CHAPTER 2
Mr. Miles was engaged in arranging his newest arrivals upon the shelves when the bell above his door announced a customer, and he rose at once to greet them.
"Good day to you both, Miss Elizabeth, Miss Lucas. A fine morning, is it not?"
"Good day, Mr. Miles. It is glorious indeed, so fine that we could not resist walking into town," Elizabeth was quick to reply.
"I am glad to hear it, Miss Elizabeth." He smiled, for he had known her from a girl, and knew her, besides, to be the most determined walker of any young lady in the neighbourhood.
"It would have been a crime to take the carriage on such a day," Elizabeth said, her eyes drawn to the shop window, where a fine blue sky stretched above lazily drifting clouds.
"That it would, miss. You'll both be glad to hear I've had my stock renewed. I was only just setting out the new novels, which arrived but yesterday."
"I had hoped as much," said Charlotte. "Pray, what titles have you had in, Mr. Miles?"
"A new work from Lord Byron, called Don Juan, all the rage in London, so I am told. And a new one from Sir Walter Scott besides, The Bride of Lammermoor. The rest, I am sorry to say, are only restocks, Miss Lucas."
"How intriguing. Thank you, Mr. Miles. I believe I shall look over both," said Charlotte, moving toward the shelf he indicated.
Before following her friend, Elizabeth lingered. "Mr. Miles, as Charlotte and I walked into town we could not help but notice a number of redcoats about. Do you happen to know what has brought soldiers to Meryton?"
"Aye, I saw a few myself, through the window there. But I could not tell you why, Miss Elizabeth. It seems an odd choice of place, if you ask me. Perhaps only passing through. Strange to see them about at all, with Bonaparte safely done with."
"Very curious indeed. Thank you, Mr. Miles." Elizabeth answered him sweetly enough, though she remained privately perplexed, for the wars had been over some four years, and Bonaparte securely confined to St. Helena, so that the presence of a militia so far from any port could not but seem singular.
She joined Charlotte at the shelves, where her friend stood turning over the pages of one volume with an air of polite indifference. "Well, Charlotte, anything shocking to be found?"
Charlotte laughed. "I daresay both are shocking enough in their way. But you know how my brother dotes upon Scott."
Elizabeth did know, as John Lucus was unabashedly a fan of Sir Walter Scott.
She knew, too, that Charlotte cared little for novels herself, and bought them chiefly to indulge her brother, professing herself too sensible a creature to be taken in by such things.
Elizabeth could claim no such immunity. She had read several of Lord Byron's poems, and more than one of Scott's novels besides, her father, himself a great reader, having always allowed his favourite daughter the free use of his library.
It was a liberty that had furnished her with no small acquaintance with scandal, humour, sorrow, and history, though she had, for all that, seen little enough of the world beyond her own quiet corner of it, among the four-and-twenty families of her acquaintance.
***
Charlotte, having examined both volumes, settled at last upon Scott's for her brother.
The purchase made and their farewells given to Mr. Miles, the two friends continued upon their errands through Meryton, Elizabeth rather more occupied with the mystery of the militia than with any article to be found in a shop window.
As they came along the cobbled street, Elizabeth caught sight of a familiar figure. "Look, there is my aunt Phillips. Let us ask her what she knows, for if any soul in Meryton has news, it is certainly she."
Charlotte agreed readily enough, for Mrs. Phillips was, without dispute, the most inveterate gossip in the neighbourhood, and likely to know before anyone else what had brought soldiers to their door.
"Good day, Aunt!" Elizabeth called, raising her voice a little over the clatter of a passing cart. "How do you do?"
"Elizabeth! How glad I am to see you, my dear, and Charlotte too. Are you shopping? You must come and take tea with me; I was only just on my way home."
Knowing that an hour with her aunt might easily become an afternoon, Elizabeth declined as gracefully as she could.
"Thank you, Aunt, but Charlotte and I must be getting on.
I did wonder, though, we passed a number of redcoats on our way into town.
Have you heard anything of why they should be here? "
"Why, you have seen them yourselves, have you! I had it from Mrs. Plude, whose cousin's son, a Mr. Eldridge, a clerk, you know, has a friend among the Regulars, and according to him the militia is to be stationed here, at Meryton itself. Can you conceive of it?"
"That is surprising. But why Meryton, of all places, Aunt?"
"I am sure I asked Mrs. Plude the very same, and she had not the least notion, only that we are to see a great many more men in uniform before long, which I for one cannot object to, for it gives one such a feeling of security. Though what should bring them here I cannot imagine."
"Do you know, ma'am, how long they are to remain?" asked Charlotte casually.
"I cannot say for certain, but Mrs. Plude believes it will be the whole summer, and perhaps longer."
"Then that is news indeed," said Charlotte, her eyebrows lifting toward Elizabeth in private amusement. "Perhaps now Meryton will have gentlemen enough to dance every dance."
"Oh, my dear, yes!" Mrs. Phillips clasped her hands together with great satisfaction, entirely insensible to the spirit in which the remark had been made. "So many fine, healthy young men about, it will be quite delightful, and so lively for us all."
"I am sure it will," Elizabeth agreed, smiling, and perfectly aware that her friend's teasing had nothing whatever to do with soldiers, and a great deal to do with a certain disagreeable gentleman of their recent acquaintance.
"Well, Aunt, we must be on our way. I shall see you Thursday, for tea."
"Good day, Mrs. Phillips," Charlotte added, with a proper curtsy.
"Very well, girls, good day to you both, and mind you keep to the side of the road. Oh, and Elizabeth, do tell your mother of the militia, won't you? I shan't have time to call before tomorrow, and she must hear it from someone."
"Of course, Aunt." Elizabeth smiled once more, and, taking Charlotte's arm, turned them both toward the seamstress's shop.
"The militia, stationed at Meryton, can you credit it, Eliza?" said Charlotte, once they were beyond her aunt's hearing.
"I can scarcely believe it. I do not recall a militia ever being stationed so near us before."
"No, nor I. I have heard of no such outpost anywhere in the county."
They walked on a little way in companionable silence.
Elizabeth found her thoughts turning, not unpleasantly, upon what the militia's arrival might mean for their small corner of the world, increased custom for the shopkeepers, certainly, and no small stir among the neighbourhood's mothers and daughters, with so many young and unattached men suddenly thrown into their society.
But she considered, too, that among their number might be soldiers seasoned by the late wars, men who had seen and done things she had only encountered within the pages of a book, honourable, and otherwise.
She caught herself biting her lip in reflection, a habit that did not escape Charlotte's notice, though her friend was too discreet to remark upon it as they came within sight of Mrs. Smith's shop.
Their purchases made, the two set off toward home, speaking first of their new sewing projects, and then, inevitably, returning once more to the puzzle of the militia, and what could possibly have recommended Meryton above every other town in England.
"Perhaps," Charlotte offered, as they neared her own door, "Meryton is thought a convenient place to establish an outpost."
"It might be so, but why come south at all, rather than east or west, nearer the coast, where they might embark more readily? I suppose it may be a matter of resources, but I confess the choice strikes me as an odd one. There must be some strategic reason for it that we cannot guess at."
"I daresay you are right. Thank you for the walk, dear Elizabeth."
"The pleasure was entirely mine, dear Charlotte."
The two women embraced, and Elizabeth continued on alone along the travel-worn road toward Longbourn, considerably less eager to deliver her news to her mother than her aunt had charged her to be.