Chapter 24 The Letter
Tears blinded Belle's eyes. She couldn't have read it correctly, could she? Her mind was so muddled, her heart so full, her head so high in the clouds to where she felt as if perhaps she could do anything-and then, all that worry, all that self hatred, all that unworthiness he felt was almost overwhelming. She read it again, telling herself that truly it was real.
'Dearest Belle,
I am a coward, always have been, always will be, I imagine. You disagree, you say? I can see your face, imagine it in my mind's eye all wrinkled over in concern that I might think of myself too poorly, but in this, I can assure you, I am a coward. I know I cannot face you with such words, so I take pen in hand and try to say what I feel and then God only knows if this letter will ever reach you-if I'll ever get the courage to even send it. If it has, and my dearest Belle you are reading it, then I beg you to humor me for just a moment, allow me to express myself, and then at the end if you find it too horrific, you forget everything I've said, send me some pretty poem on friendship and I'll know you've forgiven me and will still be my dear little friend despite everything. I also understand if you can't return anything at all, that I've overstepped that bond of friendship we've built and you can't bear to send another missive. I'll understand it, and then I'll try to live my life without your beautiful words in my life.
Have I properly frightened you yet, Belle? I'll do my best to try to be clearer, though my hands do shake for the thought of telling you.
I love you, Belle. There they are, there are the words that have burned within me, aching to be spoken though fearing what your reaction would be to such a declaration. The fear is what has kept them within me until now.
How could I not love you? From the first letter you sent, you've shown your selfless heart, full of kindness for such a lonely soldier such as I was. Every letter from that point, only confirmed such realizations about your character. The picture you placed in the card, the one that still sits in every front pocket of my shirt, no matter where I go, told me you were a bonnie lass and by the time you were giving words of encouragement and unconditional friendship during my time of recovery, I worried that I had made you into something too perfect and pure to be flesh and blood. You told me you weren't adverse to meeting me in person, this encouraged me, but never did I expect to find someone of even better character and more bonnie a face and person than any letter or picture could present. Your situation with your brother only proved my true feelings towards you-I felt so strongly that I had to do everything in my power to help you and my desperate wish was to protect you all the days of your life.
I understand my power to do so is quite limited and small. I know my weaknesses. Cowardice is only one in a long list of imperfections, I will admit. I am not ignorant of what dreams you must have to give up to imagine thinking of spending a lifetime with me. I never was handsome, but there are worse things than a crooked nose or hair that refuses to be combed into submission, I think (perhaps these are such deal breakers for you, Belle, and I'll not judge you for them, though knowing you has given me cause to hope that you see so much more than what is skin deep). However, there are other, worse things that plague that list, things like a fledgling job with little pay and no proper house to offer. I do not know when I can offer any such luxuries, though I will strive to make something of myself, if only to have the hope of giving you something, though if it were a mansion it would not be as much as you deserve. Now insult to injury (and the pun is not lost on me) I am a cripple to boot. When I take off my prosthetic at the end of the day I am as near helpless to protect anyone I should care for as I would be should I be called to run a marathon, even if the contraption were strapped on. I will always limp around, cane in hand, unable to walk properly and certainly not to run should the need arise. I say all this not for pity, I despise the thought of pity on your face, though I do not blame you looking at such a pathetic creature with a reaction like that. No, I say this, acknowledging that I have so very little to give you.
You are young, so much younger than I, and deserve a handsome, athletically built young man that can offer you stability and shower you with riches. I can do none of those things, but what I do have, I offer now. My heart and soul are yours, every beat of my heart bursts with love for you. For as long as you live I promise whatever I gain on this earth will be yours. I know you do not know me very well, and I am sorry to have overwhelmed you with all this. Please do not feel you must answer in kind. I know your sweet, pure heart, dearest Belle, I know that rejection from you will be as kindly done as possible. I do not know what I hope for you to do. I know I should have started with flowers, courtship and dates at a soda shop. Please forgive this blundering fool.
Your devoted friend and ardent admirer,
Roger Gold'
Belle's hands shook no more than they had before, gasped no more than they had before. She was sobbing sure enough, and whether or not they were happy or sad tears, an outsider would have hardly been able to tell. Belle went over to her night stand and pulled out a bundle of folded paper. She bit her lip and paced the room a bit as she tried to decide what to say. How to express her feelings to such a man? How would she convince him?
Eventually she sat with pen and paper, going through at least two sheets before finding the words she felt best expressed herself. Her spirit was alive, more alive than it had been since coming downstairs and finding her Papa had gone to heaven and left her there alone. Her heart was singing, her mind so full of the beautiful love he was offering that her letter seemed to pale in comparison. It must be answered, and it must be attempted, so she did.
…
'As interesting as watching paint dry?' The loud voice behind him made him jump, though his grip on the papers he was holding remained steady.
'No, I don't think so, but these are murder, assault, y'know criminal cases, so it would be hard for them not to be at least a little interesting.' His tone drifted away.
'But?'
'But…' He paused. 'I cannae say they're mystery novels or anythin', and uh, the firm doesn't always back the good guys.'
