Chapter 1
“Can we take our hoops to the park, Cousin Jane?” asked eight-year-old Penelope Gardiner hopefully, her six-year-old sister Felicity nodding eagerly in support. “Please.”
“And my boat too?” put in four-year-old Philip, who already had the little wooden vessel tucked under his arm.
“Of course you can,” Jane agreed, smiling at the children.
“You may bring whatever toys you can sensibly carry as long as you take care of them and bring them home safely afterwards. Your mother and I shall be leaving for the park in a quarter hour, and she said that any children who are clean, tidy, and warmly dressed may come too.”
There was a scramble to the parlour door of the comfortable family house in Gracechurch Street, as all the children sought to follow Jane’s guidance at once.
Elizabeth smiled as the sound of small feet thumped up the stairs and faded away.
They had been in town a week already, and the youngsters were still excited by the company of their two favourite Bennet relatives.
“You are so good with our small cousins, Jane,” she commented, while thinking that the little Gardiners were also very good for distracting Jane from her own woes, given the lack of response from Miss Bingley to Jane’s recent letters from Gracechurch Street.
“No wonder Aunt Gardiner was so keen for you to visit.”
“Oh, Aunt Gardiner enjoys your company too, Lizzy,” Jane assured her sister. “Still, I do love being here with the children, and I am glad to be of assistance. Penny, Felicity, and Philip are all so well behaved and baby John is a darling.”
“Will you take John to the park too?”
“No, he is sleeping. Our aunt says that his nursemaid may take him out for air later. I shall look after the girls while Philip sails his boat in the pond with his mother. Are you sure you won’t come with us?”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“Not today. I have promised myself to finally visit the British Museum and see some of the curiosities and historical objects. Father will be amused by my account when I write, I am sure.”
“More amused than if he had to come to London and view the museum himself, I suspect,” observed Jane wryly. “Will you collect Father’s books while you’re out this afternoon?”
“No, I’ll go to see Father’s bookseller on Thursday after I visit the gallery at Cleveland House. They are both some way from here, but Uncle said that I might take the carriage that afternoon.”
“How cultured you are becoming, Lizzy!” laughed Jane. “Museums, galleries, music recitals. You will be a very accomplished young lady by the end of this visit and put the rest of us to shame.”
“Sadly, I suspect I will only develop sufficient knowledge to recognise my own lack of accomplishment,” Elizabeth demurred, smiling.
“At least I might better recognise true accomplishment in others, I suppose. Anyway, I feel I must take every opportunity for art, music, and culture while we are in London, since we are here so rarely.”
The sisters had wandered together from the parlour to don their outdoor clothing in readiness for their planned outings.
“Does it never frustrate you to spend all your life at Longbourn, Jane?” added Elizabeth, pausing before fastening the buttons on her woollen winter coat.
Jane pondered this question with only mild curiosity before shaking her head.
“I appreciate all that London offers just as much as you, Lizzy,” Jane told her, “but my enjoyment of being in town would be spoiled by knowing that Father was so miserable here and only longing to return to his library.”
“Yes, I suppose you are right. London visits only over-excite Mother and depress Father,” Elizabeth observed with good humour. “As for our sisters… Well, it’s probably better for Lydia and Kitty to be kept secluded in the countryside, both for their own sakes and for our family’s reputation.”
Jane agreed, her expression growing sober at this thought.
“I dread to think what mischief our youngest sisters might get up to in a larger society,” she noted. “They are bad enough with the officers in a small place like Meryton.”
“Yes, London would offer far too many opportunities to make themselves ridiculous and attract censure. I am willing to sacrifice a little of my own pleasure in order to maintain our family’s peace and reputation. I shall make myself content to remain happily at Longbourn.”
“Until you marry,” responded Jane, and Elizabeth chuckled.
“I shall cross that bridge on the unlikely occasion that I ever come to it.”
With the arrival of Mrs Gardiner and the three children, the conversation swiftly turned from family and marriage to playtime and art galleries.
∞∞∞
“How was Grosvenor Street?” Elizabeth asked curiously, meeting Jane in the hall as she came in from the Gardiner’s carriage a week later, their aunt also emerging from the drawing room at the sound of the front door. “You are back so quickly. Was Miss Bingley not at home? Nor Mr Bingley?”
