The Love Note

by Joanna Davidson Politano

  Through the death of her mother and her father’s remarriage, such strength, such passion was evident in her heart, pouring out with every sharply intelligent word. It surprised him every time he looked at her tiny frame that it could contain such depth of thought, such largeness of life. Now that she was grown, it had multiplied and it overflowed through her smile, her sparkling face, that huge, wholehearted laugh.

  He’d observed her with amused interest for years, but nothing—nothing—had prepared him for the return of grown-up Willa. The sight of her had hit him like a steam engine he couldn’t sidestep.

  It had become his habit over the years as he lay struggling to fall asleep to picture those elusive dimples tucked just beside her pert little mouth when he earned her smile. It began there, and then it reached her eyes—oh, those eyes! They glowed warm and bright, piercing the sullen darkness of his room. She both calmed and excited him, enjoying him like no one else did, yet still nudging him out of his cocoon of quiet and privacy. Her presence unsettled and compelled him at the same time.

  He adored every minute of it—adored her.

  It all began the moment she had punched one of the local boys and followed it up with a string of impassioned threats that only a naïve young girl could make. The boy ran off wailing about his broken nose, which in truth she’d only bloodied.

  Then she marched into the stable where Gabe had hidden himself to lick the wounds of his pride. She perched up on the stacked bales of hay, swinging her legs. “What a wretched fool he was. There’s nothing the matter with your voice. At least there isn’t a whine in it like his.” She wrinkled her freckled nose.

  He scowled and turned away from this scrap of a girl who thought she needed to rescue him. Thankfully she didn’t pepper him with questions and force him to talk like everyone else. That’s how they’d set out to cure his quietness, a deep flaw in their eyes, but that only made it worse. In those moments, it felt his hands would forever be clammy, his ears always ringing with the echo of his stuck voice, as if someone had stolen his box of words and he had nothing from which to draw when he opened his mouth.

  She scrambled to stand on the hay bales, arms out to balance. “I hope he runs home to tell his mother so he has to answer for his crimes. What a sorry excuse for an heir. I suppose it’s evil to wish him pain though, isn’t it?” She spun around and looked down at him quite suddenly. “I’ll wish him justice, then. There, that seems fair of me, doesn’t it?” She flailed. “Oh!”

  On instinct, he lurched forward as she tumbled, her bony limbs jabbing his chest as she landed. He grimaced at the pain, but it evened the score of his pride.

  She scrambled up, brushing off straw. “Thank you kindly.”

  He blinked down at her, wondering if she’d done it on purpose, sensing even as a child that he’d needed to be in the position of rescuer rather than rescued.

  She looked up at him with that frank, open little face as he steadied her on the ground. “He’s probably only jealous of how strong you are. I saw you rein in that wild horse in the corral, and he probably did too.” She picked straw from her hair, then went to lay beside his abandoned spot on the lower bales. He sat beside her, intrigued. “Pity for him, his only strength is his ability to spot weakness and poke at it. You needn’t say anything to me if you don’t want. Your silence is far nicer than his voice.”

  Besides that, she had enough to say for the both of them. It tickled him, this little sprite of a thing who filled his constant silence with chatter. Nothing she said was memorized or repeated, and all of it was slightly unsettling. In a good way. “He didn’t mean any harm.”

  “There, you see? You speak perfectly well.”

  He shrugged. Only with her, in this aura of cheerful chatter that was free of expectations. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t get his words out with her, so he suddenly found he could.

  And it was delightful.

  She never did face punishment for the bloodied nose, for when the simpering little heir had dragged his governess back to the stables and pointed out his attacker, the disgruntled woman had boxed her charge’s ears—for lying.

  He looked forward to Dr. Duvall’s visits because he always brought his adventurous sprite of a girl. Then on one trip Gabe heard it whispered that the girl’s mother had died, and help flowed the other direction. It ebbed back and forth like that between them, even though they saw each other so seldom, a bond forming as they leaned on one another.

