That look.
The servants knew.
Perhaps not every detail, but they knew enough.
They knew Mr. Bennet neglected matters.
They knew Mrs. Bennet spent freely.
They knew creditors waited longer than they ought.
And they knew the second daughter quietly held everything together with sheer stubborn determination.
“If anything were to happen to your father…” Mrs. Hill began carefully.
Elizabeth’s hand tightened around the edge of the ledger. That fear lived constantly inside her. If Mr. Bennet died, Longbourn would pass immediately to Mr. Collins—a man none of them had seen in years.
Her mother would be cast out.
Her sisters portionless.
The younger girls nearly unemployable.
Jane beautiful but vulnerable.
And Elizabeth—
Elizabeth had no fortune, no connections, and no illusions.
She knew exactly how quickly gentlewomen could become burdens. “I know,” she said softly.
Mrs. Hill reached out impulsively and squeezed her shoulder before withdrawing again with servant-like restraint.
“You should not have to bear this alone.”
Elizabeth stared down at the accounts spread across the table. “But if I do not,” she whispered, “who will?”
She rubbed at the stiffness in the back of her neck and carefully closed the ledger before her.
The figures had begun to blur together sometime during the last quarter hour. Candle wax had dripped down onto the table beside her elbow, and outside the narrow windows, the weak gray daylight of February was already beginning to dim toward afternoon.
Too many hours bent over accounts again.
With a weary sigh, she closed her account book, stretching until her spine gave a faint crack.
The small room off the back hall had once been intended for household storage, but over the years it had gradually become the place where estate matters accumulated whenever Mr. Bennet neglected them long enough. Bills, tenant accounts, inventories, and correspondence now occupied nearly every shelf.
And, increasingly, so did Elizabeth.
She flexed her ink-stained fingers and crossed toward the window. For the first time in weeks, the glass was not coated with frost.
January had been viciously cold.
The ponds froze solid before Christmas. Three tenant children had nearly died from a fever brought on by damp and insufficient coal, and Cook had spent nearly every morning chipping away at the ice that covered the water bucket.
Then, quite suddenly, the weather changed.
The thaw came unnaturally fast. Snow vanished within two days beneath warm rains that turned roads into rivers of mud. The strange weather had become the subject of nearly every letter and conversation throughout Hertfordshire.
