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The following morning, Lady Delingpole was extremely vexed to discover she had been defrauded of the opportunity to reveal the existence of Mary’s letter, a matter she deemed much better left in her own hands rather than her husband’s. But upon Edmund’s applying to her at they sat at breakfast, she parted with it, with the whispered words, “Mary will not own to it, but I have known her for years, Mr. Bertram, and it is my belief she loves you still. You may not be aware, she has not been living for pleasure in London; she has spent much of her time in the countryside in Wales, shunning all company and, I think, eating her heart out.”
Edmund tucked the letter into his waistcoat and resolved not to look at it until his guests were gone, even though the anticipation of reading it had cost him a sleepless night. And even after his guests’ horses, driver, grooms, valet, and maid had all been assembled in front of the parsonage, and after his lordship and ladyship had been bowed out to the road, and waved along to the next stage of their journey, Edmund called all his servants together and congratulated and thanked them, and he poured glasses of wine for Baddeley and Mrs. Peckover, and left them to toast each other. Only then did he retreat to his study and break open the seal to see the familiar handwriting of his wife.
Dear Edmund, the note began:
Since the day I left you without a single word, I have begun with a fresh sheet of paper over a hundred times, and tossed it into the fire, and on more occasions than I can give number to, I have written to you in my head, or my heart. Now, finally, this letter may reach your hands, and I know you will read it, because I rely upon your goodness.
It may not be necessary for me to describe the feelings and motives which impelled me to leave Thornton Lacey eighteen months ago, but I never explained my thoughts at the time, nor have since, and you are certainly entitled to hear them.
After my poor brother’s death, my uncle importuned me repeatedly to return to London. He blamed you entirely for Henry’s accident and could not endure to see me reconciled with you. Henry was my other self, my chief consoler in the loss of our parents, my source of joy, pride, and delight. He was the most vividly alive person I ever knew. It is still exceedingly difficult to accept that he is dead, that he walks the earth no more, that I shall not see him again. I told myself I could mourn Henry in private without burdening you. Edmund, you cannot know what it is to lose someone so dear to you, so abruptly, so unexpectedly, so unjustly.
My uncle sent me frequent, lengthy letters which I cried over, all alone in my chamber. He said I was disloyal to my family, that my brother’s spirit would curse me for living with his murderer—and oh! I do know Henry’s recklessness was the foremost cause of his death. Had he not been racing to the duelling grounds, he would not have come to grief! Also, had my uncle not taken him home when he was too weak to be moved, perhaps Henry might have survived and lived to hold his son in his arms.
But knowing that Henry and my uncle were not blameless in this matter has not spared me a moment’s torment from the fact your challenge for the duel should never have been issued.
At any rate, my uncle’s unrelenting pressure upon me to be revenged upon you was a secret canker upon our marriage.
Then came the catastrophe that befell your father, followed by his decision to leave Mansfield Park. You knew my sentiments, you knew my wishes, you knew I was able to endure living at Thornton Lacey only so long as I could believe we would one day end our dreary exile. But, without consulting me, without even acknowledging my feelings, you told me you thought we should never live at Mansfield Park, and that you intended to live, work, and die at Thornton Lacey!
Was I not justified in thinking I had been imposed upon? We have every reason to believe the baronetcy would revert to you and your—may I say, ‘our’—descendants, yet you were determined to live like an anchorite in the desert and force me to do the same!
I have since learned, to my sorrow, that having Thornton Lacey for a home is in every way preferable to having no home at all! I cannot live with my sister at Mansfield Parsonage, as her husband would never permit it, I cannot live with my uncle, not so long as his mistress is in residence there, and there is no tranquillity to be found with Janet Fraser or Lady Stornoway. I know you always disapproved of them.
At least dear Lord and Lady Delingpole have been extremely kind; they put a cottage on their estate at my disposal. I have come to be a little envious of the Delingpoles’ capacity for finding fresh matters to quarrel about every day. It is the opposite of indifference, you must allow, when a long-married couple can still contrive to aggravate each other as they do. It is something very like love, and perhaps it is love. Lady Delingpole is one of the few people who encourages me in my wish for—
But I can hardly bring myself to hint. Why? Chiefly pride, I fear. Pride and a refusal to be the kind of wife who has no will or thought of her own apart from her husband’s. But you, Edmund, you gave me to believe you did not want that sort of a wife. Do you recollect?
