* * *
My darling Georgiana,
To answer your most pressing questions, firstly, I have had no difficulty in riding about Hertfordshire. It is cold, but not icy, so have no fear for my safety. Secondly, I do not believe I shall be needed at Pemberley until the spring planting, and perhaps not even then, for a more competent steward would be difficult to find. We manage all quite well through correspondence. I shall certainly not be required to brave the winter roads to Derbyshire unless a crisis occurs.
Have you heard aught of Miss Bingley? Her own brother has no information save reports from his housekeeper that she has been going about with friends who have returned to London. She does not answer his letters, nor Mrs Hurst’s.
Mrs Hurst wishes me to recommend to you a novel titled ‘The Sword of Damocles’, which was published in the summer, and she insists it is more refined and romantic than the title would suggest. As I have faith in her judgment in these matters, I give you leave to acquire it if you like.
I hope you will pardon such a dull letter, my dear, but I have little to relate at present that you would like to hear.
With every fond wish for your happiness and contentment until we meet again, I remain your doting brother,
Fitzwilliam
* * *
Over the course of that day Mrs Bennet’s breathing grew ever more laboured. She ceased to speak and hardly seemed to be conscious, even in the midst of a wracking fit of coughing. When Mr Jones came in the middle of the afternoon, blown into Longbourn on an icy wind, his grim expression as he examined Mrs Bennet faded to resignation, and both Mr Bennet and Kitty understood what was to come. When he left the room to see Lydia, the pair trailed behind him. Kitty pulled her elder sister from her post.
“Mary,” Mr Bennet said, wrapping his hands around his daughter’s. “I will stay with Lydia. Go with Kitty and say goodbye to your mother.”
Mary’s eyes widened, her questioning gaze apparently finding its answer in her father’s solemn expression. Silently, Mary nodded, and allowed herself to be led into their mother’s room.
When they emerged, pale with grief, a few minutes later, Mr Bennet returned to his wife’s rooms, having restored his own composure and heard the apothecary’s report on his youngest child. He sat by the bedside of his wife of nearly five and twenty years, and could not think of a thing to say to her.
Theirs had been amésallianceborne of intemperate desires—his, for her beauty, and hers, for his station. He had known it for a mistake within months; it had taken her a little longer to understand the price of her victory. He had not been a good husband to her, he could admit that to himself, now that it was too late to remedy. He had been neither patient nor kind, when either quality in him might have blunted her anxieties and made their home and their union more pleasant for them both.
Kitty returned with their dinners, though neither of them did more than pick at the simple fare. After that, they both lapsed into silence, and later into a strange, anxious half-slumber. Kitty woke him in the early hours of the morning, whispering that her mother’s breathing had changed. He bent over his wife, recognising that her breaths had become shallow and soft with long pauses betwixt exhalation and inhalation, and suddenly had the words he could not find earlier.
“Go on now, Mathilda, take your rest. I shall look after our girls. It is past time I took a turn at it, eh?”
Mrs Bennet drew a barely perceptible breath.
Kitty took her hand. “We shall hold him to that promise, Mama.”
A long, rattling sigh passed through Mrs Bennet’s lips, and then silence, ever lengthening.
CHAPTERTWELVE
A few hours later,as the sun had just begun to rise, in the book-room which had been his refuge these last twenty years and more, Thomas Bennet wrote to his wife’s brother in London. The black border carefully inked onto the page would give the Gardiners alarm, then grief, and the fact that Edward would not be able to see his sister buried would no doubt occasion further sorrow. He prepared another note, to go to the Philipses by way of one of the young gentlemen of Netherfield. Then, he glanced over another letter, received a fortnight before but left unanswered and largely forgotten in the upheaval of the intervening time. He picked up his pen once more.
Mr Collins,
I fear I must, at the present time, decline your generous offer to visit us at Longbourn. Smallpox has come upon the area. Two of my daughters suffer greatly as I write this, and my wife has been lost to it. You will surely understand that we cannot host you in these circumstances.
Yours,
T Bennet
These necessary tasks complete, he produced one more sheet and, after brooding over it for many silent moments, dipped his pen in the inkwell and set it to the paper.
My dear girls,
I regret to inform you that your mother died in the night. Her end was far more peaceful than the illness which caused it, and your sister Kitty and I were with her at the last. I am more sorry than I can say that I cannot go to you now and be of what comfort I might, and that you will not be here to farewell her.
Do not concern yourselves with mourning clothes; I will see to all those things with the assistance of Mary and Kitty, who have been as courageous and steady as one could wish throughout these events. Lydia continues ill but Mr Jones remains hopeful, and we here at Longbourn take heart from that.
Your father,
