February 1865
My darling Will,
Many days have passed since I last lifted pen to paper. I was too weak and the news too agonizing to bear. Please write to me now and refute what I have read with my own eyes. You cannot be gone. A heart as brave and true as yours cannot have ceased beating.
My mind is screaming. Just as Lizzy screamed that fateful day that Tandy disappeared from us, I am screaming, though my cries are silent and unending. I scream and scream and scream.
Death is too final, too hopeless. Since the day you rode away, I have clung to hope. Clung to the shameless hope that you would return. Now, all hope is gone forever. I will never see your dear and handsome face again this side of eternity.
Lizzy brought the news and for the first time since Tandy left us, she called me by my given name. She held my hand and with tears in her eyes said, “Charlotte, I have bad news.”
“What’s happened?” I knew something was wrong the moment she entered the kitchen where I peeled turnips for dinner.
Her grip grew tighter. “It’s Captain Will.”
That was all she had to say. I knew.
All the blood drained from my head. My ears roared with a frightful rushing sound. I collapsed, wilted like boiled turnip greens.
Edgar knows, I’m certain, but he’s said nothing. At dinner he watched me closely as if expecting something. I don’t know what. There is a gleam in his eyes that torments me. So I forced a few turnips down my throat and tried to pretend I was not shattered. I think he wanted me to speak of you, so that he could gloat, but I will not. I cannot. Not to him.
Instead, I will write letters you will never read. I will give you my heart in these pages and I will remember a noble and worthy man. And I will mourn.
Tonight, Benjamin curled at the foot of my bed, wan and subdued. He gripped the bag of marbles in one hand as if they were proof you live and asked if the news was true. I had not intended for him to know but Josie told him. Her deed was needlessly cruel but I think she did so to hurt me, not Benjamin. She loves her nephew, but she blames the cold British interloper—her words—for Edgar’s dark moods and sharp words.
I miss you, Will. I shall never forget you or what you meant to me in those short months. I shall never forget our long conversations by the fireplace, and your merry laughter when Benjamin hung upside down from the banister pretending to be a monkey. And I shall always treasure your letters.
Yours eternally,
Charlotte