I think I shan’t write to you again, Bethie. I’m leaving this home where for so long I have lived so quietly with Mother and Father and your memory, and going to a different place, to start a busy new life whose activities will leave me little time for writing letters to you. But don’t think, dearie, that I’ve forgotten you or ever will, even for an hour. Death cannot part us, for our love can never die, and nor can my changing home, for I feel your presence always watching over me, and wherever I go, I know you are there. Dear, such an adventure as I am embarking on in my life with Fritz! But please know that, no matter what happens to me from now on, no matter what joys or sorrows befall, no matter where my life takes me, or how many years of it may be given to me to live, I will take you with me, in my heart, always.
With love, dearest Bethie, from,
Jo.
On the Tuesday before the wedding, Emma telephoned Sophie, who was still working at Fulla Beanz.
“Mom says Aunt Amy got in safely,” she said. “I’m summoned for tea on Thursday, three sharp at the Ritz. Has she been in touch with you about this Marcus person?”
“He’s taking us to lunch tomorrow,” said Sophie. “At the Ivy. Or maybe Aunt Amy’s taking us, anyway, we’re going, which is quite exciting, isn’t it? I’ve never been to the Ivy. We’re having a fashion show tonight at the flat to decide what I’m going to wear, do you want to come? There’ll be Lulu and Liam and Charlie and Javier, so you could be the carrying vote in case of a tie.”
“I’m a little bit busy this week,” said Emma, “since I’m getting married at the end of it. But thanks for thinking of me anyway. Sophie, what do you know about Marcus Wickham?”
“Ohhhh …” Sophie drew a breath. “Only that he’s the best artistic director in the entire history of the theater. He did the Hamlet that Aunt Amy got to see and I didn’t, and the awesome Pygmalion a couple of years ago, which I did see and I’ll never forget—I’d love, love to do Eliza Doolittle—and of course there was all that amazing stuff he did in the eighties and the nineties, and he’s won three Tonys and a shedload of Laurence Oliviers, and he pretty much single-handedly discovered Alice Weathers while she was still at RADA, and Vanessa Redgrave once said he was one of the three most intelligent theatrical directors she’d ever worked with. Stuff like that, you know?”
“Okay,” said Emma. “But what do you know about him personally?”
“Well.” Sophie thought. “He was born in London, but his family moved to Dorset when he was a child. He’s quite posh, went to Harrow and Cambridge, and then sort of dropped out to be a fashion photographer, of all things, in the seventies, but he says that’s been good training for when he finally did find the theater because it’s given him a visual sense. He lives in a flat just off St. Martin’s Lane and walks to work every day. He’s good friends with Emma Thompson and Ian McKellen, and pretty friendly with Kevin Spacey, too, although they pretend not to like each other but everyone knows that’s just for publicity. He—”