Chapter 1 #2
“Lizzy, go to your father’s study and find out who has just visited him.
A very important-looking gentleman came in a grand carriage to see your father.
You should see the coachmen’s livery! So magnificent—they must cost at least fifty pounds each!
Your father put Hill outside his study to turn away all attempts to see him.
He never refuses you. Go! And tell me what is afoot! ”
Elizabeth was perplexed. Her father had had no visitors of note at Longbourn for as long as she could remember.
He still kept some friends from his time at university, but those were scholarly rather than rich gentlemen.
She was indeed curious and did not mind her mother’s stratagem to turn her into a spy.
“I shall try, mamma, but I may not succeed. Papa has never had his door guarded like that.”
“Good girl, Lizzy. I know you could not be so clever for nothing.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes on her way out of her room.
Being complimented by her mother meant only one thing: she really wanted Lizzy to perform the service of wrestling from her scathingly sarcastic husband the truth about the visitor.
If she were to ask Mr. Bennet herself, he would respond in such confounding riddles that she would wish she had never brought up the subject.
When Elizabeth arrived at the door of her father’s study, Mr. Hill opened the door to the study before she could ask to be admitted.
In the past two years, Elizabeth had become more and more aware of the emotional distance between her parents. The marital closeness that she remembered when she was younger no longer existed.
She once again affirmed to herself that she would never accept such a fate. The decision to remain unmarried asserted itself again to be a sound choice.
“Ah, Lizzy. Come!” Mr. Bennet called out from behind his desk. Moments before, he had had a faraway look on his face. Now he wore a rarely observed serene smile.
“Your mamma sent you, didn’t she?” asked Mr. Bennet with a knowing wink.
“Yes, papa. But she need not have bothered. You are expecting me,” replied Elizabeth. Her papa was clever, but she had inherited that trait from him.
“Sit, m'lady,” Mr. Bennet commanded with good humor and a broad smile on his face. He pushed a large envelope on his desk toward Elizabeth. The contents of the envelope were already on the desk.
Elizabeth was confused, even though she was used to bantering with her father, who frequently greeted her using the names of characters in whatever book he happened to be reading. However, he had never addressed her with an honorific.
With knitted brows, she glanced at the envelope. She sat up abruptly when she saw what was on it: His Grace, Duke of Northampton.
Then she saw where the package was from—Oxford.
“Papa, in what new game are you engaged with your university friends these days? I was puzzled by your giving me a courtesy title. If you were truly a duke, I would surely be Lady Elizabeth!”
“Well, daughter, I am truly duke, and you are indeed Lady Elizabeth.” Mr. Bennet was merrily enjoying befuddling his clever daughter.
Elizabeth leaned back heavily, almost unladylike. She frowned deeply and said tentatively, “Papa, I do not know why, but I believe you are in earnest. However, there is no dukedom with the name Bennet. Isn’t a dukedom always inherited by the male heir of the body of the first duke?”
“Ah, Lizzy, you have been studying Debrett’s.” Mr. Bennet was curious to see his daughter blushing at such an innocuous comment. He lifted a corner of his mouth sardonically while waiting for a response.
Elizabeth blushed because she had looked in Debrett’s Correct Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland after she had met Mr. Darcy.
She often professed loudly that she did not care about the titled crowd who seemed entirely foreign to the folks in her corner of Hertfordshire.
Yet, when she finally met one from those circles, an irrepressible surge of curiosity arose in her.
Mr. Darcy was not of the peerage, but his maternal grandfather was.
In addition, his paternal grandmother and great-aunt co-inherited a barony held in abeyance until a clear heir could be identified.
Mr. Darcy was eligible to be heir of the barony, as was his sister.
She could not explain even to herself why she had such curiosity about a person she claimed to despise.
“Papa, I was perusing your bookshelves one afternoon when you were out talking to the bailiff and came across this copy. I did not know you were interested in the high and mighty families who might as well live on the moon. To my surprise, I found the contents to be quite diverting—who could untangle the complicated webs of intermarriages among the peerage! For the first time, I understood the reasons for marrying for connections. It was edifying, really—a valuable lesson in history. However, it seems to me that your reason for purchasing this book may have been different, given the momentous news you just announced.” Elizabeth was successful in directing her father’s attention away from herself with this long exposition.
“Well, Lizzy, you find interesting insight into something as trite as a book listing the members of the peerage. Very good!” Mr. Bennet looked proudly at his favorite daughter.
“Papa…” Elizabeth said somewhat exasperatedly, impatiently awaiting her father’s explanation of his inheriting a dukedom that seemed to be unrelated to the Bennet family.
“Alright, alright. The answer is simple. Do you remember the family name of the Duke of Northampton?” asked Mr. Bennet.
Elizabeth had not even looked at that part of the peerage.
She could recite the entire family tree related to Mr. Darcy if her papa asked.
He, however, did not really expect any answer and went on.
“The Northampton Dukedom was created by Charles II for your forefather, Charles Fitzstuart.”
Mr. Bennet paused, amused at Elizabeth’s gasping “Oh!” and her eyes as round as saucers.