For the first time in a very long time, Charity went to call on Esther.

She did not know what particular impulse seized her that day. She knew only that she wished to see her friend, and that she did not want to be in her father’s space while she did so. It was as easy for her to walk to the Campbell’s house as it was for Esther to walk to the vicarage, yet somehow Charity had fallen out of the habit of walking there.

She felt a bit guilty at the fact she had always relied on her friend to come to her and regretted that she had not been more reciprocating.

The Campbells were the sort of family that fitted in well in the village, which was a village of people who were not high in society, but many wished to think themselves so, and stayed in the village because they fancied that everyone else was lower than them in status.

They lived in that middle space between genteel poverty and comfortable affluence, just as Charity’s family might have done if it had not been for the comfortable provision of her father’s living.

The Campbells were undoubtedly gentlefolk, and yet Esther’s mother always kept cautious hands on the purse strings, as she remembered well the feeling of having very little with which to feed or clothe her family.

Mr. Campbell had done well, however, by securing a position as the Duke of Mornington’s steward. This position had given him a good enough living to call himself genteel, if not precisely a gentleman. The status of his family depended primarily on whether Esther married up or down.

If she married a gentleman, as well she might, then their position was assured. However, if she married down to a farmer, perhaps, or any other such man who worked with his hands, then all the aspirations of the family, their hopes of belonging to a better class of people, would all be for nothing.

Charity knew well that Esther felt the pressure keenly, and this pressure was partly why she always exercised such caution over matters concerning her own heart. Unlike Charity, perhaps Esther had a great fear of letting her family down.

When Charity entered the house, she was greeted by the sound of Esther singing, a pleasant country air that was elevated into something much more wonderful by Esther’s sweet voice.

Esther had never learned the pianoforte, as her father had never had the disposable resources to employ a teacher, and yet it scarcely seemed to matter. Esther sang like a lark and did not appear to need any further instruction in order to make full use of her gift.

When the maid announced Charity’s presence, however, the singing stopped abruptly, and Esther rose from the stool where she had been sitting and looking out of the window.

“I wish that you would not stop,” Charity said. “To hear you singing brings me such a rare and simple pleasure.”

“Perhaps that is why I must stop, then,” Esther replied, smiling, “to remind us both that life is rarely simple.”

“That is true indeed,” Charity replied, with a great sigh. “In you, dear friend, I have always treasured your ability to make the world appear simpler, to help me understand my place in it.”

“Is that why you have called upon me unexpectedly?” Esther asked. “Can I be of help to you in some way?”

“Perhaps,” Charity said, glad that her friend had supplied her with a means of beginning the conversation. “It is about Mr. Edwards.”

“What about him?”

“I like him,” Charity said.

“And so do I,” Esther replied. “So would any young woman who met him. But, pray tell, dear Charity, what is it that you truly wish to say when you tell me that you like him?”

“I mean that I am utterly perplexed!” Charity burst out. “I mean that I have every reason to scorn him, to wish that he would go away and leave me to mourn the loss of the man whom I truly cared for. Yet, I do not want that. I cannot say that I am curious to know him better, yet I would not object to knowing him at all.”

Esther smiled. It was an ironical smile, such as her friend had rarely seen on her face before.

“What can you mean?” Esther asked rhetorically. “Surely you cannot intend to say that you would suffer to make the acquaintance of a kind, pleasant, good young man, who wishes to know you better. I will assume that you misspoke, or that I have misunderstood in some way, because you are my friend, Charity, and I know that my friend is not capable of such unkindness.”

Not for the first time, Charity was struck by the steel that lay beneath her friend’s sweet exterior.

Esther’s words made Charity ashamed of what she felt. She backtracked, doing her best to rephrase.

“If I implied that I felt that I did not think Mr. Edwards was good enough for me, then I regret the implication,” Charity said immediately. “I meant no such thing. I intended to express only that I feel Mr. Edwards to be a very good young man — a very kind and pleasant young man. I have always thought those to be the ideal traits in a young man, and certainly in a husband. It is those traits, indeed, that leave me so perplexed.”

“Perplexed by what?” Esther asked.

