The Love Note Read online

  Alas, most of the men with that virtue have already become someone else’s antidote to spinsterhood . . .

  I pushed aside my notes and tucked my legs up to my chest, returning to that wonderful letter, both giddy and enchanted with my find. I had a healthy obsession with love stories, after all—as long as they were not mine. I read it again, and a surge of energy bore through me, like a calling. What had happened to its writer, and why had it never been delivered?

  When I came to the name “Crestwicke,” an idea took shape, like a silent whisper answering my morning prayer for direction. I blinked at its brilliance and wondered if I had the audacity to see it through.

  Low voices below distracted me. A door slammed. When footfall pounded on the stairs, the rail creaking under the force of Father’s grasp, I had an instinctive urge to flee. I shoved the letter into a drawer and rose, fumbling in my wardrobe for a simple front-button frock.

  Trinkets rattled on the hall table as Father pounded toward my room.

  Bang, bang. His fist rattled the door. “Willa!”

  I stiffened. “I need to dress.”

  He shuffled in the hall as he always did when presented with such awkward declarations. He used to pass me off to Mother at this point, God rest her. “Things went well with your suitor?”

  I buried my face in a clean dress and cringed, then slipped the simple thing over my stays. “I should say not.” Please don’t ask, please don’t ask.

  More shuffling. “So. He did not propose yet.”

  I braced myself, awash in prickly heat. My silence answered his question.

  He growled and banged the door with his fist again. “What are you thinking? Four proposals, Willa. Four!”

  My nervous fingers fiddled with the buttons as I tried to fit them into the holes that seemed to have suddenly shrunk. “What of it?”

  “That’s four fine men who entered our home with hopes for a future with you and left empty-handed.” Then he asked the question I dreaded. “Why?”

  I leaned against the metal bed rail. “Oh Papa, we weren’t suited.” When faced with the men who offered to share their various homes, freedom always seemed sweeter and ripe with possibilities in comparison.

  “Aaargh. At least come up with a new excuse! Some man pours his heart out and asks for your hand, and the only word in your foolish little head is no?”

  “My soul cringes at the idea of marrying any of them, Father. Please understand.”

  He exhaled, and I could imagine him looking heavenward as if begging the Almighty for patience. “What am I expected to do with you? You are breaking hearts, girl.”

  “You overestimate their affection for me, Father.” The only reason they’d offered for me at all, I was convinced, is because I’d kept my hands busy and my lips closed in their presence. They noticed my vigorous efficiency about Father’s clinic, my prudent nursing nature, and they thought how well those skills would be applied in their own homes. Yet there was so much about me they didn’t know—or care to know.

  How is your dear aunt these days? She’s well, thank you, but she has a touch of the stiffness. Did you enjoy the jaunt into town? I hear the queen has ordered new curtains for the third largest parlor in Osborne House. That’s all my courtships had ever amounted to, and every fiber of my being craved to be worth more.

  Explaining this to Father would be useless, for he had chosen my own dear mother on their second meeting, and they had been inseparable. Embarrassingly so, at times.

  His second wife, my honored stepmother, had wheedled her way into our home after two years of “assisting the widowed doctor,” and theirs was a functional relationship. “It’s good to have someone,” he’d said when announcing his engagement, and my ten-year-old self had wondered why I was not a “someone.” Despite the countless hours I had spent assisting in his research, caring for his patients, all I poured into his dream to open Brighton’s first hot springs clinic, marriage was the only solution he saw to his problems—and mine, apparently.

  Yet I shivered every time I thought of all the people dying in London’s hospitals, and I knew that was the problem I wanted to solve. I crossed to the door, leaning my back against it. “Let me make a go of it, won’t you? I could take nursing positions, earn my own tuition for university.” I had one life to spend, and I wanted to use it on those who truly needed me. I would be different than all those busy, overworked doctors in hospitals, and I would save people.

  “All the funds in the world won’t help if they all refuse you admission.”

