Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Miss Darcy was there again the next morning. And the next. Today, Elizabeth saw her from the top of the promenade, her blue pelisse exchanged for a warmer one in rose, turned not towards the sea but towards the path. Waiting for them.
“There she is,” Mrs. Morgan said with satisfaction.
“Oh dear. I ought to have dressed sooner.”
“You ought to have eaten something. I shall not be held responsible when you faint on the promenade and I am obliged to drag you home by your ankles.”
“You would never drag me by my ankles. You would hire someone.”
“I would hire two someones. You are heavier than you look.”
Elizabeth laughed quietly. As they drew near, Miss Darcy’s shoulders dropped half an inch and she took a step forward to join them. “Mrs. Younge has stepped out this morning, and will not be back until nearly ten,” she informed them.
Mrs. Morgan walked on Miss Darcy’s other side and said very little, which was its own form of kindness.
They walked together for the better part of an hour, the three of them.
Elizabeth spoke of a gull she had seen steal a biscuit from an unsuspecting gentleman’s hand, about the treasures she found when the tide was out, about the seals.
Miss Darcy listened with rapt attention, offering an occasional observation of her own.
“And what shall you do with the rest of your morning?” Miss Darcy asked as they returned to her house.
“I thought I might visit the lending library in the High Street. Mrs. Morgan tells me it is quite good, though she has strong opinions about its proprietor’s taste in novels.”
“The woman recommended Camilla to me last autumn,” Mrs. Morgan said. “All five volumes. I shall never forgive her.”
They had strolled for an hour and were approaching Miss Darcy’s house when a voice carried towards them.
“Miss Darcy.”
Mrs. Younge stood at the gate, her expression one of pleasant concern that did not quite mask its opposite. “I did not know you had gone out. Will you introduce me to your friends?”
Elizabeth watched the girl’s shoulders draw together, watched the small bright thing that had been growing over the past hour fold itself away. She performed the introductions, and Elizabeth played her role well.
Mrs. Younge’s gaze moved over her with the swift, appraising attention of a woman taking measurements.
Elizabeth could guess what she saw: a gentleman’s daughter of no consequence, in a shawl that had seen better days, leaning slightly on Mrs. Morgan’s arm.
The tight line of Mrs. Younge’s mouth eased.
She smiled, and the smile was worse than the displeasure had been; it meant Elizabeth had been assessed and dismissed.
“How kind of you to walk with Miss Darcy,” Mrs. Younge said. “She does enjoy your company.”
The emphasis landed lightly on enjoy, as though enjoyment was something for which Miss Darcy required permission and had not received.
“I must go,” the girl said. “Thank you for the walk.” She hesitated. “It was very pleasant.”
“For us as well,” Elizabeth replied.
Miss Darcy curtsyed, turned, and walked back towards Mrs. Younge. The door closed behind them.
“Come,” Mrs. Morgan said, after a moment. “Breakfast.”
It was later that morning, after Mrs. Morgan had declared her intention to remain at the lodgings with a plate of kippers and a novel she would not name, that Elizabeth found herself walking the short distance to the lending library with their maid.
The library was small and cheerfully disordered, its shelves crammed with books in varying conditions. Elizabeth was halfway down the first aisle when she heard a voice she recognised.
“Miss Bennet?”
Miss Darcy stood at the far end of the shelf, a book already in her hands. A liveried footman waited near the door. Of Mrs. Younge, there was no sign.
“Miss Darcy.” Elizabeth could not help her smile. “What a happy accident.”
“It is not entirely an accident,” Miss Darcy confessed, colour rising in her cheeks.
“I asked Mrs. Younge if I might visit the library this morning. She had an errand at another shop and said I might come here with Thomas while she attended to it.” Her voice dropped.
“She does not know you are here. I did not tell her. I was not certain you would be here, but you mentioned it this morning and I thought I might at least leave you a note.”
There was something in the way she said it, the small, unguarded hope beneath the careful words, that made Elizabeth’s throat tighten. It was such a small act of defiance, and it had cost Miss Darcy so much courage.
“Well,” Elizabeth said, keeping her voice light because lightness was what her young friend needed, “I am here. And I see you have already found something. What is it?”
Miss Darcy held up the volume. “Evelina.” She pressed the book to her chest. “I have read it twice. I know I ought to read something new, but I cannot help myself. Do you know it?”
