Chapter Seventeen #2
“Good heavens,” said Mr. Lucas, evidently considering the possibility.
Jonathan had only ever felt true attraction toward Juliet Tilney, but he understood what elements society considered to be beautiful.
Mrs. Hurst possessed these in abundance despite her years.
Mr. Brooks would be, he guessed, not so very much younger than she.
Juliet’s thoughts must have been very like, for she said, “Mrs. Hurst always dresses very well, and her hair is immaculately styled. She cares for nothing but wine and cards—in other words, for fun, of a certain sort. I even suspect that she”—Juliet lowered her voice yet further—“dabbles in rouge.”
Cosmetics! These were meant to be solely the province of actresses and prostitutes. Then Jonathan wondered why he should find that shocking while also considering Mrs. Hurst as potentially capable of murder.
“The appeal of Mr. Brooks is, I confess, less apparent to me,” Juliet continued. “He is not an ill-favored gentleman, but he wears his years heavily. However, it is certain that Mrs. Hurst still wishes to be appealing.”
“He also enjoys cards,” Mr. Lucas pointed out. “That is not much—”
“Still, it could have been a beginning,” Juliet concluded.
Jonathan considered the plight of his aunt Kitty. “The others are all very careful of Mrs. Brooks. Perhaps they suspect something—or, at least, know that she is sad.”
“Sad, and also angry,” Juliet said. “If this be true, who could wonder at it?”
Meanwhile, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy—incapable of yet facing his son, much less the entire lot currently housed at Netherfield—found himself obliged to remain at Longbourn. From this, the extremity of his need for privacy could readily be surmised.
Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Bennet did not surmise it. “We do not have much to offer you at luncheon,” she said, “as we do not take much food at midday. Nothing like you must have at Pemberley. I wager you offer pheasant and goose nearly every day!”
His mother-in-law’s belief in Pemberley as an equal to Xanadu, a place from which all earthly pleasures might flow had not been shaken by her many visits, during which she had been generously—yet quite normally—entertained.
“Not at all, madam,” Darcy said. His voice sounded flat, even to himself. “We dine lightly at midday as well.”
“Well then, let us do so, too!” Mrs. Bennet said, forgetting in her zeal to please her wealthiest son-in-law that she had already explained this to be their plan. Mr. Darcy did not trouble to correct her, and Mr. Bennet was so absorbed in his newspaper that he did not even hear.
Darcy had first seen Susannah in this very house, when she was scarce a year old.
Lydia, feeling herself much burdened without the luxuries of nurse or nanny, had come to stay with her parents.
Mr. Bennet, by this time, had possessed grandchildren enough to be happy and yet reasonable regarding the arrival of another.
Mrs. Bennet, on the other hand, could scarcely contain herself, for Lydia had always been her favorite, and she could not be made to see—or could not be made to admit to see—the many deficits in Mr. Wickham’s character.
A child born to them both had pleased her no end.
“Look, Mr. Darcy,” she had said just after his arrival on that occasion, coming toward him with Susannah in her arms. “Is she not an angel? Have you ever seen such a darling little girl?”
“No, madam,” he had said, in all truth.
Darcy’s gaze traveled to the place in the room where they had been standing when Mrs. Bennet showed her off, and for one terrible moment, he thought he might lose all composure.
Then the sound of a carriage drew their attention. This proved to be the modest equipage of Kitty Brooks, who had arrived with an apple pie.
“Well, at last you have remembered us,” said Mrs. Bennet. “Jane is forever bringing nice things to eat and drink, or flowers cut from the gardens, but it has been a long time since you favored us in this fashion.”
“Jane has gardens,” Kitty replied. “She has such a large staff that people can make more food than she and her guests could ever eat.”
“Now, now, child,” Mr. Bennet said. “Do not begrudge your sister her position. As the Good Book tells us, and your own husband has recited from the pulpit, ‘A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.’ Is not that correct, my dear?” At this, Mrs. Bennet—who possessed only commonplace piety and no learning—attempted to look as though she, too, had had the verse upon the tip of her tongue.
