Back to the Bonnet by Jennifer Duke

Author:Jennifer Duke [Duke, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms, Others POV, Time Travel
Goodreads: 55296314
Publisher: Jennifer Duke
Published: 2020-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

VOLUME II, CHAPTER VI

The Secret Revealed

Which household from amongst the poor of Meryton, I wondered, had benefitted from possibly the most valuable object in the country, let alone the parish? If I found the new wearer, could I tempt them to sell it back to me with what little pin money I had saved? But what if they had unearthed its secrets and were unwilling to part with it? Might I then have to resort to theft? Would it even count as theft if the bonnet was rightfully mine?

Pondering these questions as Charlotte and I walked in Rosings Woods, I twice knocked my foot against tree roots and once ducked too late, receiving a face full of bud laden twigs. After adjusting my bonnet, I continued in my train of thought, an idea coming to me that made me smile at first – then my smile became a heavy sigh. If I managed to get it back, could I bring myself to do what might further the prospects of my family – even if it meant a sacrifice for myself – yet may merely be a waste of many stitches?

“… whole leg of mutton or not. What think you, Mary?” came Charlotte’s words, finding a gap through the cloud of my thoughts.

“Forgive me, what was the question?”

Charlotte laughed. “I’ve been talking of it for some time. Have you not been listening?” She paused as her gaze fell upon my face. “Mary, is something wrong?”

I could have lied, reassuring her that all was well but in that moment, the weight of what I felt to be my imminent decision pressed down on me and I knew that she could sense it. She would know I was not telling the truth if I tried to put on an act. However, a small part of the truth would be nonsensical to her.

With a steady look into her deep, trusting eyes, I realised I was about to tell her everything.

“Here,” I said, gesturing to a fallen tree, “let us sit a while.” We sat down. “You may think that I am running mad,” I said, making an effort to regulate my breathing and pressing my hands onto the rough bark to keep them still.

“Tell me. What is it?”

I hesitated, taking in a slow breath. “My old bonnet, the one that belonged to Great Aunt Harriet, well it is not any ordinary bonnet … it has the power to manipulate time.”

She blinked rapidly, a puzzled expression spreading across her face, but her impulses were not to mock or judge. “Go on,” she said.

I then narrated the story of my discovery of the bonnet’s power and what I did with it in ridding Netherfield Park of Mr Thorpe and Mr Crawford and, on a number of other occasions, altering the trajectory of my family’s future. I told her how Lydia had stolen the bonnet and how I had, just now, discovered where she had taken it.

She was silent for so long that I frayed the end of my bonnet ribbon as I twisted it.

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