Chapter 5
“Papa, did you receive a letter from Jane? Have they arrived?” Elizabeth bounced on the balls of her feet.
She was fifteen, more beautiful than ever, and had grown taller and womanlier.
As ladylike as she normally was, the prospect of news from her sister and brother about their long voyage made her natural exuberance come to the fore.
“Mr. Hill told me the post was delivered and there was an especially thick letter delivered!”
“I was about to call for you, my Lizzy. Yes, I received a letter from Uncle James and Tommy, and this one,” Bennet put the missive in his daughter’s eager hands, “is for you.”
Elizabeth squealed with excitement when she saw Jane’s handwriting. “I apologise, Papa; that was childish of me.” Elizabeth blushed.
“Think nothing of it, Lizzy. They travelled for over two months, so I understand your desire for news; I felt the same way,” Bennet assured his daughter.
Father and daughter had spent as much time away from Longbourn as possible during the last three years to keep away from the constant complaints of ill use from Mrs. Bennet and her youngest daughter.
Louisa remained homely and overweight, but when she was away from her mother and younger sister, she could be pleasant, and Elizabeth had warmed to her stepsister. The more time Louisa spent with Elizabeth, the more she came to realise how much inaccurate information her mother fed them.
Through Elizabeth, Louisa apologised for her part in the compromise ten years earlier.
She was ashamed it had taken her so long to wake up to the fact and beg Mr. Bennet’s pardon.
After Elizabeth conveyed the sincerity of her new friend’s contrition, Bennet had accepted it without reservation, and through Elizabeth told Louisa he understood she had been only ten and had done what her mother told her to do.
The forgiveness lifted a great weight off Louisa’s shoulders.
Louisa had also become friendly with Charlotte Lucas, who was Elizabeth’s best friend in the neighbourhood.
The three would meet without the mother or the youngest Bingley being aware, and they enjoyed their time together immensely.
The three friends spent as much time with one another as possible, often at Lucas Lodge where Caroline Bingley was not welcome.
While Bennet was aware of the burgeoning friendship, his wife and her youngest daughter were not.
The younger one had moved from homely to plain ugliness as she grew.
At sixteen, her body had developed few womanly curves; she was tall for a lady, with long, spindly, skinny limbs that were not in proportion to her smaller body.
Her burnt orange hair colour and almost translucent skin did not help, as they highlighted her stark features.
When Caroline Bingley spoke, it was more of a screech than a voice, and it was grating to any who heard it other than perhaps her mother.
Her mother kept telling her how well she looked and how all other women would be jealous of her, especially her stepsisters.
Now that her eyes were wide open, when Louisa heard her mother spout this nonsense, she had to do everything she could to not burst out laughing.
After three years of constantly denying her requests, Martha Bennet still importuned her husband from time to time about allowing her son to visit. The answer was always the same, a resounding ‘no’ with a reminder of what would happen should he cross his property line!
Charles had graduated, albeit just barely, from Oxford, as he had been more interested in gambling, cavorting with women, and running up debts than in his studies.
No matter what hogwash he wrote to his mother, Bennet knew the truth, as he had a man keeping an eye on the Bingley heir.
Bingley had just come into his inheritance.
Gardiner had been only too pleased to rid himself of the money and complete the charge laid on him by the wastrel’s late father.
Bennet was sure the money would be gone inside of a year.
As it was, there had been two to three hundred pounds in debt that Bingley had to discharge as soon as he had received his inheritance.
It was that or debtor’s prison. Bennet could only smile as his wife waited day after day for her son to send them some money to help her purchase new gowns and fripperies for her daughters.
It was no surprise to him that the expected money never arrived.
Elizabeth sat and eagerly broke the seal on her missive from Jane.
June 4, 1805
Sugar Hill, Kingstown, Jamaica
“Papa, it took almost two months for the letter to arrive!” Elizabeth exclaimed.
“The packet ships must have had good winds, Lizzy; it can take weeks longer than that at times,” Bennet replied.
I cannot tell you how happy I am to be on dry land again, Lizzy!
