Chapter Eight
The dining room at Longbourn glowed with the soft warmth of firelight and candle sconces, flickering gently against the windows where the darkness of Twelfth Night pressed in.
Though there were no guests and no grand celebration, the table was set with care—gleaming silver, polished glass, and a roast that filled the house with its savoury smell.
It was just the Bennet family this year, with the addition of two recently hired governesses who had been invited to dine with them in honour of the occasion.
Both were older ladies—older than Mr Bennet by some years.
Mr Gardiner had vetted each, and they were therefore safe to employ.
Miss Lane sat beside Kitty and Lydia, her hands folded neatly, whilst Miss Grant, who managed young Tommy’s lessons and the nursery, hovered protectively near her young charge.
Supper was laid at five o’clock, and all were present and seated—no small feat for such a spirited household.
Tommy Bennet, the youngest member of the family and its greatest source of chaos and delight, had managed to smuggle a paper crown onto his head from an earlier game and now sat proudly beside Mr Bennet.
His curls, though darker than the tow-blonde of his infancy, still caught the firelight like gold.
He was in high spirits, cheeks rosy and expression angelic—until he dropped his spoon and, in a flash of mischief, retrieved it only to perch it delicately on the end of his nose.
Mr Bennet glanced down at him over the rim of his spectacles.
“An admirable use of cutlery,” he murmured dryly. “Should I ask Cook to begin plating pudding this way?”
Tommy giggled, his spoon clattering to his plate as he turned to Elizabeth beside him. “I want pudding now, Lizzy.”
“After you have eaten your meat and potatoes,” Elizabeth replied, hiding her smile as she cut his roast into small, manageable pieces. “You know the rules.”
“I hate boiled potatoes,” Tommy declared with dramatic despair, poking them with his fork as if they were a personal affront. “They taste like wet paper.”
Lydia snorted and quickly covered her mouth, whilst Kitty let out a strangled laugh.
“Lydia,” Miss Lane warned gently, “comportment at the table.”
Lydia rolled her eyes but dutifully straightened her spine and returned her attention to her plate. Miss Lane gave her a subtle nod of approval.
Tommy, meanwhile, had launched into his petition. “I want them roasted. Or with butter. Or mashed with milk like Nanny does it. But not boiled! That’s for old people. Even potatoes in stew taste better.”
Mr Bennet gave an exaggerated sigh. “Alas, I am an old person, and now I must reconsider my entire diet.”
“I do not think you are old, Papa,” Tommy said loyally, then turned back to Elizabeth with widened eyes. “Is the pudding treacle?”
“Figgy,” Elizabeth said, lifting a single brow. “Which you shall not taste unless you eat two more bites of meat and all your carrots and potatoes.”
Tommy made a great show of considering this injustice, then stabbed his carrots with gallant resolution.
Across the table, Mary sat primly between Jane and her father, her gown a modest dove grey with a prim collar.
She had only recently come out only two months after Elizabeth—after much negotiation with her father, who had resisted releasing her into society whilst Jane and Elizabeth remained unmarried.
Mary had argued the case as if delivering a sermon, citing birth order, moral philosophy, and her own preparation.
In the end, Mr Bennet had relented, saying teasingly, “I suppose we must send someone to scowl over the punch bowl.”
She now addressed her sister with serene gravity.
“I believe young Tommy could benefit from a stricter dietary routine. Temperance is a virtue that ought to be instilled early.”
“He is three,” Elizabeth said with a half-laugh. “If he has even one virtue besides charm, I shall consider it a miracle.”
Tommy beamed and held out his empty fork. “I ate the carrots. Can I have pudding now?”
“Potatoes first,” Elizabeth said firmly.
Tommy groaned.
“I think you are being very brave,” Jane said soothingly, leaning forwards with her gentle smile. “Even when I was small, I disliked boiled potatoes. I used to hide them under my napkin.”
Tommy's eyes lit up. “Can I do that?”
“Absolutely not,” Elizabeth and Miss Grant said at once.
Dinner continued in that easy rhythm, full of conversation and the shifting cadence of a family long accustomed to each other's company.
Lydia tried to tell a riddle she had heard in Meryton but botched the punchline, to general amusement.
Kitty reminded her of it with great superiority, and they squabbled good-naturedly over who remembered it best. Jane was a calm anchor, keeping the mood light with a smile and a soft word here or there.
