Page 193 of The Long Road Back to Yesterday

Caroline considered the colors before her. “Yes, I see it now. They work very well together.”

* * *

“Miss Bennet, will you come and sit here? You have spent half the evening discussing embroidery, and I begin to think Caroline intends to keep you entirely to herself.”

Jane left the table and took the place he indicated on the sofa, while the others drew their chairs nearer.

Elizabeth looked at Mr. Bingley. “Have you gathered us together because you intend to regale us with ghost stories, sir?”

The suggestion brought laughter from several of them, but Kitty immediately said, “Will you humor us, sir? I should dearly like to hear a new ghost story.”

Bingley looked around the room. “I shall, provided I am not expected to furnish the entire evening's entertainment.”

“You began it, Charles, so now you must deliver,” Caroline said.

“Please tell us one, sir,” Kitty insisted.

Bingley considered the demand. “Very well, but Darcy and Mr. Bennet must each tell one as well.”

Kitty looked expectantly at Mr. Darcy.

Darcy regarded Bingley. “Charles, you have committed me to this without asking whether I know a ghost story.”

“You must know one.”

“I know several.”

Kitty laughed. “Then you must begin.”

Darcy took the chair opposite Elizabeth.

“I heard this story at Cambridge from a gentleman who insisted it had happened to a member of his family many years before.”

The room quieted.

“A young gentleman was traveling through the country late one winter evening. Snow had been falling for several hours, and the road was unfamiliar to him. He expected to reach an inn before the weather became worse, but some miles from the nearest village he saw a young woman standing alone beside the road.”

“Alone?” Kitty asked.

“Entirely alone.”

Darcy continued. “She wore no pelisse or cloak, and the gentleman could see that she was suffering from the cold. He stopped his carriage and asked whether she required assistance. She told him her name and said that her home was only two miles farther along the road.”

“Why was she outside in the snow?” Georgiana asked.

“She did not offer an explanation.”

Kitty looked at Georgiana. “That should have warned him.”

“It did not,” Darcy said. “He offered to take her home, and she accepted. Once she was inside the carriage, he gave her his greatcoat because she was still shivering.”

Elizabeth settled more comfortably into her chair. “He was a gentleman. He could hardly have left her beside the road.”

“Precisely.”

Darcy continued. “The young woman directed his coachman to a house some distance from the road. When they arrived, she thanked the gentleman and tried to return his coat, but he insisted that she keep it until he passed that way again. He watched her cross to the house and enter before continuing his journey.”

“Then she was real,” Kitty said.