Chapter Four — A Letter in the Music Book #2
“The blue volume?” Lady Ashbourne repeated.
“Yes. Unless it has been moved.”
There was nothing in the remark. A gentleman familiar with the house might easily remember a particular book of music.
Yet Elizabeth noticed that Felix did not take it down himself.
He merely indicated the shelf. Lady Ashbourne glanced toward the cabinet, then seemed to consider, and after the smallest pause said, “If Miss Bennet does not object.”
Jane smiled. “Not at all.”
Felix moved then, drew out the blue volume and presented it with a bow. “Here it is.”
He handed it to Jane.
The book was handsome but old, bound in faded blue leather with gilt tooling at the edges, its corners softened by years of use or handling.
Jane laid it upon the stand and opened it carefully.
For one moment nothing happened. The room had arranged itself in expectation of music, and expectation is a powerful disguise.
Jane turned the first page, then the second.
Something slipped forward from between the leaves.
It fell not to the floor, but against the keys.
A folded letter.
The sound it made was almost nothing: a faint tap, a slight disturbance of paper against ivory. Yet Elizabeth felt the room hear it.
Jane’s hand stilled above the music. Her face changed only by degrees, first surprise, then comprehension that the object could not be dismissed as a bookmark or stray sheet.
The letter was folded but unsealed. The paper was thick, old, and faintly yellowed at the edges.
Its placement had been exact: not hidden deep in the binding, not loose among ordinary sheets, but arranged so that whoever opened the volume would find it immediately and publicly.
Bingley stepped half forward and stopped himself.
Lady Ashbourne rose.
No one spoke.
Jane lifted the letter with great care, as though it might be dangerous to touch.
Elizabeth saw her distress, and also her composure.
Jane would not make a scene; indeed, she would now be more careful than anyone in the room not to add disorder to what had been placed before her.
She turned toward Lady Ashbourne and held out the paper.
“I believe this was inside the book.”
Lady Ashbourne took it.
Her face remained composed as she unfolded the letter, but Elizabeth, watching closely, saw recognition strike before meaning.
Lady Ashbourne knew the paper. Perhaps the fold.
Perhaps the hand. She read only a few lines, no more, before something within her became still.
It was not pallor, nor alarm, nor grief in any outward form.
It was as though a curtain had been drawn behind her eyes.
Felix stood near her almost at once.
“Is it one of the missing letters?” he asked.
The question was quiet, solicitous, perfectly reasonable.
Lady Ashbourne folded the paper once, slowly. “Yes.”
The word changed everything.
Mrs Lyndhurst drew in a breath. “One of the stolen letters? In the music book? How extraordinary. How very—” She stopped, perhaps remembering that curiosity must first dress itself. “How very distressing for you, Lady Ashbourne.”
Colonel Avery said, “Distressing is too weak a word.”
Lady Ashbourne did not look at him. “It appears that one letter has been returned, or rather placed where it would be found.”
“Then whoever took it wished it to be found,” Darcy said.
His voice was calm, but it carried. Lady Ashbourne glanced toward him. “So it would seem.”
Mrs Lyndhurst leaned forward. “Does it contain anything that threatens the household?”
Lady Ashbourne’s gaze sharpened. “Mrs Lyndhurst.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon. I meant only—if it has been placed so publicly, one cannot help fearing some implication. Not that I wish to know anything private, of course.”
Portia muttered, “Heaven forbid.”
Felix intervened before Lady Ashbourne could answer. “Aunt, forgive me, but Mrs Lyndhurst is not entirely wrong.”
Lady Ashbourne turned to him.
He continued, with an air of reluctance so well managed that Elizabeth distrusted it at once.
“If a private letter has been placed before your guests, then the intended injury may already have begun. To refuse all explanation may leave room for conjecture. And conjecture, as we know, is often less merciful than fact.”
“How noble of conjecture to require feeding,” Elizabeth murmured under her breath.
Darcy, near enough to hear, gave no sign beyond the smallest movement of his eyes toward her.
Lady Ashbourne looked again at the paper. Her fingers tightened upon it. “There is no necessity—”
“My dear aunt,” Felix said more softly, “I would not press you. But if someone means to suggest a falsehood, a partial correction may prevent greater harm.”
It was cleverly done. To reveal enough was framed as protection against speculation.
To conceal everything became risk. Lady Ashbourne, who had built a life upon controlled disclosure, must have recognised the trap.
Yet she was also in a room of witnesses, and the letter had indeed been found in Jane’s hands, before every eye.
