Chapter Text
Elizabeth stood on the front steps of her uncle’s house, in London at last, surrounded by her luggage.
She vacillated before sounding the bell, not even knowing why.
It was no matter, the decision had been made long ago, and it was impossible to balk from the chosen path now. Nevertheless, she felt that that was the action that would seal off any other options. She chastised herself; she was being silly, she knew, there were no more options anymore.
She had thought previously that she was reconciled to the idea. And she was. It was the enormity of the situation, the enormity of the deception that acutely struck her now. She had never lied so thoroughly before.
She sounded the bell.
She schooled herself into a ladylike posture and attitude.
It would be no problem, she thought, no problem at all to appear frightened and awkward, but she feared being overtly impertinent; her father had often said when she had been merely a child that her courage rose with every attempt to intimidate her. She hoped that it was enough to remind herself that what was considered charming in a young gentleman could certainly be unbecoming in a young lady.
She had only to wait less than a minute before a servant came to the door, and only needed to introduce herself for that servant to grant her instant entrance and send a footman to retrieve her trunks and bandboxes from the street. She was guided to a drawing room and left alone. The servant would tell the Mistress of her arrival, she said.
Elizabeth sat and smoothed her gown. It was a dark grey, suitable for travelling, with a high neck, but she could not accustom herself to the lack of trousers. It made her feel naked. She stood up and went to the window; the overcast day made the lovely English garden appear almost washed out.
There was nothing there of interest and the position reminded her of somebody too well. She turned and went to sit again, only to stand up immediately when a woman of no more than five and thirty entered. She had a warm open countenance, a kind of subdued beauty, and was smiling at her.
Elizabeth tried to curtsy; it was a clumsy effort, complete with blushing and lowered eyes. Elizabeth thought that though it had not been purposeful, it certainly added to the simple country girl image she had to give. She could not help cringing inwardly; she loathed the idea of deceiving these people more than was absolutely necessary. They were strangers, but amazingly kind strangers.
She wondered how her father had been so sure they would welcome Elizabeth into their home; she had the vague idea that the breach in the family was related to him sending Elizabeth north, but she did not know any particulars. She had never asked, she had not wanted to know anything about her mother or her mother’s family, and her father had never volunteered the information.
The lady’s—because it was plain that she was a lady—smile did not waver, and she imitated Elizabeth, much more gracefully, before coming to her.
“You must be Elizabeth Bennet. I am Mrs. Gardiner, your aunt,” she said warmly. “I am so glad to meet you at last. My husband is away on business, but he was very anxious to meet you; he will return tonight.”
“I have been very anxious as well,” answered Elizabeth, because she needed not lie.
Mrs. Gardiner sat down, and motioned to Elizabeth to imitate her. “Do sit down. I have asked for some refreshments, so you can eat something before resting. You must be very tired. We were worried about you, travelling alone.”
“Oh, no, I did not travel alone. My father arranged for a manservant.”
Mrs. Gardiner appeared surprised. “Very good then,” she said. “I am glad he did.”
The conversation stalled until the tea came, which thankfully was not much later, and afterwards Elizabeth was guided into the room she was to occupy and provided with a maid to help her undress. The whole situation was more stressful than travelling had been, and she sank into the mattress gratefully.
She indeed met her uncle and her cousins that evening, and she soon was convinced of liking the whole family immensely; they were rational, amiable people. It was plain that her uncle had been wishing to meet his sister's children for a long time. He searched her face, looking for a resemblance to her mother, and seemed pleased with what he saw.
They did not speak much until some days later, when he called her into his office.
“I am very sorry for keeping you in the city in the spring and summer,” he said, his countenance grim, “but your father has written he would prefer you to remain here for now. Apparently Edward was in Paris on the twenty-second of May, when the Treaty was broken.”
His face softened after she assured him that it was fine. Elizabeth could see that he took offence at every slight her father seemed to make her, and she made the effort to act as if she did not care in order to ease his mind.
