Chapter 25
“Oh, Mrs Bennet, have you heard the news?” Lady Lucas exclaimed as she hurried ahead of Hill into the parlour at Longbourn without even having taken off her pelisse.
“What news, Lady Lucas?” asked Mrs Bennet, sitting upright at once and adjusting the lace cap that had fallen over one eye as she dozed, despite the fact that it was only ten in the morning. “Has there been an accident on the road again? Is there fever in the town?”
“No, no, Mrs Bennet. Nothing like that. Lord Grantchester is back!”
“Lord Grantchester?!” Mrs Bennet exclaimed, and leapt excitedly to her feet with the energy of a woman twenty years younger. “Did you hear that, Jane? Lord Grantchester is here! You must put on your best dress and Hill will do your hair.”
“Yes, and his nice friend, Lord Keeble. They came back to Belton Manor to oversee its packing up now that the engagement is broken.”
With that, Lady Lucas cast a sympathetic glance towards Jane, who was sitting with her embroidery at the window seat beside Elizabeth. Jane gave a little sigh that the older ladies might have misconstrued. For her part, Elizabeth knew Jane would simply rather not have any of this bother and fuss.
“Lord Keeble too? How wonderful,” continued Mrs Bennet, clasping her hands and smiling. “Lizzy, you must tell Lydia and Kitty that Lord Keeble is here. Make haste, make haste.”
“Mother, I do not think they want to be bothered by their neighbours while they are packing up,” Elizabeth pointed out. “We cannot just send Lydia and Kitty over there to inconvenience them. Nor would it be proper for Jane to call under the circumstances. It might give people the wrong idea.”
She tried to draw her mother’s attention to the continued presence of Lady Lucas, but with little success. There was no need to give their neighbours further fuel for gossip.
“The wrong idea? Don’t be ridiculous, Lizzy. It might not be too late to undo this mess and have Jane married to Lord Grantchester by Christmas.”
At this, Jane blanched. The last thing she wanted was to be married by Christmas, Elizabeth suspected — at least not to Lord Grantchester.
“Mother, please do not send me over there. It wouldn’t be right,” Jane protested. “Lord Grantchester and I have written to one another, and everything is settled. He would find it most odd to stir things up again. It would pain us both.”
“Very well. Lizzy shall go and invite Lord Grantchester to supper here on any day he chooses. That can do no harm and will show that our family bears him no ill will. Then, perhaps when you see him again, Jane, you will feel differently.”
“Mother, would it not be better to leave them alone?” Elizabeth tried again to sway her mother. “Truly, this is not a good idea. We ought to at least ask Father what he thinks.”
“Ask Mr Bennet? Ha! There is a fine idea. He does not give two hoots who comes to supper, and anyway, he is out at the bookshop, as though he needs any more books.”
Elizabeth and Jane both blushed at the way their mother was speaking in front of Lady Lucas, but to have protested could only have caused further embarrassment. Reluctantly, and with an apologetic glance to Jane, Elizabeth went to the door, her heart heavy and her mind full of foreboding.
“You see how much I have to bear, Lady Lucas?” Elizabeth heard her mother complaining as she walked away to fetch her cloak and boots. “Five daughters unmarried…It is a hard cross for any mother to bear…”
Closing the gate to Longbourn and setting out towards Belton Manor, Elizabeth thought again of Mr Darcy, wishing that he was walking with her, or that she might encounter him on the way. Tomorrow, Friday, he would leave for Pemberley, and there would be no chance meetings after that.
She would miss him. She conceded that much, as she conceded that Mr Darcy had been right about so very many things.
Indeed, Elizabeth had begun to believe now that there really must have been a good reason for Jane not to marry Lord Grantchester.
Fitzwilliam Darcy was not a man to speak or act lightly, even if he refused to reveal his reasons.
Jane and Elizabeth had laughed over the ways in which Lord Grantchester might be an unsuitable husband, believing them all absurd.
Now, thinking of a mad wife in the attics at Grantchester Abbey, Elizabeth shivered despite her cloak and the warmth of the September day.
She turned her face up to the sun, hoping that its brightness would drive away the shadows of all such silly Gothic horror stories.
Thankfully, Belton Manor itself was not conducive to such foolish fantasies.
Its tree- and hedge-lined gardens felt private and cosy rather than isolated and ominous.
Heavy wheel tracks on the path outside showed evidence of the recent coming and going of wagons and coaches, although none were in evidence now, and Elizabeth saw no servants either.
The house itself was so quiet that Elizabeth briefly wondered whether Lady Lucas had been somehow mistaken. Had Lord Grantchester already been and gone? As she walked up the drive and touched the front door, it drifted open slightly, having been left unlocked, perhaps while wagons were loaded.
“Good afternoon!” Elizabeth called into the hallway, her voice seeming to echo and emphasise the emptiness of the house. “Is anyone at home?”
There was no answer, and Elizabeth debated simply leaving and going home to Longbourn. Then curiosity and neighbourly concern for an unlocked and empty house drove her on, and she stepped through the front door.
The hall was almost bare of furniture and decoration, although a few scraps of packing paper and string told of recent activity there. Nor were there any sounds of servants working in any distant part of the house.
“Is anyone there?” she called quite cheerfully, growing more confident that there would be no reply.
She was almost certain now that the place was empty.
If Lord Grantchester did pop up, she would be glad enough to see him on her own account.
He was a reasonable man, and Elizabeth could probably find some way to lay her mother’s invitation before him while making clear that his refusal was expected and in no way injurious to her future goodwill, or Jane’s.
Strolling to the other end of the hall, Elizabeth decided that she ought to leave now and lock the door behind her if she could find a key. If not, Sir William Lucas would know the agents for Belton Hall and could alert them to the open doors, and send a footman to guard the place in the meantime.
It was then that Elizabeth heard the sound of voices, both men, coming from the library at the end of the hallway, by the stairs.
Lord Grantchester and Lord Keeble? Servants?
Or even the agents, here already? In the latter case, she should probably leave quietly.
Elizabeth crept closer, straining her ears to hear.
Then Elizabeth smiled as she recognized the voices, even if she could not make out their actual words.
It was just Lord Grantchester and Lord Keeble, speaking to one another in low, earnest tones.
Given the emptiness of the house, she doubted they would be staying tonight, and her mother’s invitation would be thankfully redundant.
Pushing the door of the library open, Elizabeth stepped inside.
“Do excuse me, but the front door was open and I thought…Oh!”
The smile froze on Elizabeth’s face as she took in the two men standing beside the mantelpiece in one another’s arms, embracing with a tenderness that could never have belonged simply to friendship.
Lord Grantchester was looking on Lord Keeble’s handsome face as he had never looked upon Jane, and the same devotion was returned in the gaze of Lord Keeble.
Utterly shocked, Elizabeth backed away, stumbled slightly, and then ran from the house.
“Miss Elizabeth!” called Lord Grantchester’s desperate voice as she raced down the drive and into the lane, her heart hammering in her chest. “Miss Elizabeth! Please!”