Chapter 15
Elizabeth Bennet
Contrary to Jane’s excellent hopes, Mrs Bennet’s anger had not softened by Christmas.
If anything, the season appeared only to have supplied her with a larger audience before whom she might lament Elizabeth’s conduct and the cruel destruction of her family’s future.
Every visitor to Longbourn heard of the excellent marriage which had been lost through stubbornness, ingratitude, and what Mrs Bennet termed “romantic nonsense.”
Elizabeth endured it as patiently as she could.
Christmas festivities nevertheless proceeded around the complaints with determined regularity.
The Gardiners had brought with them enough noise, children, parcels, and cheerful disorder to overpower even Mrs Bennet’s grievances, if only temporarily.
Lydia and Kitty devoted themselves enthusiastically to holiday dinners and neighbourhood gatherings, while Mary attempted to improve the season through solemn musical selections no one had requested.
Even Mrs Bennet, despite herself, occasionally became distracted by menus, guests, and the practical demands of entertaining. But the peace never lasted long.
Sooner or later, the conversation always returned to Mr Collins. Or Charlotte Collins, as Elizabeth now forced herself to think of her.
Mrs Bennet spoke of the marriage with an indignation that sharpened daily rather than diminishing. Charlotte’s good fortune, in her opinion, only proved more conclusively how shamefully Elizabeth had behaved.
“Lady Lucas has gained everything,” she declared repeatedly. “And through my own kindness too, for if Mr Collins had not first become acquainted with our family, Charlotte Lucas would never have seen him at all.”
Elizabeth kept silent during such speeches, having discovered that contradiction only prolonged them. But even the effort of hearing the same criticisms over and over again, let alone biting back everything she might have wished to say, was exhausting.
By the second week of the Gardiners’ visit, she began finding herself reluctant to enter rooms where her mother sat alone.
Even ordinary conversation carried risk now.
Any harmless subject might suddenly transform into a fresh lament regarding sacrificed security, ungrateful daughters, or the alarming modern tendency of young women to believe themselves capable of independent judgment.
Only Jane seemed capable of enduring it without visible strain. Or perhaps Jane merely concealed her strain more successfully than anyone else.
One evening, after a particularly tiresome dinner during which Mrs Bennet had managed somehow to connect mince pies with Elizabeth’s destruction of the family’s future prosperity, Elizabeth escaped upstairs the moment she had finished eating.
She might have taken up a book or begun working on a piece of embroidery, but Elizabeth thought wearily that she did not have the will for it.
She stood instead at the window, looking out, but hardly knowing what she saw.
It was not long before Jane followed her. She sat near the fire and took out her workbasket, but she did not begin to stitch.
“Mama has been rather difficult today,” Jane said at last.
Elizabeth laughed, though it sounded bitter even to her own ears. “That description is so charitable it scarcely resembles the truth.”
Jane smiled, though concern lingered plainly beneath it.
Elizabeth crossed slowly toward the hearth, holding her hands toward the warmth before speaking again. “I sometimes think she means never to forgive me.”
Jane set aside her sewing. “Oh, Lizzy. You cannot truly believe that.”
“Can I not?” Elizabeth sank wearily into the chair opposite her sister. “Mama appears perfectly capable of sustaining resentment indefinitely where Mr Collins is concerned.”
Jane thought for a moment. “She is frightened still.”
“I know she is frightened.” Elizabeth pressed one hand against her forehead. “That is what makes the whole situation so miserable. If she were merely unreasonable, I think I could bear it more easily.”
Jane watched her quietly across the firelight.
“Do you blame me?” Elizabeth asked at last.
Jane looked genuinely startled by the question. “Blame you?” she repeated. “No. Never. How could I?”
The answer came with such immediate certainty that Elizabeth felt one part of the strain she had carried inside her, something she had not entirely known she was holding on to, suddenly ease and fall away.
Jane leaned forward slightly, her expression earnest. “Lizzy, I could never wish you married to someone you did not esteem.”
Elizabeth looked down at her hands. “Mama believes I have sacrificed all our security to pride and stubbornness.”
“Mama is unhappy,” Jane said gently. “That has made her unjust.”
Elizabeth gave a faint laugh. “You make her sound like a magistrate passing down an unjust sentence on me.”
