Elizabeth said, ‘It doesn’t matter. At least someone’s love is prospering. I am only sorry that I am taking her away.’
‘But you will return,’ said the Prince. ‘You are welcome here at any time, you know that, I hope, and you must bring your charming family with you the next time you come to Italy. They will all be very welcome here. Your mother will like it, do you think?’
‘I am sure she would,’ said Elizabeth, smiling again as she thought of her mother exclaiming over the furniture, then trying to persuade every gentleman at the villa that either Kitty or Mary would make him a charming wife.
Whether the Prince would enjoy the visit as much as her mother she very much doubted!
‘Then you must visit me again soon, and stay with me for as long as you like,’ he said with a bow.
Elizabeth thanked him for his generous invitation and returned to her room, where her spirits once more drooped. To leave this place where she had been happy, for in the first days at the villa she had still hoped that she and Darcy would become one, was a trial to her. Once gone, she would have to admit that hope was dead.
The arrival of one of the Prince’s maids at least gave a new turn to her thoughts as she instructed the girl, and very soon Elizabeth’s things were packed and a footman arrived to convey them to the carriage. With one last, lingering look around the room, she followed the footman downstairs.
The carriage was waiting for her by the side door. It was an elaborate affair with a florid coat of arms emblazoned on the side. Two footmen flanked it –‘For your protection,’ said the Prince—both dressed in the Prince’s scarlet livery, and the courier stood by its side. He was a handsome young man, charming and respectful, and he took his place next to the coachman on the box, where he was joined by the maid.
‘Until we meet again,’ said the Prince, bowing over Elizabeth’s hand.
‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ she said, ‘and thank you for your kindness and your advice.’
‘It is nothing,’ he said. ‘Take courage, you will soon be with your family and then your happiness, it will recover.’
He handed her inside and she arranged her skirts around her on the sumptuous silk-upholstered seat.
The footmen took their places, standing on the runners on each side of the carriage, then the coachman called to the horses and they began to move, the heavy carriage going slowly forward until it began to pick up pace and bowl down the drive.
The fountains, which had been singing on her arrival, now seemed to be weeping, and Elizabeth was weeping too. Tear after hot tear, held back until now by pride, came freely, and in the solitude of the carriage, she gave way to her emotions.
‘This will not do,’ she told herself after a while.
She sought out her valise, in which Annie had stowed her newly hemmed handkerchiefs, and found it under the seat. She pulled it out and opened it—and then her heart stopped beating, for there, on the top of her clothes, was a bundle of letters, all in her own hand, and addressed to her family and friends.
She lifted them up with disbelief.
There must be some mistake, she thought, scarcely able to believe the evidence of her own eyes, and with trembling hands she untied the bundle and tore open the top letter.
My dearest Jane,
You will be surprised when I tell you that we are not going to the Lake District after all, we are going to France…
She picked up another one:
My dearest Jane,
…We are now established in Paris, and it is the most beautiful city…
And another:
My dearest Jane,
I wish you were here. How I long to talk to you. So much has happened that I scarcely know where to begin. We left Paris a few days ago and we are now in the Alps.
All of them, every letter she had written since leaving England, they were all there. Her mind raced. What were they doing there? Who had put them there? Why had they never been sent?
And then she thought of the strange incident when Annie had found her in the gardens and told her that her handkerchiefs had been hemmed. It wasn’t urgent news, it could have waited. But then with a creeping feeling running down her spine, she realised that Annie had not sought her