She would have preferred to go to Longbourn. She missed her books and her old walks. She missed her horse and the house. She missed her guns. Her only consolation was that she could have hardly gone back to be as she had been before, so being in London helped to make the awareness the loss of her former life less acute.
Elizabeth was looking around for something to distract her uncle with, as the subject of Mr. Bennet did not appeal to her in the slightest, when a painting caught her eyes. It was a miniature that standing upon the mantel, of a young lady dressed in an antiquated style.
She stood, approaching it, seeing something of Jane in the conformation of the face, and spoke, thinking she knew already what the answer to her inquiry would be. “Who is this, Uncle?”
“That,” he said, coming to stand by her and smiling down at the painting, “is your mother’s likeness. It was taken when she turned sixteen. She was the beauty of the family. We were all taken with her, and my father commissioned it, even though it was quite excessive for a lawyer’s daughter. Your aunt, Mrs. Philips, was quite, quite jealous. I was very young but I still remember the screaming fights they had about it.”
He chuckled, and Elizabeth, who had always lived with people as sedate as Jane and her father, tried to imagine how that would have been, and failed. She had been the loudest of the three and had stopped throwing screaming fits when she was three. “Was my mother very… lively then?”
“Lively,”—he smiled a wistfully—“she was that, all right; and more. She was a happy, careless child. But I did not see her very much after she married; she was very busy with your sister, and I was young and not interested in babies; I think she must have settled down, though I cannot imagine it happening. She died very young.”
His voice caught, and he looked away. Elizabeth did not know how to feel. She could not imagine the careless young lady he described being married to his father. She ought to feel sad, she thought, she ought to feel her mother’s absence more than anything now. She felt no such thing, except perhaps a little wistfulness at what might have been.
Her mother was a far away idea upon which she had never let herself dwell. She had been very much her father’s child her whole life, and it did not matter that she could be that no more, the idea of her mother did not make her more real, nor more cherished.
When she was young, Elizabeth had privately thought that it was as if she had sprung from her father’s brain, wielding a lance and ready to take the world at his command. Now that fancy had turned bitter. She had decided to stop obeying him when his last order had been a treachery. She was her own person now.
But looking at the downcast expression of her uncle, she thought that perhaps she could learn to love her mother’s image for his sake.
She looked at the painting again, and its gentle smile made her blurt out, “Is my sister, Jane Bingley, very much like her?” She could not wait to know if they had met her in town.
“Jane? I have never met her, but she had your mother’s air about her when she was a child, everybody said so.”
Elizabeth doubted if she should ask, it seemed awful to pry into something that was probably painful for him to assuage her curiosity, but it turned out, she did not have to.
“And I see you father has not told you,” he said, his mouth turning down in displeasure. “I do not want to stir old grudges, but I think we can hardly hide them. There is a very silly reason I have not met my nephew and niece, and one I am not proud of. My father quarrelled with yours when your mother passed away and he decided to disappear with you three into the north; it was even worse when he learnt that Mr. Bennet had left you there with his relatives. I confess I never had the courage to brave the breach between them until he wrote to me telling me of your coming.”
“And my sister and my brother, they never thought to contact you?” Even as she asked, Elizabeth could only turn away. She was ashamed of herself, and of her father. That he could doubt not one moment that his late wife’s family would receive her, but not try to mend the relationship, was unfathomable. Of his detachment she knew already, but his unconcern for the feeling of others struck her anew.
“They are young, and they have never met me. We received a card some days ago when we were away. You must know your sister married. She is living in London now, and she will come to call on us soon.”
Elizabeth had not much to do during the day, except to try and hide the fact that she could not net a purse or cover a screen, and that her stitches would not pass for ornamental at the best of times. If anyone thought it evidenced something stranger than a normal distaste for such pursuits, they did not speak of it.
Elizabeth entertained herself teaching her young cousins some French and Italian, to the delight and surprise of their mother, who by then insisted on being called aunt Gardiner.
