The Last Letter From Your Lover (19 page)

She had reached the front of the queue. “Will this make the afternoon post? And could you check my PO box? It’s Stirling, box thirteen.”

She hadn’t come here since the night in Alberto’s, convincing herself that it was for the best. The thing—she dared not think of it as an affair—had become overheated. They needed to let it cool a little so that they could think with clearer heads. But after her unpleasant exchange with her husband that morning, her resolve had collapsed. She had written the letter in haste, perched at her little bureau in the drawing room while Mrs. Cordoza was vacuuming. She had implored him to understand. She didn’t know what to do: she didn’t want to hurt him . . . but she couldn’t bear to be without him:

I am married. For a man to walk away from his marriage is one thing, but for a woman? At the moment I can do nothing wrong in your eyes. You see the best in everything I do. I know there would come a day when that would change. I don’t want you to see in me all that you despised in everyone else.

It was confused, jumbled, her writing scrawled and uneven.

The postmistress took the letter from her and returned with another.

Her heart still fluttered at the sight of his handwriting. His words were so beautifully strung together that she could recite whole swathes of them to herself in the dark, like poetry. She opened it impatiently, still standing at the counter, moving along to allow the next person in the queue to be served. This time, however, the words were a little different.

If anyone else noticed the acute stillness of the blond woman in the blue coat, the way she reached out a hand to steady herself on the counter as she finished reading her letter, they were probably too busy with their own parcels and forms to pay much attention. But the change in her demeanor was striking. She stood there for a moment longer, her hand trembling as she thrust the letter into her bag and walked slowly, a little unsteadily, out into the sunshine.

She wandered the streets of central London all afternoon, patrolling the shop windows with a vague intensity. Unable to return home, she waited on the crowded pavements for her thoughts to clear. Hours later, when she walked through the front door, Mrs. Cordoza was in the hallway, two dresses over her arm.

“You didn’t tell me which you wanted for the dinner this evening, Mrs. Stirling. I’ve pressed these, in case you thought one might be suitable.” The sun flooded the hallway with the peachy light of late summer as Jennifer stood in the doorway. The gray gloom returned as she closed the door behind her.

“Thank you.” She walked past the housekeeper and into the kitchen. The clock told her it was almost five. Was he packing now?

Jennifer’s hand closed over the letter in her pocket. She had read it three times. She checked the date: he did, indeed, mean this evening. How could he decide something like that so quickly? How could he do it at all? She cursed herself for not picking up the letter sooner, not giving herself time to plead with him to reconsider.

My dearest and only love. I meant what I said. I have come to the conclusion that the only way forward is for one of us to make a bold decision.

I am not as strong as you. When I first met you, I thought you were a fragile little thing. Someone I had to protect. Now I realize I had us all wrong. You are the strong one, the one who can endure living with the possibility of a love like this, and the fact that we will never be allowed it.

I ask you not to judge me for my weakness. The only way I can endure is to be in a place where I will never see you, never be haunted by the possibility of seeing you with him. I need to be somewhere where sheer necessity forces you from my thoughts minute by minute, hour by hour. That cannot happen here.

At one moment she was furious with him for attempting to force her hand. At the next she was gripped by the terrible fear of his going away. How would it feel to know she would never see him again? How could she remain in this life, having glimpsed the alternative he had shown her?

I am going to take the job. I’ll be at Platform 4 Paddington at 7:15 on Monday evening, and there is nothing in the world that would make me happier than if you found the courage to come with me.

If you don’t come, I’ll know that whatever we might feel for each other, it isn’t quite enough. I won’t blame you, my darling. I know the past weeks have put an intolerable strain on you, and I feel the weight of that keenly. I hate the thought that I could cause you any unhappiness.

She had been too honest with him. She shouldn’t have confessed the confusion, the haunted nights. If he’d thought she was less upset, he wouldn’t have felt the need to act like this.

I’ll be waiting on the platform from a quarter to seven. Know that you hold my heart, my hopes, in your hands.

And then this: this great tenderness. Anthony, who couldn’t bear the thought of making her less than she was, who wanted to protect her from the worst of her feelings, had given her the two easiest ways out: come with him, or remain where she was blamelessly, knowing she was loved. What more could he have done?

How could she make a decision so momentous in so little time? She had thought of traveling to his house, but she couldn’t be sure he would be there. She had thought of going to the newspaper, but she was afraid some gossip columnist would see, that she would become the object of curiosity or, worse, embarrass him. Besides, what could she say to change his mind? Everything he had said was right. There was no other possible end to this. There was no way to make it right.

“Oh. Mr. Stirling rang to say he’ll pick you up at around a quarter to seven. He’s running a little late at the office. He sent his driver for his dinner suit.”

“Yes,” she said, absently. She felt suddenly feverish, reached out a hand to the balustrade.

“Mrs. Stirling, are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“You look as if you need some rest.” Mrs. Cordoza laid the dresses carefully over the hall chair and took Jennifer’s coat from her. “Shall I run you a bath? I could make you a cup of tea while it’s filling, if you like.”

She turned to the housekeeper. “Yes. I suppose so. Quarter to seven, you say?” She began to walk up the stairs.

“Mrs. Stirling? The dresses? Which one?”

“Oh. I don’t know. You choose.”

