by Lucy Tilney
Jane sipped her coffee, “They are not so superior, Lizzy, just too conscious of being terribly rich. I am convinced they will improve on further acquaintance and poor Mr. Darcy is just not comfortable in large social gatherings.”
“I shall take your word for it then and we will both be happy.”
Gifts were wrapped, telephone calls received from far off relatives, and Lydia went to visit their grandmother returning with a few gramophone records of Christmas carols to make up for the scant offerings on the wireless. By mid-afternoon, she and Kitty had made up sufficiently to decorate the tree together which the others forwent for the sake of seasonal cheer and old times.
When near neighbours came for sherry Elizabeth was content to hide away in her room with a novel and a few of Mrs Hill’s marvellous mince pies where she was soon joined by Jane whose Christmas spirit was dampened by having heard from Mrs. Harrington that the village considered her engaged.
Jane drove Elizabeth, Kitty, Lydia, and Mrs Hill to midnight Mass in Meryton and Professor Bennet and Mary walked to the Mattins service on Christmas morning. Phoebe who was frequently ‘too busy’ to attend either was irritated at Jane not seeing and more importantly not being seen by, Mr. Bingley at the morning service.
“Was he surprised not to see Jane at church? My goodness, I hope he doesn’t think we’re heathens. I wish you had gone this morning, Jane, it was very vexing of you to insist on going last night. Lizzy could just as easily have gone in the morning too, it’s not as if she has a kind word to say about anything else Cousin William does.”
“I relayed your invitation to Twelfth Night dinner to Mr. Bingley,” said Professor Bennet, “which he accepted with great good spirits and sends his best wishes for a very merry Christmas. Jane, this is yours.”
He held out an envelope which was intercepted by his wife.
Elizabeth stared at her father who heroically snatched it back and ensured it reached its proper destination.
“What does it say… what does it say? Don’t look disapproving, Lizzy, Charles has nothing to say to Jane we cannot all hear.”
But to Mrs. Bennet’s disappointment, it was merely a Christmas card with no avowals of undying love.
Lunch was a joyous affair with a spirit of convivial generosity descending on the table keeping Professor Bennet sober, preventing Phoebe from mentioning husbands, and Lydia from mentioning school. Mrs. Bennet’s excellent Christmas pudding, and Mrs. Hill’s perhaps even more excellent sherry trifle were finally devoured, and no-one missed Cousin William who was honouring Lucas Lodge with lengthy graces and heartfelt compliments to their carrots. In the afternoon they settled to listen to carols on the wireless miraculously picked up from Bournemouth featuring George Dale playing his cornet and watch Lydia making a fuss over trying on her new earrings.
“I could wear them to the golf club New Year’s Eve dance,” she surmised, “which will probably be my only chance to see Harriet and her husband seeing as you said we couldn’t afford to go to Felixstowe for the wedding.”
“Not a chance,” said her unsympathetic father.
“Oh, Gilbert! What could be more proper than the golf club dance?” demanded his wife who could always be relied upon to support their youngest.
“Your daughter is sixteen, madam, and still in school.”
“I didn’t get to go to the golf club dance when I was sixteen.”
Mary sighed, “Honestly, Kitty, I can’t say I care if I never go to another golf club dance again. I am sure they are perfectly congenial to the rest of you but I have studies to attend to. Lydia may have my place in the car with my blessing.”
Elizabeth glared at Mary. She never had any idea when she was making a situation worse.
“Kitty, you didn’t have a particular friend attending whom you hadn’t seen for over a year, not that you have any particular friends at all, of course. Oh, daddy, please, please, please, it’s not as if I’ll be with strangers! Please!”
Lydia’s voice rose to a pitched wail which Elizabeth knew her father could not tolerate in any female but even she was surprised at the speed of his capitulation.
“Very well, child, but you must promise me only to stand up with one of your sisters.”
Kitty burst into tears but Lydia’s whoop of joy was quite likely heard in Norwich and Mrs. Bennet was scarcely more sedate.
