by Fanny Finch
Until then he would have to do what he could. Otherwise he was certain that Mr. Carson or some other man would come along and snatch her straightaway from under his nose.
He could not bear it.
Not while he still had a chance. If he fought valiantly for her and he lost her then he supposed he could content himself with that. Knowing that he had done all that he could had to be some kind of balm, mustn’t it?
But having to say that he had sat by and done nothing. That he had not even availed himself of the slight chance he had made for himself. That he had not taken advantage of the letters, as unconventional and cowardly as they might be…
He could not live with himself that way.
The dinner otherwise passed by in a blur. It was pleasant. But he felt as though all he could hear were the times that Mr. Carson made Miss Weston laugh.
All that he could see was her pleased smile. The pretty pink blush that spread through her cheeks. The way that Mr. Carson took care to be near her at all times.
Even after dinner when they were playing cards Mr. Carson made sure to be a part of Miss Weston’s set of bridge.
“Be careful,” Mrs. Weston said quietly as he became her bridge partner. “Green is not a good color on you, Mr. Norwich.”
“Am I quite so obvious?” he asked, keeping his voice just as quiet.
“I confess that I was not certain if you held any affection for her of a romantic nature,” Mrs. Weston said.
“Yet you told me that I was your favorite to win her hand.”
“My favorite does not mean that the favorite sees himself as part of the race. I can place a bet upon a horse but that does not mean that horse feels like running on that day.”
“Mrs. Weston. Do not tell me that you have dared to place a bet.”
“I would never tell you of such a thing if I had done it.” Mrs. Weston winked at him. “I am a lady, after all.”
“And you wonder where your daughter gets her streak of nonchalant rebellion,” James replied philosophically.
“In any case, I suppose then that I am right? And you do harbor feelings for her?”
James sighed. “You have always been far too observant for the good of anybody around you. Yes, I confess that I would… that I would be happy to make her my wife. If she would have me.”
“I would be appalled if she would not.”
“I have been as a brother to her, madam. I would not be surprised if that was the only light in which she was able to see me.”
“You are being unfair to yourself, I feel. How long have these feelings persisted?”
He cleared this throat. “Years, madam.”
“And you have done nothing about it this entire time? Said nothing?” Mrs. Weston clucked her tongue. “And here I thought you to be a man of action. A proper English gentleman.”
“I thought that it was the English way to never speak of one’s emotions.”
“It is even more the English way to act upon them and to seize what one wants.”
“You know as well as I do how stubborn your daughter is.”
“And you cannot possibly be happy sitting there turning as green as an unripe tomato watching her with Mr. Carson. Follow the advice that I gave you the other night, my boy. How can you know how she feels if you do not ask her? She might not even be aware that such feelings lie within her. Or at least the capability to harbor such feelings.”
“I am not certain that you are so old that you may go around calling me ‘boy’.”
“I am an old and sickly woman and I shall do what I please and call you what I please, Mr. Norwich. Now be so kind as to deal the hand.”
He hoped that his envy was not obvious to those around him. He certainly hoped that it was not obvious to Miss Weston or Mr. Carson. Envy never looked good on anybody.
He also hoped that he was not too stiff in bidding Miss Weston goodnight at the end of the evening. It was not her fault that she was charmed by Mr. Carson. How could she help it? It was nobody’s fault. Nobody was to blame for anything.
Yet he could not stop the twisting, hot snakes that resided in his stomach. The mix of envy and jealousy that surged up inside of him.
When he got home, however… there was a letter waiting for him.
His heart soared.
He knew that it was ridiculous and possibly even stupid. But he couldn’t help but think…
He was not the most charming person at the dinner table. He could not flatter her and sweep her off her feet the way that someone such as Mr. Carson could.
But he had her writing letters to him. Even if it was only for the pleasure of the mystery of his identity. She was writing letters to him.
He had her in that manner, at least. She was writing to him and she would continue to do so, so long as he held her attention.
And he would write her letters—such glorious letters. The sort of letters where she would understand his heart and she would be enraptured.
He was filled with a new determination. He almost wanted, in an odd way, to thank Mr. Carson. The man had filled James with a new sense of purpose and energy about the entire affair.
