Forever and Forever (Historical Proper Romance) (32 page)

He and Sumner had met Charles Dickens a few months earlier, and the three of them got on very well. It was incredibly flattering to Henry to be accepted by a man who was known to select his friends with care.

Henry doubted Dickens had thought he would be intrigued when he said that what Henry needed was to spend enough time bathing in a convent on the Rhine that he became web-footed; but the idea hadn’t left his mind. A logical man like Sumner would find it difficult to put any stock in something of this nature, but that was why Henry had requested they meet, so he could adequately explain the situation. No one understood the level of desperation Henry felt to find healing for his body and his mind, both of which seemed to be failing him.

“It is called the Water Cure and consists of taking baths and tonics of water with a high mineral content. It’s supplemented with gentle country walks, a minimal diet, and a great deal of rest.”

“It sounds like horse dung,” Sumner said forcefully. A few people at the nearby tables looked their way. Henry would have been embarrassed if he had not anticipated this very reaction. He remained quiet and Sumner continued. “They are charging you a pretty penny for it, I’d wager, and you will be cut off from all who love you and forced to follow a regimen that may very well make your health worse, not better. They probably mix whiskey with the water and tell you it’s minerals. You’ll be stuck in some ruin of a building and catch your death.”

Henry smiled even as Sumner’s scowl deepened. “Oh, my dearest friend, how I shall miss you.”

Sumner huffed. “You are going then.”

“I have decided.” Henry looked at his thin hand holding his glass. He was desperate. For months he had been losing weight, suffering headaches, skin discomfort, and insomnia. There had to be relief for him in Europe, there had to be. “And I am eager to go. I need a new place, a new sky to look upon, new thoughts in this soggy brain of mine. This most recent black mood has not broken except for a few days of light here and there, but I never find the restitution I need. I don’t sleep, I barely eat, and I find myself in front of my students with my mind blank. I cannot write, I cannot focus on happy things nor believe they exist. I find myself thinking that perhaps death would be a haven and that frightens me.”

Sumner’s expression relaxed into acceptance, telling Henry that his honesty was not misplaced.

“I am trying, Sumner. I swear I am trying to rise above this, but I cannot seem to keep the air in my lungs, and I fear that one day I shall just stop breathing all together. I am desperate for relief, and I feel this might be my only chance.”

“And Miss Appleton? Are you not simply running from her?”

“Yes, I am running from her,” Henry said, looking at the tabletop, waiting for a reaction at hearing her name. It came, but it was as muted as was every other thing that had once brought passionate energy to his mind. “But not simply her. I am running from all of it, school and writing and associations and responsibility, in hopes that I shall return prepared to see things for their true color and shape—things that are lost to me within the bleakness of my thoughts.”

“You are certain you cannot find solace here?” Sumner leaned forward. “Perhaps a trip to the south? The coastal towns there are very fine—you could drink the waters there.”

“I am going to Germany,” Henry said. “I must tell you that when I received the administration’s letter approving my leave, I felt more lifted than I have in a long time. It was as though the clouds parted and a voice said ‘This is hope.’”

“Are you expecting to come home cured enough that Miss Appleton will see a new man?”

Henry shook his head, not surprised that Sumner had looped back to that topic. Sumner had seen Henry suffer for want of Fanny for many years and was particularly irritated by it.

“I am hoping to return home free of the hold she has upon me.” He lifted his glass and swirled the wine within it until it created a small tornado of red liquid. “I know she is lost to me, Sumner, and that she was never truly mine for the asking. I know it in here”—he tapped his free hand against his head—“but my heart won’t yet accept it. I cannot survive with my mind and heart so separated. I go to Germany with the belief that I can connect my head to my heart once again and exorcise Fanny Appleton from both of them completely. It is my intention to return home a new man, free of Fanny, free of the fantasy that has hung like a millstone around my neck all these years. I want a family, I want a woman to love and who will love me back, and I am running out of time. I must separate Fanny from that expectation, and I feel sure that Germany is where that will happen.”

Sumner took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “Then I shall wish you well. I want you to know how greatly you shall be missed. You are my dearest friend, Longfellow, the best I have ever had. I shall count the days until your return, and while I will sorrow for myself, I wish you the treasure of your health and, above all, hope you will be happy.”

Henry blinked back tears, surprised at the depth of feeling from this man who appeared so hard on the outside. He reached across the table and Sumner took his hand in a symbolic embrace. “Without the love and support of my friends, Sumner, I would not have made it so well and so long. I thank you from the depth of my soul for your faith and your care.”

“God speed to you,” Sumner whispered, his own eyes glassy. “Find that happiness. Be well.”

Thirty-Four

New Life

Henry trudged up the hillside, sketchbook in hand, lungs heaving, and muscles burning until he reached the crest which afforded a view of the smoking chimneys and bell towers of Marienberg, the village just outside the convent where he had been taking the Water Cure since June.

