‘And did Mrs Wickham comport herself well?’
The answering look of contempt and rage spoke volumes. Mr Bennet closed his book, ‘Is there some fresh disgrace attributable to our dear Lydia?’
‘It has been contained.’
‘I should like to hear of it, nonetheless,’ persisted Mr Bennet. Whether his desire for knowledge was prompted by concern for Elizabeth, a need to know whether yet more money had been expended on behalf of his youngest daughter, or even if it was a rarely exerted paternal solicitude cannot be known, but ask he did.
‘It is a long story,’ said Kitty, in one last attempt to fend off enquiry.
Mr Bennet gestured around him and sat back in his chair. ‘I find I have no engagements this evening,’ he said.
Kitty found it hard to begin. It would be gratifying to have her side of the story heard, but would her father hear it? He was wont to see little difference between her character and Lydia’s and she dreaded this account being dismissed as yet another example of their joint stupidity.
‘Very well then,’ said she at last. ‘I must begin with telling you about Miss Darcy.’ She recounted her delight and surprise at her friendship with Georgiana and how it had culminated in her invitation to Pemberley, realising for the first time as she spoke that it was Georgiana and not Elizabeth who had made that possible. In speaking of her joy at being in London and in Derbyshire, her face became relaxed and the happy and confident Miss Bennet, who had been known to the likes of the Fanshawes, Sir Edward and Colonel Fitzwilliam, was once again in evidence.
Mr Bennet could not help but observe the change.
Gradually, the story went to Freddie Fanshawe and Georgiana’s increasing affection for him and of Kitty’s concern that he was not all he should be. She stopped at this point and looked at her father, suspecting he would tire of any tale that smacked of romance. He did not interrupt, however; he was waiting to hear what part Lydia would play. This Kitty disclosed. She spoke of Elizabeth’s anxieties and how they had done all they could to keep Lydia’s behaviour in check and of Lydia’s revelation to her that Mr Fanshawe was a gamester. She kept it as brief as she could, but some detail had to be given to Lydia’s inopportune attempts to coerce him into giving her money.
Mr Bennet looked grave, but stayed mute. So, Kitty continued her tale, calmly recounting the awful scene with the necklace and how she had tried to retrieve it; and how Darcy had witnessed what he saw as a vulgar brawl between herself and Lydia. How ashamed she had been and how unable to salvage her dignity. How Mr Fanshawe had been absent when Darcy had arrived and no blame whatsoever had been apportioned to him. How, as a result of all of this, her dear friend Georgiana thought she had been acting with Lydia and against her. How that friendship was now lost to her. How her attempts to find out more about Mr Fanshawe or share her fears with Colonel Fitzwilliam had come to nothing and that she feared no one would believe her in any case. She omitted all Elizabeth’s accusations of theft. Her face had sunk back into sadness by the time she had finished her story.
There was a small silence, broken only by the clock chiming the quarter hour and the crackle of the fire, as Mr Bennet absorbed all this information.
‘I see,’ he said, finally. ‘And Elizabeth knows?’
‘Elizabeth knows what Mr Darcy has told her,’ said Kitty, defensively. ‘There was little opportunity for me to explain myself!’ It was too painful to recount her audience with Elizabeth, but her expression gave away her distress.
‘I see,’ said Mr Bennet again.
‘Well my dear,’ he said, having sat in silent contemplation for a few minutes. ‘It seems you acted with integrity and did yourself a grave disservice into the bargain. I fear there is nothing to be done about Lydia; she is as incorrigible as only the empty-headed can be.’
He tutted and sighed, then rose out of his chair. On his way out of the room, he laid a reassuring hand on Kitty’s shoulder. She felt the sensation of that pressure for some time.
CHAPTER 60
In November, Jane and Bingley made it known that they intended to move to Nottinghamshire the following month. Their plans to announce this earlier had been delayed by Mrs Bennet’s illness and Jane’s fear of her mother’s distress. As expected, Mrs Bennet took it badly. When she discovered that Kitty not only knew about Dapplewick Hall but had actually visited it, her daughter became complicit in the perceived plot against her mother. Kitty, who had become almost inured to calumnies and misrepresentation, was not inclined to argue. She had had more time to adjust to Jane’s remove and had accepted it; she was, moreover, hopeful that she would be invited to stay.
