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It was Saturday, the eighteenth of September. Mr. and Mrs. Westcott and their daughter were to dine with them, as were the Landons, who lived beyond the village. Jane had met both families at church and wished to know them better. Charles had proposed celebrating the end of the harvest, Mr. Darcy had approved the invitation, and Jane had persuaded her husband that supper and music would be quite sufficient without his offering to assemble a ball.

Elizabeth had been surprised by the firmness with which her sister refused that last addition.

“I want to speak to our neighbours, Charles. If you invite forty people, I shall spend the evening remembering names.”

Charles had immediately discovered that he wanted nothing more than to speak to five neighbours himself.

Now Jane turned toward the window, where two smaller bowls waited for the flowers.

“Will you arrange those for me, Lizzy? I promised Mrs. Reynolds that I would rest before dressing.”

“Provided that nobody judges them until I have finished.”

Caroline lifted a basket of roses. “I shall attend to the drawing room. It will spare us the difficulty of offering advice to one another.”

“That is very considerate of you.”

Jane gave Elizabeth a look as she left with Caroline, and Elizabeth bent over the nearest basket before her smile could be detected.

There were worse occupations than arranging flowers for a supper. She had spent the morning with Jane, had a letter from Kitty to answer, and had heard nothing to trouble her sleep for several nights. The small length of thread Mrs. Reynolds had given her was safely put away upstairs. Elizabeth had begun to hope that the strange things happening to her might at least observe some distinction between the hours she devoted to them and the hours she wished to spend as an ordinary guest.

She put the two bowls upon the table and chose the best of the asters.

A footman brought water, asked whether she required anything more, and departed with the empty jug. Elizabeth worked alone for several minutes. Her first arrangement stood a little higher on one side, but she turned the bowl and found she preferred it so. Jane would like the colours. The second required a little greenery to conceal the stems.

At the bottom of a basket lay an ivy spray which had been crushed beneath the flowers. One leaf drooped against its stalk. Elizabeth smoothed it between her fingers, wishing it would stand as well as the others.

The leaf lifted.

She held it still.

There was no draught. The stem rested across her palm, and she could feel something pressing against the side of her finger. A pale new leaf unfolded where there had been only a tightly closed tip.

“Oh, no,” Elizabeth said.

She set the spray in the bowl. Perhaps the water would stop it. Perhaps putting it down would stop it. She was not sufficiently certain of anything to reject either hope.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then the end of the ivy slipped over the rim.

Elizabeth caught it before it reached the tablecloth. Another leaf opened against her thumb. The tendril lengthened, curling round the stem of an aster and dragging the flower sideways.

She tried to pull the ivy free. The flowers tilted with it, and water spilled over the rim onto the cloth.

“Miss Bennet?”

Mrs. Reynolds stood in the doorway.

“I believe,” Elizabeth said very carefully, “that I require another basket.”

The housekeeper looked at the bowl, then at the green stem lying across Elizabeth’s wrist. She closed the door.

“Put it down, miss.”

“I did put it down. It continued.”

“Then let it continue upon the table. You cannot hold it all.”