Chapter Seven
Autumn had come gradually to Longbourn, not with the brilliance of summer’s height nor the starkness of winter’s approach, but with a subdued gentleness that seemed to settle over the house and its inhabitants alike.
The trees beyond the windows had begun their slow transformation, leaves turning in shades of amber and gold, drifting down in spirals whenever the wind stirred.
The air held a crispness that spoke of change, of endings and beginnings alike, but, within the walls of Longbourn, there lingered a stillness that was neither restful nor content.
Elizabeth Bennet had not found comfort in the passing months.
She moved through her days as one who fulfilled her duties from habit rather than inclination, her former liveliness subdued into something else, something more restrained.
Her laughter, once so readily given, had become rare, and when it did appear, it lacked the easy warmth that had once defined it.
Bruno followed her around like a shadow, his melancholy matching her own.
The dog’s presence soothed her aching heart.
His behavior, that of a puppy just a short while ago, quickly matured into that of a well-trained dog.
Every time he was offered bacon in reward for good behavior, another stab of pain shot through Elizabeth’s heart.
Her family observed the change in differing degrees—her mother with irritation, her father with concern thinly veiled by humor, and her sisters with varying levels of understanding—but it was Jane who saw most clearly. Jane, who had always known her best.
It was on a morning marked by pale light and the faint scent of fallen leaves that Jane at last sought her out.
Elizabeth sat near the window in her bedchamber, her work lying idle in her lap, her gaze fixed upon nothing in particular.
The world beyond the glass moved as it always had, unchanged and indifferent, while within her all seemed altered beyond recognition.
“Lizzy,” Jane addressed her gently as she entered, closing the door behind her with care. “May I sit with you?”
Elizabeth started, recalled from her musings.
“Of course.”
Jane crossed the room and took the seat beside her, studying her sister’s face with a tenderness that was wholly without intrusion.
“You have not been yourself these many weeks,” she said. “I would not press you if you wished for silence, but I cannot remain easy while you bear something so evidently alone.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened upon the fabric in her lap. “It is nothing that can be mended by speaking of it.”
“Perhaps not,” Jane replied. “But it may be lessened.”
Elizabeth turned her head then, meeting her sister’s gaze. There was no curiosity there that sought to pry, no impatience—only sincere concern.
For an instant, she hesitated. She had kept it hidden so carefully.
Even in her letters home from Ramsgate, she had made no mention of Mr. Darcy beyond the most passing civility, unwilling to expose what was still so new, so fragile, to the scrutiny and speculation of her mother.
She had told herself there would be time enough when all was settled—when he had spoken to her father, when their future was no longer a matter of understanding but acknowledged certainty.
There had been no time.
“He is dead,” Elizabeth said. She had said it. And now it could not be recalled. The words fell plainly between them. They felt unnatural even as she spoke them—too final, too absolute for something her heart still resisted.
Jane stilled. “Who?” she asked, though something in her expression had already begun to shift.
Elizabeth’s voice faltered only a little. “Mr. Darcy.”
Jane’s breath caught. “Mr. Darcy—of Ramsgate? You mentioned him and his sister once or twice in your letters.”
Elizabeth nodded. “He was attacked upon the road,” she stated, her tone steady through effort alone. “Set upon by highwaymen. He did not survive.”
Jane’s hand came to rest over her own. “My dear Lizzy…”
“We were very nearly engaged.” Saying it aloud made the loss sharper, like it had only just occurred. The admission seemed to alter the very air of the room.
Jane’s eyes widened, not in shock, but in dawning understanding.
“I did not write of him,” Elizabeth went on, her gaze dropping. “I could not. Mama would have made a spectacle of it, and nothing had been formally settled. I wished to wait until he had spoken to my father. Until it was…real.”
“It was real,” Jane said soothingly.
Elizabeth shook her head, a faint, bitter motion. “It was everything.”
Silence followed—heavy and inescapable.
“I loved him,” she said at last, the words lower now, no less certain. “I love him still.”
