Netherfield Park Revisited

by Rebecca Ann Collins

  “But what about his wife’s objection, is that of no account?” she asked.

  Darcy had an answer for her. “Certainly, if there was some evidence his decision would lead to neglect or if it were just self-indulgence on his part, I would have some sympathy for Amelia-Jane, but as it turns out, I can only conclude that the merit is almost all Jonathan’s. His wife’s obstinacy, her current childish conduct does her little credit. It reveals a total lack of understanding and judgment.”

  Seeing that his wife was about to protest at the harshness of his words, Darcy held up his hand and continued, “Please understand, my dear, that if the Reform Group does succeed in their plan, it will be a considerable achievement and all those involved will be credited with it, most particularly Jonathan. And should he, at some future date, attain higher office as a consequence, his wife and children will all benefit greatly.

  “No, Lizzie, I must agree with Fitzwilliam. And indeed, Bingley thinks, too, although he feels deeply for Jane in the circumstances, that there is no justification to blame Jonathan at all and no reason to try to dissuade him from his chosen path.”

  Elizabeth felt helpless. “Then what is to be done? How are they to be reconciled?” she asked.

  Darcy was thoughtful. He had a strong aversion, born of bitter experience in his youth, to interfering in the personal lives of his friends and family.

  After a while, he spoke rather tentatively, “Catherine Harrison has always struck me as an eminently sensible and practical sort of woman. I know Amelia-Jane is close to her; they are often together. Perhaps an approach through her may succeed where others have failed. I cannot believe that she would support her sister’s present attitude. Her advice may help Amelia-Jane see things differently.”

  Elizabeth, seeing what looked like a glimmer of hope in the gloom, decided she would speak with Jane after breakfast on the morrow.

  The following morning, Caroline and Amy decided to drive into the village, leaving Jane and Elizabeth to prune and store the rosemary and lavender that grew in great profusion in the kitchen garden. It was a task the sisters had always enjoyed.

  While they were so employed, Elizabeth took the opportunity to broach in a casual manner the subject of Jonathan and Amelia-Jane and suggest an approach to Catherine Harrison, but found Jane quite unwilling to interfere.

  “Should Jonathan hear of it, and you may be sure he will, he may be very unhappy. He has told us honestly where his problem lies, but has never asked for our intervention. He may consider it unwarranted interference and I should be most upset if he were to be angry with us. As it is, he knows well that he can call on us for help at any time,” she said quite decidedly.

  “Have you written to Amelia-Jane inviting them to Ashford Park at Christmas?” Elizabeth asked, and Jane said she had, but had not heard back from her daughter-in-law.

  “Perhaps she is reluctant to write until she has settled matters with Jonathan,” she said, carefully and deliberately carrying on her task.

  Elizabeth broke the silence. “Jane, do you recall a discussion we had after I had returned from Italy, during which you related the news that Emma and Jonathan were both engaged?” she asked. “It was during that cold, bitter Winter following the deaths of Edward and William.”

  Jane remembered it well. She had always felt that the haste with which both her elder children had rushed into engagements in the months following the terrible accident that had taken the lives of their two young cousins, was due to the shock and sorrow occasioned by those tragic events. Grieving and missing the two boys, both Emma and Jonathan had seemed to grasp at the comfort and hope offered by young love.

  They had both become engaged before the Winter was over, Emma to David Wilson, a most eligible man about town, and Jonathan to Amelia-Jane, who was not sixteen at the time, but was so pretty she was admired wherever she went.

  When she spoke, Jane’s voice and countenance reflected her thoughts. “Yes, I do remember, Lizzie; you were astonished at the speed with which it had come about in those few months when you were in Italy with Emily and Paul. I confess that, while I had my reservations, I was pleased for them. They seemed so happy with each other. Jonathan actually rediscovered the art of smiling—he had been so dejected and melancholy since the boys’ accident, I had been very anxious for him. Amelia-Jane changed all that; she was vivacious and pretty and appeared to adore him. It was probably unwise; clearly so in Emma’s case, it was disastrous.

