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ELIZABETH

In the third week after their arrival in London, Elizabeth went to Ashbourne with Jane, two trunks and written confirmation that the house could receive her. Its owner had answered Gardiner's enquiry. The remaining term was the one already agreed, extending through the summer and beyond, with an end which her uncle had marked plainly upon the copy. No new favour from Darcy had been requested to enlarge it.

Gardiner had also set out what modest lodgings might cost afterwards, should she need them. She had chosen Ashbourne over another month in her aunt's small bedroom because she needed to learn whether she could manage a household whose days Darcy did not arrange. Watching him threaten to put his own name before a magistrate ahead of his aunt's letter, and then confess the bargain to Lady Catherine's face, had proved the account was no show put on for her benefit. The sound of that letter being read aloud had not yet left her. None of it had told her how to live with him. That part remained to be discovered, and she would learn it in a house of her own direction.

Their journey ended in light rain. Jane held the shawls while Elizabeth found the key, then laughed when a servant opened the door from within before it could be employed. The house had been aired, food provided and the small staff told who would give directions during her stay. Elizabeth entered with wet shoes and the startling responsibility of being expected to know whether the luggage should go upstairs at once.

“Upstairs,” she said, and Jane looked so amused that she nearly laughed too.

It was a house, after all. The rooms required nothing extraordinary of her beyond being used. A fire must be lit where they intended to sit, dinner served at an hour they chose and letters sent by the usual means. The housekeeper explained the household accounts, and Elizabeth asked to see them weekly. Necessary expenses would be paid through Gardiner, with a sum kept available for smaller purchases. The arrangements were less luxurious than Darcy's and far more comprehensible to her.

At dinner Jane asked whether she wished for the window closed. Elizabeth answered without considering whether another person might prefer it open, then smiled at the discovery.

“You look pleased with the soup,” Jane said.

“I am pleased to have an opinion about the window.”

Her sister reached across the small table and touched her hand. They let the conversation turn to the rain. For that first evening Elizabeth wanted no argument, no account of her courage, only the sound of water against the glass and Jane complaining that the journey had crushed the bonnet beyond the assistance of London.

* * *

Before Jane left, a letter from their mother arrived asking what answer she was to give a neighbour who had enquired why Mrs. Darcy was visiting everyone except her husband. Elizabeth read the question twice. She could picture her mother repeating it at dinner, with an audience of sisters and no wish to be cruel.

“Shall I explain when I get home?” Jane asked.

“Say that I am well, and that I have written to Mama myself.” Elizabeth folded the letter. “Nothing about Charlotte.”

She spent much of the evening over her answer. She could endure being thought foolish; it was harder to send Jane home to defend a silence. She wrote that she and Darcy were living apart for the present, and asked her mother not to make their neighbours its judges.

Jane stayed several days, then returned to Longbourn by arrangements made with their father. Elizabeth stood outside while the carriage left and found herself bereft with a speed which was almost insulting to everything she had said about wanting privacy. She waved until Jane could no longer see her, went inside and discovered that an entire afternoon remained.

There were books. There was work she had brought and a garden she had not yet properly explored. She moved the workbasket twice, rejected the book she had chosen and went out without deciding where she meant to walk. The path behind the house was still damp. At the far wall she stopped to examine the mud on her hem. She felt considerably better.

The gardener found her examining a badly placed bench. He asked whether she wished it moved. Elizabeth nearly said she would speak to Mr. Darcy, then felt foolish enough to become cross with the bench itself. It stood beneath a tree which would drip long after rain had ceased, facing a prospect chiefly distinguished by the laundry yard.

“Could it be put beside the south wall?” she asked.

The man considered the ground and explained where it would stand securely. They chose a place together. When it had been moved, she sat there to prove that she meant to use it, though the air was cool and no one required convincing.

A robin landed on the newly exposed ground where the bench had stood. Elizabeth watched it investigate the disturbed earth with considerably less deliberation than she had given to the furniture. When the gardener came back for a forgotten tool, she asked whether the path continued beyond the wall. He explained where it joined the lane and where she would find a gate. She went to look, leaving her book upon the bench.

The lane was quiet. She walked until the house had disappeared behind the trees, then stood listening to a distant cart. No one had suggested an escort or asked when she intended to return. She could turn back because she wanted tea, which she presently did. The small appetite pleased her more than the distance walked.

She wished Darcy could see the absurd triumph of it. He would have found some fault in the old position without making her feel that moving a bench was remarkable. Or perhaps he would have ordered three better benches, each placed before she had been asked where she wished to sit. Both men existed in her memory. She was no longer obliged to live with whichever appeared first in the morning.

At supper she asked for something simpler the following day, because the kitchen had sent more food than she could eat alone. She wrote the request plainly, dealt with a question about candles and spent the evening reading by a window she had opened herself. Loneliness remained. It was bearable, and sometimes interrupted by pleasure, which was more than she had known to expect.

* * *

Several weeks into the separation, Charlotte asked her to look at a house in Hertfordshire. Elizabeth travelled first to the Gardiners, stayed the night and continued the following day with her aunt. Charlotte met them near her family home, carrying the particulars of two possible tenancies and an expression which suggested that both possessed defects a woman of sense ought to endure.

“The prettier house has a better parlour,” she said. “It also costs more to heat, requires more furniture and would consume nearly everything Papa can provide before I had bought a loaf.”

They went first to the smaller one. Its narrow stairs offended Mrs. Gardiner, who forgave them upon seeing the kitchen. Elizabeth liked the light in the upper room and disliked a cupboard which opened awkwardly across the landing. Charlotte had already measured it. The door would obstruct the landing whenever it stood open. Charlotte meant to store seldom-used things there and keep it shut.

“Have you heard from the Colonel?” Elizabeth asked when they were alone upstairs.

“Nothing. No message, no money.” Charlotte looked round the modest room. “I find I am becoming accustomed to the absence of both.” She was quiet a moment. “I miss his step in the hall sometimes. It is a very inconvenient thing to miss. And I still wake some nights in the parsonage, though I know perfectly well where I am.”