Always.
∞∞∞
The harvest came and went and the coming of Christmas drew near. Though the estate still pulled steadily at each sister, requiring long hours of toil, the tasks began to dwindle, proving easier than any of those they had known in autumn and, in many ways, far pleasanter. Sewing, purchasing, creating, and in other ways preparing gifts for one another, servants, tenants, and the poor alike lent its own nightly ritual lit by the glow of more candles than their usual want. But in the time of giving, such small sacrifices came easily, as did the few sleepless nights and busy days leading up to that time of Christmas.
The joy of each sister appeared to Elizabeth great indeed; her own equally enhanced, save for those moments when she passed by her father’s study, the door shut as always, and the quiet causing her to imagine she could hear him within. Then her heart sank, the hope he would return to them thinned, and the bitterness of her thoughts that followed led her to shame. For, in those dark moments contrasted with the light of her sisters, she wished he might remain there rather than risk destroying what his five daughters had built. Yet, those feelings never lingered; hope and longing for him flickering again, in spite of endless attempts to shut it out.
The familiar squeak of wood penetrating the air, Elizabeth’s bleary gaze kept downward.It would prove to be in her mind. It always was. She would often hear the sound of his door opening in the night, she would come down, and no one would be there.
Only Mrs. Hill or one of the maids ever entered or left.
None of his daughters had the strength to do so.
“Lizzy?” a soft, male voice spoke, causing Elizabeth’s gaze to fly to the haggard man emerging from her father’s study. “Is that my Lizzy?”
Tilting her head, Elizabeth studied the figure before her, heart thudding within. “PaPa?”
So thin. He had grown thin, far too hollow since she had last caught a glimpse of him. And that beard, bushy and unkempt.
The air grew heavy as quiet lay between them, each searching one another’s countenance for signs of change and familiarity.
All those months of silence. What could one say? It felt as if a vast chasm lay between them, too wide to cross; did he recognize it? Who ought to speak first?
“I…” he gulped, voice hoarse and empty. “I have missed your face.”
Her face? Her face? Not her? Or her sisters? A face.
Surely, he had not meant it that way… but oh, those words hurt. The sight of him hurt.
Biting her cheek, she forced back the bitter retorts that mingled in her mind. Those that taunted with it being his choice. Or that recalled her sisters–his daughters–whom he had abandoned. Those words tempted in their veracity and told of how she might be justified to say them–how she would feel better. Only her sisters asleep upstairs held her tongue in check. The knowledge that they lacked a father.
“It has been a while,” Elizabeth said at last; an understatement, yet, the safe answer.
“I need more time.”
“Still?”
“I. I have not… I have not felt in a while. Anything. Pain at first, then… but now.”
“Now?”
“Yesterday, I saw a bird on the window’s edge. The sheen of its feathers glistening in a beam of sun. It. My chest pulled. I. I could feel something… or remember what something feels like. Wisps of something I could not quite place.” His face pulling painfully, his eyes never left hers. “It is true with your face. Your voice. It is close. This feeling is close enough I can almost touch it and yet, it is leagues from me.”
Feet firm on the floor, Elizabeth kept his gaze, those eyes, swallowed by dark, puffed up spheres, pleading for understanding. All their emptiness enhancing that small hint of light, of hope, trying to grow.She would give him more time. To what end she did not know.
“Though I cannot speak for my sisters… I am willing to give you more time. For all that, I have one request. That you sit in the drawing room every evening,” his body tensing, she amended, “for a few minutes or more. We will not force you to speak even, if that is too much. Only sit with us. Listen. In that, you may one day remember.”
A soft word of promise and a slow nod as he returned to the sanctuary of his study were all she received, but that proved enough.
It had to be.
∞∞∞
Sitting in the drawing room, the Bennet sisters each struggled to lend their full attention to their work, for, whether keeping the books or sewing, gazes would be drawn toward the door, the faintest noise causing their chests to seize. Elizabeth had hesitated to tell of the promise, yet, as the day had worn on and each sister had paused at their father’s study, faces downturned at its sight, the secret proved too great for her to bear, or rather, their pain proved too great to bear; the secret being a means to soothe their pain, if their father kept his word.
“PaPa?”
All eyes fixed to the doorway at Lydia’s soft question, their father standing there, as worn as he had appeared to Elizabeth the night prior, yet, he had made an effort. His facial hair a little less wayward. His clothes perhaps clean. And in his frame, there seemed an endeavor to stand straighter.
