by D. L. Carter
Elizabeth, as soon as she was alone, threw herself on her bed and wept out her pain and disillusionment.
Her home, her peaceful village and quiet home were gone. Gone forever. She had thought to take pride in the village of Meryton. Joy in the streams and valleys, a sort of satisfaction in the people with all their diverse characters and foibles. But this, this was all too much to take. She never wanted to see daylight in this place again.
***
Sir William Lucas shifted uncomfortably in his chair, his gaze flashing from the brandy in his hand to the window and the books arranged along the shelves - anything to avoid meeting his host’s gaze. On the far side of the fireplace sat Mr. Golding, smiling sincerely at Mr. Bennet when he should happen to glance in Mr. Golding’s direction and nodding and winking at Sir William when not.
Eventually Sir William cleared his throat and began: “You know, Mr. Bennet that I have been as fond of your girls as a good neighbor can be.
“That has been my thought,” said Mr. Bennet with a heavy emphasis on ‘has’.
“Yes, quite,” Sir William cleared his throat. “My dear Charlotte has regarded herself as elder sister to them since she came out first. They have been companions and good friends, I think. In and out of both our houses.”
“As you say,” said Mr. Bennet.
“Unfortunately, as Lady Lucas has said to me recently, circumstances have changed.”
Mr. Bennet gave both men a narrow-eyed glare. “Do you tell me so? How very odd. And exactly what has changed? Tell me in detail to what circumstance does Lady Lucas refer?”
“I, that is, we have been friends for a long time,” said Sir William.
“And I voted for you each time you ran for Mayor,” Mr. Bennet stated.
“Indeed, much appreciated at the time.”
“I am certain.”
“But the fact of the business is, my wife, that is, we, feel that it is no longer proper for Charlotte to pay calls here. Not while you shelter that girl under your roof.”
“That girl?” repeated Mr. Bennet. “Which girl could you possibly have taken exception to?”
“Do not take me wrong,” persisted Sir William, now sweating freely. “I have always liked Miss Eliza. Such a kind-hearted lass. But the fact remains she is no longer suitable company for my girls.”
“And here I thought it was Lydia and Kitty that you directed young Maria not to emulate?”
“Oh? No. No. The younger girls are such good friends.”
“Sir William, you said in the hall of this house no less than a fortnight ago that you admired my Lizzy, but it was Lydia that was known to be foolish. That you advised Maria not to emulate her. What has happened in this week that you have changed your mind?”
“Well, you see, my wife explained it to me…”
“Your wife and all the other wives of the neighborhood?” Mr. Bennet shot a glance toward Mr. Golding. “Suddenly my second daughter is not good enough to associate with them?”
“Yes, indeed. You understand, don’t you,” Mr. Golding gave a relieved sigh and settled back in his chair. “Oh, very good.”
“What is there to be good in all of this, Mr. Golding?” shot back Mr. Bennet. “A young man, a very foolish young man, is dead because of his own actions and my entirely innocent daughter is despised and made outcast by a group of very silly women and their even sillier husbands!”
“I say,” declared Sir William, “that is hardly fair, Mr. Bennet. You must see reason. We can’t have a girl who is capable of … of … well, of ending a man’s life in the neighborhood. What sort of example has she set?”
“That a woman might refuse to marry a fool, if she so chooses. That a woman might not depend on the actions of a lazy father to protect her and take action on her own behalf! I see nothing wrong in her decisions and nothing that the girls of the neighborhood could emulate without improving themselves.”
“But, it is hardly modest. Hardly proper,” ventured the last visitor in the room. Mr. Fitzwallace moved away from where he was leaning against the wall to stand in the center of the room. “Hardly Christian. She has, after all, ended the life of a vicar of the church.”
“The court of inquiry found the events were an accident.”
“But an ecclesiastical court might take a different view,” pressed the curate.
“The matter does not fall under the auspices of the ecclesiastical court being neither heresy nor blasphemy,” said Mr. Bennet. “Do not forget Mr. Fitzwallace, I also am an educated man!”
“Education is not required to understand that Miss Elizabeth is no longer welcome in Meryton,” shot back Mr. Fitzwallace.
