Longbourn

by Jo Baker

  She was tougher than she knew. She wanted nothing from him. She brushed him aside like a fly.

  He found this quite delightful.

  … nothing less than a dance on Tuesday, could have made such a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, endurable …

  The day that simply could not be waited for did arrive, as they all eventually do. The house was in a flurry all afternoon, and Sarah, as she finished curling Kitty’s hair, could have wept with the pain from her chilblains: they throbbed red and tight, and grew worse each time she crouched to heat the hair irons at the fire. Even Mr. Bennet, usually blithely indifferent to appearance, had been prepared with particular care: he had James play the valet, and brush down his ancient evening gear and powder his wig.

  It was a different order of a thing, Mr. Bennet remarked as James buttoned up his straining waistcoat for him, to those God-awful public dances at the Assembly Rooms at Meryton, with their crush, their noise, and their vapid conversation. He would never be persuaded to subscribe to them, though his wife and daughters did so most assiduously. Some crowding and noise were still to be expected, even at a private ball, but neighbourly courtesy outweighed these inconveniences.

  James, nodding along, helped him shoe-horn his corns into his old dancing pumps.

  Mr. Bennet would never have admitted this to any living person, but the most pressing reason for his attendance at Netherfield was that if he did not go, he would never hear the last of it from his wife. It was easier to suffer the discomforts of a ball than his wife’s disgruntlement that he did not. As James helped him clamber into the coach, Mr. Bennet gave him a sympathetic look. James had been obliged to wear a wig and tricorn hat as well as his stiff and creaking livery, just to drive the three short miles to Netherfield.

  “I see they have you trussed up like a partridge too,” Mr. Bennet said.

  “ ’Deed they do, sir,” said James, who was ready always to humour the good old man.

  Mrs. Hill—having pressed Mr. Collins’s evening wear with particular care, and hung it up for him to notice particularly that particular care, and having checked Polly’s work on that gentleman’s dancing shoes, and having, on his descent to the lobby, curtseyed as he passed—did not receive a single word of acknowledgement from him. She stood, somewhat lowered in her spirits, on the front steps with her husband and the maids to wave the coach away.

  “Thank the Lord,” said Polly, turning back to the house. “I’m glad that’s over.”

  They trooped through the vestibule and into the silent lobby. For a few hours at least no one would require anything of any of them, and that was a blessing to be savoured. Without a word, Mr. Hill set off up the back stairs. He was an old man, and worn to a rag. He needed his sleep.

  “You won’t mind, Sarah,” Mrs. Hill said, “sitting up tonight. I am all done in. Come on, Polly.”

  Sarah, eyes narrowed, waited till Mrs. Hill, her rump swinging, had gone round the turn in the stair, with Polly dragging along behind her like a tired pup. She dug into the rug with a toecap, tucked her sore hands into her armpits. She was left with a candle flame, and the clock’s tick, and a long empty night ahead of her. This was an outrage: she had sat up last time. Mrs. Hill did not even know that Sarah had misbehaved, and still she was punishing her.

  She had the house to herself now, though: there was that. She eased a hand out of the warmth under her arm, lifted her candle from the console, and shouldered through the door into the drawing room. She lifted a china shepherdess to look at her painted eyes, her painted lips, the rounds of rose painted on her cheeks. She tipped the thing over to peer at the rough underside, and into the dark opening of its hollow interior. She set it back in its place, then wandered over and picked up an embroidery hoop from the work-table: Jane’s fancy work was stretched tight in the frame’s beechwood grip. By candlelight, Sarah examined the time-devouring birds, and flowers, and leaves, and set it down again, as something she would never do, while there were still hems to be sewn and seams to be joined and stockings to be darned. At the card-table by the window, she put down her candlestick and took out a pack of playing-cards. She tried a game of Patience, but soon found that she had none, and gave up, scooping the cards together, tamping them neat, and slipping them back into their wooden box.

  She sat down in Mrs. Bennet’s chair and wriggled into the upholstery, stretching out her legs and resting her feet on the fender. The cat slouched in and leapt onto her lap. It purred and stretched, kneading her leg; then it dug its claws in hard. She lifted it off and set it down on the floor. It stalked over to the hearthrug, where it folded itself into a sphinx, and closed its eyes.

