The Zephyr

Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A FORLORN FIGURE

A respectable harvest was brought in. Carts piled high with hay, pumpkins, and sacks of barley rumbled towards the larger market towns. Youngsters picked apples, women boiled vats of their favourite compotes, pigs were slaughtered, and the hams salted and hung to cure. This was a busy time in the country, and the general air of industry provided some distraction for our neighbours. Just as I had hoped, my improprieties seemed to fade into insignificance when there was so much to be done.

The leaves then turned brown and fell off the trees, the lanes turned to cold mud, and we began to make plans for the festive season at home.

In contrast to last year, my mother was gay—I would even go so far as to say she was spirited—in both her preparations and decorations of our home. Mr Bingley had not called on Jane when she was in London then , but he had visited her several times at our uncle’s house this time. She and the Gardiners had gone as his guests to see a play. He had been to Cheapside for dinner once and had suggested that upon his return from Scarborough, where he went every year at Christmas, he would take my sister for a turn through the park if she wished. She had, we learnt from Mrs Gardiner’s letter touching upon this development, told Mr Bingley she would enjoy seeing the promenade of the ton when they returned to London for the Season.

Lydia meanwhile had become friendly with the daughter of one of Mr Gardiner’s associates. The two exchanged visits and saw one another at church. They were suited in temperament, neither being overly accomplished or intellectual, and they entertained one another with riddles and the construction of paper fans. Miss White was to be brought out modestly at a family party in the spring, and Lydia had begun to think of what she would wear on that occasion. Would she dance? My aunt thought that if asked, she might agree to be led out.

These hopeful reports were most welcome. They gave my mother a great deal to talk about when visiting her friends, and though she was unaware they had all spoken pityingly of her behind their hands only weeks earlier, she effectively silenced them with her happy chatter.

Did I think of Mr Darcy? Constantly!

However, having once been caught wool-gathering when at a card party at my aunt Philips’s house, I chose moments when I could safely stare out of the window without being accused of being lovesick. This was a designation I dreaded. For one thing, it was not true. And for another, it smacked of weakness. Pining, in my opinion, was an avoidable and largely imaginary ailment that afflicted ladies who swooned upon the slightest impulse to make themselves a spectacle.

Yes, I was drawn to the man. Begrudgingly, I admitted to myself that yes, we had flirted. At the time, I had not known it for what it was, but slowly, as the weeks slipped by, I realised John Lucas had been right. Mr Darcy and I had openly indulged in something a little too close to a dalliance. I also privately conceded I was likely a flirt by nature, and though I had thoroughly enjoyed myself, the mere prospect of being teased for it deeply embarrassed me.

As I pondered this unflattering truth and as we celebrated Christmas and turned our thoughts towards to the coming year, I also considered the deeply disturbing secret Mr Darcy had shared about his sister’s disastrous association with George Wickham.

In light of what I now knew, Mr Darcy’s thunderous stares and enigmatic snarls of last year made much more sense. I defended the wastrel, made a victim of him, and even held him in esteem. Mr Darcy’s coldness of manner, the way he held his mouth in a grim, downward arc, I now knew were clear reflections of his unexpressed outrage. At the time, his veiled warnings sounded to my ears like peevish disdain and had solidified my dislike of him. Upon consideration, however, his objections seemed perfectly reasonable. I now despised Mr Wickham as much as he did and for precisely the same reason.

Even my suspicions regarding Mr Darcy’s influence over Mr Bingley and whatever part that may have played in Jane’s disappointment could only be considered in an altogether new light. The whole of it now seemed a typically complicated human muddle for which I could forgive all parties.

Time, in this instance, had given me a perspective in which I could stand more as witness and less as judge. I had only to consider the brash, provincial picture my family had painted of itself to own that perhaps our lack of restraint and polish had done more damage to Jane’s chances than had Mr Darcy’s opinion of the match. Miss Bingley, too, must be allowed some understanding, for she already felt herself to be in a precarious position, or so it seemed to me. How would her chance to marry well be served if her brother aligned himself with a family that included Lydia galloping through a ballroom in search of Captain Denny?

Regarding Mr Bingley, I conceded that not every man could be filled with enough self-determination to withstand the opinions of his friends and family. Moreover, whoever married one of us must summon up the required will to do so without any financial or social incentive whatsoever. In an age when marriage was as much about power and connexions as it was inclination, my family’s very circumstances and way of conducting ourselves represented an undeniable obstacle.

This period of reflection softened my opinion of Mr Bingley, and as for Jane, I felt only compassion. She could not govern her heart, nor should she have to. She must love who she loved.

As I sorted through these multiple impressions of all that had happened and organised my inner thoughts on these subjects, my one prevailing conclusion was that I liked Mr Darcy in spite of and perhaps even because of everything I knew of him. We had become the most unlikely friends, and I recalled our every spirited exchange with bemused wonder.

One early morning in February, a weak sun appeared on the horizon, and thinking to take June and July for a little much-needed exercise, I took the Zephyr out to churn up even more mud on the lanes around Meryton. Much like a child stomping in a puddle, I took a kind of perverse delight in every splatter, and because it was lightly built, my little curricle slipped and slid through ruts and slush with a liveliness that entertained me greatly. At best, Mr Darcy would have been supremely sceptical of this kind of driving, and I could easily picture him shaking his head in weary disbelief that this was how I chose to spend my time.

Since I had privacy on these outings, I never drove anywhere without thinking of Mr Darcy, and in the back of my mind, I pondered the question of who would ever have suspected him of harbouring such a dry and piercing wit.

You would make a shockingly bad nun, he had remarked, and perhaps because of his dignity, his affect of humourless sobriety while speaking, I could still laugh to recall it.

The memory of that conversation was so delicious in fact, that only with a fraction of my attention did I notice a figure on the road ahead. There was nothing uncommon about a person walking in the country, yet…

“Miss King!” I gasped as I came alongside, recognising a flash of flaming red hair tucked under a scarf and bonnet.

“Miss Elizabeth?” she asked, staring up at me.

“Yes. Forgive me. I should have perhaps called you Mrs Wickham. But,” I hesitated to ask, for she looked pale and dishevelled, “what brings you here?” Then, when she looked away, I thought of a better question which I quickly asked. “Might I offer to take you up? It is still cold to be walking.”

She glanced at me once then spoke with her eyes averted, “Yes, I thank you.”