“You are welcome, Mary. I must tell you, though, that it shall only last until my death. After that event, should it come before Mrs. Bennet’s decease,” Mr. Bennet continued, “the remainder, which we may estimate to be five hundred pounds a year, so long as we do not have another summer such as this one – God help us – will, for as long as she lives, exist as Mrs. Bennet’s jointure.”
Elizabeth thought she understood now why her mother had been so amenable to the economy that had always been a struggle, at Longbourn – if they could learn to economise now, those economies would in the future support her security in life. Five hundred pounds a year, with so many daughters well-married, was a good income for a widow.
“You may, if you choose, speak of this to the other guests in the house now,” said Mr. Bennet. “I wished that you should all have it first, however. Shall we all go through?”
They agreed they should do so, although Catherine and Andrew Ramsey remained behind, Catherine still sipping her port with a shocked expression upon her countenance. In the drawing-room, the children were enjoying the promised plum pudding, as well as sugar cakes, gingerbread, and rice pudding. James and George were the youngest there, for little Amelia Bingley had been left at Clareborne with Mrs. Padgett, and the twins eagerly ate up their little bowls of rice pudding.
Catherine came in as they were beginning the games, looking so pale that Lady Ellen, concerned, asked Elizabeth if she had received bad news whilst in the dining-room.
“No, it was good news, although rather shocking good news for her,” Elizabeth told her. “I think you will recall the death of my cousin, Mr. Collins, earlier this year?”
Lady Ellen replied that she did, and Elizabeth informed her of the entail’s having been broken, and that Catherine was to inherit. If Lady Ellen thought the choice as eccentric as Mr. Bennet had presumed it would seem, she did not indicate this, and in an example of her impeccable good breeding, indicated her pleasure at Mrs. Ramsey’s good fortunes.
Only the Gardiner, Durand, and Fitzwilliam children were old enough to participate in most of the games, although Bess was allowed to reach in and take an apple with her hand after the elder children had finished with bob-apple, and she proceeded to carry around the fruit for the remainder of the evening, threatening tears and violence toward anyone who seemed inclined to take it from her. After much needling by Edward, Darcy was convinced to participate in snap-dragon, along with Captain Ramsey, which gave Elizabeth a great deal of amusement. Her amusement waned when she saw that while James seemed delighted by the shrieking chaos involved in a group of adults and children gathered around a flaming bowl of brandy and attempting to pluck raisins from it, George appeared to be growing increasingly discomfited. She picked him up and carried him out of the room, determining it would be best to return him to the nursery, for he had never seemed entirely happy to be amongst such a large and noisy group, except during the temporary distraction offered by the rice-pudding.
To her surprise, she found Catherine had followed her out, and inquired if she could walk with her sister to the nursery. This surprised Elizabeth, although she supposed it shouldn’t have – Catherine had just had quite a shock, and presumably wished to speak with her sister about it. What Catherine asked about as they walked through Pemberley’s halls, however, was not what Elizabeth had been expecting.
“Lizzy, I hardly know how to ask you about this, but when finally you became in the family way, well – had you done anything different? In what you were eating, perhaps, or even how you went about marital relations?”
“Oh,” said Elizabeth. Catherine’s query, while surprising, was understandable. Kitty had married before Mary, and yet still was not with child. Of the Bennet sisters – save Lydia, whom they could only hope was taking every possible measure to avoid a child she could ill afford to care for – only Elizabeth had gone more than a year before reaching that state. “I – people did think I had become too thin, while I was in town, and that it was not a healthy place. It was only after we came to Pemberley, that it happened.”
Catherine, who had always been the slightest of the Bennet sisters, looked down at her figure and said, “Perhaps it is that, then. I suppose I must endeavour to eat more.”
“It would not hurt to try. And it may just take time,” said Elizabeth. “Many couples do not have children in the first year, I think.”
“But some couples cannot have children at all,” said Catherine, “and now I suppose I ought to have an heir.”
