Caroline agreed that lemonade sounded lovely, and they busied themselves with the contents of the wicker basket for the next few minutes. Mrs Addlecombe had provided fruit scones liberally smeared with clotted cream, a bowl of glistening and luscious strawberries to accompany them, and two enormous slices of spiced cinnamon cake. Caroline plucked the raisins out of her scones and handed each to Georgiana, who ate them with relish.
“I really do not understand why you are so opposed to raisins,” said she. “They are so delicious.”
“I do not like their texture.” Caroline glared down at the latest piece of offending fruit. “So wrinkled. So very... elderly and dry. Whatever the process entails, it seems a terrible thing to do to a perfectly good grape.”
“What about wine?”
“That is quite different. In fact, one might argue that wine is a grape’s natural ambition.”
“So there is a spectrum, in your opinion.”
“My dear Georgie, it is objective fact,” Caroline argued. “If I were a grape, I would be delighted to become wine and extremely offended to be relegated to the fate of a raisin.”
In this way, they passed the next half hour with pleasant bickering. After they had enjoyed their fill from the basket, they lay back on the blanket, side by side, and stared up at the sky. It was unusual for Georgiana not to disappear into a book at this stage of any picnic, but a quick glance into the basket proved that Miss Darcy had not even brought one with her. Caroline’s earlier jealousy vanished, replaced by a fluffy, warm contentment.Of courseI am more interesting than any book, she thought,but it is nice to have confirmation of such a thing from time to time.
It almost certainly didn’t have anything to do with the fact that Georgiana had been a little more tactile than usual since the harp incident. Or perhaps Caroline was just aware of her friend in a way she had never been before; the heat emanating through Miss Darcy’s thin dress made Caroline feel as if they were actually touching. Neither conclusion made her feel entirely comfortable, but she couldn’t summon enough energy to move away.
“You asked why I never told you about Wickham before.” Georgiana hesitated, staring upwards into the leafy branches of the oak tree. A single insubstantial cloud crawled overhead, as if hoping the blazing sunshine would not notice its progress across the sky. “We have been acquainted for three years, but we were not truly friends before.”
This was news to Caroline. “Weren’t we?”
“I mean, we are, now,” Georgiana said, turning her head to study Caroline. “I suppose I am simply slower to open up thanmost. Besides, I could not be certain how you might react to something like this, so I was loath to mention it. You see, I had a former friend who had deduced a little of the affair. After it was over, she cut me in the street when next we saw each other. And she did not know the half of it.”
“How perfectly awful,” Caroline declared, outraged. “What kind of cut?”
“Excuse me?”
“What kind of cut?” she repeated.
Georgiana frowned at her. “Does it matter?”
“It may be of no consequence, I was just curious.” Caroline shrugged. “There are four main cuts, you know, and each one is intended to impart a specific meaning. Clearly you have not been cut much, or have seen them done, or you would know each of them very well indeed.”
Georgiana made no reply to this.
“Shall I tell you what they are?” she persisted.
Miss Darcy sighed. “I see that the explanation has been forced upon me from the start. Is there any escape?”
“No,” Caroline said bluntly. “Not unless you run.”
“In this dress,” Georgiana said, gesturing down at the pale yellow silk which only just kept her ample bosom in check, and which was hemmed more tightly than her usual gowns, “you would catch me in mere seconds.”
Caroline did her best not to look in the direction of Georgiana’s gesture. She’d been doing so well today, with only a few stolen glances at her friend’s curves, and even those had really been in admiration for the dress, hadn’t they? “Precisely.”
“Go on, then. Explain it to me.”
“Well,” said Caroline, wriggling until she felt herself in themost comfortable position possible, which required her right foot to be resting against Georgiana’s in a purely platonic fashion, “there are four cuts.”
“Upon my soul,” Georgiana exclaimed, “are so many ways required to convey a person’s displeasure?”
“Those are limitless, I am sure, but a cut is a very specific glance. One may simply look in another direction and pretend not to see an acquaintance—that is the cut indirect, which, to me, seems like the most cowardly. Then there is the cut direct, in which you look at a person’s face but remain blank, as if they were nothing but a mere stranger to you. The cut infernal involves gazing down at the ground, perhaps adjusting your boot or admiring a cobblestone, until your acquaintance has gone past. And then there is the cut sublime, in which one raises one’s eyes heavenwards.”
“I see. It seems an awful lot of weight to place upon a simple movement of the eyes.”
“Many a simple act conveys a complex behaviour, does it not?”
“I suppose you are right.” Georgiana sat up, picked a daisy which was only inches from her nose, then another, and began to fashion a chain. Caroline had not done such a thing since she was a girl, and she watched with fascination at the careful preparation: the application of thumbnail to stalk, creating a slit through which the next stalk might pass, and the selection of only those daisies with petals tinged pink at the edges. Georgiana carried out the process with as much care and concentration as any jeweller. “She gave me the cut sublime. A shame, when it is the nicest sounding of the four.”
