The Zephyr

Chapter 15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

MISDEMEANOURS AND IMMODESTY

N etherfield Park closed again, and just as it had happened last year, there was a price. But this time, it was mine to pay. It was silly, but I fell into a kind of mourning.

Bah! I had enjoyed Mr Darcy’s presence far too much, far more than I ought to have. I knew better. We had been playing a game, and I was merely being childish when it came to a natural—and dare I say—fortuitous end. I thought if I had seen the gentleman one more time, if he had spoken to me in that aching way again, my feelings would have been irrevocably engaged. But no. He would quickly come to his senses, and I would just as quickly come about.

But coming about did not turn out to be quite so easy a trick. If there had been any source of entertainment, a whiff of novelty, if anyone had died, or given birth, or been caught cheating at cards in the neighbourhood, I would have enjoyed a reprieve. However, there was a dearth of news, and the lull before harvest began in earnest was dull indeed. This left our friends with nothing to talk about save for me.

The tattle began slowly at first, but soon enough I became aware—because in a village one cannot escape knowing what is said of anyone—that the prevailing opinion of me had crystallised. I was now, it was hinted, turning out to be very wild.

I had unashamedly thrown myself at Mr Darcy and allowed him to pay far more attention to me than he ought to have. Indeed, my ambitions had got so far out of hand, I had even done Miss Bingley a mischief by stealing the compliment of his notice away whenever I could.

My neighbours were not shy of remarking that my sister Jane had also come to grief in her aspirations to marry herself into a fortune. Had I learnt nothing by her example? What I needed was a proper husband and a herd of children into which my unregulated spirits could be poured. Only the heaviest anchor would settle me down. But if I did not hurry, I would deviate from a suitable course for my life into…

The whispers would then get much lower, and I could only assume I was, according to the general consensus, destined to become someone’s mistress.

My mother was also much to be pitied in the village. Five daughters, none married, and one of them driving a curricle around the county for the purpose of being seen and admired by any passing man. A display of this sort smelt of desperation. Indeed, anyone who cared for our family must be alarmed.

Although I had all along entertained a slight suspicion I had caused ‘talk’ to the degree I had even told Mr Darcy, I became aware of the escalation of it from the generosity of John Lucas. He came to visit one morning in early October looking a touch grim and dressed in his best suit. Upon seeing he was bursting with something to say to me, I invited him out to walk despite a slight mist of rain.

From beneath his umbrella, he sighed with great resignation. “Do you have no other portion than your mother’s one thousand pounds?” he asked bluntly.

“You know I do not. Why do you ask?”

“Well, I suppose we could scrape along,” he said philosophically. “We would have to live with my parents, of course, and perhaps I might look into the brokerage of properties or a political position.”

I walked along in silent perplexity for a few steps until what he was suggesting burst upon my conscious mind.

“John! Are you suggesting we marry?”

“Well,” he grumbled, “someone must take you on. And I thought to myself, who else? You are not unhandsome.”

I was rendered speechless by this, the second marriage proposal I was to receive in my life.

John took my silence as a favourable moment to elaborate upon why he was moved to make his offer.

“Your mother makes a brave show of Jane’s chances in London, but when you let Mr Collins slip from your grasp, my own mother said that Mrs Bennet is quite deluded in her expectations for her daughters. She says this is a time when you should be setting your sights on Mr Graves or perhaps Mr Robinson.”

“My uncle Philips’s clerk, you mean?” I asked, incredulous.

“It is not as if Meryton is crawling with younkers, Lizzy.”

“Perhaps you should tell me what else is said of us,” I purred while striving to keep my temper in check.

As I heard of every reference to my family’s unfortunate situation, a variety of opinions on my mother’s inevitable disappointment, our paltry prospects, Mary’s plainness, Kitty’s insipidity, and my own misdemeanours and immodesty, I was struck by one salient point: my youngest sister’s name was not brought up at all. It was as though the neighbourhood had forgotten Lydia.

My family had as much to regret from the eruption of gossip over my behaviour with Mr Darcy as we did cause for gratitude.

Suddenly, I turned to my childhood friend. “John,” I said, as gently as I could, “you are kind indeed to have come here to unburden yourself as to your anxieties for our futures—my future—and to throw your own prospects over in service of my security.” He opened his mouth to speak, so I hastily continued. “But you cannot sacrifice your chance to enjoy love and affection or even a more lucrative match. You cannot! You have yet to know the heart-stopping passion you may feel simply to see the lady of your heart, and I will not—nay, I refuse—to rob you of the possibility.”

His face assumed a mulish expression. “Are you refusing me?”

“Yes! And I thank you with all my heart, but you deserve a far more tender bride who looks up to you in wonder.”

I could hardly resent his presumption when he flushed from the sheer relief of being told he would not be prevailed upon to rescue me. So we finished our walk while he enumerated, albeit a little half-heartedly, the many reasons I should have accepted him and that I should not come crying to him when I realised too late what a great catch he was.

I threaded my arm through his elbow and attended to him as he gave air to his wounded feelings. If he ever grew into a man, a debatable eventuality, I thought he might make someone a very good husband .

When he left, I pondered what I had heard. The gossip about me was easily dismissed, for the unimaginative mind would find scandal the most intriguing form of entertainment. Ultimately, I would not give them the shocking disgrace they craved and if— when —the river threatened to flood, the innkeeper’s wife beat him for drunkenness, or any other excitement arose, my name would cease to be mentioned at all.

My principal conclusion from such an unflattering morning, however, was that Lydia had so far faded from the consciousness of Meryton, I could release what anxiety I still carried with regard to her local reputation. I smiled privately and with a tinge of sadness to recall that my father had asked this of me—that I deflect attention from my sister. Had I done admirably? Perhaps. Or perhaps I had gone too far. In any case, I again set my intention to comport myself with modesty, to put my nose into my needlework, collect flannels for the poor box, and confine my jaunts around the neighbourhood only to days when the weather was fine.

To this list I would add to let Mr Darcy’s memory fade into a pleasant sort of ache. Time would do its work where he was concerned.

Soon I would only ever think of him when I crossed over the Lea bridge.