Life at Longbourn soon settled into its usual patterns, as Mary had predicted, with some alteration—that is, things were generally quieter, which was most agreeable to Mr. Bennet and indeed to the rest of the household as well. Weeks passed, in which the weather grew colder and the daylit hours shorter, but in truth Longbourn was pleasanter and more peaceful than it had been in a long time.
Though they had spent over a year as the only young ladies of the house, Mary and Kitty had never been used to spend much time in each others' company; but now they were often to be seen walking to Netherfield together, or in the breakfast-room, where Kitty had taken to sitting and writing her letters while Mary played, or even, on those rare occasions when Mary could be cajoled, going into Meryton to call upon Mrs. Phillips, or to Lucas Lodge to visit the young ladies of that house.
"How glad I am," Jane remarked one afternoon, when the sisters were all sitting together in the fine drawing room at Netherfield, "that you two should be such good friends. I have always wished that it should be so. It brings such joy to my heart to know that there is no longer any discord under the roof of Longbourn."
"I would not say so," Kitty replied, laughing, "for Mamma continues in high dudgeon as ever, and will hardly speak to Mary, because of the business with Robert Hart. Is that not discord enough for you, Jane?"
"It distresses me to hear of it," Jane said, her fair brow wrinkling. "How unhappy you must be, Mary."
Mary gave an inelegant shrug and glanced away.
"If she is unhappy," Kitty said, "it is only because Robert is in Bath, and she is here at Longbourn."
"That does not make me unhappy," Mary said evenly. "I understand perfectly well the dictates of our circumstances, and that he must remain in one place while I must remain in another. Indeed, perhaps it is better that it should be so; for now we may enjoy a correspondence based entirely upon the expression of thoughts and ideas, without any need for the useless pleasantries which are so often a part of daily personal interaction."
"Lord," Kitty sighed, "how reasonable you are, Mary."
"But do you not agree?" Mary pressed, looking at her younger sister. "Do you not find that your correspondence with Mr. Finch allows you to understand and know him better?"
"Yes, but only because he is not so shy when he writes as when he speaks."
"That is what I mean: writing allows us to break free of the conventions and restraints that typically hamper our everyday conversations. We may be free on the page in a way that we may not in person. The letter is a most valuable tool for the enrichment of understanding."
"I think you and Robert are quite free enough," Kitty answered drily, "for I have heard him speak very frankly with you, and you with him. Neither of you has any idea how to flirt and court and so on; it is a wonder you ever managed to fall in love with each other."
Mary flushed, and Jane interposed gently:
"I am glad you are happy in your situation, Mary, whether Mamma is pleased with it or no."
And with that, she carefully turned the conversation to other topics, upon which the three sisters remained engaged until the two youngest were obliged to take their leave.
"Yet you cannot be truly happy," Kitty said, almost as soon as they had begun the cold walk home. "Not truly, fully happy. You are in love with somebody whom you may not see for several months, and then after that (assuming there is no change in your understanding between now and then) for years. And in the meantime you are obliged to be all alone and not have him by, except for a letter every now and again. You cannot say that makes you happy."
"I know my own feelings. The present arrangement suits both of us, and it is necessary; he cannot obtain his degree here in Meryton, and I should hate to live in Bath or London. And neither of us would care to be married just now."
"Yes," Kitty replied, with faint exasperation, her breath making little irritated puffs in the chill air, "but if you truly love him, you must at least be a little dissatisfied to have him so far away, even though you understand all of the circumstances and their reasoning. You cannot say this is what you would prefer, when you have been used to seeing him several times a week, and talking with him in company."
Mary sniffed. "Perhaps I may admit to some slight dissatisfaction. But I have great faith in our understanding, and in the power of our correspondence. I think it exceedingly important that we shall not be bound to a marriage, or even an engagement, until our knowledge of each others' characters is as complete as possible. This way we can avoid making any foolish mistakes."
Kitty drew back, stung, and Mary immediately regretted her words.
"Forgive me, Katherine," she said, "that was unkind. But you take my meaning. When a relationship is reduced to words upon a page, there is—or should be—less opportunity for folly, of any sort, on either side."
"Perhaps," Kitty answered, and she did not say very much more for the rest of the walk.
