“Residence?” Jo asked. Meg nodded. “Here?” Another nod. “For how long?”
“For the foreseeable future,” Meg said.
…
It transpired that Meg meant exactly what she said.
Meg and her husband had come to stay with Jo; to live in Orchard Hall, even though they had only just married. With their titles and their riches, the entire ton would be at their feet, had they established themselves in London. And yet, they chose to stay in Concord, hundreds of miles away, hidden in the country.
With Jo.
Sir John was nothing but the soul of kindness and discretion, but after the first week, Jo wasbursting with questions. She couldn’t be silent anymore.
“Tell me, Meg,” she asked her sister. “Why are you really here? Why are you spending the last days of this glorious autumn with your sad spinster of a sister?”
Margaret, not usually given to passionate displays of affection, put aside her sewing, and squeezed Jo’s shoulders tightly in an embrace.
“Because I wanted you to know that you are not alone, Jo,” she said. “You will never be alone. Never. Here is proof. Remember that.”
And for the first time since losing Laurie and Papa, safe in the arms of her sister, Jo finally allowed herself to cry.
Dear Beth,
I keep expecting him to walk down the path between our houses.
I keep expecting to hear his steps bounding down the lane.
I said everyone I loved would leave me, but I didn't care, as long as he stayed.
And he didn't stay and nothing else matters.
He was the one I never thought would leave me.
I never thought I would count him among those who left.
I never thought I would avoid his name in my thoughts, on my lips.
That it would be poison to even remember him.
I never thought that he would be added to the number of people who became a reminder of loss to me.
I keep expecting him to walk down the lane between our houses. I keep forgetting he doesn’t live here anymore.
Eternally,
Your sister
nineteen
By the time the doctor proclaimed the wounded man’s life to be out of danger, in early November, it no longer mattered.
It was Justin’s life that was now in danger: he had decided to go to war. England had long been embroiled in the Peninsular War, that protracted struggle against Napoleon’s armies in Spain and Portugal, stretching now into its bitterest years. It was there that Justin decided to run away to.
And he would not come back for the rest of the year. At least, Laurie did not follow him to the Iberian Peninsula, which was a relief. Still, Jo had no way of knowing where Laurie was. Even if she wanted to write to him now, she couldn’t.
She had lost them both.
She resigned herself to waiting, even though waiting without any hope could hardly be called ‘waiting’. They would have to invent an entirely new word for it.