No wonder, he thought, with a bleak amusement that felt very alien to him, no wonder Radcliffe hadn’t wanted him to marry her. How they must have laughed together, his brother and Miss Talbot. At the silly boy in hopeless love, who had no idea how very foolish he was. Archie turned around, walking slowly away from St James’s Place. Life in Selbourne’s set might be strange, might make him feel less like himself with every passing moment – but at least it had never made him feel like this.
25
As the year fell properly into May, the first taste of summer became quite palpable. Though the change was not as dramatic as it would have been at Netley Cottage – where the fields and woods around them would burst quite suddenly into life like a match struck in a dark room – the oncoming Season could still be felt in the city. The flowers had made their grand entrances from tightly furled buds, one could still smell the unmistakable scent of warm soil drying from the night’s rain.
The mood here was the same as it was in Biddington in May. The British, it seemed – whether in Dorsetshire, in London, north, south, east or west – would always be cheered by warmth and sunshine, even if only for the novelty of complaining about something new. And yet though the similarity should have pleased Kitty, she was instead beginning to feel quite wretchedly homesick. A hundred miles away, Beatrice, Harriet and Jane might be busy in the garden, or walking to the market – that Kitty wouldn’t know until she received another letter felt like a constant ache.
Kitty had taken advantage of the fine weather to arrange intimate walks with both Pemberton and Crawton, one after the other, hoping that the illusion of privacy – though Aunt Dorothy and Cecily walked only a few paces behind – might prompt a confession of love from either of them. She was to be disappointed. Pemberton had spent an hour giving her a beat for beat revival of not only his vicar’s latest sermon – an entirely uninteresting oration upon the equally dull topics of patience and humility – but also the full conversation he and his mother had shared, following it. Pemberton’s mother was a retiring woman, Kitty was told, who preferred not to mix in society unless it was to attend church. Mrs Pemberton, Kitty felt sure, must also be very dull.
Kitty let Pemberton rattle on, while in her mind she was planning the picnic she would take her sisters on as soon as she and Cecy returned home.
‘Pride is important, too, however, as my mother and I also agreed,’ Pemberton was saying now. ‘Pride in one’s family and one’s family name, you know. It is why she is so set on my marrying a proper Christian woman, with all the right breeding to help launch my political career.’
The term ‘breeding’ should – in Kitty’s opinion – only be used for livestock, and certainly not women.
‘I understand,’ she said sweetly. ‘I should very much like to meet her.’
This was true, in fact, for how else was Kitty to prove to this woman that she had sufficient ‘breeding’ to suit her? She clearly had high expectations, which would have to be met, even if only on the surface. If this was the reason for his delay in proposal, Kitty was sure she could dazzle Mrs Pemberton with … oh, biblical quotes, or something like that.
‘Perhaps,’ Kitty said with serene virtuosity, ‘we might attend a church service together.’
Pemberton beamed. ‘She should like that very much, I’m sure. Which is your church?’
Oh, bother.
‘Oh, near to my aunt’s house,’ Kitty said vaguely. ‘Very small, you know, though quite beautiful.’
She distracted him by asking him to identify a flower for her, and the resulting lecture of the Latin etymology of all the flora and fauna they passed encompassed the rest of their walk. Kitty had only a few moments’ respite before Mr Crawton was due to arrive. Though a more recent suitor than Pemberton, Kitty felt sure she could nudge Crawton, at least, towards a declaration – he seemed always so shocked whenever they spoke, so flattered each time she accepted a dance.
‘Another one?’ Cecily said in faint distress. ‘Now?’
‘Hush, dear, Kitty is negotiating,’ her aunt chided soothingly. ‘Why not tell me that wonderful little story about Shakespeare. I should like to hear it again.’
If Pemberton’s greatest challenge was his talkativeness, Crawton’s was his shyness. He walked beside Kitty quietly – with permanently wide eyes that made him look always as if he had just this moment tasted something very sharp – and was more than happy to let Kitty manage their conversation. This was certainly an improvement upon Mr Pemberton, but it also did not make the likelihood of Crawton plucking up the courage to state his intentions any greater. Kitty sighed.