Chapter Three
Elizabeth was still circling the ending. When the words refused to cooperate, she pushed back from the desk and headed for the kitchen. As she was making tea, her phone pinged.
It was a link to her royalty statement, showing numbers that would have made past Elizabeth giddy.
She stared, then snorted at herself. In her head she was still the girl who learned to shower in under four minutes because there were two bathrooms and five girls who had to share them.
Her income had changed rather dramatically in the past few years, but her view of herself hadn’t quite caught up.
She had managed to write three terrible sentences and then delete them when her phone started buzzing in earnest. The Bennet Sisters group chat—or “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Judgements” as Lydia had renamed it last month—was lighting up like a Christmas tree.
She glanced at the screen, then at her laptop where her unfinished novel sat waiting, then back at the screen. When the group chat exploded, resistance was futile.
Lydia (leadinglady): [Photo of herself and three equally glamorous friends with too much makeup posing with cocktails that appeared to be on fire] GRLS NIGHT OUT!!! We’re at that new place in Shoreditch where everything costs ￡18 but tastes like HEAVEN!
Kitty (snapkat): OMG those drinks look amazing! Is that the place with the swing seats? Kitty (snapkat): OMG those drinks look amazing! Is that the place with the swing seats?
Lydia (leadinglady): YES!! I’m literally swinging right now!!
Mary (Grade A Bennet): I feel compelled to point out that consuming beverages and texting while suspended several feet above the ground seems dangerous.
Lydia (leadinglady): Mary you’re literally the MOST FUN PERSON ALIVE
Mary (Grade A Bennet): I was merely observing that—
Kitty (snapkat): Lyds send me the location!! I’m finishing this Netflix episode and then I’m coming
Jane: Please both of you be careful. And maybe eat something substantial?
Lydia (leadinglady): Jane we’ve had LOADS to eat. They do these tiny burgers that are basically art
Elizabeth (plotgoblin): Tiny burgers are not substantial food
Lydia (leadinglady) LIZZY!! You’re alive!! I thought you’d been murdered by your own characters again
Elizabeth snorted and glanced over at Waffles, who had somehow managed to wrap himself in the yarn she’d left trailing from her knitting basket. He looked like a Christmas tree decorated by toddlers.
Elizabeth (plotgoblin): I’m stuck on the reveal. It needs a declarative beat and I don’t have it yet. But on the upside, Waffles has decided to help with the knitting.
Kitty (snapkat): Why are you knitting?? You hate crafts
Elizabeth (plotgoblin): I’m making a Christmas present. It’s going well
This was a lie. To distract herself, Elizabeth changed everyone’s name except for Lydia’s. Lydia would just change it back
Mary: Handmade presents are much more meaningful than bought items.
Lydia (leadinglady): Unless you’re rubbish at making things. Then it just proves that you care enough to give someone something awful
Elizabeth: Thank you, Lydia. Your confidence in my abilities is overwhelming.
Lydia: (leadinglady) I’m just saying!!! Remember when you tried to make Jane a birthday cake and it collapsed?
Elizabeth: I was sixteen.
Jane: It was a lovely gesture. The strawberries were perfect.
Elizabeth: The strawberries were the only part I didn’t make
Kitty: What are you making and for who?????
Elizabeth hesitated, her fingers hovering over the phone.
She hadn’t told her younger sisters about Darcy yet.
Not properly. Jane knew, because they had met at her party, but she could be trusted with state secrets and always knew everything anyway.
But the others . . . well, the others would have opinions. Many, many opinions.
Elizabeth: Just a scarf. For someone.
Lydia (leadinglady): SOMEONE???
Kitty: WHO IS SOMEONE
Mary: Elizabeth is entitled to privacy regarding her personal relationships.
Lydia (leadinglady): Mary stop being reasonable it’s BORING
Kitty: Is it a boy someone or a girl someone???
Elizabeth stared at her phone while Waffles spun in circles, perhaps under the impression that if he moved fast enough, the yarn would release him through centrifugal force.
She couldn’t explain to her sisters that she’d fallen head over heels for a man who owned actual art, drove a car that cost more than most people’s houses, and had a wine cellar catalogued like a museum. They’d either think she was joking or demand his full financial history.
Elizabeth: I haven’t told you that Waffles learned how to open the biscuit tin
Lydia (leadinglady): WHAT
Kitty: That’s terrible!! He’ll get fat!
Jane: Oh Lizzy, that’s not good for him
Mary: Dogs need consistent portion control for optimal health
Elizabeth: I’ve moved the tin. Crisis averted.
Lydia (leadinglady): WHO ARE YOU KNITTING FOR????
