Page 11 of Colour My World (The Bennet Sister Variations #3)

Later that week, Jane and Mary accompanied Elizabeth for an hour’s walk around the gardens.

“While I appreciate your company, is this much care not excessive for my minor injuries?”

Jane laughed. “No amount of care for a beloved sister is too much.”

Mary squeezed her hand. Elizabeth returned Mary’s gesture and said, “I will admit, this hour passed pleasantly. Might I beg a cup of tea and a biscuit?”

At the door, her sisters turned back toward the parlour. Elizabeth made her way to the kitchen. Mrs Hill and Cook welcomed her eagerly.

“You must have a good slice of fresh bread,” Cook insisted, reaching for a thickly cut piece. Her aire mirrored Mrs Hill’s. “Bread strengthens the arms, and you have none to spare.”

“And cheese for strong bones! A woman must stand firm in this world.” Mrs Hill placed a plate with a block of cheese in front of her.

Cook presented a dish of stewed apples. “For the digestion, miss. A lady ought never to suffer from a sour stomach.”

Elizabeth chuckled as the two women hovered over her. Their aires, warm and reassuring, wrapped about her, a familiar quilt. She took a bite of bread to placate them, and Cook clapped her hands in triumph. “There now! We shall have you hearty yet.”

A large man entered through the back door. “Where ya be, Cook?”

“What do ye want, butcher?” Cook answered, hands on hips.

“I has your meat order.”

“You know where the table is.”

The butcher returned and dropped a massive piece of bloody meat onto the cutting table.

“Pardon us, Miss Lizzy. Cook has work to do,” Mrs Hill said.

Elizabeth rose. “Thank you for the repast.” She turned to excuse herself—

The air shifted.

His aire loomed thick and heavy, a dark storm cloud that pressed against her. Cook’s lips moved, but her words were for nought. The darkness suppressed everything.

“Kilt it meself fresh. Hung for four hours, as you like.”

“I dunno. Seems off to me,” Cook replied.

“When has I ever steer’d ye wrong?” The butcher glanced between her and Elizabeth. His aire pulsed; black flecks of soot bled into the air. His words did not matter. The ash cloud betrayed him.

The word escaped Elizabeth before she thought of it. “Today”

The butcher’s mouth opened, but before he could protest, Cook waved her hand. “Shut it.” Her aire darkened at the edges.

Cook pressed her fingers deep into the meat shank, inhaled, and recoiled.

She coughed, grabbed a rag, and wiped her face and hands.

“Off ye go. I’ll send a boy to watch ye kill a fresh one, and he’ll sit with it while it hangs.

” Cook grabbed a large carving knife. “Sell me spoiled meat again, and it’s you I be carving. ”

The butcher’s eyes darted from Cook to Elizabeth and back. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “It won’t happen again. Don’t ruin me. For pity’s sake.”

She blinked. He had lied . The realisation settled like a stone in her chest. I can trust what I see!

“Do as I say, and you’ll avoid me wrath,” Cook replied.

The butcher fled.

Mrs Hill took Elizabeth’s arm. “Let’s get you some rest, Miss Lizzy. This was too much excitement for one still on the mend.”

A flicker of brown brushed her vision. She turned, certain she would find her father in the doorway.

No one was there.

* * *

That night, she lit a candle. The mirror stood atop her dressing table. Her own mismatched eyes stared back. No colour framed her reflection. No halo, no flicker. Nothing.

She pressed her fingertips to the glass. A smudge bloomed. Her breath clouded the surface. But no light answered.

That afternoon, she had watched Mary cross the garden path—silver, smooth, unwavering.

Jane’s white shone soft. Papa’s tan held fast. Kitty flickered. Lydia coloured the truth.

She had made a trial of it more than once. The results were always the same. Everyone’s aire revealed something. But her own…

If I look hard enough, if I wait long enough, will my aire appear?

The mirror gave no answer. She looked again. There was no light about her.

“I have no colour.”

* * *

The following four weeks challenged her patience.

The drawing room hummed with her mother’s delight. Mrs Long and Mrs Goulding perched on their chairs, fans waving, voices pitched in eager whispers.

“Mrs Harding swore she saw Miss Pope alone in the lane with young Mr Simmons,” her mother said. “Of course, she will deny it, but I know better. Such a thing could not be mistaken!”

“Indeed not,” Mrs Long replied. “And Mr Simmons, with his prospects, would do far better than to be trapped by such a girl.”

Mrs Goulding tutted. “Oh, he shall be made to do right by her, or her father will see him ruined.”

Their aires darkened and pulsed. Shadows flickered about their faces as they wove their tales, not outright deception, but something more insidious. Delight, not truth, nourished their tongues.

Elizabeth turned away, disgust roiling within her.

That evening, her bedroom door ajar, shrill cries rang out across the hall. “It is mine, you horrid cheat!”

“You speak false! I found it first!”

Elizabeth followed Jane to find Kitty and Lydia wrestling over a ribbon. Each gripped an end as though it would vanish. The silk twisted between them, crumpled from the struggle.

Jane ended the matter. “The ribbon is mine.”

