After Lizzy left Longbourn Jane waited a month for Lizzy to write. When she did not, Jane wrote her Aunt Gardiner asking if she had an address for Lizzy. The Gardiners had not heard from Lizzy and they did not have an address for her either. Mr. Gardiner applied to Mrs. Hartwick, the proprietress of the Hartwick Registry for the Placement of Impoverished Gentlewomen, for Lizzy's address, but that starchy lady, citing client confidentiality, refused to provide the same. Mr. Gardiner dealt with that bit of bureaucratic intransigence in the time-proven way: he bribed Mrs. Hartwick's clerk for the name and address of the Lizzy's employer.

So, the Gardiners, and Jane, when she received the address from them, wrote letters addressed to:

Miss Elizabeth Bennet

c/o the Earl of Jeltotford,

Roundtree Abbey,

North Riding, Yorkshire.

In due course, both letters were returned marked 'No one by that name at this address'.

When confronted by Mr. Gardiner, Mrs. Hartwick's clerk swore that Miss Elizabeth Bennet must still be in the employ of the Earl of Jeltotford, since if she was not, his Lordship would have sought the services of Mrs. Hartwick to obtain the services of another companion, as he had done forty-six times before. This last detail was so exact as to be persuasive, but it did give Mr. Gardiner pause, what had his niece gotten herself into?

The return of the letters led the Gardiners and Jane to conclude that Lizzy had cut them from her life. The Gardiners were hurt by this, but not as much as Jane. This abandonment by her favourite sister and best friend; following on the abandonment by the man she had lost her heart to, left Jane a porcelain shell of her former self.

The Gardiners and Jane, nor did Elizabeth for that matter, had no way of knowing that the Earl's butler at Roundtree Abbey, in Yorkshire, did not bother to keep current as to the real identities of the various and numerous Miss Carruthers who served as companions to Dowager Countess of Jeltotford at her residence, Quickentree Hall, in Nottinghamshire; so, when he received two letters addressed to Miss Elizabeth Bennet, instead of puzzling out why he had, he merely returned them to their respective senders.

And as for Elizabeth, she took her father's injunction against returning to Longbourn, except as Mrs. Darcy, as a ban on all communication with her family; which Mr. Bennet had not intended, not that he had thought much on the unintended consequences of his last conversation with his favourite daughter. So, during her exile, Elizabeth had no news of her family; which may have been a blessing, given the news her family was about to receive.

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On Wednesdays, market day in Meryton , Mrs. Bennet, whom no longer stirred from Longbourn, sent her daughters, Jane and Mary, to that town to pay a visit on her sister, their Aunt Phillips, to get the latest 'news', which Mrs. Bennet and her sister defined to include tidings of events that happened, events that might be happening, and events that might happen at some vague point in the future; and where details of such events might be lacking, as they so often were, speculations as to what those details might plausibly be, plausibility being given its widest and most liberal definition. After each such visit, on their way home, Jane and Mary would thresh and winnow the 'news' provided by their aunt so that the grains of 'news' they fed their mother bore some relation to actuality. Most Wednesdays Meryton, having fallen back into its humdrum existence following the departure of the militia, produced 'news' the like of 'such and such' got drunk and gave his wife a black eye, she (it was speculated) having been spending time with the draper's clerk in the draper's storage room, looking at fabrics, 'if you know what I mean' . Jane and Mary would report the assault, which was incontrovertible, to their mother, but not the purported motive. Enlightenment on motives could wait until Aunt Phillips conveyed them in person during her occasional visits to Longbourn. But on the last Wednesday in July, Jane and Mary brought real news of great import back to Longbourn.

The burghers of Meryton had petitioned the Crown decrying the wanton and illicit conduct, and financial depredation, of the —shire militia during its recent stay in Meryton, and seeking redress for the costs incurred by the local parish in caring for three girls left with child and abandoned by the departing militia fathers, and payment of the unpaid accounts of the tradesmen of the town. Three members of the militia were named as being the worst offenders, one of whom was George Wickham.

Mrs. Bennet believed the gist of the petition, but refused to believe that Mr. Wickham was at all guilty, saying that his unnamed accusers were jealous of his beauty and perfect grace as a gentleman.

Mr. Bennet scoffed at the petition, saying that Meryton should have protected its daughters and accounts more carefully, and that it was likely that the Prince Regent would make use of the petition in his privy. He refused Jane's request to go to Brighton and retrieve Lydia, saying Colonel Forster was a sensible man, and would keep Lydia out of any real mischief; and would protect what little virtue Lydia possessed. He would not even write Colonel Forster to ask that Lydia not be allowed in the company of Mr. Wickham.

Miss Mary Bennet was not surprised at the petition, reinforcing as it did, her belief in the innate sinfulness of men, militiamen in particular.

Miss Jane Bennet was alarmed by the petition, her faith in the honour of the militia being shaken. With obvious prescience she wrote her own letter to Lydia warning her off Mr. Wickham. Lydia never replied.

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A fortnight later, just after the Bennets had sat down to dinner, the ladies in the dining room, Mr. Bennet in his book room, an express, carried by a militia messenger, arrived at Longbourn from Colonel Forster. Writing from London, not Brighton, Colonel Forster advised that Lydia had eloped with Mr. Wickham, who was now wanted for desertion and theft of the officers' mess funds. The couple had been traced to London and Colonel Forster anticipated that they would be apprehended shortly. The Colonel asked if Mr. Bennet would come to London to take custody of Lydia when the fugitives were found.

Mr. Bennet dashed off a note to Colonel Forster saying that 'he refused to chase after Lydia as she was lost to him; she was no longer a daughter of his; and when they found her, they should sell her to a brothel and apply the sale proceeds to the missing mess funds' and sent it off with the militia messenger.

When Mr. Bennet told Mrs. Bennet what he had written she screamed at him "She's your daughter. You have to rescue her."

"She's not my daughter; by her actions she was proven that she is very much your daughter, madam. You are reaping what you have sown" Mr. Bennet sneered.

"You pathetic excuse for a father." Mrs. Bennet slashed at her husband, catching his spectacles, sending them to the floor, and raking her fingernails down his cheek, leaving three furrows of blood.

Mr. Bennet roared and raised his hand to strike back at his wife, and would have done so, had not Jane stepped between them.

"Mary, take Mama to her bedroom and give her some of her nerve tonic" said Jane. As Mary lead Mrs. Bennet away, Jane gave her father her handkerchief to press on his cheek and bent down to pick up his spectacles. The lenses were intact but the frames were bent and in need of repair. "Papa, can't you …"

"No, Jane, your sister Lydia has made her bed and now she must lie in it. She is so silly and ignorant that that is probably the best occupation for her. Forget about her; you and your remaining sisters had best worry about what is to become of you now that you have been so thoroughly ruined by your two lost sisters. Now I am retiring to my book room and I am not to be disturbed until the next one of you flees the loving embrace of your family."

Jane thought: I'm almost four and twenty, in truth a spinster; Mr. Bingley is not coming back for me, and when word gets out, I've little likelihood of acquiring marital prospects anywhere else. But all is not lost. She smiled, a cold and hard smile, colder and harder than she had ever smiled before, as she stared at the retreating back of her father. Papa, I wish you a long life; you've abdicated responsibility for handling Longbourn's monies to me, and by the time you die, I will have set aside a very tidy nest egg for Mary, Kitty and me.