Chapter 8
In the last two plus years since her father’s death, life had not been pleasant for Elizabeth all the time.
Mrs. Bennet had moved herself into Jane’s chambers.
She would not have chanced using the master suite, as she suspected it was one of the infractions that would have her removed from the estate.
Mrs. Bennet had ordered Elizabeth to switch bedchambers with her Caroline.
Elizabeth could have stopped it, but with the woman in the adjoining bedchamber, Elizabeth accepted the edict with no argument.
As Louisa, who was treated with almost as much disdain as Elizabeth by her mother and younger sister, would remain in her bedchamber, the move was easy for Elizabeth to make.
The friendship between the two stepsisters blossomed out of view of the vicious mother and daughter.
They spent as much time with Charlotte and Maria Lucas as they were able so as not to have to be in the company of either the mother or younger daughter any more than was absolutely necessary.
Part of the reason Louisa was looking so much slimmer was that she had begun to join Elizabeth on her morning rambles before the other two were awake.
“Here comes Cinder-Liza!” Caroline Bingley said meanly. “How ill you look with cinder soot on your face, always reading that useless book next to the fire,” Caroline cackled.
About six months after the swap of bedchambers, Caroline had begun to call Elizabeth, who she used to call Eliza, Cinder-Liza due to the fact Elizabeth would often fall asleep close to her fireplace in her room reading her beloved Utopia by the light of the flames and would rub her face with her hands that sometimes had cinders or soot on them, occasionally leaving black smudges along her cheeks and forehead.
It riled both mother and younger daughter that Elizabeth never reacted to the moniker Caroline had gifted her.
They were not allowed to physically harm her, so they intentionally attempted to insult her verbally, but more often than not they two came away frustrated that they had not elicited the desired reaction from Elizabeth in either tears, or anger.
“How ill you look, Stepdaughter. If you did not spend so much time with your head in your books, you would look somewhat more ladylike, although with those masculine features, one never knows,” Martha evaluated her stepdaughter meanly.
“If I did not spend so much time with my books, Mrs. Bennet, then we would not eat. You forget I keep this estate running!” Elizabeth returned, hotly. It was an oft repeated conversation as it seemed the woman refused to acknowledge what Elizabeth did to run the estate.
“What is that to me if you will not give me any pin money?” the woman demanded.
“Whose fault is it you wasted over half of your principal on dresses for that,” Elizabeth pointed at her skinny, ugly stepsister, Caroline, “and on useless baubles for yourself?”
“Do not dare talk about my beautiful daughter in that way, or I will whip you!” Martha screeched ineptly.
There was no denying the fact that her youngest had become uglier as she grew older.
She had no womanly assets of which to speak, and her face was long and angular with a thin line for lips.
On the other hand, Louisa was looking much better.
She no longer ate as much and was not nearly as portly as she had once been.
She could not be called comely, but neither could she any longer be called homely, a word when applied to her younger daughter was a kindness.
“Please do so, Stepmother dearest, as that will remove you from Longbourn without waiting another four years! You know full well what will happen to you should you lift a hand to me!” Elizabeth challenged, watching with satisfaction as the woman visibly deflated at having her threats declared impotent.
To Martha Bennet, the worst crime her stepdaughter continually committed was her beauty.
Her daughters in comparison were ugly—or at least, her favourite Caroline certainly was.
Elizabeth had a penchant for taking long rambles out of doors and would get darker in the summer, but even then, she had the temerity to always look pretty, even healthier!
Regardless of what Martha said to her stepdaughter, she was thankful the girl was a homebody and outside of some close friends, she did not socialise.
Martha could not understand why her stepdaughter bothered with those so decidedly below her; they were there to serve the estate after all.
One day when Elizabeth was out of the house visiting tenants, she noticed the chest at the end of Elizabeth’s bed was unlocked.
She opened it and found the most beautiful dress she had ever seen within.
It was obviously part of the girl’s trousseau, more than likely her late mother’s wedding gown.
