“Sign here, Papa. And again, at the bottom.”
Mr. Bennet did not look up from his armchair, where he sat reading a book. “I do wonder, my dear, if I have not become merely a tool to affix ink to paper.”
“I shall have it carved on your headstone,” Elizabeth replied, dipping the pen and setting it in his hand. “Thomas Bennet, Father, Philosopher, Signature Machine.”
He chuckled and scratched his name, eyes still fixed on the page of Latin verse open in his lap. “There. You have what you need. Now do run along and settle the realm.”
Elizabeth tucked the signed document into her folio, already brimming with tenant notices, grain tallies, and one crumpled letter from the butcher in Meryton politely requesting the Bennets’ bill be paid in full by Michaelmas. She added a note to her mental ledger—speak with Hill about stretching the meat this week—and turned to leave the study, only to pause in the doorway.
“Papa,” she said carefully, “would you consider it—justconsiderit—hiring a steward?”
“A steward!” he exclaimed, as if she had suggested hiring an elephant. “My dear girl, what need have we of such a thing when I have you?”
“You mean a girl with no formal training and too many sisters,” she muttered.
He lifted his eyes at last. “You have a remarkable head on your shoulders, Lizzy. Much better than half the men in the county.”
“That is not a compliment. It is a lament.”
But he had already returned to his reading.
Outside the study, Elizabeth pressed the folio to her chest and exhaled slowly. The house echoed with familiar noise—Kitty shouting for her blue ribbon, Lydia trilling some off-key ballad from last night’s assembly, and Mary informing Mrs. Bennet that she wouldnotbe wearing lace to the next assembly, as she intended to be noticed for hermind, not her gown.
It was not even half past ten.
She made for the front hall, bonnet in hand, and paused before the pier glass. It had never troubled her until recently—until the differences began to seem… too obvious.
Four blond sisters. Blue-eyed, round-faced, plump-lipped.
And then there was Elizabeth.
Dark hair. Green eyes. A complexion that always freckled. Her features were finer, almost too much so—her chin too pointed, her lashes too long. No one had ever questioned it aloud, but in every family painting, in every group gathering, she stood out like a drop of ink in milk.
She had grown used to it. Or at least, she had learned not to mind.
Her figure was slight, though she did not lack the exuberant curves that had made Jane the prize of every Meryton dance. That had not always been the case—Elizabeth had been boyish for years, and then, quite suddenly at fifteen, nature had delivered its verdict with an altogether impertinent swiftness.
She had been mortified. Fanny had crowed in triumph. Jane had blushed for her. And Lydia had laughed and made lewd comments until Elizabeth had threatened to pour honey in her hair.
Now, at nearly twenty, she remained slim, her shoulders and waist narrow but her bosom—well, that could not be helped, unless she wished for the discomfort of binding as Viola did inTwelfth Night. Her daily walks kept the rest in check. She refused to grow soft like her sisters. She had no time for sugar-frosted biscuits or idle lounging. Not when she had barley prices to compare and thatch to inspect and three tenant households overdue on their rents.
Longbourn was no great estate. It was comfortable, respectable, but only just. And when the outflow matched the income nearly to the shilling—when her mother demanded French lace and extra syllabub in the same week the roof over the Dobbins’ cottage had begun to leak—there was little margin for error.
Elizabeth bent to retrieve the tin box beneath the side table, where she kept notes for each of the tenants. Mrs. Hill had added two new complaints this week—one about the poultry fencing, the other about the rising cost of soap.
The mistress of Longbourn could not be troubled with such domesticities.
But Elizabeth could. In fact, she could not afford to do otherwise.
And so, she fastened her bonnet, squared her shoulders, and stepped into the bright morning sunlight, a storm of ribbons and gossip already gathering at her back.
The lane between Longbourn and the nearest of the tenant cottages was bordered by budding hedgerows and new grass, the pale yellow of early primroses peeking up at her from the verge. Elizabeth kept a brisk pace, her folio tucked beneath one arm and her shawl drawn tight. The sun was pleasant, but her thoughts were not.
The estate ledger showed a delicate balance—one more indulgent purchase from her mother, or one poor harvest, and it would tip. And while Elizabeth had found three separate charges this quarter that could be reduced with a little gentle pressure on tradesmen, it was a temporary solution. Her father would not speak of economies. And her mother—well, Fanny had not yet recovered from the disappointment of Lydia’s birth. The lack of a son, though unspoken of directly, hovered always over the household like a half-drawn curtain.
She reached the first cottage—Mrs. Tilby’s—and was immediately greeted with warm cries and the smell of baking.
“Miss Elizabeth! Oh, do come in—you’ll be takin’ tea?”
