‘You must tell me of your home,’ Kitty instructed him, warmly, wanting to draw him out a little. ‘You told me it was in Bedfordshire? I confess I have never been.’
Crawton did not respond. Kitty looked over at him, to find his attention had quite wandered. Their paths were about to cross with a group of chattering young ladies, and Mr Crawton’s gaze was quite fixed upon them. This was a rudeness that she would not have expected from him … until she saw that the young Miss Bloom was amongst their number. She was looking directly forward, studiously ignoring both Kitty and Crawton, but with a high colour in her cheeks that told Kitty she had in fact very much noticed them. Crawton could not take his eyes off her, even turning his head to follow the sight of her disappearing back. Kitty cleared her throat and he visibly jumped.
‘My apologies, Miss Talbot,’ he said in a rush. ‘My profuse apologies – what were we speaking of?’
‘Bedfordshire,’ she reminded him gently.
A tight furl of guilt began to gnarl in her chest – an entirely useless emotion, of course, but knowing it was useless did not seem to make it go away. Kitty reminded herself that Miss Bloom had wealth, and good birth, and – for all Kitty knew – a thousand other men she would be just as happy marrying as she would Mr Crawton. The fact that Crawton seemed to share the same affection was utterly irrelevant, and nothing to do with Kitty in the slightest.
And yet the guilt remained.
‘Nothing to report,’ she told her aunt and sister with a sigh upon their walk home. ‘Neither will say they love me yet.’
‘You cannot tarry much longer, my dear,’ Aunt Dorothy instructed. ‘Time is slipping away from us.’
‘I know that,’ Kitty said tensely. ‘It is not I who is tarrying.’
Aunt Dorothy made an unconvinced hum in the back of her throat, but before Kitty could question it, Cecily was piping up.
‘And do you love either of them?’ she asked.
‘Not this again,’ Kitty said irritably. ‘I think them both very fine gentlemen, with very fine wealth – does that satisfy?’
Cecily gave a moue of distaste.
‘That’s not love at all,’ she said, a little distressed. ‘At least I don’t believe so – what do you think, Aunt Dorothy? Have you ever been in love?’
Their aunt looked startled by the conversation’s turn.
‘Ah, just the once,’ she said. ‘Though it was a long time ago, now.’
‘What happened?’ Cecily asked soulfully.
‘We were happy for a while,’ Aunt Dorothy said slowly. ‘But then he married a young lady from his own class, and she quite naturally objected to our friendship – so that was the end of it.’
Cecily’s eyes began to shine ominously.
‘See, Cecily,’ Kitty could not help pointing out childishly. ‘Love does not always equate to happiness, you know.’
‘If they loved you when you did not love them, Kitty, then you would be denying them something beautiful,’ Cecily said, voice full. ‘I would just find it a little sad.’
This statement fed the guilty feeling within Kitty’s chest, making it all the more uncomfortable – and Kitty the more irritable.
‘It isn’t – we don’t have time to feel sad for them,’ she snapped. ‘Feel sad for us, if you need to be sad for someone. They are men and rich ones at that. They can have any future they want and at least they get to choose it – we don’t. We don’t get to have who – what – we want!’
Cecily looked shocked at her vehemence – and even Kitty herself was a little disturbed by it.
‘I was just saying,’ Cecily said.
‘Let us walk home,’ Aunt Dorothy interrupted. ‘There is no use arguing.’
They did not speak further on the way back, but Kitty felt put out, nonetheless. She occupied herself by rehearsing arguments and defences of herself in the privacy of her mind, which she imagined delivering to Cecily and – for some reason – Radcliffe, alternately. They did not understand, either of them. They did not have to worry about what would happen to Jane and Harriet and Beatrice, about how dark a young woman’s life could so easily become without money, about the myriad fears and futures that could befall any of them if Kitty lost control for a single moment. But Kitty did – Kitty was always worrying about it. And she had too much to do without wasting time on guilt.
Kitty dressed herself in sharp, jerky movements that evening. They could not afford to purchase any more ball gowns, and so were instead creating the illusion of new outfits through means of clever alterations, the liberal use of feathers, and by the sisters swapping dresses when the occasion demanded it. This was a piece of economy that Kitty stood by, but she could not help feeling like an over-ruffled goose in the pink frothy gown that Aunt Dorothy had purchased with Cecily in mind （the skirts let down, and embroidered with a pattern of silken rosebuds） while Cecily wore her favourite blue crêpe （the skirts taken up and now resplendent with elaborate lace trimming added at the hem and sleeve）。