Chapter Three
Mrs Bennet discovered on the third morning that she liked sitting on the beach.
Elizabeth had prepared for negotiation. She had arguments ready about fresh air and mild exercise, and had steeled herself for a thorough account of the miseries of wind and sand.
What she had not prepared for was her mother stepping outside, taking one look at the long pale stretch of shore, and saying, "I should like to sit down there, I think. "
Both daughters fell in beside her without a word.
They found her a sheltered spot where a natural curve in the shore kept the worst of the wind off.
Jane arranged the blanket with the focused care she brought to all acts of kindness, tucking the edges with a thoroughness that suggested she intended Mrs Bennet to remain comfortable through any meteorological eventuality up to and including a small tornado.
"There," Jane said, with real satisfaction.
"Is that better, Mama? You must say if you are cold.
I packed your thicker shawl at the very top of the trunk specifically because I thought the mornings might be sharper than we expected, and it would take me no time at all to run back for it, truly no time, and I would far rather do that now than have you sit here being cold and not saying so out of consideration for us, because you know you do sometimes do that, and it is very kind but we would always rather know. "
"I am perfectly comfortable, my dear."
"Are you quite certain? Only the wind is coming from the east, I believe, and east winds are always the most troublesome, I find, though perhaps that is just my own particular sensitivity to them, and Mrs Makepeace did say this morning that—"
"Jane," Elizabeth said.
"Yes?"
"She is comfortable, dearest."
Jane smiled brightly as her mother tipped up her face to meet the sun.
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Elizabeth walked quickly, as she always did at home, but found herself repeatedly checked by the sand, which shifted beneath her feet. The beach made a poor partner in her endeavours, and she was obliged to moderate her pace despite herself.
Jane walked beside her, hair doing something charming in the breeze as Elizabeth swatted at a stubborn lock that was plastered across her eyes.
"She looks ever so much better," Jane said, glancing back.
"She has been here three days, Jane. We shall have to wait and see."
"Yes, but she does look better. I noticed it yesterday, when she asked Mrs Makepeace about the market day, because she would never have done that at home, she would have just sat quietly, and I thought, well, that is something.
Then this morning she said the curtains in her room were a very pretty yellow and asked whether I thought yellow would suit her and I said I thought it would suit her extremely well and she seemed quite pleased, which—"
"Jane."
"Yes?"
"She does look better, dearest."
Jane smiled. "I think so too."
Elizabeth looked back. Her mother sat facing the water, still, but not the Longbourn stillness. At home she had seemed withdrawn from the world around her. Here she appeared to be watching it. Her eyes followed the seabirds as they swept low across the waves and rose again upon the wind.
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She noticed them on the fourth day.
Lyme was full of visitors and Elizabeth had long since ceased paying particular attention to strangers.
Yet her eye returned more than once to a gentleman and a young lady who appeared upon the path above the beach several times during the course of the morning.
She soon supposed them to be brother and sister.
They possessed the same air of reserve, though it sat very differently upon each.
The gentleman was undeniably handsome in a dark and brooding sort of way.
At a distance there was something almost forbidding in his appearance.
Even amongst the many visitors upon the path he was difficult to overlook, though Elizabeth could not immediately have said why.
Yet every now and then the young lady would speak and his whole attention would turn towards her with such readiness that Elizabeth found herself revising her first opinion.
His companion appeared several years younger, with pale blonde hair escaping from her bonnet.
She rarely looked up and seemed almost anxious when obliged to pass strangers, yet she spoke to her brother with an ease that suggested complete confidence in his affection.
Elizabeth found herself wondering who they were. Suddenly she became aware that Mrs Makepeace was standing beside her. How long she had been there was impossible to say. Mrs Makepeace possessed a remarkable ability to arrive unnoticed whenever there was anything worth noticing.
"Ah," said Mrs Makepeace. "Mr Darcy, of Pemberley in Derbyshire.
A very considerable estate by all accounts, though I have never seen it myself and would not pretend otherwise.
And beside him is Miss Darcy, his sister, who is a sweet girl altogether.
A little too pale for my liking, perhaps, but then she has not been getting sufficient air, and I have said as much to Mrs Parker at the bakery, though naturally not to Miss Darcy herself, as it would not be my place, however strongly I might feel upon the subject. "
"That was very restrained of you," Elizabeth said quietly, arching an eyebrow very slightly.
"I thought so," Mrs Makepeace agreed, without a trace of irony.
"His manner can seem very severe to those who do not know him.
Very closed. But I have always maintained, and Mr Makepeace, God rest him, was entirely of my view on this, that there is a very great difference between a man who is proud and a man who is protecting something.
Mr Makepeace said it to me once, he said, Frances, a closed door is not the same thing as an empty room, and I have thought of it many times since.
" She nodded, with some satisfaction at the memory.
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Mrs Bennet was still on the beach. Elizabeth smoothed her skirts and sat beside her.
After a while, her mother said, "I had forgotten how large it is."
"Have you been before?"
"Once. Before any of you were born." A pause. "Your father thought it a great waste of time." She said it without particular feeling. "I thought it was wonderful," she added.
"It is wonderful, Mama," Elizabeth said. "And it is wonderful to see you looking so well. I have been worried that you have not been yourself."
They sat together and looked at the sea, and eventually Mrs Bennet said, "The light on the water is very pretty today, is it not?"
"It is," Elizabeth said.
"Your father would say it was just light on water."
"Yes," Elizabeth said. "That does rather sound like Papa."
A pause stretched between them.
"Mama," Elizabeth said. "I know something of what happened. Before we came. I don't know all of it but I wanted you to know that I—"
"Do you know," her mother said, "I think I should like a hat with a wider brim. The sun is really quite something even in April. "Shall we go in? I believe Mrs Makepeace mentioned a very good pie for luncheon and I find I am quite hungry."
She set off toward the lodgings at a good pace.
Elizabeth sat on the beach alone for a moment. "Very well," she said to a passing seagull, and got up and followed her.