Page 29 of Dear Friend

It ought to have suited him perfectly. Instead, five days with little to occupy him had done a great deal to sharpen an interest in seventeen letters which did not belong to him.

Darcy drew the pile nearer.

He was not a busybody. He had never possessed any particular interest in the private affairs of strangers, and he had still less patience for those who considered curiosity sufficient justification for intrusion. The letters were addressed to Julia Harding. Whoever she was, and wherever she had gone, their contents remained hers.

Yet the same correspondent had written faithfully for nearly five months without receiving sufficient response to learn that Miss Harding no longer resided at Willowbrook.

Darcy picked up the most recent letter and turned it over in his hand.

There was no name upon the outside by which the writer might be identified, nor any direction to which the letter might be returned. If Mr. Humphrey's further enquiries produced nothing, another might arrive next week, and another after that. Whoever continued sending them must believe, perhaps indefinitely, that they were reaching Miss Harding.

They could hardly believe otherwise. Whatever these letters contained, their writer plainly did not require a response before sending the next, for no response could possibly have come from a woman who had never received them. Seventeen unanswered letters had not discouraged the correspondence yet; there was little reason to suppose an eighteenth would.

There could surely be no great impropriety in discovering the writer's direction and informing her of the truth.

He need read nothing of the contents. A direction at the head of the page and a name at its conclusion would be sufficient. He could explain that the Harding family had quitted Willowbrook in March without leaving any forwarding direction and spare the writer the trouble of continuing to send letters into silence.

It was, Darcy decided, no more than a small kindness owed to a stranger.

He broke the seal before he could examine that reasoning too closely.

The first thing he saw was the direction.

Longbourn, Hertfordshire.

Darcy paused.

There it was. Half his purpose had been accomplished without his reading a single private word. He needed only the writer's name, which could easily be obtained from the final page. His eyes ought to have gone directly to the signature.

Instead, they fell upon the date and salutation beneath it.

14th August 1811

My dearest Julia,

Despite every intention of doing otherwise, Darcy lingered. After seventeen letters written without response, he wanted to know what could possibly keep their author writing so faithfully.

He read on.

Tomorrow makes five months since you left, and I find I have kept the account without ever meaning to. I do not know why I continue to mark the weeks so faithfully. Perhaps it is easier than admitting how very long five months can feel when one is waiting for news that never comes.

Meryton, I should tell you, has quite recovered from the great excitement of discovering that you and I looked enough alike to be twins. No one stops me now to enquire after the young lady who so remarkably resembled me, and I believe even my aunt Phillips has exhausted the subject, which is an achievement I had not thought possible.

Your aunt's failure to return has helped matters considerably. Between the two of you disappearing at once and offering no fresh particulars for Meryton to discuss, everyone was eventually obliged to find some newer curiosity.

I confess I resented them a little for it at first. It seemed very strange that something which had occupied half the town could be forgotten merely because a few months had passed. But perhaps that is because they remember the novelty of you, while I remember you. There is a considerable difference.

Meryton has gone on precisely as Meryton always does. Kitty and Lydia have found other matters over which to quarrel and reconcile themselves, Mama has discovered fresh concerns to occupy her, and Papa remains happiest whenever the library door stands between himself and the rest of us. Nothing has altered very much, and yet I continually encounter little things which seem altered simply because you are not here to share them.

I walked past the milliner's this morning, the very one outside which we first stood staring so foolishly at one another. I still maintain that you stared first, whatever account you afterwards gave of the matter. The woman inside glanced at me as I passed, and for one ridiculous moment I wondered whether she remembered there had once been two of us standing there, each trying to determine whether the other was some trick of the glass.

I do not suppose she did.

That is the strangest part of your being gone. It is not the great things which remind me of you, but the smallest. I passed Oakham Hill three days ago and remembered our argument there, though I shall not revive it merely to give you another opportunity of being wrong. Jane said something at breakfast yesterday which I knew would have made you laugh.

You would accuse me of growing sentimental, so I shall immediately rescue us both by telling you that Lydia has purchased another bonnet.

It is hideous.