It was a shimmering light blue silk with a gossamer overlay that shimmered in the light with tiny blue trinkets sown into it.
As much as she would have wanted the dress to fit her youngest, she knew that no amount of making the dress over would make it fit her daughter, as Elizabeth was petite in stature.
Underneath it she found the shoes. They were glass with the same blue colour of the dress infused into the glass. When she held one up, the refracted light made a display that looked like stars on the opposite wall.
“Why are you touching that which is not yours?” Elizabeth demanded as she entered her chambers. “You do know stealing from me is a reason to be removed from this house, do you not?”
“I was not stealing anything!” Martha spat back as she dropped the glass slipper onto the bed. “I was just looking! Such a pity your masculine build will not fit into this dress,” she stated with a sniff, as she flounced out of the room.
Although she dismissed almost anything the woman said, her words did bother Elizabeth on some level when her stepmother said such things to her, but she knew the woman was wrong about the dress as she tried it on every now and again to feel close to her beloved, late mother to keep her memory alive.
After catching her stepmother digging in her mother’s chest, Elizabeth had Mr. Hill take it to the house of a tenant she trusted, as she did not trust Mrs. Bennet at all, and so would not take any chances with something as important to her as this.
Except for the amber cross she wore, which her late father had told her belonged to her late Grandmother Beth, his mother and Elizabeth’s namesake, the rest of her jewellery was locked in a safe in Mr. Philips’s office.
After the incident when Caroline tried, and failed, to take her bracelet one year, Elizabeth moved the few pieces of her jewellery still at Longbourn to the safety of a strong box.
On the fifth day of March, Elizabeth turned nineteen.
There was no celebration at Longbourn, but Elizabeth and Louisa, leaving separately and at different times, joined the Lucas family at Lucas Lodge where her birthday was celebrated.
Lady Lucas had a cake baked to help Elizabeth celebrate the day with them.
Charlotte was six and twenty and had as yet not found a man to value and marry her.
Louisa was three and twenty, and if anyone had thought about approaching her, they were scared off by the antics, pretentions, and machinations of her mother and younger sister.
Maria Lucas was the baby of the group of friends at fifteen.
It was at her birthday party that Sir William Lucas informed everyone that he had heard from his friend Paul Morris that he had sold Netherfield Park at last. The estate had been unoccupied for some years after Mr. Morris inherited a much larger estate in Dorset.
He had initially leased it, and one or two tenants had rented it for short periods of time since he had moved, but in the end, it was too much trouble, so he placed the estate on the market.
Sir William had no information about the new owners of Netherfield Park. Elizabeth hoped they were pleasant people, as the estate was but three miles from Longbourn.
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Jane was betrothed to Jamey Bennet, Viscount Glenmeade.
They had been betrothed some eighteen months previously.
Their official betrothal, however, was pending her father’s approval after they finally were rescued.
Her Uncle James was allowed to act in her father’s stead, but she wanted her father’s blessing and consent.
For propriety’s sake, Jamey slept in a third wood cabin that had been constructed on the other side of the one where the remaining crew members slept.
There was no question they were in love—deeply in love—but they both refused to consider marrying before Jane’s father could bestow his blessing, though at two and twenty Jane no longer needed his consent.
Additionally, they wanted to marry in front of all their family with a Church of England clergyman officiating.
Given the situation in which they found themselves, they were able to meet away from their dwellings quite often sans chaperone.
Both being honourable, they had not anticipated their vows, but had come close.
As happy as Jane was with her betrothed and thankful for the fact that they were alive and healthy thus far into their stay, she missed both her father and Lizzy terribly.
Once they were rescued—and for her sanity she had to believe they would be one day—she never wanted to eat another fish in her lifetime.
It was their main source of meat and there are only so many fish one person could willingly consume.
Thankfully, the carpenter had fashioned some bows and arrows, so occasionally they would have some small animals like rabbit, birds, and other creatures for which they knew not the names.
Whenever they ate the birds, however, Phillip and Tommy apologised to Parrot before they consumed their meal.