“I will tell you one thing tonight, girls,” she said. “The secret to this kind of happiness is to find someone who makes it all worth it. If you’ve done that, you are already at least halfway there.”
I looked at Kitty, whose eyes were only slightly less tear-filled than mine. She kissed the back of my hand, lingering and fierce, and I knew for sure I had found someone who made it all worth it.
We slept soundly at Plas Newydd. The house was characterful and homely and full of people I felt I could trust more than any other strangers I’d ever met. Between its welcoming walls and Kitty’s warm embrace, I felt none of the anxiety of inns or the coldness of Rosings. If I thought too much about the uncertainty of the future or the worry we had no doubt inspired in Darcy and Elizabeth, I knew my tranquillity would quickly fade, but I pushed it aside until birds were chirping outside the window and the sun was castingblue-and-green shapes onto the floor through the stained glass.
Breakfast was thick-cut ham and freshly baked bread, served with tea and more of the same round cakes as the night before. They weren’t quite Ruth’s gingerbread, but I helped myself to two, wondering how we were ever going to repay the kindness of our hosts. By the time the meal was finished I had Sappho sitting beside my chair, begging for scraps with wide, soulful eyes as if she hadn’t been fed in a week. Based on her owners’ affection for her, I highly doubted she’d been starved. When I managed to resist her charms she quickly moved on to Kitty, who caved within moments and sneaked her a sliver of ham. My affectionate eye roll was entirely unpreventable.
We settled in the library again after the table was cleared. It seemed to be Lady Butler and Miss Ponsonby’s preferred room in the house, and I certainly could not blame them for that. It had the same atmosphere as Pemberley’s library, a place that had become only more entrenched in my heart since Kitty had come into my life. The possibilities of the stories in all the books that surrounded us were rivalled only by the possibility on show in front of our very eyes.
Lady Butler and Miss Ponsonby kept their promise of answering our questions, but first they started by sharing their own story in exchange for the one Kitty and I had told the night before. Hand in hand, they told of meeting in Ireland and growing close to each other. Threats of unwanted marriages or, failing that, sequestration in a nunnery, encouraged them to leave their families. It was a familiar story.
I thought that might be it, one simple tale of fleeing Ireland and settling in Llangollen, but it had not gone quite so smoothly. Once found by their families, there were attempts to talk them out of their plans. It was only afterwards that they moved to Llangollen and eventually settled in Plas Newydd. When I heard they survived on begrudgingly given money from their families, I felt my stomach drop like stone.
It made sense there was no secret form of income they could share knowledge of, of course. I had been foolishly hoping there would be a way to replenish the money in my purse without ever needing to contact my family again. I didn’t want to face them, couldn’t bear the idea of Darcy hating me. Not for this. But it seemed like the only way. Charlotte had said I was one of the few people who might be able to live the way I wanted, but only because of who my family was.
“Do you think your families would support you at all?” Miss Ponsonby asked, not noticing how quiet I’d gone.
“My family has money,” I admitted softly. “I just don’t know if I can ask for it. My brother will be angry that I ran away, and he is the one who separated me from Kitty and sent me to an aunt who wants nothing more than to find me a husband.”
Kitty’s arms were around me before I could fall apart.
“He loves you,” she promised me, and I desperately wanted to believe that could still be true.
“Even if he is uneasy with the life you choose, to deny you money would be to prefer to see you starve,” Lady Butler said. “That is a rather extreme position for a man to take when it comes to his sister, no?”
I hid my face against Kitty’s shoulder, not wanting to face the question of to what extent I’d disappointed Darcy.
“Perhaps you should think it over for a few days,” Miss Ponsonby suggested. “You are welcome to stay here while you make plans, whatever those are.”
So began four idyllic days in the Welsh countryside, in the company of two women who lived a life I thought possible only in my imagination. I learnt Lady Butler had been raised in a convent in France and delighted in having lengthy conversations with her in fast French that our partners struggled to follow. Kitty took to accompanying Miss Ponsonby on long walks with Sappho, returning to regale me with tales of the Welsh hillsides and explorations of the castle ruins atop the hill. I chose to explore Plas Newydd, thrilled by the discovery of both a piano and a chessboard, which combined were enough to keep me endlessly entertained.
I preferred the library out of all the rooms available to us, but Lady Butler did, too. It took a little convincing for me to fully believe that I was welcome there even when she was already comfortably situated with a book. The quiet company as we both sat and read was a pleasant way to spend an hour.
Plas Newydd’s library provided an infinite choice of new reading material, but I couldn’t help but settle down on the second afternoon withThe Disposition of an English Lady, reading over the same words I’d long since memorised and trying to find a way to reinterpret them to make it so that I hadn’t broken almost every rule.
“My dear,” Lady Butler said gently from across the room,“whatever on earth is in that book that’s got you so upset? Is it one from our collection?”
I hadn’t realised how hard I’d been biting at my lip, or how much I’d screwed up my face in my concentration. Closing the cover of the book, I fought to regain my composure before answering her.
“It was my mother’s etiquette guide,” I explained, stroking my thumb over the soft leather binding. Then, because I knew I ought to explain the strong response I had shown to it, I admitted, “I don’t think she would approve of the woman I’ve become.”
There was a soft thud as Lady Butler closed her book and another as she set it down on the table.
“How young were you when you lost her?” she asked.
“Not quite two years old,” I said, my throat a little tighter at having to talk about her passing.
“Then there is no sense in imagining the worst, child,” she said, getting up from her chair and moving to sit beside me on the sofa. She took my hand in hers, squeezing it reassuringly. “Whatever she may have wanted for you at the age of two, it would have changed and grown as you did. Any mother with compassion wants only the best for their daughter, and I have seen you with Miss Bennet. I do not believe there could be anything better for you than that.”
The corners of my smile met the tears tracking down my cheeks, but I brushed the latter away and forced a nod. There was every chance my mother would have been horrified by my actions, but that did not exclude the possibility that shemight have welcomed Kitty with open arms if she’d known how much she meant to me. I could not bring my mother back and I would never know for certain, but perhaps dwelling on an imagined negativity was doing her a disservice.
“I daresay I am a little older than your mother would have been, and I know my approval is not what you’re seeking, but I want you to know you have it,” Lady Butler assured me. “I was educated by the church, and my family are Irish nobility, and regardless of everything I was taught, I still believe the both of us ought to be free to reside in the company of the people we love the most, and who return that affection. Do not underestimate the ability of someone to rise above prejudices they may have been taught, not when it concerns the ones they care about.”
Unable to help myself, I threw my arms around Lady Butler. She was kind enough to return the embrace, squeezing me tight until I was ready to let go. I dried my eyes and looked down at the etiquette guide in my lap. The books I had been prescribed by my governesses did not capture my own thoughts, so perhaps even if my mother had been taught from it, it did not represent an accurate catalogue of her opinions. Perhaps she would not have minded the woman I had become. Perhaps she would even have been proud.
On the third evening at Plas Newydd, I found the harpsichord. It was tucked into the back corner of a drawing room that wasusually ignored in favour of the library, and I lifted the lid to find the underside delicately decorated with flowers. Sitting at the bench, I let my fingers rest over the keys, not pressing down—I didn’t have permission to play it—just reassured by the familiar position of my arms and my hands.
“You can play it; they wouldn’t mind.”
