Page 1 of Dear Friend

Chapter One

June 1810

Meryton

Elizabeth

Elizabeth Bennet could only stare. Whatever preparation her sister Lydia’s account of the preceding day ought to have afforded her proved entirely insufficient. Miss Julia Harding was precisely as she had been described.

Though perhaps two years Elizabeth’s junior, she possessed so remarkable a likeness to herself that Elizabeth might almost have believed herself looking upon some younger reflection of her own person. To hear such a resemblance discussed over the dinner table had been curious enough; to behold it at scarcely an arm’s length was another matter altogether.

“I beg your pardon,” Elizabeth said at last, recollecting herself sufficiently to summon some appearance of composure. “I am afraid I have been staring most abominably. I ought to apologise, though I confess I have never before had so excellent an excuse for staring at my own face.”

The young lady laughed, and Elizabeth was startled anew. There was something disconcertingly familiar in the sound, a quick, unaffected amusement so like her own that the resemblance seemed, for an instant, to extend beyond mere countenance.

“Then we are equally guilty, for I have spent this last minute staring at yours and wondering whether I ought to curtsey, beg your pardon, or introduce myself and have done with the absurdity.”

“Miss Julia Harding, I believe?”

“The very same. And you must be Miss Elizabeth Bennet, though I assure you no introduction was necessary. Half of Meryton has taken pains to inform me whom I resemble, whether I expressed any curiosity upon the subject or not.”

Elizabeth smiled despite herself. “I hope they had the civility to be kind in their observations, and did not merely stand and gape as I have done.”

“Oh, some certainly gaped. Mrs. Long, in particular, was most conscientious in her examination.” Julia’s eyes, so remarkably like Elizabeth’s own, brightened with mischief. “I believe she compared every feature separately before she was satisfied. Had she possessed a measuring ribbon, I daresay she would have employed it.”

Elizabeth laughed, and some of her uneasiness departed with it. The likeness remained extraordinary, but there was an animation in Julia’s expression which belonged wholly to herself. “You have been subjected to a great trial, then. Meryton possesses many virtues, but indifference to a novelty has never been numbered among them.”

“So I have discovered. It is not every day that a lady arrives in a new neighbourhood only to find her own countenance already perfectly well known there.”

“How long have you been in Meryton?”

“A little more than a week. I am staying with Mrs. Tunley, my aunt, who lives in the cottage near the church. She has been settled here since last year, though I came most lately from Somerset.”

“Somerset? You have travelled some distance, then.”

“Yes.” For the first time, something in Julia’s expression altered. The change was slight and so quickly mastered that Elizabeth might have imagined it. “My aunt wished me to come to her, and I had no particular inducement to remain where I was.”

There was enough in the answer to awaken Elizabeth’s curiosity, but not enough to justify satisfying it. An acquaintance of scarcely ten minutes could hardly be subjected to an interrogation merely because she possessed an interesting face, particularly when that face happened to resemble Elizabeth’s own.

Julia’s smile returned. “I confess Meryton has already proved more diverting than I expected. I had certainly not anticipated discovering that my likeness had been wandering about Hertfordshire for years without so much as asking my permission.”

“An intolerable liberty,” Elizabeth said gravely. “I am ashamed to have been guilty of it.”

“I might forgive you, if you promise not to do it again.”

“I fear I can make no such promise.”

Julia laughed, and Elizabeth joined her. No doubt half of Meryton was observing them from parlour windows and shop doors, delighted by the spectacle of two nearly identical young women conversing before the milliner’s.

Yet before Elizabeth quite knew how it had happened, her astonishment had yielded to something far more agreeable: a decided wish to know Julia Harding better.

~

21st October 1810

Meryton

Elizabeth