Elizabeth turned her face into the pillow and waited for the pressure behind her eyes to ebb.
It did not.
She rose at last, more from stubbornness than strength, and dressed, pausing between each movement as though the intervals themselves might be counted against her. By the time she reached the stairs, the house was already in motion. Mama’s voice carried from the breakfast room, directing Hill to fetch paper, to bring the good pen, to see whether Mrs Gardiner had replied yet with a promise of silk from Uncle Gardiner’s warehouse.
“—and we must consider gowns at once,” Mama was saying. “December is no time to delay. A winter wedding requires foresight.”
Elizabeth placed her hand upon the banister. The wood felt colder than it ought.
She descended slowly.
Mary sat at the table, her back straight, her expression composed in a way Elizabeth had never quite seen before. There was a letter before her, carefully folded and refolded, as though it had already been read enough times to require reinforcement. She looked up when Elizabeth entered, her eyes bright with a restrained solemnity.
“Good morning, Lizzy,” she said. “Mama has asked me to draft a reply to Mr Collins’s last note. He is eager that matters proceed with propriety.”
“I am sure he is,” Elizabeth replied. She cleared her throat and reached for the chair nearest the window, grateful to sit where the light was less direct. Jane glanced at her at once—only a glance.
“Did you have a nice lie-down?” Jane asked.
“Pleasant enough,” Elizabeth said, which was not quite true, but near enough to pass.
Papa lowered his paper. He did not speak, but his gaze rested on her face longer than usual before returning to the column he pretended to read.
Mama, meanwhile, had not paused. “Mary, my dear, we must also consider whether it would be proper to invite the Lucases to dinner now that the announcement is made public. And the Philipses and Longs, of course. One does not wish to appear secretive.”
Mary inclined her head. “Of course, Mama. Mr Collins expressly desired for us to make our joy known in Meryton, though he is not here at present to share in it.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment. Each sentence seemed to arrive before the last had finished fading, as though the air itself were impatient. She reached for her tea and found her hand unsteady enough to require both fingers and will.
It was not pain just now. Not quite. It was the waiting for it.
She tried to follow the conversation. To make some contribution that would mark her as present, attentive, herself. But the words slid past without anchoring. Dates. Names. Distances between houses she had walked a hundred times without thinking. The effort of holding them all at once felt suddenly… excessive.
“Elizabeth?”
She looked up to find Jane watching her again, concern no longer concealed.
“Yes?”
“You have not eaten.”
Elizabeth glanced down at her untouched plate and laughed softly. “I must have forgot how.”
Mama waved a hand. “Nonsense. You have always had a delicate appetite in winter. It will improve.”
Elizabeth did not answer. The pressure behind her eyes flared, no longer content to wait. She pressed her fingers lightly to her temple and found that even the smallest touch sent a ripple of dizziness through her.
“I think,” she said carefully, “that I shall lie down for a little.”
Mama frowned. “Again? Lizzy, you have been half the day abed this past week, at least!”
“Only briefly, Mama.”
Papa folded his paper. “Let her go, my dear. The house will not collapse in her absence.”
Elizabeth caught his eye and managed a smile in return. She did not make it far.
The corridor tilted—not sharply, not enough to provoke alarm, but enough that she stopped short and leaned against the wall until the world agreed to behave. From behind her came the sound of Mama’s voice again, brisk and satisfied, already turned back to arrangements. Mary’s reply followed, earnest and assured.
