Jane was quiet for a moment. Her fingers had not stopped moving through Elizabeth’s hair. “Lizzy. You cannot keep this from him much longer.”
“I know.”
“The longer you wait, the more it will hurt. Not because the secret is terrible, though it is strange, and he will need time to accept it. But because he will wonder why you did not trust him. He will look back at every conversation, wonder what was real, what was managed. That will wound him more than the ghosts themselves.”
Elizabeth pressed her forehead harder against Jane’s knee. “I know. I know you are right. I’m not ready.”
“I didn’t say you had to do it today. I said you cannot wait much longer.” Jane’s voice was gentle, implacable, the voice of a woman who had spent her whole life being kind and had learnt that kindness sometimes meant saying the hard thing. “He loves you, Lizzy. He married you knowing you were not ordinary. He may be readier than you think.”
“Or he may think me mad.”
“He will not think you mad. He will think you extraordinary, which you are.”
Elizabeth almost smiled. “You are biased.”
“I am your sister. Of course I’m biased. I am also correct.” Jane paused. “And what of Lydia? Have you heard from her?”
“Yes.” Elizabeth told Jane about Lydia’s letter, about Lydia’s description of Wickham’s eyes going flat. About Darcy having agreed to make Wickham a small allowance, to make Lydia’s life a little more comfortable, even before he suspected that Wickham may have been involved in his father’s death. “She does not know her husband has killed a man,” Elizabeth finished, “but I think she has learned to fear him.”
“She is sixteen,” Jane said, and there was pain in it. “She is sixteen and married to him and there is nothing we can do about it until we know for certain.”
“Darcy said the same thing. He said if it comes to proof, Wickham hangs, and Lydia is destroyed. If we do nothing, we live with it.”
“There must be a middle course. There must be some way to protect her, even if Wickham is guilty.”
“If you find one, I should very much like to hear it. I have been looking for weeks.”
Jane did not answer, because there was no answer, not yet. But Elizabeth could see her turning it over, examining it with the sensible practicality that people mistook for sweetness, and shethought: Jane will think of something. She always does. It may take her time, and it may not be what any of us expect, but Jane will find a way through.
They sat together in the quiet, and the fire burned, and for a little while Elizabeth did not have to be brave or strategic or careful. She simply had to be Jane’s sister, which was the easiest thing in the world.
At dinner that evening, Caroline Bingley began her campaign.
She seated herself near Darcy, which required some manoeuvring since the seating had already been arranged, and addressed him with particular warmth. She complimented the wine, the table arrangements, the paintings in the dining room. She asked after Georgiana’s playing, as though she and Georgiana were intimate friends, and was met with Georgiana’s polite, slightly bewildered acknowledgment.
“What a full house you have, Mr Darcy,” Caroline said, surveying the table. “Lady Catherine, Lord and Lady Matlock, all of us. Pemberley is quite transformed.”
“We are glad of the company,” Darcy said, in a tone that did not invite elaboration.
Caroline was not deterred. She turned her attention to the younger women, assessing Anne with a quick, dismissive glance, Kitty with a longer, more calculating one, and Georgiana with careful courtesy, because Darcy’s sister was a strategic asset and Caroline never forgot it.
“Miss Bennet, you are looking very well,” Caroline said to Kitty, with the kind of compliment that was really a measurement. “Country life suits you. Though I suppose you must be longing for the company of officers by now.”
“Not at all,” Kitty said pleasantly. “Pemberley has been wonderful. We ride, we read, we have been restoring the rose garden. I haven’t wished for other company once.”
This was not the answer Caroline had expected, and Elizabeth watched her recalibrate. Kitty was not the silly girl Caroline remembered from Hertfordshire. Pemberley had changed her, or perhaps had simply given her room to be who she had always been underneath Lydia’s shadow.
“That shade of orange is really quite dreadful on her,” Nana observed from the sideboard. “And the feathers in her hair are peacock, which is vulgar at a family dinner. Peacock feathers are for a ball, and even then, only if one has the neck for them. She does not.”
Elizabeth hid the smirk she could not quite suppress in a careful sip of wine.
“She sat herself next to Fitzwilliam like a chess piece moving into position,” Nana continued, warming to her theme. “She did the same thing every time she visited before, but it is even silliernow, trying it with a married man. I watched her try every trick in the book: the concerned friend, the devoted sister, the woman who understood Pemberley better than anyone. She even tried befriending Georgiana, which was the closest she came to being clever about it. Fitzwilliam never noticed, because Fitzwilliam does not notice women who are trying to catch his attention. He noticed you, Elizabeth, because you were not trying at all. That is what Miss Bingley has never understood, and she never will.”
Across the table, Jane caught Elizabeth’s eye and smiled, and Elizabeth felt the warmth of it like sunlight. She smiled back and laughed because Lord Matlock had just laughed, and whatever had amused him was excellent cover for the laughter she could no longer suppress at Nana’s caustic wit.
After dinner, in the yellow drawing room, Caroline attempted to establish herself as the natural leader of the younger, single women. She proposed music, which was clearly an excuse to display her own accomplishments at the instrument, and she addressed Georgiana and Anne with the condescending warmth of an older sister who expected to be deferred to.
Jane intercepted her without appearing to do anything at all.
