Chapter 6 #2
“Mrs Long says Mr Bingley will surely call today.”
“Of course he will!” Mama gushed. “I shouldn’t wonder if he is nearly at the door already.”
“Oh, there is a very fine thing,” Papa grunted. “The gentlemen come to the country for a bit of sport, but instead of taking advantage of a fine morning in the fields, they come to inhabit my drawing room.”
“Mr Bingley told me himself that he planned to go shooting this morning,” Jane supplied.
“Oh, never mind whether Mr Bingley is shooting or riding or whatever,” Kitty protested. “I was talking about Mrs Long. You know she never hands out compliments she does not have to, but even she thinks Jane made the finest impression of the whole room. There, what do you all say to that?”
Mama caught up the teapot and nearly overfilled her cup. “Naturally she did, my love! And if Mr Bingley has the sense I hope he possesses, we shall hear the front bell before noon.”
Jane caught Elizabeth’s eye with a gentle smirk and a soft chuckle, then lowered her eyes, smiling into her tea.
Mary glanced up again. “There is such a thing as excess of spirits, Kitty.”
Lydia tossed her hair. “Only in sermons.”
Elizabeth tried again for the jam, more carefully this time. The movement tugged faintly at the scratch—nothing serious, but enough to keep her thoughts too focused on her wrist. It was absurd to mind a scratch at all. Absurd to feel it now. It should have healed days ago.
“Lizzy, you must wear your muslin today—the one with the embroidered hem. Mr Darcy will come with Mr Bingley when he calls, you may depend upon it. Surely, he regrets his conduct and will wish to make amends. Men of fortune are always eager to redeem their manners when beauty is concerned.”
Elizabeth made the mistake of swallowing tea at that moment. She coughed, the cup rattling in its saucer. “Mama, I—”
Kitty giggled. “There, Mama, you made her choke! I told you she despises the man.”
Lydia kicked her under the table as Elizabeth sputtered to clear her airways.
Mama patted her back with unnecessary vigour.
“There now! Compose yourself. Nothing is more unbecoming than appearing flustered. I am sure Mr Darcy will find you quite agreeable. You must try to keep him talking, for Jane’s sake.
Who knows that they will not overstay the quarter hour?
Oh, I shall have Hill make some fresh cake.
And plums! Who has better plums than Longbourn, I ask?
Come, Lizzy, compose yourself, or Mr Darcy will think you terribly odd, indeed. ”
Elizabeth’s spine went rigid. Talk with Mr Darcy? For an entire call?
No.
The word struck through her so sharply she did not realise she had thought it—only that her pulse surged and something in her demanded refusal.
At that instant, the spoon beside her cup gave a quick, clear tap against the saucer. A single sound, light but crisp—loud enough to cut through Lydia’s bragging and Kitty’s chatter.
Mary looked up at once. “What was that?”
Elizabeth pinned the spoon with her fingertips before it could tremble again. “The table shifted,” she said. “Lydia is kicking her feet again.”
“I was not,” protested Lydia. “Not just then, anyway.”
“There was no movement,” Mary said.
Elizabeth reached for a roll she did not want. “Then Hill must take care to sweep the floors better because something has got under the leg and it is sitting unevenly. Think nothing of it.”
Mary returned to her breakfast with evident scepticism.
Elizabeth sat straighter, schooling her expression. Breakfast at Longbourn did not allow for private unease. And she would rather endure a dozen of Lydia’s embellishments than let anyone suspect she fretted over something as foolish as a scratch or a spoon tapping itself.
Mama clasped her hands. “Now—all of you—eat quickly. Mr Bingley may arrive at any moment, and we must not appear unprepared.”
Elizabeth lifted her cup again, more carefully this time. Prepared.
She doubted very much that she was.
Elizabeth slipped out as soon as the breakfast things were cleared.
Mama was already issuing orders for Hill to air the drawing-room curtains and polish the silver, and Kitty had begun rehearsing what she would say if Mr Bingley complimented her lace.
Lydia had countered with plans for her next gown.
Jane alone noticed Elizabeth reaching for her shawl. “Will you be long?” she asked.
“A quarter hour. Perhaps two,” Elizabeth murmured. “You know how it is.”
Jane’s smile held understanding. “Do not stay out if it starts to rain.”
Elizabeth promised she would not and stepped into the pale morning light.
The air did not warm as the sun climbed; it sharpened. The wind carried the faint scent of turned earth and distant woodsmoke as she walked the familiar path toward Oakham Mount. Each rise steadied her thoughts; each patch of dry bramble felt like a small claim of solitude.
At the foot of the Mount, she paused to catch her breath and looked east. The fields rolled wide and open toward the distant line of trees. Something moved there—a cluster of figures cresting a lower rise. A dog bounded ahead of them, dark against the pale grass.
A large dog.
She shaded her eyes. The creature ran with a heavy, confident gait, tail sweeping once before plunging into a tangle of brush. Even at a distance, its size marked it apart from every farm dog in the parish.
“That must be Mr Darcy’s,” she muttered to herself before she could stop the thought. The Irish Wolfhound Mrs Long had mentioned.
The dog burst out of the brush again. For a moment, he stopped, head lifted, facing the slope where Elizabeth stood. The distance was too great for certainty, yet she had the odd sense that the dog had fixed on her.
She stepped back behind a jut of stone, annoyed with herself. “Nonsense,” she whispered. The sun was behind her; any dog would stare into a shape on a bright ridge.
Still, her wrist pulsed again. She rubbed it once, more firmly, and climbed the last incline.
At the summit, the wind met her in a steady rush. She breathed it in, clearing away the remnants of breakfast clamour—and something else. A heaviness that had settled along her ribs since the Assembly.
She stepped toward the familiar outcropping and set her hand on the stone to lower herself. The moment her palm touched it, a warmth met her skin—not from her wrist this time, but from the rock itself, as if some small glow had gathered there beneath her hand.
Elizabeth yelped and pulled back at once.
“What now?” She pressed her fingers to the stone again, cautiously. It was warm—undeniably warm—though the air bit with cold everywhere else. She moved the tip of her littlest finger an inch to the left: the stone was chilled at the first instant… then suddenly it was warm as her teacup.
A prickle ran up her spine. Impossible. Stones did not warm themselves for company.
She lifted her hand a final time, and the heat faded instantly, leaving only the ordinary autumn chill.
Elizabeth jumped back to lean on a branch, annoyed with herself. “Nonsense,” she muttered. “A fever… it must be a fever.”
The twig beneath her hands changed at once.
Not warmth this time—movement. The dry bark softened under her touch, supple as fresh growth, and a pale green point forced its way through a crack in the wood.
Elizabeth jerked back so quickly she scraped her glove. “Oh, absolutely not!”
The twig hung motionless. Lifeless. A dead thing, just like all branches in autumn ought to be.
She stared at it, pulse thudding in her throat. “You were grey a moment ago,” she told the branch, as if accusing it of mischief. “I refuse to believe otherwise.”
But the image of that tiny, impossible bud hovered before her eyes, undeniable.
She folded her hands against her shawl. “This is what comes of going out without my plum jam at breakfast,” she muttered. “Next, I shall imagine the rocks reciting poetry.”
Elizabeth straightened and stepped back from the outcrop. She refused to indulge a fancy about thorns or scratches or spoons tapping themselves. She had too much sense for that.
She turned her face toward the fields again. The hunt had moved farther west; the figures were smaller now, merging with hedgerows and shadow. The wolfhound—if it was a wolfhound—could no longer be distinguished from the darker patches of brush.
She let out a breath and sagged, just a little.
Enough. She had walked long enough to quiet her thoughts, if not her wrist.