He addressed her as Miss Elizabeth more often than Miss Barnett, a distinction she appreciated more than she cared to admit. He spoke of her father with greater respect and far less proprietorial warmth. When the subject turned to trade, he did so without the awkward defensiveness of a man anxious to prove himself genteel, but with the quiet confidence of one who had built his life through labor, judgment, and no small measure of stubbornness.
That morning he entered the sitting room carrying a small packet wrapped in brown paper.
“For you,” he said.
Elizabeth looked up from the mending she had taken into her lap only because Mrs. Bennet had passed through the room ten minutes earlier.
“For me?”
“It is hardly a gift,” he said quickly. “Or rather, nothing likely to alarm anyone. Papers only.”
Mr. Bennet lowered his book. “My dear Wilson, any gentleman who presents papers to a young lady before noon risks alarming the entire household.”
Mr. Wilson laughed, though a light blush rose in his cheeks. “Old shipping invoices. Copies rather than originals. Your father’s hand appears on two of them.”
Elizabeth’s fingers grew still.
That did alarm her.
But in the most welcome way.
She accepted the packet with more care than the plain brown paper appeared to merit. Inside were several folded sheets, the ink faded in places but still perfectly legible. Her father’s name appeared near the bottom of one page.
Barnett & Co.
She had not seen that handwriting in many years.
“Mama,” she said, before she had fully intended to speak.
Mrs. Bennet, seated near the window with Jane, glanced over at it. Her expression changed instantly.
“May I?”
Elizabeth passed her the page.
Grace Bennet held it carefully, her thumb resting near the signature but never touching it. For a moment she remained silent. The room, filled only moments before with the ordinary sounds of morning, seemed to draw inward around the paper.
“Yes,” she said at last. “It is his hand.”
Mr. Wilson shifted slightly. “I thought you might wish to have them. They were among a trunk of old accounts I brought from the north. Had I remembered them sooner, I would have sent them at once.”
Elizabeth believed him.
“Thank you,” she said.
The words were simple and therefore wholly inadequate.
His countenance became visibly radiant. “I am delighted they are welcome.”
Mary leaned forward. “May I examine them?”
“In a moment,” Elizabeth said, more quickly than she intended.
Mary withdrew without offense, perhaps hearing more in Elizabeth’s tone than Elizabeth herself had meant to reveal.
Mr. Wilson exerted no pressure. More even than the papers themselves, that restraint remained with her. He took a chair at a proper distance and allowed Mrs. Bennet to study the pages in peace.
Everything would have been easier had he remained merely ridiculous.
