Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
A FRIEND INDEED
Charlotte and her new husband had allowed the servants at Longbourn to keep their places, for as many who desired it. Thus it was Mrs Hill’s familiar countenance who greeted Elizabeth at the front door. Hill cried out and pulled her into a motherly embrace the moment she opened the door.
“Forgive me!” The older lady wiped a tear from one eye. “Quite forgot myself, did I not? Come, Mrs Collins will be delighted you have called.”
Elizabeth followed her down the hall, a hall she had herself trod too many times to count.
There was the little mark on the wall caused by Lydia who had kicked it in a fit of pique when she was a girl; there was that third stair that squeaked a little when trod upon; and there was the small door that led into a similarly small closet but that Elizabeth had always fancied was a portal to a secret faery kingdom.
Elizabeth wondered if her old bedchamber had yet been changed to suit the current occupants of the house.
They are likely more concerned with the old nursery.
Towards her father’s study, she could not hazard so much as a glance. She could still, she imagined, catch the scent of it, that particular scent of book bindings and pipe smoke that always made her think of him.
The sitting room was a strange and discomfiting mix of the familiar and unfamiliar.
The well-worn furnishings had not all been replaced but enough had that the room was both new and old.
She moved, unthinkingly, towards the small sofa she had always favoured and then stopped, realising she ought to wait for Charlotte to offer her a seat.
Charlotte rose to kiss her cheek and directed her towards the preferred seat, settling in beside her as had always been the custom. “How did you enjoy the assembly last night?”
“It was delightful,” Elizabeth lied. “And you? I wonder if assemblies lose their appeal once you have married?”
Charlotte chuckled comfortably. “A little, I must admit. We both know my husband’s skill at dancing is nothing to boast of, and I do value the feeling in my toes. In truth, if I had not a new gown to show, the pleasure in the evening would be lost entirely.”
New gown. Yes, Charlotte’s new gown had indeed been a sight to behold. Evidently, her new station as the married mistress of Longbourn was to be celebrated with as much lace, and as many ostrich plumes, as her petite frame could hold.
“Mr Collins has lately approved the funds for me to redo the dining room,” Charlotte informed her, a matronly, tucked-in sort of smile on her lips.
“Long overdue, I am sure. I believe my mother last did it when Lydia was still in her cradle.”
“I wondered in fact if your mother wished to keep any of it?” Charlotte asked. “The drapery, the rugs…even the table itself. They will go to the tenants if you do not think you can use them.”
Charlotte had previously offered the furnishings from Kitty and Lydia’s former bedchamber, as well as the furnishings from the family parlour on the west side of the house.
Elizabeth’s reply would be the same to the present offer as it had been to the others.
“Thank you, but we have as much as we need, and in any case, there is really no place for any of us to keep them.”
Charlotte’s brow creased with worry. “I-I hope it is not dreadfully…”
She allowed the sentence to trail off. What did she imagine, that her former friends had gone on to something better?
Nothing would clear the Collinses of the iniquity of inheriting, but Elizabeth thought it would be best for all of them to acknowledge what it was.
Charlotte had gone up in the world, and Elizabeth had gone way, way down.
But it is not Charlotte’s fault, she reminded herself. What has she done but that which you ought to have done—secure herself. Yes, she married a fool to get there, but Charlotte had a home and what could become a comfortable income, should they practise economy for a few years.
Nevertheless, Elizabeth refused to prevaricate. “It is…snug, to say the least. Jane and I have always shared a bedchamber; now we share a bed. Kitty, Lydia, and Mary are in the next room, which is larger, and each has her own bed, though Kitty and Lydia have stacked beds.”
Charlotte gasped but tried to parlay it into interest. “How charming! Stacked beds, just like in a—”
“Gaol, yes.”
She laughed uncomfortably. “I was going to say a ship.”
Elizabeth only shrugged. She was not proud of herself for being bitter, and in truth, the culprit was not Charlotte, or her husband, but Mr Bennet himself. “But you must tell me what you plan to do with the house! Have you made sketches?”
The call became considerably more pleasant from there.
Charlotte sent the footman to retrieve her sketches, and a happy half an hour was spent reviewing floor plans and fabric samples.
In truth, Elizabeth did not much care how many revisions Charlotte planned.
Let her change it all; it would be less painful, less of a reminder of what she and her sisters had lost.