The admission did not relieve her. It only fixed the truth more firmly in place.
Jane’s eyes filled, though her composure did not break. “Lizzy,” she murmured, “you cannot think yourself alone in such sorrow. Others have loved and lost, and though it feels now as though nothing may ease it, time—”
Elizabeth shook her head again, more firmly. “No.”
Jane paused. “No?”
“There will be no healing,” Elizabeth said. “Not in the way you mean. I shall go on, as I must, but I shall not forget him. Nor shall I seek to replace what cannot be replaced.” It was not because she wished to hold her grief—but because she did not know who she would be without it.
Jane regarded her with concern. “You are very young still.”
“And I have already known what it is to find my equal,” Elizabeth replied. “He was everything I might have wished for—and more. I shall not find such again.”
“Lizzy—”
“I shall remain as I am,” she said, her voice steadying. “It is better so. I would not accept less.”
Jane did not argue further. She knew when persuasion would only wound.
After a moment, Elizabeth rose. “There is something I wish to show you.”
Jane followed as Elizabeth crossed the room and knelt beside a small escritoire, withdrawing from within it a carefully wrapped parcel. She handled it with a gentleness that spoke of its value beyond its appearance. When she unwrapped it, a small shell lay revealed.
It rested easily within her palm, its shape delicate and perfectly formed, the hues of ivory and rose deepened by careful polishing.
“He gave it to me,” Elizabeth said, her voice trembling. “On the shore at Ramsgate.”
Jane leaned closer, her expression tender. “It is very pretty.”
“It was lodged between the rocks,” Elizabeth explained. “He saw it and thought I might like it. He said nothing of consequence—only that it was pleasing—but I have never received a gift more…considered.”
She turned it in her hand, the light catching along its smooth curve. “I have polished it since,” she added. “With oil, to bring out its color. It is a small thing, yet…”
“It is not small to you.”
“No.” Elizabeth closed her fingers gently around it. “I shall keep it always.”
She rose then and crossed to her wardrobe, opening it and reaching to the back where a small keepsake box lay hidden from casual view. She placed the shell within, her movements careful, deliberate. When she closed the lid, she lingered a moment. Then she turned away.
Mrs. Bennet’s voice carried through the house before she herself appeared, her excitement announcing her long before her person entered the room.
“My dear Mr. Bennet! Such news—such news!”
Mr. Bennet, who had been seated with a book, looked up with mild resignation.
“I tremble to hear it.”
“Netherfield Park is let at last!”
“Indeed?”
“Yes! And to a young family, I am told—quite respectable, no doubt—but what a pity, what a very great pity, that it was not taken by a young, single gentleman! It would have been the making of our family.”
Mr. Bennet inclined his head. “I shall endeavor to contain my disappointment.”
“You do not understand at all,” Mrs. Bennet pressed, pacing the room. “Five daughters—and not one advantage to be gained! Jane as beautiful as ever, and Lizzy—well—” she waved her hand. “She might have done very well for herself, had she but made proper use of her time in Ramsgate.”
Elizabeth, who had entered unnoticed, felt the words pass over her without effect.
“She returned unattached,” Mrs. Bennet went on, “and now she is worse than ever—so pale, so dull. I declare, she has quite lost her looks!”
“An alarming development,” Mr. Bennet said dryly.
“It is most distressing. Something must be done. We must go to Town for the Season. There is nothing else for it.”
Mr. Bennet regarded her. “Very well.”
Mrs. Bennet stopped short. “Very well?”
“I have already made arrangements,” he said. “We shall take a house in Town for some months after Christmas.”
Mrs. Bennet stared at him. “Mr. Bennet! You cannot be serious!”
“I am entirely so.”
A moment later, she burst into delighted exclamations. “My dear Mr. Bennet! How good you are! How thoughtful! Oh, we shall do so very well in Town—Jane will have every opportunity—and Lizzy, too—though she must take greater care with her complexion—Mrs. Hill! Mrs. Hill!”
She hurried from the room, calling instructions before she had even formed them.
