Chapter Two
Elizabeth slept poorly, and woke little refreshed.
Looking out of her window at a sky still grey and cast over with clouds, she hoped it would not rain further and delay her aunt’s arrival at Longbourn.
But before that, there was a great deal to do: she and Jane had some little needlework details to finish on Jane’s gown, and then they intended to bathe, and dress each other’s hair before the ball.
They had best get started, and so she leaned over to the other side of the bed and gently shook her sister awake.
According to her good nature, Jane awoke with a smile on her lips and was much amenable to getting started on their preparations straightaway, so they should be ready before their aunt’s arrival.
It also kept them sequestered from Mr Collins, who could be heard stumping around the house, cranky because he could not spend the morning paying fatuous compliments to Elizabeth, and out of the way of Kitty and Lydia, who spent the morning bickering as usual.
Mary shut herself in the music-room and could be heard plunking away at the pianoforte, practicing some dirge she no doubt hoped to exhibit that evening.
Elizabeth could only hope devoutly that she would not be given the opportunity.
Elizabeth had just finished untying the last of the curl-rags from Jane’s golden hair – her own dark locks were curly enough not to need them – when they heard the sound of carriage wheels outside.
“Our Aunt is here!” and they were both scrambling up from the cushions where they had been sitting before the fire. Downstairs they rushed, and were just in time to see their aunt walk into the hallway.
“Aunt Madeline!”
“Dear Jane, dear Lizzy!” she opened her arms to them and they threw themselves against her, much as they had been doing for the last ten years since she married their uncle. She had very rapidly become their favourite aunt, wise and kind. “My dear girls, what a pleasure to see you!”
“Sister,” Mr Bennet’s voice came dryly from the doorway to his book-room, “a pleasure indeed, though unlooked-for until last night. Can your urgent business wait until after you have settled in or must we speak now?”
“It can wait, Brother Bennet.” She smiled, walked over and kissed his cheek. “You look well.”
“As do you,” he smiled at her fondly. “Edward is well? The children?”
“Very well.”
“Well, Jane and Lizzy will make you comfortable, I am sure, and I shall be here when you are ready.” He gave her a slight bow, and left her to his daughters.
“Mama is just at her bath, Aunt, but allow us to show you upstairs. Oh, Adams,” Jane saw the young groom enter, carrying a trunk. “You got to London in time and safely, then?”
“Yes, Miss Bennet, thank’ee, Miss Bennet,” he flushed and tugged at his forelock.
“Indeed he did, and yes, I have brought my new gown with me, though I cannot think it was quite so urgent to set that poor young man on the road all night. He will be quite exhausted. The note said I should attend the ball with you?” Mrs Gardiner looked at her nieces.
“Yes, Aunt, I sent a note to Miss Bingley this morning and the response came not an hour hence, that we should of course be welcome to bring any relative of ours,” Jane soothed.
“Oh, good, I would not impose for the world. Now I know your cousin Mr Collins is occupying the guest room, where am I to sleep? I could share with one of you girls…”
“Certainly not!” Jane and Elizabeth both chorused.
“Jane shares with me, and you have her room. We made it up with fresh linen last night and Hill lit the fire first thing this morning. It should be lovely and snug, and we will have Sarah bring up warm water directly for you to refresh yourself, and tea.”
“Good, and then you must come with me to your father and we shall talk, Lizzy,” Mrs Gardiner said rather ominously.
Jane looked at Elizabeth with eyebrows raised, but Elizabeth could only shrug her shoulders, her eyes wide with confusion.
“I beg that you will tap on my door when you are ready for me, Aunt,” was all she could say, and then they were at the door to Jane’s room.
“I shall call Sarah to attend to you now.”
“I should think half an hour, Lizzy,” was Mrs Gardiner’s parting remark.
Of course, half an hour stretched into a great deal longer once Mrs Bennet realised her sister by marriage had arrived.
She made a great fuss, demanding to know what disaster had befallen her brother, or her nephew or nieces in London.
It took Mrs Gardiner a good while to soothe her, all the while fending off impertinent and silly questions from Lydia and Kitty respectively.
And then once they had managed to extricate themselves, Mrs Gardiner and Elizabeth encountered Mr Collins in the hallway downstairs.
