As the coach for the newly married Bingleys and Mary Bennet wheeled away under the heavy load of luggage for three people, followed by Bingley's regular carriage for the staff attending them on their wedding trip to Bath, the remaining Bennet family and Mr. Collins dutifully bade them farewell. The barren gray sky of late autumn's temper matched Elizabeth's mood as tears streamed down her face. The full weight of losing her sister Jane crushed her heart. Kitty handed her a handkerchief and Elizabeth cleaned her face. The caravan of vehicles turned the sharp bend half a mile down the road and the family could no longer see them.
"Well Mrs. Bennet, I admit I had my doubts but you were correct that our Jane would make a splendid match." Mr. Bennet offered his wife a rare compliment in front of their girls. He tugged at his tight cravat and loosened the fabric's chokehold on his neck.
"I've always said she could not be quite so lovely for no good reason. Now with Jane married to Mr. Bingley, all of our girls will be thrown in the way of rich men, mark my words." Mrs. Bennet narrowed her eyes as she stared pointedly at Elizabeth who immediately felt the shame of the day's earlier debacle. Not up to starting an argument with her mother, the new eldest daughter of the house stared down at her shoes.
"I am happy to report that I have been generously invited to dine with Sir Lucas and his family. If it is no trouble to you, Mrs. Bennet, I believe I shall begin walking my way over to their happy homestead and bid you all a fair afternoon." Mr. Collins doffed his hat and made a half bow.
"The Lucases?" Mrs. Bennett's voice trembled. "How peculiar, I mean particular, they invited you to dine today during Jane's wedding breakfast." She glanced to her husband who returned a disinterested frown. "We all must be good neighbors, good neighbors are good fences as they say, so do enjoy your time Mr. Collins. I hope we shall see you later this evening?"
Mr. Collins took a few steps back increasing the space between himself and the current residents of Longbourn. "I believe it might be quite late before the Lucas carriage returns here. I do look forward to my last few weeks here in Hertfordshire before I must return to my patroness, Lady Catherine, in Kent."
Elizabeth wondered at Mr. Collins failure to invoke his parish when he talked about needing to return to Kent. As a pastor, she would think his allegiance was first and foremost to the church, another failing of his character she could not reconcile. She wisely kept these observations to herself.
As Mr. Collins bowed once more and dismissed himself from their company, it was Mr. Bennet who turned first to go inside. As the rest of her family filed in, Elizabeth's feet clung to the ground beneath her. Even one step into her future life that would not include Jane felt impossibly difficult. It was not until Lydia began complaining for Elizabeth to come in that she allowed herself one last glance down the road and turned to go inside.
The air inside felt wrong somehow. Elizabeth scarcely closed the door behind her before a terrible pain seized her. Mrs. Bennet grabbed Elizabeth's hair by the dozens of carefully pinned curls at the nape of her neck and pulled her towards the stairs. Elizabeth cried out, mimicked in her cry by the younger girls in distress at the sudden abuse of their sister.
"No traitor in my household! No upstarts who would happily throw her mother and sisters out into the hedgerows!" Mrs. Bennet shouted as she thrust Elizabeth forward. Crashing to her hands and knees upon the stairs, Elizabeth cowered in a defensive position, preparing for another onslaught.
Mrs. Bennet charged again, grabbing Elizabeth by the arm and dragging her up the stairs. She continued to yell abusive epithets about Elizabeth's betrayal of the Bennet family. On and on she screamed how she was not fit to consider herself a part of the family. Arriving in the room she shared with Jane, Mrs. Bennet did not let go of her wayward daughter until they neared the bed.
"Take it all, Lizzie, take it all. You will not step one foot over the threshold again as long as I am mistress!"
For a moment all Elizabeth could do was stand there and cry, utterly baffled by her mother's abrupt change, but her mother had other plans. As Mrs. Bennet stormed over to the closet Elizabeth once shared with Jane and began tossing the remaining dresses out, Elizabeth bolted for the door. Ignoring the pain in her ankle, she ran down the stairs in a staccato echo of feet crying for her father at the top of her lungs.
"Papa, Papa!" As Elizabeth made it to the bottom of the stairs, she locked eyes with her father who was standing in the doorway of his study.
"Papa?" Elizabeth pleaded.
Mr. Bennet shook his head and closed the study door.
Instantly, Elizabeth's emotions of pure abandonment seized her chest and she collapsed on the stairs. Catherine Bennet rushed forward to embrace her sister, and as she held her in her arms she rocked Elizabeth gently back and forth.
"Sssh, shhh, you'll be safe. Mama is just angry," Kitty whispered.
Francine Bennet stood at the top of the stairs, formidable in the late afternoon shadows, the hallway enveloped in darkness except for the lone candle that illuminated her face. As she cleared her throat, her two daughters sitting on the stairs stared up at her.
"Elizabeth Bennet you have business to attend. In one hour the carriage will take you to the post change in Meryton."
"Where am I to go?"
"That depends entirely upon you." Mrs. Bennet began to descend the stairs, making her daughters jump out of her way. As she reached Elizabeth, her second eldest daughter stood this time prepared to fight back if need be, her fists clenched by her side. "The law demands you will have your settlement, but not another farthing. You brought this upon yourself, young lady." Mrs. Bennet marched past her daughters and began barking orders at Hill for preparations of dinner.
Abused and hurt, Elizabeth stared at Kitty in abject horror. The second to youngest Bennet daughter was ill equipped and unprepared with words so she merely offered to help her older sister pack her trunks. As soon as Lydia realized that Elizabeth could not possibly pack all her belongings and would likely be giving any castoffs to Kitty, she also offered to assist her sister. But while Kitty actually helped Elizabeth strategically fill her trunks, Lydia was little more help than laying on the bed and listing all of the places Elizabeth could possibly go.
The more Lydia talked, the more fanciful the locations became. Ramsgate, Brighton, even so far as towns in Scotland! For a moment, Elizabeth forgot her distress, thoroughly impressed with Lydia's unexpected knowledge of geography. When her hands clasped the book of Shakespearean sonnets belonging to Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth smiled. There was truly only one place she would go and with any luck, make her mother rue the day she threw Elizabeth Bennet out of her father's house.