Chapter Four — A Letter in the Music Book #4
The words were so quietly spoken that their force took a moment to settle. Mrs Harrow’s composure trembled, not visibly enough for tears, but enough to show that Jane had struck truth.
“Yes,” she said. “She was my friend. And whatever that letter suggests, I did not betray her.”
“I believe you,” Jane said.
Mrs Harrow stared at her.
Elizabeth, standing a little apart, felt her heart tighten. Jane had not asked for explanation first. She had recognised grief and answered it.
Mrs Harrow’s voice lowered. “You should not say so too readily. It may not be wise to defend me.”
“I did not say it because it was wise.”
“That is precisely why you should take care. Public defence often feeds scandal. A woman accused becomes more interesting when others insist she is innocent. People begin to ask why. They begin to wonder what is being hidden. They turn sympathy into enquiry and enquiry into appetite.”
Jane said gently, “Silence is not always safety.”
Mrs Harrow looked away. “No. But it is familiar.”
There was no answer to that which would not have been too easy.
After a moment Elizabeth said, “Mrs Harrow, did Sir Edmund Vale write such a letter?”
“I do not know.”
“Could he have done?”
Mrs Harrow’s face closed a little. “Sir Edmund was capable of regret when regret cost him nothing.”
“That is not a denial.”
“No.”
“And Margaret Ellery?”
Mrs Harrow pressed her lips together. “She was young, proud in the way wounded people sometimes are proud, and too honest for a household that had uses for silence. She knew something. Or believed she did.”
“About Sir Edmund?”
Mrs Harrow did not answer.
Jane said, “You need not tell us now.”
Mrs Harrow’s eyes returned to Jane. “You are very kind, Miss Bennet.”
“Not kind enough to let you stand alone if you do not wish to.”
“I have stood alone for some time. It becomes, if not comfortable, at least practised.”
Elizabeth thought again of the sentence in the letter: Mrs Harrow’s silence cannot be mistaken for ignorance. She wondered how often silence had been chosen for Celia Harrow by others, and then laid against her as guilt.
The door opened before more could be said. Mrs Gardiner entered, apologised softly, and informed them that Lady Ashbourne wished the company to assemble in the drawing room before luncheon, to restore ease. Restore, Elizabeth thought. Such an industrious word.
Mrs Harrow straightened. “Then we must not keep her waiting.”
Jane looked as though she wished to protest, but Mrs Harrow’s composure had returned. They left together.
In the corridor, Elizabeth found Darcy waiting near a window. He looked not at all surprised to see her emerge from that particular room.
“You followed Mrs Harrow,” he said.
“And you waited to ask whether I had.”
“I waited because the corridor afforded an excellent view.”
“Of what?”
“Of you following Mrs Harrow.”
Despite herself, Elizabeth smiled. “Then you have been richly rewarded.”
His expression grew serious. “The letter may have been altered.”
“I thought the same.”
He did not look surprised. This pleased her more than surprise would have done.
“The paper is old,” he said. “The fold consistent with long keeping. But some of the ink marks are darker. Not fresh, exactly, but reinforced. The pressure changes.”
“And the phrasing lacks unity. Some parts sound like regret. Others like accusation. A person may feel both, certainly, but not usually in such neatly alternating lines.”
Darcy considered this. “It reads less like a letter than an arrangement of a letter.”
“Yes. A construction.”
Their eyes met at the word.
A construction. Not pure falsehood. Something more dangerous. Truth selected, cut, ordered, sharpened and pointed toward a living target.
Darcy’s voice lowered. “If it is altered, the alteration was made by someone who expected the letter to be believed before it was examined.”
“Society is very helpful to such people. It often believes accusation first and examines, if at all, after the injury is complete.”
He looked at her, and there was feeling in his face, tightly held. “That is why you must be careful.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “We return to my care?”
“We never left it.”
“Mr Darcy, if you insist upon placing my safety at the centre of every enquiry, I shall become quite vain.”
“I think your vanity is in little danger from concern.”
“That depends upon the source.”
The words escaped before she had fully weighed them. His eyes changed. So did hers. For a moment the corridor seemed narrower than before.
Then Mrs Lyndhurst’s voice sounded from the drawing room.
“My dear Mrs Gardiner, I do hope poor Mrs Harrow will not suffer from misinterpretation. One knows how cruel people can be, though of course I would never—”
Elizabeth turned her head.
There it was. Already. Not guilt. Not proof. Misinterpretation. A word soft enough to be kind, broad enough to contain suspicion, and useful enough to travel.
Darcy heard it too. His expression hardened almost imperceptibly.
Elizabeth looked toward the drawing room, where polite voices had resumed their weaving.
The letter did not need to prove anything.
It had only needed to give society permission to suspect.