Mrs Bennet could not let the matter lie.
‘But my dears, you are so well settled here. Netherfield is such a fine estate. What need have to you to go so far away?’
‘Netherfield is not ours, Mama,’ said Jane, ‘and Dapplewick is very fine, is it not, Charles?’ She appealed to Bingley, who nodded in vigorous but grave assent. ‘You and Father will come to stay with us, I hope, and see for yourselves.’
‘I am very happy to see you in Netherfield, Jane,’ replied her mother, obdurate. ‘I do not find it easy to travel.’
‘I should like it if you and Father and Kitty would come to us at Christmas,’ persuaded Jane. ‘We will invite Elizabeth and Darcy, of course. Would you not like that?’
Mrs Bennet would not countenance it. She was not well enough to travel. In the summer, then? Really, she could not think that far ahead. Her nerves were mentioned, and Jane retreated. Privately, she and Kitty agreed that their mother’s health was improving: once her nerves became the principal ailment, all would be restored to normal.
Jane was not insensible to Kitty’s loneliness. She was still unaware of the circumstances surrounding her departure from Pemberley; like everyone else, she attributed it to filial duty. She was, however, at pains to let Kitty know that she would be welcome at Dapplewick Hall, just as she would be at Brook Street when they were in town. She was sure they would all be together again soon.
Kitty held on to this hope, even more so as Mrs Bennet became increasingly demanding. Her only consolation was that her mother was regaining her vitality. Kitty’s unmarried state continued to vex her. One morning, apropos of nothing, she said: ‘It is my duty to see you wed.’ Although this had been her mother’s raison d’être for as long as Kitty could remember, when it was uttered thus Kitty found it quite touching. Mrs Bennet could be annoying and embarrassing – in the way of many mothers, as viewed by their daughters – but however misguided Mrs Bennet was, however shrill and nagging, Kitty realised that she had her best interests at heart. This, while not particularly soothing, added to her understanding.
***
It was a cold day but bright and dry, and when Aunt Phillips arrived Kitty decided she would walk into Meryton. She would look in at the draper’s, perhaps find something pretty for her little niece. It was as good a reason as any and she set off at a brisk pace, enjoying the winter sunshine and the crisp air. The exercise restored her and she resolved to walk more often.
It was about three o’clock when she returned to the house, where she found Mrs Hill in tears. She could hear Aunt Phillips crying noisily in the parlour. Running in, she saw Mr Bennet by the fireplace, a stunned look on his face.
‘Papa? What is wrong? What has happened?’ She was truly alarmed now. ‘Is it the baby?’ Her heart jumped. Please, she thought, don’t let anything have happened to Little Elizabeth.
‘Your poor dear mother!’ cried Aunt Phillips, holding out her arms to Kitty. ‘Gone, dear. Gone!’
CHAPTER 61
The suddenness of Mrs Bennet’s death shocked everyone, including her physician. He opined, with medical sagacity, that her heart had failed. Expresses were sent to Derbyshire and Newcastle, and to London to inform Mr and Mrs Gardiner of the sad news. At Longbourn, Mr Bennet was sunk in grief. Many a widower finds himself unexpectedly brought down by the death of his spouse, sometimes through genuine feelin
gs of loss and sometimes by guilt for his previous treatment of the departed, but the acuity of Mr Bennet’s grief was a surprise to all. It made him incapable of any decisions. Kitty organised the undertaker, made arrangements for the black drapes in the room in which Mrs Bennet’s coffin lay, discussed the date of the burial and the sermon, and found suitable mourning clothes for her father, herself and the servants.
Aunt Phillips tried to help but, bereft of a sister and a life-long friend, she was rendered ineffectual. She kept vigil by Mrs Bennet’s coffin, a tragic figure sitting stiff-backed in her chair, fingering the black wool of her shawls and lost in thought. Jane and Kitty consoled each other and their father as best they could; Mr Bingley offered his services. Nonetheless, the chief burden fell on Kitty’s young shoulders. Her duties went from caring for her ailing mother to overseeing her final journey and looking after her father.
