Margaret frowned. 'This is not about you, Elizabeth, but about Mary. Don't you want him to get this letter? Or would you prefer he live in perfect ignorance of Mary's circumstances? Don't you want the best for both parties?'
'You sound like one of your lady author's novels,' I snapped, then stopped. I was gripping a copy of the
'You and Louise have already done that very thing by taking the letter off her and promising to post it!'
'That is true, and I am beginning to regret saying we would. I don't want to play a part in a fruitless, humiliating plea.' I knew my arguments were swinging all about.
Margaret waved the letter at me. 'You're jealous of Mary gaining his attention.'
'I am not!' I said this so sharply that Margaret ducked her head. 'That is ridiculous,' I added, trying to soften my tone.
There was a long silence. Margaret set the letter down, then reached over and took my hand. 'Elizabeth, you mustn't stand in Mary's way of getting something you were never able to.'
I pulled my hand from her grasp. 'That is not why I'm objecting.'
'Why, then?' I sighed.
'Mary is a young working girl, uneducated apart from what little we and her church have taught her, and from a poor family. Colonel Birch is from a well-established Yorkshire family with an estate and a coat of arms. He would never seriously consider marrying Mary. Surely you know that. Molly Anning knows it--that is why she has only written about the money. Even Mary knows it, though she won't say it. You are only encouraging her. He has used her to enhance his collection--for free. That is all. She's lucky he didn't do worse. To ask him for money, or to reestablish the connection, just prolongs the Annings' agony. We mustn't do so just to please your and Mary's romantic notions.'
Margaret glared at me.
'Your Miss Austen would never allow such a marriage to take place in her novels you so love,' I went on. 'If it can't happen in fiction, surely it won't happen in life.'
At last I made myself understood. Margaret's face crumpled and she began to cry, great shuddering sobs that shook her entire body. Louise put her arms around her sister but said nothing, for she knew I was right. Margaret grasped on to the magic of novels because they held out hope that Mary--and she herself--might yet have a chance at marriage. While my own experience of life was limited, I knew such a thing would not happen. It hurt, but the truth often does.
'It's not fair,' Margaret gasped as her sobs finally subsided. 'He shouldn't have paid her the attention he did. Spending so much time with her and complimenting her, giving her the locket and kissing her--'
'He kissed her?' A dart of the jealousy I was trying so hard to hide even from myself shot through me.
Margaret
looked
chastened.
'I wasn't meant to tell you! I wasn't meant to tell anyone! Please don't say anything. Mary only told me because-- well, it's just so delicious to talk it over with someone. It's as if you relive the moment.' She fell silent, doubtless thinking about her own past kisses.
'I wouldn't know about that,' I said, trying to limit the acid in my voice.
I did not sleep well that night. I was not used to having the power to affect someone's life so, and did not easily carry its weight, as a man might have done.
The next day, before taking the letter to Coombe Street to be posted, I added Colonel Birch's address to it. For all my arguments with Margaret against encouraging a continued link between Colonel Birch and Mary, I could not in the end act as if I were God, but had to let Molly Anning write what she would to him.
The postmistress glanced at the letter, then at me, her eyebrows raised, and I had to turn away before she could say anything. I am sure by the afternoon the gossip had gone all around town that desperate Miss Philpot had written to that cad Colonel Birch.
The Annings waited for an answer, but they received no letter.
I hoped that would be the end of our dealings with Colonel Birch, and that we would never see him again. He had