“Please do not worry over that. I hope you will have children – as many as you would wish for – but even if you do not, I think you will, like papa, make the right choice when the time comes.”
“Do you believe he made the right choice, Lizzy?”
“Yes, I think all of us believe he made the right choice,” said Elizabeth. “And you should give yourself much more time before you believe that you and Andrew should be childless. It happened for me after I had given up hope.”
This seemed to hearten Catherine more than anything else Elizabeth had said, and Elizabeth hoped deeply that things should come out for her sister as they had for her. It was strange, now, to recall those days when she had worried over having any children, but upon applying her mind to it, she could well remember her worries then, and would never have wished them on any of her sisters.
+++
All of the children, exhausted by revelry, were eventually returned to the nursery, and while the adults stayed up some time later, eventually the party began to retire. Elizabeth found herself entirely exhausted, when finally she entered her husband’s bedchamber, and she flopped down most inelegantly on the bed, although she turned with a mischievous gaze towards Darcy once she had done so.
“And so how many raisins did you win? George, it turns out, does not take after you in everything, and he quite disliked snap-dragon, although perhaps he shall change his mind once he is old enough to play himself.”
“The adults held ourselves to only a few each, then ceded the game to the children, and your niece Susan Gardiner quite outdid the boys. I believe Marguerite thinks we English are entirely insane, to play such a game,” he said, laughing. “It always was my favourite as a boy. Lord, how Edward and Andrew and I used to race each other – Anne got her fair share, too. But Georgiana was always afraid of the fire – I used to save half of my raisins, to give to her.”
His face had fallen. “Oh my love, I wish all of my sisters could have been here tonight,” Elizabeth said, wondering how both Lydia and Georgiana would spend their Christmases.
“This will be our first Christmas apart,” said he. “Even last December, with all of the difficulties – with – with what happened, at least I knew how she was.”
“I know,” said Elizabeth softly. “But she came in to Christmas following such a loss, and having to spend it without her husband. I hope wherever she is, however she will spend it, it will be a happier one for her – although I have no doubt she will miss you. Let us hope that next Christmas, we shall all be together.”
“I hope so,” he said, in a low voice.
“Remember, my love – optimism. For now I know another weakness of yours, and if you revert back to your old worrying ways there shall be a game of snap-dragon every night, even when it is just the two of us to dine.”
He smiled, faintly, and kissed her good-night.
Chapter 23
Georgiana passed her Christmas with a very staid Christmas Eve service, performed by Mr. Griffith, and a much less staid Christmas dinner in the captain’s cabins. In honour of the occasion, Matthew and Lord Amherst had agreed to have the bulkheads removed between the cabins so that one large space was made, allowing the entire embassy and all of Matthew’s officers to dine together. Lieutenants Rigby and Egerton had volunteered to divide their watches over the meal so that one should leave early and the other arrive late, and poor Rigby was much sympathised with, for having to maintain some semblance of sobriety before taking up his watch.
Georgiana had attempted to retain as much tradition as could be done with the meal, but it was necessarily limited by available grocery, with the ship having sailed from China more than a week ago. Thus added to the roasted beef and pork, soused hog’s face, and plum pudding were more nautical shark steaks, shark fritters, lobscouse, and a great towering sea pie of five decks. Georgiana allowed her wine glass to be filled for toasts, but otherwise kept to her China tea. She was the only person there so abstemious after Lieutenant Rigby left, and by the time the plum pudding came out, those around the dining tables were roaringly drunk.
She was asked to play the pianoforte, and once again recognising the patience of her audience, kept to Christmas carols and another rendition of Heart of Oak, which had become nearly a staple following the dinners in the great cabin. Occasionally, when there was a lull in the laughter or the singing within the cabin, that of the seamen could be heard, for they had been given a day of general respite and a double allowance of grog, and were enjoying both to the fullest extent possible.
