Page 72 of The Longbourn Bloodline

“Ah.” Mr. Bennet surveyed the room—the disordered lower shelves, the stepstool out of place, the gap in the sermon collection, and his daughter holding a slim rose-pink volume. “You have been rearranging my library.”

“Exploring it,” Elizabeth corrected.

“A distinction without a meaningful difference, as far as my shelves are concerned.” He crossed to his desk and settled into his chair with the authority of a man reclaiming occupied territory. His gaze returned to Alice’s book in her hands. “What were you looking for?”

“We were not looking for anything in particular,” Elizabeth said. “Georgiana noticed that Jane’s mare has the conformation of the Pemberley bays, and we wondered whether George Darcy had left anything behind from his time at Longbourn. Books, or notes, or⁠—”

“And you found Alice.” Mr. Bennet’s voice flattened—not unkind, but careful, the way a man speaks when he is choosing which door to open and which to keep shut.

“She wrote a family history at fifteen, Papa. It is extraordinary.”

“Alice was an eccentric woman, Lizzy.” He drew on his pipe and let the smoke carry his words upward. “A spinster aunt of strong opinions and a sharp pen. Every family has one. You need not trouble yourself overmuch with her.”

“Why, Papa? I think she is delightful. Has she written other tracts of interest? Maybe a volume of maxims for unmanageable nephews?”

Mr. Bennet waved his pipe vaguely toward the darker recesses of the upper shelving. “If she did, Lizzy, they have been moved by my father, who did not give truck to such nonsense.”

“Nonsense, Papa?” Elizabeth retorted with an arch lift of her brow. “History is rarely nonsense, save when it is written by men who fear a clever woman’s postscript. Where on earth would Grandfather have banished them?”

“I’ll wager a guinea they aren’t far,” Bingley piped up, reaching for a volume on the top shelf. “Look here. I’ve found a sketchbook full of horses! Though I must say, the proportions on this one look rather more like a badger hound with hoofs.”

Mr. Bennet favored the sketchbook with a withering look. “That, Mr. Bingley, belonged perhaps to another improvement campaign a hundred years ago.”

“Could it have been when George visited?” Georgiana took the sketchbook from Bingley. “Although the conformation of these horses does not appear to be Pemberley stock.”

“She was either lacking in proportion or making a statement about Derbyshire,” Mr. Bennet made a shooing motion with his pipe. “Alice was the cleverest woman this family ever produced and the most unfortunate. She was difficult and set in her ways. She allowed herself to be defined by a single sorrow.”

“Why do you speak of her with such a settled disdain, Papa?” Elizabeth asked. “If she was clever and wrote with such fire, why must her life be dismissed as a cautionary tale?”

“Because I should not like the same for you.”

“Mr. Bennet, if I may interject,” Darcy said.

“One daughter at a time, Mr. Darcy.” He turned toward the doorway. “I find my nerves are not up to ancient history. Mr. Bingley, you mentioned a fallen tree. Shall we discuss it in the drawing room, where well-meaning young people are not ransacking my shelves?”

Elizabeth felt the sting. Mr. Bennet did not glance back as he departed with Bingley, who was already describing the fallen tree’s precise location. Elizabeth pressed Alice’s book to her chest, gathered the sketchbook, and passed Darcy and Georgiana into the corridor. Georgiana busied herself with her gloves, feigning deafness to any discord, while Darcy’s face was troubled.

He looked at her—at the volume pressed against her bodice, at whatever was written on her face. “Alice was unforgettable,” he said. “Like you. I shall call on your father tomorrow.”

Elizabeth’s throat tightened with all she could not say. She nodded and climbed the stairs without a backward glance. On the landing, she paused, one hand on the banister, and opened Alice’s book to its final written page. The handwriting was bold, the hand of a girl unafraid of anyone’s displeasure—then, abruptly, only blank pages after September 1711, as final as a door closed with a snap.

She had loved, had carried a letter at her side, and had died in this house, alone. Yet her words endured. She had lived richly, spinning tales for the tenant children. Perhaps what others called misfortune, she counted differently. Her life was not defined by one small sorrow, but by one great love.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

WORTHY OF HER

Despite the frost on the lane to Longbourn and Mr. Bennet’s dismissal of the young people ransacking his library, Darcy was determined to call on Mr. Bennet. He had promised Elizabeth as much, and he could see no reason for the delay. He, accordingly, dressed with care, asking Vernon to re-tie his cravat for the third time in a knot so precise, symmetrical, and irreproachable that Mr. Bennet would rather cross his eyes than refuse such a stiffly starched piece of neckwear.

Or so he assured himself, mounting Hercules—who, unlike his master, seemed entirely untroubled by the prospect of parental interviews—and setting out for Longbourn. Today, he would comport himself as a gentleman of ten thousand a year, not as the reckless soul who had surrendered an inheritance or stolen a kiss among the apple trees, but as a suitor intent on earning a father’s blessing for a woman who deserved nothing less than formality and sincerity.

Hill admitted him briskly through the door and showed him into the library. Darcy heard the hurried footsteps and Mrs. Bennet’s loud whispers to her younger daughters to disappear, no doubt rearranging themselves into the best eavesdropping positions. Elizabeth would be upstairs, having no intention of enduring her mother’s scrutiny, and Jane would stay to console her in case things went south.

Darcy found Mr. Bennet seated at his desk with his pipe in hand. Cleo was curled in her usual spot on a pile of correspondence, and she greeted him with a yawn.

“Mr. Darcy.” Mr. Bennet did not rise. “I wondered how long you would wait. I expected you yesterday, but I suppose my daughter’s library expedition distracted you.”

“I did not wish to intrude upon the celebrations, sir.”