Jane smiled despite herself. “I mean only that fear alters people sometimes. Particularly when they feel powerless.”
The observation carried enough truth that Elizabeth could not dismiss it.
Outside, the winter wind pressed softly against the windows, while voices drifted faintly upward from the drawing room below. Lydia was laughing at something loudly enough to be heard through half the house.
Elizabeth leaned back tiredly in her chair. “I know Mama suffers,” she admitted. “And Heaven knows I never intended to increase it. But every time she speaks of Mr Collins now, I feel as though I narrowly escaped something dreadful which no one else entirely believes existed.”
Jane’s expression softened. “I believe it.”
Elizabeth looked up. Jane held her gaze steadily across the firelight.
“Lizzy, I know what you escaped, and what it would have meant if you had not. Mr Collins meant no deliberate cruelty,” she continued carefully. “But that does not mean you were wrong to refuse him.”
Relief moved through Elizabeth more sharply than she could have expected. Because beneath everything else, some frightened portion of her had begun wondering whether time and distance might eventually make even her own certainty seem unreasonable.
“What frightened me most,” Elizabeth said slowly, “was not him exactly. It was the feeling that everyone had already decided for me. Mama. Mr Collins. Even the neighbours would likely have called it an excellent match.”
Jane was quiet for a moment. “Yes,” she said softly. “I think they probably would.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “That is a very alarming thing to admit.”
“It is only true.” Jane considered before continuing. “And perhaps it is easier for other people to approve such sacrifices when they are not the ones expected to make them.”
Elizabeth looked at her sister with a sudden surge of affection. “My dear Jane Bennet,” she said, “you grow dangerously perceptive.”
Jane laughed softly. “I have always been perceptive. I merely dislike using it unkindly.”
That sounded so entirely like Jane that Elizabeth finally smiled properly for the first time all evening. The expression appeared to reassure her sister.
“You see?” Jane said. “Everything already feels a little less dreadful.”
Elizabeth shook her head affectionately. “You possess the most extraordinary faith in improvement of any person alive.”
“And you possess perhaps too little.”
“Possibly because one of us must remain attached to observable reality.”
Jane only smiled again and returned to her abandoned sewing before speaking once more. “Mama will not remain angry forever.”
Elizabeth was considerably less certain. Still, she lacked the heart to argue against the hope audible in Jane’s voice.
Instead, she rose and crossed back toward the bedchamber window.
Beyond the dark glass, Longbourn lay peaceful beneath the winter night, its familiar grounds silvered beneath frost and moonlight.
Elizabeth could not entirely rid herself of the strange feeling that she had returned to something which no longer fit her quite as naturally as it once had.
∞∞∞
The Gardiners remained at Longbourn for another week after Christmas before finally preparing to return to London.
Mrs Bennet, who had spent nearly the entirety of their visit alternating between hospitality and grievance, became suddenly affectionate at the prospect of their departure.
She wept over the children, insisted London air would certainly ruin everyone’s health before February, and extracted repeated promises that they would return in the spring.
Elizabeth watched the performance with tired amusement. “Mama gains a great deal of energy whenever she has a fresh audience,” she murmured quietly to Jane while trunks were being loaded outside.
Jane, loyal even now, attempted not to smile.
The morning of the Gardiners’ departure arrived bitterly cold. Frost coated the windows, and the younger children complained loudly about being wrapped in travelling cloaks before breakfast had properly concluded.
Mrs Gardiner embraced Elizabeth tightly in the front hall before stepping toward the carriage. “You are certain you will not come back to London with us?”
Elizabeth hesitated. “I think I ought to remain here.”
Part of her still believed leaving again would be cowardly, as though she could endure difficulty only while protected beneath someone else’s roof.
Longbourn remained her home despite everything.
Jane was here. And somewhere beyond all the strain and uncertainty, her father might someday return here too.
Mrs Gardiner studied her niece’s face with enough understanding to make further explanation unnecessary. “You know you need only write if you wish to come.”
“I know.”
Mr Gardiner squeezed her hand affectionately before climbing into the carriage beside his wife. “Courage, Lizzy,” he said with a smile.
Elizabeth smiled faintly. “I shall attempt heroism.”
“Attempt patience instead,” Mrs Gardiner advised from the carriage window. “It is generally more useful.”