“You must ask him for me,” she had said when they had been dressing for dinner. “Not everything. Only a few things.”
Jane had regarded her curiously. “What things?”
“What Lady Catherine believes,” she had said. “Not what she hopes, or wishes, or praises herself for believing—but what she treats as fact.”
Jane had nodded as she put the last pins in her hair. “Very well. What else?”
Elizabeth had frowned. “Whether she speaks of it as something past, or something expected. Something finished, or something yet to be done.”
Jane had hesitated. “Lizzy—”
“I cannot be in the room when he answers. You know that I cannot, and I wish I could explain. But I need to know what he thinks he knows.”
“But why? What does any of it matter? You never cared about a word Mr Collins said, and now suddenly you want me to interrogate him?”
“Jane, I…” Elizabeth had pressed her fingers into her eyes. “I cannot saywhy. I only feel that there is something to do with…” She had bitten her lip then, and simply shaken her head. “Never mind. I will only sound crazy.”
Jane had studied her for a moment longer, then inclined her head. “Very well.”
Now Elizabeth waited.
Time passed unevenly. She lay back on the bed at last, one arm flung over her eyes, listening to the house rearrange itself below. Cups. Chairs. The cadence of Mr Collins’s voice, mercifully distant, its edges dulled by walls and floors. Even that carried a faint echo, but it no longer ached.
A knock came at the door, and Elizabeth sat up. Jane entered with a tray—tea, bread, a little dish of butter.
Elizabeth watched her sister’s face rather than the tray. “Well?”
Jane set the tray down and exhaled softly. “He was very pleased to be asked.”
“Of course he was.”
Jane smiled faintly. “I asked what you suggested. About Lady Catherine. About whether she has always spoken of these matters as… ongoing.”
“And?”
Jane considered. “He spoke at great length,” she said honestly. “But I am not certain how much of it meant anything.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes. Not from pain—anticipation.
“He believes there is something,” Jane went on. “Something important. Something connected to old families and proper order. He spoke of stewardship. Of inheritance. Of responsibility.”
“Those are his favourite words, but was there any substance to it, or mere pontification?”
“He was rather short on specifics. And when I asked whether Lady Catherine spoke of it as a thing accomplished, or still expected, he became vague. He said such matters were ‘not always suited to public articulation.’ That they were preserved through understanding rather than record.”
Elizabeth opened her eyes again. “So, he does not know anything useful.”
Jane shook her head. “Not really. He knows that Lady Catherine believes herself involved in some great legacy. And, rather oddly, he claims that Mr Darcy is, in some way, central. But everything else was… impression. Repetition. Reverence.”
Elizabeth groaned and set down the teacup she had absently picked up. A dead end, then. Or worse—a noisy one.
“And did he say anything else?”
Jane hesitated. “Only that Lady Catherine has been displeased of late. That she believes matters have been delayed unnecessarily.”
Elizabeth’s fingers rose, unthinking, to her ear.
Jane noticed at once. “Lizzy?”
