Chapter Twenty-one #3
“As you know, I have always longed for an early May wedding so I might carry bluebells in my bouquet. I have not changed my mind.”
“There you have it. You will both be six months older before you wed.”
Jane sighed happily. “I am so…so…”
“So in love?”
Jane laughed. “Yes.”
Their father’s hack was led out into the yard and talk turned to horses.
“Mr. Bingley said he bought a new hack that would be perfect for me,” Jane mentioned. “A mare. Will you look her over?”
“I will be pleased to meet her,” Lizzy said, beaming in anticipation. “It is a lovely morning, so I shall take the pony cart over to Netherfield directly.”
“Leaving me to wait alone in anxious anticipation for the result of Mr. Bingley’s meeting with our father?”
“You need not be alone. I know Lydia and Kitty have walked over to see Maria Lucas, but Mary must be about.”
“I think I saw her going to the music room,” Jane said, nodding.
“She will be pleased to hear your news,” Lizzy promised. “Excuse me while I have Apple placed in harness. Kindly ask Hattie to bring out my reticule, gloves, and driving pelisse.”
Jane agreed to this task and left her in the stables.
*
Jeffry winked out of his enclosure and arrived in Aunty’s bedroom, landing on her thick, fluffy comforter. She stared at him from where she sat up in bed, her arms folded.
“Report, please, Jeffry,” Aunty ordered, a twinkle in her eyes.
She is feeling better.
“Aye, I am. Thank you,” Aunty said. “Lizzy and Darcy?”
Jeffry’s whiskers twitched. “They had a fight, and then made up the next day.”
“Good. What did they fight about?”
“Darcy became angry with Lizzy because of fear. She was tending to their bull in the bull paddock—by herself.”
“Hmm,” she said, stroking her chin. “A reflex reaction. Typical. What about Mary?”
“Lizzy told Mary she should marry Dr. Oscar Gregg.”
Aunty laughed. “This Lizzy is a bold one.”
Jeffry wheeked. “That she is.”
“I don’t think we need worry about Mary anymore.”
Jeffry agreed. “Bingley is coming today to talk to Mr. Bennet.”
“Excellent, he didn’t listen to his sister this time.” Aunty fixed a gimlet eye on Jeffry. “And Darcy didn’t object?”
“He didn’t. When they had their talk at the Netherfield stables, I was hiding from the barn cats in the hay pile. Darcy supported Bingley’s decision.”
“What took y’there?”
“I had a feeling.”
Aunty nodded. “Good. I am getting up,” she said, swinging her legs out from under the comforter. “Has Basile been givin’ ye any grief?”
“Him?” Jeffry snorted. “He isn’t as tough as he thinks he is, or we had worried he’d be.”
“Does he like Colonel Fitzwilliam?”
“Basile will always be Caroline’s cat,” Jeffry mused, turning slowly around in circular pacing. “But he seems to like the colonel well enough.”
“Some cats are like that.” Aunty shrugged on a dressing gown and headed toward the bathroom. “I’m goin’ t’take a bath. You go back to Longbourn. Next time y’come t’see me I’ll be in the wagon.”
“I like the wagon,” Jeffry said.
“What wagon?” Clive the fox asked.
When the fox spoke, Jeffry realized he was back in the orangery.
“Yeah, what wagon?” Jack, the rabbit, demanded.
“Aunty’s wagon,” Jeffry explained to the other animals. He toddled over to his food and water dishes.
“What kind o’ wagon?” asked Mrs. Anne, the hedgehog. “I’ve seen plenty o’ different wagons in my time.”
Jeffry swallowed the mouthful of food he had begun to nibble before saying, “A Romani wagon.”
“What’s a Romani?” asked Bruce, the turtle.
Jeffry sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Romani people are gypsies, or tinkers,” Mrs. Anne explained. “Their wagons are often very colorful, they are.”
“I don’t understand,” Bruce said.
Jeffry heard a splash and thought the turtle had gone into the water in the indoor pond. “The important thing to know,” he said, sneaking closer to a mint leaf, “is that Aunty’s feeling better, and we won’t have to do anything more to help Lizzy and Darcy.”
“How come?” asked Carl, the fawn. He leaned his head down into Jeffry’s enclosure, his mouth coming closer and closer to the pile of greens set out there.
Jeffry’s teeth chattered angrily. “That’s my mint!”
“Oops, sorry,” Carl said, backing up a step.
“Answer the question,” Jack ordered. “How come?”
Jeffry snatched the mint and tucked it under his body. “Because Aunty will do what she needs to for them.”
“But, but,” Rusty and Scamp said together, climbing over and about each other and their dead branch like the squirrels they were, “we haven’t done anythin’ fer Lizzy yet.”
“You hogged all the effort,” Clive declared. The fox turned around and around in his pen until he settled himself onto his bedding, his back to the rest of the animals.
“I never thought you could help anyways,” Jeffry muttered. “You’re all stuck in here, aren’t you?”
“And whose fault is that?” Jack demanded.
“Not mine,” Jeffry stated, sniffing. The animals fell silent. Jeffry felt guilty for his hasty words. “Look, you all help Lizzy just by being her friends. When she comes into the orangery, she finds comfort and peace here with you. That is rare, it is.” Jeffry shook his head. “So rare.”
“Jeffry is right,” Jill said in her calm way. “And we do it without even working at it.”
“Too right,” Jeffry muttered beneath his breath.
Clive, who had excellent hearing, sneezed.
A tiny voice, belonging to Dash, the house mouse, asked, “What will happen to us when Lizzy marries that man? Will he live here?”
“Darcy has a fine, big estate in Derbyshire. He will not come to live here after he marries Lizzy.” Jeffry heard the anxious ruffling of bedding.
He sighed. “I expect, if you are still in the orangery—they won’t be married for months and months—that Lizzy will take you with her when she moves away. ”
“I’m never getting better, then,” Clive growled.
Jeffry snickered. “You are hoping to avoid the fox hunts. But there are fox hunts in Derbyshire, too.”
“I’ll make friends with Flora,” the fox claimed. “That Georgiana-girl likes me. I’ll be a pet instead—it’s better than being wild.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” Jeffry said, tugging the mint leaf out from under his belly and beginning to nibble on it. “You’ll think differently when a nice, unattached vixen crosses your path.”
The glass exterior doors into the orangery opened. Lizzy poked her head inside. “What is going on in here? Why are you all upset?”
“It’s Jeffry’s fault,” Jack muttered.
Lizzy entered fully into the orangery. “I am driving over to Netherfield,” she told them.
“I will not be long. Try to get some rest. Now, where is Squeaky? Oh, there you are,” she said, holding her hand out to where the field mouse sat on a shelf.
“Do you wish to come with me? You will have to stay in my pocket, though, so the stable cats cannot catch you.”
Squeaky jumped onto her gloved hand and scampered up her arm and onto her shoulder.
“Very well. Let us be off.”
Everyone in the orangery watched Lizzy leave through the glass doors.
“Hah!” Jack thumped his foot. “She left you behind!”
“Uh…dear?” Jill said. “Dear? Didn’t you notice?”
“Notice what?” Jack asked.
“Jeffry’s done disappeared again,” she pointed out.
“I hope he stays gone,” Jack snarled. “I don’t like that animal. He’s nothin’ like a pig. Sheer cheek, is what I say, t’call ‘imself one.”
“Yes, dear.”