“Do you think it is always impossible for one to marry below their station?”
“I don’t know much about these things, but I would say it isn’t always impossible. If two people have very different financial statuses, but are more or less in the same class of society, I’d say it is possible. But a servant and a lady? No, I would say it could not be done.”
“I think, that in the history of the world, it has been done. Perhaps love is a thing that overcomes the limitations of class and station.”
“To be honest sir, I am surprised to hear you thinking like this. I had always thought of you as a person who held equality of status, and one’s position in society, as a necessity of marriage.”
“Yes, I do. In most cases I do.”
“I’m not sure what you are saying. Are you giving me cause to hope that I could gain Mary Bennet’s hand in marriage? I cannot see how it would ever be possible.”
“Not even if you were to work hard for a few more years, and put aside your money? As you grow older, and with experience, you could very well rise in position from groom to stablemaster. True, you do not have the birth of a gentleman, but maybe the lady’s parents, seeing she has no other prospects, would consider you a worthy match.”
I bristled at the suggestion that Mary would have no other prospects and said as much. “Sir, you are giving me expectations that I have no reason to consider. Mary Bennet will have many suitors, I am sure of it. She is a lovely, talented young woman.” I hoped he would see that there are some who value Mary’s accomplishments, namely me.
He cleared his throat. “Perhaps you are right, Christopher. No, I did not mean to give you false hopes, this has simply been a subject that has been on my mind as of late.”
“My marriage?”
He laughed. “No, not your marriage in particular. Just marriage in general.”
“Are you thinking of marrying, sir?” Was that too forward a question?
He didn’t seem to think so. “I will have to think of marrying before long. The aunt of mine that we are going to visit, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, has long hoped I would make an alliance with her daughter.”
“‘Alliance’ does not have a very romantic sound about it.”
“Oh, a romantic, are you?”
I thought about that for a moment. “Yes, sir, I think I am.”
“So is Charles Bingley.”
I chuckled. “Yes, perhaps. And you are not?”
“I never thought I was. I never met a woman who made me think twice about her, until…”
His voice trailed off and he remained silent for a few moments.
“Until?” I finally inquired.
“No, I am afraid the young lady who has caught my eye is nearly as far beneath me as Mary Bennet is above you, Christopher. It would not do.”
He couldn’t have been talking about Caroline Bingley then. Surely she would make a splendid match for him. Was he thinking of Elizabeth Bennet? “Then I reject all notion of class and station if it means we cannot be with the person we love,” I blurted. “You have convinced me, Mr. Darcy. If I want to set my sights on Mary Bennet, then I shall do it. To blazes with what anyone thinks.”
He turned to me, alarmed. “Christopher, please! I did not mean to put ideas into your head. You must be careful about treading where you are not wanted.”
I had spoken rashly. “Yes sir, you are correct, of course.” But I kept my true thoughts to myself. He had made me realize that maybe there was hope for me with Mary Bennet. It was time for me to stop thinking of myself as beneath her and start trying to improve my position in life. He had led me to see that it wasn’t impossible. However, I couldn’t resist saying one last thing on the subject.
“My situation and yours are probably very different though I do not know which girl you have in mind. If you desire to find happiness with her, then you have it in your power to do so.”
He looked at me with eyebrows raised. “Thank you, Christopher, for your vote of confidence. I appreciate it.”
Then we rode on in silence, and the subject wasn’t mentioned again.
Chapter 9
Today, I received a letter from, of all people, Christopher Jones! I was shocked beyond belief to see the envelope addressed to me. In truth, I have never received a piece of mail in my entire life. Therefore, Mother, Father, and Kitty were all dying to know who the sender was. But how could I tell them? Finally, I made up a story about a young friend Jane had met in London, and how, seeing the young lady was of a similar mind to me and that we had many things in common, Jane had suggested the two of us would enjoy corresponding. With this, they lost interest, and I was free to peruse my letter in peace.
