Better Than Byron

Finding Closure

Margaret laughed to herself at this piece of oddity, recalling with pleasure the many poetry sessions she had had with her cousin. She skipped to another date, and it happened to be the day when she had been reckless in her rambles and had found herself at the back of Nathaniel's house with a gash on her knee and a sprained ankle.

It had not been a very uncommon trail for me to take, for I more often than not crept into Nat's yard by that road, but to-day it was curiously muddy, and I happened to lose my footing as I attempted leaping across a rather deep pit. I tumbled into the pit and five minutes after wailing for help at the very top of my lungs, I heard the heavy plodding of two pairs of feet. It was my boys, Edmund and Nathaniel – come to my rescue!

"Margaret, my God!" cried Nat, stooping down on the edge of the pit and looking down upon me. "What has happened here?"

"What does it look like?" I retorted. "I slid into this wretched hole! Well, why don't you haul me up, sir? Edmund! Take my other arm." And they at length managed to pull me out of the miserable pit, Nat swinging me into his arms as I had sprained my ankle in addition to the scar on my right knee. My cousins were obliged to attend to the wound directly, and after rinsing it with lavender water I began to feel better, even with the surgeon still absent. It was a most trying day, but because of Nat's gentlemanly kindness I have once again lived through a day's worth of misery. What would my life look like without him, I should wonder? Tilly, the little imp, teases me about him, provoking me with insufferable words like, "love," and "the future." Bother the future! I abhor to anticipate it, because it is so unpredictable and generally unpleasant.

She flipped to a week after the incident.

Well, I'll be bound! My hand shakes as I apply my pen to the paper of this journal, but I must put down all that occurred between Nat and I this evening. To begin with, he and his brother had invited Tilly and I to their place for the night, and we were all of us to stargaze upon a carefully laid out blanket. The child could not keep her lips sealed, so I at length proposed that Nat and I move away from them, my mind longing for tranquillity – not my younger sister's irksome remarks. She kept Edmund amused while Nat and I nestled against a pillar. We had not spoken for a long time, when our eyes met with meaningful inquiry.

He seemed to have a lump lodged in his throat, for he next spoke quite difficultly, and with deliberate slowness as though he were trying to make sense of his own words.

"Well, I love you, Margaret!" he said at last, looking rather pleased with himself for having been the first to give utterance to our shared thoughts. I offered him my hand, and he took it, cradling it with tender affection. And that is all, I suppose! We did not speak much, but gazed understandingly at one another from time to time. It had always been this simple between us. We never spoke much, but we understood ourselves perfectly as if our minds were one and we had been born to complete each other's worlds. Ah! Hear me philosophising about a man! I should be fairly ashamed of myself. I have said enough, I think. I feel light-headed and wish to lie down on my bed and dream.

Margaret's hands trembled as she jumped ahead to the fragment documenting Nathaniel Vickers's fatal illness and ultimately his death, and all at once reconnecting with her fifteen-year old self. She had altered a considerable deal since then. She had been so thoughtless, arch and childish in those days. Life had sobered her up, freezing her wildest fires and engraving gravity into her soft, girlish countenance. She had enjoyed being with Nat because unlike his brother he delighted in rough, noisy activities and preferred eating luncheon on the grass rather than on an elegantly set table in the dining-room.

Antoine Vallois, who doubtless most of you have already forgotten, represented Margaret's single indiscreet step in life.

Margaret had been nineteen at the time of their meeting, he two and twenty, and they had first encountered each other in the seaside city of Marseilles. All that Margaret had said in regard to his person was correct – he was an accomplished playwright and such – but nothing that she had told Edgar justly represented the relationship they had had. At the time, Margaret had not fully matured yet, and she still had the romantic and impressible mind of a girl of eighteen. She wore her brown hair in clumps of natural curls over her forehead, and practised countless feminine elegancies that many young ladies did in those days. For instance, she had a particular liking for gloves and for artificial flowers, which she wove into her hair.