Mr. Darcy & Elizabeth

by Alyssa Jefferson

  Jane gasped, feeling at once all that was good-natured and friendly in such an insinuation. The Campbell sisters did frequently invite the Miss Bennets to stay with them, but it was never at a time that suited Lady Sarah’s schedule for their engagements. The nearest they had come to spending any time together on a holiday had been the year, now three years past, when they had seen each other at the same grand, fashionable private ball thrown in honor of Jane’s and Elizabeth’s step-cousin—James, Viscount of Norwich, the future Earl Radcliffe.

  “I assure you, it is not that we did not mean to visit you, if we could—or to have you to Longbourn. It is only that circumstances have been such—”

  Miss Campbell kindly interrupted Jane’s speech. “What circumstance could stand in the way now? You are giving four weeks to your aunt and uncle in Gracechurch Street? Good! Then, when they are over, you must come to us—and not for an hour less!”

  “We are to spend a fortnight in Bath with our uncle,” her sister reminded her, “and after that to tour the hill country with Mama.”

  Miss Campbell blushed at her own forgetfulness, then said, “Very well then, the four weeks after we return shall be the date of your visit. You see, I am in earnest! And that will be just before school begins again, so your sisters shall be just returning—and I daresay your father and stepmother shall convey them. Then you will be able to come to them—or perhaps to the Earl and his family. Have not they a son nearly our age?”

  Elizabeth smiled, for she had known sooner or later that the conversation would again circle around to Lord Norwich. Now a handsome and incredibly eligible bachelor aged twenty-six, this connection was almost certainly the one that most of the Bennets’ friends thought of when they mentioned their relations. It happened to be, however, one of the most odious connections to Elizabeth. She did not know enough of her cousin personally to have a firm opinion of him, but she did know that Lady Sarah was always complaining of his behavior. That he had insulted his parents in his choice of friends, that he was infamous for spending their money on frivolous nonsense, and that he was continually the subject of scandalous rumors involving young women of his family’s acquaintance was the most Elizabeth knew of him—and it was all she ever wished to know. Her chief complaint at present, however, was that none of her friends so much as attempted to conceal their hope of his noticing them, falling in love, and marrying them.

  Jane’s unsuspicious eye saw nothing to blame in this statement, however, and she immediately cried, “How kind of you! Oh, we should be delighted, I am sure, to stay four weeks with such good friends. Only, are you sure your family will not mind it?”

  “They will be exceedingly pleased!” Miss Campbell insisted. “Mama believes you are the sweetest tempered, prettiest, most accomplished girls in the world. She is always asking us to bring you home to Portman Square.”

  With a teasing grin, Miss Margaret added softly, “I believe she would trade us for you if she could, and your family could have two silly, dress-buying, ball-attending girls in place of the sensible, frank, beautiful women they now neglect.”

  “Margaret!” Miss Campbell cried, but Elizabeth—knowing her friend’s sense of humor and liking it—only laughed.

  “Do not pity us, for we have never been deprived of anything.” This was quite true. Lady Sarah, for all her faults, was so highly concerned with appearances that she could not bear to see her stepdaughters in anything but the newest and highest fashions, surrounded by the most respectable acquaintances she could find for them. “Besides, I daresay you would be quite as welcome in our family. For one thing, you have your own fortunes, so that my stepmother would never fret about providing for you.”

  Margaret laughed, but Jane’s immediate blush made Elizabeth check her words.

  “Let us be serious, however,” she said. “We shall happily stay with you for as long as you like. You will be saving us from a very mundane summer without society or enjoyment for eight weeks together!”

  Elizabeth wrote to her aunt over the course of the morning, and the plan was made that the following Monday, the girls would receive their uncle’s carriage and move all their things to the guest suite in Gracechurch Street, where their aunt hoped she would make them as comfortable as they could possibly wish to be. This left only four weeks for the girls to be marooned at the school as boarders—but these weeks, too, were soon claimed, this time by another friend of a very different disposition than the others.

