Page 43 of Rejected
I am sorry. I am angry and cruel tonight. My quill is scratchy, my head hurts. And my heart is in agony. The only thing that helps is writing to you. Forgive my darkness.
Eternally,
Your sister
sixteen
It happened exactly like she feared it would. Well, not exactly.
Worse.
Laurie and her brother were both in exile now. Her sisters kept sending her tearful letters, but even though they at least did not hate her, the result was the same: they had also left.
Autumn would be over in a few short months, and the whole sordid affair would begin all over again: the London season. At least, this time, she would have no sister participating, and she would not be forced back into town. That was a small mercy. But still, she was all alone, apart from a few friends in the village, alone with her thoughts.
She could help it; she kept thinking.
She thought of her Beth, and how her mother would have lived if her sister had. She thought of how differently they would all have grown up, but especially her brother. She thought of him as a child, she thought of his hands, his eyes, the same eyes as her own, now possibly a killer’s eyes.
Of course, her brother had made his decision, had decided on his own path in life. As had her sisters. As had Teddy. They each had to make their own decisions, after all. And those decisions did not include her.
Well, maybe that was childish thinking, but that was the whole point: She wasn’t ready to grow up yet.And, judging by every ‘grown’ human being she had ever known, she did not think she ever would be.
…
Pretty soon, she had barely enough time to write at night; she was too exhausted. There was so much to be done on the estate, so much to arrange in the absence of the new viscount. In spite of the fact that her father had not prepared her for such duties in the least, Jo grew pretty good at managing the property and keeping the house for her brother. He, on the other hand, did not appear to care two straws for it, or for his fortune, and was probably squandering it in the card tables of Europe with every passing day.
She barely had time to be lonely, but loneliness had never been her problem. She enjoyed solitude, enjoyed her own company, her books, her writing. But she soon grew lonely for a specific sort of person. Someone who knew her, understood her. Someone whom she loved.
She missed Papa, she missed Beth, she missed her sisters. She missed Laurie. With every breath. She wondered what he was doing now, and when she would hear news of his engagement to another woman. She, who had never once cared for anything other than this day, was fearful of the future.
I shouldn’t have rejected him, she thought.I couldn’t accept him, but I shouldn’t have rejected him.
And yet, she was the one who felt rejected. Forgotten. Left behind. She never received word from him, not a letter, nothing. It was as if she had never existed for him. As if their bond had evaporated. She missed him as if she were missing a limb, and he did not even care to send her one word.
She picked up her quill to write to him a million times, to beg him to come back. But she would not do it. She always stopped herself at the last minute.
I won’t ask him to come back purely out of fear. I will not make false promises driven by desperation. If he does not wish to see me, then he shall not.
But she had to find some way to live, some other way than this. Some way of life that was not an endless battle against emotional starvation. She had known since she was quite young that finding a husband was not the answer to that question.
Now she merely had to discover for herself what was.
And how to find it.
…
Her brother’s opponent was recovering somewhat, but his condition was still precarious, even after all this time. Jo grew weary of worrying, but there was nothing to do but wait, endlessly wait.
Meg’s letters grew increasingly rare as her extended honeymoon drew to a close. Soon she would be coming back to England and takingresidence in Sir John’s London mansion; at least, she would be close enough to visit, even though the journey was a long and unpleasant one. Oh, how Jo hated going into town, but she would do it for Meg as often as she could.
In fact, she started thinking of travelling herself.
Her dreams and hopes of travelling to India and other adventurous places with Aunt March could no longer become a reality, she knew that, but she could go alone. Maybe she would prefer it, after all. Of course, it would be impossible to leave the house unattended—she had not trained her steward or the rest of the servants well enough for that yet—but the loneliness was beginning to suffocate her. She had always longed for adventure, and now that it was finally within reach, it seemed to be slipping further away from her grasp with every passing week that Justin stayed away.
Mama would encourage it, if she had been here—she always pushed her children to taste adventure. Jo could join her aunt and Amy in Paris, at first. And then she could go on alone, as a companion or governess—whatever won her an ounce of freedom. She had money enough, and she would not mind teaching a young spoiled heiress a thing or two. She would teach her Greek and mathematics, even if she was a young lady, by Jove!
She could leave everything behind, just like everyone else had done. She could disappear.
