“So you tried to see him again?”
“Yes. I was in London, but although I met his sisters twice, I never saw him, and this time his sisters…behaved…poorly,” she said, blushing, for she disliked speaking so of anyone, no matter how cruelly they had behaved towards her.
He saw the sorrow that had remained with her for so many months and felt sincere compassion for the beautiful young lady who believed her life ruined by the unhappy ending of a first attachment.
“And Elizabeth? Has she met some gentleman to her liking?”
Jane smiled, and it was like the sun emerging from behind clouds. Looking at her beauty and sweetness, Thomas Bennet found it impossible to understand how any man could love her and still not wish to marry her.
“Elizabeth knows how to behave when she suspects herself unwelcome. She neither cries nor retreats; she fights back. She was the only one who openly stood against Mr Bingley’s sisters. And against that disagreeable man—”
“What man?” Thomas asked at once, suddenly attentive.
“You do not wish to hear about him. He was so proud and disagreeable that nobody could endure him. But Lizzy was never intimidated by him, and they quarrelled several times. Often she was defending me.” Jane smiled faintly, probably remembering one of those moments.
“I see. And this gentleman’s name?”
“Mr Darcy. She met him again in Kent this spring.”
That was enough for Thomas Bennet. Elizabeth might appear the stronger and more combative of the two sisters. Still, he was now certain that something significant had happened to her as well, something her family knew nothing about. Unlike Jane, she had concealed her torment, though not entirely successfully. At times, when she believed herself unobserved, astrange melancholy appeared in her eyes. And he suspected it would not prove nearly so easy to make Elizabeth confide in him.
“My dear,” Thomas said as they approached the horses, “I understand when a king or a duke must marry his own kin, but to consider a lack of wealth a reason not to surrender to love, that is not a trait of character I admire. You will find a good man, not so far in the future.”
Jane glanced at him quietly. In some ways, he resembled her father greatly, and yet in others, he was entirely different. His words affected her strangely. During all those months, nobody in the family had succeeded in persuading her that happiness might eventually return. But Uncle Thomas possessed such experience of life that his confidence in her future felt reassuring. Others had merely attempted to comfort her. He seemed capable of seeing beyond her sorrow.
“I do not say this merely for comfort,” he continued, almost as though he had followed her thoughts. “I still possess a few connections in London, and I fully intend to use them.”
All the way home, Jane found herself thinking that perhaps she might indeed enjoy returning to London under happier circumstances. She did not know precisely what Uncle Thomas intended, but she trusted him completely and, for the first time that summer, she truly heard and enjoyed the beautiful sounds of the woodland around her.
“You deceived me,” she said playfully as they entered Longbourn. “I told you everything about my love, and you did not return the confidence.”
Thomas Bennet kissed her hand.
“We have all the time in the world,” he replied.
Chapter 6
“May I speak to you for a moment?” Uncle Thomas asked, watching as Mrs Bennet clapped her hands and sent her daughters from the room.
It was a pleasure to remain alone with him. Mrs Bennet had almost forgotten that only a few weeks earlier she had opposed his arrival at Longbourn. Now Uncle Thomas was the sensation of Meryton, and everybody wished to invite him either to dinner or merely for a cup of coffee in the afternoon, his habits having become well known throughout the little community.
“He brought green coffee from Africa, and he roasts it himself in a sort of circular metal pot.”
Mrs Bennet always had some new story about him whenever she visited her friends, delighting them and placing herself in a privileged position.
Meryton’s attention was fixed upon the Bennets, and it was a glorious feeling. The unmarried ladies of the neighbourhood were more elegant than ever and never absent when Uncle Thomas accepted an invitation. Yet Thomas Bennet remained polite and attentive to everybody alike, and not one lady could boast of having received more notice than another.
“I told you he would never marry an old maiden,” Mrs Bennet said confidently to her sister, Mrs Phillips.
“Dear niece,” Uncle Thomas said as soon as the girls had left the room, “I have something very private to discuss with you.”
Mrs Bennet blushed in anticipation and pleasure. He seated himself beside her upon the sofa with that elegant ease which everybody admired.
“I know I am a burden upon your household.”
As she shook her head vigorously, he stopped her from speaking with a gentle touch upon her hands.
“My dear niece Jenny, I have long known the situation at Longbourn, and I doubt it has improved much in recent years.”
