Chapter Eighteen #2
He had spent the morning on horseback, riding for hours with no particular destination in mind, crisscrossing the countryside.
Though the day was gray and cool, Darcy found his vigor refreshed by the exercise and his mind calmed by both the bucolic surroundings and the absence of Mrs. Bennet.
This, perhaps, was the time to consider Jonathan.
How could you have made such a mistake? Darcy could picture the scene at Meryton vicarage: Wickham lounging about as though he were the master of the house; Kitty scurrying around to please him for Lydia’s sake; and Jonathan, guileless, blurting out all that he knew.
So clear was it within Darcy’s mind that it seemed to him that he could step back through time, into that moment, and stop Jonathan.
One step, one careful word, and Susannah’s life might have been saved.
It had been so little a thing. That made matters so much the worse, to know the girl had lost her life to so little a thing.
At noontime, Darcy took his horse back to the Longbourn barn and entered to find Mrs. Bennet upstairs for the day.
“For, as she says, her nerves do plague her,” explained Mr. Bennet, “though what she has to be nervous of at our time of life, I cannot imagine. The natural assumption would be that no great risk remains to befall us, other than our natural surcease, and for all Mrs. Bennet’s aches and complaints, I do not think she has any intention of dying for many years to come. ”
“Would that intention alone were enough,” said Darcy.
“Were that the case, sir, I believe we should still be much plagued with Buonaparte.” Mr. Bennet folded his paper. “I must say, Jonathan seems much improved of late. He is less particular, less fastidious, less overbearing regarding his own personal concerns.”
“I should not say Jonathan’s character has ever been overbearing. He is particular, yes, but this is a matter over which he has very little control. Accepted as he is, he is a most obliging, dutiful son.”
A wag of Mr. Bennet’s eyebrows revealed that he still did not believe Jonathan’s peculiarities of temperament to be anything but the willfulness of a wealthy young man.
Darcy knew Elizabeth had attempted to convince her parents otherwise on many occasions; where she had failed, he would not be successful, and so he remained silent.
Mr. Bennet said only, “You are an affectionate and patient father. Yet I cannot but notice that you seem to have spent the last two days avoiding your son, quite as successfully as he has avoided you. Has there been some manner of disagreement between you? You see that I claim the privilege of the elderly grandfather to pry into matters that are no business of mine.”
There could be no question of speaking of Susannah’s death with Mr. Bennet; Darcy knew he would be overcome. He said only, “I would not term it a disagreement. Jonathan and I will speak again when we can be rational again.”
“Hm! Well, let me say only this, Mr. Darcy. If this muddle between you and Jonathan pertains to the girl, I must speak as I find and tell you that I like Miss Tilney. She has sense, character, and an elegance of person I find very pleasing. What I like best in her, however, is the same quality I first liked in you.”
“I hesitate to ask.”
“It was that you valued my Elizabeth for herself,” said Mr. Bennet. “As I believe Miss Tilney values Jonathan. This deeper affinity is a far better basis for matrimony than the weighing of various estates and dowries, and certainly superior to mere attraction.”
Mrs. Bennet’s bell again rang upstairs. As Pine scurried past to see to her mistress, Mr. Bennet sighed and returned to his newspaper, leaving Darcy alone with complicated thoughts.
Jonathan, meanwhile, continued to spend as much time as possible at Netherfield.
He was able to meet with Juliet near the end of visiting hours, and accepted from her—with pleasure—the letter to Mr. Follett carrying her refusal.
“I cannot be seen to leave it to be posted, of course,” she said, “but I would have it sent as soon as possible.”
“I shall ride into Meryton to the postmaster’s this afternoon,” Jonathan promised.
The weight of his conversation with his father still lay heavy upon him, she could see, but how bravely he still wished to do his duty!
“Have you made any headway this morning? I confess I have not one theory the more to offer.”
“Mrs. Hurst and I had a most curious conversation this morning,” Juliet said. She then recounted all that Mrs. Hurst had said.
Jonathan received this news with both shock and dismay. “I knew him to be angry,” he said, “but I should never have dreamed my father would go so far as this.”
“There is every chance that Mrs. Hurst misunderstood what she heard.” Juliet leaned closer to him. “Or there is another possibility we must consider: that the entire tale is nothing but Mrs. Hurst’s invention.”
“Why should she lie in this matter?”
“To distress you, and therefore to distract you. If Mrs. Hurst is the murderer we seek—or even if she only wishes to conceal the nature of her connection to Mr. Brooks—she has every reason to invent such a story.”
Despite his agitation, Jonathan saw the sense of this.
Determinedly he thought through exactly what Juliet had told him, then weighed it with what he knew of his father’s character.
At last he said, “You are correct to doubt Mrs. Hurst, though I could not say whether that is because she imagines too much or invents too much. My father is displeased with me at present, and I could conjecture circumstances in which he would consider such steps—but he would never do such a thing without speaking to me seriously, urging me to correct my conduct. Only after such an effort failed would he consider so drastic a step as this. I am sure of it.”
“What circumstances do you conjecture?” Juliet asked.
From the tone of her voice alone, Jonathan knew that she felt a secret engagement might constitute reason enough for the breach.
Unfortunately—particularly given the distress his father felt regarding Susannah’s death and the reasons for it—he tended to agree.
They were speaking together at the far end of the drawing room, while the Allerdyce girls and Mrs. Hurst all chattered away near the door.
Aunt Jane sat in the middle, serenely embroidering a handkerchief.
All these activities were interrupted by the appearance in the doorway of his uncle, who announced to everyone, “I have been keeping a secret.”
Aunt Jane looked up from her needle and thread. “What do you mean, Mr. Bingley?”
Mr. Bingley smiled wide. “You shall have to come and see.”
