Chapter Twenty-Two Netherfield is Let at Last
THE LATE MAY SUNSHINE warmed the Hertfordshire countryside, bringing the hedgerows into full bloom as the carriage rolled towards Longbourn.
Elizabeth observed her betrothed from her corner of the luxurious travelling carriage with a smile. It had been exactly one week since the magical, lantern-lit proposal at Vauxhall Gardens. Fitzwilliam Darcy sat opposite her, his jaw clenched so tightly she feared he might crack a tooth.
“You are clenching your jaw again, Fitzwilliam,” she noted mildly. “If you grind your teeth any harder, you will arrive at Longbourn requiring the services of a dentist. Or perhaps a blacksmith.”
Darcy unclenched his jaw with visible effort, though his expression remained grim. “I am merely preparing my faculties. I am bracing for the... exuberance of your mother.”
Beside Elizabeth, Jane offered a musical laugh. “Mamma will be very exuberant, Mr Darcy. When she received Lizzy’s letter about your engagement, we could hear her exclamations of joy echoing all the way down to Gracechurch Street.”
“I have it on good authority that she demanded to know the exact dimensions of Pemberley before she even finished reading the second paragraph,” Elizabeth added, her gaze dropping to the stunning sapphire ring sparkling on her left hand.
“I suggest you feign a sudden loss of hearing if she asks about the inventory of your silver plates. Or the number of your carriages. Or the precise number of your bedsheets.”
In the opposite corner, Georgiana Darcy sat with her hands folded neatly in her lap. The young girl wore a charming spring bonnet trimmed with green ribbons, her cheeks flushed with a mixture of warmth and anticipation.
“Is Longbourn very large, Elizabeth?” Georgiana asked, her voice soft and eager. “Fitzwilliam says it is a respectable estate, but he refused to provide details about the gardens.”
“Your brother lacks an appreciation for horticulture,” Elizabeth teased, earning an exasperated sigh from Darcy.
“Longbourn is modest, Georgiana. It is not a grand palace, and we do not have a gallery of miserable ancestors staring down at you. What we do have is noise. Constant, unrelenting noise.”
Darcy cleared his throat. “I assure you, I can survive a loud country house.”
“You say that now,” Elizabeth warned, “but you have not yet experienced my sister Lydia when she is nursing a grievance. Or my mother when she discovers you own more than one carriage.”
They turned off the main road, the familiar boundary of the Longbourn estate coming into view.
Elizabeth’s pulse quickened. She had departed this house for a visit to her friend Charlotte, and she was returning as a conquering heroine, bringing with her the very man she had once sworn to loathe, and a sister with a liberated spirit.
The carriage ground to a halt, and before the footman could even hop down to open the door, the front entrance of Longbourn burst open.
Mrs Bennet emerged as though shot from a cannon.
She wore her most elaborate morning cap, her arms thrown wide, her voice reaching a pitch that caused a nearby flock of starlings to scatter.
“Oh, my dear, dear Mr Darcy!” Mrs Bennet shrieked, descending the steps with a speed that defied her constant complaints of nervous palpitations.
“Ten thousand a year! Oh, my poor fainting spirits! Ten thousand a year, and a house in town, and a carriage that must have cost a king’s ransom!
I always said it! I always said you were the most handsome, most excellent gentleman to ever grace Hertfordshire! ”
Darcy stepped down from the carriage with admirable composure. He turned to assist Elizabeth, but Mrs Bennet was already upon him. She did not embrace him—she hovered with ecstatic glee.
“Madam.” Darcy bowed, executing a greeting of such respect that Mrs Bennet gasped for breath. “It is an honour to return to Longbourn under such happy circumstances.”
“An honour! Oh, the condescension!” Mrs Bennet finally noticed her daughter and rushed forward to pull Elizabeth into a bone-crushing embrace.
“Lizzy, you sly, brilliant girl! To think I despaired of you ever catching a husband, and you catch the biggest prize in England! I shall faint. I must have Hill fetch the smelling salts immediately—but I cannot faint until I have shown Mr Darcy the dining room and asked him about the dishes he prefers!”
“Mamma, breathe,” Jane urged, stepping down from the carriage and kissing her mother’s cheek.
“Jane, my sweet angel! You are home! And looking so well!” Mrs Bennet patted Jane’s face before her attention snapped to the young girl emerging from the carriage.
“And who is this? Oh! Miss Darcy! Welcome, welcome! We are so blessed! Come inside, all of you! The fires are lit, and Cook has been preparing a feast since dawn! We have mutton! And two different kinds of cake!”
