Elizabeth and Jane, upon entering Longbourn, found the house in an uproar.
Mary and Lydia were quarrelling, Mr Collins ineffectively mediating, and Mama, egging them on and making everything worse.
Elizabeth soon discovered the cause.
Four years ago, when she left home and Jane married Mr Collins, the large room they had once shared had gone to Mama. Mary and Lydia had remained in their own chambers, and Jane and Mr Collins held the suite of rooms for master and mistress.
It should have left at least three extra chambers, one of which could be used for Elizabeth. But their mother had claimed one of them as her own private sitting room.
“And the yellow bedroom has been used for storage so long, and it always was draughty, and now its fireplace needs repair. It is virtually uninhabitable,” Mary explained.
“What of the peacock bedroom?” Elizabeth asked—the room thus named for the carving on its door.
“Shall we have no spare guest room at all, should we have a visitor?” Mama argued. “There is no reason why you cannot share a bedchamber with Mary.”
“Except I have the smallest room in the house!” Mary cried—not unreasonably. “Lydia’s room is enormous, and could easily fit another bed. Put another bed in my room, and one would not even be able to see the floor!”
Lydia’s eyes were full of tears. “I shall not share a room. I will not. And if you try to invade it, Mary, I swear, I shall put frogs or mice in your bed! Or both!”
Lydia had, plainly, seen a likely outcome—it was Mary and Lydia who ought to share Lydia’s large room, and she was fighting against it with all her considerable will.
“Now, now,” Mr Collins said. “If everyone will calm down, I am certain a solution can be reached.”
“Not if the solution ruins my life!” Lydia shrieked.
“Or mine!” Mary seconded. “It will if you force me to share a room with Lydia, who can never stop chattering before dawn and creates clutter everywhere! She turns order into chaos without even trying!”
What happened next was the most natural thing in the world, to Elizabeth; pandemonium prevailing, Jane appearing helpless, Mr Collins sputtering—she simply made a decision. “No one’s life shall be ruined. I shall take the peacock bedroom until such time as the yellow bedroom can be made more habitable. I do not suppose the work would take long. You may all simply regard me as the guest who fills it at the moment.”
Mr Collins smiled broadly. “There now, that will do.”Lydia and Mary both turned grateful eyes upon her, and Jane breathed a sigh of relief. But their mama, furious at being countermanded, set her arms akimbo.
“Do not you see, Jane? Lizzy has not been here ten minutes before taking over your place as mistress. You were warned! I told you how it would be!”
Elizabeth had begun walking towards the stairs, but stopped, mid-motion, as Mama’s words sank in. Mrs Bennet was not wrong. She had made a decision that Jane ought to have made herself. She slowly turned back to Jane, stricken, and opened her mouth to apologise.
But Jane, squaring her shoulders spoke first. “Mama! Cease your criticisms right this moment, else I will give Elizabethyourrooms, and you may fight out your sleeping arrangements with your two uncharitable daughters, who have not yet greeted Lizzy with the welcome she deserves.”
Everyone gaped in response to a most un-Jane like response. She stepped to her husband and took his arm—and at this, he stared at her, wide-eyed, along with the rest of them. But she was not finished with her remonstration. “You heard my husband agree with Lizzy, because it was, of course, the most sensible solution to a minor issue. His word is more than enough for me, as it ought to be for all of you. Frankly, by applying the gracious manners you have apparently reserved only for guests, Mama, you ought to have been able to resolve such a matter yourself without needing him, me,orLizzy to do it for you. It is a good thing Iammistress here, since you seem to have forgotten common civility. Mary, Lydia, greet your sister.”
At this, Mary stepped forward. “I am glad you are here, Lizzy,” she said, wrapping her arms around her.
Elizabeth hugged her back. “I am as well, Mary.” Sheturned to Lydia, who was still regarding Jane with astonishment, and opened her arms. Lydia, who had always been the most affectionate of all her sisters, nearly ran into them.
“Ihavemissed you, Lizzy,” she said, holding on to the embrace when Elizabeth would have let her go.
“And I, you, dear.” She leant back a little to look into her eyes, as Lydia had somehow grown taller than herself in the last year. “But are you not a little old for threats of frogs and mice? Really?”
Lydia had the grace to look ashamed. She bit her lip.
“I understand,” Elizabeth said. “You shared a room with Kitty, and it would seem strange or perhaps feel wrong to have anyone else there, as if someone were taking her place.”
Tears welled again. “That is it, exactly,” Lydia sniffed.
“We must remember that no one ever will be able to do that. Kitty is our cherished sister, always, regardless of the properties we occupy. You have a tendency to forget to think of others when you are excited or upset. It would not have been Mary’s fault, had she been forced to share a room with you, and punishing her for it would not respect Kitty’s memory. I have never met a selfish person who was truly happy, and I do want you to be happy, sister dear. More than anything.”
She embraced a sheepish Lydia once again, and then took Mary’s hand. “Come, Jane,” she said, turning towards her eldest sister. “Let us annex the cherished peacock room, shall we? Is that portrait of great-grandmother Bennet still holding pride of place over the mantel? Shall I be able to sleep with her reproving stare looking down upon me in the night?”
Jane laughed. “She would give me the most awful dreams, I am sure. Perhaps she ought to be relegated elsewhere! Let us decide who ought to be put in her stead.” The sisters alltrooped up the stairs together, a gaily-coloured gaggle of giggling girls.
