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She slept then, waking when Elizabeth knocked gently on her door. She bade her enter.

“I have not woken you, I hope?” Elizabeth’s face was all smiles as she came in. “I would not like to disturb you.”

“No, no, do come in.” Lilly pushed herself upright and straightened the coverlet around her.

“I see you are well supplied with diversion,” Elizabeth said, taking in the litter of books, half-drunk teas, and needlework around her.

“I have brought sustenance. We have a particular receipt at Longbourn for a biscuit that is most soothing to an enraged gut. The cook was good enough to conjure them up for us here.”

She held out a plate on which was a very nice-looking biscuit which smelt faintly of ginger. Just seeing it made Lilly’s stomach grumble with hunger. “Oh, lovely,” she said. “That looks like just the thing.”

Elizabeth perched on the side of Lilly’s bed while Lilly took the biscuit and began, hesitantly, to nibble. “I cannot help but imagine the vagaries of dinner might be responsible for your malady.”

“I suspect so. My usual diet is nowhere near so adventurous.”

“I have, myself, always preferred a plain dish to a ragout…or whatever that was last evening.”

The two ladies laughed lightly, and Lilly thought she might really find Elizabeth a friend someday. Not wishing her to leave, Lilly began to ask her questions about herself, her family, and her home, chief among the queries. What she heard made her pensive, and her new friend noticed at once.

“No doubt you comprehend how different I am from what sort of wife Mr Darcy had been supposed to take.”

“Oh! No, do not think at all that I sit in any sort of judgment of you, or your home. I am only thinking of what a complicated business it is, finding a marriage partner. If I think that you are not what I should expect for Mr Darcy, it is only because you are so lively and—forgive me for saying so—I had always believed him so…so…dull. Stern, even.”

“I daresay you are not the only one to think so,” Elizabeth agreed .

“Falling in love has made him more agreeable in company.”

“His manners might have been softened, it is true, although I have long believed that the easier, more lively Mr Darcy was there all along, and just hidden from the view of most.”

Elizabeth’s words made Lilly recall last night’s observations of Saye. Whereas Mr Darcy had hidden liveliness to reveal, Saye must have hidden depths of solemnity to be shown.

“Everything is so hidden all the time,” Lilly said. “It makes it all the more difficult to know—shall I be happy with this man? Or is that one better suited to me?”

Elizabeth tilted her head, seeming to study Lilly. She glanced back over her shoulder, as if wishing to ascertain they remained alone, before asking, “You are expecting an offer from Mr Balton-Sycke, I think?”

Lilly nodded. “Soon, I daresay.”

Elizabeth continued in her pensive evaluation of Lilly. “I am perhaps impertinent to suggest it, as we are scarcely acquainted, but as I am rather outside your circle, I might have a unique and impartial perspective—should you need it.”

“He is a very good man as you have seen, no doubt.” Lilly paused to consider a moment before continuing to say, “I am simply not in love with him…and in truth, I do not think I ever would be. I would grow to care for him, I am sure. But love? I cannot imagine it.”

“Well…” Elizabeth smiled. “I may know more of what you feel than you know. I turned down a good marriage prospect some time before Mr Darcy proposed. Mr Collins is my cousin, heir to my father’s estate, so there was some hue and cry raised when I refused him.

My mother certainly thought spinsterhood was inevitable. ”

“Did you do that because you were in love with Mr Darcy?”

“No!” Elizabeth laughed. “Quite the opposite, in fact. No, I had no other prospects and nothing else in mind but the fact that I simply could not do it. And I daresay it would have been much to his disadvantage, as well as mine, if I had accepted him.”

“Yes, I suppose that is true.”

“But you see, if I had not taken that—oh, I imagine you could call it a leap of faith?—I would not have come to fall in love with Darcy. At the time, nearly everyone thought I was being a fool, but I was prepared to live with whatever consequence came of it.” Elizabeth smiled again and patted Lilly’s hand.

“And indeed, the consequences could have been dire. I have nothing of my own, as you might have heard said, and accepting Mr Collins was the most reasonable course. But I should have been miserable and eventually made him miserable too.”

She paused then and, with great delicacy, added, “I would expect the misery would be still greater if I had been in love with someone else. I think if there is someone else in your heart…then to accept an other should be quite out of the question indeed.”

Their eyes met, and Lilly thought that Elizabeth, for not knowing much of her, had cut neatly to the home truth.

“But I must leave you to rest.” Elizabeth rose from Lilly’s bed, offering a final warm smile before asking if there was anything else required for her comfort. She departed then, and Lilly was left alone with her thoughts.