He settled the bill, held the door, and they parted on the pavement—he turning right towards Mayfair and whatever world awaited him there, she turning left towards Somers Town and the conversation she was about to have with her mother.
The walk was long and her shoes thin. The spring air was sharp and smelled of smoke and horse dung and, faintly, of the violets the woman had been selling on Conduit Street.
One hundred pounds.
Elizabeth walked faster.
Number fourteen, The Polygon, was a narrow house wedged between two equally narrow houses, all of them leaning slightly to the left, seemingly tired of standing. Elizabeth fumbled with the key, her fingers clumsy with haste. Her heart had not stopped hammering since the tea shop, and her mind kept circling the same thought—one hundred pounds—as if it might evaporate if she stopped thinking it.
She opened the door and was immediately assaulted by the smell of boiled cabbage. She had come to know it intimately—the smell of economy, of making do, of a vegetable that cost almost nothing and tasted like it.
She followed it to the kitchen.
Her mother stood at the stove, stirring the pot with an expression of profound personal offence, as if the cabbage had insulted her directly. Mrs Bennet had once presided over a fully staffed kitchen, and her only connection with the food was the settling of the menus. Now she cooked everymeal for six, she did it competently, and she hated every moment of it.
“Lizzy, there you are.” Mrs Bennet looked up. “Oh, how I miss Hill; you shall never know. Who knows how the Collinses treat her, poor soul.” She set the ladle down and turned fully, her eyes sharp. Whatever else poverty had taken from her mother, it had not dulled her ability to read a face at twenty paces. “But let me see you. Are you smiling? Whatever has happened?”
“Did you find a position?” Jane’s thin voice came from the doorway.
Elizabeth’s eldest sister, once the greatest beauty of Hertfordshire and the neighbouring counties, now weighed no more than a sparrow and ate as much. Her cheekbones, which had once been universally admired, were too sharp beneath her skin. Her dress hung loosely at her shoulders. She was nine-and-twenty, but she looked older. The quiet patience in her eyes did not come from serenity but from having given up on expecting anything good.
Elizabeth crossed the kitchen and hugged her from the side, gently, mindful not to squeeze. There was not enough of Jane to squeeze.
“Yes, dearest.”
“Well?” Mrs Bennet said, pointing the ladle in Elizabeth’s direction. “Are you waiting for pleas to elaborate?”
Before Elizabeth could answer, Lydia appeared behind Jane in the doorway. Her face—her tortured, guarded face—cracked into a small smile at the sight of her sister. If Jane was thin in body, Lydia was thin in every other possibleway. Thin smile that never quite reached her eyes. Thin gaze that never settled in one place for long, always sliding away as though eye contact were a debt she could not afford to pay. Thin patience but not with others. Only with herself. Lydia at fifteen had been loud, reckless, and alive. Lydia at two-and-twenty was a woman who moved through rooms apologising for taking up space in them.
“Lizzy has news,” Jane said softly, and Lydia nodded and slipped into the kitchen, folding herself into a chair by the wall.
Mary and Kitty appeared next, still in their working aprons, their hands red and rough from the day’s washing. Kitty looked hopeful. Mary was as she always was—watchful, assessing, reserving judgement until sufficient evidence had been presented.
“I shall tell you at the table,” Elizabeth said. “Is supper ready, Mamma?”
“It is cabbage, Lizzy. Cabbage is always ready. That is the only virtue cabbage possesses.”
They sat. Mrs Bennet served measured portions into six bowls—each one identical, each one modest. She served herself last, and when she did, the ladle scraped the bottom of the pot and came up with barely enough to cover the bowl. Elizabeth noticed. Her mother had done this every night for seven years—served herself the least, eaten the smallest portion, and never once mentioned it. The shrill, nervy woman who had once taken to her bed over a megrim now quietly starved so that her daughters could eat, and she did not consider it worthy of remark.
Elizabeth picked up her spoon. The cabbage was terrible.
“I have secured a position,” she announced. “As a governess.”
Five faces turned to her, all with different expressions—hope, relief, curiosity, wariness, and, from Lydia, fear. For her, any change in their circumstances was scary. She had learned the hard way that change usually meant things getting worse.
“A governess,” Mrs Bennet repeated. “For whom?”
“As we all know from Charlotte,” Elizabeth explained, keeping her voice steady, “Mr Darcy’s wife died some years ago and left him with a little girl. The child is six and requires a governess. He has offered me the position.”
The silence that followed was considerable.
“Mr Darcy,” Mrs Bennet said slowly. “TheMr Darcy? The proud, disagreeable man from the Meryton assembly?”
“The very same, Mamma.”
“The man with ten thousand a year who would not dance with you?”
“His dancing preferences are not relevant to the position, Mamma.”