Widow in White

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Bittersweet

Laura missed Richard more than she had expected, but not so much she couldn't enjoy the anticipation of his return. On the third day of his absence, there was a letter for her at breakfast. It was an effort of extreme control not to open it immediately, but to drink her coffee and eat her bread and jam, and hold onto that pleasant shiver of intrigue within. A pleasant shiver that quickly became chill disappointment when on opening it she saw, instead of Richard's rather stocky and angular hand, Elizabeth's long, elegant one.

She tossed it away in disgust without reading it, drank more coffee, ate more toast, amused herself with sundry chores, forgot all about it, and then remembered it suddenly in the late afternoon, when, bored and restless, she decided she might as well read it as not.

She found it on the dining room table where she had left it and took it with her to a couch. It was briefer than she expected, little more than a few lines.

My Dear Lady Laura,

I write from London where I stop overnight. I hope you will forgive the impertinence of my interference, but I find it necessary to speak my mind. My brother informed me earlier today that his purpose in London is to settle the situation between you and him. He is not an unjust man, and I have no fear that he will fail to account properly for your future well-being, but I have sympathy for the woman who finds herself at the disposal of a man, and I wish, though I may be heaping coals of fire upon your head, to give you warning of what lies ahead upon his return, that you may be prepared to meet him with a guarded heart and a controlled mind.

Regards, Lady Farthingdale

Laura, at first, thought it was some cruel trick of Elizabeth's, to hurt her. But she read it once more, and knew that Elizabeth was not the type for mean tricks. And it made sense. Richard had been strange since he had learned of what really happened in her marriage with Maidstone. Distant, worried. Then the reality of it all was too much for him. Or perhaps he could not forgive her for what she had done, at the end. Perhaps he was simply not willing to be part of a life with a woman who was so broken and broken-edged.

The first day after receiving the letter, Laura was filled with anger towards Richard, a sense of betrayal. She had done as he asked. She had made herself vulnerable to him. And for that, he was leaving her. Angry too at Elizabeth, who thought she could heap coals of fire on Laura, who had no reason to be grateful to her at all. Interfering, ignorant Elizabeth, who had never met a person without misunderstanding them and never tried to be kind without doing hurt.

But the next day, after reading the letter again many times and seeking for hidden meanings in it, Laura remembered her vow to be kind to Richard and realized Elizabeth's unconscious wisdom in warning her. It gave her the chance not to guard her own heart, but his. He had done her nothing but kindness these past six months, and he owed her nothing. No, it was she who was in his debt. Perhaps this, of all things, she could do for him: not fight. When he came home, she thought, she would make it easy for him. He deserved that much. Besides, she knew the toll she had taken on him, socially and politically, even personally. It was too much to ask a man to share her sordid past. It was better to leave and let him be whole, and perhaps —her heart trembled— perhaps one day he would marry someone else with whom he would be happy.

It was a bitter resolution, but it was resolution enough that when he returned two days later, she was still determined to make it as easy as possible for him. However she could not bring herself to go down and greet him as she had promised, so she waited in her room by the empty fireplace, her hands folded in her lap, a strange sense of dread upon her. Not long after the front doorbell had sounded, she heard his uneven step in the passage, and he came in, still dressed in his travelling coat and boots, his hat and gloves in one hand.