Elizabeth searched her sister’s face. The hope there was tentative but real. “I believe he is. He is a good man, Jane. Honest.”
Jane’s smile deepened, just a fraction. “Honesty is what I need. I have had enough of falsehoods.”
In the parlour, Mary sat near the window with a book in Italian. She was teaching herself, working through thegrammar with the same fierce concentration she once applied to sermons and moral tracts. She looked up when Elizabeth entered, offered a nod of acknowledgment, and returned to her page without comment. Kitty was at the table trimming a bonnet with lengths of yellow ribbon, her tongue caught between her teeth in concentration. She waved the scissors in greeting.
Mrs Bennet stood in the kitchen doorway, a teapot in her hand. She looked sharper than she had in years, and she surveyed her second daughter with a critical eye.
“You are not eating enough,” she declared. “Even in a grand house they cannot force you if you will not open your mouth. Sit. I have made tea.”
Elizabeth obeyed. The table was laid with the good cups—the ones that had survived the exile from Longbourn—and a plate of bread and butter that spoke of the anonymous provisions that kept arriving with reassuring regularity. She accepted the cup and drank. The tea was strong, the way her mother had always liked it.
For a time they simply existed together in the small room. Kitty chattered about the bonnet, Mary offered the occasional dry remark in Italian that no one understood but herself, and Jane moved between kitchen and parlour, refilling cups and straightening cushions. Lydia remained on the settee, turning pages with slow deliberation.
Elizabeth rose after a while and crossed to her youngest sister. She placed a hand on Lydia’s shoulder. The muscle beneath her palm was relaxed, not tensed against an expected blow.
Lydia looked up. “I do not understand half of it, Lizzy.”
Elizabeth laughed softly. “Sometimes I do not either. But the words sound nice, do they not?”
“They do.” Lydia’s finger traced a line of verse. “I shall write to you at Pemberley. I have not written anyone a letter in such a long time.”
“Then I shall answer every one of them.”
Lydia nodded once. The moment passed without being made into more than it was—no tears, no declarations, no dramatic vows of recovery. Simply a sister reading poetry and another promising to reply.
Elizabeth kissed her mother goodbye in the hallway. Mrs Bennet produced a small packet wrapped in brown paper and pressed it into her hand.
“For the child. Not for you. You will be fed in a grand house and need no biscuits.”
Her voice cracked, very slightly, on the wordsgrand house. Elizabeth understood. Her mother would miss her. The admission lived in that tiny fracture, in the way Mrs Bennet’s fingers lingered on hers before releasing the packet.
“Thank you, Mamma.”
Elizabeth climbed into the carriage and settled against the seat. She did not look back as the wheels began to turn. The Polygon receded behind her—the narrow house, the jug of flowers in the window, the family that had learned to survive without her constant presence.
She held the packet of biscuits in her lap, very still.
Once she arrived at Grosvenor Street, the carriage was readied, and they left at noon, the second vehicle following with Alice, Mr Darcy’s valet, and the trunks. Inside the first carriage sat three passengers: Anne, perched on the forwardseat with her nose already pressed to the window, Elizabeth beside her, and Mr Darcy opposite, his long legs stretched, his posture composed but not relaxed.
Anne began narrating the journey before they had cleared the square.
“That is a church tower,” she announced, pointing. “And that is another. There are many churches in London. Do you think God minds having so many houses?”
Elizabeth smiled. “I suspect He is flattered by the attention.”
Anne considered this. “Then why do the bells ring at different times? It must be very confusing for Him.”
Mr Darcy’s mouth twitched. He did not speak, but his eyes rested on Elizabeth with quiet attention as she answered the child.
The first hours passed in this manner. Anne named everything they passed through, identified every spire, and posed increasingly philosophical questions about sheep. Were they aware they were sheep? Did they mind being woolly? If a sheep dreamed, did it dream of grass or of being a horse? Elizabeth answered each one with patience and occasional amusement. Mr Darcy contributed when directly addressed, but mostly he watched Elizabeth answer. His gaze was unobtrusive and impossible to ignore.
They stopped for luncheon at a coaching inn. A private room had been prepared for them. Cold beef, fresh bread, a dish of pickles, and a glass of ale for Mr Darcy, tea for the ladies. Anne declared the bread inferior to that of London and was informed, mildly, by her father that she wastravelling through the kingdom and might refine her opinions as she went.
Anne accepted the correction with the gravity of a statesman.
Back in the carriage, the rhythm changed. The afternoon sun warmed the interior. Anne’s questions grew slower, her head heavier against Elizabeth’s shoulder. Within the first hour she was asleep, her small body curled trustingly in Elizabeth’s lap, one hand clutching the ribbon from her bonnet.
Mr Darcy sat opposite, one hand resting on the seat beside him, an inch from his knee. Elizabeth was acutely aware of it in the way one is aware of a lit candle one is not looking at. The space felt smaller now that Anne slept, the air thicker, the silence more intimate.