The Zephyr

EPILOGUE

M rs Kingston travelled with her housekeeper, Mrs Martin, to Brighton, where she leased a neat little apartment that had a window overlooking a lane that led straight to the sea wall. Her letters were increasingly carefree. She had made a few friends, she had learnt to net purses, and she had worked upon her understanding of French. Her pronunciation, she confessed, was unlikely to improve any time soon. She also had a little gig and pony, and she wrote she had emulated her very good friend Mrs Darcy by driving anywhere she pleased.

Of those of us intimately involved with that lady, my sister Mary became closest to her. It came as no surprise that after many regular visits to Brighton, Mary left Longbourn and took up her residence there. She had, she admitted, come to appreciate a spinsterish life without the encumbrances of duties which must interfere with her painting. Brighton was too full of scenes to ever bore her, and her friend Maria, she confessed, was a most restful companion .

“I am surprised your mother allowed her to go,” Mr Darcy remarked after I read my sister’s letter at breakfast.