There was no cruelty in her mother’s tone. That almost made it worse. Mrs. Bennet believed herself kind, practical, motherly. She saw a threat and a solution. Longbourn would be secured. A daughter would be married. The entail would no longer haunt every dinner, every illness, every mention of Mr. Bennet’s advancing years.
Elizabeth understood all of it.
She still felt as though she had been placed upon a table and priced.
“I am all astonishment,” Mr. Collins said, with a bow in Elizabeth’s direction that made Lydia hide a laugh behind her hand. “Miss Elizabeth’s usefulness, as you describe it, does her great credit. Lady Catherine herself has often remarked that young ladies should be capable of rendering themselves agreeable and useful within their proper sphere.”
Elizabeth looked at the work in her lap, though she could not have said what stitch she was meant to take.
Jane said softly, “Lizzy is very tired tonight, Mama.”
Mrs. Bennet did not hear, or chose not to. “She is not always so quiet, Mr. Collins. You must not think her dull. Lizzy has a great deal of spirit.”
“So I perceive,” Mr. Collins said, though Elizabeth had done nothing to demonstrate it. “Spirit, when properly directed, may be of use in a clergyman’s wife.”
Mary looked up from her book. Lydia made a strangled sound. Kitty coughed into her handkerchief.
Elizabeth rose.
“Pray excuse me,” she said, in a voice so even it frightened her. “I have a headache and shall retire.”
Mrs. Bennet frowned. “Another headache? Lizzy, do not be tiresome. Mr. Collins has only just arrived.”
“Then I am sure he will forgive a little fatigue after so much nursing.”
Mr. Collins stood at once. “Indeed, indeed. Christian compassion requires allowance for female delicacy, and I would not wish Miss Elizabeth to overexert herself on my account.”
Elizabeth curtsied without looking at him. Jane’s worried gaze followed her to the door, but Elizabeth could not remain long enough to be comforted by it.
She climbed the stairs slowly. At the landing, she paused, one hand upon the rail, and heard voices below continue almost at once. Mrs. Bennet’s rose above the others, already speaking of nerves, girls, entailments, and the comfort of excellent connections. Mr. Collins answered with ponderous gratitude.
Elizabeth went to her room and shut the door.
Only then did she give way.
The tears came harder than they had on the walk from church, harder than they had at Netherfield, harder than she wished to admit even to herself. She pressed her face into her hands, then into her pillow, but nothing stopped them. She cried for Jane’s embarrassment, for her mother’s desperation, for her father’s indolence, for Longbourn and all its burdens laid across her shoulders. She cried because Mr. Collins had looked at her as though she were a useful object, and because some part of her was tired enough to wonder whether being useful might be all that remained.
And she cried for Darcy.
For the warmth that had vanished. For the future she had never been offered but had somehow begun to imagine. For theunbearable knowledge that the best man she had ever known had looked at her family and turned away.
By the time the house quieted, Elizabeth had no more tears left, only a hollow ache beneath her ribs and a headache that was real at last. She lay awake long into the night, listening to the wind move against the windows, while downstairs Longbourn slept beneath the shadow of the entail and the heir who had come to mend it.
Chapter 22
Three days had passed since Elizabeth left Netherfield, and Darcy missed her with an ache that had become almost physical.
He had not expected absence to have weight.
That was foolish, perhaps. He had known longing before, though chiefly for places and people bound to him by duty and affection—Pemberley during those first months at school, Georgiana when he had left her at Matlock House, the version of his life that might have existed had his father been honorable and his mother lived.
But this was different. This was not the steady pain of separation from what was already his. This was sharper, less dignified, and far less useful.
He missed the turn of Elizabeth’s head when something amused her. He missed the challenge in her eyes when she thought him too cautious. He missed the way she listened as though conversation mattered. He missed, to his shame, the very danger of her nearness.
It did not help that he had seen her at church on Sunday.
She had stood with Miss Lucas, composed and pale in the cold churchyard, speaking just enough to satisfy civility while carefully avoiding the Netherfield party. Bingley had gone toJane with no more ability to disguise his feelings than a sunrise had to disguise itself, and Darcy had remained where he was, anchored by his own miserable restraint. He had felt Elizabeth’s presence like a touch upon the back of his neck. He had not looked at her.