They went to great lengths to amuse her. For her first evening they went out to one of the theatres. She saw everything with new eyes; her gaze was now drawn to the ladies seated in the boxes, who were as much on display as the actors onstage.
She looked now to imitate. She observed their movements, and despaired of walking like them, of laughing like them: the lilting sound of their voices coyly hidden behind their fans, their gazes turning down to their laps in lady-like humility. It seemed impossible to her.
She did not think anyone would doubt she was a woman, but her pride did not allow her to fail at being a lady. What would Darcy think of her if she did? He already thought poorly of the scheme, what would he think if she failed to be what was supposed to be in her nature?
She wished and dreaded his presence with equal force. She could not help looking for his strong figure among the elegant ladies and gentlemen, but at the same time she wanted the impossible: to avoid thinking what she would do if she would see him.
She could not act as if she knew him, and she doubted that was what he would want. He had decided to continue the friendship—if, Elizabeth thought, in a more distant manner—but that had been before. She was a woman now, a lady. What would he want now?
She could not deceive herself; she hoped he would want to acknowledge the acquaintance, or more. He had not responded her letter, but then, she had not expected him to.
At her most stubborn, she refused to consider that even a friendship between them would be highly unusual; she refused to consider how a desire for it could be interpreted by him. He had been—no, he was her only friend.
She could not dwell on it for long. She should not make herself unhappy about it, and so she decided to avoid thinking on it altogether.
Besides, Mrs. Gardiner was determined to be a friend to her.
She thought it was dreadful, utterly dreadful, that a pretty girl like her had only serious dresses, and said so repeatedly. Elizabeth had finished mourning her guardians, she insisted, and her clothes should reflect it. And so she took to heart her duty as an aunt to a single young lady and took her shopping often, encouraging her to spend the money Mr. Bennet had sent for her.
One such occasion found them both walking down Bond Street, having visited Owen’s, a mercer, and Prother & Co., milliners, when Elizabeth came to a stop in front a bookseller. It had been an incredibly long time since she had bought a book. Mr. Bennet had always had books brought from London, and it was an uncommon occurrence when they had not some new acquisition to discuss.
She turned to her aunt, but she had yet to speak when that same lady forestalled her with a smile, “I know, you want to enter. It is fine, we have time still.”
They did so together, but Elizabeth quickly lost herself trying to find the new publications.
Some indeterminate time later—she only knew that she had found three books that had been published while she had been away—she raised her head, hearing her aunt’s voice. She was talking animatedly with a man perhaps five years younger than her. Elizabeth remembered him from a dinner party; it was one of Mr. Gardiner’s associates and had been very attentive to her.
Mrs. Gardiner had assured her afterwards that the man had not only a suitable situation, but that he had a warm open countenance. Was he not, she had asked, very handsome? Elizabeth could not have said he was. How could she? She could not like anyone she knew so little, and he fell short of every men she knew, except perhaps her father.
Unlike Darcy, he had no wit, and thought it strange in others. He was not tall enough, and not decided enough. He disliked confrontations and thought even the slightest disagreement a confrontation.
She did not want to be prejudiced, but that had been her initial impression of him. Nevertheless, she did not speak of it to her aunt, as he seemed a favourite with her, instead only saying she barely knew him.
Now, she hesitated. She thought she could imagine what the well meaning questioning from her aunt had been about; she had no desire to go talk to him. She had half turned already when Mrs. Gardiner looked up, and catching her gaze, smiled.
There was no avoiding it, so Elizabeth squared her shoulders and went to them.
“Miss Bennet, what a pleasant surprise!”
“Mr. Moore.” Elizabeth curtsied briefly and smiled. “I always knew my aunt avoided telling people I was with her.”
“That is not—” Mr. Moore blushed.
“Dreadful girl! You know I am proud of you to the point of ridicule.”
Seeing Mrs Gardiner smiling, not bothered in the least, Mr. Moore seemed to recover.
