Read Online Longbourn by Jo Baker - Free Book Online Page A

West Indies, and trade them there for sugar, and then you ship the sugar back home to England. The Triangular Trade, they call it. I dare say the Bingleys will be out of Liverpool, or Lancaster, since it’s said that they hail from the North.”
    “I didn’t know they paid for sugar that way,” said Polly, shuffling her chair forward at the table.
    “What way?”
    “With people.”
    “Well,” he said, and rubbed at the fork, and gave a little shrug. “They do.”
    “You seem to know a good deal about it.”
    He glanced up at Sarah, who had said this. He shrugged again. “I read a book.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes, really. Why not?”
    “It just seems unlikely.”
    “Why would it seem unlikely?”
    “Just, it doesn’t sound like you.”
    “What? That I might read?”
    “Well—”
    The feel of things had changed, Polly noticed, though she could not quite understand why, since it had all been going so swimmingly just moments before. James and Sarah’s voices shuttled back and forth, Polly’s attention darting between them; Mrs. Hill’s hands had fallen still, her needle tucked through the loops of worn thread; Polly saw her glance at Mr. Hill, saw Mr. Hill raise his bristling eyebrows back at her.
    “So you just assumed me to be ignorant.”
    “No, but—”
    “But it never occurred to you that I might read more widely than, say, you, for example?”
    “I read all the time! Don’t I, Mrs. Hill?”
    The housekeeper nodded sagely.
    “Mr. B. allows me his books, and his newspaper, and Miss Elizabeth always gives me whatever novel she has borrowed from the circulating library.”
    “Of course, yes. Miss Elizabeth’s novels. I’m sure they are very nice.”
    She set her jaw, eyes narrowed. Then she turned to Mrs. Hill.
    “They have a black man at Netherfield, did you know?” she announced triumphantly. “I was talking to him today.”
    James paused in his work, then tilted his head, and got on with his polishing.
    “Well,” said Mrs. Hill. “I expect Mrs. Nicholls needs all the help that she can get.”
    “But to think,” said Polly, anxious to return to the earlier ease, “all of that loveliness, all that money, and all of it comes from sugar; I bet they have peppermint plasterwork, and barley-sugar columns, and all their floors are made of polished toffee, and their sofas are all scattered with marchpane cushions.”
    “The columns are just the local stone, I am sorry to inform you.” Sarah lifted up her sewing, picked at the stray loops. “As for the cushions, I cannot say. But marchpane would get rather sticky by the fire.”
    Polly nodded, smiled dreamily, swallowing her spit.

“If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield,” said Mrs. Bennet to her husband, “and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for.”
    “Here’s your dress, miss.”
    Elizabeth looked round, her lips parting in that beautiful smile. And it was a beautiful dress, a dress to make you smile. Delicate muslin dyed duck-egg blue, which would set off the young lady’s complexion perfectly. Sarah carried it through the doorway, and laid it down on Jane and Elizabeth’s bed like a swooning girl.
    Jane was already hooked into her evening-gown, standing carefully at a distance from the fire, so as not to scorch the fine muslin, and doing nothing, not even sitting down, so as not to crush it. Her hair was already dressed in neat, smooth bands and plaits; her expression was mild and revealed little of her inner workings. The main thing about Jane was that she could be trusted. She could be trusted not to spoil a gown, not to nag, not to scold, not to require any particular attention. Jane’s composure and self-sufficiency were as balm to Sarah’s frayed nerves. She was as sweet, soothing and undemanding as a baked milk-pudding, and as welcome at the end of an exhausting day.
    The younger sisters’ die-straight locks had had to be tormented into ringlets, which wore out