Longbourn by Jo Baker Page A

it was all over now, and she would not be obliged to endure it all again?
    “You know that it is true,” the mistress continued. “One word from you, and we’ll have a new broom or a pan tinned or more candles or whatever it is that you want.”
    “Household matters, madam, and that is all.”
    Mrs. Bennet released Mrs. Hill’s hands.
    “These are household matters! This concerns all of us! I had thought, as a woman, you would understand. But then, you are not a mother, so you do not know. You cannot comprehend how I suffer for my girls. Mr. Bingley may be married off before my dear daughters can even get a look-in.”
    “Mr. Bingley?”
    “Oh, yes, perhaps you haven’t heard!” Mrs. Bennet’s face was like a blustery spring day: dark clouds were bundled away, and then the sun shone. “Netherfield Park is let at last, you know. When Mrs. Long was here earlier, she told me all about it. They are to be in residence by Michaelmas.”
    “Mrs. Nicholls will have her work cut out, to get it all in order.”
    Mrs. Bennet wafted the air: Mrs. Nicholls’s troubles did not signify at all in comparison with her own.
    “But you see, Hill. The new tenant is a young gentleman—an unmarried gentleman. A young unmarried gentleman of good fortune .”
    Mrs. Hill shifted on her feet; she glanced at Mrs. B.’s cushion-cluttered sofa, considered collapsing into it. A young, unmarried gentleman, newly arrived to the neighbourhood. It meant a flurry of excited giggly activity above stairs; it meant outings, entertainments, and a barrowload of extra work for everyone below.
    “Yes. So the girls must have new clothes so that they may be fallen in love with, and I must too, so as to show that we are a respectable family and worthy of his notice. I will not have Mr. Bingley overlooking us and thinking we are nothing, for want of a few frocks. Therefore you must speak to Mr. Bennet about it, and insist that we have them.”
    At least they had James to help out this time. Another pair of hands, a young man to drive the carriage in Mr. Hill’s place.
    “I will speak to Mr. Bennet,” Mrs. Hill said. “If you really wish it, madam.”
    “Good,” said Mrs. Bennet, and she sank down on the sofa once again, leaving Mrs. Hill standing. “Well, as soon as you can, Hill. And pour me a dose of my balm, would you? My nerves are all aflutter.”
    Mrs. Hill unstoppered the bottle and half filled a glass and handed it to her mistress, who sipped and closed her eyes, and was soothed. Mrs. Hill left her there, and trudged back down to the kitchen. The bread dough had risen up above the edge of the bowl; it was tight and round and streaked with stretch marks. She turned it out onto the floured tabletop, scraping it away from the bowl with her fingernails, flipping it over and slapping it down again, then pounding and hammering at it with her fists, sending out gusts of flour; when Mr. Hill shuffled into the kitchen a little later, he took one look and decided it would be better not to ask for his tea, and instead sat down quietly by the fire and waited till she noticed him.
    Sarah had been there, once, years ago, before Polly had even come to Longbourn. She’d been sent with a gift of a ham, after the killing of a Bennet pig. Back then the grand pillars of Netherfield had stood streaked with green and damp. The door had been opened by a desiccated footman, whose livery was moth-eaten and food-stained and who stood in the dim lobby and looked at her with his one good eye—the other being an orb of milky white—and asked her whose girl she was, and then had pulled the creaking door wide and bowed her in.
    Inside it had been cold, and echoing, and full of flitting shadows: the little girl had passed down corridors lined with foxed and blistered mirrors, with furniture draped and shrouded in dust sheets. The ham, swaddled like a baby in its cotton wraps, was heavy and cold in her arms. The footman showed her into a parlour, then he sank down in a