Chapter 10
Only when they had reached Luton did Elizabeth rest her head upon the comfortable cushions of the carriage, resolved at last to bring some order to her feelings and reflections.
Their departure from Longbourn had been heavy and sorrowful.
Her mother’s tears, falling in silence, were a thousand times more powerful than the words with which she had so often surrounded herself in the past. Mary and Jane held her fast in their embrace, and the last image which haunted her for many hours was that of the three of them standing before Longbourn.
Torn between grief and guilt, she wept all the way to London, in spite of Rose’s desperate attempts to calm her.
Only Mrs Gardiner succeeded in restoring some degree of composure.
Still, the feeling that she had abandoned her mother and her two sisters alone in their most trying moments did not leave her for a long while.
She had found Kitty somewhat more composed; distance from Longbourn had not made her forget, but rather allowed her to persuade herself that nothing had happened—that their father remained in his room, and that Longbourn still retained its air of activity.
But her stay in London had come to an end, because Mrs Bennet had summoned her home; she required assistance in removing to her sister’s house, as they had not yet found a residence of their own.
On the evening before Elizabeth’s departure for Derby, Kitty came timidly to her chamber to implore her to speak to Mrs Cooper and invite her also to Derby. She found London too near, and any visit might so easily end in that short journey back to Hertfordshire.
Elizabeth did not promise; but if the occasion were to present itself, she would certainly request that favour.
“Do you think we shall ever be happy again?” Kitty asked suddenly, and immediately Elizabeth drew her into her arms with a warmth she had not always felt for her younger sister, who had been so often absorbed only by Lydia.
“My dear Kitty, how can you ask such a question? Of course we shall be.”
“But how? We are poor, we have no home…you must go so far away, and you will have to work.”
“Oh, what I shall do is not work, my dearest. Do not be uneasy for me.”
“I am not—for you are clever and strong…but I am afraid for us. I do not know what will become of us. Will our friends in Meryton still receive us? How shall we live without our father?”
And then Elizabeth did something she had never thought to do; in a calm tone, she said, “Kitty, we must marry…all of us. Papa always allowed us to speak of love as a necessity for marriage—”
“And it is not so,” said Kitty, not as a question but as a conclusion; yet she did not appear greatly troubled by the idea of a marriage without love—at least not so much as Jane or Elizabeth herself.
Perhaps Lydia’s influence had brought some small advantage; Lydia viewed life in a simpler, more practical manner. To her, it signified more that a man should be handsome and love her than anything besides. The dreams of her elder sisters she considered folly.
“If anyone were to ask me, I should marry,” said Kitty simply, and with a strange determination, as though she had long considered the matter.
“But you must, of course, consult Mama and our aunts first. Even if there is not a great love, the man you marry must be respectable, must have an affection for you, and…” Elizabeth hesitated to utter the sentence her mother so often repeated; yet, in their present situation, it was too true.
“And?” insisted Kitty, eager to hear Elizabeth’s opinion to the end, which she now held in particular regard.
“And that man must have the means to secure you a comfortable life,” Elizabeth added, with some shame, yet resolved to consider that claim for her own future as well.
“Would you marry, if someone were to ask you?” Kitty enquired, not looking at her, somewhat shy, since such subjects had never before passed between them.
Elizabeth coloured deeply. Her embarrassment was touched with guilt because she had once had the opportunity to marry…
perhaps not in love, but certainly to an honourable man who loved her, and whom she respected.
In Kent, other considerations had obscured her judgement.
She had been so angry at the arrogance with which he had slighted her family, and at his share in Jane’s unhappiness; but now, three months later, and with her father’s death between them, everything appeared so altered.
“Why are you silent?” Kitty insisted, drawing her from her thoughts.
Elizabeth sighed; she would not deceive her. Falsehood was foreign to her nature, she could not pretend that she would marry without affection.
“I shall be sincere with you. I still believe in love and consider the feelings necessary for a marriage; but if an honourable and sensible man were now to ask me in marriage, I should reflect most seriously, and…”
“And?”
“And it is possible I might accept him…if I saw in his countenance that he loved me.”
Was it a falsehood? If so it was the first serious one of her life.
She did not know; yet she hoped it was not.
She hoped she might possess the strength to view life with somewhat less sentiment.
In a curious manner, this was not an idle reflection, since not many months before Fitzwilliam Darcy had asked her to be his wife.
And as she withdrew from the turmoil of those moments, and calm settled over those recollections, she found herself questioning whether love is indeed the sole condition of a happy marriage.
With this dilemma in her mind, they arrived in Derby, resolved to unravel the mystery; but in the whirl of her exceedingly warm reception, the cheerful smile of Mrs Cooper, and the two children who almost danced about her, the question faded, for life suddenly offered her something new, and for the first time since her father’s death, Elizabeth smiled with contentment, her former perplexity softened, if not resolved.