“Oh, yes. Of course I shall. Let me grab my bag.” Elizabeth then looked at Jane, not wishing to lose the whole of the last day she would have with her sister before she returned to Hunsford.
Jane took Elizabeth’s hand, gripped it, and said, “My dear Lizzy, do give my greetings to that sweet little child.”
“I doubt they shall mean a great deal to her,” Elizabeth replied laughingly. “But I shall.”
“We shall talk a great deal tonight.” Jane smiled.
At Netherfield Elizabeth found a tiny red-eyed girl, constantly rubbing her eyes and moaning, “Papa, Papa.” The girl of course screamed and struggled desperately to escape each time Nell picked her up to bounce her.
For her part, it was clear that Nell was also desperate for a chance for a nap. Nell’s own child, who was a year older than his milk sibling, explained to Elizabeth with a great deal of pointing that Em was very sad because Miter Dar had disappeared.
The nurse for her part said that she’d never seen a child so attached to their father, and that while she admired Mr. Darcy enormously, perhaps it was a little much.
It took Elizabeth twenty minutes to convince a sobbing Emily to look through the illustrations inTommy Thumbs Pretty Song Book,but once the girl had settled into doing so, she delightedly turned the pages for fifteen minutes. When she began to turn fussy again, Elizabeth picked her up, and sang to herBaa, Baa Black Sheep,thenMary Mary, Quite Contrary,and finallyLittle Tommy Tucker.
By the time Elizabeth needed to decide on a fourth song, she suspected strongly from the way the girl lay on her shoulder that she was asleep, and as Emily made no complaint upon Elizabeth’s not continuing to sing, she determined to act as though such was true.
After a few minutes of continuing to hold her while walking about, Elizabeth settled herself in the rocking chair. That involved a little difficulty as she had to manage the dead weight of the baby without waking her. Then for the next two hours Elizabeth only sat there, enjoying the weight of the baby and the chance to let her mind wander over the joys and far more severe pains of the past days.
At last, Mr. Sykes was gone from the neighbourhood.
When Emily woke, she was wholly pathetic, and repeatedly called out “Pa, Pa.” She cried for a minute.
However, after being carried about by Elizabeth for five minutes, she happily dressed to adventure out in the garden and little wilderness around Netherfield. The whole had dried sufficiently that it required of Emily a diligent effort to find puddles and mud, though find them she did eventually.
After the outerwear had been taken off, and the need to clean it all tutted over by the maids, they returned to the library to look page throughTommy Thumbsagain.
When the evening came, Elizabeth returned home, wishing to see Jane. From the alacrity with which Miss Bingley offered to have the carriage sent for her the next day, if she would have the kindness to visit the child again, it was clear that Miss Bingley would much have preferred to have Elizabeth settled in place as a second nurse for the little girl.
Elizabeth also came the next day, after tearfully seeing Jane off in the morning, and then the next.
During her visits, Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley shared with Elizabeth all the details of their theory that Miss Darcyhad eloped with a worthless fortune hunter. A great variety of evidence, supports, conjectures, logical deductions, and references to their memory of Miss Darcy’s character were suggested.
The whole convinced Elizabeth that they were likely right, though this possibility did not please her at all, as she felt keenly for Mr. Darcy in such an unhappy situation.
While Elizabeth did not think warmly of Bingley’s sisters, she pleased herself with the notion that Miss Bingley’s view of her was even worse than how she thought of Miss Bingley. That was a victory of a sort.
When well pleased, the two of them really were not so bad. As long as they were not required to spend more than an hour or a day in the company of the child, and so long as it was not their duty to calm her and serve in the role of nurse or mother, they were good enough at entertaining Emily and themselves in the nursery.
Likely Elizabeth could only tolerate Miss Bingley, as she was tolerably assured that while Mr. Darcy’s scruples had prevented him from making an offer to Elizabeth, she was still much preferred to Miss Bingley. A fact that Miss Bingley clearly had become, at last, aware of.
On the fifth day after Mr. Darcy departed, a letter from him came to Mr. Bingley. He had also sent another directly to his servants who still remained in the house.
The news that a letter had been sent was delivered to Elizabeth by Miss Bingley as soon as she’d entered the house. “Ha! Ha! Darcy at last sent a letter to Charles. I was right!”
“Oh, my,” Elizabeth said, feeling a hollow pit in her stomach. Poor Mr. Darcy! “His sister did marry a fortune hunter? The steward’s son as you thought?”
“I do notknowif she did,” Miss Bingley said. “My brother is too stubborn to tell us what the letter says. Much more ofa barred gate than his usual manner. The postmark is from Carlisle.Thatcan only mean one thing.”
Elizabeth pressed her hand to her mouth. “Poor Mr. Darcy. I know it is not likely, but I do hope he was drawn so far north for a different reason.” In an attempt at humour she did not feel, Elizabeth lightly said, “I insist it could mean more than one thing.”
“Not likely at all.” Miss Bingley laughed. “Had he askedmeI would have advised him to never permit his sister to be out of his sight for a whole day.” Then there was a pause. “And to think I once fancied that I might have become the second Mrs. Darcy. All of us women here are fortunate, are we not, that he had determined to never marry. I would be a laughingstock if I’d become engaged to a man whose sister promptly married asteward’sson.”
“I dare say,” Elizabeth replied with her own smile, “that you could imagine nothing worse.”
Miss Bingley tittered. She had an air of complete satisfaction with herself. “I always knew there was something amiss with Georgiana Darcy’s morals.”
“Poor Mr. Darcy.” A man determined to keep himself from having any one to care for him as he deserved to be cared for.
