Chapter 13 #3
I have weathered my first Christmas at Pemberley!
We made merry on Christmas Eve, attended church on Christmas Day (and danced that evening, after all those who would despise us for it had retired), toasted the servants and tenants on St Stephen’s Day and feasted with our neighbours on Twelfth Night.
On the whole, it was happier than we could have hoped, though not without incident.
I like to think, however, that Lady Catherine felt better for being able to inform me of at least three ways a day in which I erred.
I jest, but I found I did not mind her imperiousness half so much as I thought I would.
She and I have had an exceedingly tumultuous acquaintance, but she is esteemed by so many of the people I have come to love, I cannot but be moved by her plight.
Darcy and I sat with her in the gallery one morning, listening to her tales of all the people in the paintings there, including a few about Darcy’s mother he had not heard before.
Notwithstanding all her antipathy, I will ever remember those few hours with great fondness.
Now the decorations have been taken down, all my guests are gone, and Pemberley is quiet once more.
Is it the same at Netherfield? We heard from Mary that Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst did not join you.
I hope that did not make your celebrations any less agreeable.
I wish you would write and tell me about it, though it seems probable you will not.
I am not entirely without hope, though, for if I can make peace with a woman so wholly prejudiced against me as Lady Catherine, surely I can reconcile with my own sister?
Wishing you a happy New Year,
Elizabeth
Saturday 23 January 1813, Hertfordshire
Pevensey Hall
21st January
Jane,
I must say I was rather alarmed by the tone of your last letter.
You sounded rather hysterical. Yes, I received your previous note but had not yet found the time to reply—nor, indeed, realised there was any urgent need to do so.
Certainly, none of your news was remarkable enough to warrant any haste on my part.
Neither was your eagerness to hear how dreadful my Christmas was likely to induce me to be prompt.
I do congratulate you, of course, on being satisfied with your first Christmas as mistress of your own house, though I do hope you will not make a habit of petitioning me for compliments.
As your friend and better, you must allow me to tell you it is excessively coarse.
Unfashionable though your sister’s self-sufficiency may be, it does at least make her easier to please.
I hope you are not too disappointed to learn that in truth I had a very agreeable Christmas.
My stay at Pemberley was tolerable, but then the splendour of the place is such that even your relations being there could not lessen the elegance of our party.
Your sister continues to be Lady C’s favourite, but that also turned out to my advantage, for it saved me the inconvenience of her notice.
E yet boasts the same graceless independence and brazen coquetry of which you have ever accused her, but her novelty, and thus her potency, is diminishing.
She is becoming less interesting by the moment, so let us speak of her no longer.
Of much more interest was my attendance at Lady O’s Twelfth Night Ball.
I know you will congratulate me when I tell you of the favourable reception I enjoyed there—
“Mrs Bennet is here to see you, ma’am.”
Jane shoved her letter between the cushion and her leg with seconds to spare before her mother burst into the room. “Good afternoon, Mama. Would you like some tea?”
“No, I am too vexed for tea. Your father has had a letter from Mr Collins. That sly Charlotte Collins, whom we all treated as a friend for so many years, has begotten herself a boy child, and they have written to boast of it.”
“I am sure they did not mean to boast.”
“Oh yes, yes they did! We must already endure being turned out of our own home as soon as your father draws his last breath. There is no call for them to taunt us with heirs as well. And you can count on their knowing that you are not yet increasing. How cruel of them to gloat of their issue in the face of that failure!”
Tears sprang to Jane’s eyes. “I would hardly call it a failure.”
“Well, it scarcely qualifies as a success.”
A tear dripped off her chin, followed by others she did not trouble herself to wipe away.
Her mother peered at her questioningly. “Jane? Oh, Jane, Jane! Calm yourself! Let not the thoughtlessness of those wretched Collinses’ distress you. You will be blessed eventually. If your sister has managed it, I daresay you will.”
Jane let out an exasperated wail and shook her head. “No, I am beginning to think I shall never do as well as Lizzy. Even my Christmas celebrations were inferior to hers apparently.”
“Never mind,” Mrs Bennet replied, patting her hand. “Perhaps you could go to Pemberley next year and spend Christmas with her?”
