"Mr. Bingley is not a physician, Mamma."
"Walking three miles in the mud will not cure your sister."
"No, but it will put me in the same house as her, and that is sufficient."
Mrs. Bennet threw up her hands. Elizabeth put on her bonnet, laced her boots, and went to the kitchen.
Truffles was in her usual spot by the hearth, curled on the folded blanket Hill provided. Her ears twitched when Elizabeth entered.
"You are staying here," Elizabeth said firmly. "I am walking to Netherfield. It is three miles. It is raining. And a pig at a gentleman's estate is out of the question."
Truffles lifted her head. Her round dark eyes tracked Elizabeth across the kitchen with the steady attention of an animal who was already calculating the weakness of every latch between herself and the door.
"No," Elizabeth said. "Absolutely not."
She latched the kitchen door. She latched the garden gate. She spoke to Hill, to Mary, and to the scullery maid, each of whom promised to watch the pig. She blocked the gap under the kitchen door with a rolled towel.
Then she set out.
The rain was steady and cold. It soaked through her bonnet in the first quarter mile and through her pelisse in the first half mile. The lane between Longbourn and Meryton was mud, deep and clinging, and she lifted her skirts and picked her way through it with the grim determination of a woman who had an ill sister and no patience for weather.
She had not gone a quarter mile when she heard the sound.
Squealing. Close and unmistakable, coming from behind her. Growing louder.
She stopped. She turned.
Truffles was trotting along the lane behind her, not ten yards back. The pig was already mud-spattered, her short legs pumping through the puddles, her snout lifted to keep it clear of the water. She must have slipped out behind Elizabeth when she opened the kitchen door and stayed close, trotting in her wake, hidden by the rain and the noise of the wind until the squealing gave her away.
Elizabeth stared at her.
"You were behind me the whole time," she said. It was not a question. She could see it now: the gap under the kitchen door where the rolled towel had shifted, the half-second when she had turned her back to latch the garden gate. A quarter mile. Not a heroic feat of tracking. Just a pig who was faster through a door than the humans responsible for closing it.
Truffles reached her, grunted, and pressed her muddy snout against Elizabeth's boot.
Elizabeth stood in the rain and considered her options. She could carry the pig back to Longbourn, but Truffles would only escape again the moment she turned to leave. She could stand in the lane arguing with a pig until the rain drowned them both. Or she could accept that the pig was coming and press on.
There were no good options. There were only pig-shaped complications.
She picked up the pig. Truffles was heavier than she had been a month ago, solid and warm and wriggling with the indignity of being held in the rain. Mud from the pig's body transferred instantly to Elizabeth's pelisse, her dress, her neck.
"You wretched creature," Elizabeth said, and continued walking.
The remaining two and three-quarter miles were miserable. The rain did not let up. The lane grew worse. Elizabeth carried Truffles through the deep stretches where the mud would haveswallowed the pig to her belly, and set her down on the firmer ground between. They walked together through those stretches — Elizabeth striding, Truffles trotting at her heels with her snout lifted clear of the puddles and her short legs working double time to keep pace. When the lane turned to soup again, Elizabeth picked her up. Her arms ached. Her shoulders burned. She carried the pig against her chest and felt the heartbeat through the wet wool of her pelisse, fast and steady, a small warm drumbeat against her ribs. She set her down again where the road was gravelled. Picked her up at the next bog. Set her down. Picked her up.
By the second mile, Truffles had stopped squirming and was pressed against her, shivering slightly, her snout tucked under Elizabeth's chin. Elizabeth held her tighter. Her boots squelched with every step. The mud pulled at her hem and made each stride an effort. But the pig was warm against her chest, and the pig's heartbeat was steady, and whatever else one could say about Truffles, she was loyal. Stupidly, magnificently, inconveniently loyal. She had slipped through a door, shadowed Elizabeth into the rain, and refused to be left behind, because Elizabeth was her person and that was reason enough.
Netherfield appeared through the rain like a ship through fog. It was a large house, well-situated on a rise, with good grounds and an imposing front. Elizabeth had never approached it on foot before. She had certainly never approached it on foot, in the rain, covered in mud, carrying a pig.
She walked up the drive. She climbed the steps. She stood before the front door and thought about what she must look like. Her hair was plastered to her face. Her hem was six inches deep in mud. Her petticoat was beyond saving. And in her arms, a small pink pig blinked rain from its eyes and looked up at her with complete trust.
She knocked.
Truffles had stopped shivering. She had gone still and heavy in Elizabeth's arms, her body heat fading through the wet wool. Her ears were cold. Her breathing was slow and shallow, and Elizabeth held her tighter and thought, with a clarity that surprised her, that if this pig caught a chill and died because Elizabeth had not turned back when she should have, she would never forgive herself and she would never forgive her mother.
The housekeeper who opened the door was a stout, competent woman named Mrs. Nicholls, who had clearly seen a great deal in her years of service but had perhaps not seen this. She looked at Elizabeth. She looked at the pig. She looked at Elizabeth again.
"Miss Elizabeth Bennet," Elizabeth said. "I have come to see my sister. She is unwell."
