Chapter 4
FOUR
The days after the Netherfield ball brought a seemingly endless succession of frustration and misfortunes to Elizabeth’s life.
The following morning, Mr Collins had proposed to her and been rejected.
He had not believed her, which was extremely annoying.
Mr Bennet had supported her decision, but Mrs Bennet had been bitterly disappointed and had vowed never to speak to her again.
Her feelings had become entrenched when Mr Collins had proposed to Charlotte Lucas and been accepted.
Beyond this, Netherfield had emptied of its residents, and according to a note Miss Bingley had sent Jane, they had no intention of ever coming back.
Like Elizabeth, Jane had known of Mr Bingley’s need to go to town, but she had believed the duration of his absence would be short.
Elizabeth had tried to convince her cousin, whom she thought of as a sister, that he would return, regardless of what the lady had written, but when a week had passed with no sign of him, Jane had decided he had gone for good and that she had been mistaken in his regard for her.
Mrs Bennet, who had been convinced two of her girls would soon be married advantageously, was despondent.
Elizabeth was certain Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley were responsible for their brother’s decision to give up Netherfield, as it appeared he had.
It was possible, even probable, that Mr Darcy had played a part in it too.
He had thought little of the neighbourhood and the Bennets, and she did not doubt that a gentleman who would insult her brazenly in a crowded assembly room would do whatever was necessary to convince his friend not to connect himself to Jane.
Through it all, as much as Mrs Bennet shared her misery freely with anyone who happened to be at hand, she kept to her promise not to speak to Elizabeth.
Mr Bennet called his wife’s behaviour ridiculous, Jane tried to make her mother see reason, Mary rolled her eyes, and Kitty and Lydia found Elizabeth’s discomfort to be a great joke.
The situation left her feeling invisible and irritable.
One afternoon at the end of the first week of December, Mr Bennet called her into his book-room. His demeanour was a mixture of triumphant and hesitant. He clutched a file of papers in one hand.
“Sit down, Lizzy,” he said, indicating an armchair.
She did as he requested, trepidation causing a fluttering sensation in her stomach. To her surprise, instead of sitting at the other side of the oak desk as he usually did, he took the chair next to her. His unusual choice added to her curiosity and nervousness.
“I have found it. Quite by accident,” he said, giving the papers a single shake. “The letter from my sister. And more—all of it!”
For a moment, Elizabeth could not breathe.
For as long as she could recall, Mr Bennet had spoken of a long letter her true mother had written shortly before her death.
It had arrived, along with her father’s will and possibly other documents—whatever was needed to ensure she would become Mr Bennet’s ward.
What most mattered to her was the letter and what it might tell her about her past.
Mr Bennet said, “You recall that I believed I had given all the information I had, including my sister’s letter, to old Mr Gardiner, my father-in-law, so that he might assist with settling everything.
I remembered little of what she wrote, not even the name of her husband, your father, much to my regret.
It, and soon after you, arrived at Longbourn at a particularly difficult moment.
” He slowly shook his head, no doubt lost in his memories.
At the time, Mrs Bennet had been extremely ill, as had Mary, who was still a baby; he had feared for them both.
His distress at his sister’s news—that her husband was dead and she was showing symptoms of the same malady that killed him—had added to Mr Bennet’s anxiety.
But before he could send help and write to urge her to come to Hertfordshire as soon as she was able, he had been informed she had also died, and young Elizabeth, confused and sorrowful, had become his responsibility.
Mr Bennet continued. “I was named your sole guardian in your father’s will, I assume because his family had rejected him, even after their marriage.
My father-in-law helped with the various legal necessities, which was why he had, or I thought he had, the documents.
I was certain they were lost in a fire at his office several years after you came here, as did my brother Philips, who was his clerk at the time.
I was always relieved we did not need to prove I was your legal guardian for some reason. ”
Elizabeth remembered the story well enough and encouraged him to tell her what she most wanted to know. “But the letter?” she asked. “What did my mother write?”
He nodded. “As I have told you, all I knew was that my sister had met a dashing young gentleman—your father—when she was in town, visiting friends. I suspected she was enamoured of him, but I knew nothing else until the two of them had run off together. Rather, whatever I did know is lost to time, pushed out of my memory by other concerns. Today, quite by accident, while searching an old lockbox, I found it! I must have retrieved the file from Mr Gardiner. I was looking for—well, it does not matter. Another old document whose importance is nothing compared to this.”
Elizabeth stared at him, her heart pounding against her ribs, and silently urged him to continue. What she wished to do was pull the stack of papers from his hands, find her mother’s letter, and read it.
“But what does it say?” she demanded.
He took one of her hands. “If you read it, it might well change your life, Lizzy, including your connexion to me and your family here at Longbourn. Especially if you decide to act on the information it contains. You are not yet one-and-twenty. You may even change who is your guardian, if you like. It is your right.”
She waved away the final point. Although she could have asked for another guardian as soon as she was fourteen years old, she had never wished to do so.
It would have been complicated, given Mr Bennet’s inability to prove that he was her legal guardian.
Besides which, Mr and Mrs Bennet had been wonderful to her, always embracing her as their own; even with Mrs Bennet’s recent behaviour, Elizabeth knew she thought of her no differently than she did her true daughters.