“I see you have chosen some books, Miss Bennet. May I ask which ones? I am presently looking for a gift for my sister, and I would be eternally grateful for a hint. What do young ladies like to read?”
Elizabeth bit her lip, tried to smile and said, “You had better buy your sister a parasol, Mr. Moore, or some little trinket you know she would welcome; literary tastes are as varied among ladies as amongst gentlemen.”
“Of course. But I am on a serious mission. I am attempting to encourage her to read for the improvement of her mind.”
“You are completing her education, I see. Is your sister very young, then?” She rearranged her books as she spoke, piling them carefully one over the other.
“She’s three and twenty.”
Elizabeth looked up. “Three and twenty!”
“Indeed, as you see, you are near her in age; I do think your advice would help me greatly.” And with that, he plucked the topmost book from her neat pile. “Independence—”
“A novel,” Elizabeth hurried to clarify. “Probably about some worthless young man who turns out being the lost son of a Duke. Hardly the type of reading you would offer your sister for her mind’s improvement.”
“No, indeed! I thought you much too sensible for this kind of literature, Miss Bennet!”
“I am sorry to disappoint you, sir, but I greatly enjoy novels.” She was about to say more, but she chose to be silent.
“Are they all novels?” Asked he, with a degree of curiosity she found unnerving. Her aunt, on which all her hopes of timely rescue rested, was suddenly nowhere to be seen.
“All novels? Do you mean perhaps all works in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language?”
He made as if to speak, and then stopped. A slow smile formed on his face. “I see now what you are about, Miss Bennet. You delight in teasing people.”
“I was almost entirely sincere, I assure you sir—”
But she had taken too long, and he had already read the title of the next one.
“Sir Walter Scott… Is this book for you, too?”
“It is.”
“A novel, then?” He smiled at her.
“Poems; I like many different things.” She could not more avoid the dryness of her tone than she could stop looking around for her aunt.
And then he was at the last one, Elizabeth not having any dignified way of retaining it.
His brows climbed at an alarming height, his lips pursed.
Finally, he spoke, “I can see that.”
But Elizabeth had glimpsed freedom in the form of her aunt talking to the clerk and lost not one moment more.
“Mr. Moore, pray excuse me.” With a hasty courtesy, she grabbed her books, plucked Edgeworth’s Essay on Irish Bulls from his grasp, and retreated.
A month into her stay in London, she received a visit from Jane. The look of stunned disbelief in her face when she entered the drawing room to find Elizabeth already there froze her smile.
Elizabeth had thought she would feel tempted to laugh, but the feeling of having just made an incredible good joke at her sister’s expense did not flourish. Jane’s eyes clouded with unshed tears, and she disposed of every civility by going to her side and perusing Elizabeth with thirsty eyes.
“You are…You are so alike! I always thought Edward exaggerated, he so loved to tease us all!”
Elizabeth could only manage a weak smile. She had known Jane would suffer, but had managed to make herself forget it, since she could do nothing to avoid it. She suddenly realized that for all of his father’s planning, he had not told her what she was supposed to tell her sister. Perhaps he hoped that she did not tell Jane anything, but it was ridiculous; she could not let her sister suffer for her death when she was alive. The problem was how to tell her. When to tell her.
She was unequal to saying anything, and her discomfort must have been obvious to Jane, because she dropped her hands as burned.
“I am sorry; I should not be taking such liberties. And you barely knew Edward. Of course, this does not make any sense to you.”
Elizabeth’s tone was tentative; she felt she did not know the rules of this conversation. Jane was not in mourning. Could she ask? Should she? “So, they have lost hope?”
“My father has friends in France; they have let him know Edward was not taken, but then, he did not go away either, at least not in any way we can find. And we have not heard from him; under the circumstances, I think that if he could he would have contacted us already. But my father plans to wait for a year.” Jane’s voice was steady, but the words were repeated as though learned by rote.
“I am sorry.” Elizabeth had never felt so inadequate in her life. She had always protected her sister, and now not only was she impotent to offer protection or comfort, but she was the one who had hurt Jane.
