Mr. Darcy & Elizabeth

by Alyssa Jefferson

  As soon as Jane said it, Elizabeth felt like the greatest simpleton in the world for not having realized it sooner. No matter her sister’s feelings of obligation, her warm heartedness, and her sensitivity to the feelings of others—no matter any of these things, of course Jane would never accept a man without loving him. She had no power to do anything but refuse him—and now, Jane was safe.

  “Oh! Yes, of course that is what you have always said,” Elizabeth said, as relief flooded her body and the color rushed back into her fear-whitened cheeks. “You are quite right, and I have only to be ashamed at knowing you so little myself that I could feel any confusion on the matter.”

  Jane, ever tender-hearted, said, “Oh, no—I am sure you have nothing to be ashamed of. You, who always think the best of me, probably imagined my gratitude toward him to be enough to induce me to accept him—and to be truthful, it almost was. I almost did accept him last night, when he spoke to me. It was not until I took the evening to think it over, and in the better clarity of the morning, that I recognized how different his lifestyle is from what I wish for mine to be. It was not until then that I considered how unfortunate his wife would be, should he not cease his destructive habits. And it was not until then,” she added, “that I reflected on how impossible it would be to marry a man I do not truly love—whom I do not believe I ever could.”

  Elizabeth did her best to conceal just how much this information comforted her, and how firmly against the match she had been. She did not want her sister to feel she had believed her to be in danger, but neither was she much capable of hiding such strong emotions. Her voice only shook slightly as she said, “Oh, of course you would never marry a man you could not love. That ought to have been my first thought.”

  “Lizzy,” Jane began to say.

  “No,” Elizabeth said, smiling and shaking her head, “I am perfectly happy, and have nothing but relief to express. You did just what you ought to do, Jane. You were right in every respect.”

  “You are telling me what you believe I want to hear.”

  “No! Truly,” Elizabeth said. “I was nervous for you, but my nerves are completely relieved now. I would have been miserable forever if you married a man you did not love. Think of how miserable you would have been, Jane! You would have wanted to love him, and you would have felt guilty that you did not. I know just how you would feel, for it would have been the same with me. I could never marry a man I did not love.”

  Jane smiled gently. “I hope you shall have time to think and make up your mind before you begin to form any plans of matrimony. You are not yet seventeen, Elizabeth.”

  “Though I am young,” her sister answered with a smile, “I know what I want—or, at least, what I do not want. I have only been out for six months, and I have met so many gentlemen, and not a single one has made me feel that I could love him. Love does not appear without cause or explanation, Jane—or else, you would have fallen in love a hundred times! Men are all wild for you, much more than for me.”

  “I am older,” Jane said gently, though she was in fact only eighteen herself.

  “And much sweeter tempered,” Elizabeth said, “and more beautiful than anybody they have ever seen. Remember when Mr. Pembroke said that? He said you were the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.”

  The mention of this memory made Jane uneasy, and she looked toward her hands. “He said many kind things. I do hate to disappoint him.”

  “Oh, do not be uneasy!” Elizabeth cried. “I would have said nothing if I thought you would be made uneasy. Jane, you did exactly right. No matter what he has said or professed to feel, to marry without love would be barbarous. You did exactly what you ought to do, and nobody shall ever convince me otherwise.”

  Jane sighed. “I hope Miss Watson will think so.”

  “Do you hope that? You surprise me, Jane. I should think you know enough of her character by now to be spared the disappointment of hoping for her to act in a manner contrary to it.”

  Jane’s astonished look was her only answer, and Elizabeth laughed. “I love her, of course, as well as you do. She has been a mother to us in every respect for more than ten years, and I know that I owe her a great deal of gratitude—which I hope I shall never fail to pay! It is impossible, however, for me to fail to notice that what is fashionable is always of the utmost importance to her, and Mr. Pembroke is a fashionable man.”

  “She would not have me marry a person solely for his fashion, however,” Jane said.

  “Not solely for his fashion, but for his fortune, his connections, and his attractions, I believe she would have you marry him.”

  “Has she told you this?” Jane asked nervously, beginning to rise from her seat in agitation.

  Slowly, following her sister, Elizabeth replied, “Not explicitly, but I always know her opinions more or less from her manner of speaking—and at times, from what she does not say. When I saw her this morning, she was very eager to know what you would do about Mr. Pembroke’s proposal. She knew that I had no more information about it than she, but she still could not resist talking about it as though it was a matter of public news!”

  Jane’s alarm increased. “She has not spoken to others about it, has she?”

  Elizabeth knew not how to reply. Her sister’s distress was high enough that she wished to alleviate it, but there was very little that she could say honestly to make her fears less. In the boarding rooms above the school, there were very few secrets that could remain secrets. The whispers of Miss Watson were less than subtle, and that created suspicion enough, but there was also very little chance of Miss Watson keeping the circumstances quiet from their other sisters. After Mary and Kitty knew, what was to prevent the whole school from knowing? Kitty in particular was the sort of girl who, to endear herself to others, was willing to tell them anything. A pretty, well-grown girl of 13, she had not yet learned the art of holding her tongue.

