Page 62 of A November to Remember

They navigated the entrance hall, climbed the stairs, and entered their shared bedroom. Once inside, Elizabeth slammed the door shut and leaned against it, letting out a long exhale.

The familiar wallpaper of their childhood room surrounded them. It was noisy. It was mayhem. It was Longbourn.

Jane sank onto her bed, untying her bonnet. “I already miss Sarah.”

Elizabeth pulled off her bonnet and tossed it onto a chair. “I miss the roaring fireplaces in every room.”

A knock sounded at the bedroom door. Elizabeth groaned. “Go away, Lydia. There is no news of the redcoats in here.”

“It is Hill, miss.”

Elizabeth pulled the door open to see the housekeeper holding a tray. Resting in the centre of the tray was a steaming porcelain bowl. Elizabeth stared at the bowl, then looked up at Hill, a question written all over her face.

Hill did not blink, but a mischievous twitch appeared at her mouth. “Mrs Nicholls sent a boy over with the recipe this morning, Miss Elizabeth. She insisted it was a matter of life and death.”

Jane peeked over Elizabeth’s shoulder, her eyes widening.

Hill held the tray out, her professional composure cracking just a fraction. “Beef broth. To ward off the chills. And perhaps the suitors.”

Elizabeth eyed the steaming liquid. The memory of Colonel Fitzwilliam slurping the discarded broth rushed back to her in a glorious wave. She looked at Jane. Jane was staring at the broth with horror.

They collapsed onto the mattress and laughed until their sides ached.

Hill left when she managed to stop laughing herself, taking the broth with her and promising to feed it to the pigs.

The drawing-room following luncheon was not so much a space for relaxation as it was an enclosure for untamed animals of the Arctic waste. Elizabeth leaned against the windowsill, nursing a cup of tea and enjoying the noise. After a week of hushed passages and Caroline Bingley’s polite sneers, the Bennet household was a restorative tonic.

“Give it back, you absolute beast. I saw it first at the haberdashery!”

Kitty planted a booted foot against the arm of the sofa, hauling back on one end of a pink silk ribbon with all her might.

“You have no pink bonnets, you simpleton!” Lydia yanked the opposite end, digging her heels into the rug, her face flushed with the exertion of the struggle. “You want it because I want it!”

The silk groaned dangerously under the tension.

“And so, the vain and frivolous soul is cast into the eternal mire of its own making.” A flat monotone droned from the corner chair, cutting through the shrieks. Mary did not look up from the book resting on her knees. She sat as rigid as a plank of wood, preaching to an audience of three embroidered cushions and a sleeping cat. She turned a page with a sharp, judgmental snap. “Chapter four. On the spiritual danger of haberdashery.”

A loud tear echoed through the parlour as the pink silk finally surrendered.

Kitty tumbled backwards, taking a side table and a candlestick down with her in a clattering crash. Lydia fell onto the sofa cushions, triumphantly clutching a useless, jagged shred of fabric.

From the depths of the armchair by the fire, a solid wall of the Morning Chronicle rustled. A hand emerged from behind the paper, blindly felt around the surviving side table, secured a teacup, and retreated behind the impenetrable barricade of newsprint.

“Fascinating.” Mr Bennet’s dry voice murmured from behind the financial columns, unbothered by the destruction of his drawing-room. “Turnips are up a halfpenny in Cheapside.”

Hill entered the room, staring straight ahead, ignoring the overturned candlestick and Kitty groaning on the floor.

“Miss Charlotte Lucas.” She offered a brief nod to the newspaper and vanished.

Charlotte navigated the devastation with practised ease. She had survived twenty-seven years in close proximity to this family, after all. She lifted her sensible skirts an inch, stepped delicately over the overturned side table, bypassed Kitty’s flailing boots, and moved further into the room.

Elizabeth abandoned her teacup on the windowsill, pulling her friend into a tight embrace.

Charlotte stepped back, her eyes darting to Jane. Jane was seated by the fire, more thoroughly vexed than Elizabeth had ever seen her. “I saw the carriage return. And I see Jane has survived the horrors of luxury. Well? Has the golden-haired gentleman succumbed?”

Elizabeth watched her sister carefully. A flush of acute embarrassment crept up Jane’s neck, and she squared her shoulders.

“He has not, Charlotte,” Jane replied, her voice steady, though tinged with a most un-Jane-like coolness. “He was distant today. He stood as far away from me as possible and barely met my eye. He said little beyond announcing a ball. I fear I have allowed myself to imagine a steadier character than he actually possesses. I was quite foolishly entertaining such aspirations towards a man of his calibre.”