Chapter 13
“Are you absolutely sure, Jane?” Elizabeth asked her sister as they busied themselves with preparations for travel the following day. “Are you absolutely sure you want to go back to London, and it is not only that Mother has persuaded you that you ought?”
“I am not absolutely sure of anything anymore, Lizzy,” Jane sighed. She busied herself selecting and laying out dresses on the bed for the maids to pack later. “One minute I am longing to be in London, and the next I am dreading it. I cannot understand my own mind anymore.”
“Maybe the cause is your heart, not your mind,” Elizabeth suggested practically as she transferred a necklace and a quantity of hair ribbons to a small travelling box.
“Likely you would not want to be in London if it were not for Lord Grantchester being there. Love can do strange things, I believe.”
“I do not know,” Jane replied with an unconvinced shrug. “And I do not know why I do not know. I feel as though there is something wrong with me.”
Elizabeth left off her activities at the dressing table and came over to embrace her sister. She too felt a certain ambivalence about going back to London again so soon, although for reasons she was loath to share with Jane or anyone else.
“There, Jane. There is nothing wrong with you at all, and I am sure you will feel much better when you see Lord Grantchester again. It is a shame that he hardly ever comes down to Belton Manor after leasing the place, but I am sure it will be different once the Season is over. You do not believe Mother’s nonsense, do you? ”
“No, I do not believe for one moment that if we are apart for too long, Lord Grantchester will throw me over for some other young lady, as Mother seems to fear. He is not that type of man. Anyway, our engagement has been announced in the Times, and his mother has written three times now. The marriage feels…inevitable.”
A slight shiver passed through Elizabeth as she heard Jane pronounce the last word so flatly. Would not “certain,” “assured,” or even “destined” have been more appropriate from the lips of the bride-to-be?
“It does not sound at all as though Lord Grantchester has cold feet, does it?” Elizabeth put to her sister, perhaps aiming to reassure both of them. “So, you see, there is no real need for us to dash up to London now, if you do not wish it.”
Jane smiled weakly, the indecision she had spoken of earlier written on every feature of her pretty face.
“You may ignore Mother,” Elizabeth added. “Aunt and Uncle Gardiner would not mind in the least if we decide to visit in the autumn or winter instead. I could even go alone for a week now and report back on Lord Grantchester’s undoubted fidelity to you.”
“I cannot think clearly at the moment,” Jane told her. “When you speak as you do now, I want to stay at Longbourn, and the ton seems likely only to make me tired and miserable. But later, maybe when I go to bed, I know I will suddenly want to be in London again, so badly that I feel I might cry.”
Not immediately knowing what to say, Elizabeth only patted her sister on the back and tried again to make sense of Jane’s tangled emotions.
Naturally honest, and always closest to Elizabeth out of all the family, there was no reason to doubt that Jane spoke truly.
Still, her admission was full of contradictions.
For example, if Jane barely thought of Lord Grantchester, and instinctively wished to be at Longbourn, how was it that she could also sometimes want to be in London so much that she cried? It was a mystery.
Elizabeth’s musing was interrupted by Mrs Bennet bustling into the room with an armful of lace and ribbons and a pair of new kid gloves.
“Here, Jane, you must choose the best of these before I give any to Lydia and Kitty. Take my new gloves, and do have the blue silk ribbons that match your eyes. We want you to look your best for Lord Grantchester, don’t we?”
“Thank you, Mother,” said Jane, obediently extracting the gloves, sky blue ribbons and two lace neckpieces.
“You too, Lizzy,” added their mother, looking Elizabeth up and down critically. “Do not forget that you are bound to see Mr Bingley while you are in London. You must make a good impression on him. You can be far too lackadaisical in your dress.”
“You may offer all the lace and ribbons to the younger ones, Mother,” Elizabeth told her mother. “I already have enough. I should not think Mr Bingley will care what colour ribbons I have in my hair, and nor will…anyone else I might see.”
Seeing Mr Bingley likely meant seeing Mr Darcy, given what close interest Mr Darcy appeared to take in the lives and affairs of his closest friends.
Elizabeth’s blood began to rush in her veins each time she thought of the inevitable confrontations that must result with that infuriating man.
Ah, that word again: inevitable… The styling of her hair was the least of her concerns.
“Very well, Miss Lizzy,” sniffed their mother.
“You may insist that Mr Bingley likes you just as you are, but I’ve been alive more than forty years and I know the way a man’s head is turned.
