"I meant them for whoever was writing to me about pears," she said. "I didn't know who that was. I'm only beginning to find out." And she went out.
On the last morning, before the Durham coach, Thomasin walked down to the ford. She told herself it was to see the heron. He was there, in the shallows below the new bridge; and so, on the bank above him, was the Earl, as she had known he would be, though neither of them had said so.
They stood a little apart and watched the bird.
"I've read them," he said at last. "All of mine. Anne gave me her copies; she kept them, the way you kept yours. I sat up with them till three." He was silent a moment. "They're very good. They're a great deal better than I am. I kept thinking: what a man that is. I'd like to meet him."
"So should I," said Thomasin.
"I don't know which of you I was in love with. You, or your letters, or—a room with both of you in it, writing, that never existed anywhere." He looked down at his gloved hand. "Perhaps it was only the post."
"I loved a man who sat up all night with a dying boy and told him it didn't hurt," said Thomasin. "That part was you. Your sister said so. It's not much to go on."
"No," he said. "It's not much."
The heron struck, quick as a blade, and came up with nothing, and settled again.
"Miss Bramley. May I write to you? At Durham?"
She thought of the bottom drawer. She thought of Dorothea in the hall saying, You haven't got one yet.
"In your own hand," she said. "Every word. Nobody else's."