“You appear quite unable to determine it this morning.”
“I am merely considering what is suitable.”
“For what?” Jane asked, with perfect innocence.
Elizabeth hesitated only the smallest fraction. “For a walk.”
“In the garden?”
“Yes.”
“In the company of Mr. Darcy?”
Elizabeth gave her a look. “You are very impertinent.”
Jane laughed softly. “And you are very much mistaken if you suppose yourself unaffected.”
“I am not affected,” Elizabeth returned. “I am only…” She stopped.
“Only what?” Jane prompted.
Elizabeth turned back to the wardrobe. “It has been three days.”
“Yes.”
“… And I do not like to be interrupted in my habits.”
Jane’s smile deepened. “Of course not.” However, her manner suggested quite the contrary.
Elizabeth took up one gown, considered it, and replaced it. Then another.
Jane stepped closer. “If I may advise – choose the one in which you feel most yourself.”
Elizabeth glanced at her. “That is not helpful.”
“It is entirely so.”
Elizabeth paused. At last, she selected one – not with triumph, but with decision.
Jane watched her a moment longer, then said, more gently,
“You have missed him.”
Elizabeth did not answer at once. “No more than you have missed Mr. Bingley. I imagine,” she said at last.
Jane coloured slightly – but did not deny it.
Elizabeth stood before her wardrobe longer than was at all necessary. She had already looked through her gowns once, and now went through them again, though with less purpose than before. It would be, after all, only to be a visit – if the ground should dry sufficiently.
She paused, her fingers resting lightly against a sleeve. She had worn that dress when he kissed her. The recollection came unbidden, and with it a warmth she did not immediately attempt to dismiss.
Three days could hardly be called long, and yet it had not felt so. She had always prided herself on the ability to occupy her time usefully, to find interest where others might not – but these past days had been unlike any she could remember. Nothing seemed to engage her as it ought. She moved from one occupation to another without satisfaction, and even the conversation of her sisters, which had never before failed to amuse or divert her, now required an effort she could not entirely command.
Turning away, she meant to put an end to the thought, yet it did not leave her. On the contrary, it returned with greater clarity.
She had grown used to him.
The realisation did not come all at once, but settled gradually, as though it had been forming long before she chose to acknowledge it. His presence – his manner of speaking, of observing, even of contradicting – had become familiar to her in a way she had never expected. What she had once examined, even resisted, she now received without effort – and, she must own, anticipated.