As I warned Jane, London is full of comely young ladies with large dowries and you must use all your natural advantages to catch a husband and hold him. ”
While both she and Jane dismissed Mrs Bennet’s fears about other women in London, Elizabeth could not deny a lingering concern around the influence of Mr Darcy on Lord Grantchester.
He was the real danger to this engagement, rather than any scheming young ladies.
After all, if Lord Grantchester had wanted a titled lady or some heiress, he might have had one. It was Jane he had chosen.
“Mother, we do not need to go through that again,” Elizabeth said, trying to stem the flow of their mother’s too-often repeated matrimonial advice.
“Jane is doing as you wished and returning to London to be at Lord Grantchester’s side.
There is no need to fuss about it. Now, we need handkerchiefs from the linen cupboard. I shall fetch them.”
“No need to fuss? When you have five daughters unmarried, and uncertain prospects for most of them, you may tell me not to fuss, Lizzy,” their mother retorted crossly, following Elizabeth onto the landing.
“Now, you must seek out Mr Bingley as soon as you get to London. Call on Miss Bingley, with Jane or your aunt, and find out which parties and suppers he is likely to attend…”
Opening the linen cupboard, Elizabeth counted out five more white handkerchiefs each for herself and Jane. Her silence did nothing to quell Mrs Bennet’s stream of instruction.
“…and call on Mrs Hurst, too. Being older and married, she might have more influence on her brother than Miss Bingley. When you do see Mr Bingley, make sure you are dressed to best advantage and laugh at all his jokes, although not too loudly. I am certain that when he sees you again, he will —”
“Mother, please, enough! I am nothing to Mr Bingley, nor he to me,” Elizabeth eventually responded in more heated tones than she intended, exasperation getting the better of her.
An embarrassed cough drew her attention. “Do excuse me, ladies,” said Mr Collins with an obsequious smile and too-low bow. “I did not mean to intrude.”
Their visitor must have emerged unnoticed from his bedroom while Elizabeth and her mother were both busy at the linen cupboard.
Ruing her rash temper, Elizabeth’s cheeks flushed with the consciousness that Mr Collins had overheard their undignified arguing.
Then her feelings turned angrily against the listener himself.
“Not at all, Mr Collins,” she said as civilly as she could manage. “Do not let us detain you.”
Why was Mr Collins even still at Longbourn if he did not intend to propose to Mary?
! His visit felt like an eternity to all of them, although it had not been so very long in weeks and days.
Mr Bennet had taken to hiding in the library with the door locked, and Mrs Bennet sometimes openly snubbed their cousin without even noticing.
Meanwhile, Lydia and Kitty mocked him within earshot.
Jane and Elizabeth remained polite, although Elizabeth could not help refraining from asking ever more regularly whether Lady Catherine would not be missing Mr Collins yet and requiring his services at Rosings.
Only Mary paid him any real attention, and unfortunately, he seemed inclined to ignore her.
“Wretched man!” Elizabeth muttered after he had gone downstairs. “Why must he loiter on landings and around corners where he is not wanted?”
“I do wish that he would go and stay with the Lucases,” responded her mother, now united with her daughter in resentment against Mr Collins, whose stock fell ever lower as hopes of any offer of marriage to Mary dwindled. “I am sure they enjoy his company more than we do.”
“There is no way to suggest that without causing offence,” Elizabeth cautioned her with a regretful sigh. “Even if he will not marry Mary, he will inherit Longbourn one day, and you should not antagonise him unnecessarily.”
It was true that Charlotte Lucas handled their cousin well when she came for tea, and sometimes persuaded him to dine at Lucas Lodge, to everyone’s relief. Still, Elizabeth would feel guilty for foisting him on her friend.
“True. Ah well, once Jane is Countess of Grantchester, Mr Collins won’t matter one fig. All my girls will be thrown in the paths of rich men and you will all marry well, no doubt…. Hmm, perhaps not Mary.”
“I must get on with the packing, if we are to reunite the future Countess of Grantchester with her husband-to-be tomorrow,” Elizabeth reminded her mother with a smile.
They parted on amicable terms.
∞∞∞
“Tell Mary she must not play any dirges this afternoon, Lizzy,” Lydia pleaded as soon as Jane and Elizabeth came downstairs for tea. “Denny and Carter are coming for tea, and we would much rather be merry.”