“No, he has not. But what if he did? Could you bear it? Truly?”
Jane hesitated. “If it brought him happiness, yes. But… Charlotte? I cannot imagine it.”
“Nor can I.” Elizabeth pressed her lips together. “And yet, I cannot bring myself to blame her. Not entirely. She is only trying to ensure her future.” She reminded herself that Jane did not know thetruth about their brother’s origins. It was a very good thing Mr Bennet expressed no interest in remarrying.
“I do not know if I can look at her the same way again.”
“She is still the same Charlotte,” Jane said quietly. “But perhaps we are not the same girls we were last year. Or the year before that.”
That struck Elizabeth deeply. She looked out at the crowd, candlelight gilding familiar faces. The world was changing in ways she had not expected: war, her come out, and her friends speaking with frankness about marrying her father.
“I suppose you are correct,” Elizabeth said finally. “We are not the same girls. And perhaps we were never meant to remain so.”
She set her empty glass aside and stepped back onto the floor. There were more dances ahead, and she would not be chased from the hall by unspoken fears. But the night no longer felt so light. The candlelight had lost a measure of its charm, and the music its innocence. And Elizabeth Bennet, though barely eighteen, once more saw the world with new eyes.
The next morning, long before breakfast, Elizabeth slipped away from the house with only a shawl over her shoulders and the dew still clinging to the grass. The sky was dove grey, the sun not yet fully risen. She walked the boundary of Longbourn’s fields until her thoughts slowed, but they did not settle.
The image of Charlotte lingered in her mind. Elizabeth had always known marriage was a necessity for many women, but the thought had remained abstract until that night.
And then there was the matter of her father. Witty, absent-minded, exasperating, beloved—the idea of him being desired had seemed ridiculous, until she saw the sincerity in Charlotte’s eyes.
Elizabeth drew her shawl closer as a stronger breeze stirred the dry grasses. What made it worse—what made it infuriating—was that Charlottewas not entirely wrong. Her father was a landowner with a respectable income and an estate entailed away from his daughters. He was not old, nor infirm. He could, if he wished, take another wife and produce a legitimate male heir, thereby announcing their deception to the world. And women—clever women, desperate women, even friends—would not hesitate to offer themselves if he did. She took comfort in the fact that her father would not trouble himself in that way. Not from laziness, but self-defence. His wife’s sister served as a useful buffer.
She had always admired his independence. Now she saw retreat.
If he ever did marry again… She could not finish the thought. The idea of someone else—Charlotte, of all people—stepping into her mother’s place was too dreadful to entertain. Charlotte in her mother’s chair, managing the household, speaking with authority over Lydia and Kitty, possibly bearing children who would inherit what Elizabeth and her sisters could not—the thought made her stomach churn.
And yet…was it not cruel to resent Charlotte for her honesty? Charlotte was merely trying to secure a future, as any sensible woman must.
Elizabeth turned her face to the breeze. Her father would not remarry and put his children under the power of a stepmother. To do so would be dangerous. Would he feel compelled to admit they had fooled the world, passing off a foundling as the heir to Longbourn as if his wife bore a son? Mr Bennet loved Tommy as much as his daughters. The child had become central to the estate’s life; he was the long-awaited miracle, thecompensation for loss.
She sighed. The weight of the secret constantly pressed upon her. Oh, how she wished she could confide in someone—but she could not ask Jane to share it.
Everything was changing—too subtly to see it day by day, but undeniably so. Jane’s quiet anxiety when Aunt Philips spoke of shelves and age. Charlotte’s flushed face and faltering dignity. Her father’s solitude, suddenly no longer harmless but vulnerable. And even Elizabeth could not pretend she was untouched by the weight of these shifts.
She picked up a small stone and hurled it across the field.
There must be more than this.
Elizabeth Bennet was not inclined to despair. But she felt the narrowing of her world pressing in. Too clever to ignore it, too proud to accept it without resistance. And yet, what could she do but wait—and hope—that something beyond the horizon would one day come to claim her attention?
Elizabeth had not meant to linger by the door. It was time for her meeting with Papa, but he appeared to be occupied.
She told herself she was merely waiting—waiting for her father to finish with Tommy, waiting for the house to quiet—but when she heard his laughter from within the study, something sharp twisted inher chest.
It passed as quickly as it came, and she despised herself for it. Situations such as these happened more and more often. She walked away slowly, telling herself she ought not to envy the boy.
Later that evening, Mr Bennet found her alone in the library, staring unseeingly at a book.
“You are very quiet,” he observed.
“I am thinking,” she replied.
“That is seldom a solitary occupation,” he said dryly, then softened. “You were missed today.”
Elizabeth hesitated. “He needed you.” It was true, even if it hurt.
“He does,” Mr Bennet agreed. “And sometimes that means others must wait.”
