Chapter One
Hertfordshire
Elizabeth and Jane embraced Elinor and Marianne warmly as the Bennet family greeted the Dashwoods in front of the house.
It had been a year since they had last been together at Norland Park, the place the Dashwoods had once called home.
The changes which the last year had wrought were written upon the Dashwood ladies’ faces.
Marianne was pale, Elinor had grown too thin, and Margaret skulked behind her mother, who still wore her widow’s black. Mrs. Bennet fussed over them all a great deal, though she said nothing of the family’s woes, for Mr. Bennet had warned his wife not to distress his sister.
Mrs. Dashwood bore the noisy effusions of the Bennets with numb tranquility, and gave a sad smile at Mrs. Gardiner, who shared her mourning garb.
She and her children were ushered into her childhood home; Mrs. Bennet led them all into the parlor, which had been rearranged to accommodate a large bevy of ladies.
“But where is your friend Mrs. Jennings? I have a great hankering to meet her,” Mrs. Bennet cried. “She sounds like a most genteel and generous friend!”
“She is,” Mrs. Dashwood said with a soft smile. “She has been very good to my girls, inviting them to London. At present she is attending to some household matters at Purvis Lodge.”
“Purvis Lodge! Well, my goodness, the attics there are dreadful, and I daresay it is rather musty after being shut up for so long! Still, it was very clever of her to let the place for you all. With Madeline and Julia here, we should have been far too snug all together. Well, I should like to see the place, while you are here – it has been many years, though it is but half a mile from Longbourn. Girls, is it not wonderful that your cousins should be so near?”
Mrs. Dashwood had had a quarter of a century to acclimate herself to the ebullience of her brother’s wife’s manners, but she still recoiled a little at Mrs. Bennet’s volume.
“Mrs. Jennings is very kind. She will be happy to hear your praise of her, Fanny, for I know she wishes you to take tea with her, once she has sorted out the servants.”
Mrs. Bennet was ready to go at once and meet the grand lady, and Mr. Bennet laughed heartily. “Now, Fanny, you promised not to deprive me of my favorite and only sister so swiftly! Did you not mean to take the girls shopping in the village?”
As Mrs. Bennet continued her effusions, Elizabeth smiled at Marianne and Elinor.
“Jane and I decided upon a little plan with Papa, to get our mothers and younger sisters out of the house for a little while, so that we may speak privately together. I cannot promise we shall have an abundance of privacy in the coming weeks, so we must make the most of it.”
Jane smiled tightly at their cousins and whispered, “We have already been to the village and back. Lizzy and I took the cart and loaded it up with greenery; we have hidden it in the stables, and wish to surprise Mamma by decorating the house festively while she is in the village. It is a tradition Papa started many years ago.”
Marianne gave a wistful sigh. “We used to do the same thing to surprise our Papa.” She nodded her approbation at the plan.
“Unless you would prefer to see the village and visit the shops?” Jane looked doubtfully at Elinor.
“No, I know we all have much to say to one another,” Elinor murmured.
She flinched at a shrill laugh from Mrs. Bennet as she compared the heights of young Julia Gardiner and Margaret Dashwood, who were about the same age.
The two girls assessed one another curiously as Mrs. Bennet promised them such fine fripperies to be gotten in the village.
Mr. Bennet was ready to shoo all the ladies from the house, though as his wife and Mrs. Gardiner led the younger girls out, he detained his sister. “Brandy, Maggie?”
Marianne and Elinor watched their uncle lead their mother away with a comforting arm around her shoulders before they followed Jane and Elizabeth out to the stables to retrieve the Christmas greenery. “Poor Mamma,” Marianne sighed. “I know she worries for us, as much as for her own sorrows.”
“I daresay, she refrains from shouting her lamentations about the house at every hour,” Jane said with a sigh. Her eyes went wide and she raised her fingers to her lips. “Oh! That was so horrid; I do not know why I said such a thing.”
“I do,” Elizabeth said drily. “Aunt Maggie may suffer in silence, but Mamma has not passed a single hour without loudly lamenting the departure of Mr. Bingley, since we heard of it. It has been four weeks of her increasingly dire prognostications that we shall end in the hedgerows. It is hardly fair to Jane.”
Elizabeth roughly grabbed a hefty armful of greenery and began carrying it into the house, as her companions did the same.
