Chapter Fifteen #3
through Miss Darcy’s thin dress made Caroline feel as if they were actually touching. Neither conclusion made her feel entirely
comfortable, but she couldn’t summon enough energy to move away.
“You asked why I never told you about Wickham before.” Georgiana hesitated, staring upwards into the leafy branches of the
oak tree. A single insubstantial cloud crawled overhead, as if hoping the blazing sunshine would not notice its progress across
the sky. “We have been acquainted for three years, but we were not truly friends before.”
This was news to Caroline. “Weren’t we?”
“I mean, we are, now,” Georgiana said, turning her head to study Caroline.
“I suppose I am simply slower to open up than most. Besides, I could not be certain how you might react to something like this, so I was loath to mention it. You see, I had a former friend who had deduced a little of the affair. After it was over, she cut me in the street when next we saw each other. And she did not know the half of it.”
“How perfectly awful,” Caroline declared, outraged. “What kind of cut?”
“Excuse me?”
“What kind of cut?” she repeated.
Georgiana frowned at her. “Does it matter?”
“It may be of no consequence, I was just curious.” Caroline shrugged. “There are four main cuts, you know, and each one is
intended to impart a specific meaning. Clearly you have not been cut much, or have seen them done, or you would know each
of them very well indeed.”
Georgiana made no reply to this.
“Shall I tell you what they are?” she persisted.
Miss Darcy sighed. “I see that the explanation has been forced upon me from the start. Is there any escape?”
“No,” Caroline said bluntly. “Not unless you run.”
“In this dress,” Georgiana said, gesturing down at the pale yellow silk which only just kept her ample bosom in check, and
which was hemmed more tightly than her usual gowns, “you would catch me in mere seconds.”
Caroline did her best not to look in the direction of Georgiana’s gesture. She’d been doing so well today, with only a few
stolen glances at her friend’s curves, and even those had really been in admiration for the dress, hadn’t they? “Precisely.”
“Go on, then. Explain it to me.”
“Well,” said Caroline, wriggling until she felt herself in the most comfortable position possible, which required her right foot to be resting against Georgiana’s in a purely platonic fashion, “there are four cuts.”
“Upon my soul,” Georgiana exclaimed, “are so many ways required to convey a person’s displeasure?”
“Those are limitless, I am sure, but a cut is a very specific glance. One may simply look in another direction and pretend
not to see an acquaintance—that is the cut indirect, which, to me, seems like the most cowardly. Then there is the cut direct,
in which you look at a person’s face but remain blank, as if they were nothing but a mere stranger to you. The cut infernal
involves gazing down at the ground, perhaps adjusting your boot or admiring a cobblestone, until your acquaintance has gone
past. And then there is the cut sublime, in which one raises one’s eyes heavenwards.”
“I see. It seems an awful lot of weight to place upon a simple movement of the eyes.”
“Many a simple act conveys a complex behaviour, does it not?”
“I suppose you are right.” Georgiana sat up, picked a daisy which was only inches from her nose, then another, and began to
fashion a chain. Caroline had not done such a thing since she was a girl, and she watched with fascination at the careful
preparation: the application of thumbnail to stalk, creating a slit through which the next stalk might pass, and the selection
of only those daisies with petals tinged pink at the edges. Georgiana carried out the process with as much care and concentration
as any jeweller. “She gave me the cut sublime. A shame, when it is the nicest sounding of the four.”
“True,” Caroline agreed. “One usually only hears the term sublime in a positive context otherwise. How could something heavenly be otherwise?”
“Is there an opposite of a cut?” Georgiana paused, the daisy chain hanging limply from her hands. “For instance, four ways
to look at someone to indicate pleasure. Is there no opposite for each cut?”
“Not that I have heard.” Caroline pushed herself up on one elbow. “How would one perform the opposite of a cut sublime, for
instance?”
“I am not sure. Perhaps one would have to look deeply into another’s eyes and expect to see heaven there?” Georgiana finished
her chain, and leaned forward, looping it carefully around Caroline’s neck. Instead of pulling back, she brought her fingers
to Caroline’s chin, tipping it up gently and gazing into her eyes. “Like so.”
Caroline’s reply died on her tongue. All she could feel were the pads of Georgiana’s fingertips, warm on the underside of
her jaw, and all she could see were two dark pools, reflecting her own image back in miniature. Georgiana made to withdraw
her hand but Caroline, hardly knowing what she was doing, grasped it and kept it there. Georgiana’s eyes widened, a light
blush spreading across her cheeks. She had tiny freckles on the very tops of her cheekbones, and Caroline’s fingers twitched
with the impulse to acknowledge each and every one. Instead, she stared back, willing her voice to stay calm. “You deserve
so much more.”
“Than what?”
She hadn’t really thought that far ahead. “I . . . I don’t know. I only know that you deserve someone who sees you for who
you really are in all your glory.”
“Thank you.” Georgiana’s breath ghosted over her lips, warm and sweet, and Caroline swallowed hard as her vision blurred. Was it just her imagination or was Georgiana leaning closer?
Before she could wonder what to do—her body screaming at her to do nothing, something, or a nonsensical combination of the
two—a bird squawked loudly in the branches above, making them both jump. “Shall we return to the house?” Miss Darcy said,
smiling in amusement. “Lest another bird should frighten us both out of our wits?”
Caroline agreed, though her heart was still pounding. While they packed up the picnic, Georgiana chattered away, seemingly
unaffected by the incident, but Caroline could think of nothing else on the way back to the house. For a moment, she’d thought
that Georgiana truly looked like she wanted to kiss her. And for a moment . . .
Caroline had wanted that, too.