Dear Future Husband

22. You'll Be Coming With Us

10 March 1890

Maximilian Walker stood at the docks, waiting for someone. Or perhaps, something. Either way, a sense of anxious expectation filled his chest, leaving no room for breath as he stood on his toes, trying to look past the flocks of people who busied to and fro with valises, trunks, and hat boxes piled high in their arms. The sun beat down on his bare nape, the tang of the sea reaching him as the roar of the waves filled his ears. He hopped up onto a crate, craning his neck to see what he was searching for.

Then he saw them. The head of red hair, accompanied by tiny hands that busied themselves by playing with her mother's brooch. Then the brunette curls that were pinned and tucked neatly under a large-brimmed hat that was trimmed with ivory flowers. And with a protective arm wrapped around wife and daughter, was Gideon Sterling. Maximilian darted off the crate, swinging from rope to rope despite the sailors' protestations until he landed in front of them in a crouch. He straightened, dusting off his worn trousers and tailcoat.

"Daisy! Aunt Caro! Mr. Sterling, sir!" He felt both the irresistible urge to reach out to them and an explicable bashfulness that held him back, restraining him. Maximilian had not seen them in so long. Sometimes during lonely nights lying awake, he had thought he conjured them up in some sort of surreal fever dream, the memories of a loving couple who had welcomed him with open arms. "How...!"

He was unable to finish his sentence, however. Heedless of the bustling travellers surrounding them, Aunt Caro stepped forward.

"Maximilian!" Aunt Caro's arms flung around him. She smelled of baked bread and the faintest whiff of French perfume, her eyes dancing with warmth and merriment. "Oh, how we've missed you!"

Gideon stood off to the side, less physically affectionate than his wife but making it clear from his expression that he, too, had been longing for this moment. "You'll be coming with us back home to London, won't you?"

When he looked into their warm, smiling faces, staring into Gideon's kind eyes and Aunt Caro's beaming grin, Maximilian remembered all that God had done for him. He recalled how He worked in mysterious ways. How He had brought Maximilian from the ash heap into His arms, into His light at His hearth and table. "Yes, of course..."

Then he woke up, and realized he missed home so much that it hurt. In the handful of too-short months that he had spent with the Wakefields, he had loved them. Maximilian had played with Daisy. He had learned lessons from Gideon that encompassed more than business or mathematics or his basic letters. From Aunt Caro, he had been lavished with love in the form of hugs and satisfying meals. He had been part of a family, their family, even if he were only a hired employee.

He could not run from his past any more than he could escape the future. Maximilian could not elude the inevitable hands of time that ticked onward, whether it dragged him unwillingly, kicking and screaming, or it found him marching onward, daring time to catch up. No, it was time for him to leave Hong Kong.

It was time for him to return home.

***

Dear Lee,

I would like to thank you and your father for all that the two of you have done for me. If I return home safely, I shall write you once more. If not, please accept this note as a memento of the eternal love, gratitude, and esteem which I hold for you. Being in Hong Kong has taught me and given me so much that I shall never be able to repay you. If you ever find yourself in England once more, do not hesitate to reach out to me, and we shall be in contact. I shall happily do my utmost to repay the heavy debts which I take upon myself gratefully.

Allow me first to say that if the man returns seeking me, you may tell him that I have left and you do not know where I am going. If he continues to persist in his quest for me, inform him that I have gone to Morocco, as I intend on purchasing a ship's ticket under my name that shall reach that nation soon enough. If he endangers you or your family, I shall be deeply remorseful. Please know that it is never my intention to harm you for you have always held nothing but good intentions toward me.

You have been as an older brother to me. A better one than Esau to Jacob, certainly, or Cain to Abel, so I should say that we could compare to Jonathan and David. Though neither of us are princes nor kings, I should like to think that our bond is just as unbreakable. You were correct, my friend. I have been seeking the wrong churches, seeking to receive rather than give.

I pray for you, my friend, that you would be able to find peace within your family. I pray that your hatred and disgust of your sister-in-law would lessen or at the very least not come to a head. I pray that your engagement would culminate in a happy marriage, that the girl to whom you are betrothed would be pleasing to you. That you would learn to grow in love for one another and have a blessed union.

Enclosed please find an IOU for fifty British pounds. You or your father may collect on this amount whenever you please, though preferably when I am again able to find gainful employment. I have given you below the address of the Wakefields, where I hope to be found once more within a few months' time.

With all my gratitude,

Maximilian Walker

***

Squinting against the bright sunlight, Maximilian lugged his sole trunk onto the ship's cargo hold. Then he made his way to his second-class stateroom, shared with a family that had three children, the youngest of whom reminded him of Daisy Wakefield. He lay on his bunk, reading a penny dreadful as he heard the murmurs of the parents. Setting down his book at a particularly dull moment in the plot, he got up, going to the small circular window.

As he stared out the porthole, Maximilian remembered the last time that he had travelled by sea. His companions were less varied this time, and his voyage perhaps less eventful, but he hoped that it would bring him where he needed to be.

Wherever that was, he still harboured hopes of seeing Rosalie again. Where was she now? Did she still move with such vivacity, still laugh with such carefree abandon? Or had someone, a cruel governess or a harsh minister, crushed that spirit, that spunk?

A loud rapping noise caused him to desert his reverie, and he turned to the door, his senses alert as the hairs rose on the back of his neck. He felt goose flesh rise up and down his arms. "Who is it?"

"Maximilian Walker?" said a heavily accented voice in English. "You are under arrest for theft, forgery, fraud, and escape from naval service. Please come with us immediately."