Page 16 of Under Such Circumstances (Desperately Seeking Elizabeth #1)

WHEN ELIZABETH ARRIVED back home and she looked at the papers that her father had, she discovered the house was not, in fact, in London.

It was outside of London, on the west side, but actually in what could properly be termed the country, she thought.

It was not a town house, but a small house with a bit of a garden and even a bit of land.

It had a name. It was called Weythorn, a rather pretentious sort of name for whatever the small house was, she thought.

Still, something about the name, the description, it settled into her in a way.

Perhaps it was only that she felt entirely untethered from her moorings, a ship lost out in a choppy ocean of uncertainty.

She was no one and she had a disreputable heritage.

She did not belong here, in Longbourn, but in some ways this was a relief, for she had always sensed it. She had always known.

Something about Weythorn, it seemed like home.

Whimsically, she thought, I shall belong there.

It turned out her father had been incorrect about the elderly couple letting the place, also. It was only one elderly man, an aging knight, who used to use the place as a hunting cabin. But Sir Manfred Walker was now too old to hunt and had not used the place in ages.

Elizabeth wanted to see it. She wanted to go there, and she could think of nothing else.

Her father agreed, if only because if they wished to sell this house, they must go and see what sort of shape it was in.

He warned Elizabeth that the place might be falling down, half-collapsed, that sort of thing.

But he agreed that they should travel there to have a good look at the place.

He hoped she would consider selling it, however, and made no attempt to disguise this fact.

By this time, it was May, and Lydia had received an invitation to stay with Colonel Forster and his wife in Brighton with the regiment.

In another life, Elizabeth might have objected, saying that Lydia was too young and too silly to be trusted to go off in that manner, that she was going to get herself into some kind of mischief.

But now Elizabeth knew that mischief simply found a person.

A body could be going about, doing one’s own business, trying to be upright and decent, and some man would come along and force one’s hand into his trousers and it would turn out that one’s mother had been a frightful hussy and that one happened to actually have no father to speak of and…

She cared not what Lydia did.

There was no protection, in the end, from calamity falling upon one’s head. It came whether one was prepared or not.

She also did not care if anyone in the neighborhood was whispering about her inheritance.

Now that she knew the truth, she thought it was easily guessed by anyone who gave it half-a-moment’s thought, and she worried that everyone out there was saying untoward things about her but that none of it was getting back to the family out of politeness.

But when she spoke these fears to Jane, her sister said she thought not. “It is not that way, Lizzy. Rumors always get back to whoever is being gossiped over, do they not?”

Perhaps that was true.

Jane did not think it was obvious that the inheritance was because Elizabeth was illegitimate or that anyone would ever suspect it. “You look so much like Papa, after all.”

Because her father was her uncle, she supposed.

At any rate, she was glad enough to go and see Weythorn, and she thought of little else as the appointed day for their travel drew nearer and nearer.

Her father kept harping on the idea of her having a dowry.

Her mother had suggested sharing the inheritance with the other girls, but only once, and she had gone quiet after getting a look from her husband.

She never spoke of it again, even though Lydia and Kitty did, rather often, even though their mother began to scold them when they did.

Elizabeth realized that her mother was coming around to the idea of having Elizabeth out of her house and out of her hair, and her mother had realized she quite liked this idea. If Elizabeth went off to Weythorn and lived separately, she could simply be swept off, like dirt under a rug.

That is what I am , she thought. Something shameful. How much worse it would have been if I came home with Wickham’s child in my belly!

Perhaps she wished to be swept under the rug. Perhaps the shelter of such a thing sounded appealing. Perhaps she should also like it if no one was paying her any mind.

They traveled to Weythorn in late May, windows in the carriage open to let in the balmy breeze.

Trees were in the first blush of May, blooming and beautiful.

The drive was not so formidable that it could not be done there and back in a day, though they would likely be staying at Gracechurch Street tonight.

They drove past the driveway to Weythorn not once but twice, for it was shrouded away in blossoming trees.

