Chapter 7
Gardiners’ House
Gracechurch Street
Cheapside
Saturday, 18 th April, 1812
Cool blue skies arched above the shingled roofs of the London suburbs, the houses beneath lined up in tidy rows with more or less equally tidy little front gardens.
“Are we almost there?” Maria Lucas asked eagerly.
Elizabeth smiled at Charlotte’s younger sister, who had been visiting along with Elizabeth for six full weeks. Maria was some eighteen years of age and prettier than Charlotte, though not as sensible as Mrs. Collins.
“It should be another fifteen minutes until we reach Gracechurch Street,” Elizabeth remarked.
The two girls lapsed into silence, and Elizabeth found her thoughts shifting to the last days in Kent.
It had been exactly a week since Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam had left Rosings, and Elizabeth still felt perturbed by their last meeting in the park, filled as it was with explanations and apologies. She remained shocked by the genuine contrition on the face of proud Mr. Darcy! Perhaps the world was ending. He had admitted fault and regret in separating Bingley from Jane. Too late for poor Jane’s heart, of course, but an unexpected concession nonetheless.
But the news of Darcy’s part in Jane’s sorrow had not been the most unsettling thing to come out of that conversation. That dubious honor belonged to her new knowledge of Wickham’s perfidy. Elizabeth was embarrassed that she had been tricked by the handsome lieutenant’s charm and good manners. She had been gulled so easily by his sob story of ill-treatment at Darcy’s proud hands. She had been so eager to believe the worst of Darcy and the best of Wickham. Pleased with the preference of one and offended by the neglect of the other, she had courted ignorance and driven reason away where either was concerned. Mr. Darcy was not, she was convinced, a particularly kind or good tempered man, but he at least had honor. He was not a profligate and rogue like Wickham.
Such thoughts were difficult ones, and Elizabeth thought that it had been a blessing that her last week in Kent was so full of activity that she did not have too many hours to lambast herself over her idiocy. Lady Catherine had invited the Hunsford party for tea twice and dinner three times, and she had inquired minutely into the particulars of their journey to London. Maria Lucas was so awed by the lady’s autocratic manner that she had returned to Hunsford from one such dinner to entirely repack her trunk in the way prescribed by Lady Catherine.
At least Lady Catherine, being rather stout and of a sedentary disposition, was not overly fond of exercise, and for that Elizabeth was grateful, as it had permitted her many hours of free time as she walked the paths of the truly lovely estate. If Lady Catherine had insisted on walking with her – well, the six weeks would have been well-nigh unendurable!
Every spare moment not spent at Rosings, Elizabeth had shared with Charlotte and Maria. Occasionally Mr. Collins had joined them and subjected them to his buffoonery, which Elizabeth endured with a mindset torn between amusement and annoyance. Charlotte herself exhibited only a calm serenity and an impressive ability to gently curtail her husband’s most moronic tangents. Elizabeth packed up her last odds and ends on the final night of their stay with the feeling that Charlotte, having made a choice that Elizabeth herself would have found intolerable, was not to be pitied. She was content with her home and her parish, her garden and her chickens and her parishioners to be tended.
It saddened Elizabeth to leave her friend behind, but her melancholy was assuaged by the joy of seeing her dear sister Jane, her uncle and aunt, and her young cousins soon.
The carriage turned onto Gracechurch Street, and she so far forgot herself as to strain forward to see out of the window for the first glimpse of the neat little brick house. It rolled into view and Elizabeth glanced up, sharing a smile with Maria Lucas as the carriage came to a halt. A manservant stepped forward, opened the door, and reached up to assist out Elizabeth and then her younger friend. The girls hurried to the front door, where a pair of maids met them in the hall, smiling and curtsying and taking their bonnets and pelisses. One vanished into the small cloak room while her colleague escorted the visitors down the hall and opened the drawing room door.
Elizabeth nodded at the maid in thanks and passed through the doorway.
She stepped into the room and came to a sudden, incredulous, delighted stop.
“J ... J ... Jane?” she stuttered, her eyes going from her dearest sister and the man at her side. “Mr. Bingley?”
“I hope you will call me Charles, Miss Elizabeth,” Bingley responded with a grin, “because Jane and I are engaged to be married.”
Elizabeth turned wondering eyes on Jane, who said, eyes dancing, “Indeed, we are to be married, Lizzy. Is it not wonderful?”
Elizabeth could not help but squeal with joy as she hurried over to throw her arms around her sister, happy tears slipping down her cheeks. “Oh Jane! I am so very pleased! How ... how did this happen?”
Mrs. Gardiner appeared at this moment with Maria Lucas, who had doubtless been refreshing herself after their journey, and Elizabeth was forced to wait a few impatient minutes for tea to be summoned and for everyone to sit down around the fire.
