Chapter 39
Bennet understood Mrs Hill’s request before she finished making it.
She looked at the cooling hearth, the table crowded with journal, map, mugs, and spent candles, then at Cook’s grey face and Hill’s dust-streaked coat.
“Sir,” she said, “your study will give you better light for the papers.”
Bennet closed the journal and set his hand upon it for one breath. “My study, then.”
Mrs Hill’s fingers closed once upon the keys at her waist. “First, sir, if you think it proper, Miss Elizabeth’s room.”
Proper.
The word stood in the kitchen like a candle held up in a ruined church. Bennet took his cane from Hill and turned towards the stair.
Longbourn had entered morning without permission. Light lay pale along the hall boards; the clock ticked with its usual self-importance; somewhere above, a maid moved and then stopped altogether.
Bennet mounted the stairs slowly. His leg had stiffened in the night, and each step answered from hip to knee. Mrs Hill went before him, not hurrying, though the keys at her waist gave one small, anxious note with every tread. Hill came two paces behind.
Elizabeth’s door stood closed.
Mrs Hill opened it and stepped aside.
Bennet entered.
The room held the mild disorder of a young woman who expected to return before anyone had cause to notice it.
A book lay face down upon the window-seat.
A ribbon trailed from the dressing table.
One drawer stood open by an inch, checked by a fold of muslin caught at the edge.
The bed had been made with Mrs Hill’s strict hand; the pillow bore no sign of last night’s rest.
Bennet looked first at the wardrobe.
“Her pelisse?”
Mrs Hill crossed to it and opened the door. “Here, sir.”
“Shawl?”
“The light one is gone. The blue remains.”
“Walking boots?”
Mrs Hill bent and looked beneath the chair. “The older pair is gone, sir. The others are here.”
He nodded. Each answer struck its mark. Pelisse not taken. No bundle. No travelling gown. No second pair of shoes. No woman preparing flight could make so poor an argument for herself.
His gaze moved to the small writing desk. “Open it.”
Mrs Hill hesitated only long enough for him to feel the trespass. Then she took the little key from the dish beside the glass and lifted the lid. Papers lay within, folded neatly; sealing sand, a penknife, sticks of red wax, one of green, and three unfinished notes, none addressed.
Green wax. Her favourite colour.
No letter of farewell. No secret confession. No foolish line to excuse a vanished daughter.
Bennet looked away first.
On the chair by the hearth lay a clean towel. Mrs Hill had folded it too carefully.
“There,” Bennet said.
Mrs Hill went still.
“Let me see it.”
She unfolded the towel. Elizabeth’s bonnet lay within, crushed at the crown, one ribbon torn and dark with stain. The thorn still clung near the knot.
Bennet took the bonnet in both hands. He did not think of the lane at first. He thought of Elizabeth standing before the glass, impatient with the tie beneath her chin, laughing because the brim would not sit as she wished.
Then the memory gave way to the thing itself: crushed straw, dragged silk, bramble, force.
He touched the torn ribbon.
“No blood,” Hill said quietly.
“No.” Bennet set the bonnet back upon the towel. “Little that be of comfort.”
He looked once more about him. The book upon the window-seat. The open drawer. The closed writing desk. The pelisse hanging in its place. The little want of preparation everywhere.
“She meant to come home,” he said.
Mrs Hill pressed the towel around the bonnet again. “Yes, sir.”
Bennet turned for the door. “Keep that here. No maid sees it.”
“No, sir.”
In the passage, Hill waited until the door closed behind them. “Perkins has gone by the back way. Weller and Dawes likewise. I have set John at the yard gate with word to admit no one without your order.”
“What word?”
“That the house has accounts to settle and no leisure for callers.”
A dry answer rose in Bennet and found no strength to become amusement. “That is true enough.”
They descended. The smells from the kitchen rose as they passed: toast gone cold, broth thickening in its cup, coffee left too long upon the hob, and the sour trace of spent candles.
His body received each one and made nothing of it.
Food belonged to men who had not counted the hours since their daughter vanished.
In the study, a tray waited near the desk, too orderly to have come from any hand but Mrs Hill’s. Toast, ham, tea, and a covered cup of broth sat in careful reproach. Steam had left the tea. Fat had begun to pearl upon the broth.
Bennet looked at it and sat down.
Hill remained by the door. “Shall I have it changed, sir?”
“No.”
“You should take something.”
Bennet opened the journal. “I should do many things.”
Hill said nothing more and came forward with the folded map. Together they laid it across the desk, weighting one corner with the inkwell and another with Cowper’s The Task, which Bennet had drawn from the shelf during the night and not yet opened.
The map showed lanes, hedges, field paths, parish edges, and the roads by which a cart might leave Longbourn without troubling the turnpike.
Bennet had marked them until the paper seemed to accuse him.
Oakham track. Lower lane. Redbourn road.
St Albans road. Meryton road. The place where Weller had found the cart marks.
The hedge where Perkins had found the bonnet.
The hard ground where every honest sign abandoned them.
“Again,” Bennet said.
Hill drew breath. “Miss Elizabeth left after noon by the garden. No servant saw her return. By five, you and I searched the grounds. Weller found cart marks near the bend by the lower hedge. Perkins found the bonnet at first light, deep in the bramble near the old ash. Two men, perhaps. One heavier. A woman’s print overrun. Grass dragged towards the cart.”
Bennet wrote nothing. He had already written it six times.
“No one saw her in Meryton,” Hill continued. “No tenant admits seeing a lady upon the road after noon. Vickers saw no cart he could name. Goulding’s boy drove sheep before dark and noticed nothing beyond a horse standing near the lower copse, which he took for Perkins’s.”
Bennet looked up. “A horse.”
“A boy with sheep sees a horse everywhere, sir.”
“Bring him again.”
“Yes, sir.”
The clock struck eight.
Bennet watched the hand settle. Somewhere beyond the window, morning widened over the lawn, indifferent and clean. He had expected some word before now. A cart, two men, a bonnet thrust into bramble: these were not the instruments of accident. Whoever had taken Elizabeth meant to be answered.
“Has anyone come to the gate?” he asked.
“Only Mrs Nicholls’s boy with eggs. John sent him round to the kitchen, and Cook took the basket at the yard wall.”
“He saw nothing?”
“Nothing that he knew enough to hide.”
Bennet looked at the tray again. The smell of ham had strengthened as the room warmed. It turned his stomach without tempting it.
“Remove it,” he said.
Hill took one step, then stopped as the sound of hooves reached them from the lane.
Not farm hoofs. Not a cart. A single horse, ridden at ease.
Bennet’s hand closed over the edge of the map.
Hill crossed to the window and stood just aside of the curtain. The hoofs slowed near the front of the house, then stopped. A moment later, the knocker struck.
Once.
Then again.
Hill turned from the window. “Mr Wickham, sir.”
Bennet did not rise at once. He folded the map along its old crease, set Cowper aside, and laid the journal square before him.
“Show him in.”