Page 20 of Ever After End
CHAPTER 19
A ll of the guests had arrived that day, save one. “Miss Bingley will not arrive for three more days,” said Mrs Darlington at dinner. “I lacked a twelfth lady, and so one is coming by recommendation of my godson. Miss Caroline Bingley is twenty-three, and the daughter of a tradesman from Yorkshire. Her parents are deceased, and the family departed from trade some years ago. She attended a costly ladies seminary in London, has a dowry of twenty thousand, and hopes to marry into the gentry or the nobility. Preferably a gentleman who enjoys London.”
She looked around the table and continued on. “There will, unexpectedly, be two additional gentlemen accompanying her, and staying in the house. One is my godson, who is admittedly an exceedingly well-favoured and eligible gentleman with a generous fortune and estate. The other man is Miss Bingley’s brother, who is, I am told, also very wealthy, and who hopes to be among the landed gentry one day soon. It is extremely important that despite the gentlemens’ manifold attractions, you ladies should not pursue Mr Bingley, nor my godson Mr Darcy, whilst they are here. They are only staying to assist me with a matter concerning my tenants, and should not be considered part of the house party. If it were not absolutely necessary, they would not be coming during the party at all.”
‘I am certain we have enough eligible gentlemen as it is,” said Miss Diana Ashford. “I have certainly never been in the company of so many eligible men all openly searching for wives in one place. Of course, London is filled with people wishing to marry, but there are so many complications, courting amongst the gossips of society.” Miss Diana Ashford had experienced a season in town six years earlier, but her penchant for rising early to ride in Hyde Park accompanied by her father’s grooms had complicated things for her. Rumours had travelled amongst society that she was going to the park early to have pre-arranged trysts with men.
“Obviously you do not possess the right connections in London, or you would have been much more successful, Miss Ashford,” said Miss Winslow snidely. “Those of us with connections find themselves simply surrounded by eligible men.”
“And yet, here you are, paying fifty pounds to find a husband along with the rest of us,” said Miss Dutton. “I wonder why.” Then in an aside to Mr Mercer, “That one thinks she’s a huckleberry above a persimmon? 1 .”
“It can be excessively difficult to form meaningful attachments with the opposite sex when fettered by the expectations of society in London,” said Lord Chesley, as the rest of the table wondered what in the world Miss Dutton’s slang meant. “I enjoy society very much, but I wished for a marriage of affection like the one enjoyed by my parents. Sadly, when you arrive in London, you must only speak with those ladies that society deems are acceptable for your wealth and rank. Then when you do pay the slightest attention to a lady, society immediately pounces upon you and begins to speculate. You cannot bring a lady a glass of lemonade after a dance without speculation, and then the envy and interference of others begins. If you persist, then you find yourself obligated to a woman that you would rather not marry, but society expects you to do so because you took the time to get to know her character, and you ought never to have done so unless you intended to wed the chit. And if you pay any attention to one that society deems beneath you, the women of your rank panic that a man might be lost to a lesser woman, and then the attempted compromises begin.”
“It is not any easier for the ladies, who feel interest in a gentleman, only for him to be scared away by society, because even if he thinks he might like you, he has no desire to marry you only because he danced with you thrice. The best gentlemen get frustrated and give up the entire situation as impossible,” said Miss Crawford.
“Then there are those of us who have no connections, and have never had the opportunity for a season in London. What does a lady in that circumstance do, Miss Penfield?” asked Miss Blackwood spitefully.
“We take positions as governesses, and educate the children of those who degrade us very ill,” said Miss Penfield drily. Miss Penfield had been a governess with no prospects of any kind. The daughter of a parson who left his family with little, she had recently inherited a fortune of thirty thousand from her father’s aunt, a woman whom she had never even met. She was twenty-nine, and the oldest of the female guests. Her gown was of decent quality, but lacked embellishment or adornment. Elizabeth wondered if she preferred it that way, or if the young lady lacked experience choosing clothes.
“Why have you chosen to come to Ever After End, Captain Lytton?” asked Elizabeth of her dinner companion.
“It was a lark for me,” answered the man on her left easily. “My friend Captain Wentworth and I won our share of prize money, and were informed by our admiral that it was high time we found wives. We made a bet, and I lost. Wentworth found a charming wife, I think it was cheating, he went right to his old sweetheart. Since I did not find a wife, I was sent here by my friends. I do hope it’s a fruitful endeavour, I am certain it will be, with all of the feminine beauty we see before us, how could it not? What about you and your sisters, Miss Bennet? How came you to Ever After End?”
