Chapter Two
The journey to Lyme Regis occupied four days.
Mrs Bennet, who would once have required a week of discussion to see to the packing arrangements, surprised both her daughters by expressing herself perfectly satisfied with a single trunk and whatever lodgings awaited them at the other end.
Elizabeth was not sure whether to be encouraged or alarmed.
On the final night before their arrival in the seaside town, they ate in a low-ceilinged dining room with three other travellers who showed no interest in them whatsoever.
The food was adequate. The wine was not especially good, and nobody said anything much.
Then the landlord brought out a dish that was slightly too salty and Mrs Bennet said, "Oh!
" quite sharply before bringing her hand to her mouth and looking briefly startled at her own volume.
Jane looked up from her plate. "Are you quite well, Mama?
You must say if you would like something else, I am sure they would bring you whatever you need, and truly it would be no trouble at all, the landlord seems very obliging and I noticed there was a very good-looking pie going to the next table which I thought seemed—"
"I am perfectly well, my dea,r" Mrs Bennet said. "It was naught."
She lowered her hand and returned to her meal.
Elizabeth smiled at her wine glass. It was the most animation she had observed in her mother in three months.
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They arrived in Lyme Regis on a Thursday afternoon.
The town presented itself by degrees as the coach descended towards the harbour; first a glimpse of water, then a cluster of pale houses, then another glimpse of water, larger than the first. There appeared to have been very little planning involved in its construction.
Buildings crowded together wherever a piece of level ground could be found, while the streets seemed determined to go either sharply upwards or sharply down.
Elizabeth liked it immediately.
There was an animation about the place that her sleepy corner of Hertfordshire lacked.
Gentlemen and ladies walked towards the Cobb despite the wind, servants hurried up and down the hills with baskets, sailors crossed paths with holiday visitors and carts somehow managed to navigate streets that Elizabeth would have thought too narrow to accommodate them.
Their lodgings stood a few streets back from the waterfront, a tall stone house with bow windows and a blue-painted door. It was opened almost before they reached it by a brisk-looking woman of perhaps fifty, who surveyed them with a practised eye.
"Mrs Bennet?" she enquired. "Mrs Makepeace. I trust your journey was tolerable. If you will come in, I shall show you your rooms."
Mrs Makepeace continued without waiting for an answer.
"You will want tea after that road. Your rooms face the sea, which is what you came for, I expect.
Some people find the sound of it keeps them awake at night.
" She paused. "I have always said, and Mr Makepeace, God rest him, was entirely of my view on this, that those people have generally been listening to the wrong things. "
She stepped aside to let them in.
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Tea was served in the front parlour where a window offered a narrow strip of sea between the rooftops.
Mrs Makepeace poured. Within twenty minutes she had established the composition of their family, the reason for their visit, Elizabeth's position on sea-bathing and whether Jane was spoken for.
This last was phrased as a question about whether Jane had visited Lyme before, but Elizabeth recognised the architecture of it perfectly well.
"There are some visitors already established," Mrs Makepeace said, refilling cups that did not require refilling.
"A gentleman and his sister. Very respectable.
In residence a fortnight complete." She set down the pot.
"The gentleman is, and I say this as a woman who was herself married to a very handsome man and therefore knows whereof she speaks, the finest-looking man I have seen since Mr Makepeace, God rest him.
Who was, I should say, considered quite remarkably handsome in his time, though his sister never thought so, but then she was a woman of very limited vision in a number of respects and we shall not dwell on that. "
She picked up her cup.
"I mention it," she added, "purely as a point of local interest."
"Naturally," said Elizabeth, with a small smile. "Are your other guests enjoying their stay?"
"Very much so, I believe. At least they have given no indication to the contrary. His sister is a quiet young thing. Pretty. Seems to find the air agrees with her." Mrs Makepeace adjusted the cuffs of her sleeves. "Not that I make a habit of discussing my guests, of course."
Mrs Bennet, who had been holding her cup with both hands and looking at the narrow strip of sea between the rooftops, said without turning, "Is she well? The sister?"
"She is improving following a short illness, I believe," said Mrs Makepeace.
"The sea helps. I have always found the sea helps, with a great many things that do not immediately seem like the sort of things the sea would help with.
Mr Makepeace, God rest him, came to Lyme after a very difficult year in 1802 and said afterward that it had put him right in a way that nothing else had managed.
" She nodded once. "The sea knows what it is doing, Mrs Bennet. I have never had cause to doubt it."