“For southern Scotland, perchance?”
It turned out that it was possible for Elizabeth to feel yet more embarrassed. “I truly mean what I have said. I have no expectations.”
“Jane, Jane, is that you inside of Lizzy? How did you achieve this feat?”
Elizabeth giggled.
“I do not think you shall need to flee.” Papa frowned. “My lawyer from London shall be called by express as soon as I have spoken a little with young Lord Hartley. We shall need him to begin the process for you to claim your mother’s fortune. The terms of the settlement are such that your possession of the income from that fortune will not depend onhisgoodwill. Though Lord Rochester can prevent you from receiving any funds before you have come of age.”
“Is it…” Elizabeth’s voice cracked. “Is it substantial?”
“Do you have a possible suitor who you hope to impress with your dowry?” Papa asked.
“Please cease to tease me. I do...I am not Jane, I confess tohopingand to considering itpossible, but by no meanscertain. Until yesterday he only saw me as a penniless girl, the unwanted relation of a minor gentleman.”
“Do not understate your merits. You were always wanted,” Papa said. “And any gentleman who must be bribed to have you is not worth the gaining. Note, I do not think that is the case with your Mr. Darcy. But your mother’s fortune was substantial byourstandards, and the whole of the income has been reinvested into the funds these fifteen years, which will have doubled its size.”
“That is what you meant by likely gaining a provision suitable to my birth.” Elizabeth could not help but laugh. It was quite odd still to realize that she had never been illegitimate.
“I said that. Oh, yes. To you and Mary when she suggested that her marriage would be of benefit to you. I forgot to ask, due to the more dramatic revelations. How are she and Mr. Collins, is she yet bored of him?”
“They have a sort of happiness which would not do forme, but the more I see of them together, the better matched they seem to be—but I confess that nothing I can say will yet removeyour anxieties on that front. I was there for merely a week, and they are still in that newlywed glow.”
“Theyhavea glow from being newlyweds?” Papa chuckled. “I am happy to hear that much.”
“She was delighted by his present of a piano, and he is delighted to listen to her play while he writes his sermons, before presenting them to both her and Lady Catherine for approval.”
Papa laughed. “A good practice for both of them. And I am glad that she will keep to her music, at least until such time as a child drives it from her mind.”
The two of them sat quiet for several minutes. Elizabeth sipped the cognac.
“What,” Papa asked, “had youthoughtI meant by a provision suitable to your birth?”
“I had no notion. You see I always thought I was illegitimate. You even once confirmed that you had particular worries about me because of my mother’s sins.”
“Lizzy, I wish, I dearly wish I could have told you more. And I could have. Yet I feared, and the case has proven that those fears were not unfounded—it is hard to know as a parent. An attempt to avoid one sort of problem, one type of failure, will lead you to the opposite problem. It is easy to observe your failures and think that you were a fool. Yet the question is not whether there were bad things which resulted from your decisions, but whether there was a decision that you could have made which would have led to a better outcome. And that is the question which will leave you wracking your brains and unhappy at night. I think not only of you, but of Mary and the younger girls. And I can claim no credit that Jane turned out well. It is her nature.”
Elizabeth stood and embraced her loving father. “Thank you.”
“And for what now?”
“For wracking your brains and losing your hair for my sake. For all of us.”
“No, no. My father was always a cheerful fellow, and he had a far large bald spot by my age.”
Elizabeth laughed.
“Come, come.” Papa rose. “There are many other questions that we both have, but I must talk to those two young of gentlemen of yours.”
Smiling, Elizabeth stood with him, but as her hand touched the brass doorknob, she turned back to him. “I must ask. It cannot change my affection foryou, but it will materially affect how I must treathim. Was he the cause of my mother’s death?”
Papa looked grave. “Her fever was caused by an inflammation from her broken ribs. I consider it murder. The barrister who I consulted assured me that if charges were brought, it would be argued that the illness would not have progressed to such a state without the long stagecoach in the midst of winter. Even if were proven that Lord Rochester’s beating was the principal cause, he would be judged by the House of Lords, and they might hesitate to punish one of their fellow peers for the sake of a woman who had cuckolded one of them. My chief aim was to prevent Lord Rochester from harming you, so I did not pursue the case.”
Elizabeth gripped her silver locket with her mother’s picture. She snapped it open to look at her image. Then she closed it. “Did you love her—Darcy told me, before we knew thatIhad a personal interest in the matter, that she had wished to marry a minor country gentleman, and I now wonder...”
“We had meant to marry.” Mr. Bennet smiled a little, his eyes lost. “But her family always considered me to be less than she deserved, and when Amelia caught the eye of anearlher family opposed the match so strenuously that she was prevailedupon to drop me. I loved her very much. I think anger towards her governed my actions over the next years.” Papa shrugged. “Yet, when she begged for help, I went without hesitation. And I have never regretted it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