Of course he had to be introduced, and spent a good ten minutes making fatuous remarks, bowing in Elizabeth’s direction every few moments, as Mrs Gardiner watched with a sardonic eye and glanced at Elizabeth often, smiling slightly.
Mr Collins even attempted to enter the book-room with them, but was firmly and not too politely evicted by Mr Bennet, who declared that he had not been invited to this particular, private discussion and as such could wait along with the rest of the family for any results he might care to disseminate.
“Good Lord,” Mrs Gardiner sank into a chair, smiling at her brother-in-law and her niece. “Tell me you shan’t let Lizzy marry that idiot, Thomas!”
“I have already advised Lizzy of that fact,” Mr Bennet said with a smile, “and I am only hoping that the buffoon has the decency to propose to her within earshot so that I may be amused by the setting-down she shall give him.”
“Papa, that is cruel,” Elizabeth admonished.
“He may be a fool, but he is a decent man who means well. I should take no pleasure in being forced to reject him, and I would far rather you made it clear to him before-hand that his suit would not be accepted. I have certainly done my best to do so but I do not think he has heard a word I have said; perhaps he might listen to you!”
“Well said, Lizzy,” Mrs Gardiner approved.
“Oh, you are spoiling all of my diversion,” Mr Bennet sighed.
“Very well, I shall have a word with him tomorrow, I daresay. For now, Madeline, why don’t you enlighten us on what all this to-do is about?
Because Lizzy seems to not have the faintest idea.
She was just as bemused by your note as I.
” He glanced at the sideboard. “May I pour you a sherry?”
“Do you know, I think I will. I was quite overset yesterday when I received Lizzy’s letter, and I declare I slept not a wink last night.
” Mrs Gardiner accepted the small glass of sherry Mr Bennet pressed upon her, sat back and made herself comfortable while Mr Bennet poured himself a glass of brandy and seated himself also.
Lizzy perched on a stool, gazing at her aunt in confusion.
“Dear Aunt,” she said, “I have not the faintest idea what I could have said to make you rush here so precipitously! Our opinions of Mr Darcy seem to be most peculiarly at odds, but that could not make you react so drastically, surely? And in your note, you mentioned Mr Wickham?”
“Wickham,” Mrs Gardiner, Elizabeth’s mild-mannered, sweet aunt, fairly spat the name. “Elizabeth, that man is scum.”
“Aunt Gardiner!” Wide-eyed, Elizabeth stared. “Pray, whatever can you mean?”
The tale her aunt told then shocked both Elizabeth and her father utterly.
As a young girl growing up in Lambton, Madeline Thompson (for that was her maiden name) enjoyed an enviable position as the daughter of the local solicitor.
Distantly connected to and under the patronage of the Darcys of Pemberley, the Thompsons were one of the foremost families of the district, despite not being strictly gentlefolk.
They were invited everywhere, and Madeline had been admired by not a few of the well-born young gentlemen of the area. As was her sister Louise.
“You have a sister?” Mr Bennet interrupted, astonished. “I did not know!”
“She is dead,” Mrs Gardiner said grimly. “Dead these eleven years.”
Louise was five years younger than her sister, a blossoming beauty of fifteen, when she came to the notice of Mr Wickham.
He was attending his first year at Cambridge, and came home for the Easter holidays.
The young Mr Darcy had gone to visit his aunt in Kent and Mr Darcy the elder was unwell, the first hints of the illness that would take his life four years later laying him low.
Mr Wickham, bored and in want of diversion, turned his sights on Miss Louise Thompson.
She, dazzled by his good looks and charm, allowed herself to be entranced.
Believed his whispers that they would be married as soon as he finished his studies.
“And then the holidays ended,” Madeline said bitterly, “and he was off back to Cambridge.”
Elizabeth and her father looked at each other, and then back at Mrs Gardiner. “Well – this does not sound so very wicked,” Mr Bennet said slowly, “rather a case of young love that had no time to blossom.”
“Oh, it blossomed all right,” Madeline said, and then, to their mutual horror, she raised her hand and described with it an arc above her belly.
“No!” Elizabeth gasped.
Oh, yes. Louise Thompson was with child, and when the unworldly young girl realised what had happened to her – several months on – who else could she confide in but her beloved big sister?
By then the summer holidays had come and gone too, Wickham and his promises with them, and Louise finally understood that the plumping of her belly was not due to eating too many sweetmeats.