Jane
Elizabeth could not believe the impropriety of her mother. She supposed she should not have been surprised given how Mama always behaved. The fact her father had given in to her again—and this time to the possible detriment of her most beloved sister—caused Elizabeth to view her father with a critical eye, something she had avoided doing previously.
In the past, she had always tried to find excuses for Papa’s lackadaisical and indolent style of parenting, but in this case, she found she could not. How could a parent, one supposed to protect his wife and children, knowingly put Janey in harm’s way?
She felt like she wanted to scream, or cry, or both. How was she, the second of five Bennet daughters, more worried for the eldest daughter in the family than her parents were?
As soon as she completed reading Jane’s note and calming herself, Elizabeth made for her father’s study. He and Mary were the only others who would be awake at this hour of the morning. The former would be reading with a steaming cup of coffee and some warm rolls and butter on a plate, while the latter would be sitting in the small parlour reading some of her Fordyce’s Sermons to give her the moral lessons she would repeat at times during the day.
Elizabeth rapped on the thick oak door and pushed it open before her father had a chance to call out for her to enter.
“Lizzy, to what do I owe this honour of seeing you before your constitutional this morning?” Bennet enquired.
“I need to make for Netherfield Park,” Elizabeth stated directly. “Thanks to her parents’ decisions yesterday, Janey is ill and begging my company at our neighbour’s estate.”
Bennet had the decency to look embarrassed at his lack of action the previous day. He rang for Hill. “Please have my wife summoned,” Bennet instructed when the butler entered his master’s study.
Some twenty minutes later the rather bedraggled mistress of Longbourn entered her husband’s study with an indignant huff. It was not hard to see she would have much rather have been in her warm bed, fast asleep dreaming of all of her daughters well disposed of in marriage.
“Why was I dragged out of my bed at such an ungodly hour?” Fanny demanded. “Such flutterings and palpitations! Being woken at this time I thought you had met your end and the girls and I were about to be thrown out of our home and into the hedgerows!”
As his wife said the last, Bennet with some guilt looked at one letter in particular which was on his desktop. He decided it was not the time to break that nugget of information to his wife.
“Please read this,” Bennet ordered succinctly and handed his wife the note Lizzy had received earlier that morning.
“It will be just as I said it would be. With Jane at Netherfield Park she will return home engaged to Mr. Bingley or my name is not Fanny Gardiner Bennet!” Fanny crowed triumphantly.
“And if Jane should die in service of your plans, what then, Mrs. Bennet?” Bennet demanded.
“She says her illness is slight, no one dies from a trifling cold,” Fanny sniffed.
“Mama, you know better than anyone how Jane downplays her symptoms when she is ill. If she said as much as she did then she is sick indeed!” Elizabeth insisted.
Fanny looked away to hide her feelings of guilt. As much as she hated to admit it, what Lizzy said was the truth. She would not allow her husband to see it because he would only make sport of her. However, after interpreting Jane’s words she was sure her eldest and most beautiful daughter was quite sick.
“Allow me to get dressed and I will go to my…” Fanny began but ceased to speak when her husband raised his hand.
“Jane requested Lizzy come to see her and Lizzy it will be.” Bennet turned towards his second daughter. “The horses really are on the farm this morning; they will be available in two to three hours.”
“In that case, I will walk, I have no intention of waiting to see my sister,” Elizabeth decided.
“But after walking over the muddy fields you will not be fit to be seen,” Fanny protested.
“I care not about anyone else’s opinion. My aim is to see Janey, not socialise with the residents of the estate,” Elizabeth stated forcefully.
“Lizzy has my permission to walk,” Bennet instructed firmly before his wife could raise any more objections.
“Thank you, Papa.” Elizabeth went around the desk and kissed her father on his cheek.
Fanny would not admit it aloud, but she was well pleased Lizzy would be with her sister. Jane would not advocate for her own needs, but her younger sister would have no compunction in doing so.
To maintain her façade of disagreeing with her second daughter walking in the mud and such, she sniffed and walked out of the study to return to her warm bed. The truth was she would not rest easy until she received a report of Jane’s true health, about which she knew Lizzy would have no hesitation in relaying the unvarnished truth.
A minute after her mother returned to her own chambers, Elizabeth ran up the stairs to her and Jane’s shared chamber. After packing a valise for Jane to be sent with the footman, she changed into a heavy muslin walking dress with an extra layer of undergarments to ward off the post-rain cold.
Once her goodbyes were conveyed to her father, Elizabeth went to the kitchen where her sturdy walking boots and heavy winter coat were kept as she always left from the kitchen door to begin her rambles each day there was no rain. It was the work of a minute to have her boots securely tied in place. She shrugged on her jacket and made sure it was well buttoned.
Cook gifted her with a warm lemon pastry, an equally warm roll, and an apple. With her warm sustenance wrapped up and deposited in one pocket while the apple was placed in the other, Elizabeth walked across the kitchen garden and through the gate in the low stone wall at a blistering pace.
