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She sealed it before she could improve the sentence into something clever.
Jane and Elizabeth traveled home in the Bennet carriage with a groom, breaking the journey for a night on the road. The miles passed slowly enough to be believed. Elizabeth watched Kent become the familiar approaches to Hertfordshire and found no comfort in her supposed knowledge of the next chapters. Darcy had returned to Netherfield with Bingley by the same road a day earlier. Being in neighboring houses, it appeared, did not guarantee being allowed a private conversation.
Bingley called the afternoon after their arrival. Mrs. Bennet arranged the drawing room so elaborately that Jane could scarcely reach a chair without being displayed beside a vase. Bingley moved the vase before sitting down. He asked Jane whether they might speak in the adjoining room, with the door open.
Elizabeth heard no declaration. That was as it ought to be. She heard only Jane laugh, softly and happily, and later saw Bingley emerge with the expression of a man who had been told he might come home.
Jane told her afterward that he had asked once, waited for her answer, and then asked whether she would prefer a little time. "I did not need it," she said. "But I liked being offered it."
Mrs. Bennet required no time either.
"Five thousand a year! My dear Jane! And such a pleasant young man! Mr. Bennet, put down that paper. Your daughter is engaged, and you are reading about turnips."
"A severe fault in my priorities," he said, folding the paper. He kissed Jane's forehead. "I wish you very happy, my dear."
Only then did he catch Elizabeth's eye and wink. She followed him into the library.
"You are aware."
"Since the assembly. I saw you attempt to leave a room which would not let you go, and recognized my own predicament."
"All these weeks, and you said nothing?"
He set the newspaper down again. It had enjoyed very little reading that day. "I thought you would come to me when you wished. That was convenient reasoning, I see. It relieved me of the trouble of coming to you."
"I did come to you. Before Mr. Collins proposed, I asked whether you were aware."
"You did. I pretended not to understand you. That was worse."
She had prepared for a joke. His admission left her with the hurt itself.
"I thought I was alone."
"I am sorry, Lizzy."
From the drawing room came her mother's voice, planning the wedding breakfast at a volume suitable for informing Netherfield without a messenger. Her father glanced toward it, but did not escape into an observation about nerves.
"We shall have to do better than watching," he said.
Elizabeth sat down. "Do you know what may happen to Lydia?"
He tried to answer directly; the warning stopped in his throat. He reached for a pen. That too failed when he attempted to set down what he feared. Elizabeth watched the familiar struggle and felt no triumph in having someone else at last understand it.
"I cannot tell whether this particular disaster is fixed," she said. "My knowledge is of another telling. Our forecasts have been wrong."
"Then we shall act on the risks we can name. I can ask about her chaperonage. I can require letters. I shall try those things before declaring myself helpless."
They had begun to discuss what might be said without being stopped when Lydia burst in with news of Brighton. Her bonnet ribbons trailed from one hand; she had run upstairs and down again without remembering why she held them.
"Isn't it wonderful? All the officers are going!"
Elizabeth took the ribbons before Lydia could tread on them. Her sister was warm, impatient, alive beneath her hand. No outline could promise to keep her so. Elizabeth would not confuse knowing the customary ending with having secured it.
CHAPTER 18
Bingley
Bingley had lent Darcy the library table. Now charts occupied the books' places, and books occupied his tea's. He moved a paper, found another beneath it, and gave up. Darcy had been missing Elizabeth for days. Bingley was beginning to miss his table.
