Chapter 5
Their life did change; in many ways, it revolved around Uncle Thomas.
He did not impose any new rules, but every Bennet wanted to have a personal relationship with him.
The only rule he set was his absence from breakfast, and in the first few days, he was tremendously missed.
However, they grew used to his late mornings and his walks in the woods far into the night.
Tom prepared his breakfast, always the same: porridge with raisins and sausages, with a thin slice of freshly baked bread every morning.
Everybody was curious to taste the bread and liked it so much that in less than a week, the cook was preparing the special breakfast treat for the whole household.
“The Bedouin women cook this bread on hot stones,” he told them, seeing their interest. Brittle and tasty, it went well with either marmalade or cheese.
“Have you observed that since Uncle Thomas arrived, Jane seems to have forgotten Mr Bingley?” Mrs Bennet asked her husband one day after breakfast, when she brought his second cup of tea into the library.
“Yes, she is less sad, and these riding lessons seem to have brought colour back into her pale cheeks.”
Riding was the principal amusement that the young ladies of Longbourn had found lately.
Except for Elizabeth, who was still afraid of horses, and Mary, who was not interested in outdoor activities, the three other ladies participated with much joy in Uncle Thomas’s riding lessons.
When two new side saddles arrived from London, they began venturing out in the mornings on the road to Meryton.
They had already formed a ritual: immediately after breakfast, Lydia and Kitty were the first to ride.
They usually went to Meryton, delighted to be seen accompanied by Tom, who took care of the horses while the ladies strolled along the main street.
But they had to return by noon, when Uncle Thomas took his daily ride, often accompanied by Jane.
Both had begun to take real pleasure in those occasions.
They never followed the Meryton road but rode in the opposite direction, deep into the woods.
Jane might appear fragile, but she was fearless, and riding seemed perfectly suited to her.
They usually stopped in a clearing about two miles from Longbourn and, while the horses grazed, they strolled, discussing all sorts of little things or simply admiring the woods in silence.
“I need to know everything,” Uncle Thomas said one day, and by then he had grown so close to the family that Jane considered it perfectly natural to share confidences with him.
She could not speak so openly to her father and still hesitated with her mother, but things were different with Uncle Thomas.
He had been so eager to become part of the family that Mr Bennet regarded it all with amusement.
“Laugh as much as you like, you sarcastic nephew! It is natural for you to have these wonderful ladies around you. After more than twenty years together, I understand your desire to enjoy moments of solitude far away from them. But imagine that for many years I have lived mostly alone. I came back because I wanted to hear small talk about ribbons and lace, to join cheerful family dinners and witness their joyful smiles and laughter after hours of riding. I like hearing them whisper their secrets; I enjoy everything. Each of them is special in her own way. Why is Jane sad, for instance?”
Mr Bennet had merely shaken his head at the question, whilst the slightly ironic smile remained upon his face.
“That, dear uncle, you shall have to discover for yourself.”
And that was precisely what Uncle Thomas intended to do on that glorious early summer day when they stopped in the clearing. Surrounded by butterflies and chirping birds, it seemed the ideal place to open one’s heart.
“I know what it means to suffer from love,” Uncle Thomas said unexpectedly, leaving Jane in profound astonishment.
In her world, gentlemen did not speak openly of their hearts; or if they did, perhaps it was only amongst themselves and never before ladies.
But this gentleman merely laughed at her surprise.
“I am old enough to live as I wish, not always according to society’s strict rules. ”
“You know?” Jane asked softly, still uncertain whether she ought to discuss such intimate matters with a gentleman old enough to be her grandfather.
“Yes, I do. I was once in love with a wonderful lady and wished to marry her and have a family, but she married a duke instead, and I left for India.”
“I am sorry,” Jane said, and Thomas smiled.
“It is ancient history. Since then, I have loved a few times, and I possess both happy and painful memories. Such is life. I refused to suffer endlessly, and travelling proved an excellent way of forgetting pain.”
“Travelling to distant places is not, unfortunately, something a lady can do,” Jane said.
“True, but a lady may find other amusements to help her forget a lost love. Riding, for instance.”
Jane agreed. That hour had become the best part of the day, and when she was in the saddle, she often forgot Mr Bingley entirely.
“And what happened to the lady who married the duke?” she asked hesitantly, still uncertain whether such a conversation was proper with a man old enough to be her grandfather. But her uncle was in the best of humours.
“Do not imagine that I shall offer confidences if you refuse to do the same. What do you say? Confidence for confidence?”
Jane nodded, delighted, forgetting her hesitation. It was the best conversation she had had in months. When she spoke with Elizabeth, she generally ended by crying and deepening her sorrow and regrets. There, in that beautiful place, it felt more like clearing her soul and mind.
“Do you wish me to begin?” he asked, though he already knew the answer. The little lady was eager to tell him the whole story.
“I shall begin, if you will permit me.”
They walked a little farther, watching the horses, then sat upon a bench formed by a fallen tree trunk.
“There is an estate near Meryton, perhaps two miles from our home, perhaps more.”
He tried not to look directly at her, wishing to give her complete freedom either to speak or remain silent. He admired her extraordinary beauty, but even more her modesty. Most beautiful ladies he had known in the past were entirely conscious of the power such beauty gave them.
“Netherfield,” she continued.
He remembered the estate at once. He had visited it once with Elizabeth, though he said nothing.
“Last November, the house was rented. It belongs to an elderly gentleman from St Albans who never comes there; at least, we do not know him.”
