Page 24 of Dear Friend

"Nearly every week. It was easier when Polly had only to carry them into Meryton. Sending them to Somerset is another matter."

"How many must there have been?"

Elizabeth considered. She had never counted them. "Fifteen, perhaps. A few more."

Jane's eyes widened slightly.

"Do not look so alarmed. I have not written her a novel every week. Some have scarcely filled more than a page."

"I am not alarmed."

"You are Jane. You are incapable of looking alarmed. You merely look concerned enough to make everyone else uneasy on your behalf."

A faint smile touched Jane's face, but it did not remain. "I am concerned for you."

Elizabeth lowered her eyes to the letter. "I know because you asked this same question last week."

Jane hesitated. "Are you still certain of the direction you send these letters to?"

"As certain as I can be." Elizabeth touched one finger to the address she had written so often that she scarcely needed to think of the words any longer. "Willowbrook House, Somerset, near the timber forest. Julia mentioned it once or twice, and I remember it distinctly. I have gone over those conversations often enough since."

She rose and crossed to the window. The day had been overcast, and the light was already failing though the hour was not particularly advanced. Beyond the glass, everything at Longbourn had continued exactly as it ought. That had seemed almost offensive at first.

Meryton had long since returned to its ordinary habits. Elizabeth still passed the milliner's where she had first met Julia, walked roads they had once taken together, and saw Mrs. Tunley's locked cottage whenever her errands carried her near the church. Even the neighbourhood's fascination with their extraordinary resemblance had faded. No one spoke any longer of the two young women who might have passed for twins, nor turned to look for Julia when Elizabeth entered a shop alone.

Meryton had found other novelties to occupy it, but Elizabeth had not.

"If the direction were wholly wrong," Jane said, "surely there would have been some difficulty in delivering so many letters."

"I have thought the same."

"Have you never considered sending one without paying the postage beforehand? If someone at Willowbrook has indeed been receiving your letters, perhaps seeing whether they accept one at their own expense might tell you something."

Elizabeth turned from the window. "I have considered it, but I cannot bring myself to do so. Julia was desperately ill when she left Meryton. If she remains so, she is hardly in a condition to concern herself with the expense of my correspondence. As for her father and stepmother, they do not know me. I cannot expect strangers to pay merely because their daughter happens to have a friend in Hertfordshire who refuses to stop writing."

Jane smiled faintly. "Julia would object to that description."

"Then she must recover and tell me so herself."

The words escaped before Elizabeth had considered them.

Her expression altered, and she looked away. Five months had not made such moments easier. They had merely taught her how quickly to conceal them.

Jane spared her the necessity of doing so. "I wish there were some other person we might ask."

"So do I."

"Mrs. Tunley must have relations somewhere."

"Undoubtedly, but no one here appears to know where." Elizabeth returned to the desk, though she remained standing beside it. "She had lived in Hertfordshire scarcely a year before Julia came to stay with her. I asked her neighbours after they left. None knew where she had lived before coming to Meryton, nor could anyone name a relation to whom we might write. Julia was the first member of her family any of them had ever seen visit the cottage."

"And she never spoke of them to you?"

"Very little. I knew Julia's father lived in Somerset and that he had remarried. I knew the name of his house because Julia happened to mention it. At the time, there was no reason to ask for more."

That was perhaps the part Elizabeth found most difficult to forgive in herself, though she knew the reproach was unreasonable. Seven months of almost daily intimacy had furnished her with a hundred insignificant facts about Julia Harding and very few useful ones.

She knew which books Julia disliked, though she pretended otherwise when politeness required it. She knew that she preferred walking before breakfast and disliked currants in cakes. She knew the particular expression which preceded a wicked observation and that Julia could never keep her countenance when Lydia became excessively enthusiastic over an officer.