It was not lost on her that the efforts of decorating were to be for the very woman she was complaining about, but she was determined that the activity would cheer them.
They laid everything down in the foyer, and Jane retrieved a box of red and gold ribbons for them to hang the holly and fir boughs throughout the house.
Marianne pressed Jane’s hand in hers. “You poor thing, Jane! You look truly wretched. But Mamma is not as discreet as you imagine, and Margaret has no sense of decency at all in mentioning Edward constantly – she even told Mrs. Jennings of him – well, she told him of a Mr. F.”
Elinor looked away, fidgeting with a garland. “He made a favorable impression on all of us; it is her right to speak well of him if she chooses.”
Marianne rolled her eyes and looked to Elizabeth for support. “It is unpardonable! I am sorry if your mother is much the same, Jane.”
Elizabeth arched an eyebrow at her younger cousin. “I expect you would be decrying the entire male species, if you had not been invited to London for a reunion with your Mr. Willoughby.”
“Probably,” Marianne admitted, smiling in spite of herself. “As it happens, I could punch Edward on the nose, and your Mr. Bingley, too, Jane.”
Though Jane and Elinor required a little coaxing before either would admit that they were in need of consolation, the four young ladies passed the next hour speaking of their recent heartaches.
And though Marianne now looked forward to a happy reunion with her beau, she recounted every moment of despair she had felt since she had parted with him.
Elizabeth had little to contribute beyond her affection, and her keen eye for decorating the house with holly. She had never been crossed in love, and had borne the news of Mr. Wickham’s sudden pursuit of Miss King with such nonchalance that Marianne declared her perfectly heartless.
Elizabeth was resolved that they should vent their spleen and then make way for happier tidings, and she bore their teasing cheerfully. It was a relief, though she would not own to it, that she had discovered herself completely indifferent to Mr. Wickham’s mercenary defection.
When their task was done, Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Dashwood came and congratulated the girls on their excellent decorations.
It was evident that Mrs. Dashwood had been weeping, and even Mr. Bennet looked unusually somber.
Tears glistened in his eyes as he sipped at his brandy and admired the holiday greenery.
“Very good; my dear Fanny will be pleased.”
He held up a little sprig of mistletoe and gave his sister a quick peck on the cheek before doing the same to his daughters and nieces.
“Well now, no more long faces here! We must all put aside the sorrows of the last year, for we have a party to attend at Lucas Lodge this evening. And if you young ladies are quite finished whispering secrets about your erstwhile lovers, you may find the evening’s festivities a pleasant remedy for romantic yearning.
You are to meet my cousin Collins, who will in three days’ time make Miss Lucas the stalwart and resigned bride every lady hopes to be. ”
When Mrs. Bennet and her companions returned from the village, she gave every proper exultation over the festive greenery before whipping them all into a frenzy of preparations for the party at Lucas Lodge.
The Dashwood ladies returned to Purvis Lodge so that they might dress, and the Bennets commenced their own rowdy routine of animated toilette.
“Shall I survive the evening, do you think?” Elizabeth grinned devilishly in the mirror at Jane as she pinned some silver silk flowers into her hair. “Mamma will grow crosser with me every time Charlotte is congratulated for marrying our idiotic cousin.”
“I am sure you will be disappointed if she does not,” Jane teased her. “But since you have had no heartbreak of your own, I shall not pity you a jot.”
Elizabeth smiled sadly. “Aunt Gardiner has promised to intercede if Mamma complains too much about Mr. Bingley’s departure. It has been nearly four weeks!”
Jane fidgeted with her gown as she stared at her reflection. “He will be forgotten, in time. Ere long I am sure I shall be as indifferent as you are to poor Mr. Wickham.”
“He is not to be poor much longer,” Elizabeth drawled. She went to stand beside her sister, taking in the sight of herself. They looked very fine, though there was nobody to impress but their oldest friends and a few officers who could never be serious prospects.
“I wonder if there is something wrong with me,” Elizabeth sighed.
“Marianne is three years younger than me, and Elinor is nearly a year younger than I am. They have both fallen in love, and you had your heart captured for the first time when you were sixteen. I am twenty, and I have never properly fancied anybody.”
“You prefer to argue with every gentleman you meet,” Jane said with a playful grin. “Perhaps next time you meet a handsome man of fortune, you will not quarrel with him at every turn and besmirch his name about the village.”