Christmas at Longbourn

by Karen Aminadra

  The Reverend appeared at the entrance the kitchen, his face still flushed from the cold outside. “Come with me!” he cried, turned about, and retraced his steps.

  All three of them followed quickly. Darcy’s limbs protested against the rapid movement after trudging through the snow. Mr Bennet went first into the corridor which led to the stairs and the front of the house. To the right of the staircase there was an open door through which the reverend disappeared.

  Mr Darcy arrived last into the vicar’s parlour and his eyes, he believed, were playing tricks on him.

  Mr Bennet exclaimed at the sight before him. “Kitty!”

  There on the settee, sitting side by side in front of the blazing fire, were Dorcas and Kitty Bennet.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Kitty felt her stomach jolt at the sight of the reverend bursting into the room, closely followed by her father, Mr Bingley, and Mr Darcy. Her father’s cry brought a lump to her throat.

  “Kitty!” He bound forward and embraced her while crying unabashed. “Kitty!”

  The woman by her side squeezed her hand and hesitantly she stood to leave the father and daughter alone.

  “Papa,” Kitty’s voice quivered. She was surprised at her father’s reaction; he was not one for public displays of sentimentality.

  He pulled back, examined her, nodded, and wiping the tears from his face, whispered, “Praise be to God you are alive, child. You gave us great cause for concern.”

  Kitty feared the worry was now over and the scolding would begin.

  “Well, what have you to say for yourself, giving us a dreadful fright like that?” His tone was hard but she could see the sparkle of relief in his eyes.

  “I…” she began, but to her astonishment Mr Darcy stepped forward and intervened.

  “I think this is a discussion which would be better if we all had a hot cup of tea inside us.” He turned to look at Kitty and smiled. “What do you say?”

  Kitty nodded—anything to avoid explaining why she had run away and caused so much bother.

  Dorcas immediately left the room, with one backward glance at Kitty.

  Kitty smiled weakly at the woman. She had been kind to her when she arrived at the door to the vicarage some time before. With the only other female gone, Kitty was apprehensive. She knew it was foolish to run away. She was aware she had behaved wrongly and childishly. She knew her family were in distress and she was entirely to blame. Inside a small voice cried out, But they don’t understand how much I am hurting!

  The silence that stretched on as each of them took a seat and tried to look at anything other than Kitty was more than uncomfortable. She was pleased she had been found but was reluctant to talk about it, regardless of the fact that she knew she had no choice in the matter. It was no ordinary winter. If this hadn’t been the harshest winter in memory, her family would have wondered and been somewhat concerned over her unexplained absence but wouldn’t have panicked as they had this morning. It would be presumed she was in Meryton visiting friends. Unfortunately for Kitty, the snow alarmingly continued to fall in blankets.

  Silently where she sat, Kitty began to weep. She felt the cushion next to her on the settee dip, and when she looked up, it was to see Mr Darcy holding out a clean, pressed, and folded handkerchief for her use. She smiled, grateful for his assistance and kind attention. He truly wasn’t the man Wickham had led them all to believe he was. Lizzy was right; he was the best of men.

  “Might I ask, Kitty, why you have a wet towel wrapped around your ankle?” His voice was small and tender and did little to abate Kitty’s tears.

  “I slipped and hurt it,” she sobbed into the white cotton square. At the look of concern on her father’s face she added, “But it is nothing to worry about, Papa. Dorcas has taken a look at it and she believes it to be merely sprained. A little rest will set it to rights, I am certain.”

  The tea things arrived by the time Kitty had composed herself. Dorcas poured and served the occupants of the reverend’s parlour the hot beverage that quickly warmed them all through.

  Mr Bennet took a deep gulp of his tea and, clattering the cup back into its saucer, sighed, “Oh, I needed that.” He nodded at Dorcas in thanks, and then turned to look at Kitty. “Now, child, what is all this running away business about?”

  Kitty’s heart sank. She owed them all an explanation, but before she could utter a syllable, Mr Darcy again came to her aid.

