Introducing Mrs. Collins
Dear Charlotte,
Are you well? A small question, but the only one that occupies my mind of late.
I sincerely hope you are thriving. I know you cannot tell me how you fare, and so I must imagine your answer.
It is May, which suits you well, for I know you do not like the full heat of summer.
You will be spending much time out in your garden in Hunsford, dirtying your hands and tending your flowers.
St Thomas’s will be beautifully decorated by your hand, spring blooms everywhere.
When I think of you these days, it is surrounded by flowers and in that white dress you wore at the Rosings ball.
It is hard to imagine that colour out here – everything is stained with orange dust.
Wellington has now given me my command – I’m to lead a brigade, and I have been introduced to them. I was impressed. They have been drilled relentlessly through the winter, and any one of them is ten times the soldier I was when I first came out.
Three nights past, when I was in company with some junior officers, they asked me whether I have anyone back home – and I told them yes.
I know this is not true, not any longer, but it cheers them – and me – to think it.
I did not offer a name – only the letter C – but it became a game, and when one of them guessed it, I nearly spat out my drink.
To hear your name spoken by another is strange indeed.
Your name does not belong out here, in the heat and the dust, spoken by a rough tongue.
I regretted even allowing them your initial.
I do not really think now that you are reading these letters. I write them to keep me sane, to keep me attached somehow to England, to home, to what I love.
I love you still. Oh, how I love you! As I march beneath the hot sun, I think of that smile – when it breaks free, it captures me entirely.
And I think of your skin, so pale the sun glances of it like diamond.
And when alone, at night, I think of your bare shoulders, the angle of your hip, the sounds you made
I miss your company, your laughter and your spirit. And your lips. Forgive me. I am surrounded by men, none of them very pretty.
Unless we move soon, I will write again while I am here.
Yours, always,
RF