Jane must have heard her because a look of peace came over her face, and her chest stopped rising and falling. She was still. Jane was dead.
Chapter 10
For those in the sitting room, Elizabeth’s plaintive wailing told them Jane was no longer suffering. Gardiner pulled his wife into the circle of his arms as she cried quietly on his shoulder.
They were not alone in the sitting room. Mr Phillips had remained after his wife had made a brief visit to her niece earlier in the afternoon. Like her younger sister, Hattie did not do well with impending death, especially not when it was one of her most loved nieces.
Messrs Darcy and Bingley had chosen to sit with the Bennet family members and Mr Jones. Darcy’s heart went out to Miss Elizabeth as soon as he heard her lamentations. He was all too familiar with such scenes after first his mother, and then his father had passed away. He wished he could be the one to comfort Miss Elizabeth, but he remained in his chair sending her all of the sympathy he could muster.
Bingley stood, and with a steely look in the eye, he wordlessly left the sitting room. He marched to his younger sister’s suite in the family wing, banged on the door to the bedchamber once, and then threw the door open.
Miss Bingley screeched with fear, thinking she was about to be murdered in her bed. When the taper was lit in the fire, and candles lighted as well, as the haze of sleep cleared, she was able to see it was not some brigand come to murder her, but rather her brother .
“What is the meaning of this behaviour?” Miss Bingley demanded. “How dare you burst into my bedchamber in thisinfamous manner?”
“Get out of bed, get dressed, and pack,” Bingley growled with ice in his voice. “I told you if Miss Bennet, myfiancée,passed away, you would be out of my house immediately. After you claimed her illness was feigned and a ploy, she is no longer living! Is she feigning that? Is that a ploy to entrap me?” As he spoke, Bingley felt his fury build at the heartless woman before him.
Seeing the unalloyed rage building in her brother, Caroline Bingley made the intelligent choice, for once in her life. “W-where a-am I t-to g-go?” she squeaked.
“To the Red Lion Inn in Meryton. There you will remain until I have worked out everything I need to with my solicitor in London. It will be some days until I travel to Town, at least until after my fiancée is laid to rest.”
It was the second time her brother had used the word fiancée. Was he addlepated? “Of what do you speak, you were not engaged to Miss Bennet.”
“In fact I was, but that is neither here nor there. If you are not ready to leave in an hour, it will not matter. Youareleaving my house by the time sixty minutes have passed, and never will I tolerate your presence in my company again. Now I suggest you pack your belongings. I have paid for a sennight to begin with, as I know not when the interment will be. Once I have met with my solicitor and everything is decided, after that, you will be on your own. I have assigned your maid to other tasks, and unless you are able to afford to pay her wages, do not bother ringing for Kindle. She will not come. If you have spent all of your allowance, do not look to me to advance you anything. By now all of the shops in London have been notified I will not pay for any of your future purchases.” Bingley turned on his heel and stalked out of the bedchamber.
Miss Bingley sat and stared at the open door long after her brother had walked out of her suite. This could not behappening to her, yet she had seen nothing but resolve in her brother’s bearing. She could not believe Charles would deprive her of her maid, so she rang, rang again, and again. No one answered her.
By the time the end of the hour approached, she had packed two of her trunks, after a fashion, but had not managed to dress herself yet. Some of her brother’s footmen took the trunks while another escorted her to the entrance hall, where her brother stood, the look on his face as implacable as it had been an hour earlier.
“But Charles, I have not been dressed yet,” Miss Bingley spluttered.
“Then I suggest you wear your heavy coat and gloves. If not, the coach ride to the inn will be rather cold,” Bingley stated dispassionately.
The butler assisted the lady into her coat and as soon as it was buttoned, and her gloves on her hands, the door opened, and Caroline Bingley was unceremoniously pushed out of the house and into the waiting equipage.
She was sure in a day or two, Charles would get over his pique, and then all would be well again.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The Gardiner parents and Phillips joined Elizabeth in the bedchamber. They did not want her to be alone in her vigil over Jane’s body. There was no question she would agree to leave her late sister’s side and go to sleep, and none of them thought to try and gainsay her. They let her be, even knowing she had not slumbered in two days.
Mrs Nichols supervised two maids as they made sure the body would be ready to be moved to Longbourn once the sun rose in the morning. The two men took themselves back to the sitting room when it came time to wash and change the earthly remains of Jane Bennet. Elizabeth and her aunt assisted with what had to be done. Once Jane’s body waswashed, her hair had been brushed, and a light blue dress, one of Jane’s favourites, was in place, the men were called back into the chamber.
With all that needed to be done completed, the absolute exhaustion of far too many hours with no sleep hit Elizabeth. She leaned forward to rest her head on her arms on the bed, one hand gripping one of her late sister’s cold ones, and closed her eyes. Elizabeth had not meant to fall asleep, but she fell into a deep and fitful slumber.
Gardiner looked at his wife. “Should we move her to the bed in the other bedchamber in this suite?” he asked.
“No, Lizzy will wake, and even if she does not, she will not be sanguine with not being next to Jane’s mortal remains. We should leave her be,” Madeline opined. Neither her husband nor her brother-in-law gainsaid her.
When Jones came to see if Miss Lizzy, Miss Bennet now, needed a sleeping draught, he was pleased to see she was asleep, even if she was seated in an armchair with her head on the bed. If she did not rest, she would be the next Bennet sister to become ill.
While she was sleeping in the sitting position, Elizabeth dreamed of her Janey. Her dream showed her events over the years when she and Jane had been together. Walking up to Oakham Mount, spending time in Gracechurch Street, teasing one another, and in each part of the dream, they got older. The last image she saw was her watching Janey as she was pulled into a bright light, and no matter what she did, Elizabeth could not reach her. The light was extinguished and then she was alone.
Elizabeth had been sleeping for some hours already, and the sun was beginning to rise, when Madeline noted her niece crying in her sleep. “Lizzy. Lizzy dear, it is time to wake up,” Madeline said next to Lizzy’s ear while she rubbed her back.
The image of the dream disappeared, and Elizabethheard Aunt Maddie’s voice and felt the soothing rubbing of her back. Could it be she dreamed Jane’s death, and her most beloved sister was still alive? That illusion was shattered as soon as her eyes fluttered open, and Elizabeth saw Jane’s lifeless body lying next to where her head had been resting on the bed, her one hand still holding one of her dead sister’s. Everything from the previous night came rushing back to her. It was no dream; Jane was in heaven.
It was then Elizabeth noticed the weak light in the cracks in the curtains. She looked at the clock on the mantle, it was past half after eight in the morning. Rather than staying awake to be with Jane’s body, Elizabeth had slept for more than six hours. She looked at her aunt and uncles reproachfully. “You knew I wanted to remain awake to watch over Jane,” she remonstrated.