It was a strange but convivial Christmas, Georgiana thought, and she enjoyed herself despite not being in her cups like the rest of her company. It was only later, once the cabins had been restored to their usual state and Matthew had helped her change – Georgiana, presuming her maid would enjoy partaking fully in the ship’s Christmas celebration, had given her both Christmas Day and Boxing Day off – that she became more contemplative, and thought about the usual ways in which her Christmases had been spent.
She recalled the earliest Christmases of her remembrance, with the young boys and even Anne playing at snap-dragon, squealing as they darted their fingers into the bowl, then withdrew them and popped the retrieved hot raisins into their mouths. She recalled Fitzwilliam, silently handing raisins over to her when, year after year, she had proven too cowardly to put her hand into the flaming brandy. She recalled as well other Christmases, both happy and sad, and most particularly the Christmas of 1807. The thought of that year, and particularly of her brother during that year, drew a strange, hollow sort of homesickness over her whole person, and she felt tears spring to her eyes, but blinked them away.
Matthew had seemed as though he was partaking in every toast that had occurred at the dinner, but he must have taken only a very little sip for each, for after she had slipped on her nightgown, he said, in a tone of perfect sobriety, “You are very quiet, Georgiana. Are you thinking of home? This is your first Christmas outside of England, is it not?”
“It is,” she nodded, “and the first Christmas I have been away from Fitzwilliam. I was thinking about our first Christmas together after my father died. We were still in mourning, but he did everything he possibly could to cheer me, to make that time happy. He mostly succeeded. He always tried so hard, to fill the place of our father – even though he was so young, to bear all of papa’s responsibilities.”
“I am glad he was there for you, in that time,” Matthew said, and enveloped her in an embrace. “I am sure you must be missing him tonight.”
“Yes, but I am glad to be here with you,” she said, once again growing teary-eyed. “Last year was my worst Christmas. To have been parted from you, to have no idea how you did, and to have lost our child – ”
He drew her still closer, so that her swelling belly pressed against him. “Those days at least, my dearest, are in the past.”
“Yes,” said Georgiana, nestling contentedly against him, and feeling the reassurance of a slight movement from her baby, “yes they are.”
Chapter 24
The Twelfth Night festivities at Pemberley were the last events to take place before the house party began to break up. The Philipses and Gardiners returned to Hertfordshire and London, respectively, while the Bennets and Ramseys were to journey on to Wincham, to be followed a week or so later by the Darcys, the latter couple wishing to wait until the Smiths took leave of the neighbourhood, so as to wish them well in their journey to London, then Rosings Park.
It was a short journey to Wincham, which Catherine was glad of. Since her father’s announcement that she was to inherit Longbourn, she had found herself feeling exceedingly guilty whenever she became short of patience with her mother: after all, she was being amply rewarded for it. Yet Mrs. Bennet could never be described as a good traveller, for she was constantly fretting about what the previous stage had done to her nerves, and could find much to criticise – in a loud tone of voice – at even the finest coaching inn.
The thought that she was to inherit Longbourn often took Catherine by surprise. She would be thinking of the future and suddenly it would be recalled to her mind, that she was now Mrs. Catherine Ramsey, heiress to Longbourn. It seemed to her at once fair and unfair that she should be so singled out among her sisters – yes, she and Andrew had twice made sacrifices in order to give their assistance, but they were the only members of her family who had been in a position to do so, for they had no settled home and no commitments at such a home.
This was something Catherine thought on, more often than she had used to. At the beginning of her marriage, she had been simply happy to be married, after having to wait so long. She had known, as well, that she was marrying a naval captain, and might have to bear his absence if war came again. War had not come again, though, and she had expected they would settle in Bath, rather than this nomadic existence they had been living of late. It was time, she thought, to let a house and truly settle there. Although they must expect to spend a goodly amount of time in Hertfordshire, as well, she was feeling very desirous of settling into their own home and beginning a family.
