I.

Lizzie Bennet was back from school for the summer. The first year of college had drawn out shapely dark circles under her already tired brown eyes. And she held herself meeker as she carried her luggage to the front door. Her fingers were more nervous. The rims of her glasses were chipped. Her entire apparel was out of place, like she had not meant to come here. In all earnest though, she hadn't meant to be at Longbourn. She was going to work all summer. But at the last minute she had refused the job. It had been an inexplicable thing, one moment she was calling for an interview, the next she was canceling the same appointment.

It wasn't the fact that she had wanted to rest. She just did not want to start working so early. Her friends judged her for it. Twenty is a very reasonable age to start working, they said. But she did not listen. Instead, she came home.

Her room was the same as always; not her room. It was shared with her elder sister, Jane, who was currently out. She had a job in town, just thirty miles away.

Jane had evidently taken possession of the room by marking it as hers with all her items of clothing and little knickknacks. There was no trace of Lizzie.

She yawned into her open fist. She liked it that way.

As she sat down on her bed and felt the weight of her body sink into the worn out mattress, she had a vision of her last night on campus.

One of her mates, namely Wickham, had brought his girlfriend to the last party of the year.

They'd all gotten very drunk, except her and other more preoccupied people and some had gone to bed to shed the academic skin, while others had gone outside to romp through the idyllic green areas surrounding the campus.

At five a.m., when Lizzie was just getting herself to bed, she heard a piercing scream coming from outside and she saw a beautiful, blonde girl running across the courtyard, her hair blowing in the wind, her tiny dress almost in shreds and her shoes gone missing. She was crying.

Later that morning she found Wickham had misbehaved. And her name was Georgiana Darcy.

The name rang hollow to her. However, she could never forget the tear-stained, shattering expression on her face as she ran like the flight of a bird, her feet dragging behind her body, her breath shallow and her cries as binding as the waves swallowing everything in their path.

It would be her lasting memory for all summer.

She had seen Wickham at the station, but she had not said a word. She could have gone up to him and spat in his face, or punch him roughly in the nose. Or she could have pushed him in front of a train.

She shook her head. She could never do that.

But she had seen better men die under the rails.

There was a ring at the door, short and effective, because it snapped her up.

She found the sun slicing up half of the girl's face. She was standing in the doorway with a purse wrapped around her shoulder like a snake.

It was her youngest sister, Lydia.

'Home already, Liz? We weren't expecting you till Sunday.'

At dinner, the family had cake as a way of celebrating the prodigal daughter's return. Everyone wanted to hear stories. Jane had bought Lizzie a new alarm clock and Kitty and Mary had single-handedly done all her laundry. It was starting to smell like home.

The rooms had grown softer and smaller. Her family was growing somehow, even though her mother had not announced any unexpected offspring.

She was becoming an old woman.

Lizzie stared at her clean-white plate and the cutlery drawing circles into the tablecloth.

'Something terrible – ' she began, meaning to tell them about Georgiana Darcy, but she swallowed her words quickly and grabbed the bowl of steaming potatoes.

She realized it would be cruel to speak about it, especially at dinner with her family, because nothing would come out of it. They would think it over in tragic terms but would, nevertheless, move on with a grieving sigh, meaning to say 'such and such things happen in life, but there is little we can do about them'.

But she would be betraying Georgiana if she agreed to the idea that nothing could have been done about it.

'So, we hear Professor Reginald has asked you to help him with some studies?' her mother asked.

She shrugged her shoulders and waved her hand.

'I won't hold my breath. He's said that to other students too. He has to pick. And he probably won't pick me.'

'Negativity, much?' Jane asked, smiling.

'I would say realism. My final paper was not stellar and I am hardly the most qualified,' she replied.

'Still, you have a very good chance of being selected and you should not think yourself out of the competition,' her mother insisted.

'Even if I got the job, I would feel like an impostor.'

'Oh, God, Lizzie, stop saying stupid things,' Kitty complained, pressing her fork into her flat chicken breast.

'Shut up,' Lizzie said affectionately. 'You know nothing about imposture.'

The greater part of the night, she slept with the pillow wrapped around her head like a shield, mumbling incoherent words from time to time, recalling those moments of clarity when she had read a book and she had gone to the bathroom to cry afterwards. She felt like getting up and doing the same, but she was asleep and she knew she should try keeping her body in the same position, else she'd fall from her bed.

But she secretly made it a note to find Georgiana Darcy. Find her and speak to her, wherever she may be.