Chapter 28 #2
Mr Collins nodded solemnly. “A salutary reminder of the need for moral vigilance. Seasons of change are most instructive.”
The pain spiked—sudden enough that Elizabeth swayed in her chair. Jane’s hand was on her arm at once.
“Lizzy?”
“I… I believe I have a megrim,” Elizabeth said, the excuse tumbling out before she could weigh it. She stood, the movement blurring the edges of the room. “Pray, forgive me. I fear I shall be poor company if I remain.”
Mama made a protesting sound. “Elizabeth, really! You cannot be taken ill now. We have the party from Netherfield coming to dine this evening!”
“I shall be well by this evening,” Elizabeth insisted. “But for now, I should do better lying down.”
Wickham watched her closely now. “You must not exert yourself merely for the pleasure of others.”
“I assure you, I shall recover admirably,” she said, and managed a small, apologetic smile that felt like it belonged to someone else entirely.
Mr Collins turned halfway. “If your constitution is unequal to extended discourse, Miss Elizabeth, rest is certainly advisable.”
She did not trust herself to answer him. Elizabeth inclined her head to the room, took Jane’s offered arm, and let herself be guided away—every step an effort, every sound behind her receding as though she were walking out of a tide.
The candles had been placed closer together than usual.
Someone must have thought the evening dim.
The flames wavered as the door opened again, sending a brief, unwelcome shimmer across her vision.
Elizabeth blinked and fixed her attention on the pattern in the rug until the room eased into its proper proportions.
“Mr Bingley!” Mama welcomed. “How very good of you to come, and your sisters as well—Mrs Hurst, I am delighted, quite delighted. Do come in, do come in. Mr Hurst, mind the step.”
Elizabeth did not look up at once. She had already accounted for them—the pause before Mr Bingley crossed the threshold, the way Miss Bingley’s gaze would travel the room before she moved at all, Mrs Hurst’s unhurried step behind her. It was a pattern she knew well enough to picture without seeing.
Only when they stood before her did Elizabeth glance up.
Mr Bingley’s eyes were on Jane. They always were, now. He smiled when Jane met his gaze, a look so open it would have been impossible to mistake. Jane rose, and Elizabeth followed a moment later, slower than she intended but still in time to offer a proper greeting.
“Dinner is quite ready,” Mama announced, clapping her hands. “We shall not keep that splendid roast duck waiting. Jane, my dear, Mr Bingley will escort you. Yes, that will do very well.”
Mr Bingley looked momentarily startled, then pleased, and offered his arm. Jane accepted with what passed for composure, though the faint colour in her cheeks betrayed her.
The procession moved through the passage, past the sideboard polished to an ambitious shine, into the dining room where the long table waited under the glow of too many candles. The room felt close tonight. Or perhaps it was only that the light pressed in from all sides.
“Jane, here, beside Mr Bingley. Yes. Lizzy—there. Mary, you will sit opposite Mr Collins. Kitty—no, not there—Lydia, for heaven’s sake, you are blocking Hill with the wine.”
Elizabeth took the chair indicated and set her hands neatly in her lap. The scent of roast meat reached her a moment later, rich and heavy. Her stomach declined it at once.
Mr Collins settled near her with evident satisfaction, smoothing his napkin as though the arrangement itself confirmed something he had long suspected. His gaze flicked toward Elizabeth, then away, then back again, lingering just long enough to make her aware of it.
She fixed her eyes on the rim of her plate and waited for the room to arrange itself properly again.
“Well,” Papa said pleasantly, “this is an excellent assembly. One would hardly suspect the world beyond Longbourn continues to exist.”
Mr Bingley laughed. “If it does, sir, it is doing so with very poor manners. The weather alone suggests a conspiracy.”
“Indeed?” Mama said at once. “We have been quite fortunate here.”
“So you have,” he agreed. “Remarkably so, in fact. My steward insists we are the envy of three counties.”
Miss Bingley dismissed the matter with a small, elegant flick of her wrist. “Country houses are forever discovering new inconveniences. A chill in the hall, a draught by the stairs—it is the same every winter.”
“Perhaps,” Mr Bingley countered easily. “Though it has been an uncommonly gentle season so far. One can hardly call it winter at all. My coachman, however, insists we are tempting fate. He is quite convinced we shall have a storm before long, and urges us not to linger tonight.”
“A storm?” Kitty repeated with interest.
“So he says,” Bingley replied. “I told him he sees portents in every cloud, but he would not be persuaded.”
