Chapter Three #3
She had delighted too greatly in her time with her godfather; she had wished for her father to be more like Mr. Darcy; she had enjoyed the effortlessness of life which the great wealth brought; she had loved her position as a favorite of Mr. Darcy; she liked the way that her education was pushed forward with more diligence by him; and she greatly enjoyed the attentions of George Wickham.
The vastness of the wealth that surrounded her at Pemberley had perhaps given Jane Bennet an inflated notion of her just desserts.
It had been many years past since Jane had been full aware that her favorite portion of each year was in the times that she spent at Pemberley or London with her godfather.
She was of no use to her father, and her mother was too nervous, too worried about everything, and too busy with her own entertainments for Jane to feel as though she were essential to her.
Jane was a young girl who liked to feel as though her presence and company was important and helpful.
Mr. Darcy depended on her. He was happier when she was about, and so was George, and so was Georgiana.
It was only Fitzwilliam who seemed to put no importance on her, but Jane did not mind that at all.
They all put her in a special place, and she added to the entertainment and comfort of their domestic circle.
It was only Elizabeth who Jane missed in her heart while gone.
When she wrote to home, Jane still said what convention required that she say: Specifically, that she missed her mother, her sisters, and her father greatly.
When Jane had finished writing what she did not know would be the last letter that she would ever send to her mother, she felt odd.
She looked at the lines written neatly down in her lovely, flowing cursive.
And Jane thought back over the days since she had written her previous letter, and she could scarce recall any thoughts about them amidst the bustle of activities.
Jane asked herself: Was what she had written about missing them greatly a lie?
Was it a lie when she wrote that she looked forward to being home when the duration of her visit ended in another month?
If she was honest to herself, she would have preferred for her stay in Derbyshire to last much longer.
Perhaps, she would have been happiest if it never ended.
And then, rather than crossing that dishonest line from the letter, Jane simply mailed what she had written.
Four days later she heard that all of them were dead, except for Elizabeth who was now scarred, blinded, and had all her future hopes in life ruined.
Is it any wonder that Jane was haunted by self-reproach? Not only was she alive and in great comfort, but she also could not help but believe that she was being punished. Is it strange that she thought that this was, in some mysterious manner, her fault?
Jane was filled with grief.
She seldom spoke, she lost weight, she saw in every stream and tree the memory of her beloved mother, sisters, and father.
She sobbed in bed and then felt guilty when she felt better afterwards.
Only when Jane was in the presence of Mr. Darcy or George Wickham did she make a thin effort to appear as her serene and cheerful self.
It was only in their company that she would eat, or draw or play, or smile or make a seeming of joy.
Inside she felt dead, as though she deserved nothing good.
This illustrates the difference between the characters of Jane and Elizabeth.
As already noted, Elizabeth did not linger over her grief.
Perhaps her blindness offered sufficient pains, difficulties, and reason for considering herself to be unfortunate, that Elizabeth could enjoy her escape from death with a good conscience.
When the two sisters met, Jane was filled with the most exquisite sense of torment and guilt at seeing her sister’s scarred and blinded face. Thus, Miss Bennet replied to Miss Elizabeth’s cheerful greeting with reserve, quietness, and pain in her voice.
Rather than either of them bursting into tears, as Mr. Darcy and Fitzwilliam had both expected, as both knew that one of the sisters frequently sobbed in private, the two were awkward, slow in speech, refusing to talk about those who were dead, except in the most oblique and emotionless manner, and what they did say was spoken in a wholly forced tone.
As is well known, the other senses of the blind gain exquisite sensitivity and discrimination in response to the curtailing of the organs of sight.
Though she had only suffered in this manner for a little more than a month, Elizabeth’s ability to infer the emotion, intention, and state of mind from how a person spoke had grown greatly.
She knew that Jane was unhappy, and that this was not simply the unhappiness of grief.
Unfortunately, Elizabeth attributed her sister’s manner to Jane having the same notion that Mrs. Phillips, the doctor, Lady Lucas, and Mrs. Long had all expressed: It would have been preferable if Elizabeth had died.
I must admit that Elizabeth had entered this conversation prepared to be offended by her sister. Even had she understood and approached her sister with embraces and shared grief and affection, it is quite likely that Elizabeth would have become annoyed and angry with her.
While Elizabeth felt no guilt that she had robbed her sister of her full inheritance, the idea that it would have been better if she had died so Jane could receive the full six thousand that was left behind by their parents had been shoved into her mind too frequently for it to not deeply affect the young girl.
Now, Elizabeth was still a child. She only had a vague sense of the value of money or the relative worth of the sort of bachelor who had five hundred a year to one with five thousand a year (and she had no notion at all of how many thousands a year a husband who was a Lord was worth).
If one made an inquiry to Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn about how much their maids or the housekeeper, Mrs. Hill, received in wages in a year, she would have looked at you blankly.
If an inquiry was then made about the price of books, she would have replied that they were dreadful expensive, because Mama frequently complained about how Papa spent too much upon them.
Had you made conversation upon the price and style of clothes, she would have said that ribbons, lace, and silks were stupid fripperies with which women tried to hurry themselves to the poor house, as Papa said on occasion.
Despite these points of natural ignorance, Elizabeth was fully aware that the inheritance was a valuable and important thing which was being split between them. And that was as it should be.
That was what was fair.
Elizabeth angrily ranted with some frequency in the recesses of her own mind, and twice to Fitzwilliam how unfair the notion that it would be better if Jane had received all of it was. They had equally belonged to Papa and Mama.
In fact, Elizabeth should receive more since she would have additional expenses associated with maintaining a pleasant life as a blind woman.
Elizabeth was just as worthy. Even if Jane was prettier and her mother’s favorite, Elizabeth was more clever and her father’s favorite.
But Elizabeth would never complain about the unfairness of her only receiving half of what was left. But Jane apparently wanted it all.
Elizabeth had thought often upon this point, and she did have a little worry that maybe she was hurting Jane, and that maybe, just maybe, it would have been better for Jane if she had died (though certainly not for herself).
As a result, Elizabeth was fully prepared to resent a sister who Elizabeth had always thought to believe herself a little more special than Elizabeth was.
Jane’s manner and Elizabeth’s prejudiced assumptions left Elizabeth with a simmering resentment towards her sister, and a general disinterest in ever depending on her sister’s friendship, aid, company, or society.
For her part, Jane quickly detected the coldness in Elizabeth’s manner.
Jane was not the sort of person who developed elaborate theories of why others did what they did.
She was confident that Elizabeth had good motives for her unhappiness with her, and she guessed that it was because Jane had survived, unharmed, while Elizabeth had been mutilated and the rest of their family killed.
In such a case Jane did not think it was her place to force confidences upon Elizabeth or to make them renew their past closeness.
While in her bed, Jane cried frequently about this rupture, but she did nothing to resolve it.