Though a clergyman’s wife, Kitty seemed to take little solace from the Bible. She took the pie through to Pine with no further comment. As Kitty returned, Mrs. Bennet said, “Will you go to Netherfield again today, Kitty?”
“Yes, I will.” With that, Kitty smiled more broadly, more happily, than Darcy was accustomed to seeing upon her face. “May I take a message from you to Jane?”
As Mrs. Bennet began reciting the many necessities her eldest daughter was to send, Darcy reflected upon what he had just witnessed.
It struck him as odd that Kitty should be so openly envious of Jane—and yet so happy to go to Netherfield, the very embodiment of the wealth and luxury Jane Bingley possessed but Kitty Brooks did not.
I should speak of this to Jonathan, Darcy thought, before catching himself and remembering that he could not trust himself to speak with his eldest son today, or for some time to come.
The afternoon did indeed pass pleasantly at Netherfield.
Jonathan went to the library. Juliet did not follow, both to avoid attracting comment and because she understood that Jonathan intended to soothe himself by reading some of the ancient Roman history that so intrigued him.
He had explained that, when he gave his full attention to the subjects that interested him the most, it felt as though all else in the world dropped away.
She could not blame him for wishing it to do so, not after the terrible conversation with his father.
Juliet had meant what she had said to her fiancé: She fully believed that Mr. Darcy would forgive his son, and sooner rather than later.
The first reaction of a man who has lost a daughter in all but fact could not be expected to be rational, moderate, well judged.
Nor could it be expected to endure forever.
Juliet instead took her place in the drawing room, choosing the seat nearest Miss Allerdyce. Mr. Lucas had only just departed, and Frederica’s happiness nearly shone from her.
“You are very well, it seems,” Juliet began.
“Never so well in all my life!” Frederica moved closer to Juliet on the divan.
“However, my mother—though she has consented to the union—is not satisfied. I believe she wished me married to nobility, regardless of my own sentiments or those of whatever hapless nobleman she contemplated as my future husband. And now I know as never before how ruthless she can be in such matters. What a cruel thing they did to Aunt Jane!”
“Your father has consented to the match with Mr. Lucas, however, and so your happiness is assured.” Juliet could not resist a sigh.
Frederica, in an even lower voice, said, “Where parents genuinely desire the happiness of their children, they will do right in the end. I am trying to believe that of my mother, and…I should not say it, but…I will believe it of Mr. Darcy, too.”
Her kindness moved Juliet greatly. “Your sister would not wish it so.”
“Priscilla’s heart is untouched. Of that I am certain. She wishes only to please our mother, who is not easily pleased.” Frederica’s smile faltered slightly. “Yet more troubles you, does it not?”
Although Juliet trusted Frederica implicitly, she knew she could not confess having been disowned.
It would be wrong to tell anyone before she told Jonathan—and yet she could not tell Jonathan until he was less distressed, lest he become overwhelmed.
She said only, “My position is a difficult one for my family to understand.”
“It is all just as Aunt Jane said last night,” Frederica replied. “A trick was played on you. That is all.”
“When others see it as you do,” Juliet said, “how happy I shall be!”
—
The two young women speaking so earnestly upon the divan did not notice that, in the doorway at the far end of the room, Mrs. Allerdyce and Mrs. Hurst stood together, observing.
“If only we could hear them!” Mrs. Hurst whispered.
Caroline Allerdyce—who, whatever her faults, was not given to eavesdropping—frowned at her sister.
“Do not be common, Louisa. I imagine they are discussing lace and flowers and all other accoutrements of a wedding. Frederica, for the poor marriage she has stooped to, and Miss Tilney, for the exalted marriage she aspires to still. This, although the elder Mr. Darcy clearly cannot bear the sight of her!”
Mrs. Hurst hooked her arm through Caroline’s, a gesture of affection that had not been offered for a very long time. “We must stand firm, and we must stand together.”
“Of course,” said Caroline, pleased by this show of loyalty, though she could not understand to what Mrs. Hurst specifically referred. “Yet what can we do but wait?”
Mrs. Hurst drew Caroline away, into the hallway, whispering, “Perhaps it is time for a…sisterly conspiracy.”