The Empty Lane
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Elizabeth heard her mother at the foot of the stairs, shouting at her younger sisters to wear fresh lace and bring down their best bonnets, for the gentlemen were certain to call, and everyone would have a most merry time on St. Thomas Day, passing out baskets and visiting the tenants.
Jane had risen early and had already descended to the breakfast room as the new heiress of Longbourn.
Elizabeth, however, felt no inclination to join the merry ranks below.
Instead, she lingered at her bedchamber window, tracing the delicate, fern-like lacework of frost upon the glass, her gaze drifting—entirely against her better judgment—toward the steward’s cottage.
Had Darcy passed a sleepless night there?
Would he appear among the basket-bearers, or had the mill inspection claimed him?
Her thoughts, as ever, ran ahead of her.
She checked herself with a mental reprimand. Longbourn was no longer Darcy’s proper concern—if the exuberant, celebratory toasts echoing late into the night through the wainscoting were any indication.
Movement on the lane caught her attention, and two riders emerged from behind the hedgerow. A loaded carriage followed, Vernon visible on the box beside the driver. Elizabeth’s hand pressed flat against the cold glass without her permission.
Darcy rode in front, his greatcoat dark against the pale winter sky, his posture as correct as ever.
Colonel Fitzwilliam was beside him, saying something that made him shake his head.
They were leaving. They were actually departing—without breakfast, without farewell, without so much as a note sent up to the house to explain.
Her heart lodged in her throat. Had she driven him away?
He had caught her by surprise, asking her—no, not asking—but pressing her with feelings she could not acknowledge.
He had been noble and kind, but when she demanded the reason he wanted to marry her, he had said she would understand if she knew his character.
And she had not possessed a ready reply because what she thought she knew had shifted, and she was no longer sure she had the lay of him at all.
A man who could steady her on the ice and praise her unsteady piano playing—and in the same breath confess he had driven Bingley from Jane out of spite.
One who came as the conquering hero and departed like a meek lamb. For he was leaving, was he not?
She watched as the riders approached the bend in the lane—the place where the road curved south around the low rise, where Longbourn would disappear from view, and a traveler would see nothing but open fields and the Meryton church spire.
Colonel Fitzwilliam rode on without pausing, but Darcy reined in his mount.
He turned in the saddle, holding his horse steady and looked back—at her, for even at the distance, she could make out his tortured gaze.
And then, he lifted his hat, tipping it to the house, the empty lane, perhaps?
He could not see her; she did not think so, as the sun reflected off the east-facing window.
But it did not matter, because he was leaving, and the gesture held for a breath—a man saying goodbye to a house, or a window, which might not have anyone behind it—to a woman who had not given him any reason to return.
The lump hardened in Elizabeth’s throat as Darcy settled his hat, turned his horse and rode away. She watched until she could watch no more, until the following carriage had also disappeared, and there was nothing left but the grey morning and the cold glass beneath her hand.
And she could no longer be alone, so she gathered her skirts and went down the stairs. She had not reached the bottom step when Mrs. Bennet’s lamentations achieved full-scale eruption.
“Gone! Both gentlemen gone, without so much as a by-your-leave. We had planned the goose! The spiced syllabub! The whole of Christmas Eve was to be a tableau, and now we have lost our two best gentlemen.”
Elizabeth entered the breakfast room to find Mrs. Bennet clutching a note in one hand and a piece of toast in the other.
The rest of her sisters were arrayed around the table, Kitty and Lydia squabbling for the marmalade, and Mary with her nose buried in a book of sermons.
Jane poured tea calmly, not in the least bit affected by this latest maternal calamity.
“He did leave a word of explanation,” Mr. Bennet observed mildly. “Several words, in fact. His sister is ill, and he has been summoned to her bedside.”
“Oh, I hope the illness is not serious,” Elizabeth said, sitting in her usual chair near Jane. “Did he say?”
“No, only that he has been called to Matlock and thanks us for our hospitality and trusts that the entail documents are in order.”
“Entail documents! Lizzy, did you ask him to change them?” Mamma rounded on her with the swiftness of a hawk spotting a field mouse. “Mr. Philips and your father were in there for hours, and is it true? That he did it for you? Put Jane on as heir because of you?”
