Letters to Juliet

Chapter 16

Dear Albert,

I wish I gave you some news sooner but as I told you in my telegram, a very accurate detail has changed the course of my journey but also that of my life. The result is that I could not find until now some time to write to you. I hope you'll get this letter before my comeback. I might have sent another telegram but this means of communication forces me to be short and you know how much I love to talk! I've so many things to tell you that a letter won't be enough but I will try to tell you as much as possible.

Since a few days, I've been living in London, in the country more precisely, some ten kilometres from the capital city, in the Grandchester's mansion, for the future celebration of my engagement with you-know-who. Against all odds, the Duke of Grandchester has been very welcoming to me and very enthusiastic about this wedding should to take place in America. This is the reason why we'll celebrate our engagement in England to have everybody satisfied. I haven't met yet the other members of the family, but Terry made me understand that they are bit special and not very friendly. Getting to know them does not make me feel very comfortable, but I know that Terry will be by my side and together, we can face anything without fear.

The Grandchester's castle is so big that you can get lost, and the park, huge, is a real wonder. Each time I walk there, I feel like I'm back to Lakewood, with its statues, its fountains, its immaculate green lawns and its thick and leafy hedges planted all around to protect the domain. The only thing missing is Anthony's white roses, so beautiful and fragrant, to make that place perfect. I'm so happy that everything looks to me unreal!

I wish you were here with me to share with you this happiness that has been living in me since my journey in Italy... What I feel is so strong that I'm unable to describe it with words. I've never been so happy and I would have never imagined being happy at that point one day. It's still hard for me to believe that I found Terry! That I found him and that he loves me! That he never forgot me, never stopped loving me during all this time, and though I'm writing it, it's still difficult for me to be certain that it is reality.

He loves me and he wants to marry me! Soon, my name will be Candice White Grandchester, and I might well repeat it aloud, I've still the feeling that it is about somebody else! Would you have thought that one day, what I had not even dared to hope would become reality? A little inner voice told me that you have something to do with that because, when thinking about my journey in New-York, I realize how this ride had been directed to Terry, right? Patty confessed this little conspiracy to ease our re-encounter. To be honest, this incursion in my private life troubled me at first, but I quickly realized my mistake. If you hadn't helped us to change the course of destiny, we would certainly remain those two idiots unable to come back to each other, so walled up we were into our certainties, blind and deaf to this opportunity that was offering to us. I'm thrilling of dread when figuring out the darkness into which we would have stayed plunged without your initiative... How can I ever thank you all?

You've always been there, my dear Albert, ready to help or to comfort me. You did so much to me. You, this beloved protector and benefactor, who worked in the shadows until you shows up to me, my mysterious Uncle William. How surprised and at the same time, how relieved I was that day! It could only be you anyway because nobody but you could know and understand me so well. I still wonder how I had been able to ignore it during all these years spent by your side. You've always known what was good for me, this is why you decided to send me to England after Anthony's death though I refused to go there. If you hadn't done it, I would have never met Terry, and perhaps, I would have never recovered from the incommensurable loss that had meant for me Anthony's death. I would have never understood that we can fall in love again, differently certainly, but as strong surely. You knew it, this is why you made me cross the ocean, so that distance and time heal my pain, and so that another person as wonderful as Anthony was, crosses my path. I owe you my present happiness, Albert, and I don't know how to cherish you beyond what a daughter can feel for her father. The force of this invisible bond that links us makes up that I already know, that whatever happens, we'll remain forever united and this fills me with joy. I need you too much in my life and I wish it for us the longest possible together. I hope to be able one day to give you back everything you gave me, but I know that one life won't be enough, so much you brought to me and fulfilled me. Thank you, Albert, thank you from the bottom of my heart...