At one point, Mr Collins intruded. “A charming scene, indeed,” he said with a superior smile. “Cousin Elizabeth, I am so glad you are able to wish us both well. Mrs Collins, has Elizabeth—”
“We are not yet done talking,” Charlotte interrupted him with an apologetic smile. “A few more minutes, Husband, if you will?”
Mr Collins took her direction well, scurrying away after only a brief pause to grab several of the biscuits laid out on the table in front of the ladies.
“You wonder what that is about, no doubt?” Charlotte enquired as soon as the door was safely closed behind him.
Elizabeth smiled and agreed that she did.
“Lady Catherine de Bourgh—my husband’s former patroness—has a daughter. Miss Anne de Bourgh.”
“I remember mention of her,” Elizabeth replied. “I believe you said she was sickly?”
“Lady Catherine says she is sickly,” Charlotte replied. “For myself, I never saw anything so dreadful afflict the lady, save for perhaps ennui. But she is five-and-twenty and was recently thrown over by her cousin, a man to whom she had been promised for quite some time.”
“Poor dear,” Elizabeth said disinterestedly.
“The family are so angry with him, they refuse to so much as utter his name.” Charlotte chuckled.
“In any case, Lady Catherine is determined that Miss de Bourgh should have a London Season, and find a suitable husband. Perhaps she might have a notion that seeing Miss de Bourgh receiving attention in London might provoke her cousin to reconsider her?”
“Make him jealous, you mean?”
“It is possible. I am sure I really do not know, but…they would like to hire a friend to accompany her, to help her overcome her native diffidence.”
“A companion?”
Charlotte shook her head. “Not a companion exactly. A lady who can move about in society with Miss de Bourgh, to be seen as her particular friend, and to not embarrass them.”
It took Elizabeth a few moments to understand. “Do you mean me?”
Charlotte smiled apologetically. “If you should like to consider it? Lady Catherine thought it a right thing that Mr Collins should consider the cousins he injured. I immediately thought of you or Jane, but Jane might soon have…other considerations.”
“My mother would certainly like that. It is why she brought us here,” Elizabeth admitted.
Penury had done nothing to ease Mrs Bennet’s pretensions or her aspirations for her daughters.
Before she had even set eyes upon the man, she had proclaimed Mr Bingley to be the property of Jane.
“As soon as my aunt Philips told her a wealthy bachelor had leased Netherfield Park, she all but shoved us onto the next post coach. Seeing his preference for her last night, my mother likely thinks he will propose today.”
“Maybe he will,” said Charlotte kindly.
“I doubt that.” Elizabeth smiled but also rolled her eyes. “We both know how these young bachelors are, do we not? Then again, of us all, Jane is the one who might still marry well.”
“I daresay this position with Lady Catherine might improve your own prospects. She is a generous person, and I do not doubt she would reward you handsomely once Miss de Bourgh married.”
“I cannot think taking employment would do anything but diminish my already reduced circumstances,” said Elizabeth. It was something of an irrevocable step, and yet, was it not inevitable? It was that or wait for her uncle Gardiner to procure some shopkeeper’s son for her to marry.
“Actually, Lady Catherine was quite adamant on the point that you be seen as a friend, not someone paid to be there—even if that is the truth of it—and certainly not a servant. She will tell you all the details about that, but in London you are meant to…to gad about with Miss de Bourgh. Attend parties, balls, dinners, theatre. I daresay you might quite enjoy it.”
Elizabeth thought about that for a moment.
Servant, companion, or friend, what did it signify after all?
Whatever the payment was or was not, she needed the money, desperately.
It would relieve some of the strain on the household finances.
No, there was everything to support the notion; the only thing which argued against it was her pride.
“Yes,” she said finally. “I will do it. Do they mean to begin right away? I suppose they would want to meet me first.”
“Nothing short of a grand presentation to society, right at the start of a proper London Season, will do,” said Charlotte with a little chuckle. “And in any case, being in the damp air of London in the winter months would no doubt make Miss de Bourgh gravely ill, or so they think.”
“I wonder that they wish to have this arranged now?”
“They are making all sorts of arrangements for her,” Charlotte explained. “Music lessons, gowns, dancing, French…the sort of things many ladies of her station would have learnt long ago. I am not sure I understand why she never did, but so it was, and now they are doing their best to prepare her.”
“Then I shall be glad to be among the preparations,” Elizabeth said.
“Excellent. I shall write to Lady Catherine directly, and arrange the meeting,” Charlotte promised.