My Most Precious One(69)

I played his message over and over again, a few days had passed and I lived off very little but nerves, I had lost a lot of weight and only stayed in bed, watching old Technicolor movies. Lukas never came, even though a small part of me wished he had.

A few more days had passed and a knock came at my door. My heart stopped. I felt the nervousness take over me as I stayed still in bed. The knock became louder and I eventually surrendered to whatever might be waiting for me on the other side. I stood in front of my door and looked though the peep hole. It was a young lady holding flowers.

I opened the door. “Bonjour mademoiselle, I have a deliver for you.” She said in her French accent. I held the door open, a slew of people walked in each carrying a bouquet of flowers, some were roses others were peonies. When they had finished the woman nodded at me and left. I stood in wonder as I looked around my condo. My home was completely covered in flowers. Each bouquet was in a vase with water and small notes were attached to every one of them. I chose the red roses looking at how beautiful and full they were. I opened the envelope and pulled out the letter.

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in

F. W.

“I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house this evening or never.”

I smiled it was the letter Captain Wentworth wrote to Anne in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. I told him that I thought it was the most romantic letter ever written, he laughed at me thinking I was too sentimental.

I pulled the note attached to another set of roses, these ones were white.

“Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.”

Twelfth Night from Shakespeare

What was he trying to say, that I was a love he didn’t expect. I went around and pulled all the notes that were attached to the flowers and headed to my room. I threw them on my nightstand as I eased myself into bed and continued to watch my movies.

I could almost hear the words calling out to me, the notes that he had so painstakingly written. I turned and looked at the pile, almost afraid to touch them, knowing that he would taint the very books I loved, knowing that he would pull me back into our world. I caved in as I took one of the envelopes,

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

Damn him for using Darcy’s line in Pride and Prejudice. I threw the note on the floor, I got myself up and readied for bed, waiting for sleep to come. It never did.

Once Judy Garland’s The Harvey Girls ended, I felt the itch to read another of his letters.

“I have for the first time found what I can truly love-I have found you. You are my sympathy-my better self- my good angel- I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you-and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”

I had read these very words to Lukas trying to explain what Rochester meant as he spoke these words to Jane Eyre. My eyes wet from tears, the lump in my throat was not leaving. I closed my eyes wrapping myself with my sheets, please let sleep come.

I had taken a shower and decided to finally try to eat something, I wasn’t hungry but I knew logically I needed to eat. The flowers that had filled my condo were still blooming, filling my space with a lively smell. I leaned against the counter drinking my bottle of water, when I reached for a pink peony. It smelled divine, its soft petals soothing my fingers. I put my bottle down and moved the vase, when my hand landed on a note I hadn’t picked up. I hesitated. I had decided to not look at these anymore, each quote, each letter dragging me in deeper. I stared at it waiting, I sighed when my resolve wavered and I gave in.