“Uncaring. Not happy.” Elizabeth almost snarled. “Will you despise me for not showing a proper display of sadness at the death of a man who was connected to me, most unseemly, to not care about his death?”
“How did he hurt you?”
“Yes, of course you assume he hurt me. If I tell you how, the end shall be that you preach forgiveness and Christian goodness at me. That I admit my sins, and humbly suffer for them. Mr. Hawdry cared nothing for my approbation. I do not make myself miserable over him. He was nothing to me. And now he is nothing to anyone but the Almighty. The old tale claims that the inquisitors of Spain would burn at auto-da-fé the innocent with the guilty, God would separate out the wheat from the chaff, the innocent from the guilty. It falls to the heavens alone to sort his fate.”
“Such anger…” This was an aspect of Elizabeth he had not seen before.
“I am not angry at Mr. Hawdry.”
“Then who? For you are clearly angry.”
“Jane.” Elizabeth snarled out her sister’s name.
Several other guests looked over at them. Lady Lucas came up to the two, overweight, plump and with a grandmotherly smile.
“My dear Eliza.” She patted Elizabeth on her annoyed cheek. “I could lend you bombazine if you have none of your own — poor Jane! Our poor Jane. They say he left nothing for her. If I imagine the same happening to my Charlotte — though Mr. Collins’s living is rather better, and she has set aside a little, against such a happenstance.”
“I will see Jane cared for.”
“Two children. And nothing to live off. They shall live with you — it is so good that you are back in Longbourn once more. You shall be a great help to your sister. They will need much attention. She shall chiefly find her happiness in caring for her children. They will be the source of what little happiness that can be left to her in this abandoned world.”
“She will, I know, mourn Mr. Hawdry greatly.”
There was clear bitterness in the uninflected way Elizabeth spoke.
Darcy did not like that. His Elizabeth was supposed to be a happy creature. But now… now that he saw it was hurt at the heart of Elizabeth’s refusal to wear mourning, he was angry at himself for his early thoughts about how it spoke ill of her that she chose to not wear mourning.
And he’d sworn to himself not to think ill of her, or any other woman, for having been seduced by a rake, and yet he had despite knowing Elizabeth as a dear friend. Darcy had a sense of being ashamed of himself. He had a sense of… subtly reevaluating everything he thought he knew about Elizabeth, and seeing her clearly, without that tint to his thoughts of her being one of those women.
“Such a handsome man.” Lady Lucas sighed, shaking her head side to side, and patting Elizabeth familiarly on the arm. “Not wealthy, not easy mannered, but so, so handsome — I always expected Jane to marry someone whose mode of expression was softer — for example like your friend, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Bingley...”
“Jane chose. She had the right to choose,” Elizabeth said, rather crossly. “Her choice was Mr. Hawdry — I shall not stay so long at Longbourn as to be a proper nursing aunt to my nieces.”
“My dear Eliza,” Lady Lucas said, “Such adorable girls. You and Jane had been so close. You shall love to have her again — I prophecy that you’ll not leave Longbourn soon again.”
Elizabeth had that fixed sweet smile that Darcy could perceive meant she was most unhappy. Her hand was clenched in a hard fist. Darcy felt tense too, to see Elizabeth unhappy.
After a few minutes more Lady Lucas left them alone, and Elizabeth let out a hard sigh. She gestured with her head, and led Darcy to a more isolated corner of the room, where they sat down in two winged velvet armchairs, thus making it so they were occluded from the rest of the room, which would have greatly more difficulty to hear them speak. “I have never even seen my nieces. Mr. Hawdry declared, after the sole time the two of us met, when I visited Jane from London following her marriage, that we were neither to speak nor correspond again.”
“Why?” Darcy shook his head and held up his hand. “No, Miss Bennet, you need not reply to my curiosity. I can guess well enough.”
“He expected to find me repentant, crying shame at my every sin, and believing myself barely worthy of the air I breathed. Well d-d… I do not. I’ll never apologize. Never. Not to any man. Not for being who I am. And I’ll never defend myself. Never again. If you desire to despise me, you may. You may despise me as much as you will. I do not need you. Nor anyone.”