Mary, earnest and proud, offered to read aloud after supper from a new text she had acquired.
Mr Bennet murmured something about fortifying his nerves with port before agreeing.
When at last the figgy pudding was brought in—steaming and aromatic—Tommy sat up straighter than he had all evening, his expression one of reverent awe.
“I am going to eat two helpings,” he whispered to Elizabeth.
“Are you?” she replied, placing a generous spoonful on his plate. "That is a lot for such a young man."
He crossed his heart solemnly and picked up his spoon.
It was not a grand evening. There were no guests, no music beyond the crackling hearth and the clink of silverware. But it was warm. It was full. And as the laughter continued, and the pudding disappeared, Elizabeth found herself more content than she had been in many weeks.
Twelfth Night marked the end of the season, but for this one evening, the heart of the house had never felt more full.
Winter gave way to spring far sooner than Elizabeth had imagined. One day the frost still clung to the hedgerows, and the next, crocuses burst up in brilliant defiance of the cold. The thaw came not only to the earth but to the household, as light and laughter seemed to follow wherever Tommy went.
He had grown—alarmingly so. Despite being not quite four years of age, he was now all elbows and knees and wild energy, a half-head taller than any other boy in the parish.
The village children, who had once outrun him with ease, now fell behind one by one as he dashed ahead with effortless strides and a crow of triumph.
He won every race he entered and declared himself “the fastest lad in Hertfordshire,” a claim no one dared dispute—not because it was necessarily true, but because he could out-talk and out-grin even the most stubborn doubter.
He was a charming terror.
Elizabeth had long suspected that Tommy had more intelligence than most lads his age. He spoke not with childish mimicry, but with an attentiveness that suggested understanding well beyond his years. Even so, he was still a boy, and prone to seek adventure.
She watched him now from her seat beneath the budding hawthorn tree as he darted across the lawn, his coattails flapping like flags behind him. Jane sat nearby with her needlework, and Lydia was meant to be supervising but had been drawn into a giggling conversation with Kitty about ribbon trims.
Tommy stopped just short of the path, turned towards his sisters, and grinned broadly. “Watch this!”
He scrunched his face in fierce concentration, stuck out his ears, and—amazingly—wiggled them.
Kitty shrieked with laughter. Lydia clapped her hands in delight.
“I told you I could do it,” he declared, beaming. “Papa says it is a singular talent—says it proves I am a Bennet.”
Elizabeth smiled faintly at that, but the words lodged somewhere deep.
He was a Bennet. He must be.
She had no claim to his birth, no blood tie. And yet she loved him more fiercely than she had ever thought possible. Every lopsided smile, every absurd game, every moment of joy he brought into their lives confirmed it.
Still, the truth pressed down on her like a weight—one she could not shift, no matter how often she reminded herself this had been necessary.
She watched him run again, chasing a startled chicken across the yard. He looked nothing like Mr Bennet—his hair was too fair, his features too delicate—but his wit, his timing, his incorrigible teasing were reminiscent of their father.
That night, as twilight settled across Longbourn, a letter arrived by express.
Mr Bennet read it with one raised brow and a curious smirk tugging at his lips. Elizabeth, summoned to the study under the pretence of helping with the organizing of botanical volumes, found him still seated, the letter dangling from his fingers.
“Well,” he said, “our most unwelcome cousin, Obadiah Collins, has finally met his reward—or punishment, depending on whom you ask. Dead these three weeks, and the son inherits.”
Elizabeth sat across from him, hands folded tightly. “William Collins? You mentioned him once before.”
“The very one. Still, I suspect, just as absurd as his father—perhaps worse.”
Elizabeth felt her stomach twist. “But he cannot inherit now, not whilst…not whilst Tommy lives.”
“Indeed.” Mr Bennet placed the letter on the side table and regarded her carefully. “I suppose now is the moment when you tell me you are riddled with guilt and feel as though we are swindling the rightful heir out of his birthright?”
She blinked at him, surprised, though not entirely.
“I—yes. I do feel that way. At times.”
He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Lizzy, I do not often take anything seriously, but I will speak plainly now. We have done nothing wrong.”
She said nothing, but her brow furrowed. In the eyes of the law, they had most definitely done something wrong.
“I acted to protect you, and Jane, and your sisters. To protect our tenants. And, if he is as illiterate as his father, to protect Longbourn from the fumbling grasp of a man who would ruin all three inside of five years.”
“But the entail—”