  Helping her left him feeling unbelievably strong and able, yet helplessly captivated by her too. Such an odd mix it was, but powerful.

  Gabe found himself hungry for her company and greedily stealing as much of it as possible whenever she was there, for it was the one bright spot in his otherwise bleak days. He spoke to few others and was close to no one, but she’d managed to break through. Whenever she rode up to Crestwicke with her father to attend some member of the family, Gabe basked in her bright personality, coming alive and feeling normal for a precious few hours.

  She had an uncanny ability to both talk and listen, thus drawing out his reluctant voice, and eventually teaching him how to slow down and ease his thoughts out rather than allowing a collision of the chaotic overflow in his head. She’d talk until her playful little voice replaced the silence of his existence.

  And he cherished it like one starved.

  Then she’d returned, a fully grown woman, with poise and dimples and laughing eyes . . .

  Whap.

  He jerked, tea sloshing over his thighs, and glanced around in the dark.

  “You missed your chance.” Aunt Maisie stepped out of the shadows behind his chair with a rolled-up serial, her ancient mouth drawn tight. “Out alone with you, and she comes back without a romantic notion in her head. I can only imagine what didn’t happen out there.”

  “You’d be right.”

  “Only you, Gabe Gresham, could muck up a moonlit walk. Why, you practically have all the work done for you, if you’d only put in a hair’s breadth of effort. Did you tell her anything about the feelings written all over your face?”

  He slunk down in the chair. No point in denying anything to Maisie, even though he couldn’t lay his own finger on the nebulous thoughts swirling around. “Words have never come easy for me.”

  “They come easy as flowing water for her. Simply turn on the spigot with a few questions and let her go.”

  Maybe he didn’t want to hear what she’d say. He firmed his jaw, looking up at the landing where her slender little figure had stood. Her presence here seemed a delicate thing, and he didn’t want to risk losing it. Yet perhaps . . . perhaps he’d finally tell her the truth about himself. The big truth. Even as a good friend, she deserved that much.

  If he could work up the courage.

  He blotted his trousers with a linen napkin Maisie dropped in his lap before hobbling off and wondered if he ever would. Meanwhile he’d handle the great ache of desire as he did everything else—in silence.

  eight

  Settling breeds resentment, and that is a lifelong punishment I will not cast on any of the men who have yet asked for my hand.

  ~A scientist’s observations on love

  I had several important missions at Crestwicke—treating a patient, finding a missing love letter, reuniting lost loves, planning for medical school . . . but my days were mostly spent conducting singing lessons. Singing lessons.

  Heaven help us.

  “No, no, relax your shoulders, body limber, lift your chest.” I pressed my patient’s shoulders back and demonstrated. By Friday, my third full day at the manor, I had become fully absorbed in inventing all manner of ways to improve my patient’s lung function and throat, but little was changed. This cannot be what you have in mind, Lord. Yet I sense a purpose in it all, a reason I’ve come . . .

  Golda braced herself on the back of a chair in the opulent music room. She closed her eyes as if to summon heavenly talent, but the same reedy sound came from her lips. I cringed as her melody ros
e, tightening to a pitch far higher than her voice was ever meant to go.

  Here it was, the end of my eardrums.

  I turned to fetch my bag, just to give myself an excuse to face the other way. When I lifted the latch and stretched the bag open, there in plain view lay three lovely purple flowers, their faces shining innocently up at me atop my instruments. My heart pounded as I fought back the giggles that rose like buoys in my chest. But then I saw a curled paper underneath them and flattened it to find a snippet of Robert Nicoll’s poem, with one small change:

  If winter fields be cauld and bare—

  If winter skies be blae—

  The mair we need thy bonnie face.

  But so it is; and when away

  For dreary months you be,

  The joy of meeting pays for all,

  Sweet, wild Ammenomie!

  With those lines, all was lost. Laughter spurted out, and Golda spun with a look of horror, her exercise cut short.

