Work Text:
A stack of letters waits for Penelope on her nightstand. She knows what they are, and yet moves around her room, attempting not to look at them.
The summer had been… as good as one could expect given the abysmal end to the previous season. Her sisters’ weddings had been dizzying affairs but at least they left Penelope in relative peace. Left to sit in the corner to read. To write. To think. And think and think and think …
Oh how she had wanted to get out of her own head.
Returning to Mayfair hasn’t been the worst experience. Plenty of new faces showing themselves this season. Plenty of new, lovely ladies -- many of whom she sees shades of herself in, making their debut. Plenty of things for Lady Whistledown to write about.
She isn’t able to make herself feel better but at least through her writing she could do better for others. She is trying to atone for her past mistakes. She is of the mind that even if she can’t do anything about herself, she can at least attempt ease for others. She is not completely powerless.
The stack of letters still waits.
She tells Rae she doesn’t need help to unpack. All of her books are carefully returned to their home on the shelves. All of her hideous dresses crammed back into the wardrobe. All of her secrets buried safely underneath the floorboards. She has a lot to do now that she’s back.
Yet the distraction on the nightstand is becoming unavoidable.
She sits on the edge of the bed, and picks up the first one from the pile. It’s thick and heavy in her hand. She knows from experience that it’s not a single sheet of paper, but pages and pages of writing, front and back. He used to write her everything. Apparently he still does. It makes her stomach turn.
The postmark is from Dublin and dated a week and a half earlier.
Oh god… is he close to home? Her heart involuntarily flutters at the thought.
Of course he’s close to home -- the season is starting. Francesca is making her debut this year. He would want to be there for that, wouldn’t he?
She stares at the letter and contemplates.
She had spent so long over the past few months trying to forget the gentleness of his face, the soothing sound of his voice, the protective grasp of his hand. So long did she try to untwist the deeply rooted thorns of love so painfully ground into her heart.
She looks at the stack of letters and wonders why every time she takes a step forward there’s always something to pull her back.
She begins to flip through the envelopes, noting the vast array of postmarks on them and wonders even more -- did he miss her?
Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Bordeaux…
Her mind races back to that evening, back to that gut wrenching night. The kindness she thought she saw in his eyes.
I will always look after you.
…Paris, Lyon, Zurich, Munich…
The flippancy of his voice, how it tore through her heart like a knife.
I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington
…Milan, Rome, Venice, Vienna…
How could such sacred words to her be so hollow to him?
You are special to me.
…Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels…
How was it she could be deluding herself for so long?
Not in your wildest fantasies
…Athens. Athens??
It’s the last envelope in the stack, and the only one that gives her pause. There’s no way… she tears open the letter, not helping herself, and notes the date from a year and a half prior. It must have gotten lost or delayed.
She unfolds the letter and a few dried, dark red flower petals fall out.
Penelope,
I spent the day wandering the beautiful gardens of our host and came across an array of poppies that reminded me of you. Of the splendid color of your hair. As much as I’m enjoying my tour, I suppose I’m missing home just a little bit. And looking forward to the day when I can describe such beauty to you in person.
Or maybe, I wish you were here to see these flowers in their natural glory.
The best I can do is send a little piece of Greece to you.
Colin
She casts the letter onto her bed with a frustrated cry.
Why?
Why is there always something that makes her love him just a little bit more?
She hops off the bed, collecting all of the letters, including the one she opened, and gathers them in her arms. In a moment of anger, she rushes to the fireplace with the intention of throwing all of them in. But she stops, mesmerized by the flames.
Her brain is screaming at her to throw them all in and be done with it. Nothing good will come of keeping those letters.
Her heart won’t let her; keeps her frozen in place. His letters are a piece of himself that he’s giving to her. And she can’t so easily cast that aside.
Resigned to her own predictability, she heads to her desk, and opens the bottom drawer, placing them gently against all the rest of the letters she’s received from him over the years. She still won’t read them. Won’t allow herself to read them.
The poppy petals she has kept out, and puts them in a small jar on her desk with other small trinkets that she has kept over the years, smiling at them fondly as she does so.
She has to try to move on somehow, someday.
But today is not that day…
It’s only later that she realizes there have been no letters from Eloise. Her heart aches just a little bit more.