Their aires, darkened by their deception, betrayed them. Their faces fell in a perfect mirror of guilt.

Even within Longbourn, falsehood crept into every corner.

* * *

On Sunday, she sat in the church pew, hands clasped, spine straight. Flanked by Jane and Mary, she closed her eyes and took comfort in the air of honesty. The sermon droned on, a familiar lull until the announcement.

“The banns of marriage are published between Mr Samuel Hart and Miss Rebecca Ingram. If any know cause or just impediment—”

The pastor’s aire grew. A shadow crept around his head, deepening with every word, as though the weight of them pressed upon his shoulders.

Elizabeth stilled. A lie? Or simply a burden? She had begun to perceive the difference: not all untruths were voiced. Some lingered in the spaces between words, in the reluctance of a voice forced to deliver it.

She shivered. Jane placed a shawl across her shoulders; Mary rubbed her hands.

Outside, she learned the reason for the vicar’s lies.

“Shameless girl!” Mrs James whispered.

“She was seen more than once with him.” Miss Carter peered over her shoulder.

“A tryst in the vestry, so it is said,” Mrs Webb said.

Elizabeth knew not if they spoke the truth—but the relish in their voices betrayed a bottomless appetite.

Mrs James gestured towards the vicar. “And look at him.”

The pastor stood with the groom-to-be.

“Does he not carry a burden in his eyes? I daresay he is more than a spiritual guide to the young lady.”

Is there not a single soul of integrity among them? Aside from Jane, Mary, and Charlotte, is there not anyone I know untainted by deceit?

She looked for her father. He was speaking to Mr Lucas, whose voice carried. “And so, I said to the man, a handshake binds it. Let no paper or seal be required between gentlemen of their word.”

Her father nodded. “As it should be, my friend. As it should be.” The colours surrounding them remained constant.

Elizabeth exhaled in relief. There were still a few good men left.

That evening, Elizabeth sat in her usual place at the dinner table. Her father had few rules, but one maxim, none, not even Mamma, would challenge: his desire for the family to dine together.

She glanced down the longboard.

Lydia kicked the table leg as she toyed with her spoon, pouting magnificently over the stewed turnips. Their mother had yet to notice.

Elizabeth had. And Lydia’s aire shimmered gold--bright when she laughed, dim when ignored, and vibrant whenever she drew attention. She basked in it like sunlight, and wilted just as quickly without it.

Their mother scolded Kitty for slouching.

Lydia’s lip quivered. “I do not like turnips, Mama.”

Her mother tone melted. “Oh, my love, then you shall not eat them! Dreadful things. I shall have Cook prepare something more suitable.”

Lydia beamed. She was playing a part, though whether for their mother or herself, Elizabeth could not tell.

Kitty scowled and pushed her potatoes with her fork. Her aire never quite settled.

Mary sat straight-backed, her spoon rising and falling as if by rote. Her silver cloud did not ripple or dim. Mary did not seek attention, and so, no one thought to offer it.

Elizabeth turned towards their mother. Her aire shifted constantly: amber worry, gold hope, orange frustration. It flared when she scolded Kitty, softened when she coddled Lydia, dimmed as she glanced at Mary.

But when she looked at Jane, Elizabeth blinked. A warm white glow suffused her mother’s cloud.

Jane is the sum of all her hopes.

Elizabeth swallowed the hurt. Must we always be measured against one another?

When her mother turned to her, there were no soft tones, no steady glow. Only flame, flickering and flaring, always on the verge of consuming.

Elizabeth turned to her father. By contrast, he remained unmoved. She had expected shifting hues, flickers of thought but there was nothing. Or rather, not nothing. His aire held firm. Was this what absolute certainty looks like? Was this what it means to be entirely at ease within oneself?

Her father glanced up; one brow lifted. “My dear Lizzy, if you stare at me any longer, I shall think you are trying to see into my soul.”

Elizabeth, startled, looked down at her plate.

But her father only chuckled. “You are quiet this evening.” He speared a piece of lamb. “Unusual for you.”

“I am simply thinking.”

“A dangerous pastime.”

Elizabeth smirked. “I thought you were one to encourage it.”

“I do,” he said, taking a sip of wine. “And what, may I ask, are you thinking so intently about?”

Elizabeth hesitated. She set down her fork. “Do you believe I am perceptive?”

Mr Bennet exhaled through his nose. She caught the familiar twitch at the corner of his mouth; he was enjoying this. “Lizzy, I believe you are entirely too perceptive.”

“Truly?”

He gestured towards the table. “Do you believe I do not see you watching your sisters with great scrutiny? Since your accident, you seem intent on listening rather than leaping to conclusions. Admirable, I daresay. I would posit you now understand them better than they understand themselves.”

He had noticed. She had assumed her father thought nothing of it. Apparently, he did.

“And you do not think that is unusual?”

“I think it troublesome.” He smirked. “For them.”

Elizabeth laughed, though her thoughts turned in circles.

Her father had trusted her judgement long before she had trusted it herself. And yet, as she lifted her cup, she caught the brown flicker of amusement still dancing in his tan aire.