“I know it well. Miss Burney is a genius.”
“She is.” The words were spoken with significant emphasis, and Miss Darcy coloured, surprised by her own enthusiasm. “That is . . . I think she understands what it is like to be young and uncertain in a world that was not designed for girls who have not yet learned all the rules.”
Elizabeth had loved Evelina for its wit, its sharp observations, its heroine’s stubborn refusal to be defeated by the world’s cruelties. She had not expected to hear that Miss Darcy loved it as a mirror for her own bewilderment.
“I think Miss Burney understood it precisely,” Elizabeth said carefully, catching Miss Darcy’s gaze and holding it.
“The world is full of people who will tell you what to think and how to feel and what you ought to want. Evelina’s great gift is that she listens to all of them and then makes up her own mind. ”
Miss Darcy looked at her with an expression that was almost fierce. “Yes. That is it exactly. Mrs. Younge says that novels give young women improper ideas. She quotes Dr. Fordyce. She says that a young woman’s mind ought to be cultivated for the purpose of marriage.”
Marriage? Miss Darcy appeared rather young to be considering marriage. Elizabeth paused, considering. What she wished to say would require her full attention.
“I have read Dr. Fordyce,” she said slowly.
“And I will confess that I find his sermons rather more suited to the decoration of a shelf than the education of a mind. A woman who cultivates herself merely to be an ornament for others has been cheated. Ornaments do not think. They sit upon a mantelpiece looking pretty until someone breaks them, and then they are swept up and replaced.” She met Miss Darcy’s eyes.
“You are not an ornament, Miss Darcy. You are a thinking, feeling creature, who must have some say in her own life.”
And then Miss Darcy laughed.
It was not a polite laugh. It was sudden and bright and startled, as though it had escaped before she could catch it. For one unguarded moment, she looked like the girl she must have been before whatever had happened to make her so afraid. She looked open and delighted and young.
“I shall tell Mrs. Younge you said that,” Miss Darcy said, still breathless. “About the ornaments. No—I shall not. I should never be allowed to see you again.”
“Then we shall keep it as our private opinion. Miss Burney would approve.”
“Miss Burney would applaud.”
The laughter faded, but something had changed between them. A door that had been inching open for the past four days had swung wide, and Miss Darcy was standing in the threshold, deciding whether to step through.
Miss Darcy reached into her reticule and withdrew a folded slip of paper. “I should like to give you my direction. My brother’s direction, that is, in London. So that we might write to one another. If you wish.”
Elizabeth took the paper. Miss G. Darcy, No. 24 Upper Brook Street, Bereford House, London. She looked up.
“Of course I wish it. But Miss Darcy—”
“I may not be in Ramsgate much longer. I want you to have it. In case.”
Elizabeth leaned forward, alarmed. “In case of what?”
Miss Darcy opened her mouth. Her eyes were bright with something that might have been tears or might have been the desperate courage of a girl about to confess something enormous. She drew a breath.
“Miss Darcy.”
Elizabeth froze, then slipped the paper into her book and turned around.
Mrs. Younge stood at the end of the aisle.
She had entered without sound, or perhaps the bell above the door had rung and neither of them had heard it. Mrs. Younge’s expression was one of mild inquiry, as though she had merely come to see whether her charge had found anything worth borrowing.
Whatever Miss Darcy had been about to say retreated behind her eyes.
“Mrs. Younge.” Miss Darcy’s voice was steady, but her colour had gone. “Miss Bennet is here.”
“So I see.”
“We were just discussing Evelina.”
“How improving.” Mrs. Younge smiled. “But we ought to return to the house. You have your music to practise.”
Miss Darcy collected her things, curtsyed, and followed Mrs. Younge to the door.
The bell chimed. The door closed. Elizabeth sat in a chair by the window and stared at their backs as they walked away.
She opened her book to look at Miss Darcy’s direction, nestled there like a secret.
The morning walks continued.
Miss Darcy continued to join them each morning on the promenade, but she was no longer alone.
Mrs. Younge came with her, walking behind with Mrs. Morgan while Elizabeth and Miss Darcy walked a few paces ahead.
The arrangement had the appearance of four women enjoying the sea air together, but the picture was a facade.
Mrs. Younge had evidently made her enquiries about Miss Bennet of Hertfordshire and concluded again that Elizabeth was harmless. But Elizabeth could not say the same for her conclusions about Mrs. Younge.