“It is not… it is not what I came for. Edward would have wanted us to welcome you home, and we are doing a dreadful work of it. You will have to excuse my father, he never comes to town.” Jane did not mention that he had not sent for her either, if the problem was that he could not come to London.
“My uncle showed me his letter.”
“Good, then,” said Jane, smiling weakly. “I have you all to myself.”
“Oh, no, that pleasure you will have to share with us,” said Mrs. Gardiner from the doorway, “she is in high demand, you know.”
Their aunt appeared to be perfectly unconcerned by Jane’s obvious distress, but Elizabeth could tell she was trying to put her at ease. She talked animatedly and asked for tea, and made it so that Jane, though included in the conversation, was not forced to talk very much, therefore giving her time to compose herself.
Instead, Mrs. Gardiner made Elizabeth talk, skillfully directing her to retell her most amusing experiences in London society. She had attended a public ball and had attracted a little notice, the most remarkable of all being the attentions of a tall, heavy-set clergyman who claimed he was related to the Bennets of Hertfordshire.
All three were soon laughing at the lengths that Elizabeth had gone to avoid dancing with him a second time.
“I saw him looking in my direction and I could feel his resolve from where I was sitting, so I rather prudently turned as though I had heard someone calling me. But I could divine it would not be enough discouragement, so I had the marvellous idea of stumbling! I was not really expecting to be nursing a genuine twisted ankle at the end of the night. That should teach me to feign injury.”
Eyes twinkling, Elizabeth looked at Jane and found her staring at her. She had such an expression of wonder in her eyes, that Elizabeth felt colour flood her checks, and could not but lower her eyes. She felt exposed; she knew she was making no effort to distinguish herself from Edward. Her very gestures were his; her humour, too, but she could hardly change that. It had been easier to be with people who had not known him.
The children came down from the nursery at that moment, and Elizabeth had cause to thank their impeccable timing. They were a fine distraction; though well educated they were still children full of youthful spirit, and they were accustomed to their cousin’s paying them her full attention.
Soon enough, Jane rose and bade them goodbye. She invited Elizabeth to spend an afternoon with her, and Elizabeth could not avoid it. She did not want to; she had missed Jane in the past year. She wondered if it would not be better to let Jane discover it by herself someway, someday, instead of telling her: it was as cowardly as it was safe. Jane was fairly intelligent, and she had been her sister for these one and twenty years; in some ways, she was the person who best knew her.
“Promise you will come! Mr. Bingley is planning for us to leave the city the moment his sisters come back to London, so Miss Bingley can join us in our journey north. I will not be here very long.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Of course. Though no doubt you will tire of me soon enough. I don’t have enough tales of twisted ankles to fill the whole afternoon.”
“We will find something else to do, then.” Jane embraced her quickly and blushed with an embarrassed smiled before going out.
Elizabeth did not think that Jane meant for her to hear her soft words, so much like a sigh against her frame. “So alike!”
Elizabeth endured a week of asking herself how to speak to Jane about it, until she could wait no longer. She could no more deny her sister anything now, than she had been able before.
A surprise waited at the Bingley’s townhouse, and it was in the form of a child, a nephew. It was full young still to be able to perceive any resemblance, but the mother pointed out his father’s nose, and his father’s colouring and his uncle’s eyes, with practiced ease.
Elizabeth’s chest constricted at thinking of Jane bearing a child while she was away. No word of it had reached her. Her father must have supposed she would come back earlier if she would have known. If he had, he would not have been wrong.
They sat in the drawing room, and when the nurse took the child away, silence fell over them like an uncomfortable blanket. Elizabeth tried to remember some amusing anecdote, but she had been telling the truth the day before, and had none at all.
Jane broke the silence, suddenly. “Who stayed with you until you could travel, while you were in mourning?”
The lies came easily now, having been practiced time and again before. They were bitter in her mouth: this change, was it not supposed to be done so she could stop lying? She had never felt she had been lying, as Edward.
