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The little dressing table where Amy made up her posies and fixed her hair was covered with handwork of a different sort as she sorted through the letters of the most recent mail. She'd kept all the letters that had come to her since they'd arrived in England, and even though Aunt Carroll had pointed out the weight was growing excessive, she couldn't begin to choose between the dear things. Each a so-familiar part of the dear home she'd left in Concord: the elegant script of Marmee lining the paper clearly, Meg's writing, still altogether as proper as a governess even though the ink now told of housekeeping and the adventures of two new souls, Jo's scrawls in between the burnings of genius, and sweet Beth who wrote still wrote of her kittens and dolls even though they were both quite grown up.
She found the letter she'd been searching for and flipped through the pages to one part in particular.
I know Marmee wrote to you that our Laurie and Mr. Laurence were setting off to settle business in London, Meg had written. And now that Laurie's graduated with such honors, he looks forward to seeing the Continent again, this time as a grown man. He has grown over the past year, he seems so much more serious than he used to, and for a time, I'd hoped that he and Jo might - well, Marmee wouldn't like us talking of such things, but I did think you should know that when Laurie asked Jo if she would, she said 'no, thank you' instead of the 'yes, if you please' as we sometimes expected. Laurie acts like a young man truly in love, and it seems that some of this trip is to settle his heart as well as his affairs. Jo's confidences haven't been to me in this, but I don't think she gave poor Laurie much reason to hope.
My little Daisy is here, playing on the floor at my feet, and she keeps looking up to ask me to tell her 'Auntie Amy' of her little games and to give five kisses (from a sadly sticky mouth. I do believe Demi has been leading her into mischief in the pantry again...)
Amy looked up from the letter to study her reflection in the small mirror. Tilting her head, she studied the line of her shoulders and neck rising out of the cloud of illusion before reaching for the azaleas she'd prepared to pin to her skirts. And while this author wouldn't accuse her of anything as silly as dreaming of the young man who would be joining her for the Christmas ball in a few hours, a pair of dark eyes and the set of a curly head did dominate her thoughts as she danced down the room to admire her small feet.
***
Laurie had always been Jo's, her dear boy, her Teddy, and Amy was just the little sister to be patted on the head every so often and told she was 'jolly good.' Any further wishes she had for young Mr. Laurence weren't something she'd allow herself to admit to. And as Laurie brought his college friends home, Amy took their worship and adoration as her due, accepting their compliments in the spirit given and would have been in quite a way to have her head turned if Marmee's soft words and good advice weren't always near. And, perhaps, if she wasn't always too conscious of the 'brother' she adored who only paid his marked attentions to an unyielding Jo.
She told herself on the boat to Europe that it was her job to marry rich. Someone in the family had to after all, and since Meg hadn't, and Jo and Beth wouldn't, it fell to her to make sure the family was taken care of. Amy neither felt sorry for herself nor prided herself on this decision. It was quite simply the way it had to be, and while no March girl would stoop to flirting to attract a boy, she set foot on that old English shore quite sure of her intentions.
The intentions were only strengthened as she traveled across the Continent with Aunt Carroll. Genius perhaps burned in Jo, but in little Amy, the study of the old masters captivated her with their beauty and presence while insisting over and over again that nothing she might do with paint or clay or pencil would come close. Talent wasn't genius, and there was no part of her practical heart that wished to continue setting her sights on something that never could be.
Fred Vaughn seemed the perfect choice. She'd known him since his family's visit to the Concord years ago, and while he was wealthy, his family was kind and the solidness of their English fortune reassured her. This wasn't something Marmee could look into her soul and find wanting nor it wasn't a matter of flash over substance or an alliance that would cheapen her good name in the ignoble pursuit of riches, but rather a match with someone that she could come to care for even if her heart refused to leap for him of its own accord. Fred Vaughn was, as she told Laurie that day in Nice, "rich, a gentleman, and had delightful manners."
***
Amy sat at the same dressing table as before, and this time as she stared into the mirror, she paid little attention to the becoming way her hair fell or the small but graceful posey at her breast. Her eyes were dark against very pale skin as she stared into them, still half-surprised with herself. The 'yes, thank you' she'd planned on for so long hadn't come out when she was asked if she would by Fred Vaughn, and the changed answer had startled both of them into silence until he escorted her back to the hotel.
The stack of letters now closest to hand at her small table caught her eye, and she was honest enough to admit that those letters written by a more masculine hand than any that wrote often from home were the reason for the change. That somewhere in the time and correspondence since she'd last told Laurie how she despised him, Amy had come to think of her friend not simply as a brother or as her sister's boy but as someone she hoped thought of her kindly and often, someone who thought of her less as a possible 'queen of society' in those heartless cold words she'd uttered and more as a sweet and - perhaps? - loving woman.
But both of them had been gone from Concord a long time, and perhaps if Laurie's feelings for Jo hadn't changed, Jo's had, perhaps that absence had softened her sister's heart towards 'her Teddy.' Amy took a breath, looking at those dear letters one more time before reaching for a new sheet of paper and starting to write.
Jo dearest,
I'm addressing this letter to you as it's going to be full of characters and sketches that I hope you of everyone will enjoy the most...
Amy managed to fill two pages with bits and bobs from her travels that Jo would find funny before she took to the heart of the matter.
I find myself thinking about our old days so often, Jo, and what romps and funny games we used to have. A letter from Laurie came yesterday and made me think of all the old times, and it took me to wondering, do you think of Laurie differently than you have? He has been so broken-hearted even now over his last question (not that he'd ever admit it to either of us, stalwart lad that he is) that I wonder if your heart has softened towards him during this long time that he's been away.
***
The response when it came months later had obviously been dashed off hastily by its author and contained little of that homey talk Amy so often longed for. Jo had paid little attention to her handwriting or conventions, but this letter didn't fail to satisfy Amy's heart.
Take good care of my boy, Amy.
With a light heart, she danced upstairs to start a new letter to - she couldn't help but let herself think of him just once as - 'her Laurie.'