Letters to the front

Chapter 50 - A final letter

Edward

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It had been two months since Alice left. Life had been unbearable, I couldn't stand not knowing if she was safe or dying, if she was healthy or sick, the thought of her in pain killed me, but I crushed those feelings, knowing they wouldn't help me find her. 

I stayed in touch with Tom and Margret incase they heard anything and just after the first month I recieved news, they'd had a letter from her. Hope swelled in my heart at the words, but as I read on I realised that was not good news. 

Margret summerised Alice's letter to them for me, and had left enclosed her letter to me. I tore it open, holding it against me, her hand was on this page. 

To my dearest Edward,

Edward, I hope you know that I did not want to leave, but was given no choice, and felt so guilty about bringing shame to you that I left. I am so sorry that it was without goodbye, but your parents said it would be best if I just left. 

I would have left you, and not have written but felt you had a right to know. I am pregnant. I know that this is sudden and i'm so sorry, because I never realised sooner. Your child is the reason I haven't given up, because I can't let them go. I will raise them well, and try my hardest to provide for them, though the task seems impossible. 

This is important, so do not dismiss it as some idle notion, I need you to do something for me now I am gone. As much as this pains me to write, I need you to forget. Forget me, forget our child, forget everything. I want you to move on, do not feel you owe me anything, you gave me true love, and that is something some people never get to experience, you gave me enough love to last a lifetime, and though I wish our time together could have been longer, I am grateful for the time we had. 

I love you so much, so because of that love, I ask you to forget. Move on, start again. Find love with someone of your own class, make her and yourself happy, have a family and grow old and live the life I wanted for us. Live it for me. 

I love you more than my own life, I won't ever forget you and I know I could never love another, not after you. 

Thank you, my darling Edward for giving to me what I believed impossible. Alice Hardwick is gone, forget her and live your life.

All my love,

Alice Rose Hardwick 

I was shaking, the letter shook in my hands as I tried to imagine her writing this, did she cry? I knew her too well, I knew this was part of her nature, to give up everything for what she believed to be right. This time, she wasn't going to get what she wanted, I would find her, I had to. 

It took me a few moments to realise that I was going to be a father, she was carrying my child! My emotions were so conflicted, I was desolate she was gone, angry she told me to forget her, overjoyed that I was going to be a parent. 

Then dread filled me whole, pregnancy was dangerous and Alice wouldn't be able to afford a doctor. She could die. 

With renewed determination, I rose to my feet and went again to the workhouses, I had one final one to visit in Leeds before moving on to Manchester, from there I would go to Birmingham, and if I still could not find her, London. 

***

The workhouse was a place of sorrow. The hallowed halls spoke of untold misery and the bleakness cried out from the bricks and motar that held it together. Now with this new information, I asked to see the pregnant women. 

They were all too old, or too young. None of them were Alice, their faces spoke of unknown horrors and lives filled with pain. It was to sad to even contemplate. 

"No, none of them are her" I said miserably. 

The foreman shook his head ruefully and escorted me off the premisis. "Thank you for your time" I told him, "tell me, how do these women come to be in this place?"

"Many of them are beggars" he said gruffily, "they have no where left to turn and when they arrive, they're desperate, you can practically smell it on 'em I tell you, it's a sorry sight if ever there was one"

I thought about this and said, "surely work could be done to help them find life outside the workhouse?"

"Perhaps, though I never thought much 'bout it truth be told, this is just my job"

With that I left, dissatified by the results of my venture, but ready to pack up and move on. But first I would roam the streets, I asked the beggars, paid bar men for information, anything to link me to her. 

I would do anything to see her again. No matter the cost to myself or any other.