After refreshments had been served, Jane said, “It was all Mr. Darcy’s doing, and yours. He summoned Charles to Darcy House and told him that you had told his cousin that I loved Charles, and he apologized for his interference.”
“Not that it was Darcy’s fault, really,” Charles said gravely. “I should have trusted my own instincts in the matter. I was a fool to leave without asking you directly about your feelings. I am so sorry for all you have suffered, my darling.”
“Hush, Charles,” Jane replied with a smile. “All has been forgiven.”
“When will you be married?” Maria asked, and Bingley said, “In a few weeks. The banns will be called tomorrow for the first time, and we will wed in early May.”
“How marvelous!” Elizabeth exclaimed, her eyes shining.
“It is indeed,” Mrs. Gardiner said, pouring more tea into her cup. “Now Jane is insistent that she need not acquire a great many wedding clothes, but we will be visiting Madame Fanchon on Monday to arrange for a new dress for the ceremony.”
“Not that I even need that,” Jane said with a sigh, “but Mamma is absolutely insistent.”
“She has been waiting for many years for a daughter to marry,” Elizabeth declared, “and I am not certain she will even consider it a legal wedding if you do not have at least one new dress.”
At this, Jane could only laugh and nod her head in agreement.
“So we will be staying here for at least a week as planned?” Maria asked timidly.
“Yes,” Jane said. “Charles has some business to finish up, and we ladies can visit the dressmaker and milliner and obtain a new gown and hat, as ordered!”
***
Longbourn
5 th May, 1812
The door of the Bingley carriage was opened from outside by a footman, and Charles leaped out and then turned to gently hand out his fiancée and her sister.
Jane stepped onto the graveled driveway, as the front door opened and Mrs. Bennet hurtled out, the ribbon on her cap twirling in her excitement.
“Jane! My dear, precious Jane!” she cried out. “Oh, how wonderful to see you, and so early! We were not expecting you until later, and Lydia and Kitty are not here to welcome you, though it matters not, as they will be home soon. Mr. Bingley, thank you for bringing my girls home. But oh, what about Maria Lucas?”
“We let her off at Lucas Lodge, Mamma,” Jane explained, and Mrs. Bennet said, “Oh, how very kind of your, Mr. Bingley!”
“It was my honor, Mrs. Bennet,” Charles said with a bow, and then turned toward his fiancée. “I will call upon you tomorrow morning, if that is agreeable?”
“Oh, entirely agreeable, Mr. Bingley,” Mrs. Bennet exclaimed, speaking for her eldest daughter. “Indeed, I hope you will come for dinner tomorrow night. It will be a mere family dinner, but you are very welcome!”
“That is kind of you,” Bingley said, “and yes, I will plan to stay for dinner whenever you are willing to have me. At the moment, I have no hostess at Netherfield, though my cousin Mrs. Scofield will be coming here in a few days.”
“We will be delighted to have you as often as you wish to be here, Mr. Bingley, and with no hostess at Netherfield, I hope you will come for dinner tonight as well,” his prospective mother-in-law gushed exuberantly.
“Thank you,” Bingley said. “That is very kind, and I happily accept your invitation, although I need to spend a few hours at Netherfield to arrange for the mistress’s quarters to be thoroughly cleaned and swept. I will return for dinner, though.”
The mention of the mistress’s quarters caused Mrs. Bennet to flush with delight, to the point that she apparently seemed unable to speak. Bingley did not seem concerned, but instead bestowed a chaste kiss on Jane’s cheek before leaping into the carriage, which rolled away toward Netherfield Hall.
Elizabeth could not help but beam with pleasure. Mr. Bingley would be an excellent addition to the Bennet family as he would be a wonderful husband to Jane, a good brother to Elizabeth and her younger sisters, and kind to Mrs. Bennet, who was often noisy and vulgar.
The front door of Longbourn opened again to reveal Mary, and Jane turned to pull her into her embrace before climbing the steps into her childhood home. Elizabeth found herself trailing behind her mother and sisters, entirely unacknowledged by any of them.
She was neither surprised nor hurt by such indifference. Jane was the family savior at the moment, and Elizabeth fancied that her mother already looked better with the fear of being thrown into the hedgerows finally at an end. Bingley was not only wealthy, but very generous. The Bennet ladies were saved from a future of prospective poverty.
***
Library
Longbourn
A Few Minutes Later
Elizabeth stepped inside the library, where Mr. Bennet was waiting with open arms and a joyful smile.
“Lizzy, my dear,” he said, stepping forward and embracing her. “Welcome home.”
She returned the embrace with fervor, relishing the smell of wood smoke and leather. Glancing around the room, she was struck anew by how little had changed in the weeks since she had left. The library was as it always was, save perhaps for a few extra books purchased in the interim. While Mr. Bennet was an indolent master of Longbourn, he invariably paid a great deal of attention to his library.
