Chapter 30
It took Louisa several long weeks of confinement to heal from the procedure that Dr. Carson performed. Fortunately, the good doctor was willing to remain at Netherfield to personally oversee her care. Whether his decision to do so was influenced by his developing connection with Charlotte Lucas will be up to the reader to determine.
Nevertheless, between Mrs. Fields, Mr. Jones, and Dr. Carson, Louisa recovered with the aid of poultices made specifically for that purpose, as Mrs. Fields commonly treated women who tore in that area during childbirth. “I know ‘tis painful, Mrs. Hurst, but we’ll get you fixed right up,” she would say each time she changed the dressing.
Although she was ordered to remain in her bed for at least two weeks, Louisa insisted on being present to introduce little Emma Jane to her dear Aunt Jane. Hurst gently carried Louisa from her bed to a comfortable chair with a soft feathered cushioned seat that was placed in Jane’s room specifically for this purpose. Once she was settled, the wet nurse followed behind, carrying the six-day-old infant.
Elizabeth and Bingley were also present to witness the special moment. Jane—whose failing health now only allowed her to remain awake for about half an hour at a time, four to five times a day—gave a soft squeal of joy when she saw the baby.
“She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life!”
“Would you like to hold her?” Louisa asked.
“Oh, may I, Charles? May I?”
Bingley chuckled. “Of course you may, my dear. You needn’t ask me!”
The wet nurse began to direct Jane on how to support the baby’s neck, but Jane was already in position. “I held all of the tenant babies while Lizzy talked to their mamas,” she said proudly. “I know how to do this.”
Everyone smiled, and little Emma Jane was laid carefully in her aunt Jane’s arms. As the beautiful woman looked down at her equally beautiful niece, Elizabeth’s fingers itched for a pencil or charcoal to draw the scene—never mind the fact that she had absolutely no talent for art. She only wished she could capture that moment on the page for eternity.
Clearly the same thing was on Bingley’s mind, for he briefly disappeared from the room, returning moments later with Georgiana. He motioned towards the bed, whispering into her ear, and she nodded furtively, her gaze never leaving the sight.
For the next half hour, everyone watched as Jane cooed over her namesake, speaking sweet little nothings to her. Eventually, however, the child began to fuss from hunger and Jane grew weary.
“I think it’s best that we let Jane get some rest,” Bingley said.
“And let Emma Jane eat,” Louisa added.
Elizabeth gave her sister a kiss on the forehead. “I will visit you again tomorrow.
∞∞∞
To everyone’s great sorrow, that would be the only time Jane would get to see Emma Jane. It was as if she had held on to life only to see her niece come into the world, for the morning after Jane snuggled the baby in her arms, she couldn’t be awakened. After attempting to rouse her several times for breakfast, Jane’s nursemaid knocked on Bingley’s door and bade him to attend his wife.
Dr. Carson, who was still at Netherfield overseeing Louisa’s recovery, was immediately summoned. Elizabeth, too, was fetched. She and Bingley watched as the doctor listened to Jane’s heart, counted her breaths, looked at her eyes, and waved smelling salts under her nose. At last, he sat back to look at them and shook his head sadly.
“I fear this is the beginning of the end for Mrs. Bingley. She is still alive, but she is no longer able to regain consciousness. Her heart and lungs simply do not have the ability to provide the energy necessary to maintain her brain in a state of awareness.”
“Then she won’t ever wake up?” Bingley’s voice broke.
“I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid not.”
Elizabeth stared numbly down at her elder sister’s prone body. Jane’s lovely face was paler than she’d ever seen, her lips so blue they were almost purple—but her chest was still rising and falling, only with long pauses in between each breath.
“I must send a note to my father,” she said woodenly. “Please excuse me.”
She walked out of the room in a daze, unable to fully process the situation. She’d known for almost six months that Jane was going to die; indeed, she’d seen her sister grow weaker every single day. But as long as she’d been eating, speaking, laughing…
Without even realizing it, she found herself in one of the smaller sitting rooms on the main floor. She removed a sheet of paper from a small table and began to write.
Papa,
I’m sorry to say that Jane will not awaken. Dr. Carson says that this is the end. She still breathes, but that is all. It is time to say goodbye. Please come.
E.B.
She sanded the paper and gave it to a footman. “Have this sent to Longbourn immediately. They are to wait for a response.”
Once the note was on its way, she sat in a chair near the fireplace, staring at the flames, unaware of time passing. She was so lost in her memories of Jane that she didn’t even hear the footsteps behind her.
“Elizabeth?”
The hand on her shoulder, along with her name, caused her to jump. “Oh!” she cried out.