With the serendipity that occurs every once in awhile even in the most ordinary lives, Kitty found at home a letter waiting from her from Miss Diana Finch, with, as had become usual, a note from Oliver Finch enclosed—the gentleman's note rather longer than his sister's. Kitty's sour mood was banished as swiftly as it had been provoked, and she took the letter to her favorite window-seat in the sitting room, to peruse it at her leisure.
The correspondence that had arisen between the young ladies of Longbourn and their friends in Bath had been cause for no small amount of remark among the Bennets' family and friends. Mr. Bennet had declared drily, upon more than one occasion, that it seemed his daughters were singlehandedly paying the salaries of the mail coachmen between Hertfordshire and Somersetshire; Mrs. Phillips had raised her eyebrows and said that though her young nieces were not married, at least the trip had not been entirely wasted (a comment which had made Mrs. Bennet rather cross), and Maria Lucas had exclaimed jealously over the thrill that must arise upon having letters come so regularly from so far away a place as Bath.
"I wish I had someone to write to in Bath," her sister Henrietta had sighed, "for all we have is Charlotte, and she is only in Kent."
Kitty had acknowledged this sympathetically.
Though she could not entirely believe that Mary was so unaffected as she claimed by their separation from their Bath friends, Kitty could not deny that her sister made at least one fair point—that is, that correspondence had allowed her to come to know Mr. Finch far better than she ever had in Bath.
The gentleman, so reticent and shy in company, seemed to come alive upon the page: his letters were long and, to her surprise and pleasure, remarkably engaging. They necessarily bore all the awkwardness of new correspondence between friends not very intimately acquainted—such was only natural—but it was a little endearing, for it reminded Kitty very much of the man himself as he was in person, and made clear that this was no poetic love-letter from a practiced scoundrel.
Mr. Finch wasted no ink upon dull accounts of day-to-day life in Larkhall, nor upon discussions of the weather, and certainly not upon idle gossip. Instead he wrote of things he had read, or seen, or heard, which interested or amused him, and shared pieces of news which concerned their mutual friends; and if Kitty had in her last note posed any questions to him, or made any observations, he returned thoughtful answers, and was always ready to solicit her own thoughts and opinions, and to ask after her family and friends in Hertfordshire.
Indeed, perhaps the chief value of Oliver Finch as a correspondent was his awareness that he was, indeed, corresponding with someone. Lydia, the only other person with whom Kitty had ever kept up anything like a regular correspondence (though indeed it was without much regularity), always wrote long paragraphs consisting entirely of her own affairs; and when Kitty responded with news of Longbourn and Meryton, she received in return another note that detailed Lydia's troubles and triumphs, with nothing said about any of the people or events Kitty had mentioned, and no answers given to any of the questions she had asked, and indeed no sign at all that Lydia had in fact read her sister's letter before answering it.
But Mr. Finch was not Lydia, and so Kitty had come to prize the letters she received from him. She wondered why he had never spoken to her so when she was in Bath; but then, she imagined, much of his attention and energy must have been focused upon his courtship of Rosamond. And she herself had never afforded him a great deal of thought or consideration, at any rate—at least not until the very end of her time there—for before then, she had been too preoccupied with her own affairs. The thought gave her a small pang of embarrassment and regret.
At Longbourn, however, she had the luxury of time at her disposal, and and space in which to reflect, as well as the distinct lack of a social agenda resembling that which the Henry Street household had kept in Bath. With so few distractions and so much time to think, she came to esteem Oliver Finch greatly.
And so she spent a good half-hour reading Mr. Finch's note very carefully, and smiling at the parts which provoked it, and putting it aside for a few moments at a time to think over something he had written; and it was in this attitude of happy reflection that Mrs. Bennet found her.
"What do you sigh and smile over, my dear?" she asked, coming into the room with her sewing-basket over her arm. Kitty looked up.
"It is only a letter from Mr. Finch."
"Indeed?" Mrs. Bennet furrowed her brow. "The poor gentleman; I am sure he is still very broken up over Miss Hart's engagement. But he need not trouble you with his woes."
"He is doing nothing of the sort," Kitty insisted, giggling. "In fact he has not mentioned Rose at all."
This was not entirely true; Mr. Finch had written that he had met Rosamond at the Fitzwilliams' on Thursday and that they had had a very interesting conversation about a book they were both reading; but Kitty did not mention this, for she did not know entirely what to make of it. This matter-of-factness did not fit her image of the brokenhearted would-be suitor.