There is nothing like a death to bring a family together and Elizabeth had sent word that she and Mr Darcy would arrive at Longbourn within days. Mr and Mrs Gardiner were also expected. Lydia wrote with some feeling of her loss, but the long journey from Newcastle would prevent her, she said, from paying her respects in person. She cited other reasons, and validated them all to herself (if not to others), but the result was she could not, would not, be at Longbourn to say goodbye to her mother. From Mary there could be no response; the news of Mrs Bennet’s death would take weeks to reach her.
Letters of condolence arrived, including one from Miss Georgiana Darcy. Kitty opened it with some trepidation, wondering whether it would go beyond the conventional forms of address in such situations. She need not have worried. Georgiana’s regret at her mother’s death was expressed exactly as custom and politesse dictated, neither a word more nor less than was to be expected. Kitty placed it with all the others. Meanwhile, the north-facing room in which Mrs Bennet’s coffin lay grew chillier and chillier; in this, the winter weather was kind.
Kitty was making tokens of remembrance in the parlour when she heard Elizabeth and Darcy arrive. She did not get up to greet them, knowing that her father and Jane would be at the door. She chose instead to concentrate on the task at hand, fashioning sprigs of rosemary and tying them with black silk ribbons.
The door opened and the two sisters found themselves face to face. Kitty kept hers expressionless but the image of Elizabeth, severe in black, framed in the doorway etched itself into her mind. No one spoke. Then Jane appeared behind Elizabeth, causing her to move into the room. She smiled a sad smile and moved towards Kitty for an embrace. Without saying anything, she sat down beside her, picking up ribbon and scissors and wordlessly offering her help. Mr Darcy, Kitty supposed, was with her father and Mr Bingley.
Kitty found she had nothing to say to her sister. She did not resile from anything she had said in the sitting room at Pemberley; Elizabeth could, and would, think what she liked. The disbelief and shock she had felt in August had been supplanted by indignation and anger. With their mother gone, Kitty’s concerns were for her father. Elizabeth had rejected her, accepted Lydia’s lies, thrown her out of Pemberley, and she felt no need to make pretty conversation; she was saved from the pretence of trying by the arrival of Aunt and Uncle Gardiner, always a welcome presence at Longbourn, even and especially on an occasion such as this.
The melancholy congregation went about the formalities. Neighbours and friends called to make their condolences and farewell the deceased. Kitty oversaw it all, sparing her father as much trouble as she could and running Longbourn, which she had been doing in all but name while her mother lived. At one point, Elizabeth thought to offer assistance by giving some instruction regarding the dinner service but Mrs Hill looked askance at Kitty, who intervened with directions of her own. Mr Bennet had become used to dinner at a certain hour and that is what suited him; Kitty would not have it changed. Besides, she thought grimly, since they all think my place is here at Longbourn, I will at least have things done my way.
In a few days, everything was completed. The mourners had come to the house, the tokens of remembrance handed out, the coffin had processed to St Bede’s, the sermon was read, the remains interred. Mr Bennet and the other gentlemen were soon back at Longbourn.
Aunt Gardiner took Kitty aside to ask if she could be of use to her. Kitty shook her head. ‘We are as well as we can be,’ said she. ‘I am worried for my father, but I hope time will heal.’
‘You must look to yourself as well, dear,’ said her aunt. ‘I see how well you are coping but do not make yourself ill. We shall invite you and Mr Bennet to come to stay with us in London shortly. I shall write and arrange it.’
Kitty nodded. She appreciated the invitation, but the prospect of staying in London, something that had once so enthralled her, seemed too far away to contemplate.
‘Jane and Bingley will soon be gone?’ said Mrs Gardiner, nodding to where Jane sat, cradling Little Elizabeth.
‘Yes,’ said Kitty. ‘Next week. I will miss them most dreadfully.’
‘Where is Elizabeth?’ asked her aunt, looking around.
‘In the library with my father,’ she replied. The pair had been closeted for some time. Even in his grief, her father had been pleased to see Elizabeth, and Kitty knew that her sister had come to Longbourn as much to condole with him as to mourn their mother. She didn’t blame her for that; she just knew it was so.