“I’m sorry,” Darcy said, coming around from behind to kneel in front of her. “I didn’t intend to frighten you.”
“I didn’t even hear you come in.”
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I heard about Jane.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she leaned forward, throwing her arms around him and burrowing her face into his neck. He held her tight as she wept great, gulping sobs shuddering her body and soaking his cravat.
After several minutes, her weeping slowed into soft whimpers of a grief so profound Darcy felt as though his heart would rip in two. “I’m so sorry, my love,” he whispered, his lips pressed against her hair.
She sat back in her chair, and he shifted his position, allowing the blood to begin flowing once again to his legs and feet. Elizabeth mopped at her eyes. “I knew it was coming, of course—yet at the same time, I just never pictured what it would be like. I’ve never lived my life without Jane.”
With one hand, he cupped her cheek. “She will always be with you. Wherever you are, she will be there, in your heart, and she will live on as you share your memories of her with our children.”
Lifting her hand to cover his, she whispered, “Do you really think so?”
“Yes,” he said firmly. “So much of why I love you is because of her. Your sister and her unique view of the world—her goodness, her purity—has affected you. You are strong, and you are kind, and it is because of her influence. As long as you live, she will never die. And as long as our children learn those same admirable traits from your example, she will live on from generation to generation indefinitely.”
At a loss for words, Elizabeth leaned forward once more and kissed him gently on the lips. Unlike their more wanton encounter the night of the Meryton assembly, this second kiss was filled with love and respect, and was more potent than anything Darcy had ever experienced.
It lasted for an eternity, but then ended all too soon. They sat in comfortable silence, just enjoying the peace of one another’s company before they were interrupted by a footman at the door in search of Elizabeth.
“Begging your pardon, miss, but Mr. Bennet is here.”
Reality came crashing down around her, and Elizabeth practically leaped from her chair. She gave Darcy’s hand a tight squeeze before dashing out of the room in search of her father. She was directed to Jane’s room, where she found him looking down on his eldest daughter with heavy, sorrowful eyes.
“Well, Lizzy, for the first time in my life, I can honestly say that I had hoped you’d decided to follow in your mother’s footsteps and had allowed your nerves to take hold of you when you wrote your missive.”
She gave him a wry smile, the first that she’d experienced since being summoned to Jane’s side that morning. “I’m very sorry to disappoint you, Papa, but I daresay you will overcome it soon enough.”
He sighed heavily and placed an arm around her. “I never thought I’d see the day when I would have to say goodbye to one of my girls this way. No parent should have to bury their child.”
His voice broke, and she felt his struggle to keep his composure. She prayed that he would, else she knew she would not be able to keep from descending into tears again herself.
“Dr. Carson says he thinks she may only live a few more days,” he told her. “He was here just before you arrived, and he said that she was unable to swallow any food or drink, not even bone broth or weak tea.”
“So soon, then?”
“I’m afraid so, my dear. I will need to inform your mother and two younger sisters. They will want to come and say their goodbyes. Kitty’s, at least, will be genuine, but your mother and Lydia… well, their affection is of the sort that means they will make the most of the situation.”
“Then perhaps we had best let them get it over with as quickly as possible,” Elizabeth suggested.
“Very well,” he said. “I will have them come by carriage this afternoon.”
He moved closer to Jane’s bedside and placed a hand gently on her head. “Rest well, my darling girl.”
As he turned to leave, Elizabeth suddenly remembered their middle sister. “What about Mary?”
“I will send a letter; an express wouldn’t arrive in time for her to make arrangements to come, so I won’t bother with the expense. Besides, she was never particularly close to Jane. I doubt she would wish to make the effort. Oh, she might out of a sense of Christian duty, but not from any true sensibility.”
Elizabeth hated to admit as much about one of her sisters, but her father was correct. It would be best to inform Mary about Jane’s passing after the fact and allow her to choose to mourn in her own way, especially as she wouldn’t arrive in time to do much. The vigil would be over by then, and the ladies would not be allowed to attend the procession or the funeral.
Besides, Elizabeth selfishly did not think she would be able to bear Mary’s sermonizing as they sat at home, waiting while the men interred her sister’s body in the Bennet family vault just outside of the Meryton parish church. The vault housed the remains of the former inhabitants of Longbourn dating back nearly two centuries to when the family was deeded the property.
No, dealing with her mother and Lydia would be difficult enough. As she watched her father take the carriage towards Longbourn to fetch the remaining Bennet family members, it was all she could do to keep herself from escaping out into the gardens to avoid what she was sure to be the most hysterical performance of a lifetime.
