Page 97 of A Debt Inherited

“They are to take the lanes quietly. Perkins the lower road. Weller towards Oakham Mount. Dawes the north road. If any man saw Miss Elizabeth after noon, I am to know the hour, the place, and whether she was alone. Nothing more is to be said.”

Bennet rose and stood behind Elizabeth’s chair. “No one leaves Longbourn except by my order, and no one speaks beyond the house except in the words I have given.”

Hill stepped past him. “Yes, sir.”

The door closed.

Bennet remained beside Elizabeth’s chair. In the passage, Hill’s voice fell low and steady; another door opened; feet crossed the hall.

Bennet looked again at the ledger. Elizabeth’s little line beneath the total held the page in order.

He laid his palm over it.

Outside, Hill rode out from Longbourn without a shout, without a lantern, and without Bennet’s daughter’s name upon his lips.

Chapter 37

Longbourn, July 1812

Bennet had not left the kitchen.

A small journal lay open before him on the scrubbed table, with a sharpened pencil, a folded map of the lanes, and a list of every person known to have crossed Longbourn’s grounds since breakfast. He had drawn the day into hours, the hours into names, and the names into narrow marks that might, if Providence proved merciful and men proved observant, become direction.

Cook had ceased urging broth upon him near midnight. Mrs Hill had ceased asking whether he would be more comfortable in the library soon after. They had accepted him at last as one accepts a chair set inconveniently in the way: awkward, immovable, and not to be reasoned with.

He had tried to make himself as little an offence as possible.

The kitchen belonged to women. He had known that in the careless manner by which a gentleman knows the machinery that feeds him: grate, table, dresser, copper, pantry door, Cook’s floury authority, Mrs Hill’s chatelaine. Yet he had never truly understood how much of Longbourn lived here, nor how little of it required him. His own rooms had always seemed the centre of the house because his wife had come to him there, bringing triumph, anxiety, news of daughters, perfume, and a love he had too often answered poorly.

He knew the grain of his library desk better than he knew the rooms she governed.

Mrs Hill moved behind him without sound, save for the faint chime of keys at her waist. Cook bent over the hearth, her sleeves rolled and her face grey with wakefulness. Neither woman wept. That restraint had become another labour in the room.

Bennet marked the next line.

Four o’clock. No return.

He looked at the yard door.

The latch lifted.

Dawes stepped in alone, bringing the night air upon his coat. Dust lightened his boots to the knee, and one sleeve was torn. He took off his hat when he saw Bennet at the table.

“Sir.”

Mrs Hill moved at once, but Bennet lifted one hand.

“Report first.”

Dawes swallowed. “North road, sir. I went as far as the old milestone, then back by the ditch line.”

Bennet set his pencil to the page. “Time?”

“Left my place at half past eight. Reached the milestone near ten. Saw two sets of wheels after the second stile, but the ground is too cut to swear to direction.”

“Persons?”

“None after sunset, sir. Before that, Mrs Goulding’s boy drove sheep towards Lucas’s land, and old Vickers took a barrow along the north hedge. Neither saw Miss Elizabeth.”