“By my own feelings, of course!” Charity burst out. “I cannot understand why it is that despite all my friendliness toward such a man as Mr. Edwards, all my feelings of admiration, I cannot summon up even one-hundredth of the feeling that I harbor for Mr. Harding. How can it be so, dear friend? It defies reason!”

Esther did not say anything at her friend’s words but sat very still.

“I thought that you believed Mr. Harding to be a blackguard and a libertine,” she said. “I thought that you believed him guilty of the most terrible of crimes.”

“I do, and I do not!” Charity exclaimed. “I think he is guilty, and I think he is not. I think that he is the most wonderful young man of my acquaintance, and yet I do not. All I know about Mr. Harding is that I do not know what I think about him, and know only too well how I feel about him. My feelings triumph over my thoughts, and I am greatly disturbed by the magnitude of the triumph!”

At that, she sighed and looked at Esther beseechingly.

“If at the snap of my fingers, I could force myself to fall in love with Mr. Edwards, I would do so immediately. Such love would offer me the prospect of splendid stability as is the life of a clergyman’s wife. It is a good life. It is one that many would envy.”

At this, she fell silent. Perhaps it was because she was in Esther’s house, and could see that it was relatively humble compared to her own, but she felt suddenly that she had been very absorbed in her own concerns, and thought very little about how her friend might feel.

It was all very well, she now realized, for her to scorn the idea of stability, to dismiss it as a minor virtue to be sought after by those who lacked imagination.

But, Charity had to admit, she had never really feared poverty, the way she knew that her friend did. She had never known its sting, its indignity.

But she would be prepared to risk everything, even the humiliation of poverty, for the sake of her own independence and liberty of mind. In a way, it was liberating to know that, despite her father’s continued efforts to dominate her, she would always be able to walk away from him if she felt it be necessary.

“Do not be embarrassed, Charity,” Esther said, apparently sensing the thoughts of her friend. “I can tell that you do not wish to marry Mr. Edwards, and there is no shame in that wish. What I would say to you, however, is that you should not heap scorn upon those whose choices do not precisely resonate with your own.”

Charity nodded. Her friend was right, as she so often was.

Returning to the vicarage, Charity caught sight of a figure emerging from the churchyard and stopped dead.

It was Mr. Harding.

He was strolling slowly, and even from a distance, she could see the look of intense preoccupation on his face. Charity stood frozen for a second, unsure of what she might best do. Ought she acknowledge him and act like they were nothing more than acquaintances? Certainly, she could not snub him.

For a few moments, she panicked, and then made a hasty decision and stepped into the shadow of a nearby tree.

A coward’s choice, she thought ironically, but, nonetheless, I think, probably the wisest course of action.

From her hidden vantage, she was able to look at Mr. Harding without him looking at her. She took in all the details of him that had preoccupied her so — the tall and slim frame, the broad shoulders, the decisive step.

She looked at him and knew that, despite all the reasons why it should not, her heart still longed for him.

She waited in the shadow of the tree for a long while, until she was quite sure that he had gone away, and then stepped out of her hiding place. Her heart was pounding so hard that she could feel the beat of the blood in her fingertips.

How could a man she knew — or at least, believed — to have done such terrible things make her feel the way that he did? It made her realize with a wave of sadness, that perhaps her heart was not to be trusted. Maybe from now on, she would be wiser to use her head only, as it was clear to her that her feelings were capable of betraying her.

She thought back to Esther, how she had chided her for her dismissal of Mr. Edwards. Perhaps, she thought, she would do better to discard her strong feelings, since they were so obviously failing her. Perhaps she ought to change the way she felt about things like love and marriage.

Perhaps she ought to give Mr. Edwards a chance.

She stood outside her house for a very long while. She did not wish to go in, feeling as soon as she did, the weight of her father’s expectation would be heaped upon her once again, and she did not know if she could bear its crush.

All at once, she felt exhausted, as if all the suffering and revelation of the recent days had been a form of physical exertion. She went inside to rest, and when she lay down, she fell immediately into a sleep filled with dreams of young men shifting shapes, from Mr. Harding turning into Mr. Edwards and back again.