“Oh, I thought my father would have told you, I had a companion since Mrs. Kemp’s death, and she agreed to stay with me.” Elizabeth lowered her eyes, embarrassed. The moment to tell Jane had passed, missed by her own stupidity and fear.
Jane was sympathetic; when was she not? It made it hard for Elizabeth to breathe. “He did not say. I am sorry; it must have been terrible for you to stay without any family.”
“My father wrote to me, telling me that once my mourning was completed, I would have to come down to Hertfordshire. It was a comfort to know that I would soon see you all.”
“He should have sent Edward, if he could not be bothered to travel.” Jane’s voice was, suddenly, uncharacteristically sharp.
Elizabeth thought with some amusement that her father was making a lot of enemies for actions he could have never taken, though it was rather fair, because he was not making them for the actions he had.
“Oh, no, I would have rather he did not interrupt his Grand Tour for me!”
An undecipherable look passed Jane’s face, and Elizabeth thought suddenly that Jane was probably thinking that if they had interrupted his Grand Tour, he would have been safe and well at home. No consolation is possible, said Elizabeth forcefully to herself, unless you tell her the truth.
Jane’s next phrase drew Elizabeth’s surprised gaze to her. Her tone was wistful, her gaze in her still hands.
“I hardly ever thought about you. I have no memory of those first years after you and Edward were born; the first time I remember hearing your name was when I was seven years old and put Edward in a dress of mine. And even afterwards, when Edward began to visit you every now and then, I only waited for his return.”
Jane looked up for a moment and then away, frowning. “I used to be so jealous of you. I never remembered meeting you and you were just a shadow, an idea of a sister who had more claim on Edward than even me.”
Elizabeth looked away. And then, it was just a falling away of a false attitude and subtle change in posture—of no longer making a conscious effort to speak softly—before saying her next words as she looked into her sister’s eyes. It was almost unconsciously done. “I am sure that no other person had more claim on Edward’s affections than you, Jane.”
Jane’s eyes widened. She looked her over, she almost stopped breathing with amazement, and Elizabeth could not endure it. It had been foolish—a foolish way to go about it. Now, what could she say? Yes, it is me: I have deceived you. I am not who you think I am. I was not who you thought I was. I was not who I am. Everything sounded foolish.
Should she wait for Jane to ask? She had never seen Jane’s eyes flashing in true anger. She did not want to be looking her in the eye when her anger was directed at her, so she stood and went to the window. The London street outside was filthy and a slight grey drizzle made it seem even more so.
The moment stretched what it seemed like forever, before Jane appeared at her elbow. Elizabeth felt her presence before she heard her voice.
“Why?”
Elizabeth did not turn. “Why? It was never a choice, not on my part. I did not… my father raised me as much as he raised you. There were practical reasons for his actions, of course, but lately… I think he took pleasure in the fact that I was as much his creation as everyone else is God’s.”
“Practical reasons?” Jane’s voice shook.
Elizabeth drew the curtain open a little more and stared into it, silent.
“What practical reasons could he possibly have?”
“The entail—”
It was as if Jane had been waiting for those words to be spoken. “The entail! What nonsense! Could we not live without Longbourn after he died?”
Elizabeth felt a smile forming upon her lips, and she gave in to the urge to turn. To look at her sister, after all that time! To look at her and to be sure Jane was looking back knowingly, not at some sister by blood that she barely knew, but at her own dear sibling. Because she knew, despite her fear of her reaction, she knew Jane. She would be, despite all, still her dear sibling in Jane’s mind.
Jane stood close to her, brow furrowed and eyes glittering. She wanted an answer and her reasoning was impeccable: could they have not?
“His thinking process, I have always thought, was heavily influenced by the fact he hated life after our mother’s death, and wanted to live it according to his own rules. He was not wise: that, I believe, he saw soon enough, but the path had already been taken, and he could only follow it to its conclusion.”