“Everyone needs those around them.” Poor Elizabeth. “Miss Bennet, we are all creatures of society, even I, who am less inclined to concourse with my fellow man than most, I know I need others very much.”
“I need society! I have spoken on that at great length with you, you know. But beyond that — beyond a simple conversation, and friendship, I know I can trust no one.”
“That is a harsh attitude.”
“Not my father, in the end. Not my mother — not my sisters for certainty. I was close to Jane. Very. She simply did as told. She chose to obey Mr. Hawdry. And finis.”
“You cannot…” Darcy hesitated. He did not want to argue with Elizabeth, not when she was so passionate, and so hurt.
“What? I have heard from Papa the same — I have heard it from myself. Charlotte wrote upon this to me as well — I cannot expect a woman to ignore the orders of her husband. It is ridiculous to expect that Jane would choose a sister, a sinful, besmirched sister, over her husband. Over the man upon whose goodwill she depended upon in every way, the man whose conjugal embrace she shared nightly — I expected more. I expected better from Jane.”
Elizabeth pulled her legs in tighter towards herself and pressed herself back into her armchair, further away from Mr. Darcy, turning her head to the side and not looking towards him. When Darcy said nothing, she glanced sidelong at him, from the edge of her eyes, without moving her head.
“So now you hate her?”
“Hate?” Elizabeth blinked. Seeming stunned. “Hate… Jane? — my speech sounds as though I despise her. But…”
Darcy tried to imagine what it might be like if a close family member followed such an order to never speak to him. What if his and Georgiana’s husband fell into the outs for some strange reason? Darcy would expect Georgiana to assiduously attempt peacemaking, but if such proved impossible, he would give her every blessing to choose her husband’s side.
That was what was right. He would expect the same of his wife.
“I hurt for you, Miss Bennet. You have suffered.”
“I have not — I have learned. Suffering… suffering implies… suffering implies I am an object to be pitied. I am not pitiable. I am independent. I do not depend upon anyone for my wellbeing and happiness; I do not need anyone.”
Darcy could not reply to that. He looked at her steadily, with some tender emotion for this fine woman aching in his chest. She had done wrong, but she deserved her dignity, her happiness, and everything else. She did deserve better.
He wished he could give her everything.
“Oh, stop! Do not pity me! Heavens! I am happy; you see how I am happy. I have found a place where none of it matters — ridiculous for Charlotte to defend Jane in her letters. Mr. Collins gave her the same order, when the scandal first was discovered. Charlotte ignored Mr. Collins, and Charlotte continued to write to me through disguise — you despise all forms of dissimulation, so perhaps I ought not admit so much of a mutual acquaintance to you. But I valued such friendship. I needed her friendship at the time.”
“Do you still communicate in secret?”
“No, no. Mr. Collins is a man who can be led by women. His chiefest virtue. Once a suitable time had passed, Charlotte buttered him bright with nonsense about how I was repentant, how he should act like Christ speaking to the harlots, and how the place of a vicar’s wife is to send nourishment to the souls of sinners. I did need to endure his lectures when we met in London, but Mr. Collins only wishes to hear himself spe
ak. He did not probe for true contrition upon my part, or a true belief in my lowness and inferiority. Mr. Hawdry was a more incisive man than my cousin, who is mostly harmless.”
Darcy opened his mouth, and then shut it.
His place was not to argue with Elizabeth, but the fact that Mr. Hawdry had been incisive and not harmless like Mr. Collins — Darcy considered him one of the dreadfullest bores he had ever met — gave Elizabeth’s sister some better excuse for not contradicting her husband.
While Darcy did not judge Elizabeth for her mistake — less now than ever before, Elizabeth was Elizabeth, and he could only see her as good — if he did not know and… admire Elizabeth and understand her, he would be quite hesitant to allow a young woman of his acquaintance to enter terms of intimacy with a woman who was angrier by far at society for how they treated her sin than at herself for having embarked upon it. Though he never would have separated two loving sisters on such an account.
