“I am come to see that you are being properly provided for.”
This was the culmination of a week’s heart-breaking reflection. Her days of railing against the injustices of the world were done. The candid censure of her nearest and dearest had shown her that. It shamed her, but she had come to comprehend that her transgressions, though of a different nature, were every bit as egregious as Bingley’s. She was resolved to put matters right. It was her dearest hope that, if she could prove she had accepted and forgiven his mistakes, he might be persuaded she was still, at heart, the woman Caroline claimed he once loved.
“Why?” Amelia demanded suspiciously.
“Because my husband took advantage of you, and neither you nor your child deserves to suffer for that.”
Of all the responses she had anticipated, contempt had not been one.
“You really are a gem, ain’t you?” Amelia scoffed. “I s’pose youwould think that, sittin’ up in your big ’ouse, with your pretty jewels and expensive gowns, waitin’ for life to be ’anded to you on a platter. Well, the rest of us live in the real world, Mrs Bingley. Life don’t just fall in the laps o’ girls like me. Those of us as live ’and to mouth needs take every chance we’s given. And in case your mother never learnt you in these things, men such as your ’usband are goldmines o’ chance.”
Mortifying though this speech was, Jane did not miss the significance of the revelation. “He did not seduce you then?”
“I don’t know ’bout that. ’Tis devilish tricky to end up like this ’less the man’s inclined to tumble.” She placed a hand upon her swollen stomach. “You could just as easy take the blame, mind, if you’d rather the fault not lie with ’im. It was you what left ’im wanting.”
“Me?”
“No advantage to actin’ surprised. ’Twas me you sent to give ’im the note you wrote excusing yourself from your duty. Truly, what was you thinkin’, expectin’ ’im to go without on his wedding day? There are other things you can do, y’know.”
Jane closed her eyes. Her wedding day!
“Deprive a man of what ’e wants,” Amelia continued, “and you can bet your last penny ’e’ll look for it elsewhere.”
And she had deprived him of what he wanted that day, had she not? What a different light this shed on the regret expressed in his note that day!
“I s’pose you think you got your revenge when you ’ad me dismissed? But see who’s laughin’ now!”
“I do not take your meaning.”
“Seems you’ve been deprivin’ ’im too long. Your ’usband’s decided ’e prefers me, after all, and ’e’s taking me to live with ’im in Nova Scotia. An’ there’s nothin’ you can do about it.”
Her instinct was to disbelieve it, yet she could not account for Amelia knowing of those plans she had only recently discovered herself, and her hands began to shake. “No, you are lying. It cannot be true.”
“No? Look at this if you don’t believe me.”
Jane accepted the letter Amelia withdrew from the top of her stays and read it twice from beginning to end, making certain she had not missed nor misunderstood any part of it.
“So you see, Mrs Bingley,” Amelia said, snatching it back andsecreting it once more next to her bosom, “I’ve no need of your pity. I’s being very well provided for,thank you.”
Jane refused to cry. Instead, she turned and left before her heart broke to pieces all over her husband’s lover’s parlour floor.
Netherfield
10thMarch
To Lady Ashby,
Pray, forgive my impertinence in writing. I know in your last letter you said you no longer had the time to correspond, but I beg you would indulge me this once, for I have nobody else to whom I might turn.
I have discovered B means to leave the country and take the woman you know as ‘A’ with him. I have seen his letter to her with my own eyes. He wrote that if she agreed, it would be in his power to restore her reputation and raise her condition in life, that they could invent a story to explain her situation that nobody would question and that he dearly hoped she would agree to go with him to Nova Scotia, where the child might be raised without prejudice.
I would not have believed it, but I recognised his hand, and E has written separately to warn me of his plans to leave.
I know not what to do! Quite apart from the ruination of my reputation should he go, I do not wish him to! Though my head rages against it, my heart will not have it any other way than that I love him still! I long for another chance to convince him that my affections are genuine.
He is at Pemberley, or at least his letter to A was sent from there, but I know not for how long he will remain there. According to that letter, he sets sail later this month. I beg you would advise me as to how I ought to proceed, for the prospect of losing him forever is too painful to comprehend. Pray, what ought I to do?
Yours sincerely,
