The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet by Katherine Cowley (the reading list book txt) 📗

to Worthing, but with them gone, there might be something more she could discover. She walked up two flights of stairs to the second floor, but instead of going to her own room, she continued down the hallway and around the corner to the Tagores’ rooms. She glanced nervously around, but she did not see any servants. She twisted the door handle of Miss Tagore’s door. It was locked.

She stepped down the hallway to the next room, the guest room for Mr. and Mrs. Tagore. This time the door opened. She let herself inside and closed the door, leaving a crack so she could hear if someone approached. She needed to work quickly, as they could return soon. She thought of her letter packet and the missing hair; she would need to take care to make sure she left no trace of her visit.

Mary found a letter packet, but it was Mrs. Tagore’s, so she did not open it. The Tagores’ clothes had been placed in two different clothing presses. There appeared to be nothing unusual inside.

Mr. Tagore had a case, but it was locked, and Mary could not open it.

Besides that, the room was bare, without any indication of the Tagores’ presence.

Afraid of being caught, she almost gave up the task as hopeless, but then she thought of how she had hidden her own notebook underneath her bed. She glanced out the hallway to make sure no one was near, closed the door again, and slid under the bed. Secured between the wooden frame and the bed she found a pile of papers and several notebooks. She carefully examined their placement before removing them, and then spread them out on the floor.

Some of the papers were ledgers, from various companies, organizations, and individuals, all written in the same hand. Another paper was a sketch of a map, and another a letter from a member of the East India Trade Company. Mary opened the notebooks. One appeared to be Mr. Tagore’s personal diary, and the other—the other was written in a hand Mary now recognized well.

The notebook belonged to Mr. Holloway.

Mary flipped to the end, to the final words he had written in this book before he died. Mary started to read, but then realized she needed her own copy of this—she could not take the book with her and study it the way she needed, or they would realize it was missing.

She dashed down the hallway to her room, gathered her own hidden notebook, a paper, and a pencil, as it would be faster than using a quill, and hurried back to the Tagores’ room.

Three quarters of the way through copying the final page, Mary heard horses outside. If Lady Trafford’s carriage had returned, someone could enter this room within minutes. But she could not return the notebook and other items to their place until she finished her transcription. Hand shaking, and with quite disgraceful handwriting, she finished the rest of the page.

Mary piled the papers and notebooks back in order, as exactly as she could. She tried not to work too quickly: if she did, things might not appear exactly as they had before. She could not leave evidence of her spying.

She heard other sounds, though whether it was Lady Trafford’s other guests awaking or the Tagores she could not tell. She slid the items back into their spot between the bed frame and the bed, rushed out of the room, closing the door behind her, and dashed into her own room.

Mary picked up one of the books assigned her by Lady Trafford and pretended to read.

Someone knocked on her door.

“Come in,” Mary called.

Miss Tagore pushed open the door. “I am sorry that we missed you in Worthing.” She paused. “Are you feeling well?”

“Yes,” said Mary. “Why?”

“Your face is a little flushed, that is all.”

“Oh,” said Mary. “I am tired from the late night.”

“We hope you will join us for tea.”

“Of course,” said Mary. She set down the book and accompanied Miss Tagore downstairs.

After tea, which was agonizingly long, Mary finally had the opportunity to examine her new notes in more detail. She barricaded the door to her room with a chair and set Mr. Holloway’s notebook, which she had found in the Worthing stable, next to the page copied from Mr. Holloway’s other notebook, which she had found in Mr. Tagore’s room.

The page from the notebook in Mr. Tagore’s possession read:

the colonel experienced disillusionment keeps his boat here come to Worthing before ship leaves for scouting mission

This seemed to be a clear reference to Colonel Coates. Holloway had been working with Lady Trafford and the Tagores in some capacity and discovered that Colonel Coates was smuggling. Based on this line, Lady Trafford had seen a need for Colonel Radcliffe’s boat, in order to apprehend Colonel Coates. Yet this conclusion did not take into account the second notebook.

Mary turned to the notebook in her possession and read the notes on the final page:

during his service on the continent pays for no record of it but now intends permanence at 3 on the 8th

Mary remembered her previous intuition, that Holloway’s notebook seemed but half of a record. She studied the words on the notebook in her possession, examining the spaces between words and what the pressure of the quill on the paper. It seemed as if the words had not been written continuously. She wished she had Mr. Holloway’s other notebook, but she dared not return to Mr. Tagore’s room for it, so instead she examined the text she had copied from that notebook and how it might fit with the other text.

It took five pages of her notebook and a large amount of frustration, but finally she wrote out a version that combined the two texts in a satisfactory, logical manner, though she had to add punctuation and capitalization for her own sanity:

The colonel, during his service on the continent, experienced disillusionment. Keeps his boat here, pays for no record of it. Come to Worthing before, but now