It Takes Two to Tangle

Twenty-Five

Dear Henry,

If you’re reading this, you are alive, and you aren’t so angry with me that you threw the letter in the fire at once. I suppose that’s a reasonable starting point.

I regret the way we parted earlier, though it was probably inevitable. I delayed so long in telling you the truth about the letters—my letters—because I knew you would be disappointed.

And you might still be, after you read this letter, but you deserve to know everything about my past. First, because it returns the favor of your confidence in kind; second, because I hope it will help you understand why I wrote you the first letter, and why I kept sending more though I knew you thought them from Caroline.

I was the much-loved only child of a Sussex baronet. As you know, Caroline is my cousin. She is the daughter of my father’s younger brother, a clergyman who held a prosperous living a half-day’s drive away from my father’s home. As we grew up, I was the privileged one, with a rich dowry, though Caroline’s beauty was always thought to be dowry in itself—dazzling enough for the clergyman’s daughter to have a season of her own. But I was the one on whom my parents pinned the hopes of a good match. I was to advance us all.

This seemed a pleasant enough fate to me when I was young, and so I passed my weeks and months and years in cursory good works, waiting to turn nineteen and travel to London for my season. Because my damnable memory ensures that I always have dates and names at ready recall, I often gave lessons to children in the nearby village; at least, I did so when it suited me. I really do enjoy teaching, as you know, because it allows me to be right and to give advice. An irresistible combination.

In the course of one of my lessons—a botanical walk—I first crossed the path of Charles Whittier, the son of the local public house’s owner. Charles was the handsomest man I’d ever seen, and I was fascinated by him at once. To catch his interest, I came to the village every day, walking past the Red Lion time and again, fabricating errands, taking on more pupils, hoping to impress him with my goodness and intelligence.

I needn’t have tried so hard. He was ready enough to be impressed by the baronet’s daughter. He must have thought I would be the making of him. And I was delighted to be needed—to be his savior, his everything. Since I knew my parents would never approve of my meeting Charles, much less pursuing him, we made arrangements to meet in secret. This allowed things to go farther than they might have otherwise. A parent’s watchful eye does tend to slow the progress of a courtship.

I promised to marry him as soon as we were both of age. Under the terms of my parents’ marriage settlement, I would have a dowry of twelve thousand pounds, enough to live modestly for a lifetime if we were careful. But Charles was not careful; he began borrowing against the expectation of it. Soon, everyone in the village was talking of the misalliance.

My father was livid when word reached his ears. He forbade me to see Charles again. So I told him it was possible that I was with child. This was not exactly a lie, though it was a trick. I did not truly think I was; in fact, I have never conceived and may be unable to. But it was possible, as I told my father. Anything under the sun is possible.

I can remember, even now, the look of horror on my father’s face. He had never expected his only child to trespass against him. He told me I must go to London and catch a husband quickly, so that the truth might be concealed. If I were unable, I would return to the country and he would permit me to marry Charles by license. But he refused to turn over my dowry to, as he said, “such an upstart” as a workingman.

Now I learned something new from him: my dowry was contingent upon my marrying with my parents’ permission. If I married against their wishes, the money would not be paid. This was a heavy blow, for on this sum I had pinned all the hopes and plans for my future life.

My father looked almost pleased as he rendered his verdict. I realize now, he was doing what he considered best. He must have hoped to bring me back to what he thought sense, but I was at least as stubborn as he, and much more devious. I told Charles only that my father agreed to let us marry by license. So you see, on my father, I played a trick. To Charles, I withheld a piece of the truth—as I did to you. I suppose there’s no real difference between those and lies, except one of philology.

I did go to London for a while, and I loved the novelty of high society, the dances and colors and wealth. But I did not want to be courted, since I had left my heart at home.

“I’m not Honorable like you are, my dear,” Caroline always teased me about my courtesy title. But Caroline was honorable enough to fulfill our family’s purpose in London. She made a brilliant match with an elderly earl. And once she married, I came home to Charles.

When it became clear there was no babe on the way, my parents forbade me to see Charles. Perhaps they hoped eventually to marry me to some reclusive gentleman who would not ask too many questions about his wife’s character. But I was stubborn. I kept meeting Charles in secret, and since he continued borrowing against his expectations, I never told him the truth about my dowry. I suspected, even then, that he loved my position at least as well as he loved me.

When he turned twenty-one, a few months after me, we were married. Soon enough, he figured out the truth about our financial situation. So did his creditors. Charles might, perhaps, have sued my father to try to recover the dowry on some niggling legal ground—but, of course, without the dowry, we had not the resources to take on a baronet.

It didn’t matter to me; I didn’t care for the money. I was too much in love to be anything but selfish. I would do nothing to risk losing Charles; yet I miscalculated and lost him all the same. When my dowry vanished, he did not love me enough to stay when Frances was all I could give him. I do not know if he would have married me, knowing the truth. But when he learned it, and learned that I had withheld it from him, our marriage was struck a mortal blow.

My parents refused to see us. Charles and I moved away to start a new life in a town where no one knew us, but there was never enough to live on. When the War of the Fifth Coalition began in 1809, a recruiting party came to our village, beating the drum for volunteers. They paid a small bounty to any man who enlisted. To Charles, the army seemed the solution to our problems. War held the promise of glory, of making something grand of himself. You know as well as I that the reality is much different. I talked to the recruiters. To soldiers’ wives. To men who had come home from the war ill or injured. After doing so, I knew Charles would probably never come back to me. Still, I could not ask him to stay for my sake when he wanted so badly to go. It was my atonement.

There was no glory for him, of course. He died ill and alone, far away on the Continent, and I thought I would die too from the sorrow of it. I felt guilty at first too, as if I had pushed him away to his fate. So deeply did I grieve him that it took me some months to realize how poor I was. But it was the same problem we had always had: there was not enough to live on. I began to sell off our possessions and take in sewing, but it was never enough.

This is when a letter came from Caroline. She took me into her home when my parents would not see me. She paid off my debts. She let me cry on the shoulder of her expensive silk gowns. I did not exaggerate when I said I owed her everything. She’s the sister of my heart, always generous. Why, she even lent me her identity when I sent you letters and you wished them from her.

That’s who I am, Henry: a devoted, devious fool for love.

Once again, I have done the wrong thing, but this time for the right reasons. I have been selfish in wanting to be with you, but I also wanted you to be happier. I wanted you to find again the things you had loved and thought lost. And when you began to, I was as delighted as if they were my own joys.

I’ve never lied to you except to keep you near—but you would never have stayed near if I had not lied. Do the ends justify the means? That is for you to decide, I suppose: whether what we have gained together is more than what you have lost.

I hope to see you again soon if you live and forgive. Often, even, if you like—just as I told you in my first letter. My regard for you has always been true.

Please believe me to be,

Yours,

Frances