Page 8 of A November to Remember

“He danced with Miss Susan Long as well,” Elizabeth pointed out. “I do not see her ordering orange blossom.”

“Miss Long.” The marmalade was applied more vigorously. “She has no figure to speak of, and her aunt wears mallow. It is an entirely different situation.”

From behind the newspaper, which was being held at the angle Mr Bennet had perfected over twenty-five years—making him visible to no one but audible to everyone—came a sound that was not quite a cough.

“He also trod on Jane’s hem,” Lydia announced, gesturing at Jane with her spoon. “That is significant. Mrs Long says a man who treads on a lady’s hem is either desperately in love or constitutionally unable to judge distance, and she has never known Mr Bingley to lack for eyes.”

Elizabeth turned to her youngest sister. “Thank you, Lydia. That is a wise contribution.”

“Mrs Long is a woman of remarkable perception,” Mrs Bennet declared, in rare agreement with her sworn enemy.

The newspaper lowered by precisely two inches. “Mrs Long,” Mr Bennet said, “once informed the butcher’s boy that the waning moon accounted for the quality of his sausages. I have always admired her range.”

Mrs Bennet turned to him. “You may mock, Mr Bennet, but when Jane is mistress of Netherfield Park with five thousand a year, let us see who is laughing.”

The newspaper rose back to its full height. “I am not laughing; I am reading. There is a distinction. I should be grateful if it were observed.”

“He ate three pieces of the seed cake.” Kitty delivered more evidence with earnestness. “I counted. Jane only had one and said she was not hungry. Three pieces are indicative.”

“Of a healthy appetite.” Elizabeth kept her voice very even.

“Of preference,” Kitty corrected firmly.

“For cake.”

“Lizzy.” Jane finally raised her face, and her expression made Elizabeth let it go. Not because she had run out of observations; she had several more. She let it go because Jane’s eyes pleaded with her.

Across the table, Mary had been silent for eleven minutes, which for Mary represented significant restraint. She set down her own cup, prepared to impart wisdom that had been building pressure behind the dam since sunrise. “Dr Fordyce writes that a lady’s heart ought not to be engaged before the gentleman has made his intentions formally known. To speculate otherwise invites a discomposure of the mind inconsistent with—”

“Yes, thank you, Mary,” Elizabeth and Lydia said together.

Mary blinked, surprised by their unanimity, then returned to Fordyce with a dignified sniff.

“I have been reconsidering.” Mrs Bennet set down the marmalade and picked up her teacup, a gesture that, in the Bennet household, signalled a complete revision of a previous position delivered with equal conviction. “I said Christmas, but now I am thinking Valentine’s Day. It is very romantic, the church ladies could do the pews in red, which would be striking against Jane’s colouring—”

“Mamma.” Jane’s voice was gentle but immovable. “I beg you. The man barely knows me.”

Mrs Bennet regarded her eldest daughter in a way that conveyed that she found this argument not merely wrong but entirely unsound. “He knows you well enough to have called you the most beautiful creature he had ever beheld in his life.”

“He said that to Mr Darcy. Not to me.”

“He meant it for you.”

“Mamma—”

“He danced with you twice, Jane.”

Jane’s mouth closed, having tried her best and failed.

“Christmas or Valentine’s,” Mrs Bennet said thoughtfully, returning to the original question impervious to the preceding four minutes of conversation. “Hill!” She raised her voice to the door. “Which do you think? For the wedding dates?”

Hill appeared in the doorway with fresh toast. She had answered this question every morning since the seventeenth and had given the same response each time. “Both are handsome, ma’am.”

“There.” Mrs Bennet addressed this to the room at large, and specifically to Mr Bennet’s newspaper. “Hill agrees.”

The newspaper neither confirmed nor denied.

“He has gone to London,” Elizabeth informed everyone then, pouring more tea.