Longbourn · Chapter 2
Six Inches Deep in Mud
14 August · 4 min · A sister ill. Mud. A drawing room.
Jane was asked to Netherfield. Mrs. Bennet saw to the horse. The rain saw to the rest. By nightfall Jane was in a Netherfield bed with a sore throat and a letter that made Elizabeth put on her boots.
The lane was not a lane. It was an argument between water and clay. Elizabeth walked it anyway. She jumped what she could and took what she could not, and arrived with a petticoat six inches deep in mud and a colour in her face that drawing rooms do not usually permit before noon.
Bingley received her as if mud were a kind of valour. Miss Bingley received her as if valour were a kind of mud. Jane, upstairs, received her as Jane received everything: with a hand and no performance.mud · six inches
Elizabeth sat with her sister through the morning. She read aloud. She did not comment on the house. She commented, once, on the view, which was handsome enough to tempt anyone with eyes.
Downstairs, Miss Bingley found her walking in the mud an injury to taste. Mrs. Hurst agreed. Bingley did not. Darcy said nothing, which in that company passed for a position.
She looked at him, later, from the stairs. He was in the window with a book he was not reading. The park behind him was still wet. He had seen the mud.the window · he saw her
He had seen the mud. He had seen her. He began.
Or keep to the official chapter 3. The serial stays free.