“And,” broke in Sir William, “if you take the view that Miss Elizabeth is always off visiting, why she might regard a trip to Scotland as an adventure!”
“Scotland?” snapped Mr. Bennet. “That is what you think I should do?”
“My dear Mr. Bennet,” began Sir William.
“Dear nothing, sir. I shall not send Lizzy away.”
“She is your favorite daughter,” said Mr. Fitzwallace. “And one would expect you to try and protect her.”
“I would do as much for all of my children. All fathers would do so for their children. My daughters are good girls. I would do all that I could for each and every one of them.” Mr. Bennet put down his glass and leaned his elbows on the table. “Which means, in the absence of a good reason, a reason that benefits my family, I shall not be banishing one of my children to Scotland.”
“If you do not have relatives in Scotland,” continued Sir William. “I have an aunt who lives a retired sort of life outside of Manchester. As she is far enough away for the talk here not to have reached her she would consent to have Eliza come and keep her company. An active sort of girl would be good company for her.”
“You are suggesting that the only future possible for my daughter is to be an old woman’s companion? To fetch and carry for a stranger? How dare you? I shall most certainly not do that to my Lizzy.”
“That is most regrettable,” said Mr. Fitzwallace, putting down his untouched glass. “I shall know how to act.”
“Are you going to threaten to further ostracize my family?” demanded Mr. Bennet. “Do you think you have the authority, the power to drive us from our home? All of us? I hardly think so. We have been here for two hundred years and we shall still be here when your families have faded into obscurity.”
“I cannot wish you a good day, Mr. Bennet,” said Mr. Fitzwallace. “I can only pray that your eyes are opened before the damage extends to the reputation of your other daughters.”
“Get out, you hypocrites,” snapped Mr. Bennet.
The curate departed immediately, head held sanctimoniously high. The others departed in varying attitudes of self-consciousness and shame.
The men had barely left the house when Mrs. Bennet hurried into his room without the slightest pretense of a knock.
“Mr. Bennet. Oh, Mr. Bennet, what did they want? What did they say? Are we to be admitted to society again? Will they come to dinner?”
“Dinner?”
“Well,” his wife drew a shaking breath. “If we are still accepted, we must give, and go to good dinners. If we are cast out our invitations will be refused. Oh, Mr. Bennet, only a day ago I sent out invitations to a dinner, to be held after our time of mourning. Usually I receive replies the next day. The ladies of the neighborhood are good that way. Only, this time I have not received the honor of a single reply.” Mrs. Bennet pressed a kerchief to her streaming eyes. “Not a one. We are ruined. Quite ruined.”
Mr. Bennet sighed and came out from behind his desk to hug the woman to whom he was married.
“Mr. Bennet,” said Mrs. Bennet to her husband's shirtfront. “I do not like to say it for it makes you so very angry but Lizzy must go away. She simply must or else none of our girls will make any sort of marriage. How much longer will Mr. Bingley endure this? Already his sisters have made their opinion clear. Mr. and Mrs. Hu
rst have departed to London. Miss Caroline’s departure is expected at any time. Mr. Bingley will not stand against all of society and poor Jane will die a spinster. They all will.”
“Mrs. Bennet. What a thing to say? Our Jane is too beautiful to end a spinster. If Bingley is still here after all that has already passed, we must have some confidence in his endurance.”
“No. No, Mr. Bennet. We must show the families that we know right from wrong. It is wrong to kill. Lizzy must go. But not to London, for heaven’s sake. Lydia and Kitty will need to go to London to gain some bronze. We cannot have my brother’s neighbors gossiping over our girls.”
“I do know right from wrong, which is why I stand by my daughters.”
“Most of them can still be redeemed, my dear,” said Mrs. Bennet. “If only Lizzy goes away! Then all will return to how it was.”
“How it was?” Mr. Bennet patted his wife on her back and stepped away. “I cannot see that how it was contained a great deal of virtue. I was an indifferent father, content for my daughters to be ignorant and silly. Things have changed now. Mary has found the books I have directed her to, of some value. Kitty and Lydia, well, I must think more on the matter, but I think they should gain some education before they go looking for bronze.”