“Oh, Gilbert! Oh, Lydia, don’t you have an excellent father? You will be the belle of the ball, my love. You must wear Jane’s lilac silk as there’s no time to get a dress made and your earrings will go so well with it.”
Jane’s face fell, “Mother, the lilac dress is my birthday gift from Uncle Edward and Aunt Marianne. I haven’t worn it myself yet.”
“I should think not, I don’t want to wear something half the town has seen you in already! It will ruin my grand entrance!”
Elizabeth protested the unfairness of that arrangement and suggested their mother take Lydia into Frou-Frou Frocks and buy her something appropriate.
Phoebe began to dismiss the idea because she knew the Gardiners’ gift was far superior to anything they could buy but Lydia’s raucous appreciation of the idea of clothes shopping anywhere was too great a temptation. Professor Bennet took the opportunity to slink out to the safety of his study and after enduring a few more minutes of delighted shrieking Elizabeth followed him.
“Father, are you sure this is a good idea?”
She slipped in closing the door quietly.
“Lizzy, your sister will not be happy until she can show off and a couple of hours at the golf club will, I hope, give her enough boasting credentials to keep her satisfied until she leaves school in June.”
“But she is such a flirt and she will not care, or even realise, when she is making a fool of herself and her sisters. She can see Harriet anywhere and you do remember, don’t you, that Harriet is only married because her father, a lawyer, caught her in a compromising situation with a much older man who should have known better? She's hardly a suitable friend for Lydia in the first place.”
Professor Bennet groaned but Elizabeth was not finished.
“Lydia’s principal reason for wanting to go to the dance is not Harriet. She intends to prove her femme fatale credentials by stealing the boy Kitty is keen on. She will make a spectacle of herself, Kitty will cry and make a spectacle of herself, and it isn’t fair on Jane and Mary.”
Her father rummaged in his pocket for a pipe-cleaner, “Lizzy, Lizzy, don’t be so squeamish, it’s not as if you’ll be there. Listening to Lydia and your mother rattling on about the injustice of not letting her attend is more than I can stand. The golf club dance is such a local affair I think we’re quite safe, even Lydia isn’t silly enough to misbehave in front of the parents of the young men she has romantic designs on, and there will be no new people to tempt her to show off.”
Elizabeth disagreed but saw the futility of pressing her father when his quiet life was at stake. She returned to drawing room and buried herself in a book sustained with copious amounts of tea and Christmas cake until an hour later she was astonished to see the Lucases’ car pulling up outside. Normally the Misses Lucas and the Misses Bennet met on Boxing Day to discuss the festivities but a Christmas day visit was unheard of. Charlotte came in bundled up in a velvet coat that had been her mother’s before the war followed by Maria piled high with boxes of cake and candied fruit.
“Shall I help make tea?” she said when all the good wishes had been exchanged. Cook had gone to her family after church and Mrs. Hill, in longstanding Longbourn tradition, was asleep on the sofa.
Once in the safety of the kitchen, Charlotte confided that Mr. Collins had asked her to marry him assuring her in the most violent language of his delight in her mince pies. He was not, he said, the kind of man who believes in being stingy with the brandy.
“And you know me,” she continued, “I am not romantic. I ask only a comfortable home and meaningful work.”
Elizabeth spooned tea into the pot and ma
rvelled at William proposing to two women in such a short time then she twiddled with the gas under the kettle and tried to find the right thing to say when a sensible woman throws herself away on a fool. But with Walter Lucas half blind and no-one to take over the family business, the Lucases would expect Charlotte to take whatever came along. Then she realised her friend was laughing.
“Lizzy, I am teasing you. Forgive me. I have no intention of marrying Mr. Collins but it’s rather hard on Ma and Pa so I had to escape. He is still there finishing the mince pies.”
Elizabeth sat down beside her, “I don’t know what got into me. I was thinking about Walter and how William’s prospects are good…”
Charlotte poured the water into the teapot and began to look for a tray. “You are not yourself. Please tell me what’s wrong.”
Elizabeth shrugged. “I’m worried about mother ruining things for Jane and then, oh Charlotte, my father has just run up the white flag about Lydia and the golf club dance which can only end in disaster. Please pray the Bingleys do not attend.”
