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Jane did not take her upstairs at once. She stopped beside a little table in the hall, where a plate of currant cakes had been laid out for the visitor. Elizabeth stared at them without appetite. Jane reached for one, then seemed to think better of offering it.

"Would you rather see the garden?" Jane asked. "There is a place beyond the shrubbery where nobody comes unless I ask them."

Elizabeth shook her head. The house felt full of footsteps and curious faces. It had not occurred to her that a girl she had only just met might understand her wish to be invisible.

"Then we needn't see anything at all," Jane said. She took Elizabeth's bag, but when Elizabeth held out a hand to reclaim it, Jane gave it back without protest. "Your room is next to mine. You may close the door whenever you please."

Their aunt called from the drawing room to ask why the trunks had not yet been carried up. Jane answered her cheerfully, and Elizabeth followed her upstairs. Outside the bedroom Jane paused beside a vase of late roses. One flower had lost several petals upon the table. She gathered the loose petals and set them aside, leaving the rose where it stood.

"I do not know whether you like flowers," she said. "I can take them away if you do not."

Elizabeth remembered her mother arranging roses in a blue jug by the kitchen window. The memory hurt so sharply that she could not speak. Jane waited without taking the silence for a refusal. When at last Elizabeth nodded, her cousin smiled and went to fetch fresh water for the vase.

That night she laid the locket beneath her pillow. From the room next door came the soft sound of Jane moving about, and beyond the window an owl called in the garden.

Elizabeth thought of the book her father had brought home, and cried until she slept.

CHAPTER 2

The Fifth Bennet Girl

The Bennet household was noisy in ways Elizabeth had never imagined a house might be.

There were the ordinary disturbances of four young girls, certainly: Lydia's shrieks of laughter, Kitty's continual questions, Mary's solemn recitations, and the sounds of doors closed with too much enthusiasm. But these were accompanied by Mrs. Bennet's running commentary upon every event, from the price of ribbons to the impropriety of the butcher's assistant arriving late with the joint.

On Elizabeth's first morning at Longbourn, Mrs. Bennet announced at breakfast that her nerves were unequal to another disturbance of the household, then spent fifteen uninterrupted minutes discussing the proposed alteration of a parlour curtain.

Mr. Bennet listened behind his newspaper.

Mr. Bennet lowered the newspaper a fraction. The chair between Jane and Mary was empty; Elizabeth had chosen the end of the table, where a girl might more easily escape notice. He could hear Henry's laugh in the quick answer she had given Lydia a moment earlier, and the resemblance caught him so unexpectedly that he was obliged to inspect the headline again.

After breakfast, he discovered Elizabeth standing in the passage with her hands carefully folded. She had been studying the library door but had not presumed to open it.

"Was your father so very strict about libraries?" he asked.

"No, Uncle. He said books were most useful when someone was making a nuisance of them."

Mr. Bennet took the key from his pocket and placed it in her palm. Its weight made her look up. "Henry was sometimes correct," he said. "You need not ask permission to visit the books. I do request that you leave the dictionaries upon their shelves; the younger girls have already tried to use one as a footstool."

Later that evening, Elizabeth found a small cushion in the window seat and a low table drawn close enough to hold two books. Nobody mentioned who had moved them. She began to sit there after supper, often with Jane beside her. Mr. Bennet continued reading his newspaper, though he took care never to put a lamp too far from the window.

"My dear," he remarked when she paused for breath, "perhaps we ought to send the curtains to Brighton. A little sea air might restore their spirits."

"Mr. Bennet, how can you speak so? I am only considering what is best for the house."

"A responsibility you discharge with admirable perseverance."

Elizabeth looked down at her plate, uncertain whether she was permitted to smile. Across the table Jane caught her eye and did so first.

Jane was eleven, fair-haired and gentle, with a gift for perceiving the feelings of others before they were explained. She had been instructed to share her bedchamber with Elizabeth until arrangements could be made, and had done so without complaint. On the first evening she had asked about Elizabeth's books, listened attentively to the answers, and offered her the place nearest the fireplace.

At breakfast Jane quietly passed Elizabeth the marmalade.

"You may have the last of it," she murmured. "Lydia has already taken enough for three people."

"I heard that!" Lydia protested from her chair, her feet swinging above the floor.

"Then your ears work better than your table manners," Mary observed.