Page 3 of A Most Unwelcome Acquaintance

“His name is Mr. Bingley,” Mrs. Bennet said. The name emerged with the particular emphasis she reserved for information she considered both valuable and recently acquired. “He has five thousand a year. Five thousand. And he is unmarried.”

The tea was strong and too hot. Elizabeth drank it anyway.

“I hope he comes to the assembly,” Mrs. Bennet said from the cupboard as she sorted through a stack of linens. “Jane must wear her best muslin. The one with the sprigged pattern. I will have Hill look at the trim.”

Sarah lay beside the hearth, her muzzle on her paws and her eyes half-closed. The firelight caught the white blaze on her chest and the darker markings along her back.

“I have no doubt he is quite pleasant,” Elizabeth said to give her mother the participation she wanted without sharing her enthusiasm.

“Agreeable.” Mrs. Bennet turned from the cupboard, a tablecloth draped over one arm. “Mrs. Long says he is handsome, and his married sister will come down with her husband. His other sister will join them. A party of four or five, she said. Perhaps more.”

She followed Elizabeth through the passage that led from the kitchen to the front hall, her voice carrying ahead of her into the narrower space. The paper on the walls had faded from its original blue to something closer to the color of old milk. The floorboards creaked underfoot in the sequence Elizabeth had memorized as a child: third board from the left, then the fifth, then the seventh. Years of damp and settling had loosened them all.

“Jane will look very well in the sprigged muslin,” Mrs. Bennet said. “And you must wear something that does not make you look so brown. That walk put color in your cheeks, but it is not the sort of color that becomes a young woman at an assembly.”

Elizabeth reached the foot of the stairs and set one hand on the banister. The wood was smooth from generations of hands, polished by use to a dull sheen that caught the light from the front windows.

The library door opened, and Mr. Bennet looked into the hall.

“Have you settled the wedding date, my dear, or only Jane’s gown?”

Mrs. Bennet drew herself up. “You may laugh, Mr. Bennet, but Mrs. Long says he is young, handsome, and worth five thousand a year.”

“Then I am surprised you have left anything to chance.”

“You know very well what I mean.”

“Your meaning is seldom obscure.”

He glanced at Elizabeth, amusement in his eyes, then withdrew into the library and closed the door.

Mrs. Bennet watched the door for a moment before turning back to Elizabeth. “Change, then sit with Jane. I have a great deal to tell you about the assembly. Lydia has asked twice about the officers, and Kitty is no better. I cannot manage them both and plan for Jane at the same time.”

Mrs. Bennet turned toward the parlor, still talking. Her voice receded down the hall, punctuated by the occasional emphatic phrase that carried back to where Elizabeth stood: five thousand a year, the best muslin, a party of four or five.

Sarah followed as far as the passage and sat at the junction of hall and kitchen, ears cocked toward Mrs. Bennet’s voice as she listened for a command.

Elizabeth climbed the first step, then stopped. The stranger on the dark horse returned to her thoughts, not because he spoke, but because it seemed he knew what to make of her and saw no reason to explain it.

She continued up the stairs, her damp skirt dragging at each step. Below, Mrs. Bennet constructed an entire future around a man named Bingley who had five thousand a year and a chaise and four.

Elizabeth changed into a clean, warm gown of brown worsted, too worn to count as her best, then went downstairs to the parlor. Her mother’s voice carried through the open door into the passage, punctuated by Lydia’s laughter. Jane sat beneath the window with her needlework.

She stepped into the warmth of the room. The parlor fire burned low in its grate, taking the chill from the small space. Tallow candles stood on the mantel and side table, their flames adding a waxy smell to the older odors of damp wool and beeswax polish. The furniture dated from an earlier decade, when Longbourn’s fortunes permitted some generosity in its upholstery. The sofa’s green brocade had faded to the color of moss after a dry summer, while the armchair by the fire carried a permanent hollow shaped by Mr. Bennet’s evening posture.

Jane sat near the window in the best light, her needlework spread across her lap. She wore a pale blue gown that caught what remained of the afternoon sun and turned it to something warmer against her skin. Her hands moved with the ease of long habit, the needle dipping in and out of the fabric, her eyes fixed on her work. She kept her eyes down when Elizabeth entered, but her mouth curved in the small, private smile that was Jane’s version of a greeting.

“Yes, Mama,” she said. “I am sure he is agreeable.”

Mrs. Bennet stood at the fireplace, a hand resting on the mantel. “Agreeable is not the point, Jane. That is what one says of Mr. Phillips when he brings news from Meryton. This is a young man with five thousand a year and no wife, who has taken Netherfield, not three miles from our door.”

Elizabeth’s two youngest sisters occupied the settee. Lydia sprawled across the cushions with her head on one armrest and her feet against Kitty’s thigh. Kitty sat wedged into the opposite corner, refusing to move.

“Captain Carter dances very well,” Lydia said, addressing her remark to the ceiling as though settling a matter of grave importance. “He told me so at the Phillips’s last month, and I have never known an officer to lie about his dancing.”

“Captain Carter praises everyone,” Kitty said. She had a piece of embroidery in her lap, though the needle had not moved in some time. “He told Mary she was graceful, and Mary trod on his foot twice during the same set.”

“Mary does not count. Mary is serious.”