Chapter 8
Jane’s hard-fought serenity lasted until she entered her rooms. Not the mistress’s suite which by rights ought to have been hers, but Caroline threw such a fit after the wedding and had decorated it in the most horrid color of chartreuse, that she had capitulated as always.
She threw herself on the bed as the tears began to fall.
“Why do you allow yourself to be persecuted by everyone and their Grand’Mere?” a voice demanded, causing her to sit up in surprise.
“I do not know what you mean,” Jane murmured, accepting the cool cloth from her maid.
“All those snooty servants in the carriage. By right, you ought to command their respect, and yet you allowed them to cast their verbal arrows.”
“I could understand their discomfort; indeed I was uncomfortable with the situation myself. It was not my idea after all, and I could hardly blame them for the displeasure they felt.”
The woman snatched up Jane’s gloves and bonnet from the dressing table, “I imagine Miss Bingley forced you from the carriage.”
Jane bit her lip, uncomfortable having this conversation with a servant. “She was tired and did not wish to travel out of her way.”
“It is not for her to make such demands! You are the wife of her brother, and she lives in your household and yet you do not check her.”
“My husband warned me that it would be difficult for her to adjust to the new way of things,” Jane sighed, folding and unfolding the cloth. “I thought to be understanding and give her time to do so.”
“Oh yes, the perfect Mrs. Jane Bingley. Never a harsh word or look.” Jardine barked a derisive laugh. “You do realize that you are a laughingstock below stairs do you not?”
“What?”
“Oh, yes. All of those oh so superior servants her majesty insisted on hiring from London—” She snatched the cloth out of her hands. “They do not see you as kind, or understanding, merely as the milquetoast, spineless bride of an equally spineless man!”
Jane’s tears returned with a vengeance, “How can you speak to me so?”
“Someone ought to! Your feelings are no one’s responsibility but your own!
If you have no respect for them, why would anyone else?
Hmmm?” she snapped, arms akimbo. “There is no respect for any of you, despite your better breeding. They charge you double what they ought and you willingly pay it because you assume they deserve it, and Miss Bingley enjoys the cachet of two French maids and London trained servants, all the while not realizing that the only reason that they are willing to work for the children of a tradesman is because they have been fired by the quality for one infraction or another! Stupid, stupid woman!”
“please, stop,” Jane sobbed pathetically, covering her face with her hands as she dropped to the floor in a heap.
“You disgust me. You are as worthless as a worn-out slipper. I pity the child you carry for surely it will be just as condescended to and persecuted by its loving aunt and her minions and his spineless mother will do nothing at all to protect him, for heaven forbid the harridan be expected to act appropriately.”
“Enough!” Jane cried, dropping her hands and glaring with eyes blazing. “Nothing and no one will harm my child!”
“It is about time,” Jardine scoffed. “And still, it is about someone else and not your own bruised and battered pride. You are the daughter of a long line of proud gentlefolk and yet you dishonor their legacy with your pandering and justifications. Think of your own worth as you do your child’s and act for both. ”
She stomped from the room to put away her mistress’s things. Jane sat back, nonplused as several comments that Elizabeth often said to her clicked into place.
“No one can make me feel inferior without my consent,” she realized, wiping away her tears as she pondered this new idea. She had much work to do. And a letter to Elizabeth was definitely in order.
∞∞∞
Jane’s determination was immediately tested when her mother arrived first thing after breaking her fast, bustling into the sitting room where Jane was working with Mrs. Nichols to go over the inventories of the room, the third they had done that morning.
“Jane! It is about time that you returned! I have been planning to host tea for all of my friends, and you have been quite disobliging by taking such an age!” Mrs. Bennet cried, dropping to the sofa beside her daughter’s desk.
“Mama, why must you wait for me to be home to entertain?” Jane asked, with a sinking sensation deep in her belly.
“Because my friends expect to be hosted in the most beautiful home in the neighborhood and your father is determined to deny me the funds to host in the lavish manner that I deserve.”
“Mama—”
“Don’t you, mama me, missy!” Mrs. Bennet cried, her flutterings beginning. “I have already invited everyone, and they shall be here today! I must speak with your cook so that she can do justice to my menu!”
“MAMA!” Jane exclaimed. “We are in the process of packing up the house! I wrote to you nearly a fortnight ago when Charles purchased our new estate. It is extremely inconvenient to my servants, not to mention myself! You must understand—”
“I understand all right!” Mrs. Bennet screeched, bursting into noisy crocodile tears.
“You are determined to abandon me! What good are Kitty and Mary, I ask you. They are nothing to a married daughter. You should keep Netherfield and allow my dearest Lydia to live here. You know Wickham would like a place of two or three thousand a year very well!”
“Mama, we just spent a great deal of our income to purchase an estate. I will not beg my husband to provide an entire estate for my barely acceptable sister and her husband!”
“JANE!” she cried, “How can you be so close-fisted! My poor, poor Lydia! No one knows how I suffer at the thought of her all the way in Newcastle without her friends from the militia to entertain her!”
Jane sighed in frustration, which for her was the equivalent of yelling and shocked her mother nearly speechless.
“Mrs. Bingley, there is a great deal of food in the pantries as Miss Bingley had just had a delivery from London before you left to the North,” Mrs. Nichols informed her mistress.
“Very true,” Jane gave her a grateful smile. “Mama, you are welcome to use whatever is in the stores, but I shall not be making additional purchases for your tea. And Lydia will have to continue to live in her very comfortable house.”
“But—” Mrs. Bennet trailed off at the strange look of steel in her daughter’s eyes. “You are becoming quite quarrelish, Jane. I shall speak with Mrs. Greene immediately.”