Dear Miss Bennet,
Forgive me for being so presumptuous as to write to you, but I have some pressing news that I thought I should share. It is up to you whether or not you choose to relate it to your family. You are the best judge of that. However, I thought it was important that someone in your family should know, and since I am well acquainted with no one else, I send the news to you.
I have just left County Kent, where I was at Rosings, the estate of Lady Catherine de Bourgh it may surprise you to know. You had to know that she is Mr. Collins’s patroness, but did you also know she is Mr. Darcy’s aunt? Anyway, you may further wonder what I am doing here with Mr. Darcy, for Mr. Bingley is not with us. As it turns out, Mr. Darcy asked me to serve as his groom temporarily while he’s traveling, as he had more need of me than Mr. Bingley did in London. And so I accompanied him here. And though I have not personally seen your sister, Elizabeth, apparently he has. I had no idea what was unfolding between the two of them, but yesterday morning he came to me in a fury, ordering me to ready the horses, saying that we would be leaving without delay. We had come to Rosings with a cousin of his, a Colonel Fitzwilliam, and departed with him. I asked where we were going, but even Mr. Darcy didn’t know. He told me he had to leave and couldn’t explain at that moment.
Yet after we had been on the road awhile, Colonel Fitzwilliam went ahead to secure a room at an inn in advance of our arriving, and Mr. Darcy summoned me to ride next to him. I suppose he felt he should give me some explanation for why we left in such a hurry though he certainly didn’t owe me one.
What he told me will surprise you even more. He said he had proposed marriage to your sister, Elizabeth. I had no idea he had feelings for her, and yet he explained to me that he’d loved her almost from the first moment he’d set eyes on her in Hertfordshire. I will not trouble you by admitting that I understand his feelings, that I feel the same about someoneand yet, look, I have said it. Anyway, I will go on.
Apparently, your sister was shocked by his address to her, and angered, for she had just recently learned from Colonel Fitzwilliam that Darcy had expressed to him some satisfaction in having convinced Mr. Bingley to give up Jane and leave Netherfield last fall. As you can imagine, Elizabeth was infuriated by this information, though Mr. Darcy hadn’t known his cousin had told her. That, and something she had been told about how he had treated a one Mr. Wickham some time in the past, had turned her against him. He said to me that the second charge was unfounded, but admitted to the first, though he said it had been done without malice. Well, Elizabeth was disgusted that the man who had been the cause of her sister’s unhappiness dared to make a proposal to her. She rejected him in some very strong words, he said. He then wrote her a letter, explaining this business with Mr. Wickham, and defending his position regarding the eldest Miss Bennet and Mr. Bingley, delivered it to Elizabeth in person, and then had his things packed up and off we went.
I am writing this from the inn where we are staying the night. Mr. Darcy is torn between going back to London or to Pemberley, in Derbyshire, so at the moment we are in limbo. Again, I hope you will forgive me for my boldness in writing to you. I wish your family all the best. I hope you are all well, especially you, Mary. Is it so terribly wrong to think of you as my friend? I hope some good comes from this information I
share with you, and I desire for all the parties involved to find some peace in all of this.
My warmest regards,
Christopher Jones
I sat there with this letter in my hands in complete astonishment. First, for the mere fact of receiving a letter from a manfrom Christopher Jones, of all people! Second, for the information he shared with me. Mr. Darcy in love with Elizabeth? A proposal of marriage? That he is the one responsible for separating Jane and Mr. Bingley? And lastly, but not least of all, that Christopher not only knows how to read and write, but does it quite well. His handwriting is good and he has expressed himself in a most gentleman-like manner. I was speechless for so many reasons.
But no, I decided not to tell anyone about this information. It would not do anyone any good to hate Mr. Darcy more than they already do, and this includes me. I was beside myself with rage, something that only a good walk would help to dispel. Also, I was intrigued about what he said about Mr. Wickham. Darcy denies his ill treatment of him? No, this I could not believe. Mr. Wickham has told the truth, we are all sure of it. He is an honorable man. Nothing could make me think badly of him.
