Anne Charlston’s Diary, undated.

Dear Mother,

I write in this diary but really I write to you. I have written to Richard but cannot know if my words, my heart expressed through words, will have any effect upon his calcifying heart. And what is a sister in love but a nuisance? But, still, I told him of my love for George and now I tell you, hoping you will smile from heaven in sympathy.
Oh, if only I had pleaded with you when you were alive to let me know how to be in love, how to navigate its dense foliage while still keeping our hair and body free of visible debris – an overexcited posture, a bead of eager sweat, a lazy lock of hair - and how to breath as we once did in that ancient time before ”he” came into our life. You should see him mother. The draft makes dance the fringe sliding gracefully across his forehead. His eyes glisten when the candles flicker; perhaps all eyes do this but I hadn’t noticed before now. His eyes are green mother, can you believe it! It’s like something from an old romance!
I’ve seen him in armor - such does my mind arm him. Perhaps I wish to harden his exterior for he has a softness that makes it all too easy to imagine myself cradled within his gentle grasp, and as a knight errant he could dispel the curse that plagues this house and whisk me away to... Oh what nonsense I write sometimes! Fantasy upon farce! I torture myself with dreams that could not even exist if the sun were to allow it. I should not...