“Wise? Of course he was not wise. But to warp you? To force you to act as you were not meant to? He did wrong by you, and I was blind to it.” Jane was crying, her eyes overflowing with silent tears.
Elizabeth felt useless to comfort her physically; as close as they were standing next to each other, they were still miles apart.
“I did not disagree with him, Jane. Longbourn is my home. I thought… for the longest time I thought that I was born to be its mistress—its master. I was not made unhappy, Jane, not then.”
Jane took her hands, and drew her close. “But now, you are?”
“Now… now I know not what to feel.”
Jane threw her arms around her and hid her wet face in Elizabeth’s neck.
Their embrace comforted them both.
Elizabeth passed the next week almost exclusively with Jane. No one was surprised by their sudden affinity, as it seemed natural for sisters to be so, even if they had not shared their infancy, nor even met before. Between them, they never mentioned that they had. It did not hang between them as a heavy curtain, as Elizabeth had feared. It was as it had never been, and Jane took care of helping Elizabeth learn all those things that would have been inappropriate for her to learn before, without a word, as if it was natural for her to do so.
They were not abilities that Elizabeth could appreciate. She remembered dismissing them in a conversation with Darcy, and it could not be said that she had changed her mind. She could not be earnest with them, but she made some effort, because they were important to the purpose of being a lady.
They were covering a tea caddy, paper strewn on the table in front of them when a servant came to let Jane know that her sister, Miss Bingley, had arrived. Jane went to receive her and asked Elizabeth to wait for them where she was. It was no punishment for her to do so; what is more, she would have preferred to be spared meeting the lady altogether. Nevertheless, she knew it was not to be if she planned spending any time with her sister.
To Elizabeth, the wait became close to unsupportable very soon; the rolling of silver papers not enough distraction. It was not, she assured herself, that she was afraid of the outcome. Jane would have not realized the truth herself, and she knew Elizabeth far better than Miss Bingley. But she knew that Miss Bingley’s eyes were too sharp by half, and even if the only thing they would be able to see was that Elizabeth Bennet made a very poor lady, it made her uneasy to be under her scrutiny.
Finally, she heard them enter the room, and she stood up to greet and be introduced to Miss Bingley. She raised her eyes and even as she noted that Miss Bingley was more wan and waif-like than what was strictly fashionable, the lady met her eyes for a second, paled even more and swayed on her feet. Elizabeth wasted not a moment in going to her side and so was there to catch her limp body when she fainted. Jane was all astonishment and could not react even as Elizabeth carried Miss Bingley to a settee and searched her reticule for a vinaigrette she knew would be there, smelling of lavender.
Elizabeth gave it up to Jane the second she perceived Miss Bingley was coming to. She did not want to be close to the lady when she did, and her motive was twofold. She feared for her health and wanted to let her recuperate, and the situation, being that Miss Bingley had undoubtedly recognized her, was too awkward to bear.
“I’m sorry, Jane, to leave you like this, but perhaps it is better that she is surrounded by friends until she gets better?” Seeing her beginning to protest, she added, “I will come back tomorrow.” Hopefully Miss Bingley would be convinced by then that the uncanny similarity between the siblings was natural.
“And you will come to Derbyshire with us?”
Elizabeth had demurred earlier, when Jane had said that not only had she and her husband been invited, but that they were expected to bring their sisters.
She did not think that Darcy could have avoided the open invitation, as close as he was to Bingley. She knew she could not expect a sign from him, but she could not impose herself on his presence or his sister’s without knowing he wanted her there.
Jane looked at her, suddenly shrewd. “Mr. Darcy asked Charles for you especially, you know, as soon as he learnt you were in London and I had met you. He said he is looking forward to meeting you. To see how similar you are to Edward. He was his friend, you see.”
Elizabeth felt herself colour and looked away. Was this the message she did not dare hope for? How could she say no if he asked for her presence?
“I will, then.”
She could only hope he meant it, and that it was not some platitude exaggerated by Jane to make her agree.