“I do not judge Mrs. Collins — it is difficult. Difficult. She showed true Christian charity, from the judgement of Christ, I am sure she did well — for you to admit you needed her then… you must have been most unhappy.”
“I was.” Her voice was a little mournful.
“There is often evil in every action — a woman ought obey her husband, but she also ought never cut a dear friend who is in pain… difficult. I do not know that there is some single answer that is right in every case. But I am happy you are my friend. I am happy for you that Mrs. Collins chose you rather than her husband, and I like her the better for it.”
Elizabeth looked at him. Rather than her normal smile, there was something more serious in her eyes as she peered at him. “You would take my side without concern for the right of it.”
“I… I… It depends on how deeply in the wrong you were — but was it not a matter of murder, or of… of treason against the crown. Or something which the doing of entirely overthrew my understanding of your essential character, yes.”
“But… but see. What if I am accused of such a thing? Accused of… of a treason. Would you believe me, when I insist innocence? Or would you believe the party against me?”
“You. Should you look into my eye and swear your innocence, and I would trust your word against that of every man in England.”
The two of them fell silent for a time.
Darcy felt as though he had declared rather more than he had meant to. And that was ridiculous in a way — he could not actually be confident Elizabeth would never commit any crime… but he could trust her over anyone else. Maybe if there was some objective proof… but yes. If it was a matter of her word against the word of another, he would always trust her word.
“Mr. Collins is quite happy with our arrangement—” Elizabeth said quietly, as if to fill the silence. “Sends a page of sermon upon sinfulness with Charlotte’s letters every month or two. I save them, they have proven of great value when I must give voice to particularly pompous fools in my novels.”
Darcy barked out a laugh. “Lord Mountain! From your fourth book. I only finished it yesterday. I thought he sounded familiar.”
Elizabeth laughed, her mood lightening appreciably. “Yes, yes — when I wrote his speeches, I had a recent letter from Mr. Collins open before me. Charlotte particularly appreciated the character. She is happier by far than I ever could have credited a woman of sense could be with such a man, but she is by no means blind to Mr. Collins’s faults.”
“Mr. Collins is most fortunate that he encountered perhaps the only woman of sense in England who could have been prevailed upon to marry him, and who then could prevail upon herself to be happy in the situation — she and Cousin Anne have become dear friends.”
“Yes — but let us not censure poor Mr. Collins whilst he is not here to defend himself. You have broached a topic which is closer by far to my heart. How did you like Mountain and Valley?”
Darcy allowed the subject to be changed, and they discussed the book of Elizabeth’s he had just completed. But he wondered that night as the carriage took them back home to Netherfield: How would Elizabeth be able to live with her sister when she felt such animus towards her?
Chapter Ten
The inevitable day came when Jane Hawdry returned hopeless and husbandless to that home in whose four brick walls she was born. The day was cloudy, windy, and cold, with splashing showers that lashed the frosty windows and turned the roads soft.
Elizabeth bestirred herself out into the wild cold with Papa and Mama in a warm violet pelisse perfect for this late autumn, when the trees were almost entirely, but not yet wholly, bare. Sister. She would greet her sister and her unknown nieces. The sound of the bright Bennet carriage, returned from retrieving Jane, ground up the way.
The ample chaise pulled in front of the house, and the driver with a pull on the reins and a clicking sound brought the two horses to a stop. The grooms and the Bennet footman came around to open the gaily painted carriage door. Elizabeth noted that the back of the carriage was piled high with trunks. The detritus of a life in Downling ended now.
And Jane.
Yellow haired, pale, not the slightest color in her face, and something distant in her eyes.
She looked awful.
Elizabeth’s heart went out to Jane, seizing up. Jane. Oh poor Jane.
Jane looked as beautiful and young as she ever had: black dress, fringed with black lace, and a dyed black hat. Elizabeth had fallen out of being used to how beautiful her sister was, and she knew that she had lost far more of her youthful bloom than Jane had.
