Page 109 of Faceless

A small breath came out of her — the breath of a laugh she had not let go entirely. “I trust my uncle has been thorough.” She drank again. “Peele is reportedly undeterred, though Mama did insist on giving him what she calls a comprehensive account of Mary’s accomplishments, and he survived that, so we may take him to be made of stern material.”

“Stout fellow.”

“Quite.” She drank. “Uncle Gardiner will make him a junior partner when the business is steadier, and Mary’s settlement will go towards that.” Her voice had the cast it took on when she was genuinely moved and was not going to say so directly. “She never said a word to anyone. She simply went on making up her own mind until it came out as she wished.”

“Your sister has more patience than she is generally credited with.”

“She has always had it. Nobody ever noticed because it did not look the way patience is expected to look.”

He picked up his glass and reached across the cloth, found hers, and clicked the rim of his against it.

“To Mary.”

“To Mary.”

They drank.

“That is well arranged,” he said after a moment, and then — “Elizabeth, there is something I—”

“Lydia is still in Norwich.”

He stopped. “Indeed?”

“She has lodgings. Decent and respectable, Jane says. She is not in want of anything.”

“Norwich.”

“Yes.”

“Of all places.”

“Of all places.” She drank. “There is a solicitor in Norwich who arranged it, and the funds came from somewhere Jane has stopped enquiring into.”

She lifted the bottle. He heard her find his glass with the back of her finger and pour, the trickle steady, then her own. It did not take quite as long to fill hers as it had his. He drank. She drank.

“She says she has developed rather a talent lately for not asking questions, and she cannot imagine where she learned it.”

“Your sister is generous.”

“Jane is generous to a fault, but in this case, I think she is principally exhausted. Lydia in Norwich, decently lodged and out of trouble, is the most peace any of us have had in a year. She is not going to look the gift over.” She lifted her glass again. “Wise of her, I think.”

“Wise of her.” He drank. “Elizabeth, we must speak about something of a serious — ”

“Mr Wickham was arrested.”

That sharpened his attention. So, she had heard of that, had she? “Was he?”

“Gaming debts, unsettled accounts — Jane did not have every particular. He is detained. Indefinitely, it seems.”

“What a shame.”

“A great shame. I confess I cannot summon very much sorrow over that.” She drank, the swallow audible in the dark.

“Nor should you.”

She tipped the bottle into his glass and then her own. The trickle came out a little less steady than the previous pours. The trickle into her glass, again, sounded less generous. He noted it without remarking on it.

“My uncle Gardiner has also had some encouragement,” she went on. “An investor approached him last month, through an intermediary. Very generous terms. Very quietly arranged.”