Letters to Her Love by Katherine Grant

Author:Katherine Grant [Katherine Grant]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-01-23T00:00:00+00:00

From Louisa Hoggart’s journal

July 12

Two sentences written. Sentences. I can’t get my mind off Elena in order to actually finish Mary and Oliver’s story.

She thinks the letter came from Mr. Fairhead! And she is happy about it!

Perhaps not “happy.” When we finally stole a moment alone (after Mr. F’s interminable lecture about what a wonderful person he is for hiring children into his glassworks), she tried to act as if she were some excitable miss who had just received her first flower delivery from a beau. Yet there was no sparkle in her eye, no blush to her cheeks. It was as if she were performing a role, and doing it poorly.

I pressed her on why she must marry. I would be horrified if it was my letter that sent her running into Mr. F’s arms!

However, the thought has been on her mind for months, apparently. “I tell you this confidentially,” she said in preface to her confession, her eyes shining directly into mine. “I trust you as a dear friend, Louisa.”

How was I to object, especially when she lingered over my name as she always does?

It turns out, as I suspected, that Lord S’s death has left her in dire straits. She had enough savings for a year, and now she is scraping by on generosity of friends. That is why Beatrice is at the seaside with the Rouses and Elena has attached herself to the countess. If she had to lease her own address in London, it would be at a boarding house in a neighborhood even worse than what I can afford, and she would never be able to pay for the proper clothes and education for Beatrice.

“If I do not marry,” she said, “then I think Beatrice and I would both have to go back to the opera. It is better than the streets, but still, it is no place for my child.”

If she worked with her hands—a maid, a seamstress, a farmer—I would have rushed to point out she could always come live here at Northfield Hall. It is the refuge of people like her, who are trapped between bad options and no options at all.

But even Lord Preston would be hard pressed to justify the long-term hire of an opera singer.

“Why not give it a season to see how much you can make from teaching singing lessons?” I suggested (trying very hard not to sound desperate). “You are a famous singer. Surely you can earn enough from teaching society’s darlings to maintain an independent life.”

Now, sadness really did rule her expression in the downturn of her eyes, her lips, her chin. “I am no longer a young woman, Louisa. Men do not fall at my feet. If Mr. Fairhead were to make me an offer of marriage now, I could not afford to say no in hopes that next year, should I need him, he would renew it.”

It makes me wonder what terrible life lessons she learned at the hands of Lord S. Did

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