Chapter Four
Jane awoke the following morning feeling much better.
Her head scarcely ached, and the soreness from her bruises was much less perceptible.
Daisy must be at her breakfast, Jane thought as she rose from her bed and made her way to the dressing room.
After she dressed herself and washed with the water in the pitcher, she found a morning gown that was equally as lovely as the one from the day before hanging near a mirror.
She blessed Jane Bingley’s generosity, good taste, and practicality as she donned the frock that was easily fastened by herself and tied the matching ribbon under her bosom.
She sat at the dressing table and pulled her hair into a simple chignon, and as usual, her small curls needed no improvement.
She believed she looked younger today without her lace cap than she had in some time.
This suited her mood, for she had enjoyed herself delightfully with the younger ladies the evening before.
“Oh, miss! Where’re ye goin’?” cried Daisy in surprise as Jane encountered her in the shared sitting room.
“I am feeling much better, I thought I might visit the library, and perhaps break my fast downstairs, if it would not inconvenience Mrs Bingley,” Jane answered.
“Oh, I’m sure that would be fine, miss, but ye can’t go down the stairs alone. Mr Jones’s orders,” Daisy objected. “The apothecary told Mrs Bingley that ye must be assisted for a fortnight, for yer in danger of faintin’ from the lump on yer ‘ead. Wait just a mo, miss.”
The maid laid the pile of linens she was carrying on a table and returned to the hall, then soon came back with a footman. “James will show ye to the library, miss. Be sure to take ‘is arm, Mr Jones said ye could lose yer balance, like.”
Jane thanked her and promised to find a footman when she was ready to return upstairs.
James did not speak as they descended the stairs, Jane with one hand on the railing and the other resting lightly on his arm.
They found Miss Bennet downstairs in the hall wearing a fawn pelisse and walking boots with her dark green walking dress.
“Miss Jane! You look quite well!” The younger lady smiled at the footman as she took Jane’s other arm. “I will accompany our guest, thank you, James.”
Jane searched Elizabeth’s face as the footman left them; the younger lady still looked tired and strained.
“Miss Bennet, though it is not my business, I must ask. When I woke the other day, you looked tired and anxious. I thought it must be from tending me, but you do not appear to have rested again. Are you well? If I can provide you with a listening ear, I encourage you to tell me.”
“Oh! No… no… I am not unwell. Merely sleeping ill. It must be the new bed.” Miss Bennet’s eyes flicked away.
“Well if you change your mind, I am prepared to listen,” Jane assured her.
“I believe Miss Kitty told me that you are a great walker in the morning. Though I might not mind a short walk in the garden after breakfast, I am not ready for the exhilarating march I sense you enjoy. If you might show me where the library is, I shall be very happy to pass the time until breakfast exploring the stacks.”
“I fear you will not find many stacks in my brother’s library, though there is always something to read. His friend has promised to help him improve it, and so I confess, I look forward to seeing what new volumes they find.”
Elizabeth and Jane entered the library to find a tall, handsome gentleman with short, dark hair, and startling blue eyes standing before a shelf with a volume in his hand.
. Oh heavens, this demi-god could only be Darcy.
Jane was startled by his impossibly handsome features.
He could not possibly be shorter than six feet and three inches in his stocking feet, more in his boots, obviously, and was quite a proper man, if Jane said so herself.
Look at those eyelashes! For a fleeting second she could not help but envy Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
“Mr Darcy!” Miss Bennet squeaked. “We did not expect you for two more days.”
“Miss Bennet.” Darcy bowed to both of them.
“Unfortunately the inn we were to stay at for the night burned down, and in the following two towns, we would have had to share with strangers, they were so full. I might have done so if it were only me and Colonel Fitzwilliam, but I could not impose on my sister and her companion in such a way, so we were obliged to press on until we reached Netherfield. It was quite late when Bingley received us. I believe it was said that you retired early.”
“Miss Darcy is here? I hope she is well,” Miss Bennet said after a moment of uncomfortable silence. “I do not recall Jane mentioning that she was visiting with you.”
Darcy’s eyes pierced Elizabeth mysteriously, then he turned away from her without answering. He looked at Jane and said, “I beg your pardon, madam.” Then he said to Elizabeth. “I assume this is the house guest Bingley told me about? The one you found?”
“Yes. Mr Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire, may I present Miss Jane – as she is called – to your acquaintance. She wished to explore my brother’s library until she broke her fast.”
“Please, do not allow me to disturb your enjoyment of the library, Miss Jane. If I can help you find something, please ask.” Darcy turned back to Elizabeth and said dismissively, “Are you leaving for your exercise?”
Shocking! Jane thought indignantly as Miss Bennet blushed scarlet, then stammered a goodbye and left them. When Jane had finished watching Miss Bennet leave, she turned back to find Darcy making his way to take a seat facing a window with his book on the other side of the room.
What. A. Beast! Jane stared at the man as she steamed, eyes boring holes into the back of his head.
How on earth was Elizabeth Bennet meant to fall in love with this boorish wretch!
Certainly, Jane herself had made him that way, but he was meant to have amended his behaviour by now!
Then, considering Miss Bennet’s strained appearance and reaction to the man’s unexpected arrival, she was obviously already well in love with the gentleman.
And considering his refusal to look at her after the first time he addressed her, I would say he is in love with her too. That makes my task abundantly easier.
Jane observed the complicated man with sideways glances as she explored the volumes on the shelves with interest. Her amusement was piqued.
