“And yet,” Elias said gently, “you have a duty to preserve that inheritance.”
“Yes,” James admitted, his voice lowering. “That is the part no one quite says aloud, isn’t it? That my marriage is not entirely my own affair. That the lives of our brothers, even our parents’ comfort, depend upon my good judgement—or, if they are unlucky, my haste.”
Elias’s gaze softened. “You have never been hasty.”
“No,” James said. “But I am not certain time will always afford me the leisure I would prefer.”
They fell quiet again. From the hallway came the faint creak of a stair tread—someone crossing above them. Life continued upstairs, as it did everywhere, in small habitual rhythms that bore little relation to the deeper concerns occupying the parlour below.
“I will say this,” Elias murmured after a while, “Uncle Phillips has been kinder than many uncles might be. And I believe the Gardiners, if ever we were truly in need, would not hesitate to assist.”
James inclined his head. “Yes. Edward Gardiner is no stranger to obligation. And Aunt Madeleine… well, she sees more than she says. Always has. I sometimes think she recognises more clearly than anyone else how tight the path has grown for our generation.”
Elias turned his gaze to the window. “It is not just the money,” he said after a moment. “It is the noise of expectations—what a Bennet should do, what he should become, whom he should marry or avoid. I find myself resenting it sometimes, even when I know it is born of love.”
James looked at his brother intently. There was something in Elias’s posture just then, something thoughtful but also fatigued. Not the tiredness of body, but the sort that comes from trying too hard for too long without speaking it aloud.
“You have never said this before,” he observed quietly.
Elias’s mouth tilted in a shadow of a smile. “Perhaps I never had a place to say it. Or perhaps I never thought I ought to voice such discontent, when others must carry more.”
“You carry enough,” James said. “And though you are not heir to the estate, you have been heir to much else—Father’s trust, my confidences, even the weight of quiet expectation that no one names but everyone leans on.”
Elias glanced toward him, touched by the sincerity of that recognition. “You are kind.”
“No,” James said evenly. “Only honest.”
The day continued to warm. Outside, a bee buzzed against the glass, then wandered away again. The sound of a broom handle tapping against a bucket drifted faintly in from the kitchen yard. But inside, the brothers sat still—two lives gently entangled by time, by affection, and by a shared desire not merely to preserve their family’s standing, but to make something worthy of it.
“I suppose,” Elias said at last, “we are both waiting for something real. Not just respectable or advantageous—but something that feels true.”
James looked toward the hearth again. “I suppose we are.”
And in the silence that followed, there was no despair, no complaint—only a shared understanding that though they were not yet where they wished to be, they were not alone on the path.
Whatever came next—fortune, misstep, or quiet revelation—they would face it as they always had. Together.
***
A soft knock at the parlour door interrupted the quiet hum of late morning. The maid—Susan, newish and eager to please—poked her head in and bobbed a curtsy.
“Beg pardon, Mr. Elias, Mr. James—your father requests your presence in the study. At once, he said.”
James looked up from the newspaper he had not been reading and folded it with care. “Did he seem… annoyed?”
Susan hesitated. “No, sir. But he was smiling in that particular way he does, when he means something but does not say it outright.”
Elias gave his brother a glance, then stood. “Ah. That smile. Shall we?”
They crossed the hall together. Mr. Bennet’s study door stood ajar, and inside, the master of the house was seated in his armchair near the window, spectacles low on his nose and a letter unfolded in his hand.
“Ah—my sons.” He gestured to the chairs opposite. “Come in. I have received an epistle of such length and detail that it might well pass for a minor sermon. Naturally, it is from Mr. Collins. I shall confine myself to the major excerpts.”
James took his usual seat without comment; Elias, more curious, raised a brow. “Is he well?”
“He is thriving,” Mr. Bennet replied dryly, “as all men must, who marry according to instruction and produce an heir without delay. His little boy is restless with the heat, his wife is expecting again and rather more fatigued than usual, and the world, it seems, continues to astonish him—but still, he has found time to think of us.”
Then Mr. Bennet cleared his throat and began reading, holding the letter at arm’s length.