The black haired lawyer gave a dark chuckle. 'It's not about backing good guys or bad guys, it's that the little man gets his day in court and we do our darnedest to make sure his say is really loud-louder and clearer and more convincing than the state's. It's up to the jury to make sure justice is done. Getting paid, that's the racket, and to do that you have to have clients and to have clients you have to win cases. So, I try to be the one that backs the winner. Anyway, got that information I need on the McAlister case?
Roger handed Scarlett the files he had spoken need of a few hours ago and both went back to their duties.
His duty at the moment was editing a case document before filing it away. It was one of the more boring ones, and almost like watching paint dry. He had worked many hours in one attitude, and outside of gathering the case files needed for Scarlett, he hadn't really gotten up and around much. He massaged his temple, knowing it wasn't just the dry as dust reading that was trying to put him to sleep-his mind could not stop thinking about his idiotic action, destroying his friendship with Belle by exposing his feelings. This meant he got very little sleep the past few days, for while part of his brain had resigned himself to never hearing from her again, and chastising himself for not at least offering to see her a few more times before he got ahead of himself, or actually-properly court her like he should have done-the other half counted down the days and hours until she could have first possibly written and a reply be sent back. It had been five days, was that enough time? Would she forgive him for his blunder and at least write back to him in that old friendly way? He would forever be haunted by the love he held for her, but he would content himself with those beautiful, friendly letters until such time as war ended and men returned and one more worthy than he would have her heart and letters between them no longer be appropriate.
He grimaced. He had read that sentence three times and gathered nothing. This was not the way to be. He wanted to groan, but he didn't. His reply to the lawyer and his stoic businesslike behavior would always be sharp while at work. He wanted this job-even liked this job, more than some he had in his life, and the survival instincts that had carried him through the harsh years of his twenties, were helping him to get back and focus now.
When he arrived back at the building where he resided, his heart nearly gave out as he pulled out a fat envelope there.
She has returned all my letters. His brain supplied first.
This seemed the most logical, though he imagined it would be even thicker than that. It was very conceited of him to think that she had kept every letter of his like he did of hers. No, it most likely contained the last letter he wrote and the long scathing one in return, telling him what a silly notion it would be to marry him. His Belle would not be so cruel, he knew, but his mind did not rest with any pleasanter thoughts than that.
His hands shook and he got a rather nasty paper cut just trying to open the blasted thing. All the reading that he had done that day caused the words to blur on the page. He cursed himself and rubbed at his eyes, willing them to become clearer. Once they did, his brain did not register the meaning. It was a good two or three times of reading before he grappled with the enclosed letter. The first went as such:
'My dearest Roger,
To say your letter took me by surprise, would be quite the understatement. I feel I could tell you how your feelings are returned, and I have loved you for a good few months now, and the thought of being forever yours makes me giddy and want to give one of my unfortunate squeals. I have almost danced around through the tears, though I've determined to do so quietly to keep Mrs. Mildred from being concerned.
However, just as you rightly guessed that I would be concerned over the horrible name you gave yourself, I too guess that you will be unconvinced by my reply. I do the only thing I know to do in this instance, and enclose in this letter another letter I penned just a few hours after you left me, that Monday here in Storybrooke. Please see the date of that letter, and believe just how much I love you, Roger.
Ah, I've said too much already, you are confused, I see in my mind's eye that you are. It's clear in your letter that you halfway expected me to throw your letter in the fire, even after all that has passed between us. Stop the letter here, and read my previous one, then turn the page over and I shall convince you there as well.'
He stared at the letter, even after the third reading, the extra folded paper sitting in his other hand. All at once he needed to read that letter, more than anything that he had ever done in his life.
'Roger,
The afternoon is waning and the house is finally quiet, or as quiet as can be with six cats. Six cats! I thought I might have counted seven or eight but Mrs. Mildred assures me there are only six, apparently one of the poor kittens died only a day or two after it was born, so the number had been seven for a couple of days. As much as I felt overwhelmed at the sheer number of the furry rascals, hearing Mrs. Mildred speak to me about the love she had (and still has, I should say, for though he is gone, her love remains) for her deceased husband. It is so very sweet, and yet so very sad that I can't help but mourn with her. The wound of his passing is still so fresh, I cannot imagine the waves of grief that must overcome her. I know how these six months have made me feel since my Papa's passing, and to think of someone you've spent the last thirty years standing beside, well, if you see a few damp spots upon this letter, then you will forgive me, I'm sure.
Not that you will see this particular letter. I find that you are the person I most want to speak to at this moment. You've been gone for less than a day and I find that I miss you terribly already. What if I never see you again? The way Mrs. Mildred spoke of her lost loved one made me imagine all sorts of cruel things that could happen to you and how my heart should break and never heal if such imaginings should happen. If I was at all unsure before, I am certain of it now. Her speech and the evidence of her undying love put me in mind of Shakespeare's sonnet,
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.