  “But we were not to know that, Lizzie. Jonathan and Amelia-Jane were perfectly happy until she lost her two little boys, and now it seems he is being punished for it.”

  Jane sounded and looked so miserable that Elizabeth was sorry she had even raised the subject. She did her best to comfort her, to suggest that it was quite possible that the problem might be solved by the couple themselves, but she knew she was not very convincing. It was only the return of the gentlemen, who had been out shooting, with a good bag of game that brought a change of mood and some light-hearted banter to occupy the hour before lunch.

  Afterwards, Jane was clearly tired and depressed, and Bingley insisted that she should rest upstairs. He was less concerned with the stability of Jonathan’s marriage than with the state of his wife’s health. He knew how she had suffered when their daughter Emma’s unhappy marriage had ended in tragedy; it had taken a terrible toll upon her health. Now, it seemed she was taking Jonathan’s troubles very much to heart, and Bingley feared Jane might become ill again.

  ***

  Later that day, with the afternoon sun creating a patchwork of light and shadow in the wooded valleys below them, Elizabeth and Darcy took a walk away from the house, towards the river that cut its way through the chalk hills and green meadows. They had often taken this path, which led to a place they had found on their very first sojourn at Woodlands, when, heartsick and emotionally drained from the accumulated sorrow of three terrible deaths in the short space of two seasons, they had needed time alone to comfort one another and learn to bear each other’s pain as well as their own. Woodlands had been their private healing place.

  They returned often, and sometimes, it hurt more than at others.

  On this occasion, however, it was not their own pain that concerned them. Elizabeth, recalling Jane’s words that morning, asked, “Do you suppose that Jonathan and Amelia-Jane have fallen out of love?”

  Darcy almost laughed out loud, but seeing her earnest expression he checked himself. “Lizzie, my dear, why should I suppose such a thing? I have no evidence to reach such a conclusion. But, if I were to be scrupulously honest, as I am with you, always, I would have to admit that the thought had occurred to me. Why do you ask?”

  She told him of her conversation with Jane, and Darcy agreed that it was possible that Jane was quite right. Since Emma and Jonathan had both been very close to William and Edward, their sudden, tragic deaths must have made them dejected and vulnerable.

  “An engagement and marriage may have seemed a way out of the gloom and sorrow that had enveloped us all at the time; people always cheer up for a wedding,” he said, adding in a more serious voice, “but now that they are older and circumstances have changed around them, the partners they reached for in their youth may appear in quite a different light. It was certainly true of Emma’s marriage, perhaps Jonathan is realising it too … a pretty face, a bright smile, and an amiable temperament can be very appealing in youth.”

  Elizabeth sighed, “And some years later, things appear rather different?”

  Darcy nodded sagely. “Alas, it is not uncommon, Lizzie, for in youth we tend to make judgments that seem perfectly reasonable, but are often indefensible in later years,” he said, and his wife groaned.

  “As we both know only too well!” she said, recalling their own unhappy errors of understanding, which had resulted in much soul-searching.

  “Indeed,” he replied, “but we were fortunate enough
to discover and amend our mistakes before they destroyed our prospects of happiness; not everyone is as well favoured. To a very few, a second chance is given, as with Emma’s second marriage to James Wilson. It is happier and more successful because they share so much, and he is a man of intelligence and sensibility who cares deeply for her. One cannot fail to see their felicity.”

  Elizabeth acknowledged that he was right, adding with a sigh, “And poor Jonathan, unhappily, seems to have outgrown his early enthusiasm for a quiet life in the country with a pretty little wife, and he seeks a more active political career when she clearly does not share his ambition,” she said, and even as he agreed, Darcy smiled.

  “You put it well, Lizzie. But, returning to your earlier question, they may have grown apart in other ways, as well. He has certainly become more serious of late and she seems less so. He has a desire to perform some significant public service, while she cares only for her private satisfaction. These things could result in matrimonial misery.”