“What does it concern?” Colonel Avery asked bluntly.
Lady Ashbourne gave him a look of fatigue. “Old matters.”
“Old matters rarely break desks unless someone living is afraid of them.”
“Colonel.”
“I know. I am impossible. Continue.”
Lady Ashbourne looked toward Mrs Harrow.
It was brief—so brief that anyone wishing not to see it might have succeeded. But Elizabeth saw it. Mrs Harrow saw it too. The young widow’s face did not alter, but every line of her body became watchful.
Lady Ashbourne seemed to decide something she disliked.
“The letter,” she said, “appears to refer to an incident many years past, concerning a young woman named Margaret Ellery.”
At the name, Miss Trent’s cup rattled against its saucer.
Mrs Lyndhurst turned at once. “My dear Miss Trent, are you unwell?”
“No,” Miss Trent whispered. “Only clumsy.”
No one believed this. Several people pretended to.
Mrs Harrow remained very still.
Darcy’s attention sharpened. Jane, still seated at the pianoforte, looked from Lady Ashbourne to Mrs Harrow with growing distress. Bingley stood behind her, his expression uncharacteristically grave.
Felix said, “Perhaps it would be best if I read only the portion relevant enough to prevent misunderstanding.”
Elizabeth thought that if misunderstanding were the danger, Felix appeared unusually eager to manage its cure.
Lady Ashbourne did not immediately consent. Then, with a controlled motion, she handed him the letter. “Only what is necessary.”
“Of course.”
He took it carefully, as though the paper itself deserved respect.
Elizabeth watched his hands. They did not tremble.
He unfolded the letter not wholly, but sufficiently.
His eyes moved over the page, and for the first time since Elizabeth had met him, his expression seemed almost grave without performance.
He read.
“‘I have considered the matter as you urged me, and I am forced to conclude that Mrs Harrow’s silence cannot be mistaken for ignorance. She knew enough to act and chose not to do so. Margaret Ellery’s ruin, however much society may attribute it to her own imprudence, was hastened by those who found advantage in her disgrace.
That Mrs Harrow later prospered by remaining apart from the truth is a circumstance too plain to be overlooked. ’”
A sound moved through the room—not speech, not even exclamation, but the collective adjustment of opinion receiving permission to begin.
Felix paused. His face had softened into regret. “There is more, but I do not think—”
“Enough,” Lady Ashbourne said.
He folded the letter.
For one moment, the room held itself in silence.
Then Mrs Harrow spoke.
“It is not true.”
The words were not loud. They did not carry to every corner of the room with theatrical force. Indeed, those farthest away might almost have missed them. But because the room had been waiting for any sound from her, they were heard with painful clarity.
Mrs Harrow had not fainted. She had not wept.
She had not protested with indignation or pleaded with Lady Ashbourne for defence.
She stood where she had stood since the letter was found, near the window, her face pale, her hands clasped before her.
The stillness in her was far more affecting than any collapse.
It suggested not shock alone, but recognition of a blow long anticipated and only now delivered.
“It is not true,” she said again, more quietly.
Mrs Lyndhurst’s expression became a masterpiece of distressed neutrality. “My dear Mrs Harrow, no one would wish to judge—”
Portia Vale made a sharp movement.
Mrs Lyndhurst continued, “—without the fullest understanding. These old matters are so often misrepresented. One must be exceedingly careful. Still, how very painful for you. And for Lady Ashbourne, of course. We must all be careful not to draw conclusions.”
Elizabeth saw, with a cold clarity, that conclusions had already begun to gather themselves beneath the word careful.
Mrs Harrow inclined her head. “Yes. One must.”
Jane rose from the pianoforte. “Mrs Harrow—”
Mrs Harrow looked at her, and something in her face softened, but only for an instant. “Please do not distress yourself, Miss Bennet. You had no part in this.”
Jane’s eyes filled with concern. “I found the letter.”
“You opened a book.”
That was all she said, and yet the kindness of it struck Elizabeth deeply. Mrs Harrow, humiliated before a room, had thought first to relieve Jane of guilt.
Lady Ashbourne’s voice cut gently through the tension. “There will be no discussion of this matter at present. The letter was placed improperly and will be considered privately.”
Colonel Avery looked angry, though Elizabeth could not yet tell whether the anger was for Mrs Harrow, Lady Ashbourne, the unknown thief, or all of them together. “Privately? It was found publicly.”
“And I shall not enlarge the impropriety by entertaining conjecture,” Lady Ashbourne replied.