“Oh, Mr. Bennet, I know you do not heed me, but in this I must insist. Lizzy is the one to go. I wanted her gone from the house when it first occurred and now I insist with all that I am. We are not welcome while Lizzy lives under this roof.”
“Mrs. Bennet. I apologize but I must disappoint you again. Lizzy stays.”
***
Mrs. Bennet fled her husband and hurried up the newly mended stair carpet, pausing to kick the guilty step before charging into Elizabeth’s room. Lizzy was seated in her window seat, re-reading the French text that had so interested Mr. Darcy.
Without preamble Mrs. Bennet addressed her daughter. “If you cannot bring Mr. Wickham up to scratch, girl, know this, I will not have you in my house when your father dies. Mary I will tolerate. Someone must stay at home and keep me company, but not you. I will have my share of society and you are ruining it all for myself and your sisters. Do not be selfish. You have done enough harm with your wild ways. Make it right. Go downstairs and tell your father you insist on going to Scotland. Those are your choices for I have washed my hands of you!”
Lizzy could not find more tears to shed. She was even beyond needing to roll her eyes and she could not bring herself to smile at her mother’s foolishness.
The sad thing was, she could see her mother’s point. The display at the church that morning made the matter quite clear. Even Mary, poor Mary, had been shunned. She’d waited in the church intending to publicly be the only Bennet sister whose hand the vicar would shake only to have both vicar and curate turn their backs on her. Now Mary was retreated to her room refusing food and drink.
Hard though it was to think it, Elizabeth was beginning to regard those two men as evil.
Darcy and Bingley … she agreed with Jane. Bingley was an angel. Everything that a gentleman should be and a perfect husband for Jane.
Darcy, who’d she’d scorned simply because of an overheard slight, was more. He was there when she needed protection and support. More. He was a knight, yes, a knight in immaculate inexpressibles. She smiled at the image. A knight in armor from the waist up and buckskins and riding boots beneath.
She let out a short laugh, thankful that she could still find something humorous in all of this.
Each morning she sat before her mirror and thought of him as she arranged her hair, hoping each day to have the pleasure of a few moments conversation with him and cast down when she did not. His presence, his rare smiles, had become important to her. Even though hopes for a future were impossible to consider, while he remained near she would think on him, and when he eventually departed, as needs must, she would remember him forever as the ideal gentleman.
Placing the book aside Elizabeth walked slowly downstairs. Knocking lightly on her father’s door she entered when he called her name.
“You are expecting me, papa?”
“Your mother was just here and her voice does echo through the house, so, yes, I am. How are you, Lizzy, truly?”
“Not at all well, papa.” She sank into her familiar chair and was too surprised to see books she had read some years before arranged on a table instead on in their places on the shelves. Mr. Bennet caught her look.
“Mary’s reading list. I am having little success weaning her from Fordyce's Sermons but I have hope.”
“Good.” Elizabeth flipped through the book idly then slammed it shut. “Papa, am I being selfish? Would it be best to leave?”
“Sadly, Lizzy, there is nothing we can do now but weather the storm. Gossip has taken root quite firmly and they are happy to tear our reputations apart. Stay or go, until something more interesting occurs, they will continue to insult and abuse us.”
“Oh, papa. It would have to be something truly dreadful to distract them from us.”
“Sadly so. But, my dear, if we stand before them unbowed and strong …”
“It will make no difference now! My mother and sisters will be hurt,” broke in Elizabeth. “They cannot endure this. It is all too much. Oh, papa, you know I did not intend any harm. I only wanted to marry for love. To be true to myself. I did not know this was the price.”
“My dear girl, it is all that I wanted for all of you. And, truth to be told, I wish I was the one he’d approached. I would have pushed him down the stairs if he'd stayed a sennight longer.” Mr. Bennet stared out of the window. “All this time I have been wishing that I had listened to that messenger alone. Come back to Longbourn without all the hunt. Better yet, that I had not left the house that morning. How much better things would have been, if I had not listened to your mother.”
“Papa, it is not your fault.”
“Likewise, daughter, it is not yours. Well, I have learned many things this last week not the least of which is who amongst our acquaintance are true friends.” He gave her a narrow look. “I hope you see them clearly as well.”
“What do you mean?”