  The clock ticked. She should draw the curtains: beyond the glass, the park and countryside were wide and empty. But that meant getting up. An owl called across the silence. She could go and fetch her book, but it was three flights of stairs away, and that was just too far. She sat and scuffed the carpet and the cat rolled onto her back, and Sarah dreamed of fireworks and dancing bears and feats of strength and agility, of the flounces that she had unpicked and then re-stitched and the hair that she had curled, and the dresses that now were skimming over polished toffee floors, between peppermint columns and under peardrop chandeliers. She thought of Netherfield and of London and the sweep of the world beyond the dark panes of the window.

  She heaved herself up and crossed to the sideboard and poured herself a glass of Canary wine. She may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, or, as things currently were, merely the suspicion of a lamb. She sipped the wine. It was sweet and tickly.

  So she was in bad odour with Mrs. Hill—and Mrs. Hill was, of course, perfect. Mrs. Hill had never put a foot wrong in all her born days because she never put a foot, not even a toe, anywhere. She had never lived, had never stepped outside this little soap-bubble of a place, and yet she always knew best, always had an opinion on everything. And was always so self-righteous about it. But when it came down to it, what did Mrs. Hill know of the world, or of people in general, or of anything at all, apart from housekeeping, and her ramshackle old husband, and the care of Bennets?

  And—pouring another glass, this time of sherry wine, so that no great quantity would be missing from any particular bottle (they would blame Mr. Collins, if they did notice: they were very ready to find fault with him)—Mrs. Hill stood so in thrall to the Bennets, it was as though she considered them some species of little god. Well, Sarah would not turn out like her. No question of it. She would not settle for so little. Settle for nothing, really, or worse than nothing, since everything Mrs. Hill made—everything she cleaned, baked, broiled, darned, knitted, crocheted and stitched, everything she ever laid her hands on—already belonged to, or was intended for, somebody else.

  She emptied her glass, refilled it from a third decanter.

  The clock chimed the half-hour. Would the young ladies be dancing already, or only just arrived at Netherfield? Their muslins light as eggwhite, shoe-roses flicking in and out of sight, heads twined with braids and coils and ornaments. Like confectionery they were, all daintily decorated, and perfectly wrapped.

  Sarah took another sip. This stuff burnt.

  And take it all away—the shoe-roses, the muslins, all that fancy packaging—and then what? Would a gentleman look twice, if they had rough hands and chilblains and chapped lips and wooden pattens on their heavy boots? And if he did, would it be the way that a gentleman looked at a lady—appraisingly, but detached—or would it be the way that in Pamela the greasy little master looked at his maid? As something he could get his hands on and peel the wrappings off?

  Sarah drained her glass, wiped it dry with her apron and set it back on the tray.

  Back in the kitchen, she attempted the remaining business of the day. She swabbed down the table, then clattered out everything for the family’s return: milk, biscuits, a bowl of sugar flaked off the loaf.

  We could go walking out. When you get your afternoon off.

  Attention, forbearance, patience …
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  It was a blowy, scuddy night; a big bright moon hidden then revealed by clouds. Sarah raised her face to the sky, stumbling through the cow-churned fields. She thought, How lovely to be out; she thought, I should have done this so much sooner; she thought, I should do this much more often. It was not so cold out after all.

  She would see Netherfield lit up and decorated for the ball; she would hear the music, see the dresses; she would watch the dancing through a window for a while. She could not go to the ball, but she could see it at least. Then she would find Tol Bingley—she did not concern herself for the time being with the practicalities of finding Tol Bingley—and maybe take a walk and have a smoke with him. She could quite fancy a smoke right now. And hadn’t he asked her, after all, to walk out with him? It wasn’t afternoon, she’d admit that quite freely, but why shouldn’t she take her pleasures where she could, just like anybody else?