  Miss Juliana Whipple was among the most popular and personally admired young ladies at their school. Being only seventeen years old, she was newly out, like Elizabeth, and eager to see all that the world could show her. Her parents were not cold, but neither were they particularly parental in their approach to raising their daughter. Miss Whipple, an only child, had always the best tutors, the best nurses, and the best society to interact with as she chose. She was often left alone with her old governess as a chaperone—a quiet, retiring old woman who had been the very best model and companion when Miss Whipple was young, but now never prevented her doing whatever she liked. This companion was to be the only soul Miss Whipple would see for half the summer, for her parents were scheduled to go abroad. Without anybody to influence her more than the woman whom they must have known had little power to check their daughter’s increasingly wild behavior, Miss Whipple’s parents recommended that she invite a friend from school to be her companion for the early summer. Hearing now of Jane’s predicament, she wasted no time in approaching Miss Bennet and making the following offer later that evening:

  “Miss Bennet, you must come to live with me this summer. I absolutely insist upon it! Think how alone and miserable I shall be if you do not come to me! My parents, you know, will be traveling until July—and how will I survive without a soul to talk to besides Miss Horton? You would be my only solace, and if you are truly to stay the summer at the school—”

  Jane, too kind to interrupt for any reason short of a misunderstanding that might lead to disappointment, quickly interjected, “I am in London this summer, but I shall not be at school, except for a short time. After we leave my Aunt and Uncle Gardiner, Lizzy and I will stay as boarders under Mrs. Robinson’s care for four weeks, and then we are to stay with our friends the Miss Campbells.”

  “No,” Miss Whipple said, shaking her head, “no, you shall not be boarders. Boarders, indeed! Two young ladies as accomplished and well-connected as yourselves! What can be the meaning of it? No, I absolutely insist you come to me instead. Both of you! We shall be so merry all together, and who could make any objection to it? I know my parents shall not, and I am sure if yours would consent to your becoming a boarder, then they will be all the more pleased to learn of a better offer that has come your way. We shall all be quite safe, you know, and quite well looked after, under Miss Horton’s care.”

  Elizabeth was not at hand for Miss Whipple’s little attack of geniality and therefore was unable to give Jane the benefit of her opinion—an opinion which, in this case, may have seen too much to blame in the plan to go forward with it. Jane, with a genuine disposition to approve of everybody, did not fear harm from an association with Miss Whipple. They did not know each other well, but Jane had always liked her enough to wish to know her better. Now there would be a perfect opportunity—and she was sure her sister would not mind. She accepted most graciously on both their behalves.

  It came to be that by Saturday, as Mary and Kitty were tearfully bidding their elder sisters goodbye, Miss Watson began to feel a dawning of envy. Perhaps her own actions in stoking Lady Sarah’s anger toward Jane had backfired. She had wanted Jane to marry and was not particularly nice about imagining love to be a prerequisite for it, but she had not meant for her wishes to provoke such a turn of events as would reward Jane for her firmness of decision. Not only would Jane not be marrying a man whom eligibility and practicality dictated she absolutely ought to marry, but she would also be spending a summer in town with some of the most fashionable friends and promising enjoym
ents before her. Who could help envying such a situation—or regretting her own actions in causing it? For though she loved the girls dearly, she did not quite feel enough tenderness toward them to make her immune to the stirrings of jealousy.

  “We shall miss you terribly,” Jane said, turning away from Mary and Kitty to embrace her governess.

  Miss Watson could not help saying, “I daresay you shall never think of me at all, as busy as you will certainly be with all the enjoyments of town.”

  Jane, tearful with genuine affection, did not seem to hear her. Elizabeth, however, answered with, “We shall have many people to please, many families to attempt to join and friends to accommodate. If this does not make us think of you and what we put you through daily, then I do not know what will.”

  Miss Watson smiled. “Nonsense. You shall be your friends’ guests. They will dote on you, and I am very much mistaken if they do not go to great lengths to secure for you every possible enjoyment.”

