Her father stepped closer. “Yes, yes, Mr Wickham is here.” He gave a dry chuckle—hollow. “He has scarcely left the library long enough to perform his duties. I shall have to ask the colonel to send me another man.”
That did not satisfy her, but the thought slipped away before she could gather it.
A wave of nausea rose instead, sharp and sudden. She closed her eyes and breathed shallowly until it passed.
When she opened them again, the room felt different. Not in shape, but in tone. The voices were quieter now, arranged, as though they had reached some shared understanding while she had been elsewhere.
“Mr Jones?” she asked hoarsely. The name surfaced with effort, dragged up from memory like a dropped object recovered from water. “Has he—”
Jane’s grip tightened. “Papa sent for him again, but…” She faltered. “He would not be of use to you now.”
Elizabeth frowned. “I do not—”
“What you need,” her mother’s voice broke in, thin and frantic from somewhere beyond Jane’s shoulder, “is air. Fresh air. Anyone can see that. This place is doing you no good at all, and mercy only knows what will happen if Kitty falls ill next. She always did have the most frail health, you know. Oh, and with but a se’nnight before Mary’s wedding!”
Elizabeth tried to turn her head toward the sound. The movement failed halfway, leaving her oddly adrift. “No,” she murmured, or perhaps only thought it.
Her father spoke next. “Your mother is only saying what several have observed,” he said. “You have been here too long, my love. The disturbance, the strain—”
“—the burden,” another voice supplied gently.
Elizabeth’s eyes slid toward it despite herself.
Mr Wickham stood near the shelves, hands loosely clasped before him, his expression composed in a way that felt wholly out of place beside her own unravelling body. He did not meet her gaze at once. He was speaking to her father.
“There is very little to be learned of her condition, but you must see, sir, that keeping her here is only worsening it. I recall reading of such… peculiar circumstances. You are quite right to suspect this is not of the body but something else. Perhaps Lyme—away from here, and away from any memory of certain persons.”
Jane’s hand patted Elizabeth’s. “Yes,” she said quickly. “Yes, that is what I was thinking. Only until she regains her strength.”
Elizabeth’s fingers curled weakly in the blanket. She shook her head, or meant to. The motion barely registered. “I do not want—” The words dribbled into nothing.
Her father bent closer. “Hush,” he said softly. “No one is deciding anything without care.”
But his eyes did not meet hers when he said it.
Mr Bingley cleared his throat near the window. “If there is any place that might suit,” he ventured, earnest and helpless, “I would of course offer—though I fear Netherfield is scarcely quieter at present, and does not offer much in the way of distance.”
“Perhaps her uncle,” Mrs Bennet said at once. “Mr Gardiner has always been fond of her. Or the sea! People recover by the sea every day of their lives.”
The words tumbled over Elizabeth without meaning. She felt Jane’s hand tighten again, felt the faint press of her thumb against her knuckles, as though urging her to be calm, to trust.
“I do not recommend London.” This was Mr Wickham’s voice again. The air in winter is particularly bad.”
“Yes… yes! Then it must be the sea. Why, we shall take her to Bath for the waters. Mr Bennet, it is the very thing!” her mother urged. “Of course, it must be after Mary’s wedding.”
Elizabeth tried to pull her hand away and could not. Panic fluttered briefly, then dissolved into weakness.
“I do not want to go,” she said, or meant to say. The sound came out broken, scarcely more than breath.
Jane leaned closer. “Papa is doing everything he can,” she whispered. “Everything.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes.
Somewhere beyond the room, boots sounded on gravel. A voice called out, distant, indistinct. The house continued on around her, occupied, guarded, altered.
When she drifted under again, it was with the uneasy sense that she had been left behind in a conversation that would continue without her—and that whatever was decided there would not wait for her consent.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
