Mrs. Bennet, flushed and fuming, fanned herself with dramatic energy. “Best interest! To deny Lydia such an opportunity? When Colonel Forster and his wife have offered their care? When every girl in Meryton was green with envy—and now it is all for nothing? It is wickedness, I say!”
“It is Elizabeth!” Lydia shrieked, her face blotched with rage. “She turned Papa against me! She always does—she hates me! She and Mary both!”
Elizabeth said nothing. There was no use in arguing with a child who believed herself wronged by the existence of consequence. The storm—Mrs. Bennet’s shrieking, Lydia’s tears, Kitty’s hesitation—felt all too familiar. It was the echo of a household long left unguarded, of tempers indulged and boundaries erased.
“Indeed,” Mrs. Bennet declared, casting a scornful glance toward her second eldest. “Ever since Jane’s engagement, she has done nothing but spread gloom. Determined to make all of us miserable, that one.”
Mary, seated in her usual corner of the table, said nothing, but her hands were tightly folded, her shoulders squared with visible restraint. Elizabeth met her gaze and found not hurt, but something quieter—sharper. A silent reckoning. Kitty, too, glanced between their mother and Lydia, her lips parted as if to speak—but no sound came. Her fingers twisted in her lap, restless. Loyalty and weariness warred in her expression, and Elizabeth—watching closely—thought the balance might just be shifting.
“Kitty,” Lydia implored, her voice pitched high with urgency, “say you will come to town with me at least! Harriet says there is to be a dinner party before they leave Meryton—all the officers will be there! Icannotmiss it!”
When Kitty hesitated, Lydia’s tone turned sharp. “You must! You always do what I say!”
Kitty looked down at her plate, her napkin clenched tightly in her fingers. Across the table, her shoulders hunched, as if shrinking from the weight of the room. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, she said, “I did not say no.”
A small voice. But not a silent one. Her eyes flicked—just briefly—to Elizabeth, and in them was something like apology. Or perhaps the earliest seed of discernment. Elizabeth felt a quiet pang. She had hoped Kitty had begun to see more clearly, to discern right from wrong. But Lydia’s pull was powerful, and familiarity persuasive.
In the din of protest and tantrum, Mr. Bennet was nowhere to be found. He had made his pronouncement at breakfast and then promptly retreated to his bookroom, taking every subsequent meal there as if to avoid the storm he had unleashed. For all his wit and cleverness, he bore conflict as little as any man.
Elizabeth could not quite blame him for removing himself—indeed, she had often wished for the same freedom—but the consequences of his distance lay heavy on her mind. Her mother and Lydia wailed because no one had ever demanded they behave otherwise.
A true father might have curbed Lydia’s worst impulses long ago. A better husband might have taught her mother not to indulge them. But Mr. Bennet, for all his intelligence and charm, had chosen the comfort of irony and books over the harder task of raising daughters—and now they all bore the cost of his retreat.
Still, she thought with a sigh, he had done what was needed this time. For that, at least, she was grateful.
Her gaze drifted once more to Kitty, who had not resumed eating. The odd look had returned—thoughtful, uneasy. Elizabeth made a quiet note to speak with her alone, though she could not say what she meant to ask, nor what Kitty might say. But she would speak to her nonetheless. Some part of her—small and stubborn—still believed it was not too late.
At length, the chaos was gently diverted by Jane, who, with a soft blush, mentioned Mr. Bingley’s expected return. Mrs. Bennet brightened at once, declaring that her nerves must be soothed and her complexion revived if she was to be the mother of the bride. With many declarations of needing quiet and time, she swept Jane from the room and into her parlour, where the wedding plans would commence in earnest.
Lydia, after much coaxing and a flurry of whispered inducements, finally persuaded Kitty to accompany her into town. Elizabeth, though disappointed to see her sister fall once more under Lydia’s sway, felt a small, guilty measure of relief at the girl’s departure.
Mary, standing at the window with her hands folded before her, turned without prompting. “We may speak freely now, I believe.”
Elizabeth crossed the room and joined her, her voice low with thought. “I must confess myself astonished. I did not believe my father would truly do it. I expected him to smile, perhaps to jest, but not to act.”
“And yet he did,” Mary said simply.
“Yes,” Elizabeth murmured. “But I fear it was my words that shocked him into it—not any belief in their truth. Were he to reflect more deeply... I do not know what he would do.”
Mary considered this. “Do you think he will reflect?”
Elizabeth gave a soft, almost sad laugh. “No. He loves his peace above all things. If he can silence a problem with a closed door and a bit of irony, he will always choose that path. He has done so for years.”
She turned her face toward the light, the faintest smile touching her lips. “It means I must be more cautious with my words in future.”
Mary didn’t answer, and the room fell still. Sunlight shifted on the floorboards. Somewhere below, the clock chimed the hour.
“It’s strange,” Elizabeth said at last, “to win an argument and feel no triumph.”
Mary’s voice was quiet. “Because you have not won. You have only bought us time.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes. “Then let us not waste it.”
They stood in companionable silence, side by side. After a moment, Mary spoke again—gently, almost hesitantly. “Did you speak to Jane last night?”
Elizabeth let out a breath. "I had half hoped that the drama with Lydia might have distracted you enough to forget my promise."
Mary turned toward her, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "I am not so distractible as Kitty."