  Elizabeth’s silence was enough to make her feelings understood. After a moment’s reflection, Jane said, “I suppose I ought to be open about the circumstance myself. I should not wish for Mr. Pembroke to be made uneasy, or to say anything to make his reputation suffer. I should only wish for the power of telling my own story, instead of having it told by others.”

  Taking her sister’s arm and leading her toward the breakfast room—for Elizabeth could no longer put off her hunger of body now that her sister had satisfied her hunger of mind—said, “That is a power, I think, that we all wish for—yet who can have it? We are all the subjects of each other’s stories, and we must submit to what we hear.”

  Jane glanced at her sister for a moment, then shook her head. “I will tell Miss Watson, in any case,” she said. “I should not keep her in suspense any longer. I hope she will not be angry with me, however. I hope she will understand my reasons, as any true friend would.”

  Elizabeth hesitated before saying, “We shall not wonder for long.”

  CHAPTER 2

  __________

  Neither Elizabeth nor Jane were fully justified in their expectations of Miss Watson’s behavior, for she did not do what either hoped or anticipated. She neither cried out in anger, nor persuaded Jane to reconsider. She neither gossiped about it all over the school, nor kindly agreed to keep the matter a secret. She did not say Jane had done right for refusing a man she did not love, nor did she say Jane had done wrong for refusing a man of wealth and fashion. She did something neither sister expected at all: she wrote to their stepmother.

  When, six years earlier, Mr. Thomas Bennet had had the extreme good fortune of meeting and winning the affections of Lady Sarah Radcliffe while on holiday in Bath, Miss Watson had been rather shocked by the sudden elevation of the family in whose employ she had been since the untimely death of its matriarch. Lady Sarah was the youngest daughter of an earl, and though she was not particularly beautiful, she had wealth and fashion that made her an object of the highest admiration in Miss Watson’s eyes. Her independent spirit, combined with several scanda
ls in which she had been involved in her earlier youth, must have been the reason for her still being single at one-and-thirty. She had no particular wish for marriage before she met the kindly, jovial gentleman in Bath. Seeing him with his own daughters and observing him to be a clever, good-humored man with a great deal of affection, she had a wish of knowing him better. Meetings in public places led to private dinners, and private dinners led to conversations in which all her suspicions of him were confirmed. He was a man who could offer her very little that she could not have without him—yet she loved him. His situation was not quite so low, being a gentleman with property, that her parents could object, though their consent was certainly given most reluctantly. A marriage to a man without title or noble blood—and moreover, a man who already had four children—was by no means a good match for the daughter of the Earl Radcliffe and heiress of twenty-thousand pounds. Yet the match would take place, as it was far better than her ending an old maid, and nothing was more astonishing than the great turn of fortunes that the Bennet family then underwent.

  Miss Watson and Lady Sarah were never very friendly, but they did have one wish in common that made them allies where the others were more or less at odds with them—they both had a strong wish of seeing the girls married early and well. For Miss Watson, the wish was purely one of affection—or at least, almost purely, for she could not totally escape the wish of fashion and fortune that Elizabeth had so astutely observed in her. Beyond her notions of wealth, however, was her instinct to protect and promote the girls’ happiness, and to marry well must make any young lady very happy.

  Lady Sarah, on the other hand, was eager to have her stepdaughters married so that she could stop thinking about them. Though she had liked them well enough when they were little girls, having them grown and still expecting her to provide for them was a most unpleasant thought. Being pretty and well-educated, there was no reason in the world why they should not marry—and without delay. A short memory must be her excuse for failing to recall that she had not met her own husband until she was more than thirty, living with her aging parents until then and being a great deal more burdensome to them than her stepdaughters ever were to her. However, such insights were beyond a mind such as Lady Sarah’s. She thought very little of anything except personal gain—how to secure it for herself, and how to secure it for others in her circle. She believed herself doing the best favor for the girls by putting them in the way of prosperous marriages.

  Her alarm, therefore, upon receiving the note that Miss Watson sent express that morning from London, cannot be overstated. She was positively wretched over the idea of Jane rejecting Mr. Pembroke’s proposals—though he was a man she had never heard of before in her life. Miss Watson had said he had £7000 a year, and was that not recommendation enough? Mr. Pembroke must be intelligent—or at least rich enough never to be considered truly stupid. He must have a family that would not put her to shame. He probably had good fashion and good breeding—and what did Jane have, that she could justify refusing such a man? Her father had set aside enough money for her that her dowry was no longer as small as it had been when he had first married Lady Sarah, but it was still very little more than £3000. That a man should wish to marry her for so little a sum, and that she should refuse him, was absolutely inexcusable. Jane would be better off than anybody if she married him, and then she could care not only for herself but for all her sisters. It was a match that should and must take place, and Lady Sarah could not bear for it to be otherwise.

  Knowing that her husband would never understand the depth of her outrage—for his attitude towards his daughters’ marriages had always been inexplicably disinterested—Lady Sarah sat for some time at the tea table in silence, open letter in hand, considering how she ought to respond. She could not confide in Mr. Bennet. At least, she could not truthfully confide in him. He would never agree with her, nor would his feelings on the matter coincide with hers. Yet Lady Sarah could not abide doing nothing when so important a matter was at stake. Something must be done to show her displeasure to Jane, and to influence her toward reconsidering the proposal.

