Page 38

“Ma’am! You’re back early. Shall I bring tea? Cook has made⁠—”

“Paper, Hannah. And ink. A pen, if there is one to be found with a decent nib.” Elizabeth heard herself and softened. “Please. I should like to write letters.”

Hannah brightened. “Of course, ma’am. Mr. Darcy gave strict orders that you were to have the finest paper and a fresh quill. I do believe I saw him chasing a goose this morning, especially for you, ma’am, and he sharpened the nib himself with his own penknife. Would you like me to set it on Lady Anne’s writing desk or down in the library?”

“My chamber, please.”

She wanted the heavy oak door closed, the world reduced to a blank sheet of writing paper, and the scratchy comfort of pen on foolscap. She needed the quiet that would come with letting her scattered thoughts form words, as if she had any semblance of authority over them.

Hannah delivered the writing set within ten minutes: a neat wooden box containing paper, a penknife, two pens, a stick of sealing wax, and a cork-stoppered glass inkwell. She proudly set it on the desk—a beautiful rosewood table inlaid with mother-of-pearl, dusted and polished. It sat beneath a window overlooking the park and the daffodils blazing along the lake shore. The lace curtains fluttered as Hannah pushed the casement open a tiny crack.

“Mrs. Reynolds ordered your fire built up,” the girl chattered, smoothing her apron. “I do hope you’ll be warmer this afternoon. I shall fetch the tea straightaway. Would you like more of those sugared almonds? Mr. Darcy said⁠—”

“Just the tea, please.” Elizabeth set the inkwell in the top-right corner. “And, Hannah? Thank you.”

“Oh, ma’am, you need not thank me for every little thing.” Hannah curtsied as if she had forgotten whether she’d done so when greeting her. “I am, as you know, your very own lady’s maid. I shall return with the tea and cakes.”

With a cheerful chirp, Hannah rearranged the hothouse roses, picked up a few dropped petals, and bustled out of the chamber, leaving Elizabeth with a tiny smile. She had heard stories about dour lady’s maids—the type that stood silently in the background, moving only to button a dress or straighten a cap, and she was glad Hannah had been promoted, although once she got the budget in order, she would hire a few more housemaids to relieve Hannah of scrubbing pots and other heavy hauling tasks.

Elizabeth arranged the paper squarely, unstoppered the ink, and dipped the pen.

My dearest Jane,

She wrote the salutation and stopped. What could she possibly say? I have married a man who is bankrupt and noble and infuriating. I repaid his honesty by flinging his poverty in his face like a fishwife quarreling over mackerel. The grounds are lovely. How fares Mamma’s cough?

She could write none of it. Jane would read every word in the kindest possible light, and fret over the shadows between the lines. Her mother and sisters would demand to see the letter, dissecting each phrase—Mamma to bewail Pemberley’s fallen state, the younger girls to clamor for balls and ribbons, despite the cobwebbed ballroom, and so, she wrote.

I write to you from Pemberley, where we arrived yesterday after four days of tolerably good roads and one goose of intolerable disposition. The approach to the house itself is grand. It is set beside a placid lake formed by damming a stream that leads to the Derwent. The house itself is so large that I found it hard to comprehend. I counted at least thirty chimneys, and there must have been over a hundred windows. I have been given a beautiful blue chamber with a view of the park and a dressing table that could accommodate the toilette of three Bennets simultaneously, though I suspect Lydia would still require additional surface.

The interior architecture is neo-Classical, with restrained plaster rosettes and delicate friezes along the ceilings. I am still learning my way through its many corridors and cannot yet travel from my chamber to the breakfast room without taking at least one wrong turn. Mrs. Reynolds, the housekeeper, has been kindness itself, and I have been assigned a lady’s maid named Hannah.

Good. The proper tone: light, familiar, the Elizabeth Jane expected. The old comfort of their correspondence wrapped around her like a favorite shawl, though her chest tightened in a manner she chose to disregard.

Mr. Darcy has been very attentive. He remembered my fondness for potted shrimp from a conversation at Netherfield, and had sugared almonds and hothouse roses placed in my room. A kindness I found quite touching.

She stopped and reread the line. She was touched by his kindness, but would her Jane hope too much happiness for her? Was she being honest? She dipped the pen.

I confess I have not behaved as well as I ought since arriving. I said things to Mr. Darcy this morning that were too direct and certainly too soon, and I find I am not entirely comfortable with the person I was. You will tell me I am being too hard on myself, and you will be half right, as you usually are. But only half, Jane, for I was unkind where it was not necessary, and he did not deserve the whole of it.

There. Honest enough to provoke a proverb from Mary, but Jane would understand. She would sense the regret; the younger girls might giggle, and Mamma would dismiss it, declaring Mr. Darcy deserved worse for his pride.

Has Mr. Bingley called at Longbourn? I confess I have been thinking of you a great deal, and wondering whether you have had any news worth sharing. You must tell me everything, Jane—I shall be cross with you if you are modest and leave out the good parts.

Her pen moved faster now, inquiring after her father’s health, her mother’s spirits, and sending greetings to her sisters. She did not extend an invitation to Pemberley; the house was unfit for guests, and if word escaped—Mamma would trumpet it to the gates of heaven or parts lower. The Darcys’ disgrace, now hers as well, would be broadcast across the kingdom.

I hope to return to Longbourn for my birthday, if the roads and Mr. Darcy’s obligations will permit it. Give my love to everyone. I find I miss all of you more than I expected, now that I am so far from home.

Your devoted sister,

Elizabeth

She sanded the letter, folded it, and set it aside. The words felt inadequate—careful and hollow, skating over the ice without acknowledging the dark water beneath.

The letter to Charlotte was both easier and more difficult.

Easier, because Charlotte did not require the protective fiction that shielded Jane from the sharper edges of Elizabeth’s temperament. Charlotte kept confidences, and her letters were never passed around. Her friend had weathered twenty-seven years of spinsterhood, maternal pressure, and gossip. She had been called “plain” to her face, and she had borne it all with frank patience.

Harder, because she was also Byron Lefevre’s cousin, and Elizabeth wondered whether the news had reached him and what he made of it. There was comfort in recalling she had once had an admirer—a man who danced with her, conversed easily, and looked on her with appreciation. He never took her too seriously, which was both a blessing and a flaw. Nothing could have come of it; he was as penniless as Darcy now proved to be.