Chapter 11 #2
Considering the fact that Fitzwilliam had connections to three people who had rented Netherfield, she wrote, “Did you encourage Mr Harrison to lease Netherfield to Mrs Popkins, Miss Garfield, and Mr Bingley?”
She felt ridiculous—the entire project of asking these questions seemed suspect, now. However, Elizabeth knew that the coincidences had been stacking up, and she did wish to take advantage of Fitzwilliam’s offer to answer any question honestly.
The riding lessons had been suspended, but for now Misty and Lady lived in Longbourn’s stables.
One of Fitzwilliam’s stablehands had come to Longbourn for the duration of the horses’ visit.
When Mr Bingley and Fitzwilliam called these days, each often rode with his preferred Bennet sister.
Mary sometimes enlisted Jane and Elizabeth to ride to Netherfield so that she could practice jumping enclosures; those days Mr Bingley and Fitzwilliam rode the Netherfield trails with the ladies while Mary was chaperoned by a maid, aided by Melvin, and supervised by the stable master.
Elizabeth had been enjoying her rides with Fitzwilliam too much to have much desire to pose her questions. She was a bit embarrassed by how odd those questions were and continually put off the awkward discussion. And yet….
One morning, she realised that Fitzwilliam had re-entered her life at that Meryton assembly about a month ago, and they had been betrothed for more than a fortnight.
Their wedding, which she had begged her father to schedule sooner than his original plan, would occur in a week.
It was high time that she asked her questions.
Planning ahead, she had packed Misty’s saddle bags with a quilt, her list of questions, some Chelsea buns, and a bottle of cider.
The moment Fitzwilliam arrived, she asked if he wished to join her on a long ride, and he agreed, and so they set out that afternoon under skies filled with bright sunshine, chilly breezes, and autumnal coloured leaves.
They took the road rather than the orchard path, but when the road entered the forest, Elizabeth guided Misty off onto a small, steep path.
It wound its way over to the backside of Oakham Mount, and when they had climbed about halfway up the hill, there was a level area, a field filled with golden grasses and the year’s very last blooms.
Elizabeth smiled at Fitzwilliam’s bemused expression as she spread the quilt onto the bending grasses. When she got out the food and bottle of cider, he said, “This is nice.”
It was nice. The Chelsea buns were sweet and still warm, the cider was sweet and still cool. Elizabeth loved being with Fitzwilliam, and she loved being outdoors; thus, the small picnic tasted especially delicious.
Then she brought out the paper. Fitzwilliam’s eyebrows jumped a bit. He looked as if he was eager to be amused by whatever she had brought.
“Do not expect poetry or wordplay, Fitzwilliam,” Elizabeth said, “I merely wrote down my questions—which you promised to answer honestly, if you recall. I needed them in written form so that I will not forget how to think because of your—” she waved her hand up and down “—all of this.”
He pulled her close. “Oh, I thought it was my all-of-this—” and he kissed her— “that impacted your ability to reason.” He kissed her again
When they broke apart, panting, she replied, “I believe it is your person, your words, your actions, and your very presence that are my downfall.”
“I would wish to be an aid to upward climbing rather than downward falling,” he murmured.
“We will see, Mr Distraction. My first question is quite ridiculous, I suppose. Do you own Netherfield Park?”
She looked at him with full confidence of his negative answer, ready with the follow-up questions of whether or not he somehow paid Mr Harrison to lease the property to people in need. Those questions sounded quite mad, as well.
But he sat up straighter, surprise writ on his face for a moment before he adopted a neutral expression, and he stared into her eyes. Finally, he replied, “Yes.”
Feeling flummoxed, Elizabeth just asked, “You do?”
“Yes.”
“You own Netherfield Park?”
He smiled his most crooked smile—the one that made him look a bit like a rogue—and he answered, “Are you going to ask every question three times?… Yes, I own Netherfield Park.”
“I thought Mr Harrison owned it.”
“That is not a question, but I will answer all the same, just to prove to you how amazingly cooperative I am. The answer is, Mr Harrison used to own Netherfield, but I purchased it from him.”
“When did you purchase it?”
“In 1807.”
Elizabeth thought for a second, but then she decided that she had better keep to a brisk pace, lest she become overwrought by the things she thought she knew, thought she could count on, that were not, in fact, true.
“Why did you purchase Netherfield?”
There was quite a pause this time. She stared at her intended, hoping he was not going to prevaricate or, worse, refuse to answer. But he finally said, very softly, “So I had access to a place to court you, when you were old enough.”
Elizabeth felt as if the world had just tipped.
She had found it very flattering that Fitzwilliam had realised, from the direction of Netherfield, that his good friend was leasing a house near Longbourn, and that, when he had come to help his friend learn about running an estate, he had hoped to see her.
But if he set out to buy a property near her, just a year after meeting her… .
Well, it was extraordinarily flattering. But also… a bit stealthy?
