Jane was distracted but pleasant throughout. She was never cruel to Elizabeth and she did not scold her and she did not make much of any of it. She was rarely sympathetic, either, Elizabeth supposed, but she did not renew her accusation that Elizabeth had made it all up, and she did not indicate that she thought Elizabeth deserved to suffer, so Elizabeth did not have it in her to complain.
The wedding came upon them soon.
The day was a bright and warm autumn day, and the ceremony at the church was quick and cheery. Afterwards, the wedding breakfast was boisterous and full of ever so many people come to wish happiness to the new couple.
And then Jane was gone, and Elizabeth was alone in their bedroom again, and she felt relieved by it, she had to say, and she wondered at what had come between her sister and herself, and if it could ever be repaired.
After all, she would be unmarriageable after this. When she came back to Longbourn, after surrendering her babe to Louisa, she would be all alone, and she had hoped to spend some of her time residing with Jane. But given the way everything had turned out, she did not know if that would come to pass.
Elizabeth did not like to look into the future, for there was little she could see there, she found. She had nothing to look forward to, only bleakness. She could only hope that the babe she bore would not have a miserable life. Louisa was not a terrible person, Elizabeth thought. She was not as vindictive as Caroline, really more of a follower than a leader. Mr. Hurst was also similarly not horrible, though there was nothing much to recommend him, either. He seemed to have a singular love of card games, that was what she knew of him. Or, no, he had only commented that her preferring reading to cards was singular?
Whatever the case, she had nothing to say in objection to the man, and she supposed that he and Louisa must be grateful thatshe would be providing them with a child. Of course, neither of them had said so, not Louisa, and certainly not her husband, who had not spoken to her once during the wedding. (He had arrived shortly beforehand and left only days afterward.)
Before long, Elizabeth was leaving for Derbyshire.
Caroline and Louisa came to collect her. Her trunk was loaded onto the carriage. Both sisters commented extensively on how convenient it was that Elizabeth did not have a maid, because that meant that their maids fit easily on the back of the carriage, sitting outside in the September air, and that if Elizabeth’d had a maid, it would have been quite difficult to manage.
Elizabeth thought privately that there was room inside the carriage for another maid, but she kept that to herself.
They set off, then, for a journey that would take them two days. They would stop over halfway at an inn, something predetermined. Elizabeth had brought a book that she thought she would read exclusively and that should take her two days to finish. She opened it the moment they were on the road.
“Close that book this instant,” said Louisa.
Elizabeth looked up at her. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t think it can be good for the baby, all of that looking down at the book,” said Louisa. “I think it would be better if you had some sun on your face.”
Elizabeth blinked at her. Was this woman serious?
Caroline smiled at her, an awful smile. “You will indulge my sister, won’t you? You have no idea how difficult it’s been for her, all these years with her husband and no babe. She has been quite beside herself. She wishes everything to be perfect now.”
“Well,” said Louisa, “I would wish that the father of this babe not be the son of a steward, but it is what we must make do with. You will never mention to my husband that Mr. Wickham made our child, do you understand me?”
Elizabeth swallowed. “Jane told you.” She had not said a word to anyone.
“Once we heard, we agreed it was best to keep it all secret,” said Caroline. “Anyway, if you do not mind, Eliza, put that book away.”
Elizabeth wished to tell them both that she would not listen to anything that they had to say, that she would jolly well read if she liked, and that they must be kind to her or that it would upset the babe she was growing.
Instead, she closed the book and put it away. She gazed out the window.
It would not do to cause conflict so soon, she thought. It would be better to wait, to bide her time, and to save her energy for the things she really must put her foot down about. There were likely to be many things, after all.
She looked into the sun for some time, thinking nothing at all, her mind entirely blank. When she turned back, she saw that both of the sisters had books of their own, and they were reading.
That was likely intentional, Elizabeth thought, and done to make her angry. They wanted her to react. They wanted to get her off balance and to have as much fun with her as possible.
Well, she would not give them the satisfaction.
She looked out the window instead, and she pretended that she was not with child, not on a journey to shamefully hide it and to give her babe away. Instead, she pretended that she was going to the Lakes as she should have done that summer, that she was off for a diverting holiday that would be full of joy and laughter. She pretended she was unencumbered, her whole life ahead of her, nothing but possibilities.
CHAPTER SIX
“YOU DON’T MIND, do you?” said Caroline, smiling a sickly sweet smile as they got out of the carriage at the inn. “After all, it would be such an expense for an entire other room.”
Elizabeth lifted her chin. “No, of course I don’t mind sleeping with the maids.” It was going to be three in a bed, and the room they had been given was much smaller, and she knew that Caroline had done this on purpose, to send a message to Elizabeth that Caroline did not think of her as an equal, but there was no point in getting upset about it. “I’m sure we’ll be quite comfortable.”
The maids themselves, whose names were Bessie and Jennifer, spent the night whispering to each other and not speaking to her. Jennifer said, at one point, loud enough for Elizabeth to hear, that it wasn’t fair for them to have to be so close to her, for she was little better than a strumpet, and her sinful ways might bleed out onto both of them.
