Chapter 1 #2
“Well then.” Elizabeth smiled, hoping to coax an answering expression from that young, anxious countenance. “I am Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn in Hertfordshire, and this is Mrs. Morgan, of Ramsgate. There. Now we are not strangers.”
Mrs. Morgan gave a slight curtsy that somehow conveyed both proper respect and complete disapproval.
The girl stared at them for a long moment. Then, slowly, something that might have been the ghost of a smile touched her lips.
“Miss Darcy,” she said. “Of Pemberley.”
Elizabeth inclined her head. She had never heard of Pemberley, but from the manner in which Miss Darcy spoke the name, she suspected many people did.
“I am honoured to make your acquaintance, Miss Darcy of Pemberley. And I am doubly honoured that you have condescended to stand in a Ramsgate gale to speak with me.”
Mrs. Morgan hesitated, then said what had evidently been on her mind. “You ought to be wearing a warmer pelisse. That scrap of blue silk is fit only for sitting near a drawing room fire. Surely you have something more suitable?”
Miss Darcy did not speak. A flush crept up her neck.
“Will you not fetch Mrs. Younge and join us at the tea shop, Miss Darcy?” Elizabeth asked. “I promise we shall not talk of anything more improper than novels and seals.”
For one unguarded instant, yearning flickered nakedly across Miss Darcy’s face. “I should like that, but I ought not,” she said. “Mrs. Younge expects me back at the house. She does not approve of my lingering.”
“Mrs. Younge sounds like a woman who has never been thoroughly converted to chocolate,” Elizabeth said. “I cannot help but regard that as a moral failing.”
That earned a breath of a laugh. “She says chocolate is an unnecessary indulgence.”
“Then she has been drinking the wrong sort,” Mrs. Morgan remarked. “Good chocolate makes one steady. Bad chocolate makes one sick. Like husbands.”
“Mrs. Morgan,” Elizabeth protested, though she could not entirely suppress her own amusement.
“I shall tell my brother I met you,” Miss Darcy said, seizing upon a safer topic. “He is to arrive soon.” Her gloved hands twisted together. “He is the best brother in the whole of England, and he will be pleased to know that I have made an acquaintance.”
Elizabeth suspected that pleased might not be all that Mr. Darcy would feel when he heard his sister had struck up an acquaintance with a stranger on a public promenade.
She wondered what sort of man could command such devotion from so gentle a creature, whether he was the excellent brother Miss Darcy claimed, or merely the sort who confused provision with attention.
“I hope you are correct,” she said. “And if he is not pleased, you may tell him that Miss Bennet is quite determined to steal some of his sister’s morning hours, with or without his approbation. ”
Miss Darcy’s eyes shone. “You are very good.”
“I am selfish,” Elizabeth corrected. “I have been given a prescription for sea air and exercise and am greedy enough to wish for company as well. It is a tedious thing, being so virtuous alone.”
“You are not alone,” Mrs. Morgan said.
Elizabeth smiled. “Do you see the reach of my avarice, Miss Darcy? I already have the company of Mrs. Morgan, and yet still I desire more.”
“Then I shall do my best to accommodate,” Miss Darcy replied, a bit of playfulness lightening her countenance. “For I too would wish for more company.”
A sharp rap sounded against the glass of the nearest window.
All three ladies turned. A woman stood inside the house, her features distorted by the pane but her displeasure unmistakable.
Elizabeth could see the rigid line of Mrs. Younge’s mouth, and the imperious tilt of her head as she tossed a shawl around her shoulders and turned away.
The door to the house opened. Miss Darcy flinched, and the small, involuntary movement sent a prickle down Elizabeth’s spine.
Mrs. Younge stepped out. “Miss Darcy.” The woman’s voice was perfectly pleasant and carried beautifully in the sea air. “You will catch your death out here. Come inside at once if you please.” The words were all solicitude, but Miss Darcy seemed to hear in them something . . . less amiable.
“I must go,” she whispered. “It was very wrong of me to linger. Mrs. Younge will be . . . She does not like that I come out alone to view the sea.”
“Then we must not make you wretched on our account,” Mrs. Morgan said briskly. “Go along with you, child. We shall manage to drink chocolate without you, though it will taste the poorer for the want of your company.”
Miss Darcy hesitated. Then, with evident effort, she dipped another curtsy. “Good morning, Miss Bennet. Mrs. Morgan.”
“Tomorrow,” Elizabeth said quietly. “We stroll each morning before breakfast.”
Mrs. Morgan’s eyebrows lifted, but she said nothing to contradict Elizabeth’s statement.
Miss Darcy almost smiled. “Tomorrow,” she echoed, so softly that Elizabeth could only just hear it.
They watched her hurry back towards the house. Mrs. Younge stepped aside to allow her entrance and closed the door behind them.
“That,” Mrs. Morgan said, “is a girl in a cage.”
“Her brother has given her a summer by the sea and a companion to escort her,” Elizabeth said slowly. “He would likely be offended to hear his arrangements described as a cage.”
“Men rarely recognise cages so long as they are the ones who ordered them built.” Mrs. Morgan set off towards the town with a determined step.
“Come. If we do not arrive at the tea shop soon, you will be obliged to lean upon me the whole way home, and my knees cannot bear the strain. And you will have tea, not chocolate. I do not wish to aggravate your cough.”
Elizabeth fell into step beside Mrs. Morgan. Her legs had begun to ache, and the familiar heaviness was settling into her chest. Yet for the first time in months, her mind was occupied with something other than her own recovery.
Elizabeth looked back, not to the promenade, but to the house. One of the upper blinds moved, as if a hand had released it too quickly.
Tomorrow, she thought. She would come again tomorrow.