Mrs. Bennet looked unconvinced, and gave Kitty a very shrewd look over her embroidery. "I suppose that is good news, at least; but I hope that you are not in love with him, my dear. He is quite unsuitable."
"I am not in love with him," Kitty said honestly.
"Who is unsuitable?" Mary asked, coming in with a book under her arm.
"Mr. Finch," Kitty replied, smiling at her sister to let her know that all was forgiven from the earlier argument.
"Why is Mr. Finch unsuitable, Mamma?" Mary demanded. "He is a gentleman, and a respected one. And he has his own occupation, and spends his time usefully, which is more than can be said for most of the gentlemen in Bath."
"And he was very kind to me, when I was—when I was separating from Mr. Price," Kitty added, reddening. Mrs. Bennet frowned at the mention of that gentleman.
"Mr. Finch is all very well in his own way," she said. "But he is so very awkward, my love, and he never has anything to say."
"He is not awkward," Mary protested.
"No, he is quite awkward, Mary," Kitty said mildly. "You do not notice because you are also very awkward. But that does not make him unsuitable, Mamma. Mr. Darcy never talks to you either, and you do not mind that."
"Mr. Darcy has ten thousand a year and his own estate, my dear," Mrs. Bennet sniffed, "and a town-house in Mayfair besides. Anyway I have thought it over, Kitty, and I have decided that we can do much better than a clergyman. You have two very well-married sisters, you know, and soon your particular friend shall be a viscountess, and if all of these relations cannot find a good husband for you, then I do not know what we shall do."
This was a less grim prediction than she had been making for the past several days, and so Kitty only laughed, and Mary only rolled her eyes. Mrs. Bennet frowned at these reactions.
"You may roll your eyes at me if you please, Miss Mary—it is nothing to me—you have destroyed all of your own prospects, and I am sure I shall not be to blame one day when you find yourself thirty-three and unmarried and wishing you had secured Robert Hart when you had the chance. I have washed my hands of you.—Nor shall you be young and pretty forever, Kitty, and so it is best if you start taking such things seriously."
"I am taking such things more seriously now than I ever have before," Kitty replied, still smiling, "and that is why I am sure, Mamma, that you shall not find me a husband with whom I can fall in love."
"No indeed?" Mrs. Bennet sniffed. "Just as I did not find Mr. Bingley for Jane, nor Mr. Darcy for Lizzie? Just as I did not say that Mr. Wickham should make a good husband for any of my girls?"
"You said the same thing about Mr. Collins," Kitty muttered, and her mother waved a dismissive hand.
"That was before things were as they are now—before we were a family with such fine connections. Back then I had thought that we should be poor forever. But now, my dear, we may set our sights quite a bit higher than Mr. Collins, and that is why I declare that you must not be in love with Mr. Finch. I have a great feeling that there is a baron or a viscount awaiting you."
"I am not in love with Mr. Finch," Kitty said again. "I can promise you that, Mamma. But I cannot promise to fall in love with your barons and viscounts, whatever you say."
"But you must admit, Kitty," Maria Lucas said the next day, when Kitty told her of the conversation, "it is very romantic, to have him writing to you from Bath. Mamma has always said that only ladies and gentlemen who are engaged ever write to each other." They were walking into Meryton together, their skirts gently stirring the fallen leaves on the path.
"That is not true," Kitty said, a little annoyed with her friend's naivety. "Mary and Robert write to each other with the same regularity."
She realized as she said it that this was not the best example to prove her point, but brushed off Maria's giggles.
"Anyway," she said, "it is not as though he is writing love-letters; I should find that very dull indeed."
Maria sighed. "You are the only young lady in the world who could find a love-letter dull," she declared, "and a year ago I should not have thought it of you, Kitty Bennet. I suppose your mysterious suitor in Bath wrote you all the love-letters you could have wished for, and that is why you don't care a thing for them now."
A sharp pang went through Kitty, and she glanced away. Maria seemed not to notice her agitation.
"And even if your Mr. Finch does not write you love-letters," she went on, "it is not for nothing that he writes to you as he does. He is probably in love with you, even if you don't know it. And you are probably in love with him, and don't know it. Don't you think you are at all in love with him, Kitty?"
