Kitty Bennet's Diary (Pride and Prejudice Chronicles) (10 page)

 I noticed as I finished speaking that we were in Gracechurch Street and outside my aunt and uncle’s house; Mr. Dalton had drawn the curricle to a halt.  He did not answer my question at once, only sat, looking out over the row of sleeping houses before us.  A few had lights already glowing in the basement windows—the servants already up and about their chores for the day.

Finally he said, “I do not know.  I could quote the Bible for you—tell you that God never promises that we will not be forced to walk through the fiery furnace.  Only that if we have faith, we will not be burned.  But the plain truth is that I do not know.”

There was an odd note in his voice, I thought.  Weariness or bitterness or both.  The light from the nearby windows gilded his hair and deepened the shadows about the corners of his mouth.

I had not really intended to go on; I am not exactly in the habit of debating theology.  But somehow the darkness and the night stillness loosened something in my chest, and I heard myself ask the
real
question I had been worrying over.  The question that had been bumping and scraping about inside me ever since I had left Jane’s bedside—and discovered from Georgiana that Lord Henry is in London.

“Do you think, then … do you think that God torments and takes our loved ones from us because He intends that
we
are to be punished?”

“No.”  Mr. Dalton shook his head.

“You sound very certain.”

He was silent a moment, looking down at the reins lying slack in his hands.  Then he looked up at me and said, “I have to be.”

It is strange.  I had been plagued all night—well, ever since John died, really—by the feeling that it was
my
fault that John was killed at Waterloo.  My punishment, for not having appreciated him enough while he was alive.  But as Mr. Dalton spoke, at least for that moment, I stopped thinking of that.

Mr. Dalton had spoken with certainty, yes— but his voice was once again edged with that note of bitterness.  And his eyes … his eyes were so bleak, dark and shadowed.  In that moment, all I could think of was wishing that I could somehow take that look away.

“Oh.  Well, thank you,” I said.

Mr. Dalton raised his brows.  “For what?  I do not think I can possibly have been much help.”  He gave me a brief twist of a smile.  “I suppose I had better practise my answers to such questions if I am ever to have a parish of my own.”

“True.  But at least you did not tell me glibly that the Lord moves in mysterious ways.  If you had done
that
, I would have been forced to hit you with something large and heavy—which would have broken our agreement of
pax
.”

He laughed at that—and some of the bleakness did lift from his expression.  And then—

This is the part I have been dreading having to write down.  But very well.  Another discovery I have made is that unpleasant tasks never grow any the more palatable for having been put off.

We were both laughing.  And then suddenly our eyes met, we both went still—and I was struck all at once by the wish that I could close the remaining distance between us and touch my lips to his, run my fingers through his wheat-blond hair.

I scrambled down from the carriage seat without waiting for him to assist me.  I was grateful for the darkness which—I sincerely hoped—hid the scalding blush I could feel climbing up into my cheeks.  “Thank  you again for your help tonight,” I said.  “And for driving me home.  But I had better let you get out of this cold night air before you catch your death of cold.”

I am not entirely sure what Mr. Dalton replied; I am not even entirely sure that I
waited
for him to reply before I ran up the steps to my aunt and uncle’s front door.

Lancelot Dalton was very kind tonight.  He is … he is indeed not at all like what my first impression of him was.  But that insane wish to kiss him … it must have been the continued ache of loneliness from seeing Edward and Georgiana so happy in each other.

 At least I
hope
it was only that.  Otherwise I am going to be thoroughly depressed by my lack of progress in altering myself from the girl I was last Christmastime.

It occurred to me after Mr. Dalton had driven off that I never asked him about Mark—whether he had succeeded in seeing Mark safely back to his rooms.  But I suppose he must have done, or he would have mentioned something.  And Mark will turn up again when he next finds himself in need of money; he always does.

I might have known better than to write something like,
I am hardly likely to run across Lord Henry Carmichael
.  It seems to be the rough equivalent of sending an engraved invitation directly to Fate, saying,
Do please feel compelled to prove me wrong
.

I had better start at the beginning.