Her phone started ringing before she could respond. Not the group chat, but an actual call. From Mum.
Elizabeth stared at the screen for a moment, thumb hovering over the decline button.
She could let it go to voicemail. She could claim she’d been in the shower, or walking Waffles, or struck temporarily deaf.
But her mother had the persistence of a tax collector.
If Elizabeth didn’t answer now, she’d only call back in ten minutes, then again in five, then eventually turn up at the flat with a spare key she’d lifted from Jane, who, despite her ability to keep secrets, was rubbish at hiding things.
She answered on the fifth ring.
“Hello, Mum.”
“Elizabeth! At last! I’ve been calling for ages.”
“It’s been thirty seconds.”
“Don’t exaggerate, darling. I wanted to catch up. Are you still writing those dreadful stories about people being murdered?”
Elizabeth freed Waffles from his yarn prison and settled back on the sofa, phone trapped between her ear and shoulder. “They’re mysteries, Mum. And yes, I’m still writing them. It’s my job.”
“Well, I do worry about you filling your head with all that violence and unpleasantness. It can’t be healthy. And it certainly can’t be helping your romantic prospects.”
“My romantic prospects are fine, thank you.”
“When was the last time you went on a proper date, Lizzy? With a nice man who doesn’t spend his evenings thinking about creative ways to dispose of bodies?”
Elizabeth winced. Her mother had a point, though not the one she thought she was making.
Elizabeth’s last proper relationship had ended a year ago when she’d discovered that her boyfriend James, who had seemed perfectly normal, had been systematically lying about everything from his job to his flat to his relationship with his ex-girlfriend.
The experience had left her feeling like one of her own murder victims: blindsided, betrayed, and distinctly dead inside.
Until Darcy.
“Mum, I’m twenty-six. I can manage my own romantic life.”
“Truly? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re managing to avoid having one at all. And I’m not getting any younger, Elizabeth. I’d like to see at least one of my daughters settled before I’m too old to enjoy my grandchildren.”
“Jane’s with Charles. She’s settled.”
“Jane’s been with Charles for ten months. That’s not settled, that’s barely begun. But yes, they do seem to be moving in a positive direction. Which is why I can now focus on you.”
Yay.
Elizabeth glanced at her knitting basket. Waffles, now free of yarn but traumatised by the experience, had retreated to his bed and was eyeing the knitting basket with deep suspicion.
“I’m not avoiding romance, Mum. I’m just selective.”
“Selective is one thing. Hermetic is another. I’m not saying you’ll find someone straightaway, Lizzy, but these things take time, and you need to make a start. Now, Mrs. Long has a nephew . . .”
The words were out before Elizabeth could stop them. “Actually, I’m seeing someone.”
Silence. Complete, utter silence, as though her mother had been struck temporarily speechless by this unexpected development.
Then: “You’re what?”
“I’m seeing someone. Dating someone. Someone male, before you ask, and someone respectable.”
“How long?”
“Three months.”
“Three months? Elizabeth Bennet, you’ve been dating someone for three months and didn’t tell your mother?”
Elizabeth could practically hear the wheels turning in her Mum’s head, calculating missed opportunities for interference, advice-giving, and general maternal involvement.
“It’s still early days, Mum. I didn’t want to make a fuss until I knew if it was going anywhere.”
“Is it? Going anywhere?”
Elizabeth thought about how Darcy looked at her when he thought she wasn’t watching.
“Maybe. I hope so.”
“Well, then. You’ll have to bring him to dinner.”
And there it was. The trap Elizabeth always walked into. She couldn’t seem to help it.
“Mum . . .”
“Don’t ‘Mum’ me. Three months, Elizabeth. Three months, and I haven’t even met him. What’s his name?”
“William. He goes by Darcy.”
“Darcy? What kind of name is Darcy?”
“It’s his surname. He’s . . . it’s a public school thing.”
“Public school?” Mum’s voice fell into a lower register, something it did whenever they discussed something that reflected well on the family’s social standing. “What does he do for work?”
“He’s in finance. Investment management.”
“Oh.” A pause. “That sounds stable.”
Her mother was always worrying about Elizabeth’s writing career. Despite her making a good living, all Mum could see was that her income wasn’t steady.
“How did you meet him?”
“At Jane’s party last autumn. He’s a friend of Charles’s.”
Elizabeth could see her mother reassessing her entire opinion of Elizabeth’s life choices.
A friend of Charles’s was conveniently vetted.
A man in finance had prospects. A man who had attended public school might be able to support a family, unlike the string of creative types Elizabeth had dated in the past.
“So, when are you bringing him home?”