Page 55 of The Gentlewoman Farmer

My vows shall ever true remain,

Thy scent catches on a zephyr,

We only part to meet again:

Change as ye list, ye winds, my heart shall be,

The faithful compass, the faithful compass,

That still points to thee.

Their performance that evening had begun seriously enough, but when Philip accidentally substituted “heifer,” for “dear,” all was lost. They laughed until they cried. The adults were nonplussed and sent them away early. Philip and Sophia stumbled through the corridors, doubled over, barely able to walk.

Tucked into the side corner of the trunk was a book they’d written together. The Dragon and the Princess. She reminisced over the hours they had spent on its creation. It had taken nearly all summer. She ran her hand over the green cover they’d sewn.

Near the bottom of the trunk was an amateur map of Worthington Farm drawn by her own hand. Sophia had used it to describe her home to Philip. She remembered being reluctant to answer Philip’s questions about her farm, feeling it compared poorly to the grandeur of Bramblefields Park and fearing he might think less of her if he knew how differently they were raised. However, he persisted until she satisfied his curiosity. When Sophia had finished telling him all, Philip made Worthington Farm more lovely and charming because he heard her words and understood them not as a comparison between the two of them but as a part of Sophia.

When they were seventeen and eighteen, they had gone on long walks, holding hands. They’d sat side by side for hours, his shoulder and leg pressed against her, warming her soul. Their first kiss had had been soft, natural, and exciting. He was easy to be with, understood her, and even compensated for her weakness. It seemed Sophia’s life was full of people who needed something from her without being able to give back. But there was reciprocity in her friendship with Philip, a partnership, even. Sophia never felt alone or incapable with him. Everything was better when done with Philip.

The sun was setting, and Sophia sat in the darkening room surrounded by the words Philip had written to her over the long stretch of time they had been apart. Those words filled the void of time. Since Philip arrived, she’d harbored a grudge against him for not coming to her when he turned twenty-one. As she read his letters, she saw him anew—as her friend and sweetheart, faithful over the years. She yearned for that connection. She wanted to be close to Philip, to let him lighten her burdens and help her find joy. He was the one person whose love and companionship could fill the emptiness within her, a space Mr. Burns had never filled. She’d been mourning Philip’s absence for three years.

Following yesterday’s drama and surrounded by countless reminders of how she missed and loved Philip, she slipped into a fantasy she rarely allowed herself to indulge in. Life with Philip.

They would marry, and she would wake next to him every morning. During the day, he would take her out of her work and into his play. She would watch him paint and be astonished at how he saw the world, recognizing and delighting in the magnificence of humankind. She would love him more every day as he showed her a better world.

It was an awkward time to reconcile. She wasn’t sure Philip wanted anything beyond friendship anymore, especially after she’d spent weeks pushing away his declarations. She would need to let him know she wanted him as part of her life and that she missed him every day. She loved him.

She would write him a letter and tell him how foolish she’d been not to recognize her feelings earlier. It felt pressing, but night had come again, and the house was quietly sleeping. All was still at Worthington Farm, save the tempest in Sophia’s heart. She took that energy and unleashed it in a letter to Philip. Then, feeling calm once more, Sophia fell asleep.

Talland, Cornwall

22 May 1753

Dear Philip,

I’ve been abominable to you. When you first came to Worthington Farm, I told myself you needed to regain my trust and friendship and prove yourself. I felt the years we’d been apart had created a wedge between us too vast to reconcile. I realize now that since you arrived, there was nothing but my stubbornness separating us. My stubbornness and my unwillingness to see Mr. Burns for what he is. If not for your intervention, I would have made a terrible mistake in marrying him. Your friendship is the most important in my life. Let us be friends once more.

Even now, I’m not being fully honest. I’ve restrained my natural inclination to be close to you, to talk with you, to walk by your side, to hold your hand, to kiss your lips. I will tell you now what I wish I had said the last night we were together at Bramblefields: I love you, Philip. Nothing would make me happier than being your wife. Everything I do, I do better with you. It’s hard for me to admit my need for other people, but I need you, want you, love you.

Yours always,

Sophia

Chapter 25

22 May 1753

“Philip! Stop fidgeting.”

“I can’t. Why doesn’t she come down?” Philip had a book in his hand but was not reading. He was sitting close to his mother as she embroidered, and his bouncing knee bumped against her needlework.

“She is resting. She will come out when she is ready.” Mrs. Eliot swatted Philip’s knee.

“Mrs. Allen, will you run up and see what she is doing? Perhaps you can persuade her to come down?” he asked.

“I do not think that wise. Not after the harrowing day she had yesterday. We shall let her be.”

Philip leaned back heavily on the sofa, earning another reprimand from his mother. He shifted forward, jumped up, moved across the room to where he’d left his sketchbook, and took a seat far away from his mother.