The Zephyr

Chapter 30

CHAPTER THIRTY

A PALACE WITH MANY WINDOWS

M r Bingley returned to Netherfield Park for a third time, arriving within days of my secret lover and I kissing our way through our agonised parting.

This time he came without the Hursts or Miss Bingley, and upon paying a call at Longbourn and being asked after his relations, he glibly replied he had left them in London. We eventually learnt that he had bought Miss Bingley her own townhouse, and because she was yet unmarried, he had prevailed upon Mr and Mrs Hurst to stay with her. This was apparently agreeable to that couple, who did not seem inclined to inhabit Mr Hurst’s house—wherever it was. They were, to put it succinctly, pleased to sup someone else’s cream with little inconvenience or expense of their own, and Mr Bingley, perhaps having summoned up a dram of courage, had politely shown them all the door.

I cannot deny that I suspected Mr Darcy may have suggested this bit of practicality as a sweetener to Mr Bingley’ s offer of marriage to a lady whom his sisters had so liberally snubbed. The question was too tempting, too ready an excuse to write to him, so I sent off a little note to Mr Tomlinson , the designer of curricles.

“What is this?” my father asked when I put my letter on the salver to be taken to the post office.

“I am enquiring about the Derbyshire Swift, Papa. I am curious how it differs from the Zephyr.”

“I will not buy you a second curricle no matter how sweetly you ask.”

“You did not have to buy my first. But do not fret, I am only curious. I wish to have something knowledgeable to say to John Lucas on the subject when next I tease him.”

As a clever precaution, I had worded the letter carefully. That it was addressed to a fashionable neighbourhood not entirely believable as the headquarters for Mr Tomlinson’s company was one of those details that could be easily overlooked by a family as haphazard as the Bennets of Longbourn.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to request a bit of information with regard to the housing of curricles.

For instance, if a young man already owns a gig—say he was perhaps saddled with it since the attainment of his majority—would he be advised to have it stored elsewhere, such as with relatives, in the event he acquires a new and greatly superior curricle?

Also, I am curious if the Derbyshire Swift is truly as well-built and reliable as advertised?

Respectfully enquired ,

E Bennet, joyful owner of a Zephyr

My reply came a few days later.

Dear E Bennet,

Delighted to answer your query. Succinctly, upon purchase, I advise any man who acquires a curricle of the quality of a Zephyr or a Swift that he should rid his mews of cumbersome gigs, carts, and ancient landaulets to make sufficient space for air to circulate around his new curricle.

This is a reasonable precaution against knocks and bumps to his most highly prized possession by other, let us say, inelegant wheels, and to lessen the risk of an irritating mould taking hold of the leather. This small step should simplify his efforts to keep his new conveyance well maintained, for as I have always said to my customers, a happy curricle makes for an even happier driver.

With regard to the Swift, it is a perfect miracle of engineering. I recommend you take it for a drive one day very soon.

Your servant,

FWD Tomlinson

This reply caused me to laugh aloud, and it was not the first of many inklings I was given that life with Mr Darcy would never be tiresome. I became anxious and even fretful for the time to pass before I could see him again, even if we had to travel to Kent to meet, and even if we had to pretend to be on terms of merely nodding acquaintance .

Jane had returned home in a flush of love fulfilled, and after Mr Bingley had duly presented himself for my father’s blessing, he became a fixture at our table. We had many dinner parties and enjoyed casual dancing in front of the pianoforte during the evenings. Our days were also filled with the necessary preparations required of a wedding. Mary and Kitty began to work secretively in the attic on a gift for the couple—a box, suitable for papers and an inkwell to grace the fine mahogany escritoire in the salon at Netherfield Park.

The skeleton for said marvel had been discovered by Martha under the eaves of the attic next to the offensive chamber pot! After a little work on its hinges by an indulgent Mr Hill, it made for a respectable object. Dressed with delicate scrolling and woodland ferns in greens and golds, it was likely to be Jane’s most treasured remembrance of her middle sisters. That it palpably reminded the three of us of our secret mission to rescue Mary King meant we would also treasure this living reminder of the attics of Longbourn.

Meanwhile, I heard from Charlotte who, being some months encumbered with an enlarged belly, begged me, yes, to please, please come at Easter if not sooner. She confided that Maria had recently stayed with her, but her sister was nervous beyond bearing with Lady Catherine and timid around Mr Collins.

My mother did not like the idea, but Jane, being a person of great compassion, had read Charlotte’s letter and convinced her to let me go by reminding her of the long days of expectation for which we had been reproached so often through our lives.

“Oh, I suppose you are right, Jane. You were six or seven years old, were you not, when I awaited Lydia? And what a dreadful—well, never mind. One should not complain about the benefice of our Lord, even if a less miserable method might have been contrived by someone of almighty powers.”

She had only to reflect a moment longer to say, “Poor Charlotte! To be sequestered in a little house with Mr Collins unable to properly catch her breath—oh yes, do go to her, Lizzy. But do not stay longer than two weeks, for I need you home just as soon as you have offered her a little cheer.”

“Yes, Mama,” I replied with angelic sweetness whilst inwardly planning how I could clandestinely commit the sin of secretly meeting Mr Darcy.

This proved more challenging than I anticipated. I arrived in Kent and had barely settled my things when I was marched towards the great mansion looming in the centre of a verdant, ancient park.