∞∞∞
Several hours later, the Bennet carriage returned to Netherfield. Elizabeth, awaiting her family’s arrival in Jane’s room, could hear her mother long before she actually saw her. She braced herself just as the door flew open to the chambers in which Mrs. Bingley lay.
“Oh, my dear Mrs. Bingley! My poor, poor girl!” Mrs. Bennet wailed, pushing into the room and flinging herself on top of Jane’s prone body. She gasped out great, heaving sobs of denial over her daughter’s present condition.
Mr. Bennet entered the room as well, followed by Kitty and Lydia. He stood near the foot of the bed, taking in the scene with a slight grimace on his face. Kitty sat on the other side of the bed opposite her mother and took Jane’s hand in her own.
Elizabeth was relieved that at least one of her family members was willing to act maturely and acknowledge the realities of the situation with tenderness and selflessness. As for Lydia, she wandered around the chamber, looking at the furnishings and picking up several expensive items to inspect them more closely.
“My darling girl, my dear, dear Jane,” wept Mrs. Bennet, still draped across her eldest daughter. “How cruel this all is! How unfair! Come, now, Jane—be a good girl and get up for your mama.”
Mr. Bennet gently pulled his wife back until she was sitting on the chair. “I know, Fanny. I know,” he said in a soothing tone. “There, there now.”
Mrs. Bennet’s weeping turned into pitiful sobs that wracked her entire frame. Kitty, too, was crying, and Elizabeth felt almost like an intruder in a private moment, even though only family members were present. It was as if she’d been away from Longbourn for so long, her dynamics were so altered, she could scarcely recognize them. For all of Mrs. Bennet’s histrionics, she truly did love her daughter.
She went to her mother’s side and put her arm around her shoulders. “Jane loved you, Mama. She loved you so much. You taught her everything she needed to be a good wife and a good mistress of her own home.”
For one of the first times in her memory, Elizabeth felt her mother’s arm come around her waist in a tight hug. “Thank you, Lizzy.”
The tender moment was then interrupted when Lydia came out of the changing room. “Look at this, Mama! Isn’t it perfect for me?”
The foolish young girl had been going through Jane’s dresses in the closet and pressing them to her face in the mirror to check her complexion. As the eldest and youngest Bennet girls had the most in common based on appearance, each of the colors and styles that Jane had chosen for her trousseau were also quite flattering on Lydia.
“When Jane is dead, I’ll be taking all her dresses. The rest of you are too plain to look well in them, I daresay. And with Mary being a boring old clergyman’s wife, Lizzy an old maid, and Kitty following a poor soldier in rags, I will be the only one who will need them.”
She pranced around the room with the dress held up to her figure as everyone gaped at her. Even Mrs. Bennet had ceased her dramatics as she watched her youngest daughter’s vulgar and callous display.
Mr. Bennet opened his mouth to speak, but Kitty rose to her feet first. “How dare you, Lydia Bennet? I have never seen a more selfish girl in all my life! To think I once thought you the best of all my sisters.”
She ran out of the room in tears, brushing past her younger sister with her shoulder as she went. Lydia stopped dancing and watched her go, then turned back to the others. “Well, there’s no need for her to be in such an upset about it simply because I am prettier than she is.”
His face darkening with rage, Mr. Bennet stepped forward and ripped the dress from Lydia’s hands. “Are you lost to all common decency? Have you no shame?” he hissed in a deadly quiet voice. “Your sister is dying, and you care for nothing but… but… fripperies and nonsense! I have long thought you to be the silliest girl in England, but I daresay you have surpassed even that. You, Lydia Bennet, are nothing more than an unfeeling, selfish little chit, and I am ashamed of you.”
Lydia’s face flushed red at this epithet and, stomping her foot, turned to her mother in fury. “Mama, tell him I may have the dresses.” When Mrs. Bennet remained silent, she stomped her foot again and demanded, “Tell him!”
This last shout seemed to be the straw that finally broke the camel’s back, as it were. Mrs. Bennet rose from her chair and silently marched forward to where her husband and youngest daughter were standing. Lydia smirked at her father, but Mr. Bennet, being the studier of character that he was—and he had, indeed, been studying his wife and her nerves for these twenty years at least—saw an expression on her face that he had never seen before.
To be honest, it terrified him, and he had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next. Even when Lydia had been punished for her reaction to Kitty’s engagement, Mrs. Bennet had only held her ground for a day or so before pleading for her favorite to be allowed to return to society.
Mrs. Bennet stood in front of Lydia and then, without warning, boxed her ears—hard.
Lydia collapsed to the ground, howling, with her hands cupping either side of her head. Mrs. Bennet leaned over, grasped her blubbering daughter by the nose, and pulled her to her feet. Turning to her husband, she said calmly, “I will take Lydia to the carriage, then return to say my goodbyes to Jane. Will you come with me to ensure that this foolish girl remains in the carriage?”
