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"What a lovely day for a visit," her mouth said instead.

She had left the unwritten letters on her desk. The pen lay ready, which seemed unnecessarily provoking.

Now she sat with Charlotte, drinking tea and trying to figure out if her friend was secretly aware or just... Charlotte.

"Lizzy, you have been positively morbid these past few days," Charlotte observed. "Is something troubling you?"

Elizabeth looked at Charlotte over her cup. She wanted to tell her everything, and could not find a beginning that would not make her friend put down the pot and send for somebody sensible.

"I am merely contemplative," Elizabeth said.

"About Mr. Wickham?" Charlotte's eyes sparkled. "The whole village is talking about how attentive he was to you."

Elizabeth set down her cup. It sickened her to think that the village had taken her compelled smiles for encouragement.

"I don't wish to discuss Mr. Wickham," Elizabeth said, and was pleasantly surprised when the words came out exactly as she'd intended them to.

She was getting better at this. Charlotte looked taken aback. "Forgive me. I didn't mean to pry."

Elizabeth softened. "You're not prying. I'm just..." She considered. This was a good opportunity to test Charlotte again. "Charlotte, do you ever feel as if you're watching yourself from outside? As if you're observing your own life rather than living it?"

Charlotte paused, teacup halfway to her lips. "What a strange question."

Come on, Charlotte. Give me something. Anything.

"Though I confess," Charlotte continued slowly, "I do sometimes feel as if I am watching myself make practical decisions from some distance. As if there's a part of me commenting on my choices as I make them." She laughed. "But that is merely what comes of being sensible, I think."

Elizabeth leaned forward. "What if it's not? What if that observing voice is real?"

"Real?" Charlotte smiled. "As opposed to what? Imaginary?"

"As opposed to..." Elizabeth struggled to find words that wouldn't sound completely insane. "What if we're characters in a story, Charlotte? What if someone is writing us?"

Charlotte laughed. "Now I know you're jesting."

"But what if I'm not? What if⁠—"

The door opened. A servant announced that the Bennet carriage had arrived.

Of course it did. Right when I was getting somewhere.

"I must go," Elizabeth said reluctantly. "But Charlotte, think about what I said. About that observing voice. What if it means something?"

Charlotte smiled indulgently. "You are in a very peculiar mood today, Lizzy. But I shall think on it, if it pleases you." Elizabeth took her leave, frustrated but not defeated. Charlotte had felt something. That observing voice. It was more than nothing.

She looked back at Charlotte in the doorway. If her friend had begun to feel that dreadful distance from her own life, Elizabeth wished she had been allowed to stay and listen.

* * *

She had barely set foot in Longbourn when Mrs. Bennet burst into the entrance hall in high excitement.

"Jane! Lizzy! The most wonderful news! Mr. Bingley is to give a ball at Netherfield!"

The Netherfield ball. Elizabeth had been expecting it with none of the pleasure her mother evidently thought compulsory.

"A ball!" Mrs. Bennet continued. "And of course, we are all invited!"

Elizabeth tried to say "How tedious" but what came out was: "How delightful."