’s not what I meant,” Gilbert soothes.
“The general told me that Elizabeth can’t imagine this baby being brought up by anyone other than me. She wants me to help him know his brother and sister.”
Gilbert counts up the years in his head. By the time this baby of Elizabeth’s is grown, Sara will be forty-eight years old. Too old to start a family on their own terms.
Gilbert can feel the tears welling up in his eyes. “Is there no end to what they’ll ask for?”
Sara just shakes her head and releases a choked sob.
He feels like a fool for leading her on, for making her believe that they ever had any control over their own lives. What was it he had said, just a few nights ago, when he pulled her onto his lap in the kitchen house?It ain’t always going to be like this.She hadn’t believed him then, he could tell, but something had shifted in her these last few days. Maybe it was losing Louisa or maybe it was hearing about Mrs. Johnston’s offer. Maybe it was just knowing how Cecily had seized her chance at a different kind of life when it was presented to her. Whatever the reason, Sara had begun to believe Gilbert, had begun to believe that they were on the cusp of something better.
“We can still have a good life,” he promises. “You at the Prestons’ and me at Kemp’s. It ain’t that far, between our two places. And it’ll get warmer soon. We’ll be back in the garden, where the jasmine smell so good.”
“Oh, Gillie,” she whispers, and he knows her heart is breaking.
“I’ll keep trying, Sara. You know I will. And there will be other opportunities. By and by.”
She gives him that old, familiar disbelieving look of hers, and he feels a little steadier. Gilbert can live with disbelieving, because even now—after everything that’s happened—he thinks his dreams might be big enough for them both.
JACK
Jack finds West on thetavern’s front porch, watching the mourners file past. “Placide said you were looking for me?”
“Yes,” he says, reaching into the pocket of his coat for a letter. “I realize you won’t be coming with us to Charleston, so I wanted to give you this.”
Jack turns the letter over in his hand. It’s addressed toTo Whom It May Concern. “What is this?”
“It’s a letter of introduction.”
“From Placide?”
“No,” says West with a short laugh. “It’s from me.”
Jack wrinkles his forehead.
“My name won’t get you far at Drury Lane,” says West. “But it might get you a bit part at John Street. When you get there, ask for Eddie.”
“I don’t deserve this.”
West nods, more to himself than to Jack. “I understand how you might feel that way. But what happened at the theater was a terrible tragedy—not evidence that you don’t belong on the stage.”
“You really think so?”
“I do. If you love the feeling you get when you’re in a theater and the lights go out, and you’re willing to work very hard, then you’ll figure the rest out.”
“I don’t know what to say,” says Jack.
“There’s a little sterling in there, too. Enough to get you up to New York.”
“Thank you.”
“You may not have heard,” says West, “but I’ve recently come into a little money.”
“I did,” Jack says, playing along, but then he gets serious. “I’m sorry you had to sell the property.”
West waves off his sympathies and tips his hat in the direction of thefuneral procession. “If I ever needed a good reminder that it doesn’t matter, this is it.”
A group of clergy, in their vestments, walks past.