Mr. Bennet watched her go, then turned his attention to Elizabeth. “My dear Lizzy, will you come to my study?”
Elizabeth followed him.
When the door closed behind them, his expression altered—losing its habitual lightness. “You have not been well,” he said.
Elizabeth hesitated only a moment. Then she told him everything.
He listened without interruption, his expression intent, though there was a gravity in his manner that spoke of deeper feeling.
When she had finished, he sighed.
“I am sorry for it,” he said. “Truly.”
Elizabeth said nothing.
“But you must not suppose this the end of all things,” he cajoled. “A lady likes to be crossed in love now and then. It gives her something to think of—and to boast of later.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “This is not that.”
“No?”
“No.”
He studied her a moment longer. “Time will do what it always does.”
“Perhaps,” she said. But she did not believe it. She rose then and left him, her composure intact though her heart remained unchanged.
Plans were soon made. Their departure was fixed for the days following Christmas, but before Twelfth Night, when society in Town would begin in earnest. Mr. Bennet spoke of an old acquaintance from Cambridge—Sir Walter Barton—who had offered to introduce them within his circle, a prospect which sent Mrs. Bennet into renewed raptures.
“I shall come as well,” she declared at once. “I cannot allow such an opportunity to pass without proper oversight.”
“My dear,” Mr. Bennet replied, “your oversight is very well established here. The younger girls require your guidance, and I cannot leave Longbourn entirely to chance.”
Mrs. Bennet hesitated. “The household—”
“Would suffer without you,” he said gravely. “And I could not answer for the consequences.”
The argument, so framed, could not easily be resisted.
She relented—though not without repeated assurances that she would follow as soon as circumstances permitted. With promises of gifts from Bond Street shops, Mrs. Bennet agreed to stay in Hertfordshire.
Christmas came. It passed in its usual manner—festive, noisy, filled with small pleasures and family expectations. Elizabeth participated as she must, offering smiles where required, engaging where necessary, though always with a distance that none but Jane fully perceived.
On Christmas morning, Jane sought her out. “I have something for you,” she said, her expression warm.
Elizabeth accepted the small parcel, unwrapping it with care. Within lay a necklace.
Elizabeth turned the little object in her fingers, her breath catching almost at once.
The shell—her shell—no larger than her thumb, had been left in its natural form, its blush of ivory and rose deepened by a gentle polish that caught the light with warmth.
A narrow band of gold had been fitted about its upper curve, shaped so precisely it seemed to cradle rather than confine it, with the finest wire drawn in a delicate spiral to follow the shell’s own line.
There was no sign of force or alteration, only care.
It hung from a slender chain, light enough that she scarcely felt its weight, and the workmanship spoke of deliberate expense.
That Jane—who spent so little upon herself—should have contrived such a thing from her own small savings struck Elizabeth more keenly than any grander gift.
It was not the ornament that moved her, but the tenderness of it; that her sister had seen something simple and lovely, and thought of her.
“Jane…”
Jane smiled. “I thought you might wish to keep it close.”
Elizabeth could not speak. Then she reached forward and embraced her sister tightly. “Thank you.”
Jane returned the embrace, her hand gentle upon Elizabeth’s back. When they parted, Elizabeth’s composure wavered.
“I must—” she began, then stopped.
Jane understood at once.
“Go,” she said.
Elizabeth withdrew to her room. Once inside, she closed the door and leaned against it, the necklace still clasped in her hand.
For a moment, she stood quite still. Then she crossed to her bed and sank upon it, drawing her knees up, the delicate chain curling between her fingers. The shell lay warm against her palm.
A memory rose—unbidden, vivid. The shore, his voice, the way he had held it out to her.
“I thought you might like this.”
She pressed the necklace to her heart. The tears came then, sudden and unrestrained. She curled upon the bed, the power of her grief returning in full force, as sharp and overwhelming as it had been that first day.
“I love you,” she whispered into the stillness. There was no answer, only silence and memory. At last, exhausted, she wept herself to sleep.