Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
THE MORNING AFTER
By the time Elizabeth had escaped the locked room the night prior and found a servant to release Mr D, her sisters and mother had been long gone from the assembly.
Happily, only Jane had missed her and Jane had been satisfied with a report of her being engaged in conversation with someone and forgetting the time.
She did not ask Jane if she had danced with a Mr D, or if Mr Bingley had a guest that fit his description.
The strange encounter had left her with conflicting feelings about the man.
On one hand, he had been, after his initial pique, enjoyable to talk to, to debate with.
On the other hand, she knew beyond a doubt that he never would have deigned to speak to her if he knew her situation in life.
The Bennet ladies had become the genteel poor; it had always been on the horizon but still came as a shock every time she comprehended the reality of it.
Mrs Philips had a large and comfortable apartment in Meryton which, despite her husband’s modest income, was always furnished in the latest style.
Elizabeth admired it as she never could have before their decline in circumstances.
The breakfast table was noisy and crowded that morning, Kitty and Lydia crowing their success in dancing all the dances the night prior, Mrs Bennet assuring Mrs Philips that Jane was all but engaged to Mr Bingley, and Mary sniffing and piously exclaiming that she thought they ought to still be observing their father’s death.
To this Elizabeth said quietly, with a small pat on her sister’s hand, “I miss him, too, Mary.”
“I know it has been almost a year already,” Mary replied, looking down at her plate. “It does not seem so, though.”
“You can never imagine what Lady Lucas said to me last night,” Mrs Bennet announced to Mrs Philips. “She thinks I ought to marry again.”
Elizabeth, who had just drawn a long sip of tea into her mouth, instantly spat it, sending her sisters into a fit of scandalised giggles and exclamations of “Lizzy!”
“Forgive me.” Elizabeth hurriedly wiped her mouth. “Marriage? Surely she was not in earnest, Mama?”
“Of course she was.” Mrs Bennet shot her least favourite daughter a fierce scowl. “Some people do not wish to go about spurning eligible men at every turn, Lizzy.”
“You surely do not wish to marry again, do you?” Jane asked their mother.
“And why should she not?” Mrs Philips asked with a sister’s protective exasperation. Turning to Mrs Bennet, she said staunchly, “You have maintained your face and figure beautifully. I daresay most men would not put you at a day over thirty-five.”
Mrs Bennet tsked and made giggling demurrals to that but was obviously pleased by the compliment.
“Our father is scarcely cold in his grave,” Mary protested.
“It has been a year,” Mrs Philips said.
“Not quite,” Kitty asserted. Elizabeth noticed that she and Lydia had both gone quiet. “He only died last December.”
“Well I know that,” Mrs Bennet replied crossly. “Obviously I was not planning to remarry today! You girls know how we are living, and you surely cannot think I would remain in that…that hovel in the City for the rest of my days?”
“Those Collinses could scarcely wait to toss you all into the hedgerows. I should not have imagined Charlotte Lucas to behave so unfeelingly towards you all!” Mrs Philips added warmly.
“Everyone in that family have always been out for whatever they can get, and heaven help the person who attempts to stand in their way.”
“I cannot tell you how it pains me to watch Mr and Mrs Collins preen all about knowing what they did! To be thrown from the place I lived since I was but seventeen years old!” Mrs Bennet cried out.
“And my girls, my poor, dear girls, forced to lay aside their childhoods for the whims of these Collinses!”
As it was, the Miss Bennets had laid aside their childhoods long since, and if any of them had had any childhood left, it disappeared the moment their father confessed to them that he was ill.
It had been the week before Michaelmas last year that he told them of his illness—he had evidently known for some time—and by Christmas he was dead.
Short a time as it was, it was nevertheless exceedingly difficult.
Their father had suffered agonies, and in the end, it had been a mercy when he finally breathed his last. But it had not made it any easier to lose him.