As we approached the house, Mr Collins pointed out to me every architectural detail, such as the elegance of the roofline and the awe-inspiring number of casements, and he was so moved, he also enumerated for me the staggering cost of so much glazing. My cousin was a person who assumes importance from merely being acquainted with another person and their belongings, and inwardly, I rolled my eyes.

“I see them, Cousin,” I replied, after carefully adjusting my attitude. “Rosings Park is indeed a palace with many windows.”

The task of pretending an awe I did not feel, however, suddenly became less of an ordeal when I glanced up and saw the figure standing in one of those many windows as he carefully watched our progress. My heart! I had just as much difficulty as Charlotte in catching my breath as we proceeded to the front door.

Our little party made our bows. I submitted to being looked over and questioned by the great lady, to meeting her poor, unenviable daughter who looked to have given up the will to live for having such a mother, and to listening to Mr Collins slaver over his patroness with his tedious babble. My poor friend Charlotte sat beside me in a state of profound weariness, undoubtedly begging Providence for the day she could excuse herself from such exertions on the basis of being too close to her confinement.

This was all terribly agreeable to me because there before me sat Mr Darcy. Our eyes collided more than they ought to have perhaps, yet we even dared to once or twice send twinkles of adoration across the room.

Those sparks of love would have to serve as the only cheer in the overarching gloom, however, for I had never imagined that a grand house belonging to the sister of an earl could be so dreary. The place reflected its owner almost too well. Every object seemed overlayed with a veneer of a non-too-graceful old age, and I itched to rip off the drapes in the principal salon, to throw open those many, many windows to allow in a scouring breeze, and to give the place a good scrubbing!

“Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” Lady Catherine said to me from the head of the table in an ill-lit dining room, jolting me away from imagining the great clouds of dust that would be beaten off her rugs if they were ever hauled outside. “What do you think of Rosings Park, miss?”

“The grandeur of the house, Lady Catherine, must go unremarked, for who could do it justice? But it is the park, ma’am, which has inspired wonder in me, for I have never seen so beautiful a setting.”

“Hmph,” she said, apparently unable to decide whether she should be pleased or annoyed by that reply. “Are you much attached to nature, then?”

“I confess I like nothing better than a stroll in the company of trees or to top a rise and survey the bounty of a country well-tended.”

“Ah. You are country-bred which must account for your preference.”

“Indeed ma’am, and moreover, I have been brought up in a far simpler manor house and cannot aspire to such surroundings as must be the entitlement of a lady such as yourself. Thus, my inability to comment upon the furnishings or ornaments as someone familiar with their excellence or worth. Instead, I can only marvel at them in the most general sense. I can, however, appreciate a very old beech or elm or a tremendous specimen such as the oak that welcomes even the humblest of us to your estate. It is magnificent, ma’am.”

“Your modesty does you credit,” she said at last.

Lady Catherine struck me as a person continuously on the alert for anyone with pretensions to outshine, outrank, or contradict her, and the impression of meekness had been my aim in delivering such a sanctimonious speech. I had, in effect, lessened her suspicions with regard to me.

Mr Collins then inserted himself between his patroness and me, hungry for any crumb of credit he might earn for having brought her such a pleasingly humble visitor.

This, unfortunately, reminded her of a grievance. “But why, Miss Bennet, did you not agree to marry Mr Collins? If you are, as you say, reconciled to your rank and fortune, of which you have none, why should you have refused a respectable offer such as you received? Your father’s house is entailed upon your cousin, is it not? ”

In the face of this direct questioning, I applied my napkin to my lips, glanced once at Mr Darcy, and then improvised an entirely facetious reply.

“The offer, as you have said, was indeed respectable, Lady Catherine. But I did not feel equal to it, for I have no sense of what would be asked of me as the wife of a parson. A man of Mr Collins’s standing requires a helpmate of a certain capacity such as my friend Charlotte possesses, for a more even-tempered and sensible lady I have never met. In short, ma’am, I declined out of deference to his position.”

Mr Darcy stifled a cough into his napkin, Charlotte slanted her widened eyes in my direction, and I, realising I might have poured a little too much butter on my cousin’s head, held my breath in expectation of being called out as a shameless truckler.

Lady Catherine, however, had no limit to her capacity for cringing obsequiousness, and after a lofty, “I see,” she turned to speak exclusively to Mr Darcy.

“How is Georgiana progressing?” she asked. Then, she continued, “You must cease your wanderlust and marry for your sister’s sake!” and finally, “Has not my brother spoken to you of your duty?”

To each of these intrusive questions, none of which made for suitable dinner conversation, Mr Darcy calmly countered with, “Very well, ma’am,” “Yes, ma’am,” and “He has.”

“When Anne has recovered from her most recent cold, we shall make arrangements,” she declared, to which Mr Darcy only sipped from his glass as if perhaps he had not heard her.

I then began to wonder how long her threats of making said arrangements had hinged upon her daughter’s improving health, and as if to underscore the absurdity of her mother’s insistence that she would soon be well, her daughter’s companion then asked that the young lady be excused, for she was suddenly quite faint.

I felt extremely sorry for Miss de Bourgh, but I was also slightly distracted and had begun to squirm a little in my chair. My word! Lady Catherine truly was set on Mr Darcy as a son-in-law.

Suspecting I had overplayed the part of the humble country muffin who did not believe she could possibly fill the shoes of Mr Collins’s esteemed wife, I wondered how much of Lady Catherine’s rage I would bear for having played this card when she discovered just how high I had set my sights. Had I gone too far?