The older children are gone, now, to their grandparents’, which means that there is only Susanna for me to care for.  I was upstairs in the nursery this morning, feeding her rice porridge, when Rose came to say that Mr. Williams was waiting in the morning room, and what ought she to tell him?

I told her that I would go down to him, though I was perfectly sure that it was not I whom Mr. Williams wished to see.

Mr. Williams actually looked relieved, though, when I came into the room.  I suppose I cannot entirely blame him for feeling a certain trepidation at the prospect of seeing Mary again.

“I am sorry that my sister is not here to see you,” I told him after we had exchanged the customary greetings.  “She has gone to call on our sister Jane, who is also in town for the winter.”

Mary really was gone to see Jane again—to make sure she is truly recovered from the fright of the night before last—which spared me the awkwardness of having to tell Mr. Williams that even if she had been home, Mary would in all likelihood still have refused to see him.

Mr. Williams cleared his throat.  Then he said, “Miss Bennet, I wonder if you would … if you would be so good as to give this to your sister?”  He held out a paper-wrapped parcel.  “It is a book that she expressed an interest in reading, and I went out and bought … that is, I happened to come across a copy of it yesterday, and thought that perhaps she might accept the loan.”

He spoke slowly, with a slight hesitation to the words, and his face looked rather as though he were facing a firing squad. 

I said, “Of course, Mr. Williams.  I will be happy to.  Mary … very much enjoyed the flowers that you sent her.”

It was not
entirely
a lie; Mary at least could not bring herself to throw the roses away. 

She gave them back to Aunt Gardiner, with the stipulation that our aunt put them somewhere Mary need never look at them.

Mr. Williams smiled—I have scarcely ever seen him smile before, but he has one of the nicest smiles I have ever seen.   There is a shy sweetness in his expression that is very appealing.   And some of his awkwardness of manner fell away as he rubbed a hand through his untidy black hair.  “I’m absolutely hopeless at all this, I’m afraid,” he said.  “I sent the flowers because … well, that’s what you’re suppose to give a girl, is it not?  Or so everyone says.  But on reflection, it occurred to me that your sister would likely much prefer a book.”

I was encouraged—truly encouraged.  Rhys Williams seems not only to admire Mary, but to understand her, as well.  After he had taken his leave and departed, I considered and planned my strategy for presenting his gift to Mary.

All of which effort turned out to be absolutely pointless in the end, when late in the afternoon, Mary came barrelling in through the front door as though her hair were on fire and bolted up the stairs to our room.

I thought something must be wrong—perhaps Jane’s baby was going to arrive too early after all.  So I ran up the stairs after her.  Only to find her snatching dress after dress out of the wardrobe, holding each up to herself in front of the mirror, and then casting each one aside. 

I blinked.  Even with the addition of the new clothes I insisted she buy, Mary has never given me the impression that she cares terribly about her wardrobe.  “Is something wrong?” I asked.  “Has something happened to Jane?”

“What?” Mary looked up, startled, in the act of holding up her new scarlet walking dress with the black braid on the shoulders and hem.  “No, nothing—and Jane is perfectly well.  It is just that I will be late if I do not dress quickly, that is all.”  She started to struggle with the buttons on the plain morning gown she had worn to visit Jane.  “Help me, will you Kitty?  And may I borrow your white wool pelisse with the red embroidery?  It will look all right with this gown, don’t you think?”

“I … yes, of course, if you like.”  I stared at her, tempted to ask whether she were some strange impostor who had replaced my sister.  But I looked down at the book from Mr. Williams—which I had carried upstairs with me—and said, instead, “Mary, I want to talk to you.”

Mary had managed the buttons on her own after all and had already tugged the scarlet gown over her head; her voice came out muffled by layers of cloth.  “All right.  But only if you come along and talk as we go.  I must leave at once.”

I glanced down at my own dress, which was an old one of yellow printed muslin.  With a jammy hand-print from Susanna on the skirt.  “Where are we going?”

Mary’s head emerged, slightly red-faced, through the neck of the gown.  “To Hyde Park.  Miss Pettigrew invited me to go walking there at five o’clock with a party of her friends.”

