Chapter 8
Elizabeth Bennet held the account book open with one hand and passed a sheet of parchment across her father’s desk with the other.
“Sign here, Papa. And again, at the bottom.”
Mr. Bennet did not look up from his armchair, where he sat reading a book. “I do wonder, my dear, if I have not become merely a tool to affix ink to paper.”
“I shall have it carved on your headstone,” Elizabeth replied, dipping the pen and setting it in his hand. “Thomas Bennet, Father, Philosopher, Signature Machine.”
He chuckled and scratched his name, eyes still fixed on the page of Latin verse open in his lap. “There. You have what you need. Now do run along and settle the realm.”
Elizabeth tucked the signed document into her folio, already brimming with tenant notices, grain tallies, and one crumpled letter from the butcher in Meryton politely requesting the Bennets’ bill be paid in full by Michaelmas.
She added a note to her mental ledger—speak with Hill about stretching the meat this week—and turned to leave the study, only to pause in the doorway.
“Papa,” she said carefully, “would you consider it—just consider it—hiring a steward?”
“A steward!” he exclaimed, as if she had suggested hiring an elephant. “My dear girl, what need have we of such a thing when I have you?”
“You mean a girl with no formal training and too many sisters,” she muttered.
He lifted his eyes at last. “You have a remarkable head on your shoulders, Lizzy. Much better than half the men in the county.”
“That is not a compliment. It is a lament.”
But he had already returned to his reading.
Outside the study, Elizabeth pressed the folio to her chest and exhaled slowly.
The house echoed with familiar noise—Kitty shouting for her blue ribbon, Lydia trilling some off-key ballad from last night’s assembly, and Mary informing Mrs. Bennet that she would not be wearing lace to the next assembly, as she intended to be noticed for her mind, not her gown.
It was not even half past ten.
She made for the front hall, bonnet in hand, and paused before the pier glass. It had never troubled her until recently—until the differences began to seem… too obvious.
Four blond sisters. Blue-eyed, round-faced, plump-lipped.
And then there was Elizabeth.
Dark hair. Green eyes. A complexion that always freckled. Her features were finer, almost too much so—her chin too pointed, her lashes too long. No one had ever questioned it aloud, but in every family painting, in every group gathering, she stood out like a drop of ink in milk.
She had grown used to it. Or at least, she had learned not to mind.
Her figure was slight, though she did not lack the exuberant curves that had made Jane the prize of every Meryton dance.
That had not always been the case—Elizabeth had been boyish for years, and then, quite suddenly at fifteen, nature had delivered its verdict with an altogether impertinent swiftness.
She had been mortified. Fanny had crowed in triumph. Jane had blushed for her. And Lydia had laughed and made lewd comments until Elizabeth had threatened to pour honey in her hair.
Now, at nearly twenty, she remained slim, her shoulders and waist narrow but her bosom—well, that could not be helped, unless she wished for the discomfort of binding as Viola did in Twelfth Night.
Her daily walks kept the rest in check. She refused to grow soft like her sisters.
She had no time for sugar-frosted biscuits or idle lounging.
Not when she had barley prices to compare and thatch to inspect and three tenant households overdue on their rents.
Longbourn was no great estate. It was comfortable, respectable, but only just. And when the outflow matched the income nearly to the shilling—when her mother demanded French lace and extra syllabub in the same week the roof over the Dobbins’ cottage had begun to leak—there was little margin for error.
Elizabeth bent to retrieve the tin box beneath the side table, where she kept notes for each of the tenants. Mrs. Hill had added two new complaints this week—one about the poultry fencing, the other about the rising cost of soap.
The mistress of Longbourn could not be troubled with such domesticities.
But Elizabeth could. In fact, she could not afford to do otherwise.
And so, she fastened her bonnet, squared her shoulders, and stepped into the bright morning sunlight, a storm of ribbons and gossip already gathering at her back.
The lane between Longbourn and the nearest of the tenant cottages was bordered by budding hedgerows and new grass, the pale yellow of early primroses peeking up at her from the verge.
Elizabeth kept a brisk pace, her folio tucked beneath one arm and her shawl drawn tight.
The sun was pleasant, but her thoughts were not.
The estate ledger showed a delicate balance—one more indulgent purchase from her mother, or one poor harvest, and it would tip.