Our heroine considered it unfair that Jane could still be so beautiful when she’d betrayed her own sister.
The one girl was of five, and she jumped out of the carriage to be caught by the footman, and she ran up to Mr. Bennet. “Grandpapa! Grandpapa!”
“Tiny little Lavinia.” Papa smiled sweetly at her and picked the small creature up, swinging her into his arms and around.
The girl then exclaimed, while held high in the air, “Papa died!” And she gripped Papa’s cravat and cried into his chest.
Jane stepped down from the carriage, letting the footman support her with his hand. She held in her arms her younger daughter, a girl of almost two years, who was sleeping. However the girl woke up from the movement of the descent and begged to be put down.
Instead Mrs. Bennet took her from Jane’s arms. “My little Frances! How is my littlest girl?” Mama cooed at the child.
The little girl struggled with her grandmother and started to cry. Mrs. Bennet smothered her with kisses and promised cake.
“Lizzy!” Jane turned to Elizabeth. “Lizzy! Lord! You — you look… you look so well. Oh, my dear Lizzy, how I have missed you!”
Jane threw her arms around Elizabeth.
Elizabeth found she could not. She simply could not, no matter how much Jane grieved, she could not pretend to be happy to see her sister. She could not bring herself to embrace her back, and Elizabeth knew that as a forgiving Christian woman, she was shamed by this inability to act as she ought. As a good Christian would.
Elizabeth simply stood stiff, and let Jane embrace her.
Her sister slowly loosened her grip, sadly. She stepped away, her half dead eyes clouded with pain. “Oh, Lizzy! You do blame me.”
Elizabeth could say nothing, to deny Jane’s accusation would be to lie and to comfort, neither of which Elizabeth wished to do. To reply would be to accuse an already injured woman of crime. So she said nothing, and in the harsh, perhaps warranted silence, Elizabeth realized refusal to speak was as hard and harsh as any accusation would have been.
The group entered the house, and they retired to the drawing room to talk. Mrs. Bennet sat next to Jane, embracing her repeatedly, and saying, “Oh, but my poor Jane! My poor Jane! And your poor Mr. Hawdry.”
Elizabeth watched how her sister reacted to Mr. Hawdry’s name. It was not with a deepening of the grief. Just the same sort of deadness, as if some light that had been in Jane was no longer ful
ly there. Killed with the grief of it.
The children, Lavinia and Frances, were kept in the room, rather than sent up to the nursery, even though Mrs. Bennet had engaged a nurse for them, and had been talking about how when Lavinia was another two years older they should hire a governess.
Seemingly she was more concerned for the details of her granddaughter’s education than she had been for theirs.
There were questions from Mrs. Bennet about those who she knew from Jane’s letters to her in the neighborhood around Downling parsonage. Mr. Bennet asked a few questions as well.
Elizabeth said nothing.
Jane would look at her, almost longingly, from time to time, and Elizabeth looked back, not sure if she was cold or hurt, and she resisted the urge to cuttingly turn her face aside.
At some point the conversation went to matters of money, and Mrs. Bennet said Mr. Bennet would give Jane something to purchase new dresses once her mourning had passed, as all of Jane’s modest selection of clothes at present had been dyed black.
Jane had taken the younger girl, Fanny, back, and seated her on her lap.
“Is there — forgive me for asking at such a time.” Elizabeth spoke for the first time since they had reentered the house, her voice cracking. She was aware of the formal tone that she kept with a woman who she used to hide under the covers in bed together with laughing and speaking as sweetly as possible. “Can you expect any support from Mr. Hawdry’s family for the girls? Anything towards their dowries? Was any money left over?”
Jane looked at her hands. “Nothing. Not which I have awareness of.”
She was subdued. All in black, and her long blond ringlets falling over. Nearly thirty and somehow more beautiful than at twenty — she could serve as the depressed blond muse who could inspire an artist or a poet before their untimely death of tuberculosis. She was the very image of a bereft angel. Even Elizabeth had a little of that inspired desire to try to find a situation and character to match the image Jane presented at this moment.
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