It was a bit startling to realize that she had begun willingly handing over even a small part of the magazine to someone else. Not that she didn’t always do that, in a sense. Other people wrote the content of the magazine. But when had she decided she trusted Effie not only to write Mrs. Landers’s responses but to choose the letters to which he would respond? When, in other words, had she handed off editorial authority? The only other person who had that was Mr. Glanvil, and she had not parted with it willingly in his case.
She shook her head. It mattered not. She performed her usual tasks with the few dozen copies she’d had delivered to the office. She kept some for the archives, and she prepared a few copies to mail to distant correspondents. She wrote Mr. Glanvil a note—designed to manage his expectations—to attach to his copy. She set aside a copy for Amy and a copy for herself to take home.
Then she moved on to a review of November. Most of the stories were done, and the rest were in hand. She made a few notes—ideas for layouts, preliminary thoughts about which stories to feature on the cover, that sort of thing.
So . . . November was as done as it could be at this point. She knew what came next. She was tempted to go home and start worrying about December tomorrow, but the Christmas issue was always a great deal of work.
Just because youwantedto avoid something didn’t mean you could.
She took a fortifying sip of tea that had long since gone cold and began by going over what she already had on hand.
She had her latest installment of the serialized novel she had commissioned—the whole “novel” was done, so she merely needed to decide where to cut off December’s installment. She used the wordnovelloosely because the tale of the runaway heiress turned lady adventurer captured by benevolent pirates was not entirely coherent. Readers didn’t seem to mind though, or perhaps the serialized nature of the story made it easier to overlook inconsistencies, for the story was quite popular.
She had a piece on innovations in table ornamentation with a particular eye toward Christmas entertaining.
She had a recounting of a tea tasting, in which two ladies described and vociferously debated the merits of Darjeeling versus Earl Grey. She’d been planning to hold that one for January, but a story she was waiting on from America for December—an account of alligators in the Mississippi—was looking as though it might not arrive in time. If that was the case, she would run the Great Tea Debate in December. She did realize that tea was tremendously less exciting than alligators, but one did what one needed to do.
There was her quarterly column by “The Actress,” which was meant to be a glamorous and slightly scandalous account of a life treading the boards. Julianna had fought Mr. Glanvil to keep the column, and in fact its retention had been assured by agreeing to the addition of the monthly moral essay. She was thinking of sacking “The Actress,” though. While the lady was indeed an actress, she had never accepted a carte blanche and tended to write more about the text of the plays she was in than the social scene surrounding their performance. And she always turned her columns in early, which struck Julianna as beside the point if she was meant to be reporting on the latest on-dits. Perhaps it was time to switch authorship to “The Opera Dancer.” She made a note to ask around to see if she could find someone suitable.
Finally, she had Mrs. Landers’s letters.
She pulled them out of the desk. When Effie had handed them to her unexpectedly as she was leaving Brighton, she’d shoved them into her reticule—and, later, into her desk—without reading a word. She had told herself that October and November required her attention more urgently.
That had been an excuse. It would have taken her mere minutes to skim the letters.
In truth, she was afraid of them.
She missed him. She missed him so very much. There was a great big chasm in her chest, and it had grown wider every day she was away from him.
And now that the mad dash to get October out the door was done, now that she was in a state of equilibrium with November, there was nothing with which to fill that chasm. But what could she do about it? She would have to trust that time would mend things. It was time to read the Mrs. Landers letters for December.The magazine above all.
She was afraid, though, that reading Effie’s letters would widen the chasm inside her even more, indeed, that it might tear her apart entirely. And if there was no Julianna left, there would be no magazine to prize above all, would there?
With shaking hands, she smoothed the pages written in the familiar loopy hand that was so dear to her.
She had seen “Home for Christmas” and “Sartorially Sullied.” Both letters had received concise rejoinders.
Then there were two letters she had not seen, one from a woman who was at her wit’s end with child-rearing. Effie’s response was typically kind, thoughtful, and practical. It made Julianna’s throat tighten.
And then. Oh, and then. A missive from a lady who had been left at the altar. Effie’s response wasnottypical here. It provided no solace, no actionable advice.
It did commiserate, if not explicitly.
And he had signed it “Edward Astley.” His real name. Not his title. Not the nickname she and his friends knew him by.
Julianna never cried.
And yet, Julianna cried.
* * *
The next day, a letter arrived for Julianna at home, posted from Brighton.
She would have wagered the balance of her printing press fund that she wouldn’t hear from Effie, despite their agreement to resume their correspondence. She had clearly broken his heart, and what person in possession of a broken heart voluntarily wrote to its breaker?
She went to open the seal, but it gave her some trouble. It was larger and thicker than usual. After successfully prising it open, she discovered a shilling beneath it.
Dear Julianna,