  Elizabeth was reminded of her father’s words. Based undoubtedly upon his own experience, Mr Bennet had warned his daughter against making “an unequal marriage,” pointing out that it could only bring “discredit and misery.”

  It had held no significance for her, because with Mr Darcy, she had a marriage built upon the strongest foundation of mutual love and esteem, which had only increased with the years. Her greatest satisfaction had been in seeing her father convinced of the rightness of her choice of husband and the happiness they enjoyed together.

  But it did seem as if, sadly, young Jonathan Bingley had repeated his grandfather’s error and allowed a pretty face and figure to lead him into a marriage in which the promise of perfect bliss had never been fulfilled.

  Despite the clarity of her memories, Elizabeth said nothing of this to Darcy, out of loyalty to her father, except to comment on the unfairness of Fate, which allowed Jane and Bingley, who were an exemplary married couple, to suffer so much distress over the marriages of their two eldest children, who were, in every other respect, beyond reproach themselves.

  Darcy agreed. He had great affection for both Bingley and Jane and shared their concern for the happiness of their children. Yet, he had to admit that as in the case of Emma, he could see no way out for Jonathan, unless he were to risk destroying his marriage, a union contracted in his youth with feelings and hopes that both partners seemed to have outgrown.

  Try as they might, they could not satisfactorily explain Amelia-Jane’s behaviour. As she had grown older, she had grown less rather than more committed to her marriage and the husband she had embraced with so much affection at seventeen. Elizabeth was bewildered.

  “Why would a young, pretty woman with everything she could wish for—a handsome, faithful, successful husband, a pleasant home and loving family—set her feet upon a path that could lead only to calamity?” she asked plaintively.

  Darcy had no immediate answer. He did not wish to distress her further by pointing out that pure petulance and self-indulgence might be a reason. He felt he had already been sufficiently critical of Amelia-Jane, who, of all Charlotte Collins’ daughters, seemed to have inherited the least of her mother’s excellent understanding and good sense. Even young Josie Tate, Charlotte’s granddaughter, now Julian’s wife, though not twenty-one, had more practical common sense and discretion, he thought.

  Deliberately changing the topic, he reminded Elizabeth of their own daughter Cassandra, whose fifth child was expected in Autumn.

  “Now, there is a good marriage,” he declared, and to his great relief, Elizabeth, temporarily distracted from her melancholy contemplation of their nephew’s problems, smiled, recalling the happiness of their beloved daughter.

  “Indeed, yes,” she replied. “Richard and Cassy are equally fortunate, and they know it. There will be much to do before the child is born. I have asked Jenny to have a list of things ready for my attention when we return to Pemberley at the end of Summer. She is already training her niece Margaret to help Cassy with the new baby.”

  Darcy was glad he had succeeded in taking her mind off Jonathan’s troubled marriage.

  Soon, the shadows would lengthen across the meadows and engulf the valley in darkness. It was time to return to the house.

  They rose and walked slowly up the path and through the grove of birch trees. When they reached the house, they were surprised to find a vehicle standing in the drive.

  “It’s the Grantleys’ carriage, I am sure it is,” cried Elizabeth, hastening as she made for the front porch. “It must be Georgiana!”

  Even before she reached the entrance, her sister-in-law came out to greet them, followed by Jane and Bingley.

  Georgiana had seen them approaching as she took tea in the parlour. They greeted one another with great affection.

  “Lizzie!”

  “Georgiana, what a lovely surprise! You look wonderful. Is Dr Grantley with you?” Elizabeth asked as they embraced.

  Georgiana turned to greet her brother, who was standing to one side, and declared that they both looked very well before explaining that she had written a few days ago to say they were to be in Winchester, where Dr Grantley was attending a function at the cathedral, and she hoped to drive down to Woodlands to visit them.