Yet, Elizabeth had always known—and more importantly, felt—that she did not quite belong as perfectly as Jane and the younger girls did.
To her mind, she was a cousin and niece who was as close as a sister and daughter without actually being one. Why would she wish to change that?
What she did long for was information about her past. Long-suppressed sensations flooded her. I have always believed that, if I only knew who my father was, why his family rejected him and my mother, I might not have this restlessness within me. “I must know,” she insisted.
He nodded and patted her hand. “I expected you would say as much. Shall I tell you the main parts of it first? I suspect you will have to read it many times to fully take in what my sister imparted, and you might wish to review the other papers. The language in legal documents is not always easy to—”
“I will,” she interjected. “I am not concerned about wills and guardianship, not now. Please,” she implored, eager for him to tell her about the letter.
“You recall that your mother and father eloped?”
She nodded.
“Your paternal grandfather disapproved of my sister because she was the daughter of a country gentleman, while he was wealthy and connected to nobility.”
“What was his name?” Tears burned the back of her eyes, and her nose tickled; she doubted she would make it through the conversation without crying.
“Sterling,” he said gently. “Your father’s name was Thomas Sterling. From what my sister wrote, he loved her as much as she did him. When his father refused to countenance a marriage, they eloped. His father and mine refused to acknowledge them afterwards. Eloping is…”
“Shameful,” she said reluctantly.
“But they did marry, and you were born fourteen months later. She mentions where they were living and where you were christened. An old friend had written to her of our father’s death but says she decided not to write or visit Longbourn, because she did not want to bring trouble to my door, so to speak.
When your father died of a severe cold, she decided to write to me, because she had no one else and hoped you and she might be received at Longbourn.
But before she could come, she, too, fell ill.
This letter”—he held the paper aloft briefly—“was written the day she first suspected she would not survive.”
I wished you to know everything about my beloved Thomas and our wonderful little Elizabeth.
We had a joyful few years together, but they are at an end.
I am trusting you, my dear brother, to welcome my daughter and give her a good life.
When she was an infant, Thomas and I agreed that you should be her guardian.
His father would not welcome her, and he does not believe his brother or sister would, either, not while their father lives.
There is no one else to whom we can make this request. Please tell her that she was very much loved by her mama and papa.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, Elizabeth lowered her chin and covered her eyes with one hand.
In a soft, comforting voice, Mr Bennet continued.
“I am glad she made this request of me, and she was correct, of course, that I would welcome you—for her sake, as well as your own. Being your father has been one of the greatest honours of my life. I do not know what the situation was with her husband’s brother and sister and did not think to find them and inform them of Thomas’s death or that you were safely at Longbourn. Or I did not wish to.”
Elizabeth sniffed and wiped her face with a handkerchief she pulled from her pocket. Once she had composed herself sufficiently, she said, “Did she write anything more you wish to tell me?”
“You are an heiress, Lizzy.” He chuckled. “How could I have forgot that? Thomas had about ten thousand pounds of his own. So, despite his father disinheriting him, they were able to live quite well. It is not a vast fortune.”
“Not a vast fortune?” she exclaimed. “I would call it so.” Mrs Bennet and her daughters would have half that upon Mr Bennet’s death, and the amount would have grown since her father’s demise.
“I have the impression that, had he married a lady your grandfather Sterling found acceptable, he would have inherited a great deal more. Let us not tell your mother and sisters about it, not until we must. Old Mr Gardiner and I were the trustees. I see that much in the papers I have reviewed, but I must take a closer look at them and determine how to make the funds available to you. I did not see the information about which bank Thomas Sterling used, and I cannot say whether we had the money moved. If we did, I would surely have known. My banker would have mentioned it.” He sighed.
“I am concerned those details might be lost and will take some effort to discover. But that is a matter for another day.”
He folded the paper neatly and pressed it into her hands.
“Before you take that to your room and read it yourself, I have had an idea,” he said.
“What do you think of going to London and staying with the Gardiners? They will come for Christmas, unless something unexpected arises, but that is still over a fortnight away. It would serve two purposes. First, the separation might provide my dear wife with enough time to give up her nonsensical anger at you. Second, I suspect he will know how to learn more about the Sterlings. I do not know if your father’s family would welcome you, but if you want to know your family, you ought to try to contact them. ”
She clasped his hand. “Papa, you have always been and always will be my father.”
He smiled and nodded. “But I know you well, Lizzy, and you are just like my sister. You are curious. You always have been, and regardless of your feelings for me, Mrs Bennet, and the girls, you wish to have a clearer understanding of Thomas Sterling and his relations—your relations. It is not wrong or hurtful to me, and neither will it be to the others. And it is not as though we are still not part of your family.”
She embraced him, and they sat in silence for a long moment, her head on his shoulder.
“You will always wonder,” he said gently. “You always have, more than you have admitted to me and possibly even to yourself.”
He was right, of course, and although it appeared that she needed to think about his suggestion, she did not. This was her opportunity to fill in the missing part of herself, to finally find her long-hoped-for answers about who she was.
“I will go,” she said. “As soon as it can be arranged.”