Chapter Four — A Letter in the Music Book #3
Felix handed the letter back to her. “My aunt is right. Nothing good can come of haste.”
Elizabeth had rarely heard haste discouraged so conveniently by a man who had just ensured that the essential accusation was heard by every person present.
Darcy stepped forward. “Lady Ashbourne, may I see the letter?”
Her fingers closed slightly upon it. “Mr Darcy—”
“I would not ask if the matter had remained private. But since the letter has been made evidence of something, it may be useful to know whether it is evidence of what it appears.”
The room was very still again. Darcy’s authority did not depend upon insistence. It lay rather in the impression that refusal would require more justification than consent.
Lady Ashbourne hesitated. Felix glanced at her, then at Darcy.
“My aunt is distressed,” he said. “Perhaps later—”
“Now,” Lady Ashbourne said.
Felix fell silent.
She gave Darcy the letter.
Elizabeth could not see it closely, but she watched him read.
His face did not change in any manner that would have satisfied Mrs Lyndhurst’s curiosity, yet Elizabeth had learned to read smaller signs.
His eyes moved once quickly across the page, then again more slowly.
He examined not only the words but the fold, the edges, the colour of the paper, the spacing of the lines.
He turned it slightly toward the light. His thumb rested near one margin without touching the ink.
He paused midway through the page. That pause interested Elizabeth more than the reading.
At last he refolded it. “It appears old.”
“Appears?” Felix said.
Darcy looked at him. “Yes.”
Lady Ashbourne took the letter back. “It is in a hand I recognise.”
Elizabeth saw something pass over her face then—not certainty, but pain sharpened by memory.
“Whose hand?” Colonel Avery asked.
Lady Ashbourne did not answer immediately. When she did, her voice was controlled. “Sir Edmund Vale’s.”
Portia’s eyes flashed.
Felix lowered his gaze, either in filial feeling or perfect imitation of it. “My father’s.”
Mrs Lyndhurst whispered, “How dreadful.”
Miss Trent looked as if she might be ill.
Mrs Harrow closed her eyes for one brief moment, then opened them. Her composure remained, but the effort required to sustain it had become visible. Jane moved toward her, but Mrs Harrow stepped back.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I find I am a little fatigued.”
No one could prevent her withdrawal without cruelty. Lady Ashbourne inclined her head, and Mrs Harrow left the room. Jane watched her go, troubled beyond concealment.
The music, of course, did not resume.
The company dispersed by degrees, though dispersion did not lessen the matter; it multiplied it.
Mrs Lyndhurst required air. Colonel Avery demanded a private word with Lady Ashbourne and was denied it until later.
Portia left with a face like thunder. Miss Trent vanished after Mrs Lyndhurst, though not before glancing once toward the corridor by which Mrs Harrow had gone.
Bingley approached Jane and said something low which Elizabeth did not hear, but Jane answered with a small shake of the head.
She was not the person injured, yet she had been made instrument to injury, and that knowledge rested upon her visibly.
Elizabeth remained near the pianoforte, looking at the blue music book still open upon the stand.
The place where the letter had lain was evident only because she knew it.
A volume of songs. A lady invited to play.
A folded accusation arranged to fall into innocent hands.
It was a cruel staging, and like most cruel staging, it depended upon the decency of those it used.
Darcy came to stand near her.
“You saw?” he asked quietly.
“Not enough.”
“Enough to suspect.”
“That, unfortunately, I had before breakfast.”
His gaze moved toward the doors through which Lady Ashbourne had gone, the letter in her hand. “The paper is old. The hand may be Sir Edmund Vale’s, though I cannot say from one example.”
“But?”
His eyes returned to hers. “The writing is uneven.”
“In what way?”
“Not the hand itself. The force of it. Some words appear pressed more deeply than others. Some lines sit naturally; others appear crowded between thoughts.”
Elizabeth felt a swift thrill of recognition. “Then the letter may not be as whole as it pretends.”
“Perhaps.”
“That is a very Darcy-like perhaps. It means yes, but not yet legally.”
His mouth almost moved. “It means perhaps.”
“I shall translate as needed.”
