Page 2 of When Elizabeth Said Yes

She choked back a sob.

Hill came hurrying into the room.

"I've sent a local lad for the doctor. He'll be on his way, ma'am," she said, looking between the three women.

But Elizabeth shook her head and knelt by her father's bedside.

"Thank you, Hill. But he's gone."

She remembered her father's words to her only days earlier: "Your mother says she will not speak to you again if you do not marry Mr Collins, and I will not speak to you if you do."

He hadn't wanted it for her, even if it was the most sensible option.

But now...

Now she would have to defend that decision alone.

"Goodbye, Papa," she whispered as Jane comforted their mother.

Then she fled from the room, unable to be there, unable to face her mother's accusations, unable to deal with her own crippling grief with an audience.

There would be things to do, of course. She was the level-headed one. There would be the death certificate to obtain, and her sisters must be told, and an announcement must be put in the paper. Someone – oh gosh, probably her – would have to write to Mr and Mrs Collins and inform them of their exceptional good luck, so soon after they had wed.

But for now...

For now she needed to be alone with her grief in the place where she felt her father the most: his study.

And so she sat in his leather wingback chair, the book he had been reading still open on the table, his cigar still resting in an ashtray beside it, and she let the tears fall until she was numb from crying.

◆◆◆

Elizabeth sat on the wooden swing in the garden of Longbourn, stationary, her legs dangling and her toes only just grazing the floor.

The cool evening breeze fluttered the skirts of her dress, and she stared at nothing in particular, her mind full of the massive change a day could make in one's life.

She heard footsteps and turned her head.

Her sisters had returned only an hour or so earlier, and Jane and she had had the unfortunate job of sharing the sad news with them. For a while, they had each gone to their rooms. Kitty certainly seemed sad. Mary had wanted to pray, and Lydia – always so vain, that girl – had wanted to see what she had that suited her in black or that could be dyed black for their period of mourning.

Although she felt a little cruel in doing so, she had left Jane comforting Mama in that soft, caring way that Jane did best. When she thought about it rationally, she realised that her mother's cruel words, whilst she supposed founded in some truth, were surely born of grief. In spite of the arguments her parents had regularly had over the years, Lizzy truly believed they loved one another.

But whatever the reasoning behind her mother's harsh words, Lizzy could not bring herself to listen to more. She was too fragile already, and she was also worried she might respond in kind, and then their relationship might be forever damaged because of words spoken in misery.

She was relieved when she turned her head to see it was Jane approaching and not one of her other sisters. She loved them all dearly, of course, but no one understood her like Jane.

"The undertakers have come," Jane said when she was close enough to speak, "and the doctor prescribed something to calm Mama's nerves, to make her sleep. I think she needs it."

Lizzy nodded. "That does seem like a good plan. Things always seem better after a good night's sleep," she said, but there was a bitterness to her tone.

How could any of this look better after something so simple as sleep? For it wasn't just the loss. As devastating as it was, it was the fact that, as they had all known for a long time, the Collinses could turn them out whenever they chose to take their place here at their beloved Longbourn. It was a change in everything they had ever known.

"I don't think Mother means to be so harsh," Jane said, gesturing for Elizabeth to move up and sitting beside her on the large swing seat. When they'd been children, they'd squeezed three of them on, laughing joyfully as their father had pushed them. "She is just so terribly sad that I do not think she can help herself."

Lizzy nodded. "You see the best in everyone as always, my dear Jane. I think you are right... But that also does not make the words any easier to take, or any less true."

"No, Lizzy, you must not think like that," Jane said, pointing her toes before her, for hers did not quite touch the ground as Lizzy's did. "You made your decision. You believed in it then; you must believe in it now."

"I suppose I did not think I would be faced with the consequences of my decision quite so quickly," she said, raising an eyebrow at her sister. "It is rather humbling to realise you have been a fool."