She wanted to add, “And Mr. Darcy thinks he saw me in Mr. Collins’ arms,” but she couldn’t. How could she possibly explain to Charlotte why it mattered what Mr. Tall, Dark, Handsome and Rude thought of her? She couldn’t explain it to herself.
Charlotte nodded, “Sisters are a trial and fathers often little better. Mine spent so much on the boys’ education and now poor Edward is dead and Walter is losing what is left of his sight and the shell-shock gets worse, not better. We’ve spent thousands on specialists but nothing works and Lucas Lodge is a horrid money-sink but father can’t face retrenching.”
She put her face in her hands. Elizabeth put her arm around her and kissed her glossy brown hair, “It still doesn’t require any of you to marry a ninny.”
“Less about me. Do you think Jane and Mr. Bingley are in love?”
“I think Jane is a fair way to being in love and he must be or he’s an utter fool.”
Charlotte nodded, “I know Jane so I agree but she isn’t giving him enough encouragement, not enough for a man like that with girls chasing him all over London. Jane smiles and chats and almost flirts but then suddenly looks so desperately unhappy and stares into space. It’s quite unnerving and doesn't send the right message.”
Elizabeth lifted fresh cups for the guests from the dresser. The little willow pattern set had been her favourite all her life. She had no immediate answer and felt exasperated with Charlotte for being so worldly. The bell rang and she looked up, “That’s mother wondering where we’ve got to. We’d never survive in domestic service, Charlotte, thank the Lord for the Church of England and the magazine business.”
1 ‘Winter’, Christina Rossetti.
AN UNWELCOME MEETING
Elizabeth spent New Year's Eve at a party hosted by friends of her aunt and uncle and was grateful not to be at the Meryton Golf Club annual dance. She even persuaded herself that Lydia would be so over-awed by the adult surroundings that she wouldn't make a play for Cedric and upset Kitty. In this happily deluded state she continued for over a week.
Dear Lizzy,
I know you will have been expecting news of Meryton’s last great social event of 1923 and beg forgiveness for my tardiness but the hospital almoner left suddenly, granny has had a cold, and mother has had two dinner parties so I have been rushed off my feet trying to help everyone.
As far as the dance goes I wish I had not complained about Lydia having my new lilac silk. I knew it was odd when the moment they returned from the shop mother rushed into the study to show the new dress to father, you know how she usually gets things delivered when he’s not here. Father, of course, not knowing a ball gown from a dressing gown, barely looked and shooed her out and when Lydia was dressed for the dance I understood what they were up to. She came down five minutes before we were due to leave when Tom Lundy was already rattling the car keys and I am not exaggerating one jot when I say Theda Bara1 would have passed for a bishop’s wife in comparison. Father was furious and insisted she change and wash her face but mother victoriously reminded him he’d said the dress was fine a week ago. He continued to insist and I offered my beaded chiffon as I was already wearing the lilac but mother clutched her chest and put her hand to her forehead and father quickly gave in.
Of course, their father would be unable to work out what a dress would look like before seeing it on!
I wish I could say that was the end of it but, of course, it could not be. All the other young girls were wearing pastels so poor Lydia looked almost vulgar by comparison but she appeared not to notice and was in remarkably high spirits.
Oh, poor Jane, you would have felt all the embarrassment for her!
Sir Edwin and Lady Brereton came with Miss Brereton and a Captain Simmonds, a man of about thirty-five, whom Lydia made a bee-line for. He asked her to dance and she flirted atrociously. I had thought that her exuberance and ‘making eyes’ at all the local boys was bad enough (I did not know where to look once or twice) but this was beyond all.
Naturally, father was in the bar and mother dismissed my concerns out of hand but your photographer friend diverted her attention and she willingly sat out with him while Captain Simmonds danced with others. I was so grateful. Then she attached herself to Cedric Morris (the boy Kitty likes) and there was a scene that left Pamela Purvis crying because Pamela likes Cedric too. Mrs. Purvis went to speak to our mother who treated her very poorly when the better thing to do would have been to take Lydia out and talk to her. I don’t suppose there was a soul in the room who had not noted Lydia’s behaviour earlier but if there was they certainly heard Mrs. Purvis’ protests.