  The girls were hopeful of this being true, but not so dependent on it that they could answer without wishing such things were never spoken of as though they were certain. It would be disappointing, to be sure, if the friends they were to stay with did not provide such enjoyments for them as Miss Watson had described. However, they were too clever to believe their stay in London was intended as anything but a penance by their stepmother, and therefore they were committed to behaving as though it was while in the presence of their sisters and governess.

  “Shall you never come home again?” Kitty asked fearfully, hand still grasping Elizabeth’s as though unwilling to relinquish her.

  “Of course not,” Elizabeth said, the untruth instantly springing to her lips as consideration for her sister overtook any commitment to truth-telling that might have otherwise prompted her to admit that she did not know if or when she would feel comfortable returning to her father’s house—though it was her father’s and though she had considered it home all her life. “We shall always be welcome at home, just as you shall always be welcome. We are only staying in town now out of respect for Lady Sarah’s wishes.”

  “But why does not Mama want you to come home?” Kitty pressed. Of all the girls, she was the only one who called their stepmother “Mama,” being young enough when the marriage to her father had taken place to see her as a motherly figure, and so far from remembering her own mother as to fail to recognize how unmotherly Lady Sarah generally was toward them.

  “It is not that she does not want us,” Jane replied. “It is that she believes we are old enough not to need a governess, and while she is summoning the others home, wishes for us to be free to stay or go as we please.”

  The younger girls were satisfied, but after their departure, Elizabeth looked at Jane with a smirk. “I had not seen Lady Sarah’s intentions toward us quite in the same light as you do, Jane.”

  Jane sighed. “I know that you are speaking in jest, so I will not defend my comments. Besides, you said as much as I did to reassure our sisters.”

  More soberly, Elizabeth replied, “Yes, I did—and I would do so again, and may have to do so sooner than I might wish. For who can say if Lady Sarah will ever come around to our way of thinking? How can she expect us to marry, and not for love? She did not do so herself, though her match with our father surely was the farthest thing from prudent in her own family’s eyes.”

  “How can you say so?” Jane cried, surprised. “Our father is a gentleman with an estate that—”

  “But Lady Sarah’s father is an earl. Her family is in a class above ours, and our position in society has been elevated by our association with her—not the other way around.”

  Jane looked thoughtful. “Yes,” she said slowly, “that is true. I cannot think why she would wish me to marry a man I do not love, when I consider it in that respect.”

  “I can, however,” Elizabeth said. “The reason is money. Had we dowries that were greater, she would not feel so burdened by the prospect of our future care. As it is, she is eager to see us established well, and at no expense to her.”

  “She must love our father excessively,” Jane said after a long pause. Elizabeth looked up at her in surprise. “To have married him, knowing what his situation was—knowing what our situation was, and being willing to marry him with all the encumbrances she must have known would accompany the marriage state.”

  “I had never thought of it that way,” Elizabeth replied, feeling a sudden pang. Though they had lived apart from him while they were at school, Elizabeth remained very close to her father. Her respect for him and his affection for her made their bond withstand any separation of time or distance, though he was not assertive enough in general to overcome the unfair wishes of his wife. But the thought that Lady Sarah loved her father made her stepmother dearer to Elizabeth than anything else could have done.

  After some reflection, Elizabeth added, “I think you are right. Though our stepmother is not always warm toward us, she does love our father—and therefore, I believe, she will not keep us from home forever. She would not wish to pain him.”

  Jane looked up with hope in her eyes. “Do you think so?”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said, and in her heart, she began to feel confident that her words would not prove foolish. “I believe, Jane, we may go to our aunt and uncle’s house with confidence that we will not often be in need of such kind friends. We might enjoy our time in town without the threat of being fixed here permanently.”

  Jane smiled and was satisfied, and both had nothing worse to look forward to than the awkwardness of a first meeting with someone who ought to have been a close friend.