Thank goodness we will be here two months before we must return on an interminable voyage again!
It has been four days since we arrived, and only today am I steady on my legs while walking on land.
As the captain warned us we would, it felt like we were still on-board ship until today.
I expected the ground to rise and meet my foot, or to dip below it as I walked!
Enough complaints. What an interesting place this is. On the one hand, there is so much beauty here, but on the other hand there is slavery. How can such beauty co-exist with such cruelty and evil?
Many of the landowners are unhappy with Uncle James because he freed those who were slaves on his estate, a plantation as it is called it here, and on top of that, he paid them back wages.
Some chose to return to the countries from which they were stolen by the vile men who perpetrate this most disgusting of acts, but most elected to stay and work at Sugar Hill of their own volition.
The other landowners think it will give their slaves hope.
I, for one, hope it does! How can these supposed good and upstanding Christian men justify treating a human being as a possession?
It is so sad, Lizzy; men, women, and children owned!
Uncle is trying to influence his fellow landowners to follow his lead and prove to them they will still make healthy profits.
I pray he is successful in this endeavour.
The beauty I spoke of is wonderous. The flowers and animals!
Lizzy, you would not believe your eyes. You remember we saw a few parrots at the menagerie?
Here they fly about, wild and as common as a robin back home.
The colours, variety, and sizes! And Lizzy, you would never guess; some of them talk!
I was most shocked when I heard one using extremely off-colour language!
All the houses are painted white here, as I am told it helps with the heat.
It is so humid here, Lizzy; your hair in particular would be impossible to style!
I am told that, even in the winter, it never gets really cold.
And I heard there are sometimes massive storms they call hurricanes.
I am hopeful we will not experience one of those, as I am told they can be devastating.
Next week Uncle and Aunt are taking us to a Town, Saint Anne on the northern coast of the island, to a group of eight rivers they call Ocho Rios.
You know what that means from your Spanish lessons!
There is jungle that ends at the most inviting and beautiful white sand beaches that we saw already.
I am told it is more the norm than the exception here.
I am hopeful that Aunt will take Cassie, Allie, and I sea bathing.
We will have to find a private place as, unlike us, the natives are not modest. They, especially the children, think nothing of swimming naked!
I know it will shock your sensibilities, but who are we to tell them they are wrong?
Are we not the visitors, and they the owners of the land and its traditions?
I would not dare do such a thing in the company of any but my aunt and female cousins!
“Papa,” Elizabeth laughed freely, “could you imagine our modest Jane swimming naked as when she was born in front of anyone? Even our aunt and cousins?” Bennet just shook his head, chuckling at the surprise he imagined his Jane having expressed.
Do not be angry with me if I do not write too much while I am here, Lizzy, for there is so much to do! Instead I will keep a journal, sister dearest, and you will have it to read it when I return to you.
Your loving sister,
Jane
“I wish now I had taken Uncle’s invitation and gone with them!” Elizabeth lamented.
“It is easy to look into the past and say I should have, would have, or could have. It does not help, my daughter. What have I told you?” Bennet asked.
“Only remember the past as that remembrance that gives you pleasure?” Elizabeth parroted, grinning at the words for now she knew exactly what that implied, Jane having told her about parrots literally parroting what it had heard.
“Yes, Lizzy, that is the one. If Uncle must return to Jamaica and you are yet unmarried, then you will travel with him next time,” Bennet assured his daughter. “Mayhap you will be lucky enough to marry a man who will show you the world.”
“Like you did when you married Mama, Jane and I have pledged that we will only marry for the deepest love,” Elizabeth insisted.
“That is my wish for both of my girls,” Bennet said gruffly as he became emotional every time he thought about his beloved Fanny.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“Did you forget to salute me, Lieutenant?” Captain Richard Fitzwilliam demanded.
“Hello to you too, Richard,” Wickham gave his friend a jaunty salute.
“Welcome to the Dragoons, Wickham; I am impressed. When you told me this is what you wanted, I thought you were just paying lip service. You have the gift of the gab, you could have been a good barrister,” the Captain told his friend.