His gaze came back to hers. “With all due respect, I do not agree with that opinion.” His tone was unexpectedly bold. “I very much admire you, Miss Fanny, for your own merits. And I have mourned my wife. I cannot, however, be expected to live within that mourning all my days. Mary would not want that, and I would not want it for her if our places were reversed. I am prepared to step eagerly into my future again, and I feel to the depth of my soul that you are the woman with whom I can find happiness.”
What of my happiness? Fanny wondered. Has he any regard for what would make me happy, or is he incapable of thinking past his own desires? Like John Peterton. Like any number of other young men who saw money or position or, in Mr. Longfellow’s case, his own relief.
“I am grateful for your friendship, Mr. Longfellow, to me and to my family, especially to William when he was fading. I think you are a very good man with great compassion and intellectual merit, but I am not interested in marriage, not to any man.” She paused, took a breath of confidence, and then said the horrible truth she knew would put an end to his hope. “And should my feelings regarding marriage change in the future, it would be unfair for me not to make it clear that I expect to marry a man very much like my father in situation and achievement.”
Mr. Longfellow’s neck turned red, and he looked at the rug beneath his feet for several seconds, long enough for Fanny to feel the razor of her words. None of her thoughts had been said as smoothly as she would have liked, but he had put her on the spot. She’d had no time to prepare, and yet she had told the truth.
Finally, when the agony was becoming thick, Mr. Longfellow raised his head. “I understand.” Had he said it with a tinge of anger or pride, Fanny would have become even more defensive. But his tone was sorrowful and full of humility. “I hope, however, that you will not dismiss my affections as that of a lonely man who does not understand his mind or heart. Instead, please accept them as a compliment to the woman you are. I shan’t take back any of what I said, even as I wish you happiness on your course. Good day to you, Miss Fanny.”
He didn’t wait for her to speak and instead gave a quick nod before crossing the room and disappearing into the foyer. A moment later, she heard the front door open and close. Fanny sat looking at the doorway where he’d disappeared and reviewed their conversation over and over in her mind until she could not hide the fact that in the face of her rudeness he had been nothing but kind.
Tears rose in her eyes—tears whose source she would not define. She had done the only thing she could do. It would have been unkind to have said anything different. She wiped at her eyes, berating herself for such a reaction, then took a deep breath and assured herself that, though not as well-stated as she would have liked, she had said what was necessary. Mr. Longfellow should not have gone about it as he had. She’d had no choice but to reject him.
If only her rejection of his suit didn’t sit like a rock in her stomach.
Eighteen
Pathways
Henry did not go home. He had told Mrs. Craigie of his planned proposal and received not only her blessing but also her agreement to rent rooms to both Henry and his new wife upon their marriage. She would even consider selling the house to them if an agreeable arrangement could be reached. Henry was only one year into his position as Smith Professor and did not have the means to give Fanny a home in the manner she was used to, but Craigie House was as near equal to her father’s house as any could be, and Henry had felt certain she would be comfortable there.
How would he explain to Mrs. Craigie that he was the most idiotic fool? How would he preserve his pride in light of the old woman’s pity?
He went to his office and attempted to occupy his thoughts with mindless tasks until the hour was late and the sky was dark. He’d had his émigré take the evening recitations because he’d expected he and Fanny would be celebrating. How many of his friends knew he was planning to propose? Four? Six? He had not been shy once he’d made his decision.
Putting the collar of his coat up against the cold wind blowing off the Charles River, Henry hunched forward and walked home, his humiliation raw. He encountered no one when he entered the back door of the house, for which he was grateful. He headed to the back stairs and was at the landing before he heard movement. He looked to the top of the steps where Sarah Lowell stood as though about to come down. At least she was unaware of his planned proposal, unless she’d heard it from someone else.
Henry did not want to engage in conversation but he was a gentleman. “Good evening, Miss Lowell.”
“Good evening, Longfellow,” she said, smiling easily. “Are you coming to the parlor for a visit?” Henry and his friends often ended the day conversing and debating in the parlor, and although the topics were a bit more staid when Miss Lowell joined them, it wasn’t unheard of her for her to hold her own.
“Not tonight, Miss Lowell. I’m afraid I am not feeling well.”
She pulled her gray brows together beneath the lacy mobcap that rimmed her head. “Shall I have Miriam make you a tonic? She made one of rum and anise for me last month that was exactly the thing for my sour stomach.”
“Thank you, but I’m sure I just need to lie down.” In the dark. For the next eight weeks.
“You do looked a bit peaked,” she said, cocking her head to the side. “I should think a tonic would be just the thing—”
“No, thank you,” he said firmer then he meant to, prompting him to offer a hasty apology. “Forgive me, Miss Lowell, I am not myself this evening. I should prefer not to see anyone, not even Miriam.”
She regarded him another minute, and then turned toward her rooms, waving him to follow. “I have what you need, Longfellow. Come with me.”
Henry let out a breath of surrender and followed her. He could not refuse her any more than he could refuse Aunt Lucia, but he was in no mood for this. He needed solitude, and darkness, and perhaps a wall to bash his head against. Instead, he followed Miss Lowell to her apartment on the opposite side of the house from his own.