“I believe that the gentleman stated it plainly,” Mr. Bennet said.
“He answered Mr. Philips’s questions sufficiently, and was determined to be of sound mind, and so, with my permission, he changed the entail to include female heirs.
And in doing so, Mrs. Bennet, he has saved our daughters, and you need not worry about any of them marrying.
Jane will inherit, and all of you can live here happily ever after. ”
“Five spinsters residing at Longbourn.” Mrs. Bennet fluttered, shaking her teacup. “That will not do. What I wonder, Lizzy, is what did you do to compel Mr. Darcy into giving Longbourn to Jane? Whatever could have prevailed on him to do so? Did you give him a kind word? A smile? Or a promise?”
“She must have kissed him,” Lydia chortled. “Mamma, you hung a huge kissing bough in the small parlor. Mr. Darcy and Lizzy were in there for quite some time.”
“I did not give Mr. Darcy anything,” Elizabeth declared hotly. “He wished to know my opinion, whether he should change the entail for Jane’s favor, and I nodded. That was all.”
“A nod?” Mrs. Bennet’s voice rose incredulously.
“Lizzy, did I not teach you anything? When a gentleman of consequence wishes to speak privately, you do not sit there and nod. You permit him to be overcome by your beauty and charm, and then you accept his proposal with becoming modesty. Then you come out and tell your mother so she can order the wedding silks!”
“That was not what happened, Mamma,” Elizabeth protested.
“Obviously not,” Mrs. Bennet wailed. “A man just does not give up an inheritance for nothing. He must have wanted something from you, Lizzy.” Her eyes narrowed with predatory hope.
“Did he propose and you refused him? Tell me you did not refuse him. Tell me, Elizabeth Rose Bennet, that you did not reject another heir of Longbourn, because if you have, I shall… I shall…”
“He is no longer the heir of Longbourn,” Mr. Bennet said, “and there was no proposal to decline. I was sitting right outside, and Lizzy was uncharacteristically quiet.”
“That is precisely my point!” Mrs. Bennet wailed.
“If Lizzy had only exerted herself to smile or been kind to Mr. Darcy, had shown him the smallest spark of feminine warmth instead of her habitual haughty disdain—he would have offered for her, and she would be Mrs. Darcy with Pemberley, and Jane would still have Longbourn, and we should all be secured twice over. But no! My headstrong, obstinate, mulish daughter sits in a parlor with the finest gentleman in England, and he gives her the family estate, and she says, ‘thank you very much, now please leave!’ Oh, the waste! The shocking, spectacular waste!”
“I did not say ‘please leave.’” Elizabeth’s hands were shaking, and Jane noticed, pouring another cup of tea for her.
“You said nothing at all! Oh my nerves, my poor, poor nerves.” Mrs. Bennet assailed the soft-boiled egg with a teaspoon.
“And now he is gone, riding to Matlock as we speak. When he gets there, his aunt will introduce him to some earl’s daughter with forty thousand pounds and connections to the Crown, and he will forget he ever set foot in Hertfordshire, and Lizzy will be a spinster at Longbourn writing letters to no one while Jane and her husband—” Mrs. Bennet stopped, struck by a new thought.
“Jane, if you are the heir, then any man who marries you must take our name. He must become a Bennet. Oh! Oh, that is—Mr. Bennet, is that true?”
“It is a condition of the entail, yes.”
“Then we must find Jane a husband who does not mind being renamed! Oh, but most gentlemen would object—their pride, their family honor—we must find a younger son, perhaps, or a gentleman without consequence who would welcome the improvement! Mr. Bennet, what about that pleasant Mr. Bingley who was at Netherfield? He was quite fond of Jane, and he is in trade, so his name carries less weight.”
“Mr. Bingley left Netherfield without a word, Mamma,” Elizabeth said, the old sting returning—made sharper still by Darcy’s confession that he had urged Bingley’s departure. She could not dwell on it now, not with her mother’s gaze fixed upon her like a pair of loaded cannons.
“He will return now that Jane is an heiress,” Mrs. Bennet said, dabbing her eyes with a napkin. “Dear Jane, do not look so distressed. Perhaps that fine colonel will return. He seemed quite taken by you.”
