“Oh, let her go, Elizabeth. What’s the point of keeping Mary from talking? Mary will talk-talk-talk all day long. But it’s harmless. Nothing that matters.”

Papa’s greatest gift with words was that he could sting two people at once. I looked between them, but I could see Mama had acquiesced already. When I stood, at last free of my penance, I forgot Jane’s letter, which drifted to the floor. Papa pinched it between his dirty fingers. Out of instinct I grabbed for it, but he pulled it away, looked at the envelope, and laughed.

“Ah, our Mary has a little friend in Beverley, does she?”

I pulled my shawl close as he finished breaking the seal, unfolded and read it.

“‘Dear Miss Wollstonecraft, I am pleased to send this letter in return for your staying from church yesterday to write me. There is no need to excuse the badness of your writing, as you call it, nor should you beg pardon for not writing sooner.’” He read it with contempt, in a high-pitched voice, with nothing of Jane Arden’s assurance and delicacy. “‘I delight in your having enjoyed my father’s demonstration Friday last, and his rather discursive lecture on magnetism.’ Magnetism? What use is that in the world? Rubbish, is what that is.”

Ned smiled, enjoying my humiliation.

“‘And presume we will have the pleasure of your company on Thursday evening in Beverley at six o’clock, when we will enjoy supper and light a cake (as the Germans do) to celebrate my fourteenth birthday—’”

My heart lifted. Jane Arden wants me there! Me! Tonight!

Papa must have seen the look on my face. “Think you’re too good for Walkington, do you?”

This from a man who pretended to cultivate an air of leisure without reading a single book, as far as I could tell. I fought not to shrug my shoulders. If I didn’t make a fuss, he’d move on to something else. I could wash up and dress—I still had the gown pressed and ready for just this—and be in Beverley by six.

“No, Papa,” I said.

“Think you belong in Beverley, do you? Fancy friends. Assembly-room dances. Think a young man wants to dance with you?” I glanced at my sisters, who looked at the floor. “No man’ll want you, Mary. You’re not pretty. You’re not good at things men care about.”

“I don’t mean to be good at things men care about.”

His neck jerked back into his collar. I could almost feel his stinging hand across my face.

“I’m sorry, Papa.” It griped me to say it.

He cackled, leaning to the side of my face, practically spitting in my ear. “You think you’re better than all of us, don’t you, Mary? Better than me, that’s what you think, isn’t it? You think you’re somebody.”

“Please, Papa. May I go? This once?”