Chapter Nineteen
Hertfordshire
“No, no, no, Elinor! You must place the card face down,” Julia Gardiner huffed.
At her side, Margaret Dashwood nodded emphatically. “That way nobody knows if you are lying or not.”
Elinor turned her card over and laid it on a growing pile of cards in the center of the table and screwed up her face at her youngest sister. Marianne surveyed them all with a steely gaze and then slid two cards onto the top of the pile. “Two kings.”
Kitty grinned devilishly. “Thunderation!”
“Bah!” Marianne flipped the two cards over, revealing an eight and a queen. “I thought for sure my bluff was convincing! How are you so good at this game? They only made it up an hour ago.”
Across the parlor, Mrs. Bennet harrumphed and shook her head at them. “Really, Meg, you are a beastly influence on Julia, giving all your games such rude names!”
“This one was my idea,” Julia cried, looking wounded at not getting credit for her brilliance.
Kitty sputtered with laughter as Marianne was obliged to take all the cards from the center of the table and add them to her hand.
Kitty had been weeping that morning at Lydia’s departure for Hampshire, but her cousins were determined to cheer her, and after a few hours of their whimsical games, she had recovered her equanimity.
Mrs. Bennet had also been in near hysterics at parting with her youngest daughter, despite her absolute certainty that the Forsters would introduce Lydia to a great many handsome, single men of fortune.
Mr. Bennet declared himself merely relieved that the house should be quieter with Lydia away on her adventure, and it would be quieter still when Kitty had recovered from the Forsters’ slight.
Mr. and Mrs. Bennet were playing a more sedate card game of their own with Mrs. Dashwood, who had been in low spirits since the news of John losing Norland.
Elinor was glad that Mr. Bennet had troubled himself to leave his book room and offer his sister some comfort.
Elinor might have given her mother some succor with the knowledge of who now held the deed to their former home, but she was not certain that this would be wise.
Marianne, to her sister’s surprise, had recovered from her own devastation at the news with astonishing good cheer.
She and Elinor had spent many hours each day at Netherfield, planning the party with Lady Rebecca.
Mr. Bingley occasionally joined them for an hour or two, and Elinor only wondered how offended Marianne would be if she pointed out that the gentleman’s company had worked magic on her sister’s recent despondency.
When they heard the sounds of a carriage outside, Elinor assumed it must be Lady Rebecca, who called around this time each day before whisking her two dearest friends away until dinner.
Mrs. Bennet grimaced in anticipation. “Today, Kitty, I shall insist you accompany your cousins to Netherfield! It has been three days since the gentlemen visited with her ladyship, and you ought to see them if you can!”
Marianne leaned in to whisper some encouragement to Mary, who sat up straighter as she spoke. “Mamma, the colonel has gone to London, and Mr. Bingley is occupied with his estate. Besides, three days is not so long. I fear we shall seem as desperate as the Lucases.”
Both Elinor and Marianne nodded approvingly at their cousin, who had become more outspoken in the absence of her older sisters.
Mrs. Bennet tittered with indignation. “Well, I am sure nobody could be as bad as the Lucases! All of Meryton quite despises them! And I am determined to see all my girls settled before any of the Lucases!”
Mrs. Hill opened the parlor door and bobbed into a curtsey. “Lady Lucas and her daughter.”
Elinor and her mother exchanged a look of amusement as Mrs. Bennet recoiled in dismay and Mr. Bennet calmly declared he had won their card game. Kitty sprang up from her chair. “Maria?”
But it was Charlotte Lucas who followed her mother into the parlor. Mrs. Bennet merely sat still, her chin held high and her expression cold. Mr. Bennet gave his sister a sardonic look and Mrs. Dashwood rose, ready to be civil. She asked Hill to bring tea, and bade the Lucas ladies take a seat.
Lady Lucas declined. “We do not mean to stay long. I have come to apologize, and so too has Charlotte.”
Mrs. Bennet sniffed, her lips curling with disdain. Mr. Bennet grinned at his wife, and then at the Lucases. “I am sure my wife will be glad to hear it. Her quarrel with you has brought her absolutely no pleasure at all.”
“Nor I, to be sure,” Lady Lucas cried, extending her hand to Mrs. Bennet. “We all spoke in haste, and I daresay have repented that cruel and indecorous scene ever since.”
“Not I,” Marianne said. “I was neither cruel nor indecorous, for I merely expressed my amazement that the Bennets had spent so many years speaking well of you.”
