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Darcy smiled. He had heard Elizabeth speak of her sisters with irritation, longing, and an affection which grew no less plain when the account was ridiculous.
“I should like to know them.”
“You may repent that ambition after an hour with Lydia.”
“Miss Bennet has warned me.”
“Then she has not abandoned you entirely to discovery.”
After a little while Mr. Bennet spoke again.
“Jane looks well.”
“She does.”
“My wife will discover reasons to be anxious. You must not suppose she enjoys the anxiety quite as much as she enjoys explaining it.”
Darcy turned toward him.
“Five daughters,” Mr. Bennet said, looking down at his hands. “It has given her a great deal to fear, and very few matters upon which she can make the decision herself.”
He said no more. Darcy had sometimes been impatient with Mrs. Bennet’s manner in the short time she had been at Pemberley. He would remember the explanation before answering her next question as though its repetition made it foolish.
“Mrs. Talbot will attend Jane,” he said. “Reynolds has worked with her before.”
“Jane tells me she is satisfied. That will be enough for me until she tells me otherwise.”
Darcy wished it could be enough for him. He thought of the old records laid out in the little sitting room, and Elizabeth’s patient work beside the housekeeper. He could not share that fear with her father. He could make certain that ordinary care lacked nothing, and refrain from adding another anxious voice to Jane’s room merely because he knew more than he could say.
Elizabeth appeared at the door with her father’s essays.
“Papa, I have found the page you asked for.”
“Then I shall be obliged to read it.”
“You asked me to find it.”
“I had hoped you might take longer.”
Darcy drew another chair toward the desk for her. She thanked him and took the place beside her father, keeping a finger between the pages she had marked.
“Only until breakfast, Papa. Mrs. Reynolds expects me afterwards.”
Darcy looked at her. She met his eyes, then turned to the passage her father had asked for. He drew his chair nearer. When she went, he would not detain her.
Chapter Forty-Seven
BY SATURDAY MORNING Elizabeth could keep her left hand warm while opening the thread with her right. She could not yet answer Mrs. Reynolds at the same time.
“Again,” she said.
The housekeeper glanced at the clock. “You have been here since breakfast.”
“And yesterday I could scarcely make the turn without my left thumb. Let me try once more.”
It was November 6; Mrs. Talbot thought Jane might need her within the week. Elizabeth had tried beside her sister again that morning; as on Thursday, the fresh thread opened without resistance. It told her nothing of what would happen when the cold came.
Mara’s account lay copied upon the desk. She had known the movement and lost Alice. Elizabeth could not mistake familiarity with a knot for readiness to help Jane.