“Mamma!” Elizabeth’s temper flared. “Are you not concerned about fortune hunters? Shouldn’t Jane decide on a man based on his character and not his ability to scent out Longbourn’s income?”
Mrs. Bennet’s teaspoon stopped mid-strike.
“Longbourn’s income. The improvements Mr. Darcy was making.
Has he abandoned them? The new ballroom?
The mill and the tenant cottages? There are invoices, Mr. Bennet!
The northern fields were to be drained. The dance master, Monsieur Belcourt, is engaged through February, and Mrs. Beaumont requires her fee quarterly.
Who is to pay for all of this if the no-longer-the-heir has bolted back to Derbyshire? ”
“I believe Mr. Darcy has fully funded the accounts,” Mr. Bennet said. “He is not a man who leaves things half-done.”
“Well, that is something, I suppose.” Mrs. Bennet sniffed. “Though I would have preferred a son-in-law to a settled invoice.”
“I believe, Mamma,” Jane said, with a sympathetic glance at Elizabeth, “that Lady Lucas has not yet heard our news about the changed entail and my inheritance.”
The effect was instantaneous. Mrs. Bennet’s eyes, still damp with tears, sharpened with competitive fire.
Lady Lucas—that woman who had crowed about Charlotte’s advantageous match with Mr. Collins, who had practically wallpapered her drawing room with her daughter’s good fortune until the man had the discourtesy of expiring—Lady Lucas did not yet know that Jane Bennet was an heiress.
“She remains entirely ignorant,” Mrs. Bennet exulted, and a smile spread across her face like a cat settling before a canary.
“She does not know. Mr. Bennet, I must call on Lady Lucas this morning before anyone else can tell her. I must be the first; it is only right, it is news of this magnitude. I shall wear my blue spencer.”
“Take Lydia and Kitty,” Mr. Bennet suggested, with the transparent motive of clearing his breakfast table. “And Mary, if she can be persuaded to leave her sermons.”
“I shall not leave my sermons,” Mary said. “But I will come, as it presents an opportunity to model the deportment Mrs. Beaumont requires when delivering news of social significance. A straight spine and a measured tone, with the chin held at the angle of composure.”
“Exquisite,” Mrs. Bennet said, already halfway to the doorway. “Kitty, your posture! Lydia, put down that ham! We are calling on Lady Lucas, and we must look as though we have always been heiresses.”
The breakfast room emptied like a theatre at the end of a play, with Mrs. Bennet shooing her three youngest daughters like baby chicks, clucking all the way down the corridor and already rehearsing their good fortune.
Mr. Bennet lifted his gaze from the newspaper he had been studying assiduously.
“Well, Lizzy, it appears you have received everything you wished for. Jane is the heir, and Mr. Darcy has gone away. No improvements are needed on your part, and your pink journal can remain unused. Jane will learn how to steward Longbourn. You can retire to the window seat with a book and rejoice that Mr. Darcy gave away an estate for less than a song.”
Elizabeth swallowed, bracing herself for her father’s final pronouncement.
“I only wonder, dear Elizabeth, whether your victory tastes as sweet as you expected.” He folded his newspaper and departed the breakfast table.
Elizabeth and Jane sat alone at the table. The teapot had gone cold; the toast rack stood half-empty. Through the window, the bleak December morning spread pale and still across the frozen garden, and the lane where two riders had passed not half an hour ago lay empty and quiet.
Jane took Elizabeth’s hand. “Are you well?”
Elizabeth looked at her sister—steady, gentle, patient Jane, who had absorbed the news of her own inheritance with more concern for Elizabeth than for herself—and the ache in her chest gave way, a tightness releasing.
“No,” she whispered. “Not entirely.”
Jane did not press. She understood why Elizabeth had disliked Darcy and yet been drawn to him, telling herself she only wished to argue or contend with him, while remembering the steadying hand, the handkerchief, the small touches, the ways he noticed her and sought her comfort and understanding.
And the hat he had lifted in farewell.
“Would you walk with me?” Elizabeth asked after a long, aching pause. “To the tenant farms. It is St. Thomas’s Day, and we ought to bring baskets. And if you are to be the heir of Longbourn, the tenants should know their future mistress.”
Jane’s expression softened. “I should like that very much.”