Without further ado, he sat down and read the letter. He was eager to see what she said, so that he might compose a proper reply.
He wanted her to be swept off her feet. To feel as though she was in a romantic play. He wanted her to feel special and honored and respected.
He wanted her to feel loved.
Miss Weston’s letter was exuberant. He could fairly feel the energy rising up off the page as she plied him with questions.
It was rather a good thing that she was constantly asking him questions in person. He was quite used to her method of bombarding a person with long lists of questions, the answers to which only led to her asking even more questions.
The questions were, he saw with a twinge of amusement, aimed at trying to find out his identity. She asked him about certain books that he specifically remembered her father tutoring him on.
In fact, all that she asked him about were from the books that he had been taught about by her father.
Clever girl, he thought to himself. It was quite a sneaky way of going about it.
She knew that the reason he had written her a letter was that he was too nervous to speak to her in person. She knew that he did not want her to know his identity just yet so that he could come to know her and she know him without the trappings of their past experiences together.
And therefore, she had realized that simply asking him who he was would not work. That he would not respond to that question.
She must have realized that if he had known her for years as he said and he had called them friends that he must be one of her father’s former pupils. What other men had she known for so long and to whom she had been so close?
And so she had put together a list of the books her father had used for his curriculum and had asked for his thoughts on them.
She probably even remembered all the books and had not even needed to look them up or consult with her father about them.
To James’s surprise, however, there were little details in there that he did not think she intended to let slip.
At several points she mentioned that she was certain he would think her opinions were childish and ridiculous.
I am rather given to flights of fancy, she wrote. Doubtless you will not wish to indulge me in them. However…
James frowned down at the paper before him.
He had always thought that Miss Weston was a woman of supreme self-confidence. That she had no doubts about herself. Especially in regards to her intelligence and wit.
She always behaved as one who had not a care. Who thought first about what would please her and then secondly about what would please others.
Yet, in this letter he seemed to be finding signs of the opposite. A lack of the self-confidence that he had so expected from her.
The letter was full of phrases such as:
I hope that you
will excuse my thought…
Perhaps this is childish to think—however…
You will doubtless refute this in a suitably intelligent manner but…
It filled James with a kind of heavy sadness. Frustration, as well. How could she not value herself?
The whole world was eager to praise her. She was usually the most popular girl in the room. She never had to sit down at balls for want of a dance partner.
How could she not see how he or anyone else saw her? Even those who were not in love with her admired her. She had many friends.
Did she think that they laughed at her behind her back? Or that they merely put up with her?
He wanted to ask, but of course he could not—
Or, wait.
He could.
Through the letters.
She did not know who he was. He had seen for himself, felt for himself, how the anonymity of the letters bolstered him. How it made him bold. How it enabled him to say things that he could not otherwise.
Why could he not, therefore, tell her that she was too hard on herself? Why could he not praise her and tell her that she ought to think more highly of her intellect? Why could he not point out the things he had read in her letters and ask if she truly thought that about herself?
James felt conviction stirring in him, replacing the envy and jealousy and frustration that had plagued him only moments before.
These letters could not be just for him to show himself off to her. He must also use them to show her how valued she was. How loved and cared-for she was.
He would not allow the woman that he loved to go about her life thinking that she was anything less than amazing. For she was, truly. She amazed him.
He would simply have to find a way to make her see it, that was all.
It fit in nicely with his original plan of courting her through letters. But this… this felt different.
This was not showing himself to her so that she could know him and come to care for him. This was about bolstering her up. About making her see herself as he saw her.
Yes, he could admit, it would probably charm her to hear him praise her so highly. But that was secondary to him. His first priority, the one that lit a fire in him as he sat down to craft a response, was to make Miss Weston feel her worth.
He would help her to see herself as she truly was. He would help her to banish those doubts.
He cursed himself, as well, for being so blind. He had known this woman for years. How could he have not realized her own struggles with self-worth? How could he not have seen that she had moments of doubt as well?
Instead he had been so caught up in his own woes that he had not seen hers. He had been guilty of the very thing of which he had accused her. While he was alternately lamenting and rejoicing in her inability to notice his feelings, he had been failing to notice her own, towards herself.
He was twice, no, three times a fool. A coward, and a selfish coward at that.
