There it was. Not jealousy. Not wounded vanity. Jane’s moral patience had come to its edge at last and found there not romantic foolishness but practical alarm.
When she opened them again Jane had resumed her seat at the writing table, though she had not taken up the pen.
“I am writing to Uncle today,” she said. “If you will tell me what ought and ought not be trusted to paper, I shall be thankful. If you will not, I shall write what I know, which is already more than is safe for any man to shelter in innocence. You may choose which you prefer.”
Elizabeth almost smiled at the severity of the choice. It was so entirely Jane’s version of force: not violence, only the removal of every decent avenue except truth.
“Help me with the bag,” she said.
Jane did not move at once. “The bag?”
“Yes. If I mean to tell it properly, I had better tell it with all the ugly little witnesses present. It is under the mattress on the wall side.”
Jane stared at her one instant in disbelief, then came to the bed. She slipped a hand beneath the mattress and drew out the worn travelling bag Elizabeth had nearly tried to drag from Northmere in delirium and despair.
Jane looked at it as if she had found a live thing hidden among the blankets.
“Set it on the coverlet, if you please. I cannot reach far without cursing, and I should like to postpone blasphemy until the proper point in the narrative.”
Jane obeyed, but the calm of her hands had altered.
Elizabeth untied the strap with fingers not quite obedient and drew out the linen-wrapped packet. At sight of that plain bundle Jane’s colour changed.
“Lizzy.”
“Do not pity me yet. The worst part is not the danger. It is that much of it was made by my own hand.”
Jane sat down hard in the chair beside the bed.
Elizabeth could only at first look at the packet. She had thought, many times, that if ever she told this story she would do it quickly, plainly, with contempt for all ornament.Yet once begun, the thing demanded order. Shame, like housekeeping, benefits from sequence.
“You know the broad beginning,” she said. “After Papa died, Longbourn was to go to Mr. Collins. That was not new. It had hung over us all our lives. While Papa lived, it could still be laughed at. He made amusement out of Collins and called that philosophy. After he died, amusement became arithmetic, which is a much harsher science.”
Jane lowered her eyes. This much she knew, and both had lived it. Elizabeth went on.
“Collins offered for me once, and I refused him while refusal was still an action with no price except Mama’s nerves. After Papa was gone, he did not renew the proposal in person. He did something worse. He renewed his power by letter. Sanctimony, hints, condolences, little passages about feminine humility and the comfort of submitting one’s judgment to better guidance. All of it amounted to this: if I repented my refusal in the proper spirit, he might yet arrange our future mercifully.”
Jane’s hand tightened on the bedclothes.
“He wrote to you directly?”
“To Mama sometimes. To me sometimes. To Uncle by implication, though never so openly as to give him easy grounds for challenge. He wanted obedience without ever naming the bargain in plain terms. Plain terms might be produced against him.”
Jane said, with sudden bitterness rare enough in her to startle them both, “He always did value righteousness most where it could not be cross-examined.”
“Exactly so. Uncle tried to help. He had not much ready money to spare, but he thought of situations, economies, temporary arrangements. There was even some notion that I might go as companion to a connection of his. It was not a cheerful prospect, but it was honest. Then another pressure began.”
She unfolded the first paper and laid it between them.
“Papa had left a debt imperfectly discharged with a local lender. Not ruinous by the scale men use for one another, but ruinous enough for women who possess no room for error. The debt itself was real. The use Collins made of it was not. He learned of it—I believe through Lucas Lodge, though I cannot prove the road by which gossip travelled—and began to suggest that if matters were not composed to his satisfaction, questions might be asked. About household goods. About whether Mama had retained things under valuation too favourable to female distress. About whether our portions and claims had been represented too conveniently. About our ability to meet demandswithout scandal. About whether legal enquiry, once begun, might not sweep more widely than anyone wished.”
Jane went very still. “He meant to bring me in too?”
“All of us. Mama’s nerves. Kitty and Mary’s dependence. Your future. My refusal. Uncle’s anxiety. He put a finger on every bruise and called it pastoral concern.”
Jane looked at the paper but did not seem to see the writing. “I thought—I knew he was odious. I did not know he meant to count even my prospects among his instruments. I credited our situation with Papa’s loss alone. You did not say otherwise.”
“Neither did I at first, for you had enough to bear. Men like Collins improve upon themselves when given time.”
