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Elizabeth might have thought that it was the pain and embarrassment that was making Miss Bingley cross, but Miss Bingley was always cross when in company with those she believed inferior, and she was surrounded by such people now, only minutes after she had declared an end to her acquaintance with Jane.

Miss Bingley lifted one hand to pull at the end of the ribbon securing her bonnet, then attempted to lift her head an inch to remove it. This produced a soft cry, and when Aunt Gardiner held out her hands to ask whether she might help, Miss Bingley sniffed but allowed it.

Elizabeth’s aunt removed the bonnet and set it aside while Cora saw to the fire.

“You will oblige me by not speaking of this,” Miss Bingley said to the ceiling.

“Of the accident?” Aunt Gardiner asked.

“Of where it happened. If it is known that I have been to Cheapside, I shall never hear the end of it, and I do not intend to be laughed at.”

They were not in Cheapside, though they were near it. Her uncle’s warehouses stood in the Langbourn Ward. So did the bed Miss Bingley was lying in.

Elizabeth had often compared the names in her mind. Langbourn. Longbourn.

The world insisted that there was a great difference in rank between a man like her father who owned land in Hertfordshire and a man like her uncle who owned warehouses in London. To Elizabeth they had never differed by more than a single letter. Her uncle had a better income than her father, set a better table, and had his children taught far more carefully. But Papa had inherited an estate, and so Papa was a gentleman.

Miss Bingley’s own fortune had been made in trade as her aunt had said to her face less than an hour ago. Yet now she treated that connexion as something shameful. The hypocrisy made Elizabeth angry. She was brought back to the conversation by her aunt’s reply.

“Then it will not be spoken of,” Aunt Gardiner said.

Mr. Hinshaw arrived within half an hour. He was a short, thin, grey-haired surgeon whose calm manner had been a boon during the various illnesses and injuries to which Elizabeth’s young cousins were prone.

Once he had explained the accident to the surgeon, their uncle left the room, sent Miss Bingley’s footman to the kitchen to await instructions, and went upstairs to put the boys down for their nap. Aunt Gardiner remained in the bedchamber with Miss Bingley and the surgeon.

There was a little dressing room off the bedchamber, and Elizabeth and Jane repaired there, where they could hear a succession of questions and reluctant answers through the partly open door.

“It is my back,” Miss Bingley said.

“Yes, madam. At what point of your back?”

“The lower back.”

A minute’s pause and then, “How low?”

Silence followed.

Mr. Hinshaw’s voice was direct and practical. “Miss Bingley, I do not believe the spine itself has suffered insult, but we cannot establish that if we remain delicate. If Mrs. Gardiner assists me, I will be better able to help you. Will you agree?”

Something was said low enough that they could not hear it.

“Excellent,” Mr. Hinshaw said. “Mrs. Gardiner, would you help Miss Bingley roll onto her side? Good. And drape that sheet—yes.”

The examination did not take long after that. When the surgeon emerged, Aunt Gardiner accompanied him into the dressing room and closed the door to the bedchamber.

“There is no grave injury,” he said, and Elizabeth found herself truly relieved.

“Oh,” Jane said, and released a breath. “That is good news.”

“Miss Bingley has sustained a contusion immediately over the lowest bone of the spine. It is painful, inconvenient, and frequently embarrassing to the patient, but I find no displacement and no symptom of permanent harm.”

The lowest bone—oh.

Aunt Gardiner turned to Elizabeth and Jane and said, seriously, “The boys must not be told.”

Everything about that part of the body was hilarious to Edward and Henry. Miss Bingley—and the rest of them—would never hear the end of it.

Jane and Elizabeth murmured their assent.