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Her bo
“You are no trouble,” Elizabeth said. “We will wait with you until your nurse comes back.”
“You have both been so kind. May I ask your names?”
“Mrs. and Miss Darcy.”
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Mrs. Smith.”
Tendrils of fine brown hair had come loose when her hat took flight, and they now blew round Mrs. Smith’s face as she put the bo
“Would you like some assistance?” Elizabeth asked.
“If you do not mind. My hands are sometimes stiff after bathing, and the water was cold this morning.”
“We do not mind in the least,” Elizabeth said. Georgiana removed Mrs. Smith’s bo
“I am much obliged to you, Mrs. Darcy. Nurse Rooke should return soon with the chair to take me home.”
“Is your house very far?”
“It is not my house, actually, but that of my friends the Wentworths—the most thoughtful, generous friends one could wish for! Mrs. Wentworth is a former schoolmate of mine. We fell out of communication for many years, but last winter we discovered ourselves both in Bath at the same time and renewed our friendship. She has been very good to me. When my physician advised me to try seabathing, she and Captain Wentworth invited me to come to Lyme and stay with them, despite their being recently married and just establishing their home.” She laughed. “I told them that newlyweds did not need a poor widow intruding on their privacy, but they so kindly insisted that I could not decline.”
“They sound like very good friends, indeed,” Elizabeth said.
“Oh! There is the chair now.”
Nurse Rooke approached, leading two bearers carrying a sedan chair. The conveyance—a windowed box with a seat inside, borne on two long poles—was as common a sight in Lyme as it was in Bath, for it offered advantages over horse-drawn carriages. Often, the chair men could negotiate the town’s narrow lanes and steep hills more easily than drivers of wheeled vehicles, and they could collect and deliver their passengers in places such as sandy beaches or inside buildings. Elizabeth found the chairs confining and generally used them only in the rain, but for a debilitated person such as Mrs. Smith, they were an ideal form of transport.
“Here we are at last!” the nurse called out cheerfully. “I am sorry to have taken so long—a chair was not immediately to be had. Are you ready to go to the Cobb?”
“No, let us simply return home today.”
“Very well.” The nurse picked up Mrs. Smith’s cane, which lay forgotten behind the stool she had been sitting on. “Here—I will help you into the chair.”
As the nurse handed Mrs. Smith her cane, Elizabeth realized that she herself might have seen Mrs. Smith once before. There had been a woman on a bench on the lower Cobb the morning of Lady Elliot’s accident. Elizabeth’s party had been on the upper wall, looking down from an angle, so the woman’s bo
Mrs. Smith rose. Leaning on her cane with one hand, she extended her other toward Elizabeth, which Elizabeth took. The widow’s hand was bony, her knuckles swollen.
“I feel so fortunate to have met you, Mrs. Darcy—and you, too, Miss Darcy. Thank you once more for your assistance. I hope our paths cross again while you are in Lyme.”
Elizabeth hoped so, too.
Thirteen
“No one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages … a certain something in her air and ma
Elizabeth found that she enjoyed seabathing. Though shockingly brisk upon entry, the water temperature was not unpleasant after one became accustomed to it, and the dipper’s advice to immerse one’s whole self immediately rather than ease in proved sound. The water reached their shoulders, alleviating any modesty concerns Elizabeth had harbored, and the two sisters—though Georgiana was her sister by marriage, Elizabeth loved her like a sister of blood—conversed freely and cheerfully on all ma
Boats dotted the waves farther out to sea. Most of them were small fishing vessels, but a larger passenger ship caught Georgiana’s attention.
“Do you think my brother is seriously contemplating a tour abroad for us all?”
“You know your brother—he would not have voiced the possibility aloud unless he were sincerely entertaining it.”
She smiled. “I am simply so delighted by the prospect that I can hardly believe he said it.”
“You are that eager to travel?” Elizabeth was pleased by the prospect herself, but Georgiana’s enthusiasm was palpable.
“I would like to see something of the world beyond Pemberley and London. I have wondered what it might be like to hear Mozart performed in Vie
“I did. They were lovely.” Elizabeth also noticed how animated Georgiana had become. Journeying abroad seemed a subject that had been in her thoughts for some time.
“Even if I do not travel, however, I am eager for some sort of alteration in my life. I enjoy my musical studies, our visits to London, the society of my friends. I adore my niece. I am blessed with an excellent brother, and you, Elizabeth—you have brought me the happiness of at last having a sister.” She looked at Elizabeth with such genuine affection that Elizabeth would have hugged her were she not expending so much energy simply keeping her head above water as the tide moved toward shore. “But I ca
Elizabeth understood. For all that polite society praised an “accomplished” woman, it offered few outlets for one to employ those accomplishments in a meaningful ma
On the horizon, a ship of the line sailed east toward Portsmouth, and both could not help but admire the majestic image of a first-rate flagship under full sail.
“Do you think Lieutenant St. Clair will ever captain such a ship?” Georgiana asked.
“He might, in time,” Elizabeth answered. “Though now that the war is ended, I expect that opportunities to distinguish oneself for promotion will be fewer, and captaincies will not become vacant as frequently.”
“I suppose that is both good and bad for naval families. Advancement will be much slower, but there is a greater chance that one’s husband—or father, or cousin—will live to an old age.”