  “One. Only one school rejected my application. But Durham will consider a woman eventually, I’m sure of it. They’re progressive, I’ve heard. And next week is the general election—anything could happen, if Darby’s government doesn’t gain majority in the house.”

  A growl rumbled deep in his chest. “What’ll you do if nothing changes? Become a spinster?”

  “There are worse things a body could be.” I rested my fingertips on the paneled door. I saved a life today, Father. Fought for a little girl and won. She’s with her mother now because of me. Because of what you taught me. Aren’t you proud?

  “You’ll be forever shuffling about my house, eating at my table when you’re thirty. When will you grow up and make something of yourself?”

  I stepped back and perched on the edge of my bed, the burden of my very existence weighing me to the quilted cover. How did he do that? They were mere words, but everything the man said had the ability to pierce deep and remain lodged in my heart, my world forming around them.

  “Cumberland has offered you security, comfort, and ease.”

  None of which I wanted. I closed my eyes, willing this man who had raised me to understand. I’d spent years of my life buried in reports and clinical studies, poring over design ideas for the very modern and sterile hot springs clinic Father meant to open. I’d given up socials and plays, trips to town and all novels, to devote myself to perfecting his dream—our dream. A contrast to London’s “death halls,” it was needed. I was needed—and not as a manager of some man’s home. “I’d never make a suitable wife, Father. I’m not cut out for it. I’m meant to heal and serve and study medicine. Like you.”

  His voice had a gruff edge to it. “It’s time you find your own way. Not mine. You’re four and twenty, and you need a home of your own.” He sighed. “It’s that infernal Blackwell woman, isn’t it?”

  I clenched my fist at the mention of her sacred name—one that was now recorded in the General Medical Council’s Medical Register. It was the first female name there, which opened up the possibility for a second. “Won’t you let me—”

  “No.”

  “Not even a small—”

  “What part of no isn’t clear?” He spun, mumbling down the hall.

  “Papa, wait. What if I promise . . .” I gulped. The boot clomps paused. “Promise to consider marriage if it doesn’t work?” That’s how drastically I believed in my passion. I staked my freedom on it.

  A shuffle. “Without argument?”

  “I have an idea.” Rising, I walked back to my little teakwood writing desk and dipped the pen tip.

  I, Willa Duvall of Brighton, do solemnly vow and promise to return and entertain more proposals in the event that I am not able to successfully complete one long-term nursing assignment. However, if I am successful, I will be allowed to pursue a medical education and never be forced to marry.

  I whipped it off my desk and shoved it under the door with a swish. Grumbling reached my ears from the other side. I pictured the great Dr. Phineas Duvall lowering those dark thundercloud eyebrows and whipping the pen from behind his ear to sign. I heard intense scribbling against the door as I picked at the hem of my sleeve, then the note was shoved back under the door. Swish.

  I, Willa Duvall of Brighton, do solemnly vow and promise to return and entertain more proposals immediately marry the man of my father’s choosing in the event that I am not able to successfully complete one long-term nursing assignm
ent within one month’s time.

  I frowned at the change, then added one of my own.

  Nursing situation to be chosen by Willa without complaint from her father.

  Swish. It was shoved again, and I waited. More scribbles. I chewed my fingernails—when did I ever do that?

  The day I considered signing my independence away, apparently. I reached for the knob to fling open the door and retract the deal, but it was too late. Swish. The contract came back.

  Signed.

  I lifted it with shaky fingers and read it several times without truly digesting it all. I stood on the edge of a precipice. Soon I’d be a full-fledged medical student—or a wife.

  Checking to ensure my hastily donned frock covered everything necessary, I opened the door and stared at Father, taking in the long gray frown of his mustache, arms folded over his broad chest as if letting nothing penetrate his heart.

  I’d seen the list of his patients requesting a nurse, but I didn’t even have to think about which name I’d choose. I lifted my chin, thoughts of that beautiful letter making me bold. “I choose Golda Gresham at Crestwicke.”