“It is just shocking,” Mrs Bennet continued, “how poorly Mr Bennet provided for us all. If only we had been able to have a son! Then none of this would have happened!”
“Well there is nothing for it now,” Mrs Philips said soothingly. Then, in almost perfect synchrony, both matrons cast Elizabeth a look that said ‘you could have prevented it, too, but chose not to’. Elizabeth swallowed and turned her attention back to her tea.
As it was, her father’s heir, Mr Collins, had waited a generous six months before taking possession of the house that was legally his.
He had visited them in the days immediately following Mr Bennet’s death, proving himself a silly and fatuous person whom they all disliked immediately.
He had taken orders in the spring of 1810, it seemed, and had been granted a valuable living in Kent that he was eager to relinquish.
Elizabeth suspected he might have been more willing to eject them from their home sooner had his patroness been willing to release him more quickly.
In any case, regardless of the hows or whys, the ladies were granted much-needed months to situate themselves in their greatly reduced circumstances.
He had returned to them in March for a se’nnight, and although none of them knew why he was there, it was soon made clear to them. His patroness had told him he ought to take a wife from among the Bennet sisters. And he was there to choose one.
Somehow he arrived at the conclusion that Elizabeth was to be the one thus blessed. Thus did he propose to her, managing to insult and degrade her in the process, which made it quite easy to refuse him.
So offended was he by her refusal that he immediately sought solace in the neighbourhood, or more specifically, in the company of the former Miss Charlotte Lucas.
Mrs Bennet was still upbraiding Elizabeth for her stubbornness when the news came from Lucas Lodge that Charlotte was engaged.
By dinner that day, the Bennet ladies had been informed that they would need to give way to the new master and mistress by the end of June.
Vexing as it was, it was still more than he was required to do for them. Elizabeth was mollified by that even if her mother decidedly was not.
“I had believed,” Mrs Philips said to Mrs Bennet, “that our brother might have done more for you. He can afford it, believe you me!”
When the accounts had been settled and last rents collected, the Bennet ladies had been left with just over half of the four thousand pounds initially settled on Mrs Bennet on her marriage.
Never mind the entail, never mind that the settlement should have increased; the twenty-three years of the Bennet marriage had been characterised by overindulgence.
The consequence of that was that Mr Bennet’s six survivors were left with very little on which to survive.
Elizabeth’s chest grew tight every time she tried to imagine them all managing their affairs on the interest, which would amount to less than one hundred pounds per annum.
Her uncle had done more for his Bennet relations than he should have had to do.
It embarrassed Elizabeth to accept his largesse even as her mother decried her brother’s stinginess towards them.
Their house was modest but adequate, located on Clements Street.
It was not an unpleasant place; Mrs Bennet and her daughters had all done much to make the small rooms cheerful and pleasant.
Even Lydia had taken up needle and thread to improve pillows, and Kitty had painted a wonderfully faithful image of Longbourn for the sitting room.
There were three bedchambers of which the largest went to their mother.
Jane and Elizabeth had taken the smallest bedchamber.
Their younger sisters had the medium-sized bedchamber, but with more ladies within it, it felt smaller.
Nearly every morning they emerged with at least two of them in some row about an encroachment upon perceived territory.
It was not unusual to find Mary asleep on the sofa in the parlour in the morning.
“What I cannot comprehend,” said Mrs Bennet, “is just how I am meant to find suitable husbands for anyone, much less myself, in such an unfashionable neighbourhood! I told Edward, let us find a place on one of the squares. Not Grosvenor Square! I am not so unreasonable as that. But one of the newer ones perhaps. Then we all might have mixed with the right sort of men, gentlemen who would make good husbands.”
Mrs Philips nodded her head vigorously. Elizabeth considered, then disregarded, observing that Mr Gardiner himself did not live in one of the squares, Grosvenor or otherwise, and very well could afford it if he so chose.