  “Dr Grantley is at the Bishops’ dinner tonight, and they are going to be busy all day tomorrow,” she explained, adding, “I did not know then that Frank was coming, too, but he decided to join us at the very last minute.”

  “Is Frank here?” asked Darcy, to which a reply came from somewhere behind him as his nephew Frank, who had been enjoying a game of croquet, came towards them, his hand outstretched.

  “He is indeed, sir, and very happy to be here,” he declared, dropping the croquet mallet.

  “So here we are, Lizzie,” said his mother, “though it looks as if the post has been remiss and my letter has not reached you in time.”

  “It has not, but no matter, you are very welcome,” said Elizabeth, “and will you stay tonight?”

  “We would love to, if you have room for us,” Georgiana replied, to which their hosts answered that there was plenty of room and they could all fit in, especially if Frank did not mind taking the room at the top of the house.

  Frank Grantley, at twenty-six, was the youngest of the Grantleys’ three children, and an easy-going and good-humoured young man. He laughed as he called out that he did not mind where he slept so long as there was a pillow for his head and a blanket for his feet, before returning to the croquet game with Amy, despite the fading light.

  As Darcy took his sister for a walk around the garden, Elizabeth went indoors to give orders for dinner and make arrangements for the accommodation of her unexpected but very welcome guests.

  The arrival of Georgiana Grantley and Frank considerably lightened the atmosphere at Woodlands that evening.

  She was such a pleasant, happy woman that she seemed to add enjoyment to every conversation, and her son, likewise, was determined to keep them all entertained with tall tales and anecdotes aplenty.

  Notwithstanding his light-hearted attitude, he was, in truth, a serious student of Theology and Music and hoped to follow in the footsteps of his distinguished father at St Johns College.

  He had apparently made friends with young Miss Amy Fitzwilliam, who had spent several weeks with the Grantleys at Oxford, last Christmas. They were obviously pleased to be meeting again unexpectedly, and Amy, an avid reader though not quite nineteen, was clearly very impressed with the well-spoken and exceedingly widely-read Frank Grantley.

  “He reads all the time and knows so much about every subject under the sun,” Elizabeth heard young Amy declare to her mother, “and he plays the organ as well as the pianoforte!”

  After dinner, which was the pleasantest meal, they repaired to the drawing room and, immediately, there were calls from Mr Bingley and Colonel Fitzwilliam for music an
d song!

  Caroline obliged and then Amy, who had brought her flute, was appealed to. Though at first she was shy and hung back, when Frank, who had heard her play last Christmas, agreed to accompany her on the pianoforte, she performed quite beautifully to very appreciative applause.

  Georgiana, who was a teacher of music as well as a talented performer, was full of praise and young Amy was clearly pleased to be so noticed. Indeed, it was clear that her parents were very proud of their youngest daughter.

  Elizabeth was glad to see everyone enjoying the fine entertainment; even Jane appeared to have forgotten Jonathan’s troubles, temporarily at least.

  It was a welcome change from the melancholy mood of the past few days.

  Georgiana Grantley had no knowledge of Jonathan’s marriage problems, being far removed from it all at Oxford. She was, therefore, spared the concerns that had obsessed Elizabeth and Jane for several days.

  It meant that all of that evening and most of the following day, their talk was of Oxford and mutual friends, of Art, Music, and the progress of the Grantleys’ two older children, Fitzwilliam and Anne. The former had married some years ago and moved permanently to London, where he worked as an architect, while Anne, who had ample talent and could quite easily have studied music professionally, had given it all away to marry a clergyman from Hampshire.

  Her mother reported sadly that they saw very little of her, since she had two little ones who kept her very busy and her husband did not like travelling.

  “I spent all of yesterday with them, while Frank and Dr Grantley were at the Cathedral, but would you believe that we could hardly speak two sentences together before one or the other of the children would interrupt and demand her attention?” Georgiana complained.

  Elizabeth and Jane gathered from her tone that she did not approve. Her own children had always been very well behaved.