He stopped in the doorway of the sitting room, which was filled with delicate furniture and knickknacks. Miss Lowell moved to her desk, shuffled through a drawer, and then lifted a bottle of brown liquid he hoped was—
“Whiskey,” she said as soon as he’d thought it. She moved to another table where there were two glasses on a brass tray. When she finished filling the glasses, she turned toward him, still standing in the doorway, and raised her eyebrows. “It is only my sitting room, Mr. Longfellow, and the door shall remain open to ensure propriety. We are friends, are we not?”
He was not entirely comfortable being in a woman’s sitting room, but he did not want her to come to him so he crossed the room and took the glass she offered. When it came to drinking, he preferred wine, the best he could afford, but he was in no mood to savor the rich flavors and subtleties of wine tonight. He threw back the whiskey in a single shot, then grimaced at the burn that raced through his throat, chest, and shoulders. He coughed once into his hand, his eyes watering.
Miss Lowell regarded him. “I suspected it was not illness that had you out of sorts.” She took a quick drink of her own glass without making a face. “A man who drinks like that is suffering from a very different ailment. Would you like to talk about it?”
Henry stared into his glass for a few moments before meeting her eyes. If he were to talk to anyone about his circumstance, it would be his Aunt Lucia, who had a practical wisdom beneath her stern demeanor. Miss Lowell was not as stern as Aunt Lucia, but he knew he could trust her. “I would like another drink first.”
She did not hesitate to fill the glass a second time. And, though it did not burn as hot as the first drink had, he still cringed against the spreading fire.
“She does not want me,” he finally said, feeling each word as though it was being peeled from his heart in long, bloody strips. The tears that rose in his eyes were no longer from the drink, and he placed the empty glass on the tray.
“Miss Ap
pleton?” Miss Lowell said. “She no longer wishes the German lessons?”
Henry looked about for a chair and, upon spying a worn leather settee, moved to it on unsteady legs. He sat and then dropped his now-swirling head into his hands, bracing his elbows on his knees. He had not told Miss Lowell and the others that Fanny had cancelled their lessons.
He had obsessed all weekend until coming to the realization that Fanny simply did not understand the level of his affection. Fanny thought he was a man who did not know his own heart or mind; she may even have been testing his level of interest to see if he were truly devoted. Such justifications seemed like nonsense to him now, but up until the horrid meeting in her parlor that afternoon, he had believed that once he declared himself, Fanny would reveal her feelings to be the same as his own.
“I fear she never wanted my attention,” he said, mournfully. “And now she is lost to me forever.”
“Now, now.” Miss Lowell sat beside him and softly patted his shoulder. “You have been attending to her for weeks now, surely she has welcomed your visits. Why would she be lost to you?”
“I asked her to marry me, and she refused my suit.”
Miss Lowell’s hand froze on his shoulder. “You proposed to Miss Appleton?”
He nodded.
“You proposed without courting her?”
“I was courting her,” Henry said, looking up at his unlikely confidante. “I was teaching her German every week. We get on so well and have so many shared interests. I felt sure that rejecting the lessons was her way of being coy with me—wanting to see if I would be bold in my affections.” He shook his head, dumbfounded at how wrong he had been. “But today . . . today . . . I don’t understand it. Why would she have encouraged me?”
“Did she encourage you? Were you given false promises?”
Henry considered that but had no answer. He had felt encouraged. He had believed their affections were mutual. “We share such a love of literature, and I feel such a depth of admiration for her. I don’t understand what’s happened.” How could he have felt so hopeful and been so horribly wrong?
“Did she give you a reason for her rejection?”
He thought back to Fanny’s words and huffed in irritation. “She said I am too old for her.”
“How many years are between you?”
“Ten,” Henry said. “It is not so many.” Was it?
“For a young woman, it can seem like twice that. You are nearly as close to her father’s age as you are to her own.”
Henry hadn’t thought of it like that but resisted giving the idea merit since age was of no consequence to him. “She also feels that I am simply pining for Mary.” Henry felt the heaviness in his chest when he thought of his first wife. He was at peace with Mary’s death, wasn’t he? “It has been two years.”
“But you loved her,” Miss Lowell said as though it were an accusation.
“Of course I loved her,” Henry said, meeting Miss Lowell’s eyes. “Should I say that I did not?”
“Miss Appleton is young and possibly believes the romantic notion that people only have one portion of love to give. If she feels you have given it to another, what is left for her?”
“That is ridiculous,” he said sharply, then cleared his throat and took a calming breath. “Would she rather I hadn’t loved the woman I married? Would that make her feel better?” The idea made no sense to him at all.
“I don’t think she has thought of it in that way,” Miss Lowell said with a sympathetic smile. “It is a credit for you to have loved Mary, but it may make Miss Appleton question your ability to love her as well. In fact, are you certain she understands that you do love her? Without courting her properly, perhaps she does not know your true feelings.”
“I asked her to marry me—does that not prove my love for her?” He didn’t apologize for his tone this time; his shock had turned to anger. “Am I to be sentenced to a life of solitude because I dared love Mary?”