She flounced out of the room, quite like her youngest would have done, leaving Jane and Mrs. Nichols shaking their heads after her. Jane attempted to beg her pardon for her mother’s dramatics, but Mrs. Nichols waved away her apology.
“You may not be aware, Ma’am, but Mrs. Hill is my cousin. I am well informed of your mother’s idiosyncrasies, as well as how to divert her.”
Jane giggled softly, “You certainly did, divert her I mean. Please inform Mrs. Greene that she shall receive a large gratuity in exchange for her assistance with my mother.”
“She will be glad to be freed to stretch her wings, I imagine. Now, shall we move to the breakfast room? I believe that most of the bagatelle is currently missing from Miss Bingley’s various fits.”
“Oh, my…”
∞∞∞
Within the hour, Mrs. Bennet was on the very last nerve of every person in the house.
She fluttered and flitted and caterwauled as the servants attempted to do their work, making everything that much more chaotic than it needed to be and driving Jane to her bed chamber to escape the pandemonium.
Eventually, everything was ready and when Jane appeared, she was unsurprised to find her mother playing lady-of-the-manor.
It reminded her of Elizabeth’s descriptions of Lady Catherine de Bourgh in her own sitting room.
All that was missing was the large throne from which that self-proclaimed great lady greeted her visitors.
“Come sit here beside me, Jane!” Mrs. Bennet demanded. “With our matching looks, we shall be quite the striking sight as they enter.”
Jane acquiesced without comment, shooting a smile at her younger sisters who had been relegated to an out-of-the-way corner.
They were soon joined by the ladies from all four and twenty genteel families in the area.
Mrs. Bennet held court with her little clique of gossip mongers while Jane flitted from group to group speaking with all of the ladies and bidding them farewell on behalf of her husband and herself.
That had been an unexpected boon of the tea, despite her frustration with her mother’s pushing.
Her discussion with Mrs. Grey was interrupted by her mother exclaiming, “I was quite shocked when Elizabeth bore her twins so very soon after their marriage! Jane knew what she was about, not falling pregnant so quickly!”
“Mama!” Mary cried, blushing deeply. “What a thing to say about Elizabeth! She has been married for over a year, that is quite the pregnancy, especially for twins!”
“Oh, what do you know, Mary!” Mrs. Bennet scoffed. “You are a maiden.”
“And yet even a maiden knows that it usually takes nine-ish months to grow a babe,” Mary replied with a scandalized glare.
Mrs. Bennet’s look promised retribution and Jane attempted to head her off. “Mama, I am expecting.”
Mrs. Bennet immediately began to scream with joy, exploding from her chair and throwing herself on her eldest’s neck with noisy tears. “Oh, Jane! My most beautiful daughter! You shall of course do even better than Lizzy! You shall likely have three boys!”
Jane closed her eyes and centered herself with a deep breath. “I most certainly hope not,” she smiled softly. “I cannot imagine the difficulty of such a birth. I shall be pleased with a single child of either gender.”
“But Jane! You must, absolutely must, bear a son!” Mrs. Bennet screeched. “Do not tempt fate with such statements!”
Jane breathed a sigh of relief when she finally bid farewell to the last of the ladies, hoping that her mother would leave as well, but it was not to be.
She stayed so long that Jane was obliged to invite her family to stay for dinner and listen to her mother’s monologue about her dear Lydia’s struggles.
“You absolutely must send her a bit of your pin money,” Mrs. Bennet sighed.
“I have too much to do with my own, what with Kitty and Mary still at home and the cost of lace. Lydia is absolutely perishing for want of a new gown. Your husband is so obliging, surely you can convince him that you need a new wardrobe now that you are finally increasing and you can take Lydia with you to refresh her own. She would be so pleased to join you in London for the season. Newcastle, can you imagine? The cold and damp and lack of entertainment.”
“I shall be entering my confinement at the beginning of the season, Mama. I shall not be available to host her unfortunately.”
“Surely not!” Mrs. Bennet scoffed. “You are not even showing! It is so unlike you to be disobliging, Jane. I am surprised at you. This selfishness is much more in Lizzy’s style than your own. You must have spent too much time with her.”
“The midwife agreed that I could deliver as soon as December, Mama,” Jane assured her. “I was unaware that I was feeling the babe kick and thus was late discovering the pregnancy.”
“But you do not even look to be increasing! You have felt the movements? That cannot be. You must stay in Hertfordshire and be seen by dear Mrs. Gooseman, for surely that Derbyshire woman does not know of what she speaks.”
“I must see to Ivy Well house, Mama. I am sorry to disappoint you, and Lydia, but I shall not be available for half a year at least. And Charles will wish for his heir to be born at the family estate.”
“Oh, if you must,” she sighed gustily. “But what I shall tell Lydia I do not know. For she was counting on you and now you have refused to accommodate her after she has gotten her hopes up.”
“Hopes? This is the first I have heard of the scheme,” Jane exclaimed.
“Well, I am sure she will be heartbroken to discover your intransigence. But you fine ladies will do as you choose and leave the rest of us to starve in the hedgerows!” She began to moan and search for her handkerchief.
“Mama, you know that Charles and I and Lizzy and Darcy would never allow any of our family to starve, in the hedgerows or anywhere else. I just cannot take Lydia to London at such a time.” Jane was almost shaking from the stress of standing up to her mother, but surely her child’s welfare must be sacrosanct.
“I must return home; my nerves are completely frayed!” Mrs. Bennet exclaimed, demanding her carriage be called.