“You never lived at or visited Netherfield, nor anyplace in Hertfordshire, until the day of the Meryton assembly.”
“No. I bought the property sight unseen. I had my man of business find the property, inspect it, purchase it, rent it out, see to the maintenance.”
“And you deliberately told him to rent the estate to Mrs Popkins and, later, Miss Garfield?”
“No. I urged him to think more about leasing to people who would contribute to the community in some way, people of good breeding and cheer, than to consider people who could afford to pay high rents.” He shrugged and continued, “I suppose that what you thought of as too much of a coincidence to believe—that I had helped out two ladies and then later they leased Netherfield—was caused by the fact that the financial help you discovered was handled by the same man of business. I asked him to settle Mrs Popkins’ debts, and he did; I asked him to purchase Mr Garfield’s compositions and Miss Garfield’s drawings for quite generous terms, and he arranged for the payments to go to her.
These are worthy women with a husband, in one case, and parents, in the other, who had not been able to provide for them in the case of their deaths.
These gentlewomen had few choices in such circumstances; they could not become barristers or teach at universities; they could not become vicars or soldiers, and for the most part they would be frowned upon if they should dare to sell their music or artwork.
I felt that something should be done for them, and I had enough money to make it happen. ”
“I am proud of you. So, you directed your man of business to help these ladies in specific ways, and since he was also looking for wonderful people to lease Netherfield, as per your instructions, he came up with the notion of leasing it to these ladies.”
“Exactly.”
“But then…were you the one who decided to lease Netherfield to Bingley?”
“Yes. When Miss Garfield moved out, you were nearly twenty, and I asked my man of business to keep up the property but not to look for another leaseholder; I would provide one.”
“And you did all of this for me?” Elizabeth whispered.
“Of course. Who else?”
“Why wait for me? Why…go through the trouble, the expense, of buying a house…to court me?”
“Because, my dear, you are extraordinary. Lively and imaginative; sweet but also capable of seeing, acknowledging, and dealing with evil. Intelligent and witty. Beautiful, but in such a unique way you stand out in a sea of beautiful women.”
Elizabeth forgot about the stealthiness of someone who buys a house half a decade before they need it to court a young maiden. She took a hold of the lapels of Fitzwilliam’s coat and pulled him close, crinkling the paper she still held in one hand.
She laughed and broke free of Fitzwilliam long enough to fold up the paper, tuck it away with the now-empty bottle and the cloth napkins still smudged with cinnamon and cloves from the buns.
When she was not so stunned, she would ask her other questions.
That night, Elizabeth painstakingly considered her memories from Ramsgate.
She discovered no hints of Fitzwilliam’s interest in her from that time.
She remembered him stepping out into the street from the milliner’s shop, when Wickham had approached them.
All he had done was step outside, and Wickham had immediately fled.
Then Fitzwilliam had merely said to her—to them, Jane was there—“Excuse me, ladies.” He had told their footman that Wickham was a dangerous man, and when Elizabeth had thanked him, he had said, “Do not mention it.”
In her memory, the handsome stranger had not done a single thing to indicate interest in either of them. His eyes had not lingered on them, and he had barely spoken.
Elizabeth had been shocked when he and his sister had turned up—coincidentally, she had assumed—at Pegwell Bay the next morning.
She eagerly fished her list of questions out from the book in which she had hidden them.
Getting out her writing supplies, she crossed out the first question, which she had already posed, and the last question, about leasing Netherfield to Mrs Popkins.
Still remaining unasked were the questions about Fitzwilliam telling the Gardiners that he would be coming to Hertfordshire and about him possibly knowing that she was afraid to ride.
Elizabeth added a new question: “Did you deliberately come to Pegwell Bay to further our acquaintance?”
She had clear memories of thinking that the much-older brother of her new friend was very handsome.
She remembered covertly stealing looks at him.
Now she pored over those memories. All those stolen glances—she had never seen him looking at her.
No, his gaze had always been properly on his own sister.
There had been times when she was sitting very near Georgiana, but still, even with the knowledge she had now, she was certain that he had been very circumspect in his behaviour.
With the knowledge that Fitzwilliam had come to Netherfield Park to court her, she felt positive that he had decided to acquire some very gentle horses before arriving in Hertfordshire specifically because he knew she was afraid of riding and he hoped to help her.
She changed her question from “Did you know I was afraid of riding?” to “How did you know…?”
Even though she had an excellent memory and did not think she had mentioned her fear of riding to Georgiana, Elizabeth knew it was impossible to rule out such an admission.
If she was correct, and she had not, how would Fitzwilliam know?
Would his man of business have somehow stumbled onto the knowledge?
Had Fitzwilliam or his mysterious “MoB”—his Man of Business—arrange for a sort of watcher… a spy…to send reports on her?
That seemed even more stealthy than the word stealthy could adequately convey. It seemed downright unsettling.
But she added a last (for now, at least) question to the page: “Is there, or has there been, someone hired by your MoB to watch me and…report on me?”