“Jane made the decision. She was, up to the time of my mother’s death, the gentlest, least polemic girl ever born. Nothing undid her faster than conflict. But she found herself thrust into the role of matriarch. My father had descended into a nearly irretrievable melancholy, and Jane was left to manage Lydia, who stormed and threw tantrums at any form of restriction applied to her. Kitty, torn to pieces between Jane and Lydia, began to pretend to be ill just as our mother had done, and Mary fell ill in earnest. I suppose I was of some help to Jane, but in truth, I was so angry at how broken my family had become, I had to be tiptoed around lest I erupt.
“With the greatest reluctance to burden him withour troubles, Jane wrote to my uncle, Mr Gardiner, in London. He was my mother’s brother, and he is, if I may say so, a reliable, respectable man. We put Lydia at Mrs Trencher’s in Bath.”
“Did you?”
“I assume you have heard of it.”
“I have.”
Mrs Trencher had made a reputation for herself as a lady who found husbands for the girls enrolled in her school, whether they were ill-favoured, dull-witted, or stained in their reputations. Her bridegrooms were usually widowers in need of mothers for their children, or men who were equally ill-favoured, dull-witted, or also stained in their reputations. I had heard the only qualification Mrs Trencher required of herstudentswas a guaranteed dowry of three thousand pounds.
“If you are wondering how we provided for my sister’s dowry, my mother’s legacy provided each of her daughters one thousand pounds. Jane and I gave up our portions because Lydia must marry, or she will surely ruin us. And until she is settled, she must be looked after by someone who shares her ambitions for a match.”
“And your other sister?”
“She is also in Bath, but at Mrs Spencer’s Academy. Our hope was that in separating them, Kitty might find her way.”
“Has she?”
“It is still too soon to tell. Jane would never say so, but she believes she failed us by being unequal to the job of repairing my sisters’ characters. She grieves over it, and is, as you see, as humbled by her guilt as my father is by his remorse. The end result for Jane is that she has given herself over entirely to the task of caring for my father almost as a penance. She has even resigned never to marry.”
For some reason, Miss Elizabeth looked at me carefully as she told me this, and so I replied with reasonable assurance, “The right man might change her mind. Besides,” I continued somewhat philosophically, “some semblance of her former self may rise up over time. I can attest to this phenomenon. We are given perhaps more than we can manage, and we stagger under the load, but sooner rather than later, we take it on and are made stronger for it. We begin to find a way forward as ourselves—as who we were born to be—rather than who we are expected to be.”
Was this, in fact, what was happening to me? Was this newfound self, this devil in me that tormented Miss Bingley and befriended persons that were considered below me by my friends and relations, the resurgence of the carefree, ungovernable young gentleman I used to be?
“Huh!” I blurted out.
“Pardon me?”
“Oh, I only had to clear my throat.”
“I have forced you to talk more than you usually do.”
“You have forced me to do more than that, miss.”
The lady was, by degrees, regaining her sense of humour. “I?” she scoffed. “How have I forced you to anything? Just what do you accuse me of, sir?”
“You have forced me to pay attention to a dog that should have been left in the river.”
“Had you truly meant that, I would have to cut the acquaintance.”
“You know I do not. But he is certainly a dog I would never deign to notice. How did he come to impose himself on your sister?”
“He arrived on our doorstep as a half-starved handful of fur on the day of my mother’s funeral.”
“Dear me. I suppose Miss Bennet had been so consumed with her duties after your mother’s death that she did not know what to do with herself. Did this mongrel become the new object of her concern?”
“I failed to mention it was sleeting that day.”
“He made himself irresistible by being pitiful.”
“If I knew Bandit to be intelligent, I would accuse him of that. But I believe it was a simple case of fate. Besides, Jane believed he would grow into a lap dog.”
“Did she not make note of the size of his paws?”
“She was too busy cooing into his little puppy face, sir. The thing is done. He is ours now, and believeshimself to be the best thing that ever happened to our family.”
Rather than begin to wonder whether he was the best thing that ever happened tome,I changed the subject, and we spoke of a wide range of topics that were neither painful nor revealing until we reached Longbourn.