Aunt Gardiner embraced her and promised to see her soon. She and Mr Gardiner were the first to take their leave. The Darcys followed soon afterwards, en route to their London address rather than journeying directly back to Derbyshire. Kitty had heard them planning to travel north in convoy with the Bingleys in the next few days.
CHAPTER 62
Longbourn was a silent and empty place in the weeks following Mrs Bennet’s death. Mr Bennet retreated into himself; Aunt Phillips visited regularly as before, deriving some solace from the continuity of her visits, but the atmosphere was melancholy and the clocks ticked on, louder than they had ever been when Mrs Bennet’s nerves were there to be riled. Kitty was glad of her aunt’s company. One afternoon they undertook the sad task of sorting through Mrs Bennet’s clothes and treasures. Mrs Phillips would seize upon an item of clothing or some little ornament and remember when or how her sister had first worn or acquired it. The memories evoked were not all unhappy, occasionally bringing forth laughter as each remembered the Mrs Bennet they knew best.
Kitty was surprised and gladdened to find, hidden away in boxes in her mother’s dressing room, little keepsakes of all her daughters. She found a forlorn doll, missing one arm, that had once been Jane’s constant companion, and a notebook, its cover illustrated with flowers, which declared itself, in a large, childish hand, to be the property of ‘Miss Elizabeth Bennet’ and containing thoughts evidently important to its seven-year-old owner. For Mary, she had kept a wooden soldier and drum, of which Kitty had no recollection; for Lydia, a little cup that she must once have favoured; and then she found a child’s silver-backed hairbrush that had been hers. Kitty exclaimed when she saw it, having forgotten its existence until that moment. Then she remembered her mother brushing her hair when she was little; she had been in bed and it was when she was ill, and she could almost feel the touch of the brush on her hair and her mother crooning that it would all be all right.
There were also some letters, very old and bound in ribbon, which Kitty realised with a small shock had been penned by her father in the early days of her parents’ courtship. She would not have dreamed of reading anything so private; she bundled them up neatly and left them on her father’s desk in the library. This sifting of things and memories gave Kitty a different perspective on her mother, helping her to understand parts of her that she had been unable to see when she had been alive.
Aunt Gardiner was as good as her word. Brooking no excuses, she insisted that Kitty and Mr Bennet, together with Mr and Mrs Phillips, come to London and stay with them during the Christmas season. It was a kind invitation, especially as it brought together
Mrs Bennet’s remaining siblings, her husband and daughter, and allowed for steady reminiscence in a household that was charged with a form of peaceful content.
For Kitty, it was also a welcome respite from the running of Longbourn, an unasked-for responsibility but one that she had managed well and without complaint. The party arrived on Christmas Eve and were welcomed with much excitement by the little Gardiners, animated by both the season and the arrival of their Meryton relations. Their exuberant spirits did much to dispel and prevent darker moods.
Mr Bennet, while in good health himself, was less inclined than usual to be sociable; even his love of books seemed to have forsaken him. At Longbourn he spent his time sitting in a chair, lost in thought. Kitty had spent much of their journey to the Gardiners talking of the British Museum in Bloomsbury as well as other places they could visit together during their stay in London and was rewarded by his cautious approbation of her schemes. ‘The Cotton Libraries,’ he said, brightening. ‘I should like to investigate that collection further.’
‘Hatchards, too,’ reminded Kitty, referring to London’s best bookshop. ‘I am told the new premises in Piccadilly are larger than the previous establishment but I have not been there yet.’ Her father nodded.
Their plans were thrown awry, however, by the weather. Two days after their arrival at the Gardiners, a thick, impenetrable fog descended on London, shrouding the city, turning day dark as night and making even short journeys well nigh impossible. The gas lamps, now lit in the daytime, provided only tiny pinpricks of light in the murky grey haze and, looking out of the windows, Kitty could hear rather than see pedestrians feeling their way through the streets, lanterns held in front of them as they tried to see what was ahead. London came to a standstill and the fog pinned down the city’s inhabitants for nearly two weeks.
What Kitty Did Next Page 27