Kitty thought for a long moment. She imagined Mr. Finch's handsome face and strong shoulders, his shy smile and endearing blush, his quiet voice and tendency to stumble over his words. She thought of him as he shyly asked her to dance at the Upper Rooms, as he laughed with Rosamond on the Broad Quay bridge, as he towered over Mr. Price in the drawing-room at Henry Street. (At this last, she gave a little shudder. Mr. Price kept creeping into her thoughts at strange times.)
"No," she said to Maria, truth in all her expressions. "I am not."
For she was not. She had indeed begun to think Oliver Finch a necessary part of her own world—but it would not do to be drawn into another unpleasant entanglement. She must take care not to betray herself once more, by fancying herself passionately in love with a gentleman presently so far removed from her, whose correspondence revealed little more than an honest friendship, and a care for her happiness and amusement. She could not afford to spend days cast upon her bed, weeping and pining for her faraway lover. While this course of action may have appealed to the Kitty Bennet of a year ago, Kitty knew very well now that she was not a heroine in a novel, and that love did not work the way she had once thought it did.
She liked Mr. Finch very well; she thought of him affectionately, and had come to consider him one of the most admirable gentlemen of her acquaintance. She looked forward to his letters even more than to Rosamond's. He was intelligent, kind, thoughtful, and occasionally terribly sweet. That she could not deny, nor did she wish to. But as to love—the entire idea made her very tired, and a little sad.
"And I do not think he is in love with me," she added belatedly. "He has recently met with a disappointment; he was in love with a young lady, and she became engaged to someone else. I do not think he is any more disposed to romance than I am just now."
"That is too bad," Maria said, losing interest in the conversation now that it did not include talk of suitors and love-letters any longer. "But, Kitty, I hope you shall overcome your disinclination in time for the Watsons' ball on Thursday; Mary King's brother has come to stay for the winter, and it is said by all that he is very handsome."
Kitty rather doubted this, for Mary King herself was no beauty; but she assured Maria that she was as eager as anyone to see the handsome Mr. King.
"What shall you wear to the ball?" Maria asked, her thoughts now firmly turned in that direction.
Maria Lucas, being not much given to observation or reflection, can be forgiven for not noticing that her friend lacked her accustomed zeal when discussing the Watsons' ball. It had not yet occurred to Miss Lucas that there was much to be expected from life, besides dancing and amusement and, ultimately, marriage—though this was a concept of which she only had the vaguest, most romantic notions, and she thought little more of it than one might think of any other agreeable but distant eventuality. The Watsons' ball, therefore, was the only topic which could occupy her until Thursday, after which she would discuss, for a few days, the various things which had happened in the ballroom, and then she would be obliged to find some other subject of conversation.
But Kitty, though she put on a cheerful face for the sake of her friend, could not find in herself any great amount of interest in discussing the coming assembly, or Mr. King, or which gown she ought to wear, or any other such topic. She was glad when at last they reached Meryton, and talk of the coming assembly was put aside in favor of a very thorough discussion of the new hats on display at Sterling's, and the new fabrics just arrived at Smith's, and other such things: conversation about immediate things, which required nothing more from her than an opinion, and not a great deal of thought.
The days went by. The Watsons' ball came and went; Kitty danced and laughed enough to satisfy Maria Lucas, though she could not help thinking most of the gentlemen rather unimpressive (the famous Mr. King, as she had expected, was nothing to behold compared to Mr. Finch or Mr. Price or even Robert Hart). Even the one or two handsome gentlemen, with whom she would once have treasured a dance, left her cold; she found them unutterably dull, and prone to talking too much, though she took care not to show her disinterest.
Mrs. Bennet, spoiled by the bounties of Bath's ballrooms, noisily bemoaned the lack of titled lords and gentlemen of fortune to Mrs. Phillips and Lady Lucas. "In Bath," Mrs. Bennet declared, "every gentlemen with whom the girls danced had some sort of title, or at least a prodigious income to recommend him; here it is nothing but country lads one step above the local farmers, with the exception of our Mr. Bingley."
"Indeed it is most trying," Lady Lucas replied, rather smugly, for of course her husband possessed the finest (albeit the only) title in the neighborhood of Meryton.
