This Elizabeth knew better. Knew that first impressions could be devastatingly wrong. That pride and prejudice could blind one to truths that were painful but necessary. That she was capable of spectacular error and even more spectacular injustice.
"Are you very disappointed?" Jane's voice came softly from behind her.
Elizabeth turned. Her sister was already in her nightgown, her hair loose around her shoulders.
"About what?"
"About Mr. Darcy not calling today." Jane's expression was gentle. "I know you wished to speak with him."
There was no point in denying it. Jane knew her too well.
"Yes," Elizabeth admitted. "I wished to speak with him. To—to make amends, I suppose. For the way I treated him."
"You will have another chance. Mr. Bingley will bring him to Netherfield."
"Will he?" Elizabeth moved away from the window. "Why should Mr. Darcy wish to return to a neighborhood where he was so ill-received? Where he was judged and condemned without a fair hearing?"
"Perhaps because not everyone condemned him," Jane said quietly. "Perhaps because some people might wish to make amends, as you say. And perhaps because forgiveness is not so difficult when the person asking for it is sincere."
Elizabeth sat on the edge of the bed. "I was horrible to him, Jane. The things I thought—the accusations I made—"
"But you know the truth now. And when you see him again, you can tell him so."
"If I see him again."
"You will." Jane's certainty was absolute. "I know you will."
Elizabeth wanted to believe her. Wanted to trust that there would be another chance, another moment when she could look Mr. Darcy in the eyes and say all the things that crowded her throat now.
But as she lay in bed that night, sleep refusing to come, all she could think was that she had finally understood him just in time to lose the opportunity to tell him so.
Tomorrow they would leave Bath.
And Mr. Darcy would still be in Bristol, fifteen miles distant, attending a dying friend—and perhaps, despite Mr. Bingley’s assurances in his note, quietly relieved that he need not face the woman who had thought the worst of him once too often.
Elizabeth closed her eyes and tried not to think about what might have been said if he had called today.
But sleep was long in coming, and when it did, it brought dreams of roads not taken and words left unspoken.
SEVENTEEN
Longbourn, Meryton, September 1812
Elizabeth
The journey from Bath to London, and from London to Hertfordshire, passed in a blur of coaching inns and dusty roads. Jane spoke occasionally of Mr. Bingley’s promise to return to Netherfield, her voice soft with hope. Elizabeth responded when required, but her mind remained elsewhere—on a man she would not see again for weeks, if indeed she saw him at all.
When the carriage finally turned onto the familiar lane leading to Longbourn, Elizabeth felt a strange mixture of relief and restlessness. Home, yet altered. The same hedgerows, the same brick façade, and yet entirely different, because she herself was no longer the young woman who had left it.
Mrs. Bennet met them at the door with her usual flood of exclamations.
“My dear Jane! My dear Lizzy! How well you both look! The Bath air has done you a world of good! And Jane, my sweet Jane, you are positively glowing! Come in, come in! You must tell me everything!”
They had scarcely crossed the threshold before Mrs. Bennet seized Jane’s hands and peered eagerly into her face.
“And is it true? Is Mr. Bingley to return to Netherfield?” Mrs. Bennet giggled. “I got your letter Jane. I declare I shall faint from happiness if it is so! After all that nonsense last winter—well! Ialways knew it would come right in the end. A gentleman does not admire a young woman as he admired you and then forget her entirely. I said so at the time.”
Jane blushed but smiled with gentle composure. “He intends to return, Mama.”
