“Yes, sir.”
He gave a small nod and returned to his paper.
“I think it best that you do not leave the house today. If you must go out, you will take one of your sisters with you.”
Elizabeth reached for the teapot with a steadier hand than she felt.
“Yes, sir. What of the yield collections? It is the time of year.”
"I will accompany you tomorrow," he said. "You will not go alone. I have business in Meryton this afternoon in any case."
"Yes, sir," she said, and reached for the toast.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Elizabeth went upstairs with the intention of going through her room, of deciding what was worth carrying and what could be left behind. She was thinking it through as she climbed, moving through the contents of drawers and shelves in her mind before she reached them. Three dresses for the journey. That much was clear. But beyond that, as she considered it, there was very little. The things she actually valued were not here. Thebooks her uncle had chosen, the ribbon her aunt had pressed into her hands in Brinmouth because it matched her eyes, the small carved box from the market. Almost everything she cared for had come from Gracechurch Street, and the realisation sat with her strangely as she reached the top stair. She had never thought much about it before. Now it made a different kind of sense. She wondered, briefly and painfully, whether the Gardiners had known, and then put it aside, because no, they could not have. Her uncle had been travelling the year she was born and her aunt had been no older than Lydia, still in her father's house, years away from the woman who stood in London parlours pressing kid gloves into Elizabeth's hands as though it were nothing at all.Before she reached her own room, Jane's door opened.
“Lizzy. I am so glad to catch you.”
Before Elizabeth could answer, Lydia’s door flew back and Lydia herself appeared, plainly having been listening for exactly this moment, her half-eaten breakfast tray visible behind her.
"We all know," she announced. "Mama was not quiet and neither was Papa and the walls in this house are not thick. You are not our sister." She said it the way she might announce that it would rain, or that the Lucases were coming to dinner. "I think it is terribly romantic. A mysterious parentage. Kitty, do you not think it is romantic?"
Kitty, who had followed Elizabeth up the stairs after breakfast, glanced once at Lydia, then at Elizabeth, and looked considerably less entertained by the situation than her younger sister. "I think," she said, "that it is considerably more complicated than romantic."
"Well." Lydia was already moving toward the stair, one hand trailing along the banister. "I am going to Maria's. Kitty, are you coming?"
"Not today," Kitty said.
Lydia shrugged and was gone, the sound of her on the stair fading quickly, already thinking of something else entirely. Jane stepped toward Elizabeth and touched her arm with the gentle certainty of a woman who has decided what is needed and means to provide it.
"Come and sit with me," she said. "We have not properly talked."
They went into Jane's room and sat as they had done a thousand times, Jane in her chair by the window, Elizabeth on the edge of the bed, the morning light falling between them.
“Whatever happens,” Jane said, “you are my sister. You will always be my sister. Nothing that Mama or Papa says will change that.”
“Thank you, Jane.”
“I mean it, Lizzy. And I want to help, if I can. Will you not tell me a little of what you know? Only so that I can understand. I feel so dreadful being kept in the dark when you are suffering.”
“I wish I could learn more about my family,” she said at last. “All I know are their names. Philip and Margaret.”
“Margaret,” Jane said. “That is a beautiful name. Forgive me, but I could not help overhearing last night. How did you come to know it?”
“I...” Elizabeth stopped. She had already said too much. “I saw it once in the family bible,” she said, which was not quite a lie and not quite the truth and sat badly in her mouth regardless.“Before it was locked away. I did not know then what I was looking at.”
“Oh, Lizzy, I wish you could see it again. But papa said the book must stay in the drawer; it is falling apart. Promise me you will not disturb it. It is our family history, after all.”
“I promise,” she said.
Kitty sat with her back against the wall adjoining Jane's room. The walls at Longbourn were thin; one learned that early, whether one wished to or not, and she could hear Elizabeth's voice through the wall and Jane's in reply.
Lizzy was her sister; not merely because they had been raised together, but because Elizabeth had always been the one who stayed. She had sat with Kitty through childhood illnesses and childish heartbreaks, had read to her for hours simply because Kitty liked the sound of her voice, and had remembered her when the rest of the household so often forgot her altogether.
Her father would be gone for hours, as he had announced at breakfast. Kitty knew about the drawer because she had been there when Lydia opened it some months ago, on one of those idle afternoons when their mother was resting and Lydia wanted pin money and knew exactly where to find it. Kitty had followed her into the book room and stood beside her while Lydia worked the key, interested only in the strongbox. Curiosity had led her to lift the ledger aside. Beneath it she had found the family bible and leafed through it briefly. It had not looked to be falling apart. She had not thought much of the names at the time.
She rose and went quietly to her father's room. The key was where Lydia had shown her. A few minutes later she was back in the book room, unlocking the drawer and lifting out the strongbox, then the ledger. She opened the inside cover and read the words there once, then again.
