Ma chère.
Just as Mary had said, it was difficult to decipher. She made out only a few words.
“Read it to me.”
“Shall I read it, or translate?”
“Did you understand it fully?”
“Almost.”
“Then translate, if you please.”
Mary furrowed her brow as she began to read, so earnest and intent was her manner.
“She scolds her daughter throughout. She says:‘Such a good plan, now endangered by your folly. You care more for pleasure than for helping Papa. All’”
“Good heavens. Who is ‘Papa’?”
“I imagine it means her father,” Mary answered rather naively.
“Yes, of course. I mean, who could he be? The father presumed dead…the Frenchman…the man who met our uncle in London. I am already dizzy and worried,” Elizabeth murmured. The matter no longer resembled idle parlour talk.
“Go on, please.”
She continues: ‘In a town full of officers, you choose one who brings you to Meryton, the one place in England I begged you never to enter.’”
“And more scolding,” Mary said, looking at Elizabeth, only to find her interested and even worried.
“‘You write to me of friends and a respectable officer from a prestigious family, of a ball at Netherfield, and your plans to go to Meryton. I beg you, do not go. I am sending this letter through John, and I have instructed him to follow you to Netherfield if you are already there. The moment you receive this, you must depart for London. You will see your officer there in due course.’”
“It is her,” Elizabeth said. “Miss Henry is the daughter of Sophia Barrington. She talks about Meryton as a town never to be visited.”
“Yes, it is her. At first, when I first read it, I knew nothing of Colonel Fitzwilliam, but now all is plain. The officer she met in Brighton was him, and the father must be the Frenchman Aunt Phillips recalled—the one who stayed a fortnight in Meryton and the same man who sold the Barrington house.”
“Yes… But what was Sophia’splan?”
“She wished Emmeline to find an English officer and...” Mary flushed, for the implications were clear even for her. It was not difficult to imagine what a woman could want from a man and how that could be attained.
Elizabeth laughed, despite the weight of what she now suspected. “Indeed—what misfortune! She meets the one officer with ties to Bingley and to Meryton. How could she have known that her visit to a great estate would lead her here?
“I truly hoped she loved him and it was a passionate marriage; yet, when her mother speaks about a plan—I do not know, but it is not what you think. She did not want just ahusband…no.” Elizabeth continued. “The colonel is not rich, and what woman would search especially for an officer of modest means when she wants a husband?”
“You said yesterday that Lady Matlock was pleased her son had taken a position in the War Office. Is that not tied to the war?”
“Yes—certainly.”
“And which war touches us most nearly?”
“Mary—how clever you are! Monsieur Henry, the Frenchman, declared dead, yet possibly living…a plan to entrap a man in the War Office. They mean to extract something through the colonel’s position… Imagine the shame—worse still, imprisonment—or death, if it be treason,” Elizabeth whispered. “And the victim…the colonel.”
“I was first offended by what she wrote of Mama and Aunt Phillips…”
“What did she write?”
“It was unkind. I swear I am not indiscreet, though I kept the letter. I did not understand it at first, but I saw clearly that she called Mama and Aunt Phillipsles filles Gardiner—les potins.”
“Potin? That is gossip?”
