"I gave it to you," Charlotte said quietly.
He shook his head slowly. "I put it in my pocket. You mentioned that it was Salisbury's – some misguided attempt to pay you proper winnings."
"Upon our return to the house, all was in chaos," Charlotte added.
"Yes," he said finally. "Mrs. Darcy."
Charlotte nodded, her expression of concern matching his own, then she forced a small smile.
"But we know that all has ended well there," she said comfortingly.
"Your efforts were heroic," praised Mr. Kelly, "and tireless. I am sure you must have gone days without sleep," he added, warming to his topic.
But Charlotte could not be distracted. “What became of the box?”
“The box?” Mr. Kelly echoed. “Ah! Yes, the snuff box. I suppose it ended up in the drawer,” he began, “along with everything else I emptied from my pockets that and every other day.”
Charlotte raised her eyebrows.
“I am afraid it is a habit of mine,” he added. “When the drawer begins to overflow with odds and ends, or when I am vacating the place, I am forced to go through it all.”
“And the box?” Charlotte reiterated.
Mr. Kelly looked puzzled. “I cannot recall seeing it again.”
Charlotte lifted her cup to sip her tea.
“Were you eager to have it back?” Mr. Kelly inquired. Then, leaning forward, he added, “Are you in need of the funds the sale of the box might provide?”
Charlotte shook her head as she began to gather their repast and pack in back into the basket, which she handed to Mr. Kelly.
Once they were walking back to Pemberley, she began to speak.
“I had a visitor,” Charlotte replied, and she began to recount the unexpected and troubling event that had taken place the previous day.
Chapter 6
The day was dark, the clouds heavy. Charlotte had decided to heed nature’s warning and stay in her room, using the time for some long overdue correspondence. After she penned a response to her sister, Maria, and filled a page of what promised to be a novel to an old friend of hers in Meryton, she heard a light tap on the door. The maid, upon being bade to enter, announced a visitor had come - a very fine young lady from Town, in a fancy carriage with four matching horses. Charlotte silently cleaned her fingertips in the bowl of water she kept nearby for such a purpose and stood, taking a moment to smooth her morning dress and hair.
“Thank you, Molly,” she said, “I shall go down directly. Please have Cook prepare some refreshments.”
The young lady was standing at the windows in the downstairs parlor, gazing speculatively at the leaden sky. Upon hearing Charlotte’s light footfall, she turned to study her.
“How do you do?” Charlotte greeted, noting the youth and beauty of her guest. Glossy, brown tendrils hung in thick curls, framing her heart-shaped shaped face, and the rest was gathered in a series of braids and twists on the back of her head. She wore a pale blue, heavy satin redingote accented with a line of bows down the front of the skirt beginning at the waist, and a lace fichu adorned her neck and shoulders.
“I am Mrs. Collins. How may I help?”
A degree of relief was evident in the young lady’s posture as her rigid stance relaxed into a more natural state. She smiled sweetly, revealing a pair of dimples in her right cheek.
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance at last, Mrs. Collins.” She dimpled again to see the widow’s show of surprise. “Yes, I have heard of you and have longed to introduce myself, but I was unsure…,” the lady paused here, apparently finding her initial reluctance persistent.
She smoothed her skirt, smiling ruefully. “Nanny would be appalled by my manners. I have yet to introduce myself. Please, let us begin again. I am Wilfred Nevill, and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The ladies curtseyed.
“The pleasure is sure to be mine, Miss? Nevill,” Charlotte returned in question.
“Lady Nevill,” Wilfred replied, blushing prettily, “but my friends know me as ‘Lady Wilfred’ and I should very much like us to be friends.”
“I am honored, Lady Wilfred,” said Charlotte encouragingly. “Shall we be seated?”
Lady Wilfred gratefully perched on the edge of the nearest sofa, indicating with the wave of a hand for Charlotte to be seated. Once comfortably situated, the younger of the ladies launched into her explanation.
“I mentioned having the advantage of knowing about you, though I admit that I cherished a hope that you would have been made aware of me also,” Lady Wilfred added in a disappointed undertone. “Still,” she recovered with a small smile, “I am sure he was only doing what was precisely proper in the interest of my reputation.”
She exhaled sharply, looking away for a moment. “My reputation must be a fragile thing due to nothing more than my birth and sex. My performance is always nothing short of exemplary, yet my attributes remain in question until approved by a man of standing. Only a whisper of one, small, suspicious occurrence, and all is lost.”
Deeming it impudence in the extreme to inquire of an injury to the lady’s reputation, Charlotte chose instead a safer focus.
“How should I have heard about you?”
Rounded, brown eyes looked to her in confusion, but the expression passed quickly to be replaced once more with the sunny disposition.
“Sally,” she quipped, shaking her head in mock disapproval. Grinning at her companion, eyes dancing with mirth, she added, “I see I shall be forced to tell you all.”
“I must admit to an extreme level of bewilderment,” Charlotte said, chuckling. Lady Wilfred patted the widow’s hand in a comforting way.
“I shall endeavor not to muddle it up in my usual exasperating way,” she began stoically. “I have known Lord Salisbury all my life. His family has been friends with my family for generations, and there have been many attempts to join allegiances by way of marriage. However, a marriage along the direct line of Salisbury and Nevill never took place and seemed unlikely again in this generation upon the death of my father’s first wife. Alas,” she sighed romantically, “he found love again in his dotage, and I was born destined to marry a Salisbury.”
“I beg your pardon for the interruption, but just how old do you suppose your father to have been?”
“Oh,” Lady Wilfred replied gamely, “half a century at the very least!”
Charlotte struggled to hide her amusement. “Yes, of course. Please continue.”
“There is a frustrating element to knowing your betrothed from birth,” Lady Wilfred continued, “which is the complete lack of elegance and courtship. It is all very comfortable,” she explained, wrinkling her nose. “Poor Sally was called home from university in order to meet his wailing, newly born intended - a fate for which I am doomed to suffer for the rest of my life, as if I had any say in the matter. Even in my first memories, I was aware of his every mood. It was ‘Willy’ when he was amused or pleased and ‘Fred’ when he was disgruntled or annoyed.”
She tilted her head. “I suppose I do not mind it so much now. It is all very comfortable,” she sighed.
“Do you care for him?” asked Charlotte.
“Many years ago, at a large dinner party for our families, Sally and my two brothers were teasing me. I remarked that I should have preferred a sister instead of brother Sally.”
Lady Wilfred’s eyes roamed the room studying, not the furniture or fireplace of the parlor, but the faces of family and friends at the table in her memory.
“If they had not made such an awkward piece of it, I likely would not have remembered, but the ensuing silence was embarrassing, and then Sally was whisked away without a by your leave the next day,” she said. “His visits were fewer and farther between, and our conversations were brief if I saw him at all. I believe the whole endeavor was nearly given up.”