Miss Lowell smiled kindly, softening Henry’s heart and tempering his anger. He blinked back tears again. “The heart is not always reasonable,” she said. “I am so sorry.”
“She also said that she would marry a man like her father.” He had to pause to keep his voice from betraying how the words had cut him. “I am not good enough for her. Not rich enough, not successful enough.” He dropped his head into his hands again, this time clenching his fists around his hair and pulling until it hurt.
“Oh, I am very sorry she said such a thing. That was unkind.”
Henry wanted to agree with her, expand upon Fanny’s insult, and then think only of her unfairness to him. But was it right for him to expect her to accept a lifestyle so below what she was used to? She had servants and luxury; he could offer her only a modest life on the wrong side of the Charles River.
Mary had been the daughter of a judge, wealthier than the Longfellows of Portland, and adjusting to a simpler life had been difficult for her. More than once, she had asked her father for money so she might have new furniture or clothing that Henry could not afford. The comforts that Fanny was used to were well beyond that of Mary’s family. Could he be so surprised that she was hesitant to give up such comfort? Did he expect she would abandon everything she had known for love alone?
Love.
Henry raised his head and stared at some point in front of him with unfocused eyes. “She does not love me,” he said, verbalizing the discovery as though it was an artifact he had dug from the earth and was inspecting for the first time.
If Fanny loved him, their age difference would not matter, she would not feel threatened by Mary, and she would not be so reticent to accept a lowered lifestyle because she would know that love could make up for any want. Henry had seen love resolve all manner of discrepancies; it was truly the great healer. That Fanny was unwilling to negotiate even one of her objections made it clear to him that the love he felt for her was not returned. In some odd way the realization was a relief . . . and a challenge.
He looked at Miss Lowell sitting beside him. “How do you make someone love you?”
“Make someone?” Miss Lowell said, lifting her eyebrows and causing her cap to shift back on her head. “I’m not sure that’s possible, Mr. Longfellow. Or advisable.”
“I am so certain of my love for her,” he said, putting a hand to his chest. “That can’t be a mistake. God would not give me such feelings if not to have them remedied. She is my salvation, Miss Lowell, she embodies everything I need to be whole. I know this to my very bones.”
“I fear your poetic heart may be creating a stumbling block for you in this, Longfellow,” she said sadly. “Not all love is returned. Not every desire is answered. You are not the first to be crossed in love nor feel the sting of being pushed aside. I do not discount your feelings, but neither do I think it wise to interpret them as prophecy.”
Henry wondered if Miss Lowell had once been in love. Had she had her heart broken, too? For a moment, he pictured himself fifteen years from now, as alone in the world as Miss Lowell, living in rented rooms and seeking purpose in his life. He felt bad for judging Miss Lowell’s situation, but he did not want to live the rest of his life as he had this last year—without companionship, without a family of his own. He could only picture his future with Fanny. To remove her from the vision caused the entirety of it to fade away.
“What can I do?” he whispered, wondering at the wisdom of asking a spinster for advice in love. “I cannot give up.”
Miss Lowell regarded him for some time. “Well, if giving up is not an option, then perhaps the best you can do is learn patience. She is young. Give her time to better understand the world and to see your virtues.”
Henry nodded. Yes, he needed patience. She was barely twenty years of age. She enjoyed dancing and parties—frivolous things that Henry had no interest in. As she matured, she would turn more fully toward her intellectual interests, and then Henry would be an asset.
“But you must respect her wishes,” Mi
ss Lowell added. “You cannot force her heart to change.”
He frowned in frustration. “Her wishes are to marry a rich man who has never been married before and is closer to her own age. I can change none of those things, but I feel certain—to my very core—that she is the woman who can make me happy.” He stilled, allowing the passion he felt to be rejected by any part of him that did not agree. Nothing disagreed. He and Fanny were meant to be together.
“To truly love someone means that you place their happiness above your own. Thus far I have only heard you speak of your happiness.”
Henry thought on that a moment. “You think I am being selfish?”
“I think that if you said to Miss Appleton what you’ve explained to me, she may have felt that your happiness was your only objective.”
Henry reviewed what he’d said to Fanny and felt the painful truth of Miss Lowell’s assessment. He had told Fanny she had healed him, lifted him, and remedied his solitude. Of course his intent had been to compliment her, but had it come across as selfish? Was it selfish? The rising self-recrimination brought panic into his chest. Had he acted rashly and destroyed whatever chance he might have had if he’d gone about things differently?
He turned to Miss Lowell with new anxiety. “Have I ruined everything? What can I do?”
She smiled at him in a motherly way. “Well, you cannot change her heart, but you may be able to influence it.”
“How?” He felt the desperate need for a solution rising in his chest with every passing minute.
“As you said, you can’t change the fact that you’re ten years her senior and widowed, but perhaps you could increase your income. Remedy that one objection as much as possible. It is the only aspect over which you have control.”
“There are specific salaries afforded each department, and they are not generous,” Henry said with a shake of his head. “Increases are mandated and nonnegotiable.”
“But you are not only a professor,” Miss Lowell reminded him. “What of your writing? Why have you not published another book?”
Forever and Forever (Historical Proper Romance) Page 13