For the moment, I hid the letter away in one of my books. I could not write back to Christopher as he was not at a permanent address at the time, and it would not be proper to do so anyway. Yet before I put it away, I returned to one brief line: “I will not trouble you by admitting that I understand his feelings, that I feel the same about someoneand yet, look, I have said it.” Could he possibly mean me?
Not many days after I received the letter, Elizabeth and Jane returned home. Both were sad and pensive, and seemed to not talk intimately as they use to. I knew Elizabeth’s secret about Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley, but it was clear she hadn’t told Jane, and who could blame her? There is no use in the whole world hating Mr. Darcy as she and I do. I somehow felt special, knowing something that no one else in the family knew but her, and was tempted to tell her, but that would mean revealing that Christopher wrote to me, and she would have been very shocked to hear that I received a correspondence from a young man who is completely unknown to the family.
In the meantime, Lydia persuaded Father and Mother to let her go to Brighton with Colonel and Mrs. Forster, people she and Kitty met in Meryton. The whole regiment was there, she said, which could only have meant one thing: Lydia would flirt unmercifully with every officer she saw and would no doubt prove to be an embarrassment to our family. Lizzy, in her sensible way, tried to persuade our parents to keep her home, but they were as worn out as we were by Lydia’s incessant chatter about officers, and to be honest, we needed a break from her. So, she was to go. At the same time, our Aunt and Uncle Gardiner offered to take Lizzy with them to Derbyshire for three weeks of sight-seeing in the country, and she seemed inclined to go. Poor thing. She probably hoped to get away from Jane, in one way, because how could she continue to face her, with the knowledge of what Mr. Darcy did to dash her romantic hopes? I will stay here with Jane and try to be a comfort. She loves my music and my reading to her in the evenings. If we are to be old maids together, I will try to be a ray of light in her sad life.
Jane and I have had no time to be sad together. Aunt and Uncle left their two girls and two boys, all under the age of eight, here with us, and we have been having a gay time! Aunt usually leaves her children with their nanny when she travels, but during Jane’s extended visit to them in London she grew most fond of the children and they of her. I have not had much time with the babes since they were born, but the liveliness they bring to our diminished household is a delight. They have served to distract Kitty from her peevishness over Lydia’s going to Brighton, and even Father spends time reading to them in the evenings, from some of the childhood books we still keep around the house. I am not one to romp much with the little boys, Jack and Edward, but our normally quiet Jane excites in them quite the rumpus, giving them turns riding on her back until Mother is beside herself with the noise. I enjoy taking the two girls, Martha and Eleanor, for walks, now that spring is fully upon us, sometimes even to my bough where we perch and eat biscuits, and tell each other stories. Sometimes I find myself glancing up the road as if I might catch a glimpse of Christopher wandering along, yet with no one in residence at Netherfield, it is impossible.
Today, just after the children were settled in the nursery for a rest, Kitty received a letter in the post, from Lydia, as it turns out, who has been most negligent in writing. She read it aloud to us, and then abruptly stopped, saying that was all our sister had to say, and then took the letter upstairs with her and secreted it away. I know this because I snooped about in her room after she’d gone to sleep. I didn’t even need a candle: I know where she keeps her secret things, and sure enough, there it was, in a box under her bed. I took it back into the small chamber that I have made into a bedroom for myself and read the part she’d not shared with us:
And now my dearest Kitty, do not read this part aloud or share it with anyone. You will never guess who is here in Brighton. Mr. Wickham! After that awful Miss King abandoned him, he was bereft of hope of ever finding love again. So what was I to do but cheer him? Oh Kitty, I must tell you, though you have to promise not to breathe a word of it to anyone. He has fallen in love with me and me with him! He is the dearest, handsomest man I have ever encountered in my life! I am waiting for a proposal of marriage from him, but it has not come. I have to tell you that I have been bold with him. Yes, I have let him kiss me. Oh, do not make that sour face that I know you must be making. I know that it is a forward and unlady-like thing to do but I don’t care! I don’t care about anything but being with him. The moment he makes me a proposal of marriage I shall shout yes and then I will write to Mother and Father and I shall be married before all my sisters and you will have to give way to me, because I will be the one to deserve all the honors. What will Mary do when she finds out? I think she thought perhaps Mr. Wickham fancied her for a while. No, he told me that all the while he was always thinking of me, and was only inclined to entertain a possibility of marrying Miss King for her money. But it was me he always loved, he said. Not Elizabeth, not Mary, only me. Hah! The youngest married first of all! And the rest of you will wither away as old maids unless I can find you husbands, which I am certain I can do amongst the regiment. They all adore me.