  “I think we can all surmise what this is about, Mr Bennet.” He smiled across at her. “Can we not, Kitty?”

  She replied in a very small voice, “Yes.”

  “But why the need to run away?” Mr Bennet seemed nonplussed, and Kitty was hurt even more that her own father did not seem to understand.

  “I just needed to be away from it all,” she whimpered as a solitary teardrop dripped onto the saucer in her lap. “I couldn’t bear it anymore.”

  “I can only imagine.” Mr Bingley’s voice was barely a whisper but they all heard it clearly enough.

  “All the talk about how Lydia’s perfect and I am no good and lacking…” she sobbed loudly.

  “Oh fie!” Mr Bennet was agitated and shifted in his seat. “No one said any such thing.”

  “They did!” she protested. “More than once, Papa!” She stared at him wondering why he did not know what passed under his own roof.

  Mr Darcy reached across the small space between them and patted her hand. His mere presence calmed her. She knew if he were there, it would all be put to rights. “There have been some, dare I say it, cruel insinuations, Mr Bennet.” Kitty looked up as Mr Darcy addressed her father in a matter-of-fact voice. “On more than one occasion, I have overheard it said that Kitty lost her intended husband to Lady Etherington because she did not match, shall we say, Lydia’s standards.”

  “Yes,” Kitty nodded at her brother-in-law, her face red with indignation. “If those are the standards I have to meet in order to find a husband, then I will remain a spinster to my dying day, Papa!”

  “Now, now,” Reverend Summers interjected. “Let us not speak hastily.” He rose from his seat at the table and poured more tea for Mr Bennet. “I believe we all know or at least can understand how deeply Miss Bennet here is hurting.” Kitty watched as he returned to his seat and rewarded him with a thankful smile.

  “I see how it is.” Mr Bennet sounded tired and his shoulders wilted down. “I have always seen how it is, alas.” He looked across the room at Kitty and she saw how moist his eyes were. “Lydia has always been indulged, and I have always been powerless to do anything about it.”

  The regret in his voice was palpable, and Kitty was saddened to recognize the truth in the words.

  “For my part, if I have said or done anything to injure you or cause you more upset, Kitty, please accept my apologies.”

  Kitty’s heart swelled at her father’s apology. It was the ointment her soul so desperately needed. Her own eyes moistened again.

  “I see now how deeply you have felt your disappointment.”

  Kitty sniffed, her throat clamped closed, and she could not speak to respond.

  “I am sorry for it, but we cannot have all this running away business.”

  Kitty’s shoulders slumped as she thought, The sympathy is over and here comes the rebuke.

  “It was indeed foolish to flee in such weather.” Mr Darcy’s brow creased with a frown. “Perhaps, under the circumstances, it would have been better to stay where you were.”

  She could see the logic in his statement and nodded.

  “However,” Mr Bennet continued, “it is clear we at home have added insult to injury, as they say.”

  Looking over to her father, Kitty nodded again. Her parents and sister Mary had indeed made her feel worse. She did not wish to lash out and shout about it anymore. She felt exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go quietly home to bed and sleep.

  “Are you ready and able to come home again?” Mr Bennet asked, and when she did not respond he added
, “To where you are loved and wanted, Kitty.”

  She could not help it; she began to weep again. She had never known her father to be so sensitive to her feelings before. Usually he was witty and sarcastic. He was a highly amusing man, yet she knew now he was much more than that. “I should like to remain here for a little longer, if I may. It is quiet and…” She clamped her mouth shut. What could she say? That Dorcus, a servant, listened to her and leant her a more sympathetic ear than those who were to be found at home? Could she openly admit she wanted to speak to Reverend Summers about how she felt and not her family?

  “I suppose for the time you have been here, it has been nice to be in the company of a woman who is not your family.” Her father’s eyes twinkled and the corners of his mouth twitched in amusement.

  Could he read her mind? No, he was her father and knew her better than she realised. “Yes, Dorcas has been very kind and has looked after my ankle very well,” she inclined her head and moved the ankle a little, wincing as she did.

