The Lending Library
The morning sun woke Elizabeth from a troubled sleep, but at least her pillowcase had dried by then.
Mrs Herbert bustled into the room carrying a tea tray. “Nothing like a new day, my girl. I hope you slept well.”
“Better than expected,” Elizabeth replied softly. “It all seems almost unreal—like a bad dream.”
“Yes, it is a bad business, but your Mr Darcy seems a good man and he will look after you.”
Twelve hours earlier, Elizabeth would have snorted derisively at such a statement, but instead she softly replied, “He is not my Mr Darcy, but he is a great friend of my sister’s Mr Bingley. Last night forced me to reevaluate him, and I thought a great deal.”
“Have you come to any conclusion?”
“I have,” Elizabeth said with a slight smile as Mrs Herbert poured the tea.
“May I share it?”
Elizabeth smirked, showing her impertinence might be wounded but was not dead yet. “I do not know him at all.”
“If you know that, you are well on your way. Once you understand you know less than nothing, you are ready to learn.”
“That sounds like sage advice.”
“It is from my own mother, and when I was a little slip of a thing, I may have heard it from my grandmother as well.”
“Well, should I ever marry, my children will receive the same wisdom.”
“Oh, you will marry… of that I am certain.”
Elizabeth was sceptical but did not want to belabour the point.
Most of the Bennet sisters were practically unmarriageable, at least within their own class, long before the ball, and the evening’s to-do would not improve that.
Even had she a decorous mother and lacked the two least sensible sisters in the county, appearing at a ball with a profusely bleeding clergyman would not go unnoticed.
She suspected most of the story was already circulating—if not among the gentry, for certain among the servants and townspeople. It was inevitable.
She finally sighed. “I appreciate your optimism and will try to emulate it.”
“That’s the spirit. You have had a bad fall. You need not recover in one day.”
Elizabeth was not entirely certain her mind could accommodate sensible advice, but she was willing to make the attempt.
Their tea finished, Mrs Herbert was all business.
“Let us get you up and about. There is nothing like activity to chase away the blue devils. You should fit my daughter’s dresses, and since most people never see what is right in front of their faces, I daresay you could run the front counter and nobody would notice.
We won’t push our luck, but we have books to stock and the like. ”
Elizabeth shyly asked, “What of chores around the house? My mother likes to pretend we are above such things, but what she wanted me to learn as a child and what I actually did may not be in accordance.”
Mrs Herbert laughed. “We have a cook and maid-of-all-work, but I doubt either would be offended by a bit of help. Just stay out of the main shop and you will be as safe as you would be in London.”
Mrs Herbert took the concept that idle hands were the devil’s workshop to heart, so she kept Elizabeth too busy to brood for the next three days.
Mr Fletcher came by the shop to report on the goings-on about town every day, but nobody wanted to call very much attention to the library, just in case Mr Bennet’s abrupt transformation included an unexpected bout of either industry or observation.
As expected, the appearance of a broken-nosed clergyman coupled with the distinct lack of one daughter set the cat among the pigeons, and stories spread through the town like wildfire.
Mr Bennet and Mr Collins had cloistered themselves in his library for several hours the next day, but otherwise they seemed to be taking the path of least resistance toward a forced marriage scenario.
Mrs Bennet and the two youngest Bennet daughters had left no stone unturned in their assertions that the match was as good as made.
People did not necessarily believe them, nor did they disbelieve.
Most of the townspeople seemed to take a wait-and-see attitude, but the reputation of the Bennets was sinking inch by inch.
Jane tried her best to mitigate the damage with little effect.
She saw more and more of Mr Bingley, and that gentleman grew increasingly tired of his sisters’ interference in his affairs.
He had not banished them to London or Scarborough yet, but according to Fletcher, his patience was running thin.
When Fletcher suggested Jane was even threatening to end the connection with Mr Bingley if her mother continued the campaign, Lizzy found her voice.
“Mr Fletcher, may I ask one more disagreeable task of you?”
“Of course, though I dispute the premise. This has been the most entertaining week of my life.”
The impertinence of the man was refreshing, so Elizabeth ceded the point. She knew there was no malice in him, and it was far better to be entertained by their foibles than crushed by her troubles.
“Speak to my sister, and use whatever means are necessary, including cursing, worse cursing, or threats to dissuade her from that course. There is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
Fletcher nodded. “May I be candid?”
“I should hope you know the answer to that by now.”
“Well, my master is trying to be more polite, so I thought to join him just to see what happens.”
Elizabeth laughed at the impertinence but reckoned she would have to think about Mr Darcy trying to improve his manners later. Given all he had done, she had not the slightest thing to complain about.
“Pray, proceed.”
“This… ah… is it fair to call it a debacle?”
“I should think so.”
“I would never presume to say this to anyone else, but I think this may be the making of Mr Bingley… and possibly your sister as well.”
Elizabeth sat stunned. “Might you… elaborate?”
“Of course. Most would not say it, but they would think that Mr Bingley lacked a certain… ah… resilience?”
She considered this, overriding her instinct to keep her mouth shut as ladies were instructed to (with extremely mixed results). “Like you, I would never have said it… and perhaps not even thought it… but that theory does have merit.”
“What evidence would you have used… before the ball, that is?”
Elizabeth was having the oddest conversation of her life—with a valet. Stranger things had happened, but she could not think of one offhand.
“His sisters,” she said. “They blather on worse than mine. He is the master of his house, and head of his family, yet he has mostly ignored them… presumably because he got tired of beating his head against that wall years ago.”
“I believe that to be the case.”
“And now?”
Fletcher looked cagey, but continued, “They threatened to take the debacle to town. They did not want Mr Bingley attaching himself to Miss Bennet even before this, and they are adamantly opposed now.”
“Much as I hate to say it, they may have a point.”
“Perhaps, but that is where Mr Bingley’s resilience comes in. It is a perfect test of his mettle. Is he man or boy? How much does he esteem your sister, and given the obstacles, how willing is he to fight for her?”
“Those are home questions. I think if he is in love with her, he should be willing to fight tooth and nail. If he is not willing to fight—”
“—he is not in love,” Fletcher finished.
“Exactly.”
“He has suggested they get out pencil and paper to work out a budget that will allow them to live on the interest from Miss Bingley’s dowry and Mr Hurst’s meagre allowance.”
“Good heavens!”
“My thoughts exactly… or at least, it is a ladylike approximation of my thoughts,” Fletcher replied, which set the two to laughing like brother and sister.
It was incongruous, moving from the slightly rarified world of the gentry to the point where her most stalwart companions were shopkeepers and servants. It was an improvement. She was increasingly certain she would leave the gentry behind and doubted she would rue the loss.
“Shall we return to the cursing and threats?”
“I do not know if Miss Bennet is serious or not, but I suppose she is testing her own mettle as well. I will relay your concerns in appropriately polite terms, and then perhaps we should let them test their mettle amongst themselves.”
“You are a wise man, Mr Fletcher.”
The Herberts returned, and the four friends enjoyed a leisurely game of Wist, temporarily untroubled by the chaos engulfing the Bennets.
Fletcher returned two days later, reporting no cursing was required.