  “My dear,” Lady Sarah said at last, rousing her husband from the book he had been reading quietly at her side. “I wonder—what would you say to Miss Watson coming to Longbourn this summer?”

  “Miss Watson? To Longbourn?” Mr. Bennet raised his eyebrows. “But why?”

  “Little Sarah is almost five years old,” his wife replied, “and she shall soon need a governess to supervise her education. You cannot expect her to go without one, surely!”

  “I have never expected such a thing, my dear,” Mr. Bennet replied, again glancing down at his book, “but you have always said you intended to hire another person to be her governess.”

  Indeed, Lady Sarah had a woman in mind who was in her opinion vastly Miss Watson’s superior—but now, in light of what she wished to accomplish, the change of one governess for another was not so great an evil as it had once seemed. “I had intended it,” she said, “but lately I have thought it would be much better to have someone who is in our family now. Will not it be better to have a person who knows all our ways and whims?”

  Mr. Bennet smiled. “I have no objection to it, except on the part of the girls. They are all still in town, as I am sure you remember. Unless you wish for them to return to Longbourn, as well? I certainly should not object to that. Kitty and Mary shall return to London when their lessons resume, but Jane and Lizzy might do just as well here.”

  “Oh! No, there would be no need for that!” Lady Sarah said, looking away so that the residual anger in her eyes would not betray her feelings—and deliberately ignoring the way her husband’s eyes lit up at the thought of having the daughters whom she knew were his favorites nearer to him. “They are so happy in town, and they have so many friends there.”

  “They are indeed happy,” Mr. Bennet said, not without some forlornness, “but I do not think they would be quite as happy if they were left without a chaperone.”

  “What need have they for a chaperone while they live at school?” Lady Sarah said. “Jane, at least, is grown. She will be nineteen years old soon, and her sisters all look up to her and respect her so highly. I have never seen any young lady so admired, whose company was so highly sought after, as dear Jane’s.”

  “She is very popular, I will grant you,” her father replied, “but what has that to do with Miss Watson’s charge of her sisters? Mary and Kitty are still but children, you know—and Lizzy is barely out. I am sure, my dear, that you will agree that they cannot be left unsupervised.”

  “I quite agree,” Lady Sarah said with a saccharine smile, “but I am afraid you have missed my point. Perhaps I have made it too subtly; I shall be explicit now. What say you to Jane’s remaining in town as her sisters’ chaperone?”

  Mr. Bennet’s silence did not bode well, but his wife knew him well enough to hurry on before his thoughts had an opportunity to craft themselves into words. “Consider, my love,” she said, “we must have a governess for little Sarah, and I have my heart set on Miss Watson.”

  “I thought you said before—”

  “Never mind what I said before, however! I have been reconsidering for some time, and now I find that I am quite committed to the idea. I must have Miss Watson, and nobody else will do!”

  “Very well,” Mr. Bennet said, having no temper to stand up against his wife’s shrillness and moreover so confused by her preposterous assertions about Jane’s position that he believed he must have misunderstood her. Reasonably, he said, “Then, should not the girls come home, as well?”

  “That is just what should not happen,” the lady said. “It would be so abrupt, so melancholy a change for them. They love their lives in London; they are so happy there, and we have the joy of seeing them so often that we can hardly miss them.”

  Mr. Bennet replied, “Yet they cannot remain alone, and to send another governess to them now—”

  “Quite out of the question, my love, y
es,” Lady Sarah said, “I fully agree with you. That is why I suggested Jane. She is in every respect the best person to supervise her sisters while they remain in London. She would be kind to them, yet her principles are so good that she would always be firm with them, guiding them in the way they ought to go. There is nobody better to influence the girls than Jane.”

  That Lady Sarah’s words to her husband—words she truly believed regarding Jane’s virtues—did nothing to convince her that she was wrong in her judgement toward Jane in the present case must be proof of how strongly she desired Jane to marry and be out of her care. Her respect for her stepdaughter’s judgement went no further than her belief in Jane’s agreement with her own wishes and feelings. Any discrepancy there would derail her altogether.

  “Jane is not a governess, however,” Mr. Bennet said. “Though she may have every other qualification for her sisters’ care, she is lacking that very significant one. She is not herself in a position to forgo the supervision of a chaperone. To remove her from the care of her own governess would be—”

  “Oh, it is done in a great many families, I assure you!” Lady Sarah said. “Eldest daughters are entrusted with a great deal of responsibility in many families, and they are often less trustworthy than Jane.”

  “Such a step would mortify her.” Mr. Bennet was now concerned enough that he laid aside his book. “It would be a disgrace to be placed—”

  “Nonsense!” Lady Sarah said, again looking away. “They would still remain boarders at the school; they would still be in Mrs. Robinson’s care. Jane’s supervision of the girls would only be known among our family—and it would only be temporary. She is so beautiful, and she is known everywhere she goes to be our eldest daughter. Will she not soon be sought by a husband? Will she not be loved and admired by all?”