First Impressions: A Modern Pride and Prejudice Adaptation

Chapter 41

She picked up her cellphone, in the beginning, 35 or 40 times a day. While it seemed hyperbole to say, but after a while she started counting. Seeing no messages, she would put it down, only to pull it up again in half an hour or less on compulsion. Liz was uncertain who she was waiting for more frantically—her uncle or Darcy. The responsible part of her very much wanted to say the former. The small, rebellious, and unreasonably romantic part wished for the latter.

After the first week, finding herself alone in her room, she hung her head at the absurdity of it. Of course he would not call. Why would he? She was now tied irrevocably to George Wickham. Surely now, no matter how much time passed, he would not be able to look at her without thinking of him! And who could blame him? She knew she must put it all behind herself and move on, but she still found herself staring longingly at the device anyway, when she was not paying attention. Knowing how he felt she thought she would, perhaps, be saved one restless day out of two.

She drummed her fingers on her desk, her book, on any flat surface that stayed still long enough for her to attempt to expel her nervous energy into it. It never seemed to work. The waiting was the worst part. Liz felt she might as well be hitting her head against a wall, for all the good it did. There was certainly nothing useful to be done.

Once it had been fully determined that there really was nothing left to do but to wait, the house returned to a rather lopsided equilibrium. Cat still had classwork to do, which she tackled grudgingly. She left her door open most of the time; at every possible opportunity, she would duck out into the hallway and engage herself in even the slightest bit of motion, whether it was Liz coming up the stairs or Mrs. Bennet throwing herself into another round of weeping. Liz wondered how she possibly got any work done. It was undoubtedly very little.

Mrs. Bennet continued to confine herself to her bedroom. She had little time for the three daughters still in her house; she preferred to spend it with Mrs. Phillips, who continued to come to the house nearly every afternoon. Every time she stepped through the door, she peppered her nieces with requests for new information; they hardly ever seemed to have any.

Mr. Bennet had not been communicative in the slightest. He had been in Mexico City for a day and a half on his own but he did not call, nor send a single text or email. He was known to be a reticent message-sender, but Liz had hoped this tendency would lapse, at least for the duration of the family crisis, but that seemed not to be the case. On the opposite hand, Mr. Gardiner called her the moment his plane landed, even before her aunt. They spoke for five minutes—though he had nothing new to report either—before he set off in search of their father. While she continued to fret over her phone, she tried to convince herself once again that she was waiting for a message from him. Or her uncle. No one else.

It did not take long before it was quite apparent that the inn needed much more management than their mother had to offer it. Which is to say, it needed any management. Without once being asked, Jane took up the cause with a zeal that took Liz by not little surprise.

"Are you sure you want to do this? I'm sure I can... figure it out. I think." Her offer of help had been genuinely meant, but she seemed to forget her general struggle with numbers until the words were out of her mouth.

Jane's answering laugh was slightly manic, and her smile did not reach her eyes. "Well, the inn won't run itself, will it? And you know you're no good with figures, Lizzie. I guess I'll just have to take it on myself!" She pushed back her chair from the kitchen table and swept up her paperwork into an untidy pile. Leaving it, she took out a pencil and the menu book and stepped out the back door without a word.

Liz would not be deterred. She followed Jane out the door in her socks. "But are you positive? I mean, I should probably be the one to deal with it, since I'll be here longer. When do you have to go back?"