Longbourn by Jo Baker Page A

drinks and treats and little meals, the running up and down stairs with it all. It was considerate—just like Jane—to be ill away from home.
    “All will be well, then,” Sarah said.
    For him, the moment stretched like wool on tenters. There must be no slip, no hint, of the trouble she was causing him. The urge to speak, to touch: that must be bitten back and shoved down and locked away tight.
    Sarah, on the other hand, was busily burying her guilt about going through his things, by heaping irritation and outrage over it: why could Mr. Smith not take her into his confidence like this new fellow did? Why did not James tell her about all his travels, about where he had come from, and where he had been? He did not volunteer anything, he just remained taciturn and uncivil. No wonder she had misunderstood him. No wonder she had spied …
    He drew a breath; she flinched, and looked round.
    He just said, “Well.”
    And then he left, following the other man out into the rainy yard, and she tutted, and turned away, and went back to her work.
    Elizabeth’s departure, once the rain had stopped, caused no particular trouble to anyone below stairs. She just put on her walking shoes and buttoned up her good spencer, threw a cape over it all, and grabbed an umbrella just in case the rain came on again. Such self-sufficiency was to be valued in a person, but seeing her set off down the track, and then climb the stile, Sarah could not help but think that those stockings would be perfectly ruined, and that petticoat would never be the same again, no matter how long she soaked it. You just could not get mud out of pink Persian. Silk was too delicate a cloth to boil.
    Neighbours called during the day. Sir William Lucas and his daughter Charlotte sat a while, but they were no trouble either, and did not stay to dinner. Elizabeth was expected back for the meal, but as preparations—and the clock’s hands—advanced and there was still no sign of her, Mrs. Hill began to despair of her returning in time to assist withthe eating of the gravy-pie; if only the Lucases had been prevailed upon to remain. At half past four, when the pie was waiting on the kitchen table, and would, if not served promptly, have to be eaten cold, that same mulatto footman of Mr. Bingley’s flung open the kitchen door and stood there letting out the warmth while he scraped the mud off his boots. It seemed he did not find this amusing anymore.
    “It is blasted cold out there.”
    He had brought a note from Elizabeth this time. She would not, she informed the family, be returning for dinner, but would instead remain at Netherfield to take care of Jane until she was well enough to travel. Elizabeth requested a supply of clothes for them both. On hearing this news—Mr. Bennet reading it aloud over the dinner table for the benefit of the assembled family, and to shame his wife for her recklessness with her eldest daughter’s health—Mrs. Hill set off immediately to pack a bag for the young ladies. Mrs. Bennet followed a little after, once she had finished up her dinner.
    She arrived in the girls’ room when Mrs. Hill’s work was almost done, and proceeded to undo it, whisking one gown away to exchange it for another, demanding that Mrs. Hill cease packing and wait while she had a think, and then standing lost in calculation and a drift of clothes as she considered the benefits and disadvantages of each of Jane’s bonnets, gowns, caps and capes. The contents of the valise spilt out like an over-boiling pan.
    “No, no, not that gown, for Mr. Bingley saw her in it at the Lucases’, and will think she has not another one as good.”
    What Miss Jane would want with chilly evening-gowns or worked muslin or fancy bonnets when she was confined to her room by sickness, or why Mr. Bingley would be expected to concern himself with what she wore, since he would not see her anyway, Mrs. Hill could not imagine, but she was too absorbed in wardrobe mathematics to pay her