She did not notice because she was not looking. She was too busy not thinking about Darcy to see what was happening under her nose.
Jane noticed something, though. Jane, who saw the best in everyone but was not blind, came to Elizabeth one evening after Wickham had departed and sat on the edge of Elizabeth's bed with her embroidery in her hands and her expression careful.
"Lizzy."
"Hmm."
"Mr. Wickham was very attentive to Lydia today."
"Wickham is attentive to everyone. It is his nature."
"He sat beside her for the whole of the visit. He walked with her in the garden. He told her she was the handsomest girl in the county."
"Lydia will have interpreted that as plain fact rather than flattery."
"That is what concerns me."
Elizabeth looked at Jane. Jane's expression was the one she wore when she had something unpleasant to say and was trying to find the kindest possible phrasing, a process that could take several minutes.
"Lydia is fifteen, Lizzy. And Mr. Wickham is a grown man. And he is..." Jane paused. "He is very good at making people feel special."
"You sound as though you disapprove of him."
"I do not disapprove. I only observe. And what I observe is that he is spending a great deal of time with a girl who is too young to understand what his attention means."
Elizabeth considered this. She considered it the way one considers a raindrop on a window: briefly, without commitment, before moving on.
"Wickham is a gentleman, Jane. He has been nothing but proper."
"I did not say he was improper. I said Lydia does not understand." Jane set her embroidery down. "Papa does not notice. Mama encourages it. And you..." She hesitated.
"And I?"
"You have been rather occupied with your own thoughts lately."
Elizabeth knew what Jane meant. She knew because Jane was right, and because being right about Elizabeth was one of Jane's persistent and inconvenient qualities.
"I am perfectly attentive."
"You are perfectly miserable," Jane said, gently. "You have been miserable since the Phillipses' dinner, and you will not say why, and I think it has something to do with Mr. Darcy."
Elizabeth's spine straightened. "It has nothing to do with Mr. Darcy."
"Then why do you leave the room every time he arrives?"
"Because I do not enjoy his company."
"You enjoyed it at Netherfield."
The sentence landed like an arrow. Elizabeth opened her mouth. She closed it again. She picked up Truffles, who had been sleeping on the blanket at the foot of the bed, and held the pig against her chest like a shield.
"Netherfield was different," she said. "I was wrong about Netherfield."
Jane reached out and scratched Truffles behind the ear. The pig's eyes closed. "Were you? Or are you wrong now?"
Elizabeth did not answer. Jane did not press. They sat together in the candlelight while the pig snoozed between them, and the silence was the kind that sisters share when one of them knows a truth the other is not ready to hear.
After Jane left, Elizabeth lay in the dark with Truffles warm at her feet. She thought about what Jane had said. She thoughtabout what she could not stop thinking, no matter how firmly she told herself she was done.
