Money and connexions were not healing these wounds. Certainly, such advantages had not prevented his own parents from becoming more silent and bitter towards each other as each successive attempt to provide the Darcy name with more descendants than himself alone ended in failure. Darcy had long wondered if a desire to be free of the oppressive atmosphere of Pemberley had been as much a factor in his mother’s death as Georgiana’s difficult birth. His father, he suspected, had given his wife scarcely a thought after consigning her body to the ground. Though both had been good, upstanding people in many ways, they had been personally incompatible, and slow to forgive any injury from the other, real or imagined.
That was not the life, or the marriage, he wished for himself. He had not known precisely what he did wish, only that he wanted to be contented at the very least, and that it would be very difficult to achieve such a state if there were little amity in his most intimate relationship. This, he considered, must be why he had always felt a visceral revulsion for the vapid heiresses and grasping social climbers from among whom he was expected to make his choice.
Such tepid images of mere complacence had been his vision of the future only weeks ago, until a bright and witty girl from a family of no consequence and his own wayward heart had conspired to make him long for more. He now knew that he wished for more than mere contentment—he wanted to love his wife, and to build with her a family that would come together in the face of even the worst troubles. He wanted his children to grow in a home filled with laughter and kindness, not with the silence of two ill-suited people and their cold, resentful civility. He wanted his sister to have a taste of such a home before she left him to form her own.
Would it all be easier if he could find the promise of that life in a woman of high standing and large dowry? Of course it would. But he might have found it instead in Elizabeth Bennet, a woman as full of spirit and laughter as she was bereft of status. He was not yet ready to declare his heart lost, though he could not deny that she compelled his notice as no other ever had. If he should come to believe that he did love her, however, he now felt that he could cheerfully bear the disadvantages of her situation.
CHAPTERTWENTY
Richard,
Georgiana and I have elected to pass the holiday with my friend Bingley and his sister Mrs Hurst, here in Hertfordshire. We, and they, hope you will join us, and Bingley will add a note to the bottom of this by way of an official invitation. It will be a quiet season, as Bingley and his sister are mourning Hurst, but not without its pleasures. Mrs Hurst sets a fine table, the sport in the area is excellent, and there are several in residence hereabouts I think you will enjoy knowing. In particular I think of Captain Carter, who I have mentioned before. The colonel of the regiment is a gentlemanly fellow also, though his taste in wives is rather suspect. Please do let me know if you wish to, and are able to, attend. If so, I shall commit Georgiana to your care for the journey.
Fitzwilliam
* * *
Colonel,
Do come. The cook here is excellent and I have a burgundy set aside for Christmas dinner that will delight you.
C Bingley
* * *
Fitz,
My general has been good enough to grant me leave through Twelfth Night, though it will not commence until the twenty-fourth. Georgie and I have agreed to depart for Netherfield early in the morning, putting us, with good roads, at Netherfield well before dark. Tell Bingley I will bring some cigars from the West Indies for us to enjoy after Christmas dinner. Do not ask how I came by them, for you would not like the answer.
Richard
* * *
The followingday brought another visitor to Longbourn—Charlotte Lucas, red-cheeked from walking a mile in the bitter wind, but willing to wait no longer to see her friends. If Jane’s appearance caused her to catch her breath, her better feelings won out instantly, and she embraced the eldest Bennet, saying, “Oh, Jane, how glad I am that you have recovered!”
Jane smiled and said, “Thank you. We were delighted to hear of Maria’s return to health, as well.”
Charlotte then turned to Elizabeth and hugged her fiercely. “It is good to see you again, my friend. How often I wished for you during our troubles!”
“I would have done almost anything to see you, also,” Elizabeth agreed happily. “But here we are, and many would say we have been fortunate.” They clustered together on the long sofa.
“It is true that between our two families, we have only lost Mrs Bennet, but I cannot think you feel it very fortunate.”
“No, but we came very close to losing Lydia, too, and Jane had no easy time of it,” Elizabeth replied. “It could have been much worse, and we are grateful that our family is not more diminished. That none of the rest of us fell ill seems almost miraculous, to own the truth.”
“Mr Jones says that it is a capricious illness, at times striking those who have hardly been in its presence while bypassing others who are heavily exposed to it,” Charlotte remarked, shaking her head. “You know that I was spared despite caring for Maria. It cannot be explained, so I suppose we must content ourselves with gratitude. Is Lydia much recovered?”
Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other with faint grimaces. “She is recovering, but very slowly,” said Elizabeth. “There was, it seems, a time when your Mr Jones advised Papa, Mary, and Kitty to prepare themselves for the worst. She wasted away quite terribly—Mary could pick her up and put her in the chair when the bed linens needed changing.”
“My word,” murmured Charlotte, having last seen the youngest Bennet at the peak of robust good health.
“But Mary is quite determined to plump her up,” said Jane fondly. “You would be surprised by our Mary. She has gained much in sense and spirit through these trials. And Lydia will not oppose her in anything, so we are assured that she will in time be well again.”
“That is the best possible news,” Charlotte replied. “I have come with news also, though you may already know much of it.”
* * *
Elizabeth listened grimly as Charlotte related to them what she knew of the effects of the sickness in their area; with Mr Jones as her source, her information was excellent. The four and twenty gentle families in the neighbourhood had lost near thirty members, and many more had been ill. Among the tradespeople, labourers, and tenants, numbers had been similar in proportion, though many of the children of poorer families had perished. Three of the shops on Meryton’s high street would never re-open, their proprietors dead. Their parish of above four hundred souls was reduced by sixty-eight, and Mr Edwards was on the point of asking the local gentry to purchase a plot of land into which the cemetery might be expanded.