So, ta ta for now. And remember, not a word!
I let the letter drop to the floor as my mouth fell open in astonishment. Mr. Wickham in love with Lydia? How could it be possible? I lay down on my bed and cried and cried. How stupid I am! How could I have imagined that Mr. Wickham could care for me in the least? I am ugly and dull. I will never be pretty and bright like my sisters, and no one will ever love me. Oh, such pain, such heart ache as I never knew existed! But then, when I’d cried my fill, I snuck the letter back into the box under Kitty’s bed and began to think rationally, because if I have any attributes at all, a rational mind is one of them.
Should I tell Mother and Father? If I do, it will expose me as a snoop and neither Kitty nor Lydia will ever forgive me. Anyway, there has been no proposal of marriage, even though Lydia is acting quite indecently. It is still possible that this whole thing could just blow over. After all, if he hasn’t proposed to her yet, maybe he never will. Hah! Then she will know what heartbreak is! No, that is ungenerous of me. I must not wish for others the suffering that I feel. If the proposal does come, Mother and Father will know of it in due time. It is not for me to alter the path of fate.
I must sleep now, though how I will get any, I do not know. One more hope dashed. One more spark of light in my world snuffed out.
After sleeping on it, however, I decided what to do. I wrote a letter to Lydia and snuck it into the post while the others were distracted with the children. I remembered the address from the envelope and so was able to do it without delay. I decided that I had to offer her a big sister’s advice. I swear it is not for selfish reasons that I adjured her not to marry Mr. Wickham. It is because it is an imprudent match.
The man has nothing, barely enough income to survive on himself. For the same reason, I would have had to refuse him if he had made an offer to me. (What a fool I was to even think that ever would have been possible!) Anyway, here is what I said to her:
My Dearest Lydia,
Though you may hate me for admitting to you that I read your letter to Kitty (without her knowledge), now that I have, I feel it incumbent upon me to play the part of the more responsible elder sister, and tell you that you must not marry Mr. Wickham. He has no money and neither do you. Love is not enough to overcome poverty. If you have fallen into temptation’s way, and feel that you love him and cannot do without him, I urge you to wait until his prospects improve, and do not rush into anything hastily. If he loves you, he will wait until he has proved his worth in the military and is promoted in rank to a position that will bring him more income. I fear it may never be enough to make the two of you truly comfortable, but you never know.
Please my dear sister. Come home to us, think this situation through, discuss it with Mother and Father, and then, if all agree, move forward with a clear head and a sensible heart. It will never do to behave rashly.
I hope you will take these words to heart. Mr. Wickham is a good man, but will be a better one when he has the means to support you.
Your loving sister,
Mary
One week after I sent Lydia the letter, we received word that Lydia and Mr. Wickham had run off together and we didn’t know if she were married or not. This from a letter father received from Colonel Forster. If they weren’t married, she would be ruined, our family would be ruined, and any prospects the rest of us girls might have had for marriage would be ruined too. We were so shocked; the house was in such an uproar. It was all Jane and I could do to guard the children from the scenes both Mother and Kitty were making. Father went to London to try and find the couple, and Elizabeth came home from Derbyshire with Aunt and Uncle Gardiner, but Uncle went off to London too to help Father. Everyone was very upset, for we feared Mr. Wickham would not marry Lydia. She was always such a willful, undisciplined girl, and will have her way no matter what. I dared not tell anyone about the letter I wrote. I should never have done it.
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