Mr. Bennet nodded toward the window. Outside were the familiar figures of Bingley and Darcy, dismounting before the house. Elizabeth watched him, them, and blushed.
“I see that you do,” said her father.
“I know that Mr. Bingley is Jane’s most devoted admirer.”
“And Mr. Darcy?”
Elizabeth turned away.
“He is Bingley’s good friend. Mr. Darcy has been everything kind.” Elizabeth glanced over at her father. “Which is odd, when you consider how we regarded him when he first came to the neighborhood. What a proud, disagreeable man he appeared. And Mr. Wickham’s story, I am ashamed I ever listened to him for an instant.”
“No doubt Wickham offended Mr. Darcy in the past and was given cause to regret it. Now Wickham is driven by need for revenge to insult his patron’s son.”
“And I believed him.”
“Many of our neighbors have done so, to their regret. I have spoke to a few storekeepers, as Mr. Darcy advised and Wickham’s credit has been cut off.”
“His intervention has aided more than our family then,” said Elizabeth. “And.”
“And?”
“And I am personally grateful to him.”
“No more than that?”
Elizabeth sighed and rose to her feet. “There can be no more. It is difficult enough for Mr. Bingley to bring Jane, dearest Jane, into his family but … no … there is nothing more.”
“Do not underestimate our Mr. Darcy.”
“He is not our Mr. Darcy. His standing in society is far above us.”
“He is a gentleman, not a nobleman. So far you are equal.
“He might as well be. His uncle is an earl, his mother was granddaughter of a viscount.”
“Indeed, I did not know that.”
Elizabeth pursed her lips. “Caroline Bingley made a point t
o see to it I was educated about how high Mr. Darcy stood in society, and exactly how great a dowry he expects to come with his wife. Odd that the amount should be exactly what Miss Bingley brings with her. No, papa, I am resigned to remaining unmarried. I shall be governess to Jane’s many children and teach them to speak French very ill.”
She stopped as unshed tears choked her throat. Mr. Bennet covered her hand with his own.
“Do not give up all hope, Lizzy.”
“I will not permit narrow minded gossips to drive me from my home. You are right. I shall stand and face them.”
“Excellent, Lizzy. I am right to trust you. For now, I believe it is time. I am still waiting to hear from Mr. Phillips, but we should speak to your mother and sisters.”
Mrs. Bennet looked alarmed when Elizabeth and her father entered. Mr. Bennet moved to the center of the parlor and faced his family.
“Ladies, I have been hearing some words spoken in this house that distress me greatly. There has been a suggestion made, an utterly unworthy suggestion, that our Lizzy should leave home. As if that would make any difference to the gossip.”
“Yes. Exactly,” cried Mrs. Bennet. “She must go. I insist. I shall not share a roof with her longer.”
“That might be difficult for you after I am gone Mrs. Bennet, as I have just finished giving instructions to Mr. Phillips. He is writing out my will, which I will sign as soon as the absence of all other heirs has been confirmed. I am leaving Longbourn Estate, in its entirety, to Elizabeth Rose Bennet! She is my only heir and shall have the responsibility of caring for those who remain at home when I am gone.”
Elizabeth gasped and pressed her hand to her mouth, unable to think of a word to say. So much responsibility. How would she manage?
“No. No.” Mrs. Bennet pressed her kerchief to her mouth. “You cannot do that. What of Jane? What of Lydia? They should have their share!”
Kitty and Mary scowled to be overlooked.
“Lizzy will inherit for I know she will do well by her family,” said Mr. Bennet. “But as I cannot say as much for the rest of you, there is nothing to be gained for sharing out the estate. Lizzy has attended to her studies with more eagerness and better result than the rest of you. Yes, Mary, even you. She knows the property and the tenants. She is responsible, caring, and attentive and the tenants like and respect her. Therefore I will entrust Lizzy with the estate. Remember that, Mrs. Bennet. When I am dead Lizzy can send you to live with your sister as soon as it pleases her.” He paused. “Or, Mrs. Bennet, if you wish to live out your life in Longbourn, I suggest you pay more attention to your manners in Lizzy’s presence. Now, I wish to hear no more about Lizzy being sent away.”