Jane’s expression was thoughtful and not entirely happy as she unfastened her bonnet and coat, her answer evidently requiring some consideration.
“Miss Bingley was at home, as were Mr and Mrs Hurst,” she responded. “But our conversation was very short, since Caroline and Louisa were going out. Mr Bingley wasn’t there. His sister said that he was at Darcy House for the whole day.”
As Jane turned to hand her outdoor clothes to a waiting maid, Elizabeth and Mrs Gardiner exchanged a knowing glance, neither of them minded to think quite as well of Mr Bingley’s sisters as Jane seemed inclined to do.
“Well, never mind, dear,” said their aunt, coming forward to place a hand on Jane’s shoulder. “Miss Bingley must surely return your call now, and then you may have a longer conversation with your friend here.”
“Yes…Yes, you are right. I am sure Caroline will call here,” Jane answered, at first uncertain but then seeming to convince herself. “I must wait in after breakfast until she does, if it does not inconvenience either of you.”
“Not at all,” Mrs Gardiner assured her and then beckoned both nieces to follow her back into the drawing room.
“You may have your mornings to yourself this week. The children ought to be busy at their lessons after breakfast anyway, and we shall go out in the afternoons. Now let us ring for our tea, and you may tell us of the denizens of Mayfair.”
∞∞∞
In the event, Miss Bingley did not call at Gracechurch Street that week, nor most of the next. Finally, almost a whole fortnight after Jane’s call on the Bingley ladies, and after Jane’s waiting in each morning in anticipation, Miss Bingley rolled up late one morning in her brother’s coach.
“It is Miss Bingley, Aunt,” Elizabeth said quietly as they converged at the landing window on the first floor to investigate the sound of a carriage pulling up outside. “We had best let Jane receive her, don’t you think? She is downstairs in the parlour.”
Mrs Gardiner nodded, gazing out of the window at the fashionably dressed young woman descending from the coach with an expression of cold disdain on features that were otherwise just as attractive as her brother’s.
“Miss Bingley does not look particularly happy, does she?” the older woman observed.
“I doubt she has ever set foot in Cheapside before,” Elizabeth remarked laconically, amused by the sight of Caroline Bingley holding up her skirts and looking down her nose as though fearing to be contaminated by the very streets she walked on.
“It is a shame that Miss Bingley has not brought her brother too,” Mrs Gardiner reflected. “I did hope that she might, and not only for Jane’s sake. I would have liked to meet this Mr Bingley. Everyone in Hertfordshire seemed to have so much to say of his good humour and amiability.”
“Yes, we all liked Mr Bingley very much,” Elizabeth confirmed. “Sadly, I fear he is as fickle as he is amiable, and has likely forgotten Jane already. I only wish that she were capable of the same inconstancy. Sadly, I know it will take Jane longer to forget her early hopes.”
Her aunt sighed.
“I suppose you are right. From Miss Bingley’s correspondence, Mr Bingley must know by now that Jane has been in London for some weeks. If he had any intentions towards Jane, he surely would have brought his sister to call sooner.”
“That is what I think too,” Elizabeth replied. “Indeed, I believe Mr Darcy knows we are here too. As Mr Bingley lives in his pocket most of the time, he must be well aware of Jane’s presence.”
“Ah, the proud Mr Darcy of Pemberley,” Mrs Gardiner remarked wryly, having heard just as much of this young gentleman from her relatives as of Mr Bingley, although far less favourably in Mr Darcy’s case. “How would Mr Darcy know that Jane is here?”
“We saw Mr Darcy at a distance when walking in the park shortly after we arrived,” Elizabeth explained.
“He was too far away to greet, not that he would have welcomed it in any case. Still, I am sure that Mr Darcy saw us and tipped his hat before I turned us away down a side path. It was not a meeting sought by either side, I suspect.”
She spoke more sharply than she had intended. Even thinking of Mr Darcy raised Elizabeth’s ire against him on Jane’s behalf. Deliberately, Elizabeth took a deep breath, trying to calm her temper.
If it were not for Mr Darcy and Miss Bingley, she strongly supposed that Mr Bingley would still be at Netherfield Park and Jane likely close to an engagement that would have suited both parties well.
Mr Darcy’s own early personal snubs towards Elizabeth herself had not been forgotten either, although she could not give them so much weight as his injury to Jane.