Miss Bingley sniffed. “Coachmen delight in foreboding. It gives them importance.”
“Still,” Bingley went on, “I cannot help thinking Darcy would have had some opinions on the matter. He was always inclined to notice such things—soil, air, the way a season turns.” He laughed softly. “A farmer at heart, I daresay. Would that I had half his experience in these matters.”
Elizabeth’s sight dimmed for a breath, the candles blurring into pale halos before resolving again. She set her glass down with care, though she had no clear memory of lifting it.
“Oh, but you have been very busy entertaining without him,” Mama said. “A credit to the neighbourhood, I am sure.”
“I like to hope so, Mrs Bennet,” Mr Bingley replied, and for a long second, he let his eyes drift to Jane.
That suited Mama well enough that she did not bother to ask him anything else until the soup was served.
Mr Collins, however, was not built for tolerating silences, so he determined to fill it himself.
“Indeed, I do fear we are bound for a particularly hard winter. It is in seasons such as these,” he said, addressing the table with careful projection, “that one is reminded how greatly Providence rewards those households governed by foresight. Economy, moderation, and a proper submission to order—these are not merely virtues, but safeguards.”
Papa sipped from his glass with dry interest. “Oh, indeed, quite right, sir. I shall take such economy into consideration, but everyone does insist on entertaining.” And then he returned to his soup.
Mr Collins shook his head. “I have always found, in my own modest experience, that preparation forestalls not only want, but anxiety. One may sleep more soundly, knowing that one’s larder reflects one’s principles.”
Elizabeth’s spoon paused above the bowl. The scent of the soup—onion and pepper, too warm, too near—made her stomach turn unpleasantly. She set it down again, careful not to spill. “A comforting thought,” she mumbled, only half answering Mr Collins.
Jane glanced at her then, just briefly.
“Still,” Miss Bingley observed, “there has been an uncommon amount of talk in London about the season—how disrupted it has been. Why, the letters from my friends in Town are full of little else. One never knows whether to expect a mild evening or something altogether more disagreeable. It plays havoc with one’s arrangements. ”
“Speculation thrives where discipline does not,” Mr Collins replied at once, turning slightly in his chair. The movement brought his sleeve nearer Elizabeth’s arm. “In well-ordered families, uncertainty finds little purchase.”
Elizabeth’s teeth ground. The room seemed louder—not suddenly, but steadily, as though each voice had gained timbre and volume.
“It is my firm belief,” Mr Collins continued, “that much suffering arises not from misfortune, but from moral laxity. When one neglects one’s duty—”
Her head gave a sharp, unwelcome throb. She pressed her fingers lightly against the edge of the table, willing the sensation to pass.
Papa had stopped eating. His gaze rested on her, intent now as his eyes narrowed. Jane, too, was dabbing her mouth and staring at Elizabeth, but she was not near enough to offer any inconspicuous comfort.
Miss Bingley had resumed tasting her soup, though her expression left little doubt of her opinions of it. “Miss Elizabeth, I fear you are looking rather diminished of late. Are you quite well, my dear?”
Elizabeth drew herself up. “Nothing of any consequence, I assure you.”
Miss Bingley hummed with a faint smile. “Nonetheless, I imagine you might prefer to exchange the country for town before the winter deepens. London has its inconveniences, of course—but one is never truly uncomfortable there.”
Elizabeth inclined her head. “I have no such plans at present.”
“No? I had thought you might be tempted. You have relations there, do you not? Cheapside, if I remember correctly.”
“I do,” Elizabeth said. The effort of keeping her tone even was greater than it ought to have been. “And they are very well, I thank you.”
“How fortunate,” Miss Bingley purred. “It must be a comfort to know one has a refuge, should the country grow… trying.”
Elizabeth returned the smile she was given, though it felt oddly delayed, as though she were answering from a short distance away. “If you are asking whether I intend to pursue… diversions in Town, I shall answer in the negative. The country has always suited me.”
Mr Collins, encouraged by what he took for Elizabeth’s attentiveness to the conversation, leaned nearer to continue his point—on economy, on gratitude, on the dangers of excess.
His voice grated against her like wool too thick for the season.
She followed it as one follows a sermon whose cadence is familiar enough to predict the end without quite hearing the middle.
By the time the plates were changed, the conversation had taken on a new shape. Someone was speaking about prices now. Grain. Coal. Elizabeth caught only pieces of it, as though the talk had broken into manageable shards.
“—no one prepared—”
“—extraordinary demand—”