Jane Fairfax wished she could truly be a good person. Barring that, she settled for keeping quiet when she had nothing good to say. Which could be frequent. 

She did wonder, frequently, whether this was really a wise strategy on her part. It never seemed to fail; if there was going to be a party of any size greater than three, the person most likely to chatter away at her with an insipid monologue was sure to seek her out and make her an auditory captive. 

At the wedding breakfast of her dear friend Miss Campbell to Mr Dixon, her captor seemed to be a relative of Mrs Campbell’s. Jane was not quite sure if it was Mrs. Campbell’s cousin, or a brother, but it was some male relative of indeterminate age and relation to the bride. He was clearly a fussy man, childless and wifeless, who no doubt was going to remain so all his days. Jane had the vague impression he had been married once. Perhaps his wife had been the love of his life, and he could not bear the idea of marrying again. Or perhaps he was never able to find another woman willing to put up with his nonsense. 

“So, indeed, I said, why not simply repaint the whole thing?” her companion was saying. She assumed she was overdue for some sort of verbal reaction. “Indeed,” she repeated.

While her companion happily enjoyed the sound of his own voice, she allowed her eyes to drift around the party. The Campbells, who had raised her as if she were their own, were blessed with a happy wealth of well-informed, judicious, warm-hearted family and friends, which created the largest wedding breakfast Jane had ever heard of. Aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, neighbors and friends were all collected in small groups. In the bits of conversation she was able to hear, she discerned words such as “Beethoven,” “Shelley,” and “Leipzig.” 

She sighed to herself. While others were talking about music, literature, and politics, of course she ended up listening to a one-way conversation about the intricacies of putting up a fence. 

Knowing the bride’s father, Colonel Campbell, did not necessarily approve of the practice of “enclosure,” which was enriching the privileged few at the expense of large numbers of small farmers, she was extremely grateful when the newly-made Mrs Dixon came to her rescue. “My dear Uncle Roberts, I am sorry to impose upon you, but I desperately need to steal sweet Jane away. I have been embraced so many times, my hair is a disgrace, and she is the only one with fingers clever enough to put it back to rights.”

“Well, of course, my dear, of course!” the now-named Uncle Roberts gallantly dismissed the two young women. “We cannot have the bride disheveled on her wedding day!”

Sophia Dixon took Jane by the arm with one last sweet smile, and drew her away. “You looked like your ears could use a respite,” she murmured when they were a safe distance away.

Jane’s heart was bursting with love for her foster sister. “Thank you. He’s a gentleman of the old school, to be sure. I certainly could not get up and walk away. But he never seems to pause to take a breath of air. He must be a very accomplished singer.”

Sophia giggled a little, and gave Jane’s arm an affectionate squeeze as they retired to their room, where Jane could re-pin Sophia’s drooping curls. “You are the most tactful person the world has ever known.”

“That’s only because I am the meanest, most uncharitable person the world has ever known,” Jane answered. She paused in the process of reattaching the orange blossoms to Sophia’s light brown hair, and gave her a mournful look. “How on earth am I going to get by without you? You are the only person in the world who can watch me listening to a conversation without saying a word myself, and know exactly what I am thinking.”

Sophia twisted in her chair, and wrapped her arms around Jane’s slim waist. “That’s because no one in the world knows you as well as I do,” she said. Jane laid her cheek on the top of Sophia’s head, and for a moment the two girls remained there, without a dry eye between them. “Are you sure you cannot come with me to Ireland? I am sure Mr Dixon would not object. Or, at least, if a bride cannot overcome her husband’s objections when they are newly married, it speaks ill of her ability to have any influence over him later in life.”

Jane had seen all the sketches Mr Dixon had shown them of his home in Ireland, and she desperately wanted to go. “You are a dear, sweet, generous friend,” she answered. “But I would be imposing too much. I was supposed to have left your family to start supporting myself when I turned eighteen. I am twenty one now. As wholeheartedly as I love you, and your parents, it is time I proved to be a credit to all of you by using the education your parents gave me.”

“It does not seem right,” Sophia’s voice was muffled, because she had buried her face in Jane’s dress. “You are prettier than I am, and smarter, and you sing and play better than I do, and when you apply your needle to a project, it comes out looking as you intended it to. I am the plain one, and the dull one. It does not seem right that I am the one with a rich, clever husband today.”

“That’s the world we live in,” Jane shrugged pragmatically. “Your father had the means to provide for you, but not for us both. If my father had lived, things would be different. As it is, I can only be grateful. Just imagine if your father had not found me, and raised me because of his love for my father. I would not be fit to be a governess and to make my own way in the world.  I would have grown up in poverty with my aunt and grandmother in Highbury, in terribly reduced circumstances.”

“I am glad your father nursed my father through the camp fever.” Sophia looked up at her, smiling through the tears in her eyes. “I suppose if your father had lived, we would still have been great friends, and we would have been each other’s bridesmaids, and settle on estates a mile apart, and our children would have grown up together.”

“I am sure you are right,” Jane agreed. “Well, now I have made a mess of it,” she said when they finished their mutual exchange of affection and Sophia’s arms released her waist. “I have mussed your hair all over again.”