An assignation!My own horrid animal, the red one in my chest, bounded and capered in anticipation.Stay,I told it briskly.She has suggested a walk, not a tryst. We will probably have the entire village strolling after us.
We did not.I had gone perhaps too early to bepolite the next day, but Miss Elizabeth was alone at the door with Bandit on a lead.
“Papa,” she called softly into the book-room after receiving me. “I am going with Mr Darcy and Bandit up to Oakham Mount.”
I started out with pleasantries. What time had they left the ball, and had they enjoyed themselves being out in society after such a period of quiet? Miss Elizabeth’s answers were slightly impatient. She did not need that sort of preamble, and since it is not natural to me, my attempts at light conversation soon dwindled into silence. I decided to wait to be told whatever it was that she intended to tell me.
Fifteen or perhaps even twenty minutes ticked by in a glacial progression. It was a long time to endure a terse silence. More than a half-dozen times I nearly burst out with a remark about the clouds or a suggestion we cross the road—anything other than sitting on a proverbial chair of nails.
“I suppose you are wondering about my youngest sisters,” Miss Elizabeth said at last. Her voice was raw, so little did she like having to speak to me of the subject.
“By no means should you tell me anything about them if you do not wish it. Perhaps I should tell you thatIhave a sister I have never mentioned?”
Her head whipped around, and she scoured my facewith her eyes. I did not force her to press me for more information.
“I became her guardian when she was just eleven years old. I was only two-and-twenty and ill-equipped to parent a grieving child. And too, I was utterly overwhelmed by my circumstances. My father’s estate is large, his holdings complex and varied, and his fortune, though healthy, is like every other fortune.”
She cleared her throat. “How so, sir?”
“It is constantly under siege. And it is constantly on the verge of draining away, or dwindling, or being wrestled out of my control.”
“I had not thought?—”
“No, nor had I. But a rich man may as well have a target on his back,” The memories of having learnt this hard truth pressed in upon me and rather than indulge them, I spoke with light disinterest. “Forgive me. I did not mean to make it sound as though you should pity me.”
“Then you shall pardon me if I do not,” she said drily. “And your sister? How old is she now?”
“Georgiana is sixteen.”
“You did not bring her to Hertfordshire?”
“You have met Mr Bingley’s sisters.” I glanced at Miss Elizabeth in full expectation she would understand me, and by the wry twist of her smile, I knew she had. “Our aunt is a coveted acquaintance in society, and theylong to be on her list of invitations. Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst are relentless in their attentions to my sister, and she finds it trying. But had I known I would meet you and your obliging sisters, perhaps I would have brought her.”
“What purpose could you possibly have for resorting to the butter boat? We have nothing to offer to justify such pretty sentiments.”
I bit back what I longed to say, which was even prettier and more sentimental, and said instead, “You are mistaken. You do have something to offer. My sister had a crushing experience when she was fifteen, and she is also painfully shy. I have hired a lady to serve as a companion for her, but I would like to see her surrounded by friends of her own age and disposition.”
“And we would serve, would we? No, do not answer that. I am being uncommonly provoking just now.”
“Are you? I had not noticed any difference in how you are behavingnowas opposed to any other time you swipe at me.”
She smiled just a little and sank into silence. I wondered if Miss Elizabeth’s confidences had come to an end when she stooped to attend to Bandit’s paw after he stepped on a blackberry cane and pretended great interest in the bare branches of a hawthorn bush.
Eventually, however, and with a sigh of resolution she said, “My sister Lydia was also young when sheembroiled herself in a wild escapade. She nearly eloped with a handsome, practiced card sharp who was, we now believe, running from his debtors. He would have certainly forced my father to pay a ransom for my sister’s recovery, and she would have come back to us ruined and unmarried. A common story, I am afraid. Were it not for a headache that plagued me that night and kept me awake, I would not have heard Lydia’s attempt to leave the house, and she would have sunk my family in a most ruinous scandal.”
“How did she meet such a rake?”
“Easily enough. He cut a liberal swath through our little society, claiming to be cousin to Mr King, who was conveniently away in Bath.”
“Your sister was young. Perhaps she was insensible of the danger.”
“That might be a suitable excuse for any other girl of that age, but it does not serve for mine. Lydia is wild to a fault, Mr Darcy. Wilful and flirtatious, and at that time, determined to be the first of my sisters to marry.”
“Why would she wish that?”
Miss Elizabeth heaved a weary sigh. “We must now speak of my mother, sir. My father married a pretty lady with lower connexions than he might have looked for had he not been blinded by her beautiful face. In her defence, my mother might have turned out better had she produced a boy child. Instead, she gave Papa onlygirls. And since the estate is entailed to someone we do not know, and because she was much younger than my father, my mother became frantic as the years passed that my father would predecease her. Her worst fears were that she would be left destitute, and her daughters would be sunk in humiliating spinsterhood. Her first thought in the morning and last thought at night was to see us married, and if she could, to see us married well.”
I kept silent, thinking her mother’s aspirations should not have been too difficult to fulfil. There were respectable men everywhere just bumping the ceiling of their station in life who wished for a gentleman’s daughter to elevate their status.
