“How terrible?”
“They say a carriage overturned in the water near the bridge crossing.”
Elizabeth straightened immediately. “Were there injuries?”
“I don’t know, miss. Only that the road’s near impassable.”
Another peal of thunder echoed overhead.
Elizabeth looked once more toward the darkening southern sky, unease settling heavily in her chest.
Something about the day felt ominous.
As though the storm carried more with it than rain alone.
∞∞∞
The rain continued for four more days.
By the second, the lower road to Meryton vanished beneath water entirely. By the third, part of Widow Harper’s cottage roof collapsed under the constant damp, forcing Elizabeth to organize temporary lodging for the woman and her grandchildren in one of Longbourn’s unused storage buildings.
By the fourth, even Mr. Bennet had finally abandoned pretending the estate could continue untended.
Not happily, of course.
Everything required his approval.
Repairs.
Timber purchases.
Emergency grain allotments.
Payments to laborers reinforcing washed-out lanes.
Every interruption darkened his temper further until the servants began moving about the house with visible caution whenever he emerged from the library.
Elizabeth scarcely sat down from dawn until long after candlelight.
Twice she rode out with Mr. Hill to inspect flooded tenant fields herself because her father declared the roads “too infernal for civilized travel.” Three times she reorganized household accounts after unexpected repair costs arose. One entire morning vanished into calming Mrs. Bennet, who became convinced the rain would seep upward through the floors and drown them all in their beds.
By the fifth day, Elizabeth felt as though she had not properly slept in a fortnight.
So when the express finally arrived, mud-spattered and urgent near dusk, her heart dropped instantly.
Expresses rarely brought good news.
The servant entered the breakfast parlor where Elizabeth sat sorting repair invoices while Mr. Bennet glowered over a book nearby.
“A rider from London, miss.”
Elizabeth looked up sharply.
“For Papa?”
The footman hesitated. “No, miss. For you.”
That was odd.
