Chapter Thirteen #2
Miss Bingley tapped the letter in her hand, taunting Jane with it.
“Perhaps there is already a young man? I hardly know why it should be a secret, unless he is unsuitable. Really, I would be neglecting the honor of my future husband if I did not do him the service of discovering what you are about.”
The tension in Jane’s chest eased a little as she recalled what she had written; she had discouraged Frank from writing to her, but had gone into little detail beyond an assurance of her affection.
Perhaps she might bluff her way out of this, if she could convince Miss Bingley that she meant to put him off.
She held the harpy’s gaze, determined that Elizabeth Bennet could never be so easily cowed.
Miss Bingley unfolded the letter. She swept her gaze over it, then furrowed her brow. “You have signed the letter Jane . What is the meaning of this, Eliza? You do have a beau, and it seems you fear discovery.”
Jane debated whether to feign defeat until she could determine what to do – if Miss Bingley believed she had triumphed….
The doors to the music room abruptly opened, and Bessie Hill came into the room looking eerily calm.
Miss Bingley tucked her arms behind her back, concealing the letter as the housekeeper inquired whether they should like tea.
When Miss Bingley declined at once, the housekeeper looked to Jane for confirmation. Jane answered in the affirmative.
But Bessie did not leave the room. She lingered, twisting her hands with almost theatrical anxiety as she moved closer to Jane.
Making no attempt to moderate her voice, she asked, “I wonder, Miss Lizzy, if you’ve yet had any reply to my special letter?
The one you gave to Miss Lucas, to pass along to the butler? Such a handsome fellow he is!”
Jane’s eyes widened as she realized Bessie must have been listening at the door, and she suspected it was more than loyalty that moved the woman to cover for her.
Miss Bingley huffed and rolled her eyes, clearly not fooled by this attempt at concealment.
“Since when have you been called Jane, Bessie?”
“Since I was born,” Bessie said, stoutly staring down the viper that circled them. “Bessie is just an endearment a few folks have the privilege of calling me.”
“And Mr. Bennet would confirm this, if I asked him?”
“He’d confirm the moon is made of butterscotch if he thought it were a lark to agree with me,” Bessie said flatly.
Jane could not prevent herself from laughing, which raised Miss Bingley’s ire.
She moved toward the escritoire and drew a clean sheet of paper across it, then slammed a pen down atop the paper.
“Write something for me. ‘ I miss you terribly, my darling.’ ” Miss Bingley glanced down at the note and read the phrase aloud.
Bessie shrugged her shoulders. “You were rough with that pen, Madam. It may need mending, which Lizzy and I are rubbish at.”
Miss Bingley closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath of frustration, and then she opened her reticule and displayed a small pencil between her thumb and index finger.
Bessie gestured to Jane. “You will have to oblige her, Lizzy if she means to compare writing, since my penmanship is as poor as my station, and you take down dictation for me when I write to my sweetheart.”
“Yes,” Jane agreed with a grin. “The handsome butler at Lucas Lodge has received many a pretty compliment from you, which I am not at all loath to transcribe and pass along to Charlotte.”
Miss Bingley snapped the pencil in her hands. “I do not believe you. Mr. Bennet will most assuredly be hearing of this.”
Bessie peered over at Jane, and then she looked pointedly at the letter.
Miss Bingley’s grasp on it had relaxed when she snapped the pencil.
Bessie gave a tip of her head in that direction, then flicked her gaze to the fireplace.
“Lizzy, perhaps you better confess; it would not do to burn a bridge with Miss Bingley. You might appeal to her romantic sensibilities – she is a bride to be, and you have not tried a tender approach .”
Jane took a few steps toward Miss Bingley.
“Very well, it is my letter. George and I use false names in our communication, for discovery is our greatest fear. He is not unsuitable – it is not my guardian we fear, but his. He is beholden to his wicked old aunt, who wishes him to catch a lady more like you, a lady of style and connections – but with perhaps a title of her own.” Jane chanced a few more slow steps toward her rival, offering up a detail she knew the cruel shrew would relish.
“I am not up to her standards, and so I am considering giving up any hope that we might wait for….”
Miss Bingley relaxed her posture and laughed wickedly.
“You could certainly do better than wait for the old harridan to die, if that is what you mean! You may be an insignificant country miss of middling fortune, but you are pretty enough, and have a little talent. We shall find somebody to take you.”
