***
Sophie was enjoying the open air and the Mediterranean sunshine. After a long, dark time, she was beginning to come to life again. The new sights and scents stimulated her, and the uncomplicated love of the Darcy children soothed her battered spirit, for although her own family had tried to help her, their constant attentions had depressed her spirits rather than otherwise. They had exhorted her to count her blessings, but this had only made her feel worse, because she then felt guilty for being ungrateful as well as feeling unhappy; they had told her to forget Mr Rotherham, which she had been unable to do; and they had reminded her that she must not leave it too long to return to the land of the living, for at the age of twenty-two she was in danger of becoming an old maid and could not delay her search for a husband. They had talked incessantly of her married sisters: Charlotte, with her comfortable rectory and three children, and Maria, with her handsome husband and her new baby. They had said that she must find the same—never realising that it was those very exhortations which had made her so vulnerable to the attentions of the handsome but fickle nephew of her father’s old business partner, Mr Rotherham, in the first place.
A fresh breeze sprang up and a sudden gust caught her bonnet, diverting her thoughts to the immediate task of keeping it on her head. She put her hand on it, catching it before it was ripped away, but her feather was not so lucky. It was torn loose by the wind and danced along the deck, whirling and pirouetting as it was blown toward the rail.
Laughing at the comical sight, she sprang up to chase after it, but Paul Inkworthy was quicker. Putting aside his sketch, he leapt up and caught it, handing it to her with a laugh and a bow.
Sophie blushed as she took it, feeling suddenly awkward. Mr Inkworthy was not handsome, but his eyes were kind and intelligent and there was no denying the fact that his evident admiration had done much to restore her confidence in recent weeks. But still she did not have the courage to speak.
“Miss Lucas…” said Paul, and then he stopped.
She willed him to continue but was not surprised when he did not. What could a young man such as Mr Inkworthy—for he was a year younger than she—have to say to a woman of her age? His kindness and gentleness were indisputable, but his admiration, she told herself, was of an artistic kind. But still she could not bring herself to walk back across the deck to her embroidery. And so she looked at him, willing him to continue, for she wanted to talk to him, but she had grown tongue-tied.
He lapsed into silence again and she felt a certain empathy with him. He, too, was shy and, she suspected, uncomfortably aware of his situation. His position was a difficult one. He was not a friend of the family nor yet quite a servant, and so he was an outsider to both parties. As, in a way, was she. For although the Darcys had invited her as their guest, she was considerably younger than Elizabeth, who had been a friend of her older sister Charlotte rather than a particular friend of hers, and she did not have the wealth or the position of the Darcys. Then, too, it was not always easy for her to talk to older people. True, there was another young man on board, for Edward was more of an age with her, but she did not encourage her feelings for him, as she knew too well how vulnerable a woman made herself when she entertained feelings for a rich and handsome man.
The silence was becoming awkward and so she turned to go but, emboldened by her step toward departure, Paul said, “I have no right…”
She stopped and waited for him to continue.
“I have no right,” he said again and then went on in a rush, “but I cannot bear to see you so sad. I know I should not talk of it, but I can think of nothing else to talk to you about, except commonplaces, and I do not want to bore you with my feeble attempts to talk about the weather. Something has happened to you, I can tell that, something which has robbed you of your happiness. I just wanted to know if there was anything I could do for you. If I might be of service to you in any way—even if it is only to listen—well, then, I would gladly do anything in my power to lighten your burden.”
He spoke with such obvious sincerity that Sophie found herself wanting to confide in him. She had tried to speak to her siblings at the time, but they had been busy with their own affairs and inclined to dismiss the feelings of the youngest member of the family. Her parents had had time and interest aplenty but no way of understanding her.
“There was an unhappy love affair, I think,” he said, not looking at her but instead looking over the sea.
It made it easier for her.
“There was someone…” she said, not knowing how to begin but nevertheless wanting to speak.
“In Hertfordshire?” he asked, looking back toward her. “That is where you are from, I think?”
She nodded. “Yes.” And then she stopped, for she did not know how to go on.
“I have never been to Hertfordshire, but I hear it is very pretty.”
He had said the right thing. Given something so harmless to discuss, Sophie began to speak at length. She told him of her town and spoke of her neighbours with affection, but what was left unsaid was as revealing as what was said. As the youngest daughter of a large family, it was soon clear that she had been made to understand, though not unkindly, that marriage was the only honourable means of keeping herself from want once her parents died and that her choices of husband would be limited, as her parents could not provide her with much in the way of a dowry. She had accepted her situation but had still hoped that she would be luckier than her oldest sister, Charlotte, whose marriage to Mr Collins, it soon became clear, she could never view as anything other than a sham.
“Your choices are not so limited, I am sure,” he said, looking at her with unconcealed admiration.
But it became clear from her halting sentences that her fragile beauty had been largely unremarked upon in the environs of her parents’ house and that even the kindest neighbours had tended to see it as a waste in a child whose prospects depended more on fortune than merit.
“And that is when I met Mr Rotherham,” she said softly.
Paul waited, saying nothing, giving her the opportunity to order her thoughts and express them in a way she had not been able to before.
“He was very good to me,” she said, speaking of Francis Rotherham with a mixture of wistfulness and pain, telling him of the way Mr Rotherham had made much of her during the summer balls and assemblies. “He laughed with me and danced with me and made me feel that I was special.”
“And so you are,” said Paul sincerely.
She shook her head. “No. For not long after such hopeful scenes, Mr Rotherham abandoned me at a lakeside picnic in order to pursue…”
“A wealthy young woman?” he hazarded.
She dropped her eyes, unable to meet his gaze as she remembered the rich young lady who had arrived from London—remembered, too, how Mr Rotherham had transferred his allegiances publicly, with no thought for her feelings or the hurt and shame she must feel. At his callous treatment, her heart had shrivelled, and when she had recovered a little, she vowed never to give her heart to a man she did not fully know, and fully trust, again.
She felt Paul’s silent sympathy, even as her eyes came to rest on his hands. Paul Inkworthy had none of the artifices of Mr Rotherham. She had only to look at his paint-stained fingers and then lift her eyes a little to his rather worn shirt to see he cared little for society manners. The only time she had seen him animated was when he had discussed chiaroscuro one afternoon with Beth. It was art which stirred his passions, not fortunes. Even so, she knew very little about him, and although his admiration was gratifying, it was not enough to make her seek a romantic attachment again.