  CHAPTER 4

  __________

  Miss Mary Peele had been a known beauty in her old neighborhood in Derbyshire. She had a fortune of ten thousand pounds to make her an eligible bride, and when to her wealth was added her pleasing person and charms, there was hardly anything to make her less desirable—except the fact that she was an orphan, that her father’s fortune had been made in trade, and that her education in the country had been lacking. When she was fifteen and her father had finally passed away after a prolonged illness, her godmother sent her to London to attend finishing school—and it was there that she met Mr. Edward Gardiner. At the time, she had no shortage of suitors, being agreeable and clever as well as beautiful, and her only scruples in marrying one of them were that she did not particularly like them. She found men her age to be immature and uncouth; she had high moral standards to which hardly anybody could adhere. It was only in Mr. Gardiner that she saw someone who was truly her equal in mind and manners—somebody she could look up to and respect.

  Mr. Edward Gardiner, at 36 years old, had made a fortune in trade that had facilitated his fixture in a fine house near his own warehouses. He was hard-working, genial, and pleasant, and his admiration for Miss Peele was evident from their first meeting. Being fifteen years her senior, he pursued Miss Peele without any assurance of his own success. His humble admiration of her charmed her, and as the couple grew to know each other better, they fell rapidly in love. At the time of their nieces’ visit, the couple had been married for three years, and they were now the parents of two small children—young enough to keep Mrs. Gardiner busy but not old enough to be useful companions to a sensible, active woman. Well-educated and affluent as they were, the Gardiners had few people among their acquaintance who were truly their equals in sense and temperament, and their fixture in a neighborhood so near to Cheapside created a relative isolation that Mrs. Gardiner felt most keenly.

  In short, Mrs. Gardiner had a life with many pleasures and very few complaints—but her primary source of suffering, a lack of sensible female companionship, was soon to be mitigated in a most pleasant manner. It was a thorough delight to Mrs. Gardiner that her husband’s nieces—girls whom she had always heard of and admired from afar—would soon be her guests at her home in Gracechurch Street.

  Jane and Elizabeth, however, arrived in Gracechurch Street with uncertain expectation
s.

  “Lady Sarah will not like that we are staying here,” Jane commented when they emerged from the carriage. Their father had never said much to them about their Uncle Gardiner, but Lady Sarah’s opinion had always been that the connection was beneath her stepdaughters.

  “She does not know our uncle and aunt any better than we do,” Elizabeth replied. “She has no reason to dislike them. Besides, had she wanted to influence where we go, she might not have forbidden us from returning to Longbourn.”

  Jane fell silent as they approached the house, and both girls remained quiet—Elizabeth following her sister’s example—as the servant led them to a drawing room near the front of the house. It was their uncle who spoke first when Mr. and Mrs. Edward Gardiner emerged from an adjoining room to shake their hands and bid them welcome.

  “Well, well, then—here you are!” Mr. Gardiner cried, shaking hands first with Jane, then Elizabeth, most cordially. “You have grown, haven’t you?” He held Jane’s hands again, glancing from her to Elizabeth as though the faces he had gone so long without seeing were in danger of disappearing if he did not memorize them at once.

  The girls glanced at one another uncertainly. That it had been a decade since they had seen their uncle, that he had been most unceremoniously dropped as an acquaintance of their father’s upon their mother’s death, and that Mr. Bennet’s marriage to Lady Sarah Radcliffe had only cemented the breach were all unfortunate facts that could not be ignored. Any allusion to the past seemed to risk raising unpleasant feelings, yet to do without these references was impossible.

  Mr. Gardiner seemed unbothered by these scruples, however—or at least, he seemed to have fewer scruples than his nieces. After greeting them, he turned to his wife, who had been standing beside him with a face filled with expectation and welcome.

  “Though you have corresponded, I would be remiss if I did not introduce my wife to you,” Mr. Gardiner said. Mrs. Gardiner stepped forward and shook the girls’ hands. She was dressed in a green muslin gown, hair fixed stylishly around her face, and looked so much younger and prettier than they imagined that both sisters instantly felt eager to know her better.