Chapter 1 #2
Mr Bennet leant back in his chair, correcting his posture after he had angrily sat up a moment before.
“Your uncle will continue to search, and as he is so much more knowledgeable about London, he sent me home. I am certain he found me quite useless in the search and felt he could do a better job without me there. It would not surprise me if he is not the only one to think so. If he discovers anything, he will send me a letter, but I do not expect to hear from him anytime soon, if ever again. I would not be surprised if they cut the connexion entirely.”
Kitty began to quietly cry while Mary looked ready to read from a sermon. However, with Mr Bennet in the room, she restrained herself, but her elder sisters could tell what it cost her to do so.
Little was said for the next several minutes. Jane ensured that everyone had their tea, and Elizabeth helped pass out some of the biscuits and pastries that waited for them on the tea tray. This alleviated some of the tension in the room but did not dissipate it entirely.
Eventually, Kitty spoke, perhaps hoping to break the tension in the room, but her efforts fell flat. “Papa, what will happen to Lydia?”
“I do not know, and given how little she considered her sisters in the matter, I am not certain that any of us should care, either,” Mr Bennet said, his voice sharp with venom.
“But I do wonder what you knew of Lydia’s plans.
She wrote to you more often than to the rest—did she hint at her intentions?
Did you conceal that knowledge from me?” His anger mounted with each word until, by the end, his voice all but thundered, leaving his daughters stunned by the vehemence of his response.
“No, Papa,” Kitty cried, her tears falling in earnest now. “She never even mentioned Mr Wickham in her letters.”
Mr Bennet shook his head ruefully, then rose with sudden resolve and quit the room, leaving his daughters in stunned silence.
Elizabeth reached for Kitty’s hand, attempting to offer what comfort she could, but the girl—her eyes still brimming with her tears—soon excused herself and fled upstairs to her chamber.
Mary sat stiffly, her lips pressed tight in a visible effort to restrain herself from speaking further, while Jane kept her gaze lowered, her quiet composure scarcely concealing the strain she endured.
Elizabeth’s own heart ached, torn between compassion for her sisters and anger at her father.
His words had been cruel, however just his frustrations, and she could not help but fear that he believed them.
What if he truly thought Lydia lost forever?
What if he meant to abandon hope altogether?
The thought chilled her and left her worried about what would happen to their family after this.
At last, one by one, the remaining sisters each left the drawing room to attend to whatever they could find to occupy themselves.
“Forgive us, Lizzy,” Jane said sometime later, after carrying tea and cakes to their mother’s room, where she remained in bed.
Their Aunt Philips had called earlier today, and the two women had bemoaned the loss of Lydia together for some time.
Jane had been forced to remain in her mother’s room to ensure that Mrs Bennet did not say anything she ought not, for she knew very well that whatever her mother said to Mrs Philips would be spread throughout the village before long.
She found Elizabeth working in the stillroom, where she had gone to get away from the noise her mother and aunt had created.
“Forgive you for what, Janey?” Elizabeth asked, puzzled at her sister’s apology.
“Have you forgotten that today is your birthday?” Jane pressed gently. “You are one-and-twenty today.”
Elizabeth sighed. “I am aware, but it has scarcely seemed to signify. There has been too much else upon our minds.”
“But despite Lydia’s situation, we should still celebrate the day of your birth, if only in a small way,” Jane insisted. “I asked the cook if she might prepare lemon tarts for our evening meal—or perhaps for tea afterward.”
“That is kind of you, Jane,” Elizabeth replied with a small smile. “I had nearly forgotten myself. However, I had thought of visiting Papa’s library to see if I could find a volume of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.”
Jane tilted her head with a questioning look, but Elizabeth said no more.
In truth, her thoughts strayed to the book resting upon her bedside table, and to the secret note that had slipped from its pages.
How she longed to steal away from her home, from the chaos and the noise, to read “Sonnet 123” and uncover whatever meaning Mr Darcy might have intended, if indeed, the letter and book were from him.
Yet in light of the day’s troubles, it seemed wiser—kinder—to keep the gift to herself, and to bury her yearning beneath the family’s grief.
Elizabeth was at last able to slip away and entered her father’s study.
He sat at his desk, reading as usual, yet to her eyes he seemed far older than he had before she left for the north.
The lines upon his face appeared deeper, his shoulders more stooped, and she felt a pang of compassion.
Despite his harsh words earlier, it was plain he was troubled by Lydia’s disappearance.
For a moment she wished to speak, to offer some comfort, but the words would not come.
Beneath her pity lingered the sharp reminder that it was his inaction which had led them here.
She recalled pleading with him not to permit Lydia’s trip to Brighton, and his easy dismissal of her warnings—insisting that Lydia must be allowed the chance to expose herself.
How careless that now seemed! He had been blind, or perhaps merely indifferent, to Lydia’s attitude and manner He had refused to check her behaviour, allowing her to disregard propriety, and he had granted her far too much freedom, which now imperilled all his daughters and forced them to share her ruin.
With an effort, Elizabeth shook off the thought and asked permission to take a book of sonnets from the library.
He nodded, and as soon as she found the volume, he waved her away, unwilling to engage in conversation.
The sight stung her afresh: the weary, silent man who had once been the cleverest of fathers.
She could not help but wonder, not without bitterness, whether he felt any guilt at having been so wrong when they had spoken in May—or whether he, too, sought to hide from his failures in his books.
Not wishing to engage anyone in conversation, she took the book outside to the gardens. Without wasting too much time, she opened the book and soon located “Sonnet 123”:
No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old;
And rather make them born to our desire
Than think that we before have heard them told.
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wondering at the present nor the past;
For thy records and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste.
This I do vow and this shall ever be;
I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee.
Elizabeth read the sonnet twice, scarcely daring to trust her own understanding. Surely it could not mean what she thought? He could not be professing constancy to her—not after all that had passed between them.
And yet, how else was she to take it? Astonishment mingled with a strange, trembling warmth as she considered the possibility. That he should send such a gift was wholly improper, and yet it had been managed so discreetly that few—if any—could suspect from whence it came.
Still, she could not determine his true intention.
Was he merely declaring that he would remember her with affection, keeping her in his heart while eventually bowing to duty and marrying some lady of society?
Or did he mean more—that he would wait, that when Lydia’s scandal had faded into the past, he might yet return to her?
It was impossible for Elizabeth to forget how kind he had been when she had met him so unexpectedly at Pemberley.
The experience ought to have been mortifying—and indeed the first few minutes had been—but when he reappeared, he was everything courteous and gentlemanly to her and her relations for the remainder of their visit.
On their next meeting, he had been no less attentive.
At first she had almost wondered if he acted so merely to prove her wrong, to show that he was capable of civility, but the longer she observed him, the more she understood: he was showing her his true self.
Not with arrogance, not with condescension, but with sincerity, as though he longed for her to see him as he truly was.
To be the object of such a man’s regard—it had been both humbling and exhilarating.
Once again, she pondered the circumstances that had brought them to where they now were.
Had he arrived at the inn in Lambton, that day, sooner—before she had opened Jane’s letters—she might have expected him to renew his addresses, perhaps even request a formal courtship.
Surely he must have known that her feelings had softened?
Surely he must have intended to speak of a future between them?
But all had been ruined by the news of Lydia’s elopement.
Oh, what a fool I was! she thought bitterly. So blinded by pride, by prejudice, that I cast him aside when he offered me everything. I mocked him; I judged him, and now—when I would give anything for the chance to answer differently—it is too late. Too late, and all my own doing.