Kitty leaned one shoulder against the window frame. “Jane looks tired.”
Elizabeth’s smile softened. “She often does.”
“She never complains.”
“No. Jane would go serenely to martyrdom if she thought anyone else might be made easy by it.”
Kitty was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I am glad she married.”
Elizabeth turned a page of the unopened book with her thumb. “So am I.” Jane’s marriage had preserved their home, even though her husband had not survived long past a year of marriage.
It had been a strange, hurried season of grief and necessity, and yet from it some good had come. Jane had chosen gently, bravely, and with more composure than anyone had a right to expect. There had been no romance in the beginning, not as novels chose to frame such matters. No long courtship, no fluttering hopes. Only affection, respect, and the clear understanding that without her marriage the future of the family would be precarious at best.
And then, unexpectedly, love had grown where duty had first been planted.
Mr. Collins, her father-in-law had been miserly and ridiculous upon inheriting. His son was much the same. The master of Longbourn was still a ridiculous man in many respects. No miracle could make him elegant. But the loss of his son, coupled with Jane’s calming influence, he had become less rigid in his habits, less narrow in his comforts, and considerably more tolerable than the son who had once stood to inherit. His absurdities remained, but they had softened at the edges. He deferred to Jane in household matters. He adored little Thomas with a solemnity that was nearly comic. And though his observations were often painfully ill-timed, he had never treated Elizabeth with cruelty.
Only with thoughtlessness.
And perhaps, Elizabeth reflected, thoughtlessness was the commonest failing in the world. Certainly, more common than malice.
“Lizzy,” Kitty said, still looking outward, “do you ever think of London?”
The question came so unexpectedly that Elizabeth stilled.
“Sometimes.”
“I do,” Kitty admitted. “Not because I wish to go. Only because—it feels as though everything changed there, and afterwards we all became…different.”
Elizabeth rested her hand upon the cover of the book.
Not in London, she thought. On the road home from it. In the violent instant between one breath and the next. In the darkness that followed. In the weeks after, when pain, uncertainty, and grief had remade the shape of every ordinary thing.
“Yes,” she said. “We did.”
Kitty turned from the window then and came back toward her. “I do not think you should read any more this morning.”
“Despot.”
“I have learned from Jane.” Kitty took the book from her hands.
“That is even worse.” But Elizabeth rose all the same, slipping a finger between the pages to mark her place. The ache behind her eye had sharpened while they spoke; she could no longer pretend otherwise.
As she stood, Kitty moved the chair slightly aside without comment, clearing Elizabeth’s way before it became an inconvenience. It was done so naturally that gratitude did not need to be spoken. That, more than the act itself, touched Elizabeth.
She took up her father’s walking stick and let her hand settle upon the worn curve of its handle.
“Will you come into the garden?” Kitty asked. “The light is kinder there than in this room, and Thomas will be delighted to tyrannize us both.”
Elizabeth smiled and turned toward the open door. “Very well. But if he attempts to seize my cane again, you must defend me.”
Kitty’s laugh followed her into the hall.
And with that sound beside her—light, sisterly, unforced—Elizabeth went out to meet the day.
Chapter Two
The garden path gave way, by degrees, to the open stretch of lawn where the morning light lay strongest, and Elizabeth slowed her pace as she stepped from gravel to grass. The change beneath her feet was subtle but familiar. She paused just long enough to adjust, then moved forward again with confidence, her walking stick no longer needed upon the even ground.