“So what do you think of this business of Jane and Mr. Bingley?” Mr. Bennet continued, gesturing for his favorite daughter to sit down near the small fire in the grate.
“I am very happy!” Elizabeth said. “Are you not also, Father?”
“Oh, I suppose,” Bennet said with a wry tilt of one eyebrow. “Bingley is a fine enough fellow, but losing Jane will be a wrench for both of us; she is one of the few sensible people in the house, after all.”
“She will be only a few miles away at Netherfield,” his daughter said soothingly.
“True enough, true enough. Well, I suppose I can manage well enough, so long as I have my Lizzy at home. You have not, I hope, collected a suitor of late, my dear?”
“Absolutely not,” Elizabeth said sincerely. “So you need not worry about losing another daughter to marriage soon.”
“I am glad,” her father replied, reaching over to pull a book off a shelf. “I have acquired a new book that you might find interesting, Lizzy...”
***
Jane’s Bedchamber
An Hour Later
Elizabeth walked into the room at her elder sister’s room and glanced around in amazement.
“Whatever are you doing?” she asked.
Jane looked over and smiled. “I am going through all my gowns so that I can pack up the ones I wish to move to Netherfield after the wedding. I will be giving most of them away to you and the other girls. As a matron, I will be wearing different colors and styles most of the time.”
“You hardly need to do this right now,” Elizabeth remarked, wandering over to lift up one gauzy green creation lying on Jane’s bed. “You have plenty of time.”
Jane pulled another gown out of her wardrobe and put it on the bed alongside the others. “I am not so certain of that. Mamma is so excited to have a daughter engaged that she is planning to host several dinners, plus she intends to escort me around to all her friends to show me off.”
“Oh, Jane.”
“I do not mind. I will be wed soon, and Mamma has been waiting for a very long time for a daughter to be well married.”
This was, of course, very true, and while Elizabeth would have been annoyed to be trotted around like a prize horse, she knew that Jane had a phlegmatic nature. In any case, Charles Bingley was in a hurry to claim his bride, so it would not be a long ordeal.
“Jane, Lizzy!”
The eldest Misses Bennet looked over as Lydia hurtled into the room with Kitty at her heels.
“Girls!” Jane replied, throwing her arms around first one sister, and then another. “It is so good to see you!”
“We are very happy for you,” Kitty said sincerely, and Lydia added, “Indeed we are! It will be wonderful to have you so rich, and perhaps you can throw a ball in the next few weeks!”
Elizabeth moved forward to hug both sisters and then said, “I do not think it could possibly be quite that soon. Jane and Charles are marrying in the middle of May.”
“But perhaps we can have a ball in June,” Jane said kindly.
Kitty pouted and said, “Oh, but that will be too late, because the militia regiment is moving to Brighton at the end of May and…”
“Oh, oh, OH!” Lydia interrupted suddenly. “Oh, Lizzy, Jane, did Mamma tell you about poor Mr. Wickham?”
Elizabeth, her body tensing at the sound of Wickham’s name, stepped back and frowned up into Lydia’s face. “What about Mr. Wickham?”
“He was arrested,” Kitty said, tears forming in her eyes, “for indebtedness. Some cruel man came here and hauled poor Mr. Wickham off to debtors’ prison.”
Elizabeth felt her lips curl up in relief, provoking intense indignation from Lydia. “Lizzy, why are you smiling so? It is dreadful!”
“No, it is not,” Elizabeth declared. “Mr. Wickham is a liar and a cheat and a reprobate. He is a dangerous man, and I am glad that he is locked up!”
This provoked dramatic gurgling from Kitty, and Lydia looked furious. “What are you speaking of? Mr. Wickham is, or was , the most handsome, charming officer in the regiment!”
“He was,” Elizabeth agreed drily, “but that does not mean he is a good person. He lied about the church living, you know. Mr. Darcy paid him three thousand pounds to give up all rights to the living, and he claimed instead that the Master of Pemberley denied him his due.”
“Mr. Darcy?” Lydia shrieked. “Pray do not even speak that horrible man’s name! He is the one who is proud, and rude, and insulted you at the assembly, and…”
“My dears,” Jane said, interrupting with surprising ferocity, “Mr. Darcy is Charles’s closest friend and is responsible for bringing me and Charles together in London after all these months. I must insist that you refrain from insulting him, or I promise there will be no ball at Netherfield in June or ever!”
This was such a frightening threat that the younger Bennets subsided, though Lydia still looked truculent. Elizabeth could only be thankful that Wickham was safely separated from her ridiculous little sister and grateful to whomever had done the work of having the former militia lieutenant locked up for debt.