Before he could reply, Lady Ashbourne re-entered the music room. She was alone. The letter was in her hand, and the expression upon her face was now entirely governed.
“Mr Darcy,” she said, “I should be grateful if you would say nothing of your impressions until we have spoken further.”
“I shall not speak carelessly.”
“I did not suppose you would.”
Her gaze moved to Elizabeth. “Nor you, Miss Elizabeth, I trust.”
Elizabeth curtseyed slightly. “I have often been accused of speaking too much, Lady Ashbourne, but rarely of speaking without reason.”
Lady Ashbourne’s eyes rested on her. “Then I rely upon your reasons.”
It was not quite gratitude. Not quite warning. Perhaps both.
A servant appeared at the doorway to say that Lady Ashbourne was wanted by Mrs Clary in the housekeeper’s room.
Her ladyship looked faintly irritated by necessity.
She placed the letter upon a small side table, weighted it with a paper-knife, and said to Darcy, “I shall return directly. Please remain, if you will.”
Then she left.
For three seconds no one moved.
Darcy did not touch the letter. Elizabeth admired him and was vexed by him for it. Propriety, when useful to men, could be a very slow instrument.
She walked instead to the side table and stood near enough to see without lifting the paper. Darcy’s eyes flickered toward her, but he did not stop her. The letter lay partly open beneath the paper-knife. Not enough of it was visible for full reading, but several lines could be seen.
Elizabeth bent as if to examine the workmanship of the table.
The visible portion contained the phrase Felix had read aloud: “Mrs Harrow’s silence cannot be mistaken for ignorance.
” The ink looked faded, but not uniformly.
Certain strokes seemed darker, firmer, almost renewed.
The sentence above it, partly hidden, had a different feeling: “I regret more than I can express that Margaret should have been left without a friend able to speak plainly in her defence.” That was sorrowful.
Human. But below, the tone hardened: “advantage in her disgrace,” “prospered by remaining apart,” “too plain to be overlooked.”
Elizabeth frowned.
“What is it?” Darcy asked quietly.
“The voice changes.”
He came a little nearer. “The voice?”
“The feeling. Here”—she indicated without touching—“there is regret. Genuine regret, or at least something like it. But there, the words become—”
“Accusatory.”
“Not merely accusatory. Performative. As though the writer wished less to confess pain than to direct judgement.”
Darcy’s eyes sharpened. “I thought the same of the structure.”
“It has been made to say more than it meant.”
“Possibly.”
“There is that word again.”
“It is useful.”
“It is cautious.”
“Also useful.”
The sound of approaching footsteps made them both step back.
Lady Ashbourne entered and took up the letter.
If she guessed what had passed, she did not say so.
Darcy asked whether he might later compare the hand with other examples of Sir Edmund Vale’s writing.
Lady Ashbourne hesitated, then said she would consider it. That was all.
Elizabeth went in search of Jane and found, as she expected, that her sister had gone after Mrs Harrow.
She found them in a small morning room on the west side of the house, a chamber less formal than the drawing room and more human than many spaces at Silvermere.
The curtains were faded slightly by sun.
A basket of mending sat near the hearth.
There were books upon a low table not arranged for display.
If any room in the house permitted feeling to sit down without permission, it was this one.
Mrs Harrow stood near the window, one hand against the frame. Jane was beside her, not touching, not crowding, merely present. That was Jane’s gift. She could offer comfort without making it another demand.
Elizabeth paused at the threshold. Jane looked back, and Mrs Harrow turned.
“I am sorry,” Elizabeth said. “I did not mean to interrupt.”
Mrs Harrow’s lips moved in something almost like a smile. “Miss Bennet, I begin to think all important conversations at Silvermere are destined to be interrupted before they become useful.”
“Then perhaps they must become useful more quickly.”
Jane’s expression was troubled. “Lizzy.”
Mrs Harrow looked from one sister to the other, and some part of her guardedness eased. “No. Miss Elizabeth is right. Delay has rarely served me.”
She drew a breath, slow and controlled. “Margaret Ellery was my friend.”
Jane’s face softened. “I thought she might have been.”
Mrs Harrow looked at her with surprise. “Why?”
“Because you looked hurt before you looked afraid.”