“Dear me,” said her aunt with a resigned little smile. “Well, then, it does seem that Jane is bound for disappointment. We can only provide comfort and distraction.”
A few moments later the doorbell rang, and they heard a maidservant show their guest into the drawing room, soon joined by Jane.
“Come and help me organise my diary, Lizzy,” Mrs Gardiner suggested as the drawing room door closed downstairs. “There is no point in our standing about here and waiting. We shall see how Jane fares after her visitor is gone.”
“Yes, certainly. I do not feel it will be a long visit,” Elizabeth said dubiously, following her aunt into her bedroom, where the door was left open.
Elizabeth’s prediction was proved correct, and Miss Bingley’s call terminated even earlier than she could have guessed. She looked up indignantly at her aunt as they both heard the listened-for sound of the front door closing once more.
“She scarcely stayed a quarter hour!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “What manners these fashionable folk have, and yet they think to mock the way we do things in the countryside. I should never think of calling on another lady for less than half an hour.”
“Unless there were a genuine emergency of some sort,” suggested her aunt sensibly, putting away the diary and cards they had been looking through together.
“Do not be too quick to judge yet. There are often good reasons for a short call. Perhaps Miss Bingley even plans to return later, and this was only a prelude to a longer call.”
“You are right in general,” Elizabeth acknowledged with a sigh. “But in Miss Bingley’s case, I cannot have such faith and goodwill. I am not so gentle and forgiving as Jane.”
“You and Jane are good counterparts to one another,” her aunt counselled as they walked to the staircase. “It is good to have a sister whose strengths and weaknesses are complementary to one’s own. You keep Jane from too much naivety, and she guards you from cynicism.”
Jane was standing at the drawing room door as they reached the foot of the staircase, her pretty face every bit as downhearted as Elizabeth had feared.
“How was Miss Bingley?” Mrs Gardiner asked in a pleasant, neutral tone
“I cannot entirely say,” Jane admitted, as Elizabeth came and put an arm about her shoulders.
“Caroline seems so very different in London to when I knew her in Hertfordshire. I do not believe she wished to call on me at all, Aunt. She seemed here only out of politeness and left as soon as she could.”
“Some people are like that,” Mrs Gardiner consoled her niece. “They have different faces to show in different places, or with different people. It is better to know their true nature sooner rather than later, I find. One feels less let down. Don’t you agree, Lizzy?”
“I think there are better friends in the world than Miss Caroline Bingley,” answered Elizabeth simply, biting back any stronger statements she was tempted to make about that young lady, her ill manners, and her offences against Jane.
As Jane drooped slightly against her shoulder, Elizabeth felt no satisfaction at all in having been right all along about Miss Bingley’s insincere character. She felt she would far rather have been proved wrong and seen Jane happier.
Over at the sideboard in the hallway, Mrs Gardiner picked up a letter from a silver tray, presumably delivered while the door was being opened or closed for Miss Bingley. Upon breaking the seal, their aunt’s expression changed from one of sympathy to one of pleasure and anticipation.
“Now, here is something to raise everyone’s mood,” she announced, holding out the letter and a slip of printed paper towards her nieces.
“I made enquiries last week with my friend Lady Almoner, to see whether we might obtain invitations to the next dance at Almack’s.
She has written back with invitations for all of us, for Friday week. ”
“Why, thank you, Aunt,” said Elizabeth cheerfully, not wanting them to seem ungrateful for Mrs Gardiner’s efforts on their behalf. “We have never been to one of the London assembly rooms before, and Almack’s is said to be the finest.”
“It is certainly the most fashionable,” Mrs Gardiner said. “Invitations are not so easy to come by as some of the others, unless you have the right connections. We must all put on our best dresses for the night, if we are to mingle with the great and good of the ton.”
She smiled at both girls with good humour, evidently pleased with the outcome of her correspondence with Lady Almoner. Elizabeth was glad to see Jane manage to smile wanly back before her sister excused herself and went upstairs.
“An evening in society may be just what Jane needs,” Mrs Gardiner remarked quietly to Elizabeth as they watched her go. “I do hope there will be good company for you both at Almack’s, and perhaps even some amiable young men to dance with. That might take Jane’s mind off Mr Bingley.”
“I hope so too,” Elizabeth echoed. Inwardly, however, she felt little confidence that their hopes would come to fruition.