  The three miles passed in determined, blustery self-justification. Swaddled in the old blue pelisse and snaffled drink, bonnet jammed on her head and knotted tight under her chin, Sarah reached the boundary wall of the Netherfield demesne and blundered on through the little gate into the woods.

  The path, broad enough by daylight, was strangely narrowed by the dark; the undergrowth crowded close and the boughs above creaked against each other in the wind. Her outstretched hands fumbled over the waxy leaves of laurels and the springiness of privet, but at any moment, she felt, they might touch something else. She’d heard things whispered—uneasy things—dark tales of girls who went out on some silly spree, and just never came back, or who came back strange, or with a baby in them, and she was beginning to feel a little uneasy for herself. But then she heard the music. A trail of it on the wind, there and gone and there again. And then the shrubs were thinning, and there were lights glimpsed between the branches, and there was the music again. This time it was clear, and it made her forget that she had been afraid.

  The trees here stood wide apart, bare branches hanging low and clattering in the wind. She came out to the edge of the shadows. Beyond, in the moonlight, was a sweep of grass, then the carriage circle, and the house itself.

  The marble façade was swept with shadow as clouds bundled across the sky; the windows were uncurtained, and figures moved past inside, silhouetted against the candlelight. The guests’ carriages must have been wheeled away round to the back of the house to wait, since the drive was clear and the carriage circle white and empty in the moonlight. James would be there, in the servants’ hall. Drinking beer and playing dice. For who knew what James got up to, who knew what he was even like when he was away from Longbourn.

  She crept out beyond the edge of the trees, across the lawn, and stood on the gravel in a patch of light, looking up at the high window. The wind snatched at her pelisse, dragged her hair out from under her bonnet. It was crowded inside, milling: she recognized Charlotte Lucas strolling past with Elizabeth, and then Kitty and Lydia go laughing by with a pair of red-coated officers, and then Mr. Goulding stopped right in front of the window to talk to Mr. Long in his clerical black, and she could even hear what they were saying, they were so close. The fox had had his birds; the hunt would be through soon. The roads. The awful weather, the certainty that it could not continue.

  The plaster was not peppermint, of course it wasn’t. And the floors were not made of polished toffee. And the light came from conventional, crystal chandeliers, and not from peardrop ones. And that was, after all, what she had expected, because a house cannot really be built of sugar, and it was all very fine and lovely, of course. But the people! She could just not get over how dull the people were. Granted, there were the officers, and the Bingleys were new and rich, and that was no doubt thrilling. But otherwise it was just the Longs and Lucases and Gouldings, the same old neighbours who passed through the doors of Longbourn year after year, and through whose halls the Bennets passed too, and had done for all eternity, and who had played the same old card-games and eaten the same old suppers and danced the same old dances and worn the same old gowns; and any new gowns—aside from Miss Bingley’s and her sister’s—were made of fabric Sarah had seen fading in the draper’s shop for months. And all of them with the same old freckles and wrinkles and bad breath and smallpox scars and limping gout; all of them airing the same old opinions, having the very same conversations, about the hunt and the roads and the weather, year after year after endless year.

  How could they possibly stand it?

  Her envy puffed up into smoke and was gone on the wind. She turned away. So what if she could not have this? She did not want it. She felt light of heart and almost giddy with the sense of release.

  She was just passing the shadow of the first trees, when she saw a red speck in the darkness. She could make no sense of it, could not tell the distance; it seemed to be hanging all by itself. Then—making her start—it swung up a foot or two higher, glowed brighter, hotter, for a moment, then fell, fading, and hung again just a few feet from the ground.

  Then it clicked into sense: the burning tip of a cigarillo, held in a man’s hand, lifted up to his lips. As she realized this, the man himself came towards her. Tol Bingley, peering at her out of the darkness.

  “Hel-lo. Who is that?”

  “Good evening, Mr. Bingley—”

  “Is that young Sarah?”

  “It is.”

  “Well, well. Did you come to see the party?”

  “I did, yes.”

  He came out into the moonlight; closer now, she could make him out better: he fumbled inside his breast-pocket, drew an object out and sloshed it at her; he smelt of strong drink.

  “May I offer you some refreshment?”