Jane barked a harsh laugh. “I am sure that would please my husband no end!”
She regretted her outburst immediately. To nobody other than Lady Ashby had she admitted the truth of Bingley’s inconstant affections, and her mother was the last person to whom she would have chosen to disclose it. Yet, Mrs Bennet did not seem to be appalled by it, only mildly surprised.
“Oh dear. He still admires her, does he?”
“You knew he admired her?”
“I had an inkling, but I was sure it was a fleeting attachment. All men admire a comely figure, and goodness knows Lizzy has ever displayed hers better than you. But then, she had to learn, for she has not your looks.”
“How could you allow me to marry a man you knew had feelings for another?”
Mrs Bennet sat back, looking offended. “Because had I not, you would very likely not have been married at all! Though you are making such a pother of it, I am beginning to think that might have been for the best.”
“Would that you had not imposed upon me to secure him then!”
“I am sure I did nothing of the kind!”
“You expressly proposed a well-aimed swoon!”
Her mother looked genuinely bemused. “Is that how you ended in his arms on the sofa?”
“I should very much like to know that also.”
Jane’s heart pitched into her mouth, and her gaze snapped to the door, which had been closed moments before but was presently occupied by her observably appalled husband.
“You tell me now it was your design when you swooned that day to coerce me into marriage?”
“No, indeed!” Mrs Bennet answered for her. “Only to encourage you.”
“Mama!”
“You swooned deliberately?”
“Well, I…I…”
“Your hedging is rather a confirmation of it.”
“Perhaps I did, but only in panic, because you—”
“And you, madam?” Bingley exclaimed, turning to Mrs Bennet. “Was it by design that you brought Sir William into the room at that moment?”
“Indeed, it was not, sir!” she replied indignantly, and for a moment Jane thought she was vindicated. Alas not. “That was Mr Bennet’s doing. He forced his way past me, knowing full well what he was interrupting.”
“Mama!”
“Pray, leave us, Mrs Bennet,” Bingley said, his voice cracking on the last word.
Mrs Bennet flapped and blustered and attempted to set all to rights, but in the face of both Jane and Bingley’s resolute silence, she had no choice but to go.
“Charles?” Jane whispered into the supervening silence.
“What have you done?”
“It did not happen as my mother implied.”
“All of this might have been avoided, had I but known.”
She gasped. “Is that what you wish? That you could have avoided marrying me altogether? Is it that disagreeable to you?”
“Discovering I was duped into it has rather lessened my enjoyment of it, I must say.”
“No, you are wrong! It was never my intention that we should be discovered, but I was expecting your addresses. And instead, you seemed about to change your mind and leave me again. I thought you must still not comprehend my feelings!”
“I did not! How could I when you were so cold and reserved all the time?”
“Could you expect me to behave differently after you abandoned me so cruelly?”
Bingley ran both hands through his hair, grasping two fistfuls and squeezing his eyes shut.
Releasing them, along with a gruff sigh, he took several strides towards her.
“Yes, I left. It was ill done, and I have never apologised properly for it. But I came back! I braved the reproach of your friends and family to return and court you in the best way I knew how. And you barely spoke to me! The only person who ever showed any pleasure in my return was Lizzy.”
Jane lurched to her feet with a wordless cry. “Yes, Lizzy! Perfect, wonderful Lizzy! Why did you simply not marry her?”
“I would have, had you not come to the room where I awaited her and draped yourself all over me!”
It was not as shocking as it ought to be—only bitterly predictable. Had she not suspected all along that he preferred Elizabeth? In retrospect, she supposed every other appalling consequence of his thwarted affections had been inevitable.
“Would that you had never come back,” she whispered.
“I could have lived far better with the memory of a man I believed loved me for a few short months than endure a lifetime with a man who does not love me at all.” She dropped her face into her hands and burst into tears.
For a while she could only sob, her distress heightened by Bingley’s continued silence.
After a few minutes, he did speak, but his words, far from comforting her, threw her into a tumult of confusion and alarm.
“The same graceless independence and brazen coquetry of which you have ever accused her?”
Jane gasped and looked up. He was reading from her letter!
“Are you in the habit of exchanging insults about your sister with Lady Ashby?”