Father charmed Mrs. Purvis and I thought the worst was over but I was wrong. I was dancing with Mr. Stoughton and he was telling me about an ongoing problem with Myrtle’s trotter when I saw Lydia creeping outside. I thought of telling Mr. Stoughton I felt unwell so that I could follow her but he would only have escorted me to mother who would have made a fuss and insisted I go to the powder room. As soon as the dance was over I was accosted by Sir William so, by the time I found Lydia coming in through another door, she had been gone a good half an hour. Of course, neither father nor mother had noticed but Mrs. Long, Mrs. Harrington, and Mrs. Purvis all had. I have no idea where she was or who she was with and I don’t suppose we can hope she was alone.
Dearest Lizzy, I am torn between being glad you are in London and do not have to put up with all this and wishing you were here so that I might have a sensible conversation with someone.
Your loving, Jane.
She opened the next one immediately.
Dear Lizzy,
I’ve been trying to keep an eye on Lydia and I find myself rather worried. Since the dance, she has gone out five times alone, and you know how rarely she does that and taken far too long each time. She's volunteered for the Post Office twice, returned my library books, run an errand for Mrs. Hill, visited Aunt Florence (when she wasn't in) and this afternoon I suspect she lied about being with the Harrington girls. It’s all very mysterious and I do hope she hasn’t got a boyfriend because he cannot be anyone decent if he’s encouraging her to behave like this.
Elizabeth gritted her teeth and decided to talk to Kitty about the Albert she'd heard mentioned. She scanned the rest of the letter which was depressing.
I am sure you want to know about Charles. I have not heard a word from him. He sent a note apologising for not being able to come to dinner on Twelfth Night but gave no explanation then later I met Netherfield’s housekeeper in the florist’s and she talked at great length about him being needed to help Mr. Darcy choose a yacht somewhere as soon as Louisa’s wedding is over. I imagine choosing a yacht will keep Charles happily occupied for many weeks. I was quickly discarded and I feel a complete fool.
It was clear to Elizabeth that Mr. Darcy would have no need for help choosing a yacht if there hadn't been a pressing need to get Charles out of Hertfordshire. Clearly, Mr. Darcy and Caroline had taken advanta
ge of Louisa’s wedding to press home to him the disadvantages of marrying Jane who had no money, no connections, and been educated at an unpretentious school. And dozy Charles had been led away by the nose from the best thing that could ever happen to him.
She threw a small lump of coal on the fire with a fury that made it hiss and spit. Stupid, spineless, spiritless fool of a man. Jane deserved better but she was twenty-five living in a limited and unvarying society and there was a hideous shortage of men. Why couldn’t Charles have a little more verve and why was it even Mr. Darcy’s business in the first place? It wasn’t as if he could know something genuinely bad about Jane because there wasn’t anything. She briefly wondered if the Bingley girls had made something up and played on Darcy’s fastidiousness but that was probably too much even for them. No, Mr. Darcy was enough of a heartless snob in his own right. He didn’t need any help from a pair of amateurs like Louisa and Caroline.
She negotiated a couple of hours off work the next afternoon and seething with indignation against Mr. Darcy, headed to her favourite Cornerhouse which also, in the wonderful way of Lyon’s, had a hairdressing salon.
And there he was. Again. Was there no escaping the wretched man? A volley of anger rose up and she had to bite her tongue to be civilised while arguing with herself about why she was bothering. Because to demand answers would humiliate Jane, she replied and took her own advice.
“Miss Bennet,” he took off his hat and bowed slightly, “how pleasant to you see you.”
He made no mention of the fact that the last time he had seen her she was in the arms of her ludicrous cousin on the ballroom terrace. He made no mention of it because it was not polite and because he preferred to pretend it hadn’t happened. A surreptitious glance at her left hand left him none the wiser for her leather gloves would have concealed a far more substantial diamond than a clergyman could be supposed to afford.