  I snapped the bag closed as heat climbed my neck in a suffocating manner. “I beg your pardon, my lady.”

  The dangerous sparkle didn’t leave her eyes. “What, pray tell, is in your bag?”

  “Shall we try again?” I rose and walked to her with my most charming smile. “There, now. Try to think of your arms as heavy sandbags, relaxed down at your sides. Keep your shoulders down.”

  I held them in place and Golda released one long note that gradually strengthened as she drew it out, like pulling taffy.

  In the passing days of failed attempts and frustration, my mind was often stilled by the casual whisper of chilly air, the shadows in the corridors, the veiled expressions of everyone I encountered, and I felt it there like a ghost. Secret love, authentic romance, hovered somewhere in this house, just waiting to surface in broad daylight. It always felt just out of reach, like a luscious, delicate flower I could not quite see for all the smog in the air. I closed my eyes in those moments and imagined where the letter might be, what its writer might be doing that very minute.

  Golda Gresham’s hovering note finally snapped to a close. I reached out to steady my patient as she faltered, her voice hitching and body trembling, but she batted me away. “Enough, enough. This is ridiculous.”

  She turned, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Breathe up instead of out. Try that and see if your lungs last longer.”

  She took a tall breath, lifting her chest and releasing a single long note, but a violent coughing spasm cut it short. I rushed to find a tonic, tumbling my little flowers out of the bag. She wilted into a nearby chair and closed her eyes, forehead propped on her fingertips. She sat up as I administered a spoonful.

  I dabbed lavender water on her temples while her lids fluttered. “Perhaps you should rest.”

  Her eyes flashed open, cat-like poise solidifying again. “How dare you patronize me. I know my limits.” Her bright gaze landed on my bag, and the flowers that had fallen out.

  I clutched the bottle, toes curling in my boots.

  A knock on the door pivoted her attention.

  “You have a visitor, Mother.” Celeste glided into the room as I scooped the flowers into my bag and snapped it shut. “The housekeeper couldn’t find you. Are you—oh!” Her gaze landed on me with keen appraisal, and a touch of gladness. “Why, Miss Duvall. You are the new nurse?”

  “Tell our guest I’m not at home.” Golda turned away.

  “Yes, of course.” She stared at me.

  I looked over my old acquaintance, the only daughter of the Gresham household, and realized there were levels to spinsterhood. By all appearances, she was several rungs beyond me. Narrow features were framed by hair scraped back into pins, her figure squarish and comfortable. She might have made a fine headmistress, or perhaps a nun. Direct and efficient, she seemed far more suited to instructing than mothering. I remembered her as warm and imaginative, but that girl had been tight-laced into the modest, practical woman before me.

  “How nice that you have a nurse to look after you, Mother. I know how you—”

  “Indeed.”

  “She’ll be wonderful company, and I—”

  “Quite.” Golda Gresham straightened, and I was struck with the sudden awareness that she did not care for her daughter.

  “You seem strained. Shall we take a turn about the gardens? It will do you good.”

  The woman’s hard stare turned her direction. “Haven’t you a society meeting tonight? I thought that was Fridays.”

  “Mary had to postpone. Her husband is home for the weekend and he doesn’t approve of our goings-on.”

  “I rather thought that’d fuel your fire, offending a man.”

  Celeste adjusted the little fringed pillow behind her mother. “We’ve nothing against men, of course. We simply want our own rights.”

  “Rights.” Golda sat back. “No God-fearing woman demands such things.”

  “No God-fearing man would hinder them, though, would he?”

  Golda’s voice was soft. Dangerous. “How nice that she has one to care what she does, and try to keep some sense in her head.”

  The subtle rebuke had me gripping the table edge.

  Celeste tipped her head and offered a simple smile. “Not every woman needs one. There’s so much to be done at the women’s league that I haven’t time for much else. Do you know, we’ve decided to auction off the quilts we’ve made? I was thinking of asking Cook to make pies to add as well. Wouldn’t that be splendid?”