Lady Lucas clenched her jaw and laid a hand on her daughter’s shoulder to still Miss Lucas, who appeared ready to reprise the malice she had shown them that day in the village. “It is true, we were all friends for many years, and we hope it might be so again. Is that not right, Charlotte?”
Miss Lucas closed her eyes for a moment and sucked in a deep breath before regarding them all tranquilly.
“It may seem strange to you that I still mourn the loss of my betrothed, rest his soul, but my grief is no longer so great that I resent your good fortune and popularity,” she said through clenched teeth.
“My girls are very popular,” Mrs. Bennet said, fanning herself haughtily. “They have ever been beautiful, and now they have fortunes – I expect them all to marry far better than they would have done if my Lizzy had accepted Mr. Collins, when he proposed to her first.”
Mrs. Dashwood had resumed her seat, and she now gave her brother a subtle kick under the table.
Mr. Bennet’s eyes sparkled with mirth as he addressed Lady Lucas.
“Yes – well – I, too, lament the loss of Mr. Collins; a vastly amusing fellow. I daresay he was as eager to please and be pleased as Mr. Bingley! You would have made him an eminently suitable bride, Miss Lucas, for it is generally a blessing to be the cleverest one in a marriage.”
Miss Lucas stared at Mr. Bennet with unmasked astonishment for a moment before thanking him for his sentiments.
“I am for London, day after next, to visit my brother and his wife. I could not be content departing the neighborhood until I had made amends, and I know Mamma has missed visiting with you all.”
Elinor was skeptical of the lady’s sincerity, but even so she admired Miss Lucas and her mother’s forbearance, for the ladies of Longbourn were not making it easy for their guests to apologize.
“We wish you safe travels, Miss Lucas. Perhaps you shall see Jane and Lizzy, though we expect their return a few days after your departure. I am sure you would be very welcome in Berkeley Street.”
“Jane and Elizabeth are returning to Longbourn? I suppose your relations will be going back to Devonshire, then,” Lady Lucas mused. “Well, perhaps everything shall be just as it was before, Fanny.”
Mrs. Bennet gave another contemptuous sniff.
“I doubt it, for my Lydia has gone away just this morning to see the Forsters in Hampshire, where she will surely be greatly admired! And my dear girls in London have so many beaux – I daresay I shall be planning wedding breakfasts all through the spring!”
Mrs. Dashwood gave her brother another kick.
He clapped his hands to curtail his wife’s triumphant ramblings.
“Yes, yes, I am sure Longbourn shall be as much a den of feminine frenzy as it ever was. But perhaps our good fortune will be catching, eh, Lady Lucas? Very good of you to come and extend the olive branch, it is just what Mr. Collins would have wished.”
Elinor and her mother both offered the ladies a courteous smile, and Mary nudged Kitty, motioning for her to do the same. Margaret surveyed the tension and asked, “Would you like to play cards? We have made up a new game called Thunderation.”
Lady Lucas failed to conceal her affront, her forced smile twitching. “We have a few other calls to make, as dear Charlotte means to bid the neighborhood farewell. But perhaps we shall meet again soon, at some dinner or party….”
Miss Lucas approached Elinor, careful to avoid meeting Marianne’s eye.
“I have written to Eliza, though I fear she has no wish to hear from me, much less to meet with me in London. It was she who advised me to amend an old quarrel with my brother’s wife.
Perhaps you will send this to her on my behalf? ”
Elinor accepted a small folded note and nodded her head. “I cannot promise she will receive it before returning to Longbourn, but I shall try.”
The Lucas ladies took their leave just as Lady Rebecca was shown into the drawing room.
Her face showed all her playful amazement at the sight of them, but she exchanged a few civilities with Lady Lucas and her daughter, and waited until they had left the house before she laughed at them.
“Well! What was that? Have you reconciled with your offensive erstwhile friends?”
“I should have preferred them to beg a little, after all their horridness,” Mrs. Bennet huffed.
With all her usual relish for Mrs. Bennet’s antics, Lady Rebecca clapped her hands.
“Brava, Madam – I should say so! I have still not forgiven them for making a public spectacle when I was not present to behold it! But I suppose they have seen the wisdom of behaving themselves more amicably, for their past behavior has cost them an invitation to my brother-in-law’s fete at Netherfield. ”
“Exactly so,” Marianne agreed. She snatched Miss Lucas’s letter from Elinor’s hand and threw it into the fire. “There; we can at least spare Lizzy such a false display of remorse.”