“The carriage. For your half day. It will take you to your family and return for you at whatever hour you specify.”
“Mr Darcy, that is quite unnecessary. I am perfectly capable of walking.”
“Humour me, Miss Bennet.” His voice was pleasant, his expression mild, and his jaw set in a way that meant the carriage was not a suggestion but a conclusion he had already reached. “I am a responsible employer.”
She wondered, briefly, whether the scullery maid received similar provision on her day off. She did not voice the thought, partly because it was ungracious and partly because Barton was stationed at his post by the door, shamelessly eavesdropping.
“You are very kind, Mr Darcy. Thank you.”
She did not stumble on the wordkind. She delivered it smoothly, practically, as a matter of courtesy and nothing more. If the word caught slightly in her throat, that was the fault of the early hour and the poor sleep and nothing else.
He held the door and she passed through it. The carriage stood at the kerb, polished and gleaming, the Darcy crest on the door. A footman helped her in.
As they pulled away from Grosvenor Street, Elizabeth folded her hands in her lap and pressed her thumb, once, to the inside of her wrist.
It did not take long before they stopped at The Polygon and the footman opened the door. Elizabeth stepped down and saw the curtain twitch at number fourteen before herfoot reached the pavement. Kitty, most likely. Kitty was always at the window.
“I shall return at six o’clock,” she told the driver. He touched his hat and the carriage left. Elizabeth stood for a moment on the narrow street, adjusting. The shift was abrupt. Grosvenor Street to Somers Town was not a long distance in miles but it was a chasm in everything else. She needed a breath at the threshold to put one world down and pick the other up.
The door opened before she reached it. Mrs Bennet stood in the hall, wiping her hands on her apron, and her eyes went straight past Elizabeth to the departing carriage.
“Was that a crest on the door, Lizzy?”
“Good morning, Mamma.”
“It was a crest. That was Mr Darcy’s carriage.” Mrs Bennet stepped aside to let her in, but her gaze lingered on the street. “He sent you with his own carriage?”
“He is a generous employer.”
“He is a peculiar one.” Mrs Bennet closed the door and studied her daughter with the shrewd, unsentimental gaze that poverty had sharpened from a blunt instrument into a blade. Once, she had missed everything. Now she missed nothing, and Elizabeth found this new version considerably more difficult to manage.
“You are tired, Lizzy. You have not been sleeping.”
“I have been settling in. It is a new household. There is much to learn.”
Mrs Bennet’s eyes narrowed a fraction but she let it pass, which was a mercy Elizabeth had not expected and did not trust. Mercies from her mother were never free. Theyaccrued interest and were collected at the most inconvenient moments.
Jane was in the kitchen, sleeves rolled to her elbows, washing dishes in a basin. She turned when Elizabeth entered and her face brightened, a quiet warming that did not reach a smile but was close. Jane did not waste smiles any more. She spent them carefully, the way she spent everything.
“Lizzy.” She dried her hands and embraced her sister, gently. Elizabeth held on for a second longer than necessary. Jane was too thin, the bones of her shoulders pressed through the cotton.
“You are eating, Jane?”
“Do not start.” But there was no sharpness in it, only a weary patience.
Elizabeth reached into her reticule and produced the envelope. Mr Darcy had paid her first quarter in advance on Lady Day, three days into her employment. Twenty pounds for her mother. The remaining five were already in the tin at Darcy House, where they would stay until there were enough. Jane deserved a future that was not this kitchen.
“Mary and Kitty?” Elizabeth asked.
“Mary is at the lending library. She goes every other day now. She has found a circle of women who read and debate and generally behave as though they have opinions.” Mrs Bennet’s tone suggested she was not entirely certain whether to be proud or alarmed. “Kitty is upstairs, mending.”
“And Lydia?”
Her mother paused. It was the particular pause that always preceded any mention of Lydia in this house, brief and heavy, a silence shaped around what nobody said.
“In her room. She comes down for meals.” Mrs Bennet’s voice was carefully level. “She is quiet.”
Elizabeth nodded. Lydia was always quiet now. The fifteen-year-old girl who laughed convinced that life was a party arranged specifically for her benefit was not there. She had been replaced by a woman who moved through the house apologetically, as though she were a guest who had overstayed her welcome and knew it.