Settling, at least, was within her power; she felt certain that once she spoke to Andrew of it, he would agree with her that it should be done. It was the family that was proving to be difficult. Catherine had not expected this; she had come into her marriage like every other young lady, presuming that a child should come soon enough, and had for many months been confident that it would. While she was happy for Mary, it had been Mary’s impending confinement that had made her feel she ought to have at least become with child by now. Speaking of the matter with Elizabeth had made her feel better, but she thought it likely that she would worry until she grew pregnant.
The carriage turned off the turnpike road, distracting Catherine from such unhappy thoughts, and she looked about with curiosity, to see Mary’s home. Like most of the country, the fields here appeared to have suffered from the previous summer and were not likely to recover entirely when the winter still continued more wet and cold than it ought to have been. Yet the village itself proved to be a trim, neat little place, and the parish church a charming old medieval building. A little down the road from the church, the carriage halted in front of a large stone house in perfect repair, and Catherine found herself even more envious of Mary, that her sister should have such a settled life. She chastised herself a little for such thoughts – after all, she had first been attracted to Andrew because he wore a naval uniform, and at least her life was more settled than poor Georgiana’s. Then again, Georgiana did at least have a decided home, even if it was a cabin on a frigate, and Georgiana was presently travelling around the world, something that seemed exotic and fascinating to Catherine. She would not have been half so worried over becoming with child, she thought, if that had been her life at present.
In the midst of these ruminations, David Stanton emerged from the front door of the parsonage to welcome them, saying Mary was inside and eager to greet her family, but he had not wanted her to come out of doors in such weather. The family came inside, therefore, were ushered into a tastefully decorated parlour, and greeted by Mary. She looked far larger than she had at Pemberley before Christmas, rising with some effort from the chaise on which she had been reclining, and Catherine felt an even deeper stab of envy, then forced it aside. She and Mary had grown far closer since Lydia had eloped, and she did genuinely wish every happiness for her sister; she just wished she could have that same happiness for herself.
+++
Mary had awaited the arrival of her family with some trepidation. She was glad they had wished to be there for her child’s birth – now that her parents had four grandchildren, she had feared her first child would prove of less import to them than it was to her – but she had felt her life very well settled at Wincham, with her husband and their friends and parishioners, and was not certain how her family’s entry into that life should bear out. As well, the parsonage was of a good size for such a house, but had only ever been occupied by herself, David, and their servants, and she had worried the addition of so many guests would prove difficult.
The house absorbed its guests well, however, with each of them quite happy with the bedrooms they were shewn to – although such rooms must necessarily be less fine than those they had occupied at Pemberley – and her mother in vocal approval of how the nursery had been fitted up. Her father, meanwhile, professed himself satisfied with David’s library, which, while not so large as that of Pemberley, should undoubtedly furnish more than enough volumes to entertain him through the course of their visit. Catherine and Andrew, in their usual way, were eager to see what they might do to help her before the birth, and were enlisted to deliver baskets to the parish poor. Mary had grown used to walking everywhere, to see to everyone and make such deliveries, but she did not feel comfortable going so far now, and so she had occupied herself at home with making more clothes for those in need, rendering the assistance of the Ramseys even more necessary, so everything could be delivered.
Mary worried still more before the last of her guests arrived, for while Lizzy would surely not take issue with the bedroom that had been saved for the Darcys, Mary was sure Mr. Darcy was used to far finer. Yet they too were all praise for Mary’s situation, praise much augmented with Mrs. Bennet’s statements of pride in seeing her daughters to such good situations, all of them, save perhaps poor Lydia, for why had Lydia been required to settle in America of all places? The Darcys, as well, gave the nursery its first inhabitants since David Stanton had been rector, with the twins, George Nichols, and Mrs. Nichols happily settled there. Lord and Lady Winterley visited the nursery after they had called to be introduced to the Stantons’s genteel guests, and were pleased to see for themselves that the wife of their late tenant got on well in her role as head nurse of Pemberley.
A Season Lost Page 44