The gentlemen were to keep up their rounds for another week, out of an abundance of caution, and then Captain Carter would be readmitted to his camp, which had not after all escaped the disease. New recruits would need to be brought in to replace the men who had perished and the one who had been blinded, and the captain expected that he would find himself quite busy with their training for a time.
Jane and Elizabeth were met outside Longbourn by their father, who gathered them into a fierce embrace and stunned them by allowing tears to fall as he clasped them to his chest. “My dear girls,” he said reverently. “Home at last, and safe.” Recalling himself, he hurried them inside out of the cold, only for them to be further embraced and wept over by Mary and Kitty, and it could not be said that either of the elder sisters was able to entirely restrain her tears, either.
They soon insisted on being taken to see Lydia. Just inside the doorway Jane stopped short on first seeing her robust, energetic sister reduced to a hollow-cheeked wisp of a girl. Elizabeth, having seen her in her illness, did not hesitate in flying across the room to take the youngest Bennet into her arms and exclaim her joy that Lydia had survived her final crisis. Jane soon followed, and although they did not risk tiring Lydia by remaining above ten minutes, many happy words were spoken in that time.
Elizabeth spent the afternoon in unpacking both her and Jane’s things while her sister took a rest, and in sitting quietly with a book, becoming once again accustomed to the familiar walls of Longbourn. Having gone down to dinner early they were pleased to find that Mrs Hill’s niece Amy had been hired on in Sara’s place and now tended to Lydia while Mary enjoyed dinners with her family.
Elizabeth glanced about the table as they seated themselves, taking in her father’s black jacket and cravat, the unrelieved black of her sisters’ dresses and her own, and the empty chair at the head of the table from which Mrs Bennet had presided for a quarter-century. Jane’s gaze had also gone to that chair, and her eyes filled with tears and spilled over. Elizabeth, apprehending the cause of her sister’s distress, was soon in like state.
“Jane? Lizzy?” ventured Kitty anxiously.
Wiping impatiently at her eyes, Jane said haltingly, “I knew that she was gone, of course, but in some ways it did not seem quite real, until just this moment.” Kitty put her arm around Jane, while across the table, Mary performed a like office for Elizabeth.
“It did not seem quite real that Jane had been so ill until you both returned home this morning,” Mary said quietly, “but we had the joy of her return to health to smooth over the strangeness of it.”
There was silence for several moments as they all availed themselves of handkerchiefs, though only Mr Bennet was at all embarrassed by the display.
“When I wake in the morning, I often feel it must have been a bad dream,” said Kitty, daintily folding her sodden handkerchief, “and I find I must spend a moment in her room to shake the notion from my head.”
“I think…” Jane trailed off uncertainly, then seemed to come to a decision. “I should like to visit Mama’s room myself. I believe it may help me to accept what has happened. Will you come with me, Lizzy?”
“Of course I shall,” she answered, and just then Hill arrived with the soup, and they all set about the business of dinner.
In the end, all four of them entered Mrs Bennet’s chamber together after the meal. Mary lit the lamps, and they all stood for a moment, looking about them in silence.
Though it had been only three weeks since her death, their mother’s chamber already had an unused air about it. The bottles and jars which cluttered her dressing table had been neatly arranged, the closet door was shut rather than hanging half-open, and there were no magazines or hairpins spread across the bedside table. The scent of Mrs Bennet’s favourite perfume was faint now, her escritoire free of half-written letters and discarded pens. This was merely the place where she used to be.
Jane sat upon the bed, placing a hand softly upon her mother’s pillow just where her head would have lain. “How strange it is, that she worried so often what would become of her when Papa died, and now she has been the first to go.”
“How strange, and how sad,” Elizabeth replied with a sigh. “All that worry for nothing.”
“That is unfair,” Mary remonstrated mildly. “She worried for us, as well, and our situation has not changed.”
“Save that we shall lose months of husband-hunting in mourning her,” Elizabeth joked weakly, and they all smiled a little, knowing that she surely would have fretted about that.
Kitty sat upon the bench before the dressing table and remarked, “Our situation will not be much altered immediately, but Papa and I have gone over the household accounts, and made a plan of savings. The interest on Mama’s dowry will now add to the principal, and Papa has agreed to add to it all that we save by not entertaining during his year of mourning. Even afterwards, we intend that the house will be run with less extravagance. This time next year we may have as much as an extra hundred pounds each.”
The other three regarded her in stunned silence. Mary, ever practical, eventually remarked, “If this were to continue for several years, and the savings from the departure of any who do marry were added to the fund, it would increase what remains for those of us who do not marry to an amount that would allow us to live together in modest comfort after Papa leaves us. A small cottage, a sensible table…”
“And thus, we have forever banished the spectre of the hedgerows,” said Elizabeth briskly. Then her expression softened, and she added, “I only wish Mama could have known that we shall be well, after all.”
“She must know now—that, and many things we cannot even imagine,” Mary replied. “I only wish…” She dropped her eyes to her hands, clasped before her. “I wish I could ask her if she loved me, despite how disappointing I was to her.”
“Of course she did!” cried Jane, appalled. “She loved us all, Mary!”
“Did she?” wondered Kitty. “You and Lydia, she certainly did. Lizzy and Mary and I, however, lived only to vex her, you will recall.”
Elizabeth stood, facing her sisters. “I have been thinking on the subject myself, since her death. We shall never know how much of her fear for the future encompassed us, and how much was borne of self-interest alone. But I have come to believe, through reason rather than hope, that she did love us all. If she did not, if she cared only for herself, she would not have had all of us seeking husbands at once. If she cared only for her own situation, she would have kept the rest of us from society until Jane secured a wealthy man, and thereby Mama’s future. But she wished us all settled, however she despaired of us individually, and however misguided her notions of a suitable match could be.”
“Like when she pushed Mary towards the new curate when she was sixteen, though he was sixty!” Kitty interrupted with a laugh, and they all joined in. The laughter died away as the others considered Elizabeth’s words and saw their mother in a new light.
“I should like to preserve the room as it is until Lydia is well enough to visit,” Mary’s voice respectfully broke the silence. “But then we must consider what will become of her things.”
“Let us wait to sort through it all until Lydia is well enough to assist, not merely attend,” Jane suggested. “For she was the closest to Mama, and her mourning shall no doubt be the greater for it.”
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
Mr Bingley calledupon them the following day at the close of his rounds, bearing Mrs Hurst’s greetings and regards. Contrary to his habit, Mr Bennet joined them upon being informed of the presence of a guest, and, Elizabeth noted, received Bingley with real pleasure. Gratitude for the young man’s care of his daughters had not been forgotten, nor for his attendance at Mrs Bennet’s funeral. Mr Bingley stayed far longer than was proper, and no one minded in the least. As he was leaving, he mentioned that plans were afoot to bring visitors to Netherfield for Christmas—Mr Darcy’s sister and his cousin.