  She hesitated. What she really wanted was to be back in the kitchen at Longbourn, with a warm fire and a cup of tea.

  “Hospitable place this, Netherfield.” His voice was over-careful, with a tendency to slur.

  “I think I’ve probably—”

  “Plenty more where that came from,” he said. “Go on, just a taste.”

  She took it from his hand.

  “ ’S rum,” he said. “Bingley’s finest, straight off the plantation.”

  She uncorked the flask and lifted it to her lips. The burn of liquor caught at the back of the throat and flared up her nose.

  “Good stuff, eh?”

  A wave of laughter washed out of the bright rooms, and over them, the pair of them there together, in the shadows.

  “They’re having a high old time tonight,” he said.

  He stumbled a little; she passed the flask back to him.

  “You’d think, wouldn’t you, that there was nothing to do in all the world, but to dance and drink and laugh and eat and wake up at midday tomorrow and open another bottle of wine and do it all over again.”

  She peered up at him. Her legs were whipped around with petticoats, her feet were cold in their damp boots, the wind chilled her cheeks and teased her hair into tats and made her eyes wet and blurry. He seemed to be onto something here.

  He dragged on his cigarillo, blew away smoke. “Beasts, they are, the lot of them, don’t you think? Just animals.”

  She blinked. The blink seemed strangely slow, and when her eyes were closed, her head reeled, and her gorge rose. She swallowed the burn of it back down.

  “To be milked and fleeced and made into bacon,” he said.

  He tipped the flask towards her again. She shook her head to try to clear it: it was as if the lid had been lifted off an ordinary stone jar, and a cloud of flies had come seething out, and now were buzzing all around her.

  “You and me, though, Sarah—you and me—we know what’s what.”

  His arm slid around her waist, and it tugged her to him, and crushed her up against him. He was going to kiss her. This was the moment when the world would change. Because Ptolemy Bingley was something. He was brilliantly something. He would move in a different world, a world of London streets and dancing and entertainments and tobacco and faraway places where the
air was like a warm bath and you’d never catch a chill. And if she kissed him now, she’d go there with him; she could swim in that world too, like a fish swims in water.

  He breathed smoke and liquor into her face, looming close. Then his mouth was on her mouth, wet, and there was the taste of smoke and liquor and teeth and onions, and the crush of his lips—how to breathe, while being kissed?—and there was the music and the clutter of voices from the big house, and the wind shoving and pulling at them, and she thought, I want this, I know I want this. This is how you get from one world to the next.

  … if encouraged to read and improve himself by such an example as her’s, he might become a very agreeable companion.

  The family stumbled down to breakfast looking grey; even Mr. Collins, who, as a clergyman, might have been expected to be moderate in his pleasures, was green about the gills. Sarah did not feel entirely well herself: it seemed that somebody had jammed a knife into her head, and every so often decided to flick its handle with a finger.

  Her stomach churned as she waited on table: the shovelling and chewing and rolling of food down throats, and the grinding of jaws, and the swilling of tea and coffee. His words came rearing back at her through the fug and forgetfulness of drink: beasts, they are; to be milked and fleeced and made into bacon. You and me, though, Sarah—you and me. It made literal sense to her now: the way they peered and grabbed and snuffed at each new platter of toasted muffins, bacon, buttered eggs.

  She should not have made Sarah sit up late, Mrs. Hill realized; the girl needed a firm hand, no doubt, but she also needed her sleep. This was a truth to which Sarah’s debility today bore witness. Mrs. Hill herself had had little benefit from her early night: she had lain awake for hours, listening to the house sounds, to Sarah tidying around below (she was a good girl, after all, when she wasn’t being led astray), to the mutter and thrash of Polly dreaming across the narrow landing, to the scuttle of the mice in the wainscot, the wheeze of her husband’s breath, to the wind pummelling the roof and howling in the chimneys. When she did finally sleep, she was still somehow aware of the wild night beyond; she dreamed that she was waiting up for the carriage, and that when it returned, and she opened the front door, a litter of piglets scurried in, dressed in muslin evening-gowns and dancing shoes.