Elizabeth caught Darcy’s gaze as they moved inside. He was enduring the barrage of flattery with stoic grace, though the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth betrayed his amusement—and perhaps a touch of fear.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, a whirlwind of muslin and lace tumbled down from the upper staircase. Kitty and Lydia vaulted over the final steps, landing in the hall with a cacophony of sighs and groans.
“Lizzy! Jane!” Lydia cried, though her greeting lacked its usual boisterous cheer. The youngest Bennet sister threw herself onto a nearby chair, draping her arm over her forehead in a pose of acute tragedy. “You have returned to a tomb! A miserable tomb!”
Elizabeth paused, untying her bonnet strings. “A tomb, Lydia? Who died?”
“My youth is deceased!” Lydia wailed, kicking her heel against the floorboards.
“The militia has gone, Lizzy! They packed their tents and marched away to Brighton yesterday! And Harriet Forster—that traitorous, awful woman—refused to invite me to accompany her! She claimed the colonel wanted a quiet summer! A quiet summer in Brighton! It is a contradiction in terms!”
Kitty sniffed loudly, dabbing her nose with a handkerchief. “We shall perish of boredom, Lizzy. There is no one left in Meryton. Mr Goulding is the only bachelor remaining, and he spends his afternoons talking to his goat.”
Elizabeth exchanged a swift, relieved glance with Darcy. The militia had departed. Mr Wickham was gone. The county was free of his presence, and Lydia’s catastrophic potential for scandal had been safely neutralised by Mrs Forster’s sudden desire for marital peace.
“I am so very sorry for your loss, Lydia,” Elizabeth managed to say, infusing her tone with as much sympathy as she could muster while inwardly celebrating with fireworks.
Lydia sat up, her tragic demeanour vanishing the instant she spotted Georgiana standing quietly beside Darcy.
“Who is this?” she demanded, bouncing up from the chair.
She marched directly to Georgiana, inspecting the girl’s expensive silk pelisse with unabashed curiosity.
“You must be the sister. Miss Darcy. Lizzy wrote that you are very accomplished. Do you like bonnets? I have a new bonnet, but it is positively dreary because there is no one in Meryton to admire it. Do you not agree that missing a trip to Brighton is the greatest tragedy of the century?”
Georgiana blinked, bewildered by the relentless interrogation. She turned to her brother for guidance, but Darcy offered an encouraging nod.
“I... I have never been to Brighton,” Georgiana answered, offering a tentative smile. “But I do like bonnets, especially the ones with ribbons.”
“Ribbons!” Kitty squealed, recovering from her mourning. “Lydia, she likes ribbons! Come, Miss Darcy, you must come upstairs! We have six feet of pink silk we do not know what to do with, and you simply must help us decide!”
Before Georgiana could formulate a polite response, Lydia and Kitty linked arms with her, and like a pair of determined, chattering magpies, they swept the girl away, dragging her up the staircase.
“Fitzwilliam!” Georgiana called out, glancing over her shoulder with a mixture of panic and delight as she was pulled around the landing.
“You are on your own, Georgiana!” Darcy called back, a laugh escaping his chest. “Be brave!”
“Well,” Elizabeth mused, handing her cloak to Hill. “She has been assimilated. I give it an hour before she is plotting a shopping expedition to Meryton with my sisters.”
From the doorway of the sitting room, Mary Bennet emerged. She held a leather-bound volume to her chest. She wore a solemn expression, her spectacles perched firmly on her nose.
Darcy turned, offering a respectful bow. “Miss Mary. It is a pleasure to see you again.”
“I am gratified by your return, Mr Darcy,” Mary said with a solemn curtsy. “I have composed an extract upon the merits of perseverance, which seems fitting given the joyous news of your engagement to my sister. I would value your opinion on my conclusions later.”
“I am at your disposal,” Darcy promised.
As Mary retreated back to her studies, Mr Bennet emerged from the hallway leading to his library. The patriarch of Longbourn surveyed the crowded hall, the mountain of trunks, and his wife, before settling his attention upon his future son-in-law.
“Ah, Mr Darcy,” Mr Bennet drawled, his tone dry as dust. “I see you have brought the ransom. Come into my study, sir. Let us discuss the terms of your surrender, and precisely how you intend to manage a woman who refuses to be managed.”
Darcy did not flinch. He offered Elizabeth a reassuring wink that made her pulse flutter, then followed her father into the study.
“Oh, I hope Mr Bennet does not tease the poor man too much!” Mrs Bennet fretted, clasping her hands together.
“A man with ten thousand a year should never be teased! It is against the natural order of things! Come, girls, into the drawing room! The fire is blazing. It is too warm, for it is nearly June, but I had it lit lest we be deemed stingy with coal. Come, I must hear everything about your travels! Everything!”
