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“Not so kind. I have been wishing to make a friend, and here you are. We can help each other—with loneliness, if nothing else. Please call me Elizabeth, or Lizzy, as do all my friends.”
“I am Georgiana. My brother called—calls me Georgie,” she answered shyly.
“Then come now, Georgie. Let us take ourselves in out of the cold, and hope for better weather tomorrow.” She stood, pulling the younger girl up with her. “There is a very pretty walk to the beach, and the wind is not so strong down there.” She kept her conversation light as they made their way back.
At the gate, Georgiana turned to her. “They will not let me see him, not even for a moment. Do you really believe I have any cause for hope?” she asked. “Could they possibly all be wrong about my brother’s condition?”
Lizzy took her hands. “I have no way of knowing for sure, but when old Mr Goulding had an apoplexy, he proved his doctors wrong. They thought he would never walk again, but he manages with a cane. We must never discount the human spirit. Your brother is a strong man. You must be strong for him.”
Georgiana nodded, slipping inside, bolting the gate behind her. Lizzy watched as she trudged slowly up the path, head bowed. It was only when she was out of sight that Lizzy felt her own trembling, so hard that she had to lean against the gatepost to steady herself.
What just happened?
It seemed too fantastic, too terrible. Mr Darcy, his mind ruined? Could it be so? There was so much else the girl had said, and so much she had not. Who was stealing from her? Why could she not confide in any of her family? Why would they not allow her to visit Mr Darcy? What and where was the place that held him—Younge’s?
She barely remembered the return walk to the Morris home, her mind was so full of questions. And yet, to whom could she turn to assist her? To assist the Darcys? There was no one.
* * *
Harriet and her friends were to walk to the shops that afternoon; Lizzy joined them, paying particular attention to signs she had all but ignored previously. She had often passed residences of physicians and surgeons, their tastefully lettered signs announcing their various specialties—Mr Eustace Perry, Surgery, Wounds, Fractures, Luxations,Tumours, and Ulcers; Dr James Oliver,Physician, Seller of Famous Nostrums; and even Mr Horace Grenville, Bowed Legs Corrected—but most in this town advertised their medical sea cures. She had not realised just how many there were, and she avidly read each one, unable to keep from searching for the name ‘Younge’.
However, it turned out to be rather obvious. Diana and Martha stopped at a flower seller just beyond Gilbert Lawn to select a posy. While waiting for them to make their selections, Lizzy glanced across the narrow street at a row of four-storey terraced houses with elegant ironwork balustrades. She had passed them half a dozen times since arriving in Ramsgate, never before noticing the neatly inscribed placard on the closest building: Younge’s Home for the Convalescence of Invalids.
It was innocuous in appearance, perfectly respectable, without a flutter of a drapery to indicate its occupants. She had most likely found it. What to do now? Was there anything to do?
She had no excuse to even knock on the door, much less to be admitted to its inner sanctums. So intently was she watching the place, however, that she failed to note when the other girls had paid for their purchases and were already headed for the next shop.
“Eliza,” Harriet snapped impatiently when she realised Lizzy had not moved. “Quit standing about alone in that stupid manner, and come along with us before you are mistaken for a flower seller yourself.”
And that quickly, Lizzy had an idea.