“Well, it is a bit of a long story. There are five of us,” answered Elizabeth carefully. “And my father’s estate was entailed, we each only had a thousand to our name upon my mother’s death. My mother was not raised a gentlewoman, so her enthusiasm and fear of the hedgerows gets the better of her, causing her to push us at suitors unbecomingly, and they all run away. Last year, our fortunes changed. I won a lottery from a ticket my uncle gifted me for my birthday, so I now have a portion of my own. Then our father’s cousin unexpectedly decided he had no desire to run an estate. He is a parson and was not raised to it. He enjoys his situation as it is, so he and my father ended the entail, making my sister Jane the heiress. This raised the fortunes of our younger sisters slightly, and ought to make it easier for us all to find husbands now that we have the means to take care of our own, but my mother’s habits die hard. Her behaviour remains the same. When our neighbours who met here, Mr and Mrs Lockhart, told us about this place, I was determined that the two eldest of my sisters and myself should avail ourselves of the opportunity without delay.”
“You and Miss Penfield have both been struck by fortune, or so I have heard,” said Miss Julia Bertram.
“I never knew my father’s aunt, though I am grateful she thought of me in her will,” said Miss Penfield. “I came to Ever After End for similar reasons as Miss Bennet, I believe. My good fortune made every single man for ten miles propose, never mind that I had been completely invisible to them before, and the denizens of my village were all too keen to watch the spectacle of my courtships and remark on them. There is a couple in the neighbourhood in which I grew up, a Mr and Mrs Crookshanks, who recommended Miss Darlington’s arrangement to me, and I am grateful to have been included.”
“I must send a card with my gratitude to Mrs Lockhart and Mrs Crookshanks,” said Mrs Darlington. “How kind of them to give such glowing reports of their experience.”
“I am curious about the history of Ever After End, Mrs Darlington,” said Mary meekly. Her cheeks burned at calling attention to herself.
“I was a parson’s daughter from Derbyshire,” answered Mrs Darlington. “My father educated the children of a local nobleman, and I became very close with their daughter, Anne, for we shared lessons. It was a connection I would value all of my life, for many reasons, not least because Lady Anne was the kindest woman I have ever met. I am godmother to her darling boy. I married a parson myself, and we were shocked when a year after our nuptials, we inherited a property from a distant cousin that my husband had never even heard of.
“The cousin had been a gambler, and he allowed his wife to spend far too much upon the beautification of the estate, which was previously called Oakley Court. I detested the name, thinking it was too boring for such a beautiful and romantically set home. My husband was indulgent, and allowed me to change the name to Ever After End. The neighbours were outraged, calling us whimsical and tawdry. We were not welcomed into the neighbourhood for years. One might have thought we had once been shopkeepers. But it mattered little, for there was work to be done to make the estate profitable. Having little ready funds, my husband did his best, and increased the income of Ever After End by the time he passed, but I have struggled to continue the growth of the estate. It brings in enough that I might just about be comfortable here, and get by with few servants, but the house would fall apart if I were to do that, and the estate must continue to improve for the sake of the tenants, who have stayed and worked hard with us for years.”
“It is to yours and your husband’s credit that you did not just sell the place, and purchase something within your means,” observed Mr Elias Brentwood, who was reported to be a reclusive scholar who rarely attended social events.
“We were young, and saw it as a grand adventure, and it was,” smiled Mrs Darlington. “When he passed, I had to do something to keep everything going, and so, the idea of the house parties was born. My friendship with Lady Anne had ensured a great many invitations to visit her lovely homes in Derbyshire and London during my marriage. Our husbands got along well, and hers was a fount of practical knowledge who had assisted Mr Darlington in his efforts on the estate greatly before he died. The association gave me many friends whom I could call upon for assistance. I reached out to Lady Jersey and a number of others in town and around the country for recommendations of people who would pay for such an endeavour, and slowly, I managed to improve the parties each year. Our first only saw six guests, but four of them were married by the end of that summer!”
“How wonderful that you found a way to achieve your independence, improve your home, and help others all at the same time,” said Jane. “Perhaps we might discuss our experiences in estate management sometime this summer, Mrs Darlington. I have recently begun to make improvements on my father’s estate myself.”
“That would be lovely,” said Mrs Darlington. “I look forward to that, Miss Bennet.”
1 ? 19th century American slang for ‘superior.’