Elizabeth and Jane followed their mother into the drawing room.
They settled onto the sofas, Mrs Bennet immediately launching into an exhaustive interrogation about Elizabeth’s wedding clothes, the availability of fine lace in Cheapside, and whether Lady Catherine had truly installed glazing in the parsonage windows.
Elizabeth answered patiently, recounting the grand spectacles of London and confirming the existence of glazing and Mr Collins’s joy about it.
They had been conversing for the better part of an hour when the front door of Longbourn opened with a violent crash.
“Sister! Sister! Oh, Sister!”
Mrs Phillips, Mrs Bennet’s gossiping, energetic sister, burst into the drawing room like a town crier announcing a royal birth. She was panting for breath, her bonnet sitting crookedly upon her head, her cheeks bright red from a brisk walk across the village.
“Sister!” she gasped, collapsing into the nearest armchair and clutching her chest. “Hill! Fetch me some tea! Or perhaps sherry! Oh, the news! The news I have!”
Mrs Bennet sat up straight, abandoning the topic of wedding lace. “News? What news, sister? Has Mr Goulding bought another goat?”
“A goat! Heavens, no!” Mrs Phillips waved her hands wildly. “It is Netherfield! Sister, Netherfield Park is let at last!”
Elizabeth froze. Beside her, Jane stiffened, her hands gripping the folds of her blue skirt.
“Let?” Mrs Bennet pressed a hand to her throat. “Netherfield is let? After that hideous, fickle, horrible Mr Bingley abandoned it? Good riddance to him, I say! But who has taken the lease? Is it a gentleman? A single gentleman? Oh, let him be single, Lord!”
“It is!” Mrs Phillips crowed, relishing the dramatic suspense. “Mr Morris, the agent, completed the paperwork yesterday afternoon! The new tenant arrives tomorrow! And Sister, you shall faint when you hear who it is!”
Elizabeth glanced at Jane. Jane’s demeanour was a mask of neutrality, but the rapid flutter of the pulse at her throat betrayed her agitation.
“Who?” Mrs Bennet demanded, bouncing off the sofa. “Speak, woman! Do not keep me in suspense! Is he rich? Is he respectable?”
“Rich? Respectable?” Mrs Phillips laughed, a giddy, triumphant sound. “He is a peer of the realm, Sister! A viscount! A wealthy, unmarried viscount!”
Elizabeth’s jaw dropped. The pieces of the puzzle slammed together in her mind with dizzying force.
“A viscount?” Mrs Bennet gasped, her voice reaching a pitch that threatened to shatter the windowpanes. “Oh, my poor nerves! A viscount at Netherfield! Do you know his name, Sister? What is his name?”
“Viscount Keathley!” Mrs Phillips announced proudly, as if she were his godmother. “He hails from a grand family in London!”
Jane let out a small, strangled sound that she disguised as a cough. She pressed her hand over her mouth, her shoulders beginning to shake.
“Viscount Keathley!” Mrs Bennet repeated the name as if it were a sacred chant. “Oh, what a magnificent day! A viscount! Mr Bennet must call on him immediately! Is he coming alone?”
“No, no! He is bringing a household!” Mrs Phillips leaned closer, dropping her voice into a conspiratorial whisper.
“Mr Morris says the viscount is bringing his brother, a military man, and a female cousin who will serve as the hostess of the estate! And Sister, you will not believe the preparations!”
“Preparations?” Mrs Bennet asked greedily.
“Mrs Nicholls went to the butcher this morning and ordered fifty pounds of mutton! Fifty pounds! You do not order that much meat unless you intend to host a ball, or feed a regiment!”
Elizabeth could no longer contain it.
Jane had abandoned all attempts at serene neutrality. She was laughing, her hands covering her face, her whole body shaking.
Robert Fitzwilliam, a man who loathed the countryside, who did not visit his own seat in Cornwall, who detested early mornings and considered mud a personal insult, had just leased a country estate in Hertfordshire.
He had bypassed the conventional rules of courtship and had simply acquired the neighbouring property, dragging Richard and Anne along to serve as his chaperones.
It was a siege. A romantic, ridiculous, mutton-fuelled siege.
“Why are you laughing?” Mrs Bennet demanded, glancing between her two eldest daughters with confusion. “Jane! Lizzy! Stop laughing! This is serious business! We must plan our wardrobes! We have an unmarried viscount moving in three miles away! We must strategise!”
“There is no need to strategise, Mamma,” Elizabeth managed to say. “I suspect the viscount has his own plans firmly in place.”