  “Crestwicke?” He paled, a red vein protruding on his forehead, then those storm-cloud eyebrows lowered.

  Crestwicke Manor stood on the salty coast outside of Brighton, a rambling old Tudor structure of dark wood and shadowed mysteries—much like my lovely desk that had come from it. Its walls contained one Golda Gresham, in need of a nurse, as well as the writer of that enchanting letter.

  Father’s powerful gaze that could wither full-grown men on the hospital board was now directed at me. “Gresham’s Crestwicke?” A growl vibrated his chest. “Out of the question.”

  I simply pointed a steady finger at the last line. He was allowed no arguments. If he insisted on choosing my husband, I was owed that.

  His eyes flashed. “No, no, no, no!” He kicked the wall, rattling the little bottles on my dresser.

  Footsteps hurried up the stairs, and Thelma’s generous, pudgy face with too-close eyes appeared on the landing behind Father, shadowed by the lamp she carried. Compared to my beautiful mother, she was, like her position here, merely serviceable. “Phineas?”

  Father handed her the paper we’d signed. The very gown about my ribs seemed to constrict as I stood before them, waiting for her appraisal.

  “She chose Crestwicke.” Father growled and slapped the paper with the back of his hand. “Crestwicke.”

  She looked up at both of us with raised eyebrows, her face like the lump of dough she kneaded every evening. I held my breath. Sometimes life hinges on a few words, and these were the ones that would pivot mine: “Crestwicke it is, then.”

  My breath gushed out.

  His eyes widened. “You can’t be serious, woman.”

  “There are some things, Phineas, that you eventually must let her decide for herself.” She sent Father a look heavy with meaning.

  When the door closed behind them, I dug out that wonderful letter and read it four more times, losing myself in the poetry of its lines. How beautiful it was. How romantic. Languishing for years in a dark crack of my old desk, this letter had waited for the right person to find it—one who would become enchanted by its contents and do something with it. I, the spinster scientist who had just rejected yet another suitor, was the keeper of this letter, and nothing could be more fitting. Normally I heal people’s bodies for a living. Now I hoped to heal hearts as well.

  Downstairs, I touched my stepmother on the arm as she kneaded dough with the strength of a cart horse. We had a maid-of-all-work, but bread was her specialty and she insisted on torturing herself this way. “Thank you, Thelma.”

  She turned, wiping her forehead with the back of her floury hand, and gave a single nod. Her eyes searched mine as if wishing to connect to something there. “I know what it is to love someone deeply. Every girl ought to have that chance.”

  I studied this woman with whom I’d shared a house for many years and wondered at the soft heart that beat within her sturdy chest. “Father?”

  She turned away and kneaded harder, her bent neck mottled with rosy color. “He’s a fine man, that Phineas Duvall. A fine, fine man.”

  I was speechless.

  “You’d best win yourself a husband at Crestwicke or you’ll come back to find one waiting for you.” She cut through the dough with a long knife, then brandished the tool in my direction with narrowed eyes. “And whatever you do, keep that tongue in your head. Hear me? In your head!” She swatted my cheek with her floury hand for good measure.

  “Words have always been my secret weapon.”

  She glanced at me, a tiny sparkle in her eyes. “Aye, and you have a quiver full of them.”

  I smiled as I backed away, thinking of the powerful words in that letter. Maybe being in the presence of such a raw and beautiful love story, of helping two souls find their end of the rainbow in each other, would finally inspire my own.

  Because secretly, very secretly, much as I feared it, I did wish to fall in love. I just hadn’t any idea who . . . or how to still be who I was.

  I pictured Crestwicke Manor, that proud old country house hunched on the coast watching decades of shipwrecks and sunsets and lovers on the beach. Somewhere in those vast ivy-covered walls lived a person who was about to have the happiest surprise ever.

  As long as it wasn’t too late.

  two

  Perhaps I’d be more inclined to fall in love if it didn’t require a fall.

