Page 32 of Dear Friend

The letter he had already opened had raised considerably more questions than it answered. There was the extraordinary resemblance between Julia and Elizabeth, their first encounter before a milliner's window, some dispute upon Oakham Hill, and a friendship which had plainly become intimate before Julia's sudden departure. Elizabeth had written of these things as one writes to someone who already knows the whole history.

Darcy knew none of it.

His gaze settled upon the sixteen older letters. Somewhere amongst them, he supposed, lay at least part of that history, perhaps even Elizabeth's own account of why Julia had left Hertfordshire so suddenly.

He rubbed a hand across his face and looked away. The correspondence was upon his property, certainly, but that did not make it his. He could call it an examination of papers left at Willowbrook if he wished. It remained another person's private correspondence, and he knew it.

For several minutes his better judgement prevailed.

Then curiosity prevailed over that.

His reply need not be sent until morning. There was nothing to be gained by sealing it tonight, and no harm, he told himself, in understanding a little more of the circumstances before he did so.

It was a poor excuse.

Darcy accepted it nevertheless.

He drew the oldest letter from the pile. This time there could be no pretence of necessity. He knew who had written it and where she lived. If he broke the seal, it would be because he wished to know what she had written.

He regarded it for another moment.

Then he opened it.

Longbourn,

Hertfordshire

16th March 1811

Dearest Julia,

I had hoped, as always, that my next letter would begin by congratulating you upon being out of bed, or at the very least by abusing you for frightening us all so unnecessarily. Instead, Polly returned from the cottage yesterday to find it shut up and you gone, and I have been fit for very little sensible conversation since.

She learnt from one of your neighbours that Mrs. Tunley took you away in great haste after you worsened again overnight. I confess I was angry with your aunt for perhaps half an hour, which was exceedingly unjust of me, for I know very well that she has scarcely left your side these three months past and must have had good reason for deciding upon the journey. Still, she might have sent word. I should have liked something more substantial than a neighbour's recollection and Polly's account of it, particularly when the subject was you.

Only two weeks ago your aunt told me that the fever had begun to turn. You had slept several hours and taken some broth, and she thought you a little stronger. I believed her immediately. Perhaps I ought to have been more cautious, but I have never discovered any advantage in expecting the worst merely for the satisfaction of being proved correct.

When she told me last week, however, that the apothecary feared you had become delirious and that your fever had worsened considerably, there was very little I could do but pray.

I confess I am still bewildered by how an illness from which you had seemed to be recovering could worsen so greatly within a week that they now speak of a fever of the brain. What puzzles me still more is why you were not taken to the hospital in London which your aunt had mentioned before. All I know, from what Polly was able to learn from your neighbour and my subsequent enquiry, is that Mrs. Tunley has taken you instead to your father's house in Somerset.

There is something very provoking in discovering how little one knows precisely when the knowledge becomes necessary. You mentioned perhaps only twice that your father rented a cottage called Willowbrook in Somerset, for you rarely spoke of home, but I remember it because I teased you for contriving to live nearly as far from Hertfordshire as England would conveniently allow.

I have directed this missive to Willowbrook as you gave it to me, and I can only hope it reaches you. If you are too ill to read it, perhaps your aunt, or anyone close to you, may do so for you. I suppose it will be your aunt, since she has already endured several of my letters during the illness which kept you isolated and prevented me from seeing you myself, and therefore knows perfectly well what she is undertaking. If even that is too much, let it wait. I care very little when you read it, provided there comes a day when you can.

There is little worth reporting from Longbourn. Lydia and Kitty quarrelled over the militia but reconciled over a gown, so the natural order of the household remains undisturbed. Mama has asked after you repeatedly, though I suspect half her attention has lately been claimed by Miss Long's newly arrived niece, who was astonished to learn of the circumstance of there being another face in England so like mine.

Mary attempted to educate me upon scarlet fever and the several ways in which an illness may deteriorate into something worse, but Jane reminded her of the impropriety of such observations when we do not even know what condition you are in. You will forgive Mary, for you know no one can prevent her from repeating whatever she has lately found interesting in a book. Perhaps she meant to put my mind at ease. I am afraid she achieved precisely the opposite.

There. That is better. I had promised myself I would not send you a letter composed entirely of worry.

I mean to continue writing as I did while you were at your aunt's. You need not answer. Indeed, I shall be very cross if you waste your strength attempting it merely because you imagine courtesy requires it. Get well first. You may repay all the letters I shall write afterwards, when I shall insist upon answers to every one and be perfectly merciless about it, though I would much rather demand those answers from you face to face than receive them in writing.

For now, sleep, take whatever dreadful things are prescribed for you, obey your aunt for once in your life, and recover.

You have left several conversations unfinished, and I have no intention of allowing you to escape them so easily.

My prayers are with you, dear friend. Though perhaps I ought to call you sister. It is a strange thing that I never thought to do so while you were here, when everyone in Meryton was so determined to make sisters of us merely because we shared a face. Now that you are gone, and farther from me than you have been since we met, I find the word suits us rather better than I ever supposed.