Papa, at his ironic best, looked over his nose at me as I stood in a crowd of young ladies all stroking and marveling at Queenie. “By all means, Mr. Darcy. I would dearly love to see you attempt to remove it from my daughters.”
Needless to say, Queenie was not relinquished and instead passed from one to the other of my sisters until she was returned safely to my lap.
We collectively suffered a horrible moment shortly after we were settled in our chairs when my mother said, with a touch of affront, “Well, and what do you hear of your friend, sir? What was his name? Oh, Bingley. Yes. His estate is falling into ruin from what I hear, for he is never here to see to the gutters, and Mrs. Nichols never steps out of doors. I am sure by now the ivy has pulled half the shutters off the southern side after that gardener of his died of old age.”
“Is that so, ma’am? Perhaps I should ride over to look at it, for I am certain to see Mr. Bingley in a few days, and I shall tell him he should see to the house or let go of the lease.”
We were rescued from that crevasse by the arrival of the tea tray, only to fall into the next.
“Miss Darcy, your brother did not seem to enjoy Hertfordshire when he last visited us, but I am glad he has brought you all the same.”
I threw myself into the breach. “Oh, Mama. You know Mr. Darcy is famous for his reserve. And a reserved man will be more comfortable in a varied society in which to seek cover. When he was constantly at Lucas Lodge, he was almost at risk of becoming familiar. But,” I quickly added, turning to look defiantly into his slightly bemused face, “you should know, sir, that we have added to the roster of our four-and-twenty families, and we are on the verge of becoming quite cosmopolitan.”
“Do you mean Mr. and Mrs. Townsend?” cried Lydia in disgust. “They are so dull, Lizzy!”
“She only says so because they did not bring with them a handsome, unmarried son,” Kitty said with a smug little grin.
A melee, so typical of Longbourn, then ensued. Mary tried to hush us all with a proverb about speaking ill of our neighbors, only to be drowned out by a fierce argument between my youngest sisters about who would claim the non-existent son had he been produced. When Mary persisted, they turned collectively against her preaching, while Jane, blushing with shame, strove unsuccessfully to encourage them to come to their senses. To cap it all, my mother manned the quarter deck, calling out in support of first one and then the other.
I turned to Mr. Darcy and leveled a look of accusation at him for bringing his sister to Longbourn against my wishes. If I could have spoken aloud, I would have said,“See what you have done, sir?”But when he winked at me, I could no longer hold my frown, so I clasped Georgiana’s hand and gave it a meaningful squeeze before I leaned over to whisper, “Welcome to my life, dearest friend. Are you glad you came?”
She looked utterly confused, as though sheshouldbe horrified but was instead subject to a strong urge to burst out laughing. Mrs. Annesley, whose presence I most regretted for such a scene, sipped at her tea and looked pleasantly about as though such a spectacle was the most ordinary country tableau.
I whispered again to Georgiana and said, “Forgive me, dear, but I do not know any other way to call a halt.”
I then spoke in a strong voice, reasonably directed at my mother. “Have you taken note of the cut of Miss Darcy’s gown?”
Magically, Kitty and Lydia ceased their wrangling, and my mother, always engaged by a discussion of costume, asked our guest to stand up. With her cheeks aflame, for we were now in slightly vulgar territory, my friend rose to the occasion and even offered in a shy voice that her modiste had sent it to her not two weeks ago, and while she herself had no notion of such things, she had been assured by that expert that double flounces were nowhere to be seen in London anymore.
It had been a monumental speech, and I wished to leap to my feet in applause. Instead, I gently pushed her forward to be examined by my sisters, who had gathered around to marvel at something constructed by amodiste.My father sat to one side, looking upon the whole in weary fascination. And I, having orchestrated a moment in which every other person in the room was distracted save Mr. Darcy, rested my attention on his eyes—that breathless and beautiful searching gaze belonging to a being from another realm.
If there was ever a reason for the last words I spoke to him at Pemberley, this display was surely sufficient to convince him. It was hopeless.
We Bennets were, when all was said and done, a country family with our inheritance entailed away and our commonplace futures already writ and all but forgot before they were even lived.
I felt my expression soften as this sad reality filled me. With my eyes alone, I told him I loved him, thanked him for all he had done for me, and again, with my eyes alone, I said goodbye, allowing them to swim with those ever-present tears for just a second before I put Queenie down from my lap and stood.
“Jane,” I said briskly, “let us take this little dear out for a walk, shall we? Georgiana, would you care to go with us? You have been riding in a coach for days. Do come!”
Mr. Darcy turned to speak to my father about his current reading, and in that gesture, I knew he had decided to forgo the opportunity—the possibility—of snatching even a handful of private words with me.
It was fitting, and it was what I wanted, but I was inordinately disappointed and thought ruefully that, before this moment, I had not known the meaning of the word “desolated.” Georgiana put on her shawl, as did Jane and I, and much to my surprise, even Kitty and Lydia fell in with this plan. They dashed upstairs for their most fashionable pelisses with which to catch Miss Darcy’s eye.
Since Mary did not wish to go, and Mrs. Annesley kindly stayed behind to entice her into conversation, the four of us stepped out and went toward Longbourn’s one charming feature, a wilderness area that boasted a graceful stand of juniper surrounding a crumbling stone wall. Queenie was not a dog to require a lead, and in any case, she spent at least half of herwalkbeing carried by someone. Lydia and Kitty squabbled over her and then squabbled over who most deserved to own a dog until Jane gently reminded them that Mama did not allow dogs in our house to spare the rugs. They then became a united front against our mother’s tyranny and filled our erstwhile pleasant outing with peevish complaints.
I walked side-by-side with Georgiana, and in answer to her bemused expression, I leaned over and said, “Yes, it is always thus.” And then, “But tell me about Auntie. I could hardly ask you anything until just now.”
“Oh, Elizabeth,” she said sadly, “I am afraid she has not improved at all.”
“Is she worse?”
“Perhaps a little. I had hoped she would get better at Pemberley.”
“Did you? But I believe she has been this way for some time now, and I think a recovery is unlikely no matter where she is.”
We subsided into silence before she spoke again.
“My brother says it is unlikely she will suffer a precipitous decline, but a slow one is certain. I am truly sorry to bring you this news. I see it has made you sad.”
