Chapter 9 #3
Elizabeth’s expression softened. “Sometimes it does.”
“And sometimes?”
Elizabeth glanced toward the darkened lower hall. “Sometimes duty is the difficult thing.”
Mary absorbed this in silence. Then she gave a small nod, more to herself than to Elizabeth, and stepped back into her room.
Elizabeth descended the stairs as quietly as she could, every creak of the wood seeming loud enough to wake the entire house. The travelling bag felt heavier now than when she had packed it upstairs, though whether from fear or finality she could not have said.
At the bottom of the staircase she paused, listening. Voices drifted faintly from the kitchen passage. A servant moved somewhere beyond the back hall. The smell of fresh bread had begun to spread through the house, mingling with the cold dampness of the morning air.
The ordinary familiarity of it all struck her unexpectedly.
How strange that Longbourn should look precisely the same while everything within it had altered so completely.
Elizabeth crossed quickly toward the side entrance. Her hand had only just reached the latch when another sound behind her made her stop cold. Laughter. Lydia’s voice.
Elizabeth closed her eyes for only a moment, then made herself look.
The drawing room door stood partly open, and through the narrow gap she could see Lydia sprawling carelessly across one chair while Kitty sat beside her, her hair still disarrayed, both engaged in an animated discussion over some officer-related speculation doubtlessly of enormous importance.
Neither had seen her. Elizabeth remained perfectly still.
“If Colonel Forster hosts another supper before Christmas, I am determined to sit beside Mr Wickham this time,” Lydia declared.
“You said the same thing last week,” Kitty replied.
“Yes, but last week Mrs Forster interrupted everything.”
Elizabeth tightened her grip on the bag. The front hall lay exposed from where they sat. If either turned her head fully and saw her, her lively, heedless sisters would call out loud enough to wake the dead, and the entire escape would be over before it properly began.
For one terrible moment, she considered retreating upstairs. Then Lydia laughed again at something Kitty whispered to her, both of them bending together over the conversation with complete absorption.
Elizabeth moved. One step. Then another. The latch lifted softly beneath her hand.
Cold morning air rushed against her face as she slipped outside and closed the door behind her without a sound. Only then did she breathe properly again.
The dawn remained pale and uncertain, the fields silvered with frost beneath the early light. Smoke rose thinly from distant chimneys across the countryside, and the road toward Meryton stretched ahead, quiet and nearly empty.
Elizabeth drew her pelisse tighter around herself and began walking quickly.
At first, she could think only of distance. Every step away from Longbourn felt necessary. Urgent. Her heart continued beating far too fast, and more than once she resisted the impulse to glance back toward the house behind her.
But as the lane lengthened beneath her steps and no voice called after her, the first sharp edge of panic slowly gave way to something else. She had done it. The thought seemed unreal.
She, Elizabeth Bennet, who had never travelled alone farther than a neighbouring town, was walking to meet a public stage bound for London without permission, protection, or certainty of what awaited her there.
The absurdity of it might have been laughable under different circumstances. Instead, it was terrifying.
Jane would have found the note by now. Even if she did not share it with their mother at once, Mrs Bennet would know of her disappearance soon after.
By breakfast, the entire household would likely be in confusion.
Mr Collins, she thought grimly, would probably consider the situation merely another feminine obstacle to be overcome through perseverance.
The thought nearly made her walk faster.
Meryton appeared gradually through the morning mist, its familiar streets only beginning to stir awake as Elizabeth entered the town. Shopkeepers opened shutters. Servants crossed the roads carrying baskets and parcels. A cart rattled somewhere ahead of her over uneven stones.
Nothing in the town itself suggested that her entire future had altered before sunrise. The coaching inn stood near the far end of the street. The stage had not yet arrived; she would have time yet in which to catch her breath and buy her ticket.
She slowed then for the first time. Once the stage arrived, she would come to the moment from which nothing could easily be recalled. If she boarded that coach, the matter would pass beyond argument, beyond persuasion, perhaps even beyond forgiveness.
Elizabeth thought briefly of Jane. Of Longbourn. Of her father, somewhere unknown. Of the life awaiting her if she turned back now.
Then she thought of Mr Collins smiling patiently while dismissing every refusal she made, and her hesitation vanished.