  “Very well.” Mr Bennet rose from his chair. “We shall expect you, along with Reverend Summers, for dinner, shall we? That is, if you can manage on that ankle of yours by then.” He gazed down upon her over the rim of his half-moon spectacles.

  Kitty shot a glance at the minister who was grinning with happiness on the other side of the room. “Yes, Papa.”

  “I shall be delighted to join you and to escort Miss Bennet back to Longbourn for dinner,” the reverend chirruped. “We shall take good care of Miss Bennet, and as soon as we are able, ankle and weather permitting, we shall come along the lane to you all.”

  “Then the matter is settled.” Mr Bennet clapped his hands together. “Back to Longbourn, I think, now that the snow is falling less heavily than before.”

  All six of them glanced out of the window where faint patches of blue sky could be seen.

  Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley rose and grinned at Kitty as they bowed.

  “All will be well again, you’ll see,” Mr Darcy muttered so that only she could hear.

  “I am glad you are found, Kitty. Your mother can rest easy this afternoon,” Mr Bennet called back to her as he headed towards the vicarage door.

  Kitty sighed as she gazed at Reverend Summers. “Thank you.”

  “Let me see them to the door, and then all three of us will talk.” The reverend scurried out of the room after the three gentlemen.

  Dorcas re-entered the room once her master had vacated it. “You see? That wasn’t so bad, miss.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Mary stood by the window on the upper landing waiting for any sign of the men’s return. She was cold and tired from standing for so long, wringing her hands, but she cared not. Kitty was missing and she was scared for her safe return. Horace and John had arrived back more than an hour ago declaring there was no sign of Mr Darcy, Mr Bingley, or her father. She had never before been the sort of girl to fret, but she admitted now that she was more than worried, not only for her sister, but now for her father too.

  John and Horace informed her mother there was no sign of Kitty on the route they searched. Either the snowfall had covered her tracks quickly or no one had passed that way in many hours. They had waited for Mr Bennet’s party for as long as they could bear to, but once the cold penetrated their bones, they returned back to Longbourn to warm up before going out again in search of them.

  Mary was determined to maintain her position afore the window. She would not leave it until she saw either her father return with Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley and, as she hoped with all her heart, with Kitty too.

  Mrs Bennet had taken to her bed. She claimed her nerves were too agitated to remain in the drawing room and do nothing while they waited to hear what had happened to ‘poor Kitty’, as she was now being termed. She could hear her mother wailing, crying, and moaning the loss of a daughter and husband in the same day from where she stood. Every sound her mother uttered cut Mary to the quick. She fought back the urge to run to her own room and to give in to the tears that threatened to overwhelm her.

  Mary pondered on whether their mother realised how Kitty had been feeling of late and how sorely she regretted not being Lady Etherington herself. If she did, she showed no sign of it. She merely complained about the state of her own nerves and asked anyone who would give her an ear why no one had any compassion for her. Mary wondered if Kitty would ever truly have been happy as Lady Etherington if Sir Percival was so easily swayed by Lydia’s charms. Would he have been a faithful husband to Kitty at all? To Mary, it seemed that it was the lesser of two evils; it was better to have lost out on the marriage than to be in a loveless marriage to a disloyal man. Perhaps Kitty was better off, despite it not appearing to be thus at present. Mary knew that Kitty would rally again; her natural energy would rise and people always wanted to be around Kitty with her witty conversation. One day, perhaps some gentleman would prefer her above all others and her broken heart would be mended.

  The snowfall began to lighten and Mary continued to silently pray for her sister’s return when she spied the outlines of three hunched figures coming down the lane towards the house from the church. He heart skipped a beat. She instantly recognised the stooped form of her father.

  Mary rushed down the stairs calling for Hill to come. “Papa is back! Hill, come quickly!” In an unladylike fashion, she took the stairs two at a time and fairly pelted into the door as she landed in the hallway. Her excitement was so great that she pulled open the doors, not minding the icy air that blasted her face as she did so. She watched on tenterhooks as the men approached the house, daring not to run out to escort them into the house in her house slippers. As the realisation that Kitty was not with them hit her, Mary’s knees felt weak and she began to cry, “Where’s Kitty?”

