Chapter 30
The gentlemen’s departure signaled the end of Mama’s restraint.
This, in turn, fractured the fragile composures of Kitty and Lydia.
Mary did her best to calm them, but the news of Fitzwilliam Darcy’s death was too shocking to be consoled with common sense and awkward embraces.
They moaned that their lives were forever changed.
Gone were the balls and the gowns, the handsome gentlemen in fine coats and new gloves, outings to the theater, picnics with the upper crust. All the dreams and delights anticipated for the last twelve years had been snatched away.
Elizabeth did not blame them for crying. Jane sat amidst the clamor in a daze.
Mrs. Hexam, lips pursed, rose from her place and, with a pointed look at Elizabeth, disappeared through the door.
Elizabeth followed the governess to her room and watched in dismay as she pulled a valise and bandbox from under the bed and began filling it with her possessions.
The hastiness of her decision and suddenness of her pending departure shocked Elizabeth. “You will leave us now?”
“I intend to be on the last coach leaving for London.”
Without so much as a warning or a farewell? Elizabeth gasped. “Has your wage not been paid through the year?”
Mrs. Hexam did not pause her folding and packing. “It is already November. I must have something to live off until I can secure another position.”
So much for loyalty! Elizabeth tried to appeal to her compassion. “What will my sisters do without you?”
“They have you, your mother, and Mrs. Hill. Mary, too, is a sensible young lady and will be a wholesome influence on the younger ones.”
Elizabeth wrapped her arms around her waist, holding herself together. Her world was crumbling into pieces. She understood Mrs. Hexam’s reasoning, but it was unfair, and the timing was terrible. Elizabeth had nothing she could offer the governess to convince her to stay, and so she turned to leave.
“I shall need a letter of recommendation,” Mrs. Hexam called after her.
Elizabeth tensed, disinclined to be helpful to a woman so prompt to leave them at the worst moment. “You may request one from my father.”
“We both know it will fall to you to write.”
Mrs. Hexam would never speak so plainly while in their employ, but Elizabeth bit her tongue, took a deep breath, and continued downstairs to her father’s study.
Papa sat on his favorite cushion, his feet propped on the corner of his desk, a book in his hand.
It was the contented smile playing at the corners of his lips that poked the embers into an angry flame that burned within Elizabeth like a branding iron.
How could he ignore the storm of emotions crashing through his own household on a day like this?
Why did he not try to calm Mama? What had he done to prevent any of this?
Planting her feet and crossing her arms, she informed him, “Mrs. Hexam is leaving. She requires a letter of recommendation.”
He lowered his feet to the floor and closed his book. “I see. Well, I suppose it is one less mouth to feed.”
Elizabeth wanted to chuck the book at him.
Would nothing make him react? Do something to help his agitated wife and daughters?
Must she manage everything all the time?
Hot and prickly but equally determined not to say anything she would later regret, she turned toward the door.
“Papa, I must return to the drawing room. Mama is distressed, as are my sisters. I will leave you to see to Mrs. Hexam. She was already packing her things and will wish to have her letter before she leaves.” She did not wait for a reply.
She quickly returned to her mother and sisters, whose faces were as dejected as they had been when she left.
What reassurance could she offer? They still had Longbourn…
but no money to live on. They were young, pretty, and accomplished…
but no longer had fortune or connections.
They still had each other. If they worked together, they could manage.
Elizabeth already had some ideas. All she needed was their cooperation.
Sitting beside her mother, Elizabeth took her hand in her own. “So long as we have each other, we will manage well enough.”
Mama sniffed into her handkerchief and patted Elizabeth’s hand.
“Mrs. Hexam is leaving?” Elizabeth nodded, expecting to console her mother over the unfairness of Mrs. Hexam’s abrupt departure.
Another pat. “I love my girls more than my own life. When I married Mr. Bennet, I swore I would give you a better life than I had.” This made Elizabeth blink and look at her mother more closely.
What she saw was regret. She would far rather hear her mother bemoan the terrible lot she had been dealt.
Elizabeth clutched her mother’s hands tighter.
“You have succeeded, Mama! All of us are skilled in the usual ladylike accomplishments. Jane sings like a nightingale, and her white work is second to none. Mary has a remarkable mind for remembering useful information, and her talent on the pianoforte is magnificent. Kitty has such an eye for color and detail, and her paintings bring out the best of every wall they adorn. Lydia is—”
“What else am I good at?” interrupted Kitty.
Lydia poked Kitty in the arm. “Who cares? I want to hear my accomplishments!”
“Jane and Mary each got two, and I only got one.”
“Not so! Color and detail. See? Two things.”
“But they are both used together in a painting.” Kitty turned to Lizzy. “What else am I good at?”
Mama answered for her. “You have a special talent for helping things grow. Our garden would not be so beautiful without your care.”
Lydia’s knees bobbed up and down impatiently. “And what about me?”
Elizabeth laughed. “You are vivacious and eager to try new things. Anything you set your mind to, you do well.”
Sitting against the settee with a contented smile, Lydia said, “That is better than yours, Kitty. You decorate our garden and rooms, but I can master anything I wish.”
“Anything to which you apply your mind and work toward,” Mary corrected. “It takes discipline and devotion to master any skill. I, for one, would like to see you apply yourself to something worthwhile.”
Mrs. Hexam was right about Mary. And Mama. It gave her hope. “So long as we work together, we can economize until the debt is officially resolved.”
“Ah, that is as good as done thanks to dear Mr. Wickham,” proclaimed Lydia.
“Perhaps, but until we have—”
Jane woke from her reverie to interject, “We must consider how we appear to our neighbors. They will talk and word will spread. It is in our best interest to live as though the debt is resolved. It is as good as done. Mr. Wickham assured us of it.”