  I ought to have been suspicious from that point onwards, of course.  Ordinarily, Mary has even less patience for Miranda Pettigrew than I have.  But coming on the heels of her actually dancing at Georgiana’s party—and now appearing to care about clothes—I was more pleased than otherwise.  Mary must be coming out of her shell, I thought.  Perhaps it would not be so difficult to persuade her to forgive Mr. Williams after all.

Mary caught up her gloves and bonnet and then whirled out the door.  So I snatched up my cloak—having leant the pelisse to Mary—and said that I would come, as well.

 The hour between five and six in Hyde Park is of course
the
hour for the swells of fashionable society to see each other and be seen promenading on the park’s tree-lined paths.  Even during the winter, with the air frigid and the trees mere bare grey skeletons against a steely grey sky, the park was terribly crowded.  As Mary and I made our way to the path that runs along the bank of the Serpentine river—the location Miranda had given Mary as a meeting place—we were ogled by several promenading dandies who wore the latest fashions in skin-tight breeches and elaborate cravats.  And we were nearly run over by all the expensive carriages—ladies in high-perch phaetons, young men racing one another in their sporting curricles. 

I had no chance at all of bringing up the subject of Mr. Williams.  Not until we were midway along the path and a momentary break in the traffic gave me the chance to say, “Mary, Mr. Williams called at the house for you this morning.  He had a gift for you.”

“Oh?”

Mary seemed scarcely to be attending; her eyes were scanning the path up ahead.

“Yes,” I persisted.  “He very much hoped that you would forgive him for his clumsiness the other night.”

“Oh?” Mary said again.  And then, with a little more attention, she added, giving a careless wave of her hand, “I mean, yes, certainly I forgive him.  It scarcely matters now.”

I stopped walking, staring at her.  That had been far easier than I had dared let myself even hope.  “You forgive him?  Then you will see him again if he calls at the house?” I asked.

“
See
him?”  It was Mary’s turn to stop and stare.  Which she did—wrinkling her nose.  “No, indeed.  It would be unfair of me to give him false hopes that our acquaintance might in time deepen into something more.  Which is impossible, now—since I have discovered the true meaning of attachment and esteem.”

I blinked at her again, working out the full import of her words.  “Do you mean to say that there is some other man you admire? Who is he?  And where on earth did you meet him?”

Mary giggled—actually giggled.  And I continued to stare, thinking that it really was as though she had been replaced by someone alike in appearance but entirely unfamiliar in all other regards.  “We met at Georgiana’s Christmas party, of course,”  she said.  “We danced two dances together.”

“Two dances.  And already you believe yourself in love?”

Mary looked peevish at my tone—which made her appear a good deal more like herself.  “Do not the poets speak of love blooming in the space of a single glance across a crowded room?  And Shakespeare himself asked the question,
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight
?  And besides,” Mary added, “many engagements are begun without any more acquaintance between the parties than a dance or two.”

Which is perfectly true.  I think I may have danced three or four times—at two separate assemblies—with John before he proposed.

I drew in a breath, telling myself that this might be all to the good.  I was sorry for Mr. Williams, of course.  But it would make my resolution to see Mary wedded a good deal easier if she had found someone for herself—and if he actually returned her feelings.

“What is the fortunate gentleman’s name?” I asked, just as Mary drew in a sharp breath at sight of something up ahead.

“There he is!”  She lifted a hand and waved at a group of ladies and gentlemen moving towards us along the path.  And I saw him—and recognised him—at the identical moment that Mary declared in fondly smug tones, “Lord Henry Carmichael.”

I registered—distantly—that Miranda was part of the group.  Dressed in a frilly pink pelisse and a bonnet trimmed with ostrich plumes.

I scarcely saw her, though.  The entire world seemed to have ground to a halt—to borrow again from the vocabulary of gothic heroines—and my heart thudded, sickeningly loud in my ears.  “
That
is the man you are in love with?  Lord”—I had to force my stiff lips to shape the name—“Carmichael?”

Mary frowned again.  “It ought to be ‘with whom you are in love’, Kitty.”