Am I cured?
he wondered, and then smiled at the paper in his hand. Three months ago he was not writing, and now he was. He had gained back some of the weight he’d lost, and his sleep and digestive struggles had evened out. He walked for hours every day without pain in his joints, and his headaches were far less frequent than they had been. Though he was hesitant to proclaim himself completely cured, he had not felt this good in years.

He settled himself on the hillside and let the color and shapes of the view surround him. The landscape was beautiful: quaint, rustic, and free. After months of baths, drinks, bland food, and long walks, he had come to realize that while he may never be
cured
of what distressed him, he
could
rise above it.

Here in Marienberg there was no one to complain to and, after looking around at the company he shared his time with, he realized many people suffered from ailments of every kind, making him oddly grateful for his own. Some of the residents were in far greater distress than he, dealing with all manner of physical and psychological impairments that tugged at Henry’s sympathy. Some seemed to regard their time at the convent as an excuse to be idle, and yet others seemed to enjoy the attention, often making up new ailments and complaints, then watching with bright eyes the way their attendants rallied around them.

Henry was unsure which category he would place himself in, but he knew one thing—he had more power over his moods than he had thought. What’s more, he’d come to take a certain comfort in his ability to feel things so deeply. Perhaps because his mind could go to dark places, he had the perception and ability to recreate such ethereal concepts in his writing. Perhaps his weakness was also his strength.

He had even come to terms with Fanny and the role she played in his life. He loved her and accepted that he would love her all the days of his life, but he would never have her. Not the way he wanted, not the way he hoped.

There was something in his mind, some pull toward depression that had brought him to the depths of despair on many occasions. In those moments, he often wondered if death was the only respite he could hope for, the only relief at hand. Each time, however, when he was dragging upon the seabed of his misery, thoughts of Fanny and a flame of hope would bring him to the surface again. One more day. One more month. One more chance to be in her company and feel the light she brought into a room even when he knew she was angry with him.

That light had been enough—so many times it had been enough—that he could acknowledge her influence in keeping him from the ultimate despair. Without the hope that one day she would love him back, he would have had no purpose. God’s ways were most certainly mysterious, and Henry could not pretend to know all the reasons why Fanny was so important to him, but he felt certain she had given him reason to live when he could find no other.

But now he would move on. Now that he better understood his mind and its limitations, he would find other reasons to live. Other sonnets to sing and other purposes to fulfill. Fanny had played her part, and he would always love her for that, but he would no longer put aside all other beauty for the sake of wanting to capture hers.

Another thing had become clear to him these last months, creating a new confidence within him that was exciting. Henry was not a writer—he was a
poet.
The beauty of words seduced him, and the ability to choose the right one with the right tone and structure to express what he wanted to say with absolute perfection was both a gift and a salvation. He had begun writing again, prose within his journal and poetry within the pages of his sketchbook, and the words had become living things. Creations all his own. He did not think of any audience but himself and his God, whom he felt more clearly than he had before. He felt sure that He was pleased with Henry’s work so far.

Early on his way to the Rhine, Henry had the chance to spend more time with Charles Dickens in London, and he had felt ignited—as much as he could, given the state he had been in—by the social awareness that Dickens wore like a second skin. Dickens told stories with great teachings disguised within his characters. But not so disguised as not to be recognized. His position had not made him popular with everyone, and yet he did not allow the people’s opinion to dissuade him. Dickens had said he believed that God had given him permission to preach within the pages of his books, but to the denomination of humanity rather than any one sect.

Henry had found Dickens’s determination inspiring then, but as the days and weeks had turned brighter, he had found even greater value. That same devotion had come alive in Henry, and the light had poured out from his pencil in the form of new work, different work—work that would be hated by some and raised like a banner by others.

Henry’s time in Germany was coming to an end, and he was determined to do all he could to secure the foundation he planned to stand upon once he returned to Boston. Not broken, decrepit, and nursing his wounds, but confident, determined, and willing to accept the fullness of the thing that had been so far away for so long—himself.

Henry lifted his gaze to take in the view around him and then wrote the date on the top of the page. The words had been marching through his mind for days, waiting for him to write them down. He could feel the eagerness of the pencil in his hand to birth this idea and give it wings.
Mezzo Cammin
was part of the first line of
The Divine Comedy,
but it was fitting since he was at his own midpoint—“Mezzo” meaning middle—not only in years, but in regard to the change that had taken place. That “Cammin” was a city in Germany was equally fitting for the tribute he was eager to pour upon the paper from the beautiful perch above the city.

He was not sure the poem would be something he would share, but he needed to write it. He needed to mark this point in his life.

Half of my life is gone, and I have let
The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
The aspirations of my youth, to build
Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor fret
Of restless passions that would not be stilled,
But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—
A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—
And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.