Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (111 page)

As she sat, Elizabeth placed her hand upon the smooth wood of the casket, then rested her cheek against its coolness. Time had suspended, thus she was unaware of how long she had been there when she heard her mother’s voice, strangely softened.

“How shall we manage without him, Lizzy?”

Elizabeth did not raise her head, merely turned it by way of her forehead to rest upon her other cheek and looked toward where her mother had sat unobserved. Odd, Elizabeth had never known her mother to sit anywhere silently, as she did then.

“His last thoughts were of you, Mama,”Elizabeth said, trying to contain any bitterness.

Her mother said nothing.

“He said he was concerned for you, was he to die.”

Her mother nodded, and yet sat silent. A substantial anomaly.

Elizabeth told her, “Do not fear, Mama. Jane and I shall take care of you, you will always have a home. I know of a house upon Pemberley you would like…”

“Thank you, Lizzy, but I cannot think of that now,” her mother answered.

Elizabeth could see the rivulets of her tears gleaming in the candlelight. They sat in silence for some time before Elizabeth heard her mother sigh.

“No better man, my Lizzy. No better husband.”

At this, Elizabeth returned to her alternate cheek, unable to look at her mother any further.

“How soon was it,” she thought, “that the dead are brought to deity in the eyes of those who in life found them little regard.”

She thought she had said it only to herself, but apparently did not, “That is not what you told Lydia.”

“I told her what, Lizzy?”

Elizabeth did not want to quarrel with her mother. Particularly not over her father’s yet uninterred corpse. But she could not remain silent just then in the dark. Had it been day and she were able to look at her mother’s familiar countenance, she would remember whose daughter she yet was. In the pitch-gloom of the night, it was easy to forget she was a daughter still.

“That is not what you said to Lydia,” she repeated, a little louder. “She said you told her Papa was faithless to you.”

“Oh that Lydia. She told you that? That was not for your ears. She despaired so of Major Wickham. I thought she would not if she believed all men were as he.… It seemed right at the time Lizzy, for she was so very wretched. Was I amiss?”

Albeit it was the single time her mother had ever questioned the righteousness of her own actions, Elizabeth could not bring herself to tell her she was, indeed, quite wrong. The logic of disparaging her father to his daughter to ease the sins of her husband was lost upon Elizabeth, as was all her mother’s reasoning.

But in the hours she sat at the foot of her father’s coffin, in her father’s house, she had the luxury of objectivity she had not held for some time. There she was Elizabeth alone, and not Darcy’s wife. Having been so angry with her mother for so many years, the lucidity with which her own culpability came to her in the dark room was startling.

She had blamed her mother for Bingley’s infidelity to Jane as much as Bingley himself. If she was honest, she knew she held her mother in reproach for the only serious
rift betwixt herself and Darcy. The mere repeating of an accusation against her father had shaken her supposed august trust of her own husband. Had she no more fortitude than Lydia? She who found comfort in such a scurrilous story?

Elizabeth turned and looked at her mother again. Mrs. Bennet sat with her head resting against the back of the chair. She looked broken. Vulnerable. Again, Elizabeth closed her eyes, not in defence of the woeful sight, but of her own introspection.

T
he single good tiding (to which Elizabeth clung tenaciously) in this time of dreadful sadness was that with Napoleon’s defeat, the fighting had ended and her husband had survived it. But however greatly it was anticipated, for weeks after hostilities had ceased, there was not another message from him.

Nor from anyone else of note. In this absence of enlightenment, Elizabeth could only conjecture that a lack of notification meant Fitzwilliam was not a casualty. Of this, she was exceedingly grateful, but Georgiana’s circumstances were nevertheless an outright puzzle. Twice Bingley endeavoured to cross the Channel in search, but was denied by authorities. For word from the continent was grim: not only were marauding bands of plunderers keeping good folks inside, typhus had struck as well. The areas not in political upheaval were in quarantine. Everyone able to flee had fled. Both war and disease had commanded mass graves. Terrified and uncertain, Elizabeth had no notion what else to do but worry once more.

It was believed that in one of those graves rested Major George Wickham. For Lydia (who did not favour the appellation Widow Wickham, thinking it sounded too matronly), it was a trying time and one of great dilemma. Not of grief, but decorum, for it insisted the bereaved keep sober and mournful comportment, in neither of which she had any practise. In addition to the burden of countenance, she was demanded to wear black as well. She abhorred herself in black.

Was displeasure of her wardrobe not trial enough, there was another particularly ruthless turn. For the demise of her husband by way of battle required a steady stream of Whitehall garrisoned officers to make a pilgrimage of respect to his family. These were soldiers in name only, who chose not to soil their hands (or risk their comfortable lives) in battle, believing it duty enough to bask in the bravery of those who did (reflected glory better than no glory whatsoever). If there was any question of character of these failed sons of the peerage, it was not asked by Lydia.

The only interest she had was not one of integrity, but of uniform. Her greatest
quandary was to decide whether Lancer, Dragoon, or Guard had a finer flourish to their uniform (eventually she decided in favour of the Hussars, for they wore rather fine beaver hats). Yes, handsome officer after handsome officer (all resplendent in cape and sword, which clearly defined handsome to Lydia) came to pay their devoirs, and propriety demanded she could not flirt and had to wear black.

Lydia loved her father, but he was dead and gone. (From the privilege of widowhood, she even believed she very nearly loved Wickham.) She had her whole life (or a goodly portion of it) in front of her and the confoundment of being denied opportunity to troll for a new husband from an uncommonly fertile pool vexed her to distraction. Had other been expected, her displeasure was not suffered in silence. She whined about it incessantly. Her chief occupations were whining when she was not in company and surreptitiously flirting when she was. For after some study before her mirror, Lydia perfected a wicked little smile that, if she could just get the right tilt of her fan, would promise any gentleman under her gaze that she was not all that sad.