She wondered that she had not before considered it, her own mother husband-hunting. She prayed she would never have to bear direct witness to it—the very notion of passing her mother as she went down the line of a dance made her shudder.
Wishing to put some distance between herself and the disagreeable conversation, she rose from the table. “Mama, before we leave, I promised Charlotte I would call on her.”
Her mother sniffed. “I do not know how you can bear her society, but go if you must.”
Jane offered to come along, but knowing her sister was not inclined towards walking, Elizabeth waved her off. “Charlotte had something in particular she wished to speak to me about, so perhaps I ought to go alone.”
“Where did you disappear to last evening, Darcy?” Despite having danced until the wee small hours, Bingley was cheerful, if a trifle pale from lack of sleep, when Darcy appeared in the breakfast room.
“I did not disappear,” Darcy replied, taking a seat at the table. A footman was quick to pour him coffee, and he nodded gratefully to him. “I think it was only that you overlooked me, your eyes trained on pleasanter prospects.”
“The lady is an angel!” Bingley enthused, easily forgetting his friend’s absence the night prior. “An absolute angel. Ah Darcy, I was not meaning to find love—”
“Then pray, do not.” Darcy gave him a stern look over his coffee cup. “It is entirely possible to attend a ball without falling in love with some angel or another, you know.”
“But considerably less diverting!” Bingley laughed. “Do not fear, my friend, I did behave myself and only danced with her twice, though I considered asking for a third.”
“That fond of her, eh? Or was it merely that the other ladies were so very lacking?”
“Ungenerous, indeed!” Bingley laughed again. “In fact, I have rarely met with pleasanter people or prettier girls than I have last night, in the country or in town.”
Darcy made a noise that Bingley could take for agreement or disinterest as he chose. Then, with studied nonchalance, he asked, “Did you happen to make the acquaintance of a slender, dark-haired lady? I believe she wore a pale pink or ivory gown.”
Bingley considered that a minute, spreading a generous layer of marmalade onto barley bread while he did so. “Maybe? Was she a Miss Goulding?”
“I do not think so. I should imagine it was her family name that began with an L.”
“There were some Miss Longs, but they were very young and fair-haired. I wondered that they were even out.”
“No, she was dark-haired and had dark eyes.”
Bingley scratched his head. “Longbourn? No, that was the name of one of the estates, I think. A Mr Collins is the master. Dash it, Darcy, I really do not recollect any dark-haired young ladies. Do you want me to ask—”
“No, no,” Darcy said hurriedly. “Idle curiosity my friend, that is all.”
“You do not often ask about a lady,” Bingley teased. “A singular conversation! Are you certain you do not wish me to ask about her?”
Darcy shook his head firmly. “Absolutely not. No, I only thought…she reminded me of someone I knew, is all, but once I looked closer… No, it would not do, and regardless, I leave today. It would serve no purpose.”
“Perhaps you ought to stay,” Bingley said teasingly. “I do not doubt a great many of our neighbours might call this morning. You might see your mysterious ‘L’ lady again.”
Darcy would not have liked to account for the frisson of excitement that charged through him at that thought. She said she was not from here, or something of the like. Will she call to bid our party farewell? Perhaps she is already gone from the town?
“I can only hope Miss Bennet comes,” said Bingley with a sigh Darcy immediately recognised. It was a sign his friend was lovelorn. Already.
“Bingley,” he said with censure he hoped would be plain to his friend.
“I know, I know!” Bingley held up two hands. “Unsuitable! Untenable! Insupportable! I have already heard your condemnations in my head!”
“If you have, then that tells me you already know that the acquaintance, such as it is, must be only friendship.”
“Of course. You cannot think I wish to marry? I am only three-and-twenty,” Bingley assured him. “You must trust that I know the difference between being neighbourly and giving a woman expectations of me.”
In fact, Darcy did not trust that, not in the least. He would stay, he decided, for Bingley, not because he secretly wished a dark-eyed lady with a light figure and captivating charm would call.