“But you know his name?”
At first, Jane misunderstood him, thinking he meant Mr Bingley.
“You mean the owner’s name? No, but my parents surely know it. In their youth, there were balls at Netherfield.”
“It does not matter,” he said. “Go on. So the estate was rented to—”
“To Mr Bingley,” Jane whispered. She still hesitated, though in truth there was little to tell.
Sometimes, even she marvelled at how little had truly passed between them.
They had danced together, then she had fallen ill and remained two days at Netherfield.
Their worldly acquaintance had been so slight.
How could she explain the depth of her feelings in so few facts?
There had been the way he looked at her and his gentleness, his timidity so perfectly suited to her own.
“Did he make you any promises?”
“No,” she answered, vaguely uncomfortable.
Looking back upon it, it scarcely resembled a love story at all, and at times she wondered how she had managed to grieve over it for so many months.
Then, without looking at him, she told him the story: her certainty regarding her love and her profound uncertainty about the feelings of the man she loved.
“Was it truly a love story, or was it only my imagination?”
“You are wrong to have doubts,” Uncle Thomas said with vehemence, understanding her discomfort. “It was a real love story; I am sure you did not imagine it. It was a pure and cloudy feeling, and it had more power than any noisy love.”
Jane’s gratitude was so great that tears filled her eyes. He understood everything so well. Not even Elizabeth, who had lived beside her through all those months, had perceived her attachment to Mr Bingley in quite that way.
“Elizabeth is wonderful, but she lives entirely in the real world,” Jane said at last, almost apologetically, as though excusing that slight disloyalty towards her sister.
“Everybody is different. Even sisters raised together may look upon life in entirely different ways.”
“I dearly love her—”
“I know, but Elizabeth cannot understand why you are suffering so much over a couple of dances and a visit to Netherfield.”
“Yes, that is it. She repeats over and over that I must have imagined more than there was. But I did not.”
“Then how do you explain his departure?”
“I cannot,” Jane admitted, blushing.
Uncle Thomas allowed a moment to pass before continuing gently. “Was he previously attached to another lady?”
“I do not believe so. I met his sisters, and I am certain they would have informed me immediately had such a thing existed, merely to make me forget him.”
“So these sisters, did they like you?”
Again, Jane blushed deeply, overcome by old emotions. “I believe they wished their brother to marry a rich lady, or someone from London society.”
“I see.”
There was something in Uncle Thomas’s voice that made Jane stop and look at him. She suddenly felt certain that had the Bingley sisters been present, they would have received some severe words from her uncle. “They treated you unkindly?”
“Not openly. But they spoke disdainfully of my uncle Gardiner’s house because it is not situated in a fashionable district. Things of that nature.”
“So you tried to see him again?”
“Yes. I was in London, but although I met his sisters twice, I never saw him, and this time his sisters…behaved…poorly,” she said, blushing, for she disliked speaking so of anyone, no matter how cruelly they had behaved towards her.
He saw the sorrow that had remained with her for so many months and felt sincere compassion for the beautiful young lady who believed her life ruined by the unhappy ending of a first attachment.
“And Elizabeth? Has she met some gentleman to her liking?”
Jane smiled, and it was like the sun emerging from behind clouds. Looking at her beauty and sweetness, Thomas Bennet found it impossible to understand how any man could love her and still not wish to marry her.
“Elizabeth knows how to behave when she suspects herself unwelcome. She neither cries nor retreats; she fights back. She was the only one who openly stood against Mr Bingley’s sisters. And against that disagreeable man—”
“What man?” Thomas asked at once, suddenly attentive.
“You do not wish to hear about him. He was so proud and disagreeable that nobody could endure him. But Lizzy was never intimidated by him, and they quarrelled several times. Often she was defending me.” Jane smiled faintly, probably remembering one of those moments.
“I see. And this gentleman’s name?”
“Mr Darcy. She met him again in Kent this spring.”
That was enough for Thomas Bennet. Elizabeth might appear the stronger and more combative of the two sisters.
Still, he was now certain that something significant had happened to her as well, something her family knew nothing about.
Unlike Jane, she had concealed her torment, though not entirely successfully.
At times, when she believed herself unobserved, a strange melancholy appeared in her eyes.
And he suspected it would not prove nearly so easy to make Elizabeth confide in him.
“My dear,” Thomas said as they approached the horses, “I understand when a king or a duke must marry his own kin, but to consider a lack of wealth a reason not to surrender to love, that is not a trait of character I admire. You will find a good man, not so far in the future.”
Jane glanced at him quietly. In some ways, he resembled her father greatly, and yet in others, he was entirely different.
His words affected her strangely. During all those months, nobody in the family had succeeded in persuading her that happiness might eventually return.
But Uncle Thomas possessed such experience of life that his confidence in her future felt reassuring.
Others had merely attempted to comfort her.
He seemed capable of seeing beyond her sorrow.
“I do not say this merely for comfort,” he continued, almost as though he had followed her thoughts. “I still possess a few connections in London, and I fully intend to use them.”
All the way home, Jane found herself thinking that perhaps she might indeed enjoy returning to London under happier circumstances.
She did not know precisely what Uncle Thomas intended, but she trusted him completely and, for the first time that summer, she truly heard and enjoyed the beautiful sounds of the woodland around her.
“You deceived me,” she said playfully as they entered Longbourn. “I told you everything about my love, and you did not return the confidence.”
Thomas Bennet kissed her hand.
“We have all the time in the world,” he replied.