Have you heard of a pamphlet circulating in town called “The Ink-Stained Nobody”?
It arrived in Meryton only this week. I had never heard of it before, but now it seems to be everywhere at once. I first saw it at the Harris’s, where my brother produced it with great flair and insisted we all listen to the section about the ‘unseasoned curate who once compared love to a pork roast.’ Then Mrs. Long brought her copy to tea and nearly choked on a biscuit, quoting the passage about dinner parties as acts of civil warfare.
And Lizzy—
Elizabeth gripped the paper more tightly.
—there is something about the tone of it that reminds me of you. Not just in the wit, which is sharper than it ought to be, but in the… cadence. The way the sentences march about with too much energy. I do not say this to alarm you. Only to prepare you.
Elizabeth forced herself to keep reading, though her heart had begun a slow, sickening thud against her ribs.
It has become something of a party trick among the militia officers. Colonel Forster’s wife recited the bit about the ‘insufferable heir and his unfailingly damp gloves’ and the men laughed until the soup arrived. I admit, Lizzy, the turn of phrase is wicked… sometimes out of place, as if certain words had been changed to sound particularly harsh—but the tone feels… familiar.
Quite a few people have remarked upon it. None aloud, of course. But you know how it is. That look passed across the room. That cough just a beat too slow. That sense that everyone else knows something they are politely pretending not to.
She read it twice. Then a third time.
The paper trembled only slightly in her hands.
How in mercy’s name had the pamphlets reached Meryton… and in such numbers? London satire rarely traveled past the city’s fashionable gates unless someone made sure of it. But this? This was precise. Swift. Directed.
It had help.
She closed her eyes, just for a moment. One breath in. Then out.
Caroline Bingley.
She had always known it would come. The question was neverif, onlyhow. How publicly. How cruelly. How quickly.
And now she knew. Quickly enough to catch fire.
And Mr. Bingley—dear, oblivious, generous Charles Bingley—was sending Jane flowers. Paying visits. Making eyes at her across the room.
Miss Bingley would not like that.
Not at all.
“Something the matter with Charlotte, Lizzy?” Jane asked. “You look rather green.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Nothing of consequence.”
“Lizzy...”
“Truly. It is only... gossip from home.”
Jane was not satisfied, but she said no more. She turned back to her own letter, which she read with a pleased little frown.
Elizabeth, meanwhile, stared down at the paper as though it might arrange itself into something more manageable if she gave it time. But no amount of rearranging would soften the truth.
The pamphlets were spreading.
Caroline had waited until just the right moment—until Jane had begun to smile again, until Elizabeth had found a viable suitor—and then she had moved the knife.
There would be more. There was always more.
Elizabeth folded the letter slowly, deliberately, and placed it beside her plate. She straightened her back, crossed one ankle over the other, and reached once again for Captain Marlowe’s invitation.
It was time to answer.
