Cloaks were gathered, carriages called, and servants summoned.
Darcy bowed over her hand before taking his leave.
His gaze lingered just long enough to unsettle her anew.
Then he was gone.
The house calmed gradually after the sound of wheels faded into the night.
At length, Elizabeth climbed the stairs and, once in her chamber, paused at the window to look out across the darkened grounds.
Longbourn had become strangely crowded within only a few days—with attention, with unspoken expectations, and with emotions she no longer trusted herself to define.
And somewhere amid that confusion stood Alfred Barnett Wilson, talking endlessly beside her chair, while Fitzwilliam Darcy stared at her in ways no gentleman ought unless he intended grave danger to her peace of mind.
Elizabeth pressed her forehead briefly against the cool glass.
Then, with considerably more feeling than charity, she wished most sincerely that Mr. Wilson would depart.
Salt in the Tea
Elizabeth entered the breakfast room the next morning determined to preserve a composed and sensible frame of mind. The resolution survived perhaps thirty seconds.
Mr. Wilson rose the instant she passed the threshold, nearly upsetting his coffee in the effort. “Miss Elizabeth! I had begun to fear you meant to abandon us all to solitary suffering.”
Elizabeth paused beside Jane’s chair. “At breakfast?”
“One may suffer at any hour.”
Mr. Bennet lowered his newspaper slightly. “An observation I have long suspected true.”
Mrs. Bennet hid a smile behind her teacup.
Elizabeth seated herself beside Jane with as much calm as she could muster while Mr. Wilson resumed his own place only after first ensuring she lacked for nothing on the table. He passed the preserves before she requested them, offered cream she did not want, and asked whether she slept well with the solemn concern of a physician.
She answered politely through all of it. Internally, however, exhaustion had already begun gathering.
Across the table, Thomas and Toby watched the exchange with increasing disapproval. The twins had regained partial freedom from their punishment after several days of good behavior, though Mrs. Bennet still regarded them with wary attention whenever suspicious silence occurred.
At present they were very silent indeed.
Mary opened a book beside her plate while Lydia buttered toast with cheerful violence.
Mr. Wilson, apparently undeterred by Elizabeth’s measured civility, launched into another account of northern manufacturing difficulties before the servants had fully withdrawn from the room.
“The difficulty,” he declared while helping himself to ham, “lies in balancing firmness with fairness. A man cannot allow workers to dictate terms, and starvation breeds resentment faster than any agitator.”
“That sounds remarkably sensible,” Jane observed kindly.
Mr. Wilson beamed. “Precisely my thought, Miss Bennet.”
Elizabeth caught Toby rolling his eyes toward Thomas.
“Of course,” Wilson continued, “many mill owners are fools. They imagine wealth excuses poor management.”
Mr. Bennet folded his newspaper at last. “Fortune rarely improves fools. It merely finances them.”
Mrs. Bennet’s lips twitched.
