Chapter 28 #3
Mrs Bennet began crying in earnest. Jane sat beside her, soothing her with one hand while holding Bingley’s with the other in a manner that suggested she had quite forgotten anyone might notice.
Kitty hovered near Mr Bennet, still tearful and unwilling to be far from him.
Lydia demanded to see the papers and declared that she had always thought Mr Collins looked like a man who had no business inheriting a house, which was not evidence of anything but seemed to satisfy her.
Mary stood near the pianoforte, quiet and very pale, watching her father as if afraid the room might change again before she understood the last change fully.
Mr Bennet sank into a chair. The journey, the performance of his return, and the triumph over Mr Collins must have cost him more than he wished to admit. Elizabeth crossed to him, feeling strangely torn between love, compassion, and lingering anger.
“You should rest,” she said.
“I have rested for several months, surely.”
“You were in prison.”
“A confined form of rest.”
“Papa.”
He sighed. “Very well. I shall consent to be weak if everyone promises not to enjoy it.”
“No one is enjoying it.”
“I suspect Mr Darcy is. He has the look of a man who values evidence, and I am providing a great deal of evidence that fathers-in-law are troublesome.”
Darcy bowed slightly. “I would not presume to form so broad a conclusion from one example.”
Mr Bennet smiled faintly. “Very diplomatic. I see I shall have to learn to dislike you with more effort.”
“Do not exert yourself,” Elizabeth said.
Jane laughed softly through her tears. It was the first easy sound Elizabeth had heard from her sister since entering the room, or indeed in some time.
Mr Bennet looked around at them all, his gaze lingering on Jane and Bingley’s joined hands, on Darcy beside Elizabeth, on Mary standing apart, on Kitty and Lydia trying to look grave and failing.
Mrs Bennet had begun explaining to no one in particular that she had always known Mr Bennet would return because her nerves had never accepted his death as final.
“Well,” Mr Bennet said at last, “as I have returned from the dead, overturned an entail, and caused Mr Collins to faint, I suppose I must not be idle with the rest of the afternoon. I must now have a reputation to uphold.”
“You must be idle,” Elizabeth said. “You must eat and sleep.”
“Soon. First, there is a matter to settle.” He tapped the packet of papers with one finger. “If Longbourn may at last be disposed of sensibly, then I must see that it is. I have spent too many years allowing the law to make fools of us. I would prefer not to continue the experiment voluntarily.”
Mrs Bennet sat up a little. “Disposed of? Mr Bennet, what are you saying?”
“I am saying that if the entail is defeated and no male heir stands to claim the estate, I may settle Longbourn where I choose, or at least begin the process of doing so with more confidence than I possessed before. Naturally, I must choose carefully.”
His eyes moved toward Elizabeth. She saw his intention before he spoke and felt a sudden, uncomfortable rush of affection and alarm.
“It shall, of course, go to my most sensible daughter—” Mr Bennet began.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said quickly. “Exactly. Mary.”
Mr Bennet stopped. “Mary?”
Mary looked up sharply.
Mrs Bennet blinked. “Mary?”
Lydia said, “Mary?” with the air of someone repeating a word in a foreign language.
Elizabeth kept her eyes on her father. “Yes. Mary.”
“Lizzy,” Mr Bennet said slowly. “Will you not permit me to finish my sentence?”
“You may,” Elizabeth said. “But only if you finish it correctly.”
Darcy’s hand found hers.
Mr Bennet looked from her to Darcy and back again. “I see marriage has not made you less impertinent.”
“No. But it has made me financially secure.”
A small silence followed that, different from the others. Jane looked at her, and Elizabeth felt rather than saw her sister understand.
“So is Jane,” Elizabeth continued, gentler now. “Or she soon will be. She has Mr Bingley, and I have Mr Darcy. We will never need Longbourn. Mary does not have such certainty.”
Mary’s face had gone very still.
Elizabeth turned slightly toward her sister.
“And more than that, she would care for it. Truly care for it. She would not see Longbourn merely as income, or consequence, or a roof owed to her. She would study the accounts. She would learn the tenants’ names.
She would worry over repairs and harvests and schools and whether the poultry woman’s son ought to be apprenticed.
She would take it seriously because Mary takes serious things seriously.
Longbourn could not have a better mistress. ”
Mary’s lips parted, but no sound came.
Mr Bennet leaned back, his expression unreadable. “And you think Mary would wish for such a responsibility?”
“I do,” Elizabeth said. “But you should ask her, not me.”