There was ample audience to witness this devious coquetry, for bereavement required the Bingleys and Elizabeth stay at Longbourn for at least the month. Jane and Bingley were appropriately aghast (but not necessarily surprised) at Lydia’s distaste of solemnity. Elizabeth cared little if Lydia was contemptuous of her husband’s memory, but was determined she would not besmirch their father’s. Thus, in exasperation at witnessing Lydia’s repeated vamping from behind her fan, Elizabeth waited until the importuned officer had taken his leave, wrested Lydia’s fan away, and rapped her soundly upon the top of her head with it.

“Lydia, I know you suffer cruelly at the loss of your father and husband both (it might have been presumed that this was mockery, but Elizabeth preferred to believe it not), but can you restrain your enthusiasm for widowhood at least until the passing bell ceases its reverberation?”

Hardly reprimanded, Lydia flounced over to a chair and sat in a disgusted heap, “Yes, I suffer cruelly!” she agreed, and thereupon glumly inquired, “Is there to be no diversion?”

“No. You are sad,” Elizabeth assured her.

“Oh, Lizzy! ’Tis all so unfair!”

Thereupon, suddenly, a thought visited the unlikely neighbourhood of Lydia’s limited intellect.

“Lizzy,” she proclaimed, “it just occurred to me, that with Wickham and Papa dying almost simultaneously, I shall have to wear black for just one mourning period!”

“Happy thought indeed,” Elizabeth feigned hearty agreement. “Concurrent death is much more pleasing than consecutive. What fortune!”

Lydia went in search of her mother to share her observation of luck. But Elizabeth knew that Mrs. Bennet would have no interest in Lydia’s widowhood, for she was quite enmeshed in her own.

Although it was half-past four o’clock in the after-noon a full two weeks after Mr. Bennet’s death, Mrs. Bennet had not yet been able to bring herself to rise and dress for the day. Her daughters took turns at her bedside, alternately patting her hand, bringing her tea, and exchanging tear-stained handkerchiefs for dry. (Lydia had abandoned tearful keening once officers began to call, for weeping made her eyes puffy.)

Inconsolable in the loss of her husband, Mrs. Bennet was additionally burdened by the no small matter of entailment of Longbourn to Charlotte Collins’s unfortunate son. Again, Elizabeth patted her hand and assured her she would always have a home with her at Pemberley. This was sincerely offered, but Elizabeth could not help but cringe ever so slightly upon Darcy’s behalf for when he learnt that he might well have Mrs. Bennet under (or even near) his roof permanently. The thought of that was a considerable trial, but most inadvertently, her mother cast aside that specific apprehension of Elizabeth’s for far worse.

Mrs. Bennet’s lack of amiability as a housemate would be a moot point if there were no house to plague.

“That is kind, Lizzy, but you may not have a home yourself! I fear Mr. Darcy is no more alive than Mr. Bennet or Wickham! You, my Lizzy, have no son! If this baby dies as the last or, heaven above help us, is a girl, Lady Catherine will have you out! Of that you can be sure!”

At the thought of her dear daughter’s dilemma, Mrs. Bennet was nearly overcome with renewed sobs, “Lizzy, Lizzy! What are we to do? Bingley cannot take us all in!”

The spectre of Lady Catherine notwithstanding, more than anything Elizabeth wanted to be home at Pemberley and to wait for Darcy there. Betwixt Lydia’s vulgar flirtations and her mother’s relentless wailing, Elizabeth thought it quite possible she would run mad from the house. In lieu of the imprudence of that, she chose to take a walk outdoors instead.

She automatically picked up her shawl, and thereupon cast it impatiently aside. It was too warm for a shawl. Was she revealed great with child to someone whose sensibilities would be offended by the sight, they would just have to be sullied. The decision was made only in part due to the weather, the other fell to the sheer enormity of her person. It was simply difficult to disguise her girth.

It was a mystery to Elizabeth how Jane could conceal her pregnancies with such efficiency. For Elizabeth, no matter what manner of arrangement of shawl, her protuberance protruded. Kitty had blurted out that it was quite possibly the size of a small washtub and Elizabeth found no insult at the comparison. It was the size of a washtub. A lively washtub. The baby cast about her insides as if determined to find its own exit, and Elizabeth was certain she could see her skirt jump about as it did.

She fancied others could as well. For when they all sat about the parlour, all eyes rested upon her stomach. There would be short bursts of conversation; thereupon everyone would fall silent, their gazes studying her frock-skirt. It had transcended mere embarrassment and leapt into the world of outright mortification. With her first baby, Darcy had been at her side insisting upon the beauty of her form. It had been effortless then not to feel so very graceless. This time she felt like a particularly ungainly cow.

Beneath her dress and petticoats, she knew she looked like a particularly fecund bovine as well. But without her husband there to caress her bare belly, she alone was unsettled by knowing that this baby was undoubtedly larger than her last. That was the only benefit of Darcy’s absence. He would be spared that worry. As she walked some ways down the lane, an unpropitious cramp nagged her.

Ponderously, she wended her way to the familiar oak and rested her unwieldy body against its trunk. She lay her cheek against its roughness and fingered the lines in the
bark. It brought to mind how she had unceremoniously bitten Darcy’s lip that day long past. She smiled at the recollection of her own discaution. Then, self-consciously, she looked about, for she realised she was embracing the tree. Given another moment she might have kissed it as well.