How could he have been so blind? How could he not have seen how badly she thought of herself?
And he had called her his friend. The worst kind of presumption.
Well, he would rectify that now. He would do whatever it took to bolster her spirits. He would show her that she was everything that the other women wanted to be. That she was popular, witty, beloved.
It would serve to distract him a bit from himself. From his worries about not measuring up and being inadequate. He would instead be focused on her, as he should have been this whole time.
This shouldn’t have ever been about him. It should have been about her and how she deserved to be treated. He should have made her his priority from the start rather than himself.
Well, he knew better now. He would do what he could to make up for that horrid mistake.
Pulling out his pen, James wrote hastily.
She would receive this next letter by the morning post.
Chapter 11
Julia sat in her bed, the letters scattered around her.
It had been weeks of corresponding and she was no closer to figuring out who her mystery letter writer was than before.
He had taken to signing his letters Sir, a tease seeing as she always addressed him as such at the beginning of her letters.
That told her nothing.
She had hoped that over time he might slip up and reveal more. Put in, if not his actual name, a nickname of sorts that might reveal something of who he was.
But this man was clever. Terribly clever.
After her first letter in which she had asked him about various books her father’s pupils were sure to know, he had barely even replied to her questions.
Instead, he had focused in on things that she had not even been aware she had written.
My dear, how can you think such low things of your intellect? I have seen you best many a man in a battle of wit and in a discussion of literature alike.
He had praised her, in a way that no person, even her mother, had praised her before. He spoke of how he admired her intelligence. Her education. How it was so refreshing to be able to converse with her as an equal and to speak of things other than fashion and gossip about others.
Not, of course, that I am averse to gossip. I quite enjoyed a conversation that we had most recently. I cannot relay to you the details, of course. But I can assure you that it was very diverting and about quite a few people around us.
He was charming and clever, alluding to conversations such as that one but playing coy with details.
But it was the praise that truly struck her.
She had not been aware that she had been quite so down on herself in that letter. It had only felt natural to speak what she felt, in a way that she did not usually when she was in person with someone.
She hadn’t realized that her insecurities would leak out in such a way that he would notice them. She had thought, even, that perhaps a little self-deprecation would help.
She had tried to explain that, in her next letter.
Most gentlemen do not take kindly to my seeming an authority on a subject. Therefore I have undertaken to downplaying my knowledge so as not to appear threatening.
The gentleman had taken quite a bit of offense to that. He had told her sternly in his return letter that she ought to be nothing short of proud of her intellect and her learning.
He was grateful for it, he told her. He was always pleased when he got a chance to converse with her. She ought never to apologize for being intelligent or well-read.
If a man was threatened by it, he told her, then that was not the sort of man she wanted in her life. A man should expect his wife to be intelligent. How else could he trust her to run his estate while he was not home? Or to manage the household? How could he expect to converse with her at home and be entertained if she could only prattle on about local gossip?
She would only be unhappy with a man who did not appreciate her.
It was easy to read between the lines and know that he was telling her that he would appreciate her. But she almost did not care about the bit of self-promotion. She suspected, at this point, that it might even be unconscious. That the gentleman had not noticed it.
For while he had claimed that this letter writing was in order for her to get to know him, he seemed rather determined to spend much of their correspondence building her up instead.
She had found herself telling him things that she hadn’t told anyone except for Georgiana. And even then—for Georgiana was busy planning her wedding, and so Julia had not unburdened herself to her friend as of late. She hadn’t wanted to add more to her dear friend’s plate.
Julia had found herself telling this gentleman her fears about her parents. How she worried about her mother’s health. How she feared that her father was doing more poorly than he let on as well. That she would lose both of them swiftly and without warning.
She spoke of her concerns about finding a husband. How she felt pressed into it. How she chastised herself for not looking for one sooner.
How she felt like it was her own fault that she now felt confined and pressured.
To her pleasure and surprise the gentleman had not responded by telling her all the ways in which he would make her a good husband.
Instead, he had talked to her of his own fears. How he worried about his sibling, who had a reputation as a flirt. How that sibling would fare when they returned to society. How he missed them but had only started to truly understand and connect with them once they were far away, through letter writing. How that felt like a cruel irony.