Mary’s brows knit together. “We still have no money. No governess.”
Noting the clench in Jane’s set jaw, Elizabeth added, “The neighbors will notice that our servants are leaving to seek employment elsewhere. The shops have already cut off our credit.”
“They will restore it once they learn that the debt is gone.” Elizabeth did not share Jane’s hopeful view of others’ goodwill.
Not when they, too, had families to feed and workers to pay.
Jane huffed. “Do you wish us to live as paupers? How would we marry well then? The best thing now would be to prepare for the London Season. We shall let a townhouse in London and have new gowns made…” Whatever she said after that point was muffled by Lydia and Kitty’s excited exclamations.
To her credit, Mama did not immediately support Jane’s faulty reasoning, but it troubled Elizabeth to plainly see the war between want and necessity play across her mother’s features.
Nothing she or Mary said would persuade Jane, who was convinced that their only hope was for her to marry into a fortune.
What ensued was nothing less than a game of persuasive tug-of-war: Mary and Elizabeth on one side, and Jane on the other with the support of their two youngest sisters.
Poor Mama was the rope. It did not take long for Elizabeth’s pleas for reason and economy to yield to the intense pull of delusion.
One meant self-sacrifice and hard work; the other afforded diversion and ease… more of the life they had always known.
It was the life Elizabeth had worked to give them, first by the arranged marriage that would have vaulted her into the first circles but, more directly, by her management of the estate.
Perhaps she had done more harm than good.
Should she have included them? Shown them the work involved in planning, arranging, and overseeing all the tasks from the smallest to the most complex?
Had she done so, perhaps they would be more willing to help now.
Elizabeth endured her burgeoning disappointment until Mrs. Hexam had departed and the conversation had deteriorated to talk of titles.
She sought solace in the kitchen then, and Cook slid a plate of cake and a cold glass of milk in front of her.
The cake did not take away her problems, but it nourished her soul and restored her humor.
It was there—just after she popped the last bite into her mouth with an appreciative moan—that Robbie walked through the back door and into the kitchen.
The storm in his expression melted away, and a smile like sunshine appeared in its place that warmed Elizabeth from her toes to the top of her head.
A smile just for her. Well, she was happy to see him, too.
She could not help but dream that maybe, just maybe…
“Mr. Robinson, might I have a word with you in my study?” At the sound of her father’s voice, Elizabeth spun around from her seat on the bench.
Papa’s shoulders stooped. Even when he noticed her, it was as though he was too sad to stand straight.
Sympathy stirred in her breast… until she remembered that he had caused this predicament.
Anger stirred anew, and she turned away from him.
Let him feel the bitter consequences of his inaction.
Maybe that would get him to do something.
Robbie crossed the room and followed Papa, leaving Cook to return to the pot boiling on the stove and Elizabeth to wonder what her father was about.
Did he have a plan? She dared not hope. Had he found the evidence they had worked so diligently to find?
Likely not. Downing the last of her milk, Elizabeth hastened to join them, grateful her father did not dismiss her when she slipped inside the room and took a seat at her writing desk.
“Mr. Robinson, it appears your services are no longer required, nor am I in a position to pay your salary should this dreadful news of Mr. Darcy’s demise prove to be true.
I must conserve the few resources I have remaining and hope for the best. At least the estate is entailed, else we would have no house to reside in.
” Papa sighed deeply and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“I never thought I would be thankful for that.” Elizabeth wished to protest, to insist that they needed all the help available to them until they received a signed declaration freeing them of all charges.
Robbie held his hands confidently at his side. “You have met the conditions of our arrangement as Mr. Philips stipulated, but I have yet to meet mine, sir. My services were contracted for a full month, and I have not yet reached that allotted time.”
Papa waved his hand dismissively. “What is a day or two?”
“There is a full week remaining in our contract. I cannot in good conscience leave before the term is completed and your case resolved to satisfaction. Therefore, I shall work an additional week without pay.”
“It is as good as done.”
“Until you have a letter with Sir Bradley’s signature acquitting you of all charges, my work here is not done,” Robbie insisted.
“You have until the end of your term, then, and I cannot arrange for another.”
“Until Saturday, the sixteenth.”
“Not a day more,” Papa agreed, dismissing Robbie. He turned his attention to Elizabeth and tugged a letter from under his chair’s cushion, then held it up for her to see.
“New hiding place?” she asked, aware of how the air stirred around her when Robbie passed and how much emptier the room felt without him inside it.
“It serves its purpose.” Papa smiled. “It is the one place the maid will not disrupt, and your mother will not poke around.” Fair enough.
Everyone needed a safe hiding place. Hers was under the loose floorboard at the foot of her bed.
It held all the letters she had written to Mr. Darcy besides a few treasured odds and ends she had collected over the years.
Papa held the letter out to her, allowing her to see the sender’s name more clearly. It was Wrayburn & Associates, dated the day prior. “We are still expected at Pemberley for the reading of the will on the twentieth.”
Elizabeth gasped and reached for the page. Mr. Wrayburn wrote nothing about the article in the paper. He simply reminded her father of the importance of their presence at the reading of the will. The household would expect their arrival at Pemberley the day before the awaited event.
What did this mean? Was Fitzwilliam Darcy truly dead?
Why would she be summoned for the reading of Mr. Darcy’s will if his son no longer lived?
With so many unanswered questions and her freedom hanging in the balance, Elizabeth felt wildly impatient.
The reading of the will was scheduled sixteen days hence, and she had the daunting presentiment that they would be the longest sixteen days of her life.
At least Robbie would be here right until the day she was to leave for Pemberley.