At this Aunt Jane rose, and Mrs. Hurst, Frederica, and Priscilla declared they should have some share in this revelation as well. Jonathan and Juliet shared a look—whatever secret he had been hiding clearly had not been as nefarious as they had feared!
They reached the entry hall just as Mrs. Brooks and Mrs. Allerdyce were announced—Mrs. Allerdyce apparently having brought Mrs. Brooks back to Netherfield with her in the carriage. “Whatever is astir?” Mrs. Allerdyce exclaimed. “Where can you all be going?”
“Did not you notice when you arrived?” Mr. Bingley led them all outside, to see the Allerdyce carriage being taken away…and both Burton the steward and the stable master standing on either side of a small gray mare. Aunt Jane gasped, and Mr. Bingley clasped her hand. “Yes, she is for you.”
“Oh! How lovely she is!” Aunt Jane hurried forward, though she slowed her steps so as not to startle her new horse. “And I have needed more exercise since poor Nancy died. How lovely indeed!”
“The perfect size for a female rider, would not you say?” Mr. Bingley did not attempt to conceal his delight in having surprised his wife and made her happy.
Jonathan managed to say, “Nancy was the name of her horse?”
If the phrasing of this question struck Mr. Bingley as odd, he did not consider it worth commenting upon.
“Jane rode a few days a week when she had Nancy. Your aunt is not a bold rider; she is only truly comfortable upon a smaller horse, and then Burton told me a fellow in Watford might have one that would suit perfectly.” He sighed in satisfaction. “How she has missed riding!”
Aunt Jane, still petting her new acquisition, said, “I think a more botanical name would suit her. What do you think of Bellflower?”
“Bellflower she shall be,” said Mr. Bingley.
Jonathan and Juliet exchanged a glance that spoke volumes—of his relief, and her wonder, that his uncle had proved to be wholly trustworthy, a man with no secrets more nefarious than a gift for his beloved wife. Juliet murmured, “Becky did mention the horse.”
“A lesson for us to discount nothing, and to inquire into everything,” Jonathan replied.
Aunt Kitty suddenly turned and stalked into the house, as though she were intent upon something.
Her haste, and her unmistakable air of dissatisfaction, drew some manner of attention from all.
Jonathan made to follow, but Juliet stayed him, whispering, “Her words, I think, will come more readily to a female hearer.”
Kitty Brooks could not think where to go, or what to do, only that she must be alone, away from the scene upon the drive.
The drawing room would soon be filled again by the others—the servants had begun readying the dining room for the evening meal—and so she made her way into Mr. Bingley’s study, a room she had never entered save to answer questions from her nephew and the Tilney girl.
Even as she sank down upon the bench, Kitty realized that Miss Tilney had followed her.
“Leave me in peace. I have no time for your questions now!”
Yet Miss Tilney instead sat next to her. “I have no questions now, Mrs. Brooks. Yet I am willing to hear you, if you wish. I think you have needed a listener for a very long while.”
To Kitty’s horror, tears welled in her eyes. “Mr. Bingley is forever searching for little gifts to make Jane happy. Sometimes I wish my husband would bring me a gift, but then I remember how little it is the thing itself that matters. It is the sentiment behind the gift that I so long for.”
Miss Tilney’s evident sympathy was a balm, one Kitty needed badly and might have availed herself of at great length, had Jane not then appeared in the doorway.
“Kitty, dearest,” Jane said, “whatever is the matter?”
When bitterness is dammed for too long a time, once loosed it will flow beyond any containment. “For you, Jane, nothing is the matter. You have everything, and I have nothing.”
“But your children,” Jane said. “You have them, and surely they are dearer to you than all else.”
“They are in school and gone above half the year. The house is now so quiet.” Kitty stared at her eldest sister, who still—still!
—held much of her beauty, the silver strands in her hair mixing gently with the gold.
“Lydia and I always had to make our own fun, you know. You and Elizabeth cared little enough for us, and Mary cared only for her books.”
Jane looked wounded, and Kitty’s heart was hard enough to relish it. “Kitty, forgive me if I slighted you. It is only natural that sisters nearer in age should be closer friends to each other. It never occurred to me that you felt neglected by us.”
Truly, Kitty had not felt that way often, beyond the ordinary envy of young girls when their elder sisters are first able to put their hair up.
Yet in the aftermath of Lydia’s elopement, Kitty had come to understand how much their friendship had cost her intimacy with the rest of her sisters, for afterward she often felt much alone.
She did not admit this, saying instead, “I always knew you would marry well, beautiful as you are. And I always knew Elizabeth was too clever not to catch herself someone eligible. Yet you both married even above my wildest fancies.” Kitty wiped her face with her handkerchief.
“But then Mary? Mary? That she should marry into fortune and position? How could that be so?”
This was not what truly rankled Kitty, not the source of the resentment that had corrupted her sisterly feeling so. It was that even Mary—plain, bookish, staid Mary—had been able to wed for love.
Miss Tilney, perhaps finally recognizing how inappropriate it was to witness such an intimate conversation, rose from the bench. “Forgive me. I did not mean to intrude.”
“You did intrude, as did Jane.” Kitty got to her feet. Having humiliated herself, she could only think of quitting Netherfield even more swiftly than she had arrived. “I will walk back to the vicarage. The air will clear my head.”
Mercifully, Jane did not try to stop her as she left. Kitty was all too aware of the chatter in the drawing room from all others present, as well as the excruciating lowering of that chatter as her footsteps echoed past them. Her cheeks flamed.
Yet as she walked out into the dull October afternoon, unheeding of the wildflowers around her or the gentle breeze, Kitty told herself that even if everyone at Netherfield now knew of her envy and resentment, she had a secret they did not know and never would, no matter how many questions her nephew and Miss Tilney tried to ask.