She lay in the bath, almost oblivious to the hot water, numbed by what was about to happen. I’m a good wife, she told herself. I’ll go to the dinner tonight, and I’ll be entertaining and gay and not pontificate on things I know nothing about.

What was it Anthony had once written? That there was pleasure to be had in being a decent person.
Even if you do not feel it now.

She got out of the bath. She couldn’t relax. She needed something to distract her from her thoughts. She wished, suddenly, that she could drug herself and sleep through the next two hours. Even the next two months, she thought mournfully, reaching for the towel.

She opened the bathroom door, and there, on the bed, Mrs. Cordoza had laid out the two dresses: on the left was the midnight blue she had worn on the night of Laurence’s birthday. It had been a merry night at the casino. Bill had won a large amount of money at roulette and insisted on buying champagne for everyone. She had drunk too much, had been giddy, unable to eat. Now, in the silent room, she recalled other parts of the evening that she had obediently excised in her retelling of it. She remembered Laurence criticizing her for spending too much money on gambling chips. She remembered him muttering that she was embarrassing him—until Yvonne had told him, charmingly, not to be so grumpy.
He’ll squash you, extinguish the things that make you you
. She remembered him standing in the kitchen doorway this morning.
What are you bothering with that for? I hope you can make yourself a little more agreeable this evening.

She looked at the other dress on the bed: pale gold brocade, with a mandarin collar and no sleeves. The dress she had worn on the evening that Anthony O’Hare had declined to make love to her.

It was as if a heavy mist had lifted. She dropped the towel and threw on some clothes. Then she began to hurl things onto the bed. Underwear. Shoes. Stockings. What on earth did one pack when one was leaving forever?

Her hands were shaking. Almost without knowing what she was doing, she pulled her case down from the top of the wardrobe and opened it. She tossed things into it with a kind of abandon, fearing that if she stopped to think about what she was doing, she wouldn’t do it at all.

“Are you going somewhere, madam? Would you like help packing?” Mrs. Cordoza had appeared in the doorway behind her, holding a cup of tea.

Jennifer’s hand flew to her throat. She turned, half hiding the case behind her. “No—no. I’m just taking some clothes to Mrs. Moncrieff. For her niece. Things I’ve grown tired of.”

“There are some things in the laundry room that you said didn’t fit you anymore. Do you want me to bring them up?”

“No. I can do it myself.”

Mrs. Cordoza peered past her. “But that’s your gold dress. You love it.”

“Mrs. Cordoza, please will you let me sort out my own wardrobe?” she snapped.

The housekeeper flinched. “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Stirling,” she said, and withdrew in hurt silence.

Jennifer began to cry, sobs forcing their way out in ugly bursts. She crawled on top of the bedspread, her hands over her head, and howled, not knowing what she should do, only that, with every second of indecision, the direction of her life hung in the balance. She heard her mother’s voice, saw her appalled face at the news of her family’s disgrace, the whispers of delighted shock in church. She saw the life she had planned, the children that would surely soften Laurence’s coldness, force him to unbend a little. She saw a poky series of rented rooms, Anthony out all day working, herself afraid in a strange country without him. She saw him wearying of her in her drab clothes, his gaze already on some other married woman.

I will never stop loving you. I have never loved anyone before you, and there will never be anyone after you.

When she pushed herself up, Mrs. Cordoza was at the foot of the bed.

She wiped her eyes and her nose and was prepared to apologize for snapping when she saw that the older woman was packing her bag.

“I’ve put in your flat shoes and your brown slacks. They don’t need so much laundering.”

Jennifer stared at her, still hiccuping.

“There are undergarments and a nightdress.”

“I—I don’t—”

Mrs. Cordoza continued to pack. She removed things from the suitcase, refolding them with tissue paper and putting them back with the same reverent care one might lavish on a newborn. Jennifer was hypnotized by the sight of those hands smoothing, replacing.

“Mrs. Stirling,” Mrs. Cordoza said, without looking up, “I never told you this. Where I lived in South Africa, it was customary to cover your windows with ash when a man died. When my husband died, I kept my windows clear. In fact, I cleaned them so that they shone.”

Sure she had Jennifer’s attention, she continued folding. Shoes now, placed sole to sole in a thin cotton bag, tucked neatly in the base, a pair of white tennis shoes, a hairbrush.

“I did love my husband when we were young, but he was not a kind man. As we grew older, he cared less and less how he behaved toward me. When he died suddenly, God forgive me, I felt as if someone had set me free.” She hesitated, gazing into the half-packed suitcase. “If someone had given me the chance, many years ago, I would have gone. I think I would have had the chance of a different life.”

She placed the last folded clothes on top and closed the lid, securing the buckles on each side of the handle.

“It’s half past six. Mr. Stirling said he would be home by a quarter to seven, in case you’d forgotten.” Without another word, she straightened and left the room.

Jennifer checked her watch, then shrugged on the rest of her clothes. She ran across the room, sliding her feet into the nearest pair of shoes. She went to her dressing table, fumbled in the back of a drawer for the emergency supply of shopping money she always kept balled up in a pair of stockings, and thrust the notes into her pocket, with a handful of rings and necklaces from her jewelry box. Then she grabbed her suitcase and wrenched it down the stairs.