With her free hand, Miss Bingley reached up and patted Jane’s cheek – and Jane leaned closer, taking this opportunity to snatch the letter from Miss Bingley’s grasp.
She took several hasty steps back as Miss Bingley reached for it and tore it into pieces as she crossed the room and cast the scraps into the fire.
She was glad she had risked asking for a small blaze in the height of summer, for she found the house drafty; Hertfordshire was cooler than the climate of Highbury, where she generally passed the warmer months.
Bessie let out a merry, indecorous hoot. “Well done, Lizzy!”
Miss Bingley was fuming. “It hardly signifies; you have told me far more than I could have learned from the letter alone.”
Jane had concealed the most important secret – her identity – and this must be enough. “I was struck by the merit of your logic, Miss Bingley, when you observed that there can be no real condemnation without proof.”
“If her pretty story were the truth, you could not prove it,” Bessie agreed.
Jane smiled at the woman who had provided her salvation. “I have changed my mind about having tea. I do not believe Miss Bingley intends to stay.”
Miss Bingley departed, and Jane exhaled heavily, trembling as she sank down onto the sofa.
She knew she was not entirely out of the woods, for Bessie closed the doors and locked them.
She rested both hands on her hips as she stared at Jane.
“Well, my dear, I think we are overdue for a chat. But I don’t suppose I shall learn that my Lizzy has a lover. ”
“No,” Jane sighed. “ She does not.”
“That is one great shock I am spared. To see the girl I have raised from a babe, as if she were my own, returned home so altered has been quite enough. You do not argue with Mr. Bennet, which might be a relief, but for this being the one time I should like nothing better. You let that woman come in here like she owns the place – my Lizzy would never!”
Bessie had grown heated; she took a calming breath before continuing in a softer tone. “But then, my Lizzy does not ride better than her father, or play concertos that bring the maids to tears, or say no to Cook’s salmon. And of all the names to have signed on a secret letter….”
She knew. Jane breathed a sigh of relief and stood to face the kindly, maternal woman. “And if I told you it was my own?”
Bessie shook her head. “That could not be.”
“Could Lady Gresham not be the widow of Edward Gardiner?”
Bessie drew in a sharp breath and pursed her lips together as if fighting off some greater display of emotion. “That would certainly cast a new light on her mishap near Meryton so many years ago.”
“Had she no right to be curious about her niece, my sister?”
Bessie’s bottom lip quivered, and she shook her head. “Oh, do not trifle with me, little girl. This cannot be.”
Jane stepped forward, extending her handkerchief to the housekeeper, who was fighting off tears. “Our aunt invited us both, knowing it was inevitable that we would discover the truth.”
Tears finally fell freely down Bessie’s face, but she did not take the handkerchief. Instead she cupped Jane’s face in her hands. “Are you really…?”
“Jane Fairfax, yes, but I ought to have been Jane Bennet.”
“Aye, so you should,” was all the housekeeper could say before she pulled Jane into a warm embrace.
She proceeded to fuss over Jane, admiring her as if she were outwardly different from Elizabeth, and then she demanded every detail.
They sat down together and Jane shared the story of how she and her sister had put it all together, from the old drawings of Fanny Bates and Captain Bennet, to the inscription in Elizabeth’s copy of Gulliver’s Travels.
“I’ll not deny I wrote of Highbury, where she purchased the book, as a sort of clue for her to find, and I never told Mr. Bennet that it was Lizzy who stole the sketch of your mother,” Bessie confessed, laughing through her tears of joy.
“Oh, but I am so pleased you’ve found one another.
I hope the pair of you are not too cross with us for keeping it secret. ”
Jane smiled, nearly as overcome with feeling as the housekeeper. “Our aunt explained a great deal, but we should like to hear the why of it all from our mother and father.”
“And Lizzy is really in Highbury, masquerading as you, with golden hair and all?”
“She is.”
Bessie laughed a deep belly laugh. “Having seen what you can do on the pianoforte, our poor girl may find herself in quite a dilemma.”
“There is no instrument in the cottage – I have often desired one, but there is no space for a pianoforte, and I am there but a few months of each year. I imagine she may have as difficult a time holding her tongue as I have had with not doing so,” Jane said, laughing alongside the housekeeper.
“I suppose Miss Bingley has proven quite the obstacle in your scheme.”