That poem came upon me, so appropriate for poor Mrs. Mildred who still loves her husband and will love him through each difficult day until her soul rests with his. Yet, I feel a kinship with her. I can hardly explain it, I tried to explain it to David and sounded like a blessed lunatic, and I may do so now. My only solace is that though my mind is writing to you right now, and trying not to imagine your wonderful, dear face too much, for fear my hand would be too nervous to write, no, I take solace in that this letter will never see the light of day, and lay quietly in a drawer somewhere. When I am fifty and an old maid, I'll take it out and read it, and remember the undying love I feel for someone I only saw in person for four beautiful short days, though I fell in love over months of correspondence.
Is this a silly and youthful inclination? I think not. My soul hurts when I detect sadness and pain in your letters, my heart soared when I glimpsed a smile when you were here, I feel a connection to your soul no matter the miles apart-a quote from Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester speaking of the string between souls and bleeding inwardly if torn from each other-would be appropriate here, I think-or not, my imagination sees your soft brown eyes bugged out about now, wondering what sort of madness your little friend has succumbed to. It is a beautiful sort of madness if it is so, and I will relish in it today while I miss you so much. You will write to me soon, though, I am sure of it. You will write, and I will cherish every letter that I receive.
I have not begun to speak all that is in my heart, but I've yawned twice now, so I'll stop this letter here and try to do some unpacking instead of pining like a lovesick schoolgirl. I am your lovesick, madwoman whether you want her or not, my dearest Roger, so I end it with-
All my love,
Your Belle French'
Roger did eye the date (May — 1944) which made him less confused, and full of more hope than he ever had before, yet still in complete denial that he could actually have his love returned, and with such beautiful devotion as he had never seen penned by any other (not that there weren't better declarations, but Roger knew none, because it was for him, you must understand).
A heart that still beat erratically and hands that could hardly hold onto the paper for the abundance of shaking turned the first page around to read the remainder of her reply.
'...And so you see, my dearest and most wonderful Roger, that I've been harboring such a girlish crush on you that your letter has sent me into near hysterics over the amount of joy I've felt. I love you! Do you believe me now? I love you with all my heart. I believe the words you declared to me, though I feel unworthiness in myself for such devotion, please do me the service in believing my words here.
You spoke of a future, oh that it would include me would be the very thing I could most wish for. I do not want a grand house or piles of money-I do not want some sort of muscled giant, no indeed! I want you and you alone, you silly man! You are quite enough, in fact, you are everything to me. I see no coward, and if you refuse to believe me this time, I only wish to remind you for as long as you'll let me stick around. You are a better man than I've ever met, you have faced all your pain and hardships with more will and courage than most (there, see, my work has begun and I shall see it through, you'll see) and well, you quote Burns! And other beautiful works! You enjoy such a love for words, and I will be the first to admit that it was your shared poem about Haggis that first caused my heart to stir towards you. Since then I have found that-
I am yours,
With all my deepest love,
Belle'
And so Roger wept. He wept those many days earlier when he was certain that his letter of declaration would sever all ties from his beloved Belle forever. Now he wept for so many things. There was the disbelief that such a woman could love him, there was the joy he found in that it seemed that she did, and finally, he wept from the overwhelming thought that the person he thought he had lost, now said she was his. Could anything so wonderful happen to one such as he? He read her letter a few more times to assure himself that perhaps sometimes it can.
Author's Note:
History Stuff: I will note here that I AM still keeping up with the history timeline and I am well aware of the major event about to take place (Belle's reply would probably hit around June 6 or so) and I will address it-I just needed all the fluffy emotional stuff to take place here before outside events disturb them :) Something else of the historic nature that will greatly affect him and his job-money-housing is about to happen, but that will also get talked about later. Like I said, I wanted all the emotional fluffy stuff! haha I say a phrase 'schoolgirl crush' and I worried that it wouldn't be a phrase used at the time. However, it was introduced in the late 1800s and common slang by 1903. Roger is a 'law clerk', which I've come to understand might have made him need to have some experience. A paralegal might would have been the better option, though most of those would have been women from my understanding? I apologize for this possible oversight. I am doing as much research and trying to be as accurate as I can, but I know so little about law practice and courts and cases, that I beg to be forgiven! Story stuff: Shakespeare's quote is from Sonnet 116, which I always associate with 95's Sense and Sensibility. Yes that Scarlet, like Will Scarlet...he may or may not appear later In defense of Roger Gold: Yes, Roger has a lot of issues, it would be hard for him not to with how his life has been thus far. Being abandoned by his father, leaving his home country, trying to survive during the great depression as an immigrant and then being hauled off to war once he was a citizen. He then feels such love for a girl and really doesn't know what to do about it. He's had hardly any examples in his life, and has had no one or nothing to put his heart and soul into, as he has now done with Belle. If you think about Spinner Rumple and how he felt for Bae, and then how he was willing to tear his whole world apart to get to him once he became the Dark One, thus I imagined how he is feeling and behaving with Belle to be in character. You can let me know if you think so as well, or if I've missed the mark. I'm not saying it's how he 'ought' to be but he has a lot of things to work through, and this story is far from over!
