MRS. MOORE'S LETTERS | A SHORT STORY

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✦ MRS. MOORE’S LETTERS ✦ 

by

MS. MARY ALDERSBERG

 

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Mrs. Moore sat upright at the beige birch table, dipping a feathered quill into an inkwell that had black stains splattered across the jar. ‘Dorothea,’ she called out, setting her quill onto a dull red piece of rag, ‘Would you kindly fetch me some water?’ Dorothea obeyed, scurrying like a scared rat into the galley. Mrs. Moore cracked her fingers, one bone at a time, before continuing to write. Mrs. Moore hadn’t written in quite some time, yet the occasion seemed to call for it.

 

Dorothea brought back a glass of water and a silver tray with honey cakes, crisp with golden-brown edges, laid out on top of a berry-colored piece of cloth. Mrs. Moore offered Dorothea a faint smile, the most she ever showed the help, shooing her off into the house. She had not yet written on the yellowing piece of paper that sat before her. The warm, corn-colored sun shone through the morning room windows, and a few plump, blonde birds sang to their young in the oak tree in the yard. The rose bushes, which Mrs. Moore’s daughter, Elizabeth, had planted in the fall before the first snowfall, began to bloom, dotting the top of the window with bloody buds. Ink dripped onto the paper as Mrs. Moore sat there, cold and frozen, her face stone and long. She sighed, rather heavily, before beginning to write.

 

‘To my dear sister, Lady Katherine Anne Howlett,’ she began, muttering to herself as she wrote. She knew, like most other women of the town knew, that Katherine would not respond. Mrs. Moore was certain, though, that Katherine read her letters, for even though Katherine never responded with words - she sent Mrs. Eugenia Moore a handful of money – five hundred in coins, to be exact. Katherine’s husband, Lord Edward, had just passed away some winters ago in a bout of influenza. Katherine had come to visit for a brief amount of time, wearing her mourning black, and no rouge or any other makeup applied to her equally stony face.

 

Mr. Moore begged Mrs. Moore to stop writing to Katherine, ‘She’s been a widow for ten years, my dear Mrs. Moore,’ he would reprimand her, ‘She does not need your help!’ But, Mrs. Moore never ended her letters to Mrs. Howlett, not for as long as she lived. Mrs. Howlett, in fact, had written to Mrs. Moore a few years ago. A lord, only signing his letter off as Lord K, had requested Mrs. Howlett’s hand in marriage, for, as he put it, she had been widowed far too long at far too young of an age - as she was only twenty and six at her widowhood. Lord K had promised her a simple life away from the ocean – Mrs. Howlett hated the ocean, as the petulant waves did not agree with her sleeping schedule, nor did it make caring for her late husband's manor any easier – in the plains, where she would be free to free to race him on horseback and practice her embroidery. However, Mrs. Howlett’s letter ended with her announcing to her sister that she had crumpled up Lord K’s message, tossing it into the sickly-smelling ocean, which made Mrs. Moore quite upset.

 

Mrs. Moore had even invited Mrs. Howlett to live in town with them, as the Nealy family had recently moved further south to care for Mrs. Nealy’s ailing mother. ‘Katherine,’ she wrote ‘It’s only two hundred and fifty marks, and quite quaint – surely you would bring your entourage of maids and butlers and handmaidens.’ But, Mrs. Howlett did not respond to that letter either, only sending the five hundred coins of allowance. Mrs. Moore pleaded with Mr. Moore to let her visit her dear sister in the west, to convince her to come back – and, to Mr. Moore’s credit, he agreed. Unfortunately, Mrs. Moore got terribly sick the night she was set to leave, and Mr. Moore, ever so superstitious, canceled the trip, taking Mrs. Moore’s sickness as a ‘bad omen’ from God himself.

 

That skinny, horse-faced woman rushed into the morning room, fondling the wooden cross that hung around that thin neck of hers. Mrs. Moore would always tell Mr. Moore – when Dorothea was not in earshot – that the young girl should fatten up a bit: ‘For her head shall fall off if she continues to only eat bread and drink milk!’

 

‘Mrs. Moore,’ Dorothea whispered, ‘someone is asking for you at the door.’

 

And so, Mrs. Moore had called for Mr. Moore, as she believed it to be rude to answer the door only by herself, something Mr. Moore found quite odd. Dorothea stood by their flank, warning them that the woman looked quite torn, and may as well have been a beggar hobbling around town, asking for marks from the gentry. Yet, as Mrs. Moore opened the door, letting the morning air barge in and bite the bottom of her legs, she stopped, staring cautiously at the woman in front of her: a hollow, lanky woman with dark, sunken eyes, a dirtied black chemise and untamed, hair the shade of tree bark. The three members of the Moore household stood there, silently, as the woman stared at Mrs. Moore, gripping a painting – which looked to be of a man with wealth. Behind her, a simple, purple-black carriage, led by two speckled horses, proudly stood in front of the Moore house. Mrs. Moore faintly remembered a similar carriage, carrying her sister off to the west after the festivities of her wedding had ended.