Jane and Bingley had vanished upstairs some time ago. Caroline had retired to her room, claiming a headache brought on by the champagne; Elizabeth suspected the headache owed more to the sight of her brother married to a Bennet than to anything in a bottle. The Matlocks and Colonel Fitzwilliam had discreetly retired, and Georgiana had disappeared with Kitty, who would accompany them to Pemberley on the morrow. Kitty and Georgiana appeared to be becoming fast friends already, to Elizabeth’s relief.
Elizabeth stood in the corridor outside the room she would share with Darcy tonight, their first night as husband and wife, and tried to steady the rapid beating of her heart. He was inside, she knew, waiting for her. She should go in. She wanted to go in.
But first, she had a promise to keep.
She slipped down the back stairs, shoes in hand. A lifetime of navigating around the unseen had taught her how to move through dark corridors without a sound. The house was different at night; the daytime bustle stripped away to reveal its bones.Old floorboards. Cold stone. The particular hush of a building that had stood for two hundred years and carried the memory of them in every wall.
The library was where they gathered. It had been their favourite room since Elizabeth’s first visit, when she had come to nurse Jane through her fever and had found, to her unsurprised resignation, that Netherfield came with ghosts of its own. Most of them were only shades, wisps barely seen even by her, but some of them were more permanent. Solid enough to make out their features, and retaining enough personality and will to hold a conversation with her.
There were four of them. Sir Harold Pembury, a portly Jacobean gentleman who had built the original house and considered all subsequent alterations a personal affront. His wife, Lady Cecily, who disagreed with him about everything on principle and had been doing so for two hundred years with no sign of tiring. Old Margaret, a housekeeper from the last century who kept trying to dust surfaces she could no longer touch. And a young footman called Daniel who had died of consumption in the servants’ quarters just a decade past and had the gentle, slightly bewildered air of someone who kept forgetting he was dead.
They were waiting for her. Sir Harold stood by the fire, Lady Cecily sat in her accustomed chair, Old Margaret hovered near the bookshelves, and Daniel perched on the window seat, his thin face brightening as Elizabeth came in.
“There she is,” Sir Harold declared. “The bride. Allow me to offer my congratulations, madam, though I confess I had hoped you might settle here permanently. Your presence has been most enlivening.”
“You are too kind, Sir Harold,” Elizabeth said, settling into the chair opposite Lady Cecily. “But I fear Netherfield must do without me. I have come to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye!” Old Margaret’s hand flew to her chest. “Oh, but you will visit, surely? Because your sister is here?”
“Of course I shall visit. But I wanted to speak to you all before I left, because Jane will be mistress of this house, and Jane cannot see you, and I need you to promise me something.”
Four spectral faces regarded her solemnly.
“You must look after her,” Elizabeth said. “She is the best person I know, and she will take care of this house and everyone in it, living or otherwise. She knows you are here, even if she cannot see you. In return, I need you to behave.”
She let her gaze rest meaningfully on Sir Harold. “That means no slamming doors when you disapprove of the dinner menu.”
Sir Harold looked affronted. “That was once.”
“It was ten times in a single night, and Cook nearly gave notice.”
“The woman served boiled mutton on a Thursday. I have standards.”
“And I need you to leave the other residents alone,” Elizabeth continued firmly. “All of them. Even the ones who deserve otherwise.”
A delicate silence fell. Lady Cecily studied her fingernails, or the memory of them.
“You are referring,” she said, “to Miss Bingley.”
“I am referring to Miss Bingley.”
The memory was still vivid. The Netherfield ball, all those months ago, when Elizabeth had been trying to enjoy the evening and manage a building full of agitated ghosts simultaneously. Caroline had been holding court near the fireplace, making pointed remarks about the Bennet family’s lack of connections, and Sir Harold had grown so incensed on Elizabeth’s behalf that he had attempted to knock Caroline’s wine glass out of her hand. He could not, of course, physically touch it, but the concentrated force of spectral outrage had created a draught strong enough to make the candles flicker and Caroline’s carefully arranged curls come undone on one side.
That had been merely the opening salvo. Lady Cecily, not to be outdone by her husband in anything, had proceeded to whisper directly into Caroline’s ear every time the woman paused for breath, which had the effect of making Caroline twitch, look over her shoulder, and eventually complain loudly that there was a draught in the ballroom, which had led Bingley to order the windows checked and the fire stoked, which had led to the room becoming unbearably hot, which had led to Mrs Bennet fanning herself so vigorously she knocked Mrs Long’s turban askew.
Elizabeth had spent the better part of the evening conducting a whispered negotiation with four increasingly creative ghosts while attempting to dance with Mr Collins, who was oblivious, and Mr Darcy, who was not. She still did not know how she hadmanaged to hold a civil conversation with Mr Darcy while Sir Harold stood directly behind him making disparaging remarks about the stiffness of his dancing.
“Miss Bingley will reside here much of the time,” Elizabeth said now. “She is Mr Bingley’s sister, and Jane will wish to keep peace in the family. You will leave her alone.”
“She is a thoroughly disagreeable woman,” Sir Harold pronounced.
“She is a woman who has been forced to accept her brother marrying into a family she considers beneath her, and she is unhappy,” Elizabeth corrected. “Which does not excuse her behaviour, but should temper our response to it. Besides, if you haunt Caroline Bingley, she will make Jane’s life difficult, and I will not have that.”
The argument was unanswerable, and they knew it. Jane was the deciding factor. Jane, who had sat by the fire in this very room reading aloud from novels she knew Elizabeth was not listening to, because she understood that Elizabeth needed the sound of her voice as an anchor while she tended to business she could not explain. Jane, who had never once asked Elizabeth to justify what she could not see. The Netherfield ghosts might not be able to communicate with Jane as they could Elizabeth, but they like every other soul who came into Jane’s presence, had recognised her innate goodness. Elizabeth was fairly sure they were already devoted to her.
“Very well,” Lady Cecily said, her tone suggesting she was making a considerable personal sacrifice. “For Mrs Bingley’s sake, we shall exercise restraint.”
“We shall be models of propriety,” Sir Harold agreed, rather less convincingly.