  Golda’s eyes narrowed. “I hope to high heaven that no one ever connects your foolish pastime with this family.”

  “Not to worry, then.” Celeste’s airy voice sailed around her mother’s insults, and I couldn’t help but stare at her with admiration. “I’ll simply keep the pies anonymous if you wish. Miss Duvall should come, and Caroline Tremaine. I’ll ask her.”

  I cleared my throat. “I’m afraid I have duties here, and—”

  A dry cough took hold of Golda. “Both of you, take your chittering voices away, if you please.” She leaned her forehead on her fingertips and closed her eyes as the cough subsided. A deeply troubled sigh followed. “Miss Duvall, something for my infernal cough, please.”

  Celeste took my arm and we moved to the far end of the long room, where I dug through my bag for a throat tincture.

  She spoke privately. “I’m glad you’ve come. Parker told me how Burke tried to send you home, and I’d forgotten how delightfully feisty you are. It’s nice to have a woman in the house who uses her own mind, even if it differs so from my own. Perhaps together we can put the men of this household in their place now and again. Now, tell me all your news.”

  The last five years spun through my brain in dizzying color. “I’ve been to nursing school, I work with Father, and plan to one day—”

  “No no, not that, silly. The other news.” She lowered her voice on this last bit, eyes glittering. “I heard you’ve rejected multiple men. Am I to assume you’re one of us?”

  I’d heard rumors of Celeste and other highborn women who’d linked arms in some political movement. The Kensington Street Women’s League, they called themselves. The word unnatural had floated about, as well as suffragette and gender rebellion. Yet I had no powerful feelings on the rights of women in England—only on my own. “I do believe marriage would stand in the way of both our ambitions, so on that matter we are alike, I suppose.”

  “You’re set against marrying then, are you?” Her bird-like eyes were eager and probing.

  “Staunchly so—the wrong ones, anyway. And I’m weary of being matched with every wrong one between here and Newcastle.”

  “So are most of us at Crestwicke.” She winked and jerked her head toward her mother.

  I blinked, recalling her heated speech on my first night. “She, a matchmaker?”

  “More of a calculated chess player. She’s been working on dear Gabe of late, and his childhood sweetheart across the way. What a stunning match that would be, and a valuable connection to a wealthy family. She’
d do Gabe a world of good too, drawing him out into society.”

  I studied the Bayer cough tonic label and squeezed a dropperful of the medicine into a fresh cup of tea as I pondered the fate of that letter writer and his beloved. “I suppose such a chess player might also maneuver to divide couples as well as bring them together, no?” Perhaps that’s why the letter had been hidden rather than delivered.

  She flushed, her mouth pinching into a rosy oval as her gaze fell. “I’m afraid so.”

  I paused, noting her reaction. “One of yours?”

  “Long ago. Oh, it was nothing, really. If a man cannot stand up to Golda Gresham, he won’t last long as part of the family, now, will he?”

  I clenched my lips shut, burning with anger for her.

  “Oh heavens, don’t look that way. I’m not the only one. Why, even Essie’s young man was sent away, although I don’t believe she knows why.”

  I huffed. “Does everyone in the house go along with these schemes, arranging their lives and marriages as she deems fit?”

  “If they know what’s good for them. She makes everyone see reason, sooner or later.”

  I looked long at Celeste. “That man of yours. Was his name—”

  “Miss Duvall, have you any plans to actually carry out your duties?” Golda Gresham’s voice jerked me back to my task.

  I stirred the mixture and hurried over. “Here you are, Mrs. Gresham. My apologies, I haven’t seen Celeste in so long, there was a great deal to discuss.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Pray, what about? I hope she hasn’t convinced you to cast your lot in with those women. You’d think she’d spend time cultivating qualities that might attract a man, rather than running them all off.”

  I lowered my voice, embarrassed for Celeste. “She has many virtues a man might value and she’s quite accomplished. She attracted a suitor once, did she not?”