  ~A scientist’s observations on love

  A still, white face looked down at me from high up in the ivy-covered mansion as my hired carriage crunched up the lane the following Tuesday. My heart seized. I’m coming for you. Just you wait. Help is on the way, Golda Gresham, and it’ll change everything. Clutching my hat to my head against the sea breeze, I closed my eyes and inhaled the briny air of Crestwicke Manor and felt alive.

  Yes. Yes, this was my purpose. I tightened my wrap against the cool spring air. Let them all pity and scorn me, threatening me with years of solitude. Loneliness and regret had no place in the life of a woman who was so needed. Why wait on marriage when there was considerable life in the journey? Even if that trek lasted my whole life, the path would be rich and beautiful.

  I slid the note into my apron pocket, ready for the time I’d have a chance to compare the handwriting to papers about the house. I held my hand against it. Help is on the way for you too—whoever you are. Then I stood at the edge of my new adventure, looking up at the manor house that regarded me with an imperial air as only a Gresham could.

  I paid my driver and climbed the wind-swept steps, a shiver overtaking me. Five years it had been since my last visit here with Father, but the place was still just as heavy with carefully guarded secrets and veiled reality. In childhood, I’d called that “haunted.”

  A tall liveried servant welcomed me at the door, and I explained my errand.

  “Welcome to Crestwicke, miss.”

  He extended a hand to receive my straw traveling hat and then my valise and carpetbag. I declined surrendering my medical bag, which gave me confidence as I clutched it.

  Soon I was being ushered into the deeply private home of the Gresham family. I’d seldom been inside, I realized now. The stallions and the beach had always captured my girlish attention when Father had come to call on Mr. Gresham, and the rambling old house had scared me a little.

  The butler set my hat on the side table and my bags on the floor, and scurried off with my card, leaving me in the foyer that was as silent as a forest at dawn. I cast long glances around this unsettling place that was so much dimmer inside than out. Musty old sorrows clung to the thick carpet and papered walls, the glow of candles neglecting the unexplored corners. It could be so beautiful, if it were allowed to be. The ancient windows seemed to groan with the weight of drapes that might be drawn back, allowing light to warm their leaded glass surfaces. Healing and restoration awaited this household, and I was itching to begin.

&
nbsp; On second glance, my eyes locked onto an ancient face watching from a balcony above in the mezzanine. Her eerie stare jolted me.

  “It’s you, is it? There you are, there you are. Back at last.”

  “Yes.” I struggled with what else to say. Perhaps she didn’t even know who I was. I certainly didn’t recognize her.

  A smile drew her face into folds. “Thrilling and filling. So it begins, little Miss Duvall.”

  Cold spidered up my spine as she spoke my name. She had the air of a defunct old cannon from which one had no idea what to expect, or whether or not it would be safe. “What do you mean?”

  She cackled. “As if you don’t know. Stupendelicious!”

  “I’ve come as—”

  “I know why you’ve come.” The words dropped heavily from her lips.

  I blushed to the roots of my hair, as if the woman could see through my apron pocket to the letter that had driven me to Crestwicke. The butler returned and beckoned me. Removing myself gladly from the odd encounter, I followed the man who introduced himself as Parker.

  “In here, miss.” The man knocked and the door swung open to reveal none other than the heir of the estate in a dark suit and stunning green cravat—Burke Gresham.

  The man’s bold smile beamed down at the butler. “Ah, Parker. What a pleasant diversion. Has the post arrived?”

  Burke Gresham’s commanding presence struck me with full force, lighting something in me. Perhaps it was only the lingering apprehension left by the encounter with the odd woman, but from what I remembered of him, no one could go toe to toe with me quite as well.

  “Yes, sir.” The butler held out the mail on a salver. “But so has something else.” He stepped aside when the mail was collected and gestured me forward.

  I had the fleeting notion that Burke might be the letter writer, for he was unmatched in both passion and frankness. Yet there was a softness to the letter I didn’t sense in him.