15. Elizabeth’s Astute Observation #2
“She’s an avowed spinster who makes it her business to be both well-informed and well-read.
She has sources throughout the county—servants, mostly, and a network of spinster aunts who correspond about nothing but other people’s affairs.
” Prue’s tone was dry but not unkind. “She is not malicious, precisely. She simply believes that knowledge is a form of currency, and she prefers to be wealthy.”
“And what does Miss Entwhistle say about me?” Elizabeth asked, both curious and slightly apprehensive.
Prue’s smile was quick and knowing. “That you are either the cleverest fortune hunter in England or the most unlikely love match of the decade. Opinion is decidedly divided.”
“And which do you believe?”
“Neither.” Prue met her gaze with the directness Elizabeth was coming to appreciate.
“I believe you are a woman of considerable intelligence who found herself in circumstances that required a practical solution, and that you and Mr. Darcy are both too sensible to pretend otherwise. But I also believe that practicality and affection are not mutually exclusive.”
It was, Elizabeth thought, a disconcertingly accurate assessment from a woman she had known not even a fortnight. Prue Duntze saw with unsettling clarity, which was either reassuring or alarming, depending on what one preferred to keep hidden.
“You are perceptive,” Elizabeth said.
“I am a rector’s daughter with literary ambitions and no fortune. Perception is the only advantage I possess.” Prue shrugged, but her eyes were warm. “I mean no intrusion, Mrs. Darcy. Only observation.”
“Elizabeth. If we are to be friends—and I hope we are—you must call me Elizabeth.”
Prue’s smile widened. “Then you must call me Prue. And yes, I believe we shall be friends. You have the sort of wit I have been missing since my sister married and moved to Shropshire.”
“You have a sister?”
“Had. She abandoned me for a wool merchant with excellent teeth and a house in Ludlow.” Prue’s tone was affectionately aggrieved. “I shall never forgive her, though I visit twice a year and find her disgustingly content.”
Georgiana, who had been trailing slightly behind and examining wildflowers, bounded forward to insert herself into the conversation.
“Elizabeth has four sisters! Can you imagine? I have always wished for a sister. Brothers are all very well, but they cannot discuss novels properly, and they become dreadfully stuffy when they grow up.”
“Surely your brother cannot be so stuffy if he whistles at breakfast,” Elizabeth said. “And his smiles are the more precious if bestowed so infrequently.”
“You are in love with him,” Georgiana supplied with a glint in her eye.
“Oh, sister, I feared the grand love story was unrequited for far too long. Fitzwilliam appeared to have suffered quite a reversal a few years back—all melancholy and dark secrets. So much that he sent me away to finishing school. I keep waiting for him to reveal some devastating secret from his past.”
“Miss Darcy, real-life gentlemen are far duller than those in Gothics,” Prue reminded. “Your brother was most likely preoccupied over the crop failure of ’09—the year it rained so much the fields turned into swamps.”
Elizabeth felt a small chill despite the mild morning. Surely, Georgiana’s complaint about Darcy’s lack of romantic drama did not signify a devastating secret other than in her imagination.
“Perhaps your brother saves his secrets for later revelation,” she said lightly. “The most effective Gothic heroes do not show their hands too early.”
“Exactly, Lady Fenwick’s heroes wait too late, sometimes with tragic results,” Georgiana brightened. “Perhaps you shall unlock his mysteries, Elizabeth. You are precisely the sort of heroine who would.”
“I am not certain I am heroine material.”
“Nonsense. You have dark eyes and considerable wit and a past shadowed by unnamed troubles.” Georgiana ticked these qualities off on her fingers as though compiling a checklist. “You are perfect heroine material. Lady Renwick would adore you.”
“So you believe,” Elizabeth said, sniffing with disdain.
“I am not as clueless as that Lady Cecilia, who would accept any form of secret from Lord Laycock. All that passionate pledging—give me your truth, and I shall give you everything I am. What sort of bargain is that? She offers herself entirely before knowing what she’s agreeing to accept. ”
“It is romantic,” Georgiana protested.
“But eminently not practical,” Elizabeth retorted. “What if Lord Laycock’s secret had been truly monstrous? What if he had murdered his first wife, or gambled away his tenants’ livelihoods, or—I don’t know—secretly written very bad poetry?”
Prue laughed. “Bad poetry is indeed unforgivable. But how should one ever know the entirety of another?”
“One can certainly deduce more than one is told.” Elizabeth lifted her chin with the particular confidence of a woman who had always trusted her own perceptions.
“Lady Cecilia’s error was not in loving Lord Laycock but in failing to ask the right questions.
A few pointed inquiries, a little observation, and she might have spared herself three volumes of misunderstanding. ”
Georgiana looked delighted by this pronouncement.
Prue looked rather less convinced. “You would investigate before loving?”
“I would understand before pledging.” Elizabeth considered this an important distinction.
Love might arrive unbidden, but pledges were deliberate acts, and deliberate acts required information.
She would not find herself bound to a mystery she had not first solved.
“Lady Cecilia throws herself upon Lord Laycock’s mercy and calls that courage. I call it an abdication of judgment.”
“And yet she is rewarded for it,” Georgiana pointed out. “Lord Laycock’s secret proves tragic rather than monstrous, and her faith is justified.”
“In fiction, faith is always justified, but I prefer not to be blinded.” Elizabeth considered her much vaunted history of observations—the way she had learned to read her father’s moods from the angle of his newspaper, her mother’s schemes from the particular brightness of her eyes, and the hidden currents of Meryton society from a hundred small tells and twitches.
Fitzwilliam Darcy, too, carried some old grief. She had not pressed him—for pressing was vulgar—but she was confident the truth would reveal itself under astute observation and the occasional well-placed remark.
“You are very hard on poor Lady Cecilia,” Prue pointed out. “Perhaps you have not read all of Lady Renwick’s words.”
“Then I shall endeavor to read faster,” Elizabeth jested. “Although I prefer not to wade through pages and pages of error and romantic blunder. I am simply realistic about love.”
“How unromantic.” Georgiana’s lower lip stuck out petulantly. “And here you claim to have carried on a secret love affair with my brother.”
Elizabeth said nothing, deciding to let the fiction stick as Georgiana exchanged an uncertain glance with Prue.
“The Maitland farm is just over this rise,” Prue said gaily, hastening her pace. “I can hear the dogs already.”