Mrs. Bennet pursed her lips. "But of course," she said, taking care that Lady Lucas should not rest too comfortably upon her pedestal, "I have great hopes of our return to Bath. We shall be there in the Season this time, you know. Who can say what interesting people the girls might meet?"
Mrs. Phillips fumed silently; for she had neither a title nor an excursion to Bath of which to boast.
Mary danced only one dance, and that with her brother-in-law, for none of the other gentlemen thought to ask her. This suited her well enough, and she spent most of the time in conversation with her sister Jane, or Kitty when she was not dancing. But there were several points throughout the evening during which both of her sisters were otherwise engaged, and she was obliged to sit alone; and though she would once have taken such an opportunity to gloat of her mental superiority, now she could not help longing a little for Robert Hart. She had never realized, before, how dull a ball could be when there was nobody nearby with which to enjoy it.
But the ball ended, as balls do, and Mr. Bennet (who had chosen not to attend) was regaled with an account of it which was far too long for his liking, and then morning came, and before long everything which had seemed so amusing and important under the chandeliers of the Watsons' ballroom began to seem trivial, and people found other things to talk about.
Letters flew between Longbourn and Bath.
Robert wrote of continuing his work in his father's practice, and preparing to leave Hart House after the New Year to take his place at St. Thomas's in London. It was, he confessed to Mary, a daunting prospect. But it is good to make my own way in the world. I do not think I could be satisfied to sleep forever in the bedroom of my childhood. For one thing, it is very drafty.
Rosamond, in a separate letter to Mary, wrote dryly that her friend would soon be in the unique position of being geographically closer to my twin brother than I am—an honor that has never been borne by any of our other friends. I trust that you will treasure the experience.
Mr. Finch wrote that his rector had been struck with a cold, and that he had been obliged to preach the sermon two Sundays in a row, which I enjoyed, though it was under such unfortunate circumstances. It is a strange thing, for I have never been very adept at amusing conversation—this I am sure you know too well, Miss Bennet—but I have found a certain joy in addressing my parishioners from the pulpit. Miss Hart (in jest, I am sure) claims this as evidence that I was meant for the stage, but I think my enjoyment is born more of necessity than an inclination for performance. After all, if I did not take some satisfaction in the giving of a sermon, I should be a sorry preacher indeed. But this is enough talk of sermons; I promised I would not bore you with them.
To Kitty, Rosamond mentioned meeting Oliver Finch in Green Street a few days ago, but we did not talk for as long as I should have liked, for it was too cold to linger. He asked after you very kindly, and we then discovered that he had written to you more recently than I, to my great embarrassment. But I thought you might like to know that you are still much thought of here in Bath, and much missed as well, by myself and by many others.
Mary wrote to Robert that I can only offer you my earnest encouragement, and remind you that very often, it is these daunting tasks which are the most rewarding. One must beware complacency over all things; it is the sign of a listless spirit. You suffer no such malady, and so I am sure that your adventure shall be the making of you.
She reminded Rosamond that my triumph shall only last a little while, for Kitty informs me that you are to remove to London soon after your marriage, which of course shall put you nearer to Robert than I. But for the time that it is mine, I shall prize the advantage.
Kitty's letter to Rosamond assured her friend that Mr. Finch is an excellent correspondent, and I look forward to seeing him when I am in Bath again. But he is a single gentleman, not a young lady preparing for a wedding, and so I do not mind if his letters come more frequently than yours.
She told Mr. Finch how sorry she was for his rector's illness, but added that I am sure that your enjoyment of your work is evident in your recital, and so makes your sermons the more interesting for your parishioners. Our rector bored Henny Lucas all the way to sleep last week, and Maria was obliged to pinch her rather hard to wake her up. With such competition, you need never worry about boring me with your letters! Indeed I look forward to them with such eagerness that it quite alarms Mamma
But she stopped there, and after a moment of consideration, carefully scratched out the last words, for there were several implications in them which she did not entirely like. Instead she scrawled I look forward to them with such eagerness that it sometimes seems as though I live more in Bath than I do in Meryton. And that was certainly true enough, she thought wryly, surveying her handiwork.