Finally, they saw it, and the carriage turned down a dirt way that was flanked on all sides by cherry trees, their blossoms pink and starting to fall, carpeting the road as they drove through it.

Elizabeth looked behind them as the pink blossoms fluttered up in the wake of the carriage wheels, and it was like they were being transported into some other world, as if they had crossed a threshold into it.

Then, the house came into view, and it was larger than they had been led to expect.

“We must be in the wrong place,” said her father as the carriage pulled to a stop in front of the house, which was two stories, almost the size of Longbourn, all made of stone, rather stately, tucked at the end of the drive, behind all the trees, like a hidden fortress here.

When she looked at the place, her heart felt something strong. It stirred her. This was home. “We are not in the wrong place,” she said, certain of it.

And, indeed, when they disembarked, they saw it was carved above the doorway, carved in flowing script into the stone there. Weythorn.

The key her father had to the door worked to open it, and it swung inward into the cool, stone interior of the place.

It was empty inside, dark, and there was a slight smell of old and must, but the place was in quite good condition. It was a stalwart house. She could tell.

The furnishings were stark. It did look decked out as a hunting cabin.

There were even mounted animal heads in the downstairs sitting room.

But Elizabeth liked them, the stagheads there.

She might name them, think of them looking down upon her from above with their great antlers and looking after her.

But there was space here to keep servants—though she would not be able to afford many—and there was space for guests.

It was quite exactly what she wanted. She decided, right there and then, that she would not go home with her father and sister, that she would stay right here.

She would move into Weythorn, her new home.

When she told her father in the carriage as they left to go to Gracechurch Street, for they could not stay there that night, since there was nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep—there were beds, but there was nothing like sheets or blankets—he was not pleased.

“Lizzy, my dear, this place could sell for more than I had imagined,” he said.

“Think of the dowry you might have. You could marry very well. It’s foolish to cut yourself off here, to hide away in that dreary, stone house.

It doesn’t even suit you, my dear. You’re much too cheery for a place like that.

Where is the laughter in that house, Lizzy? ”

“It’s what I want,” she said.

“You have not laughed,” said her father. “Not since we got this news.”

“Certainly, I have,” she said, for she had, hadn’t she?

“Elizabeth,” said her father, “I know it is a blow, finding all of this out. Perhaps I ought to have kept it from you. Perhaps I ought to have pretended not to know why your aunt left you the inheritance.”

“My mother,” she corrected bitterly. “And if anyone found out, Papa, dowry or no, I should not be able to make a respectable match.”

“You don’t know that,” he said.

“Oh, please, I am the natural daughter of God knows who,” she muttered. “This is what is left to me, to settle here, away from everyone, and—”

“Lizzy, it is not your fault,” said her father. “I won’t have you punishing yourself for it. We raised you the way we did to spare you.”

She wished she could have been spared, but that was not to be. She’d been stained by it already, a deep, dark stain, one that led her right to Mr. Wickham and all that had come after.

“I should not have told you,” said her father, eyeing her. “I shall regret it always, even if I feel it was a betrayal to Matilda.”

“I don’t think it would have mattered,” said Elizabeth. “The truth of it would have presented itself at some point. It is woven into the fabric of me.”

“What does that mean?” said her father dismissively.

“I don’t hold with that kind of thought.

I am a man of reason and fact, and we know that people do not inherit any sort of badness from their parents, no matter what the charlatans who claim otherwise say.

You are my good and sweet Lizzy, and I told you this and shattered your happiness, and I shall never forgive myself. ”

“It is not your fault, Papa,” she assured her father. “I shall be happy at Weythorn, that is the truth of it. I like it there.”

THE NEXT DAY , when they went back, someone was in kitchen on the back of the house when they let themselves in and she called out to them as they entered.

The woman introduced herself as Mrs. Exley, and she said that she had been employed by Sir Manfred for years and that she had seen activity up here the day before and had thought to come and look in on them. “Which of you is Elizabeth?” she said.

“You know of me?” said Elizabeth, presenting herself.