With an admiring grin, Mr. Bennet gave a low bow. “At your service, my lady wife.”
Still leading Lydia by the nose, Mrs. Bennet departed the room with her husband right behind her. Elizabeth blinked stupidly at the door for a few seconds, then turned to her elder sister lying undisturbed on the bed.
“Well, Jane, I’m sorry you weren’t able to see Lydia finally getting what she deserved.”
“With her generous nature, it’s probably best she missed it. Especially Lydia’s cruelty.”
Elizabeth turned to see Kitty standing in the doorway. She beckoned her younger sister to come in. “That is a fair point, Kitty. I’m sorry you had to miss it, at least.”
Kitty grinned. “I heard it, at least. I was standing just outside in the hall. I wanted to say one last goodbye to Jane, but I couldn’t do it while Lydia was still here.”
“I completely understand.”
After going to her sister’s bedside, Kitty leaned over and kissed her gentle brow. A teardrop fell from her eye and onto Jane’s face. “Goodbye, dear Jane. You were the best sister and the best person I’ve ever known. Heaven will be so fortunate to have you.”
Her voice cracked on the last sentence, and she turned away, choking back a sob. Elizabeth, too, fought to keep from weeping and instead took her younger sister into her arms. “It won’t be the same without her; but even if she were still here, things would be changing. Her marriage, Mary’s to Collins, and now yours… things will always change. That’s the one consistent thing about life.”
Kitty wiped at her eyes. “Speaking of marriage… I want to ask your opinion about something, and maybe Bingley, too. You were the one that was closest to Jane, so I think you would know what she would want.”
“Perhaps.” Elizabeth’s brow knit in confusion.
“It’s just… well, I feel as selfish as Lydia even talking about this…”
Elizabeth chuckled. “I highly doubt that! The fact that you are even worried about being selfish automatically means that you aren’t as selfish as she is.”
“Fair point. All right… well… It’s just that George and I were planning on being married at the end of next month. The banns have long been called, but it would be expensive to live here in Meryton, since he is currently in the barracks. Even with my dowry—which I had no idea was so large—and the money he received from Mr. Darcy, it still made sense to wait.”
“Go on,” Elizabeth urged when Kitty hesitated.
“You see, in May, the militia will be moving on to Brighton for the summer. It will be much more economical to live together there. So we thought to marry at the end of April, then take a short wedding trip, and then we would return in time to go to Brighton. But with Jane so close to… well, you know… we would still be in mourning when it came time for the militia to go to Brighton.”
“So it’s either wait longer to marry, or marry now but spend money on lodging that you’d rather save?”
Kitty bit her lip. “I don’t even feel comfortable marrying now, not with Jane so ill.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Kitty, please don’t worry about that. Jane would have been the first to tell you that you should marry the man you love. She would be heartbroken to learn that she was keeping you from being with the love of your life.”
“But it would still cost too much. All the less expensive rooms are filled, and anyone who had anything available wouldn’t want to rent to someone for such a short time. They’re looking for long-time lodgers. The only real option would be the inn, and that would cost a small fortune for such a long period.”
“Then you must stay here.”
The two girls spun around and looked in astonishment at the doorway on the far side of the room, which stood ajar. It was the connection between Jane’s room and the sitting room she shared with her husband, which spanned the master’s and mistress’s chambers.
“I don’t mean to eavesdrop or intrude,” Bingley said, “but I was in the sitting room, and your voices were carrying quite loudly.”
Kitty flushed, and Elizabeth shifted uneasily. “Do I hope for too much that you didn’t hear Lydia earlier as well?”
“I did not, no.” His forced smile, however, told a different story.
Choosing to believe him, Elizabeth said, “That is a very generous offer, Kitty. What say you?”
“I will need to discuss it with George… er, Mr. Wickham. But are you certain? You will be in mourning, after all, and we would not wish to intrude.”
He shook his head. “Jane would be the first to offer you a room, and I would be dishonoring her memory if I did not do likewise. She would have felt wretched to know that it was because of her that you could not be together as you wished. And I… I would much prefer to have as much pleasant company as possible here at Netherfield.”
“Very well, then,” Kitty said with a curtsy. “I will speak with Wickham and inform you.”
“I’ll do better than that; I will have guest quarters prepared for the two of you—far away from any of the rest of us—and you will be at liberty to use them whenever you like.”
After taking a few steps forward, he took Kitty by the hand. “Dear sister, Jane only has a couple of days left to live. After that, we will all go into mourning. Do not hesitate to seize your happiness now, while you can.”