  Mr Darcy, she saw through her tears, was supporting her father. Mary feared the worst as she stepped backwards to allow the gentlemen access to the house.

  “Fear not, Mary,” her father’s muffled voice came through the scarf covering half his face. “She is safe and well.”

  Mary did not know whether to laugh or cry. “You… you have seen her?”

  “Yes, yes, we have seen her.” Mr Bennet was aided to a chair. His breath came in deep pants.

  Mary wanted to know more. She wanted to hear all the details, but she also knew that the three men needed to take off their outer things and catch their breath. They needed to be warmed through and have some of Hill’s hot soup in them before she asked them the myriad of questions that flooded her mind. She studied each one of them in turn. Their faces were bright red and their lips were blue from the cold. “Hill,” she cried out as the servant came bustling in, “bring the hot soup to the dining room and make sure the fire is lit in there.”

  “Yes, Miss Mary.” Hill bobbed a curtsey and, taking the men’s coats and outdoor clothes with her to hang to dry, she hurried back to the kitchen.

  “Soup, you say?” Mr Bennet stared at her.

  “Yes, Papa.” Mary wrung her hands.

  He smiled weakly at her. “Then let’s to it! I need to be warmed through.” He stood and stiffly made his way towards the dining room.

  Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley silently followed their father-in-law. Mary scooped up her father’s carpet slippers, which were warming by the fire, and scampered after them. She waited until Mr Bennet had seated himself in his customary place before bending to help him on with his slippers.

  “Oh, they are warm. Thank you, Mary,” he groaned with pleasure. He placed his hand upon the top of her head as she knelt. “You are a good girl, Mary,” he said barely louder than a whisper, but she heard it all the same.

  The soup was brought in and served, and Mary sat down to join them at the table. She eagerly wanted to hear about Kitty but did not wish to interrupt the repast.

  Mr Darcy glanced up at her as she stared across the table at her unspeaking father and caught her eye. “She is well, I assure you, Mary. Do not fret anymore, I implore you.”

  Some of
the tension dropped from Mary’s shoulders. “Thank you, Mr Darcy. I am most grateful to hear that.”

  “Yes, she is well,” Mr Bennet agreed as he swallowed a mouthful of soup. “But what reception she will receive when she finally comes home, I cannot tell.” Mr Bennet looked towards the ceiling then back at his soup bowl.

  “What do you mean?” Mary was dumbfounded.

  Mr Bennet merely raised his eyes heavenward again and stated, “Your mother.”

  “Oh, yes, Mama.” Mary knew that no matter what the reason for Kitty’s absconding, their mother would only care about her nerves and the inconvenience to herself. “Perhaps if I were to go to her and explain.”

  “Aye, that might help somewhat.” Mr Bennet nodded spooning more soup into his mouth.

  “What should I say?” Mary asked after a moment’s silence.

  “Mary,” Mr Bennet straightened up and laid his spoon down on the table, “you are a bright, intelligent girl.”

  “Thank you, Papa.”

  “I need not tell you the reason why Kitty ran away.”

  Mary’s shoulders slumped. She still felt responsible. “No, Papa.”

  “Kitty is nursing a broken heart, and we are entirely to blame. No.” Mr Bennet took a deep breath and shifted to face her directly. “I blame myself entirely.”

  “You?” Mary frowned. “What have you to do with it?”

  “I did not take the time to check Lydia during her upbringing. If I had done that, she would not be so wild…” he looked over the rim of his spectacles at Mary “…and we are well aware of her behaviour thus far, are we not?” He pursed his lips together. “She has caused more heartache and grief in this family than I care to recount.”

  Mary nodded, remembering when Lydia ran away from Brighton to elope with Mr Wickham.

  “And yet, when our dear Kitty returns home later this evening, she will receive little or no sympathy from the one quarter which she needs it the most.” He turned back to his soup and paused with the spoon in midair. “Do you catch my meaning?”