Her Lost Words by Stephanie Marie Thornton

Author:Stephanie Marie Thornton [Thornton, Stephanie Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

• • •

I did not write ahead to Gilbert with the dour news. No, instead I hoped to convince him that the evaporation of the silver didn’t mean the disappearance of our future in America, except that wasn’t the sort of thing one could be persuaded of via letter. All the way to London, I rehearsed a litany of plans to persuade Gil to move to Ohio.

Such a slave I’d been to hope and fear. I needed to be pragmatic—there was a solution, if only I labored enough to find it.

Despite his earlier concerns about Gil’s financial endeavors, I knew I could convince Johnson to offer me more advances for any book I chose to write. Readers would be interested in the Swedes’ strange habits and customs, especially those mummies I’d recoiled from. I’d turn my notes on Sweden into a travelogue, the likes of which were starting to become popular. That was a start.

Except, upon arriving in Gothenburg, I received several letters from Gilbert, each one a spear to the heart. Apparently, he had learned from his associates in Sweden that the silver was gone. Without our fortune, he coldly claimed we had no future and implored me—for the sake of my own happiness—to see how different we were, then informed me he’d do his duty to Fanny and that he’d still try to cherish tenderness to me, which was why he’d rented us a house in London, the address of which he’d enclosed in his final letter.

Try to cherish tenderness to me? After all our shared history?

Had I not known Gilbert to be rational to a fault, I’d have believed his pessimistic letters to be caused by the news of his loss of fortune. More so, I was irked that he used the excuse of my happiness when making these decisions for us. Who made him—or any man—the exclusive judge of what would bring me—or any woman, for that matter—happiness? I contemplated writing to Johnson and asking him to procure me alternate lodgings, but I held out a final hope, especially for Fanny’s sake, that Gil would realize the error of his ways by the time we returned home. Regardless, I was determined that we come to a permanent solution, either to come together or, much as it might sink me, part forever.

Fanny and I arrived in England during the first week in October. A pale lavender dusk cooled the heavens by the time we arrived at the address Gilbert provided. I expected him to be there, but there wasn’t even an umbrella or well-worn jacket on the hall rack; not even his books lined the empty shelves in the front room.

Instead, a dour-faced housemaid—one of three liveried servants who greeted us in the tiny hall—conveyed Gilbert’s cold instructions. “Mr. Imlay said that you’re to let him know via a letter to his offices if there was anything else you or the child require.”

“And when will Mr. Imlay return home?”

The ruddy-cheeked kitchen maid tittered behind her hand.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.