2
It is not uncommon to encounter persons who are in the habit of making outlandish claims. It is rarer to meet persons who are also in the habit of fulfilling them, and it was to this second group that Miss Kitty Talbot belonged.
Not three weeks after that gloomy morning in the parlour of Netley Cottage, she and Cecily were rattling in a stagecoach on their way to London. It was an uncomfortable journey of three days spent jiggling in their seats, accompanied by an assortment of persons and poultry, the Dorsetshire countryside fading slowly from view as they passed through county after county. Kitty spent much of the time staring out of the window – by the end of the first day, she was the furthest she had ever travelled from home.
Kitty had known for a long time that she would have to marry rich, but she had quite counted upon being able to do so whilst remaining close to Biddington, and to her family, with the Linfield match plotted and executed with her mother. In the weeks and months following her mother’s death, she had been all the more grateful to have already wrapped up her future so neatly with Mr Linfield, who lived nearby. In the darkest of times, to know that she did not need to leave her family’s side for a single moment was a gift indeed, and yet now she had left most of her sisters far behind. With every mile the stagecoach put between them and Biddington, the anxious knot in her chest grew larger. This was the right decision – the only decision – Kitty could make for her family, but it felt so very wrong to be without them.
What a fool she had been, to trust in Mr Linfield’s honour – and yet she still could not understand how he had so quickly fallen out of love with her. Miss Spencer was pretty, yes, but dull as a fish; it did not make sense for it to have happened so quickly. Besides, she had thought that the rest of the Linfields had not been overly fond of Miss Spencer. What was Kitty missing?
‘What a fool,’ she said again, out loud this time. Beside Kitty, Cecily shot her an affronted look, and she added, ‘Not you, me. Or rather, Mr Linfield.’
Cecily returned to her book with a huff. Once the heavy tome given to her by the vicar had been found, she had insisted on bringing it with her, despite Kitty pointing out that a book of its size and heft might not be the choicest companion on a hundred-mile journey.
‘Do you want me to be miserable in every way, Kitty?’ Cecily had asked her dramatically. The honest answer at that moment – standing hot-faced over her sister’s hulking case – was yes, but Kitty had capitulated and was resigned to lugging the absurd cargo all the way to London. She cursed again her father’s ridiculous and expensive decision to send Cecily to be educated at the Bath Seminary for Young Ladies for two years. It had been entirely motivated by a desire to keep up with the local gentry – the Linfields in particular – and all Cecily seemed to have gained in her time there was an inflated sense of her own intellectual superiority. Yet despite her passionate defence of the book, Cecily had not been paying it much attention; instead she bothered Kitty with the same questions that had obsessed her the whole trip.
‘Are you quite sure that you understood Aunt Dorothy’s letter correctly?’ she whispered now, finally taking heed of Kitty’s repeated rebuke not to share their private business with the entire carriage.
‘How else could it be understood?’ Kitty hissed back, not a little irately. She sighed, calmed her voice, and explained again with a passable imitation of patience. ‘Aunt Dorothy knew Mama when they both worked at the Lyceum Theatre. They were very close – Mama used to read her letters aloud to us, do you remember? I wrote asking for her help, and Aunt Dorothy has offered to introduce us to London society.’
Cecily harrumphed.
‘And how can you be sure that Aunt Dorothy is a respectable woman, with good Christian morals? We might be walking into a den of iniquity for all you know!’
‘I must say, I do not think the time you have been spending with the vicar has done you any good at all,’ Kitty told her severely. Privately, though, she too harboured a few fears about Aunt Dorothy, though Mama had always insisted she was very respectable. But it would do no good to confide in Cecily, when Aunt Dorothy truly was their only option. ‘Aunt Dorothy is the only person of our acquaintance with a residence in London. Papa’s family are all on the Continent now – not that they would have helped us anyway – and she was kind enough to pay for our travel, too. We cannot turn up our noses at her aid.’
Cecily still looked unconvinced, and Kitty leant back into the seat with a sigh. Both of them would have preferred Beatrice to accompany Kitty on this mission, but at the end of Aunt Dorothy’s letter had been a clear instruction: Bring your prettiest sister. And as Beatrice was currently – by her own admission – half girl, half forehead, and Cecily was the possessor of a sweet prettiness very much contrary to her sulky nature, she was the obvious choice. That she was also a complete bore, Kitty hoped would not matter. Kitty comforted herself with the thought that Beatrice was a far better person with whom to leave the management of the house and the younger girls, under the watchful eye of the vicar’s wife. If it had been Cecy in her stead, by the time they returned there would be no house left to save.