For indeed, though life at Longbourn no longer seemed so strange and quiet to her—though she had grown accustomed to long still days, and evenings with nothing more to offer than a warm fire and, occasionally, supper at Netherfield Hall or Lucas Lodge—she still awoke some mornings expecting to find herself in the little bedroom at Henry Street. And though the disappointment, upon remembering that it was not so, was no longer so great as it had once been, Kitty could not help feeling as though some part of her heart had been left behind in Bath.
It was not even the attractions of the city which had the strongest hold upon her affection; indeed, she scarcely thought of the Pump Rooms or the Roman Baths or even the Assembly Rooms. Her feelings were rooted in much smaller things than that, things which she had not even thought to enjoy when they were happening: the morning she spent walking through busy Guildhall Market with Rosamond, or the various crowded tea-shops where she had spent several agreeable afternoons, or even the many carriage-rides she had taken throughout the city, the horses clipping smartly past scenes of such overwhelming ordinariness that she could not imagine why they had impressed her so.
The moment to which she most frequently returned, in her mind, was the first morning she had spent in Bath, when she had stood upon the street-corner and watched everybody hurrying past about the business of their lives. She could remember, even now, how the sights and sounds of the city had thrilled her; she had felt a part of the world in a way that she did not, now. Everything had seemed so fine and exciting and wonderful and new, and she mentioned this to Mary one rainy afternoon, when they were confined to the drawing room at Longbourn.
"Your memory is tinged with the fondness of distance," her sister pronounced. "You are not remembering all the dull rainy afternoons, quite like this one, which we spent at Henry Street—or the concert you attended, which you found so interminable—or any of the other unpleasant things."
"I remember the unpleasant things," Kitty said ruefully. The gloomy weather had awakened some similarly gloomy streak in her own nature. "But boredom in Bath does not seem so terrible as boredom in Meryton, though I know it is horrid of me to say so—and as for the other unpleasant things—"
She fell silent, and gazed listlessly out the window. Mary bit her lip.
"Kitty," she said, carefully, "do you still think often of Mr. Price?"
For a long moment there was no reply, and Mary began to think of how she might change the subject, though she could not think of any easy way to raise her sister's spirits. Spirits-raising had never been a skill of Mary's. But then,
"Yes," Kitty burst out, bitterly. "And I do not wish to. And sometimes I go a full day without thinking of him, but then the next day he is there again in my thoughts. When I am in a ballroom and a gentleman is flirting with me, he is all I see. Or sometimes when I am about to fall asleep, I think very suddenly of that last morning, when he was so unkind to me, and then I feel very ashamed and hot all over and cannot fall asleep for another half-hour. I try not to speak of him, to Maria or Mamma or anybody, and I try not to think of him either, but I cannot help it. And I do not understand why!"
This last was half-shouted in a very plaintive tone, and Kitty gave a surreptitious sniffle.
Mary regarded her seriously. "I am afraid," she ventured, "that I have very little experience in this area, and so I do not know what advice to offer you. But I do not think it is natural that you should forget about him entirely. Your—experience—with that gentleman may be said to be one of the more significant experiences of your life. Thus, I imagine, it shall not readily fade from your memory."
She would have said more, but did not know what else to say. Kitty sniffled again.
"I suppose it was very significant," she said, her voice wavering. "But as to the rest, I think it unfair indeed that I should be so haunted by him. I did not think of him half so much after he left Bath, though everything was then so recent and there were so many things that might have reminded me of him. It is very unfair that I should be obliged to think of him now, when we are at home in a place where he has never even set foot, and I should have no cause to think of him ever again."
"Perhaps," Mary said, "you thought of him less in Bath, because your days were more occupied. Here, we are quieter than we have been in some time, and you have not a temperament bred for quiet."
Kitty sighed. "Perhaps," she said, but she sounded quite dissatisfied with the idea. Mary swallowed, and looked away uncomfortably. The sisters sat in silence for a few moments.
"But," Kitty began again, at length, "and this is very wrong of me, I suspect—even with all of that, even though it was the scene of so many very unpleasant moments, and moments that seemed pleasant at the time but now make me shudder to think of them—even with all of those points against it, I cannot help wishing we were now in Bath and not here in Meryton."
"We always wish for that which is most unattainable," Mary said gently, relieved to be back on somewhat steadier ground. "Did you never miss Meryton while you were in Bath?"
"No," Kitty said, "never."