And while Elizabeth had found three separate charges this quarter that could be reduced with a little gentle pressure on tradesmen, it was a temporary solution.
Her father would not speak of economies.
And her mother—well, Fanny had not yet recovered from the disappointment of Lydia’s birth.
The lack of a son, though unspoken of directly, hovered always over the household like a half-drawn curtain.
She reached the first cottage—Mrs. Tilby’s—and was immediately greeted with warm cries and the smell of baking.
“Miss Elizabeth! Oh, do come in—you’ll be takin’ tea?”
“No, thank you, just inspections today.” Elizabeth smiled warmly as the woman pointed to a few cracks that had developed near the fireplace.
She then asked after the thatch, made a note to send Hill with a parcel of muslin for the baby’s binding, and promised to speak to Mr. Harrow about making repairs before the winter chill blew in.
At the next house, little Thomas Newell burst out the front door with a triumphant cry and presented her with a frog in a jam jar. She complimented his catch, scolded him gently for leaving his school slate undone, and left him red-faced and giggling behind his mother’s skirts.
By the time she turned back toward Longbourn, the folio was fatter, her feet were sore, and she had three new items for the steward she did not have.
If only there were such a man, she thought, flexing her aching fingers. Someone to carry the weight. Someone to care as I do.
She was so deep in thought that she nearly missed the familiar figure waiting at the lane’s fork.
“Eliza!” Charlotte Lucas approached with a brisk smile and her usual folded hands. Her pelisse was modest but well-kept, her hair neat beneath her bonnet, and her expression as pleasant and obliging as ever.
“Charlotte,” Elizabeth returned, mustering a smile. “Have you come to meet me, or is this merely a fortunate accident?”
“A very fortunate one, I hope.” Charlotte glanced at the folio beneath Elizabeth’s arm. “Still about your business, I see. Your tenants must love you dearly.”
“They do not complain,” Elizabeth said lightly. “At least not until I mention rent.”
Charlotte laughed, but her eyes were already roving over the papers. “How you manage it all is beyond me. You really ought to have been born a man—you would have made an excellent magistrate.”
“I think I should prefer to be a steward.”
“Or a bailiff,” Charlotte teased. “If only you had the whip to go with it.”
Elizabeth arched an eyebrow. “A steward carries a quill, not a whip.”
“Oh, forgive me. I only meant that you are so very—capable. Everyone knows you run Longbourn more than your father does.”
“That is unkind, Charlotte.”
“But true.”
There was a pause, one Elizabeth could not quite place.
It was not new; Charlotte had always been a friend—a sensible girl, several years her senior, with a generous patience and very few illusions—but lately there had been…
something else. A keen awareness behind the soft smiles. A note of hunger behind her cheer.
“You are always so practical,” Elizabeth said, shifting the folio. “I suppose I ought to envy that.”
“And I envy you.”
Elizabeth blinked. “Me?”
“Of course.” Charlotte’s smile deepened. “Your intelligence, your responsibilities, your independence…. Besides being the daughter of a gentleman and having at least some bit of dowry. Many of us would be fortunate to be in your place.”
Uncertain of how to respond, Elizabeth bit her lip and shifted uncomfortably.
As if recognizing that she had let her thoughts betray her, Charlotte grinned broadly and added cheekily, “And, if I may say so, your figure. You walk so much—you must be the only young lady in the county whose corsets do not cry out in protest.”
Elizabeth laughed, surprised. “Yes, well. That, at least, I may claim without vanity.”
They walked together for a moment in silence.
“It must be lonely, though,” Charlotte said suddenly. “Having the burden all to yourself.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened around the strap of her folio. “I manage.”
“You always do,” Charlotte murmured. “And everyone expects you to. You carry all of Longbourn on your back, and still your mother frets about sleeves and your sisters squabble over ribbons. No one offers to help.”
“No,” Elizabeth replied softly, “they do not.”
∞∞∞
By the time Elizabeth reached Longbourn again, her arms were sore and her mind was already sorting tenant requests into categories—urgent, can wait, and will probably be forgotten unless she personally climbs the roof to fix it.
She had not yet taken two steps inside the house when she heard it:
“Netherfield Park is let at last!”
Her mother’s voice rang through the front hall like a trumpet blast. Elizabeth sighed and passed her bonnet to Hill just as Fanny Bennet came fluttering through the drawing-room door, skirts rustling, cheeks flushed pink with excitement.