Page 4 of A Most Unwelcome Acquaintance

“Mary is sitting right here,” Mary said from her chair near the bookcase without looking up from her volume.

Elizabeth crossed to the window and took the seat opposite Jane. The old, uneven panes made the light waver as it entered the room. Beyond the glass, shoots appeared in the herb beds, and the apple tree beyond the wall held its blossoms against a sky the color of watered milk.

Sarah settled near the hearth, circling twice before dropping onto the rug with a sigh. She closed her eyes, her tail thumping once against the stone and falling still.

Mr. Bennet’s library door stood ajar, the gap enough for him to hear every word without participating.

“Jane, wear the one with the green pattern,” Mrs. Bennet said, moving from the fireplace to the center of the room. “It brings out the color in your eyes, and a young man notices these things, whatever he may say about a lady’s conversation.”

“I am sure he will notice Jane regardless of what she wears,” Elizabeth said.

Mrs. Bennet paused in her circuit and fixed Elizabeth with the fond exasperation she reserved for daughters who failed to understand the serious business of wardrobe. “You may be sure of many things, Lizzy, but I have raised five daughters and buried three bonnets that looked respectable until daylight found them. The sprigged muslin.”

Lydia had abandoned her debate with Kitty and was now attempting an elaborate bow from a reclining position on the settee. She extended one arm in a sweeping arc that well-nigh connected with Kitty’s forehead, dipped her chin toward her chest with theatrical gravity, and said, in a voice several registers deeper than her natural one, “Your servant, madam. Your most humble, obedient—”

“You are doing it wrong,” Kitty said. “Sir William does not sound like a frog with a head cold.”

“Yes, he does. A wealthy frog who owns land in Hertfordshire.”

Jane’s needle paused, and she looked up from her work. “I believe Sir William’s bow is rather more... vertical,” she said.

“Everything about Sir William is vertical,” Lydia said. “It is his defining quality. He is the most vertical man in three counties.” She attempted the bow again, this time with her entire body arranged in a diagonal line across the settee cushions, and succeeded only in sliding further toward the floor.

The afternoon light faded from the window, taking the warmth from Jane’s gown and the garden beyond the glass. The tallow candles shone brighter against the darkening room, their flames reflected in the uneven panes as the world outside turned to shadow.

Elizabeth leaned her shoulder against the window frame and let the noise settle around her. Mrs. Bennet returned to the assembly, her voice rising above Lydia’s laughter. Kitty resumed the embroidery she had abandoned twice, while Mary turned a page.

From behind the study door came the faint creak of a chair, then silence.

Sarah’s tail thumped once against the hearthstone.

The parlor had grown too warm, or perhaps an hour of her mother’s voice drove even the most tolerant listener toward the door. Elizabeth excused herself on the pretext of fetching a shawl and went to the passage near the stairs, where cooler air from the front hall offered relief that had nothing to do with shawls.

Her half-boots stood beside the kitchen door where she had left them that morning, mud drying in cracked ridges along the soles. Elizabeth bent to pick up the left boot and knocked it against the flagstones, sending a shower of dried earth across the floor. She reached for the right.

Mary stepped into the passage, a book under one arm and one finger marking her place. Her brows pulled together, and her lips pressed into a line. Elizabeth would have wagered she had rehearsed whatever came next.

“Lizzy.” Mary stood at what she seemed to consider a respectful distance. “Your attention wandered in the parlor.”

“Did it?” Elizabeth knocked the second boot against the floor.

“You stopped listening to Mama.”

“That is not evidence of distraction.” Elizabeth set the boot beside the other. “I was thinking of a stranger I saw near the boundary hedge this morning.”

Mary adjusted her grip on the book. “What did he do?”

“Nothing. He sat on his horse while I repaired the hedge, as though the work confirmed some poor opinion of me.”

“You cannot know what opinion he formed.”

“No, but I can form one of him.”

“I think you ought not to decide a stranger’s character from one encounter. It is not reasonable.”

The boot was heavier than it had any right to be. Elizabeth turned it over in her hands, examining the mud caked along the sole where she had knelt beside the broken hedge. “The man on horseback,” she said, “appeared to think the mud, the dog, and the sheep told him everything he needed to know about me. I did not notice him extending the same caution to himself.”

“That does not mean it is right.”