Mary frowned. "You never missed Papa, or Jane, or Aunt Phillips, or Maria?"
"Oh," Kitty said, "I missed them, but it was in a very different sort of way. I wished that they would come to Bath and be with us there; but now I wish we could all go to Bath, and leave Meryton behind."
"Well," Mary said, a little stiffly, "I suppose our experiences were very different. I wished often, while we were in Bath, to come back to Hertfordshire."
"I know you did," Kitty said, for the first time giving her sister a small smile. "And that is the difference between us, Mary."
Mary returned the smile tentatively. "At any rate," she said, "you shall have your wish granted in a few months' time; and after that, Rosamond shall invite you to London with her. I imagine London shall suit you even better than Bath."
There was a time when Kitty, fed upon stories of the fashionable ton and other London fascinations, would have agreed with her; but now, she could not imagine that it would be so. Thinking of London only made her think of Mr. Price again, and everything that he had once promised her. But she did not say so. "Let us hope that it is a double invitation," she said instead, with a mischevious grin, "for I am sure London shall suit you even better than it shall suit me. That is where Robert Hart is to be found, after all."
Mary pursed her lips, but was glad to see that her sister's good humor was somewhat recovered.
The rain continued falling, gentle drops sliding down the windowpanes and landing quietly on the eaves; and before very much longer, the air outside grew colder, and the raindrops turned into soft little snowflakes that spread white over the grass, only to melt away when the sun rose the next morning.
28 November
Greenside Cottage
Larkhall, Somersetshire
Dear Miss Bennet,
I hope this message finds you, and all of your family, well and happy.
Your letter of the 15th was most gratefully received, for it arrived upon a day that was particularly bleak and cold, and lifted my spirits very quickly. I must beg your pardon for not replying more promptly, but my duties have kept me from you longer than I should have liked.
I was sorry to hear that you did not enjoy the recent ball in Meryton so much as you had expected. However, I do not entirely believe your statement that you should have enjoyed it the more if I had been there—I am afraid that my presence would indeed have contributed very little to your happiness, for I am not a fine dancer and not particularly interesting to listen to unless, it seems, I am speaking from the pulpit, which I know should particularly displease you in a ballroom. But you are kind to say so. I hope that the next Meryton assembly meets with your approval, though I shall not be at that one, either. (I am confident that you shall enjoy yourself in spite of my absence.)
If I may be permitted to speak of sermons a little longer, I am proud to report that I have not yet, at least, had the experience of boring anyone to sleep. I am glad to know that I may therefore rest assured of your approval, so long as everyone in my congregation manages to remain awake every Sunday.
Are you enjoying The Haunted Tower? Miss Hart was good enough to loan me her copy when my sisters and I called at Hart House yesterday, but Cecilia begged me to let her have it first, and so I have not yet had an opportunity to begin it. (I only hope that Louisa and Diana do not claim it from Cecilia once she has finished, as is their wont—Dr. Blackburn has an excellent sermon on "small selfishness" with which, perhaps, I ought to bore them.) Miss Hart's opinion on the book was largely positive, though she did have one or two criticisms to offer, which I was studiously instructed not to share with you, for fear of spoiling the ending. I should be interested to hear how your judgment compares to hers, when you have finished it yourself.
I may report that Miss Hart does not yet have the harried look which I often see upon the faces of brides-to-be; I suppose the wedding and its preparations are still adequately distant, or perhaps her temperament easily conceals her anxiety. Whatever the case, it was good to see her yesterday (for it seems to me that I have not seen as much of her as I could have liked, in recent days), and the party could only have been improved by the addition of yourself.
Indeed, if I may speak freely, there have been several moments in the past weeks during which I have wished for your company—it seems a long time since you and your family were here in Bath, and I look forward to your return in the spring (if indeed you are able to attend Miss Hart's wedding, which I earnestly hope is the case).
I hope that your journey to Pemberley is blessed with the finest of weather, and that you reach your sister's house in perfect safety. I hope, too, that your family celebrations are all amusement and happiness, with none of those petty annoyances that seem to arise whenever my family finds itself all together in one or two rooms.
I am afraid that I must end here, for Dr. Blackburn has sent for me, and I must away with haste. Good-bye, Miss Bennet, and all of my best wishes to yourself and your family.
Yours very sincerely,
Oliver Finch