My mother snorted. “Lizzy? You will get her nothing, for she deserves nothing from me. She is ungrateful and selfish. And in the spring, she will wear the cast-offs of her better-behaved sisters.”
“Mama!” Jane protested almost as a gasp.
Indeed, everyone at the table had stopped to stare at our mother, their spoons suspended over their soup bowls.
“And what does it matter what she wears, hmm? She is determined to live her life as a spinster, and she will end up a menial working for Mrs. Collins in this same house when I am gone. She may as well dress as a drudgenowfor all I care.”
I cast a glance of righteous satisfaction toward the head of the table where sat my father, and he answered me with a weary nod of acknowledgement. I then easily dismissed the remainder of my mother’s commentary, for I knew by his gesture that Papa had relented and would let me go to London with Jane.
***
The change of scene did indeed pull my sister out of the chasm of tragedy into which she had fallen. Our aunt Gardiner was most engaging, and our uncle was sensible. Between the two of them, their gentle attempts to bolster Jane’s wounded feelings could hardly be withstood entirely. And though she was not as happy as she had been, she was more reconciled and complacent in the face of her circumstances.
My own loss of optimism was much harder to reconcile. I hid it well under a hailstorm of happy chatter and seeming enthusiasm for London life. In reality, however, I had begun to think of life in general and to wonder what would become of me.
My mother’s constant harangue about spinsterhood hit too close to the bone to ignore. What prospects did any of us truly have? Even Jane, whose beauty and goodness were undeniable, failed to bring a man who obviously admired her to the point of marriage. Rather than attach himself to a girl with no dowry and questionable connections, Mr. Bingley had fled the temptation!
I pictured myself in a brown dress with a starched white collar, fetching tea for Mr. Collins, and I inwardly shuddered. I fell prey to these musings mostly on the occasions of quiet in which we sat in the parlor concentrating on our embroidery, and I was in just such a miserable imagining when the housekeeper brought Aunt Gardiner a letter.
Neither Jane nor I paused in our work. Letters to our aunt were common enough, but when she let out a small sound of dismay, we both looked up questioningly.
“My aunt Jennings,” she replied abstractedly in answer to our unspoken inquiries. She continued to peruse her letter for a few moments before she put the paper in her lap with a sigh.
“Is something amiss?” Jane asked with gentle concern.
“My aunt in Lambton has sent word, asking for me to come to her.”
“Will you go?” I asked. “Jane and I shall see to the children if you decide you must,” I added hopefully. If our aunt were called away, my sister and I could hardly stay in London without an excuse.
“But that would not do,” Aunt Gardiner replied, looking askance at the letter in her lap. “She asks me to come for three months together, and with travel both ways and the inevitable delays one is faced with everywhere, I do not see myself returning in under four.” She looked at both Jane and me directly and said, somewhat apologetically, “I do not want to be gone from my children for so long. Nor do I wish to leave my husband to fend for himself.” She smiled and added, “But I do appreciate your volunteering to stay, Lizzy. Of a surety, I would also miss time with my two favorite nieces.”
She shook her head several more times after she went back to her knitting, and I suspected she was still musing over the quandary of what to do. I was proven right later when my uncle came home and we sat down to dinner, for she presented her dilemma to him as we ate.
The topic was canvassed at length. Mrs. Jennings, a widow, had been married to Aunt Gardiner’s paternal uncle John. Mr. John Jennings had a modest pension supplemented by his hobby of writing pamphlets on various mundane topics for a limited press in Derby where they had lived for some years. When his health began to decline, they returned to the family home in Lambton that Mr. Jennings inherited from Uncle Frye, his mother’s childless brother. Aunt Gardiner had lived at the Frye house as a girl, and John’s widow lived there still.
Aunt Gardiner did not know Mrs. Jennings well, not having lived in Derbyshire since she was fourteen years old. They corresponded two or three times a year, and my aunt believed the lady lived in reasonable comfort amongst friends, though at the age of almost sixty-five, she was now deep in her dotage. Her urgent request for Aunt Gardiner’s help had been prompted, according to the letter, by the temporary loss of her long-time housekeeper.
“Could your aunt not find someone to take her place meanwhile?” my uncle asked, speaking my own question aloud.
But no—Mrs. Burke’s only daughter was soon to give birth in Yorkshire, and the woman had served Mrs. Jennings exclusively for so many years that the old lady hardly felt capable of surviving the housekeeper’s absence. The woman must be more of a companion than a servant after all that time, and my aunt assumed that Mrs. Jennings, being elderly, would not want to submit herself to the indignity of hiring someone unknown or begging friends for help. She wished only for a relation, and perhaps Aunt Gardiner had implanted the idea by casually mentioning she often thought of visiting Lambton when last she wrote.
An explanation was pieced together by interpretive means since the letter was rather oddly written, and in that light, the request seemed understandable.
“Ishall go,” I blurted out.
“What? No, no, Lizzy,” my aunt replied.
“But why not?”
“Your family will miss you too—”
“I had rather thought my family would be glad to be rid of me for a while. My mother in particular would bid me good riddance.”
“Lizzy!” Uncle Gardiner spoke in a cajoling tone of disbelief.
Jane cleared her throat, made use of her napkin, and gently related to our uncle the business of the draper.
“Good lord,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “I shall write my sister a letter and convince her to comport herself reasonably.”
