The Map of Time (Trilogía Victoriana #1)(98)

We will meet on May 20 in the year 2000, but I will tell you all about that first meeting in my last letter. Everything will begin with that meeting, although, now I think about it, I realize that cannot be true because you will already know me through my letters. Where does our love story begin, then? Here, with this letter? No, this is not the beginning either. We are trapped in a circle, Derek, and no one knows where a circle begins. We can only follow the circle until it closes, as I am doing now, trying to stop my hand from trembling. This is my role, the only thing I have to do, because I already know what you will do: I know you will reply to my letter, I know you will fall in love with me, I know you will look for me when the time comes. Only the details will come as a surprise to me.

I suppose I should end this letter by telling you what I look like, my way of thinking and seeing the world, as during our meeting in the tearoom when I asked you how you could possibly love me without knowing me, and you assured me you knew me better than I could ever imagine.

And you knew me of course through my letters, so let us begin: I was born on March 15, 1875, in West London.

I am slim, of medium height, I have blue eyes and black shoulder-length hair, which, contrary to the norm, I wear loose. Forgive my brevity, but describing myself physically feels like an undignified exercise in vanity. Besides, I would rather tell you more about my inner soul. I have two older sisters, Rebecca and Evelyn. They are both married and live in Chelsea, and it is by comparing myself to them that I can best give you an idea of what I am like. I have always felt different. Unlike them, I have found it impossible to adapt to the time I live in. I do not know how to explain this to you, Derek, but my time bores me. I feel as though I am watching a comedy at the theater and everybody else is laughing. Only I am impervious to the supposed hilarity of the characters” remarks. And this dissatisfaction has turned me into a problem child, someone it is best not to invite to parties, and who must be kept an eye on during family get-togethers, for I have ruined more than one by breaking the norms that dictate the behavior of the society I live in, to the astonishment of the guests.

Something else that makes me feel very different from the other young women I know is my lack of interest in getting married. I loathe the role women are supposed to fulfill in marriage and for which my mother tries so hard to groom me. I can think of no better way to destroy my free spirit than to become a sensible housewife who spends her days drilling the moral values she has learned into her children and ordering servants around, while her husband goes out into the world of work, that dangerous arena from which women, universally deemed too sensitive and delicate, have been quietly banished. As you can see, I am independent and adventurous, and, although this might strike you as incongruous, I do not fall easily in love. To be honest, I never thought I would be able to fall in love with anyone the way I have fallen in love with you. I had honestly begun to feel like a dusty bottle in a wine cellar waiting to be uncorked at a special occasion that never arrived. And yet, I suppose it is owing to my very nature that all this is happening.

I will come here to fetch your letter the day after tomorrow, my love, just as you told me I would. I am longing to hear from you, to read your words of love, to know you are mine even though we are separated by an ocean of time.

Yours evermore, C.

Despite the effort involved in reading, Tom reread Claire’s letter three times, with the exact look of surprise the girl had predicted, though for quite different reasons, of course. After the third reading, he replaced it carefully in the envelope and leaned back against the tree, trying to understand the contradictory feelings the pages stirred in him. The girl had swallowed every word and had come all that way to leave him a letter! He realized that while for him it was all over, for her it was only just beginning. He saw now how far his adventure had gone. He had played with the girl without stopping to think of the consequences it might have, and now he “knew” what they were. Yes, this letter unintentionally revealed to him the effect his misbehavior had had on his victim, and he would rather not have known. Not only had Claire believed his cock-and-bull story to the point of obediently following the next step in the sequence of events, but their physical encounter had been the breath of life her nascent love had needed in order to catch fire, apparently taking on the proportions of an inferno. And now the blaze was consuming her, and Tom marveled not only that one brief encounter could produce so much love, but that the girl was prepared to devote her life to keeping it alive, like someone stoking a fire in the forest to keep wolves at bay. What amazed him most of all, though, was that Claire was doing all this for him, because she loved him.

No one had ever expressed such love for him before, he thought uneasily, because it no longer mattered that all the girl’s love was directed towards Captain Shackleton: the man who had bedded her, undressed her tenderly, taken her gently, was Tom Blunt. Shackleton was a mere act, an idea, but what Claire had really fallen in love with was his way of acting him. “And how did that make him feel?” he asked himself. Should being loved so unreservedly and passionately produce the exact same feelings in him, like his reflection appearing the moment he leant over a pond? He was unable to answer that question. And besides, there was not much point in speculating about it, as he would probably be dead by the end of the day.

He glanced again at the letter he was holding. What was he supposed to do with it? Suddenly, he realized there was only one thing he could do: he must reply to it, not because he intended to take on the role of starstruck lover in this story he had unthinkingly set in motion, but because the girl had insinuated she would be unable to live without his letters. Tom imagined her traveling there in her carriage, walking to the top of the little hill, and finding no reply from Captain Shackleton. He was convinced Claire would be unable to cope with this sudden twist in the plot, this unexpected, mysterious silence. After weeks of going to Harrow and leaving empty-handed, he could imagine her taking her own life in the same passionate way she had decided to love him, perhaps by plunging a sharp dagger through her heart or downing a flask of laudanum. And Tom could not let that happen. Whether he liked it or not, as a result of his little game, Claire Haggerty’s life was in his hands. He had no choice.