The man had acted as if he could not care less about Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
Yet now he was neglecting his book as he stared out the window at her walking away from the house across the fields.
Half an hour later, he had not even glanced at the tome in his hand, as he stared transfixed in the direction that Miss Bennet had gone, obviously waiting for her to return.
Jane smiled to herself. Whatever it was that had gone wrong between Elizabeth and Mr Darcy, surely it was incumbent upon her–the author–to fix it.
An hour later, Mrs Bingley found Jane in the library after Darcy quit the room, and accompanied her to the breakfast room.
Jane was both apprehensive and excited. She was all anticipation to meet more of her characters, but she worried about the nastiness of Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst. Jane was equal to managing them, but her acerbic tongue was often deemed impertinent.
Though she longed to verbally spar with all of her characters, she was acutely aware that while she was the creator of all of this, she was still Mrs Bingley’s guest, and must show the proper respect for her kind-hearted and most generous hosts.
Particularly since she had no notion of how long she would be here.
When Mrs Bingley had introduced her to the room, Jane took a seat between Miss Bennet and Miss Kitty, and told the footman what she would eat as he went to the sideboard to make her plate.
Mr Bingley served his wife, and Miss Bingley sat with her nose in the air as Captain Arundle made her plate.
Darcy sat near Mrs Bingley; his sister between him and his cousin.
Jane’s breakfast companions were as curious about her as she was about them.
“I say, Miss Jane, is it true that you have no idea at all what happened to you?” asked Mr Hurst’s younger brother Mr Rupert Hurst. Mr Hurst the younger was an unmarried parson, aged twenty-nine, with a new living in Keswick, in the Lake District.
“I am afraid it is,” Jane informed him. “I regret to say that I have no idea how I was found alone and injured in Hertfordshire.”
“How convenient,” Miss Bingley drawled. “To find yourself injured within a short distance of such a large manor as Netherfield Park, and not in a completely isolated location, or among the poor on the other side of the village, where those who found you would certainly have put you in the workhouse.”
Jane stared at Miss Bingley’s rudeness. This was precisely what she had been nervous about. Miss Bingley would speak to her thus very few times before Jane snapped and said something everyone would remember.
“I do not know if it was convenient, but I am certainly grateful to Miss Bennet and her sisters for finding help, and to Mr and Mrs Bingley for their kindness and generosity.” Jane eyed the younger woman evenly and sipped her chocolate in contemplation.
“Convenient is the only thing it can be called, but certainly, I imagine you must be very grateful.” Captain Arundel smirked.
“I am not remotely concerned about the convenience, only that there is a possibility that highwaymen and kidnapping are involved in our area.” Bingley was cutting into a sausage at the head of the table.
“Sir William, Mr Bennet, and I have written a series of advertisements, and we mean to send them to several newspapers. St Albans, Ware, Hatfield, London, and the primary papers for a few counties around Hertfordshire. Someone will certainly come looking for Miss Jane, and if that brings no results within three weeks, we shall do it again in every county in the kingdom. And Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam have contacts in London. They will be helping investigate too.”
Mrs Bingley cleared her throat. “In the meantime, we have plenty of room to spare. Mr Bingley and I agree that Miss Jane is quite welcome to stay as long as necessary. It is obvious that she is a gentlewoman, likely of good family. We cannot allow her to face hardship or fear for her circumstances as she recovers her memory and her family is found.”
“Hear, hear. You are a good chap, Bingley. I commend you for having found a wife who shares your good nature and kindness,” Colonel Fitzwilliam added to the conversation.
“I shall be writing letters to some contacts I have in London, and Darcy is sounding out the runners and his most trusted investigators. If anyone is looking for you, Miss Jane, we shall find them.”
“But what if there is no one looking, Charles?” Miss Bingley insisted. “You could very well find yourself keeping a perfect stranger for heaven knows how long!”
“Caroline, will you be silent!” Bingley laid down his fork and glared at his sister. “Your direction of conversation is unhelpful.”
“And entirely unnecessary,” Elizabeth added, glaring at Caroline.
“Caroline is only stating what everyone is thinking, Charles,” Mrs Hurst objected.
“Louisa,” her husband suddenly bit out rather sharply. His wife reddened.
“I can only repine that Arundel allowed her to wait for months in order to be a June bride in London,” Bingley grumbled.
“For I might have sooner heard less of my youngest sister’s fascinating reports on what she believes everyone is thinking.
Caroline is about to marry, and be the mistress of her own household.
Since Netherfield has a mistress who has matters in hand here, it is not necessary for Caroline to lodge an opinion. ”
Jane’s eyebrows shot up at Bingley’s uncharacteristic–in her opinion–and she was of a mind that hers was the only one that counted–open rebuke of his sister.
“Miss Bingley fought my poor sister on every possible matter of household when Jane married Charles,” Miss Kitty whispered from her left side.
“Even things that she did not change, Miss Bingley found reasons to quarrel about. The rows were terrible, and eventually Charles was obliged to send her to London, which is when she met Captain Arundel. Now she has mostly given up on attempting to run her brother’s house.
She is too busy planning her wedding and feeling superior, for soon she will outrank Charles and Jane.
Lizzy loathes her, and the feeling is mutual. ”
Conversation eventually turned to more pleasant subjects and Jane watched each of the people around the table carefully.
She marveled at how rich in depth all of these characters were.
Surely when she returned to her own life, this adventure would have given her a great deal of inspiration for Mansfield Park.