Page 31 of Ever After End
CHAPTER 30
E lizabeth was furious as she entered the apartment that she shared with Jane and Mary. “Jane!” she called as she entered the bedroom her sisters shared. Jane was at the dressing table, putting the finishing touches on her appearance before she went downstairs. Mary had already gone down in the company of Miss Darcy and Miss Bates.
Elizabeth sank down on her sisters’ bed, and the story of what she had overheard, and all that Mr Darcy had confessed to her came tumbling out. “I could cheerfully murder him!” she spat. “Imagine, bringing a rake or a libertine, or whatever he is, to a party of ladies hoping to wed! It is indecent ! I have half a mind to complain to Mrs Darlington.”
“Mr Bingley is not a rake, nor a libertine.” Jane reached across the end of the bed and clasped her sister’s hand. “I knew of this already, Lizzy.”
“You knew? But how?” Elizabeth gasped.
“Mr Bingley told me. Not long after he arrived.” Jane smiled at Elizabeth.
“Then why would you allow him to court you, knowing he is capricious?” demanded Elizabeth. “We paid for you to come here to meet men who want to wed!”
“He is not capricious, Lizzy! Only a man who wishes to marry, as we do, and has met with too many fortune hunters and insincere women in town,” Jane objected. “It is not his fault that he has been as unlucky in love as I have been.”
“I cannot believe what I am hearing.” Elizabeth rose from the foot of the bed and began to pace. “Not only has the cad used his history to gain your sympathy, it has worked !”
“Lizzy, he is not a cad!” Jane said insistently. “I love you dearly, Sister, but you are too fast to judge others.”
“And you lack the guile to see through others, and judge when you ought!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “Oh, I wish we had not come here. It has been evident to me that there is no one present that I wish to marry, and you are only wasting your time on Mr Bingley. Mr Darcy said so. Perhaps we should go back to our uncle, before you get into trouble.”
“Elizabeth Sarah Bennet, how could you say such a thing! As if I, of all of our sisters, would get into trouble! I know that you are frustrated that you placed your hopes on this endeavour, but have met no one you consider to be an eligible match. But we cannot just leave. Now that we are here, we have a duty to Mary to allow her to learn if she can come to an understanding with one of the gentlemen courting her. Mary deserves her chance, Lizzy!”
Elizabeth stormed out of Jane’s room, wondering when her sister had become so unbending. Standing up to their father about the estate and his duties had hardened Jane’s spine. What could she be thinking, to prefer a man so admittedly beset by caprice?
Elizabeth returned to her own room, and fell onto her bed. The Bennet sisters’ shared maid came to her, but Elizabeth sent her away. She was not in the mood for breakfast, and if there was not a single man she wished to marry here, there was little point going downstairs. Recalling Mr Darcy’s cruel words to his friend about ladies who paid to line themselves up for inspection, she wept in mortification and self-loathing until she exhausted herself, then fell asleep.
Elizabeth woke as a shadow passed over her, and found the maid who had travelled with the Bennet sisters leaving her correspondence by the bed. “Mrs Darlington fears you’re unwell, miss. Should she call for the apothecary?”
“No thank you, Joan, I only have a headache.” Elizabeth took the letter off of the table as she sat up. “What time is it?”
“It is past one o’clock, miss. I’m to bring you tea and a meal as soon as you wake, Mrs Darlington insisted,” Joan informed her. “The guests are all down by the lake, playing lawn bowls.”
“Thank you, Joan. Tea and some cold meat and bread would be lovely.” Elizabeth rose and went to a comfortable chair near the unlit fireplace. “Please close the drapes a little, my head still aches.”
When the maid had gone, Elizabeth looked at the letter. Her uncle had returned to London, and though Elizabeth had heard from Lydia once, she had heard nothing from Longbourn. The letter, however, was not from Longbourn, nor Cheapside. It was from Charlotte Collins.
Elizabeth was strongly tempted to return it unopened, though curiosity won out, and she broke the seal.
Hunsford Parsonage,
Kent, near Westerham
15 June, 1812
Dear Eliza,
I write to you in a state of some agitation, though I know not whether I seek solace in your friendship or merely a sympathetic ear. I pray you will forgive the coldness that has crept between us these past months; I am not proud of it. Resentment, I find, is a poor companion, and perhaps I allowed mine to linger longer than was sensible. Fortune smiles upon you in a way that it never has on me, and though I harbored ill thoughts, I cannot deny the justice of your good luck.
Mr. Collins is – as you no doubt suspect, unchanged – every bit as stupid and insufferable as ever. He prattles endlessly about the favor he enjoys from Lady Catherine, yet that favor feels more like a chain about both our necks. Her ladyship’s demands grow daily, and I am left to navigate the fragile line between deference and sanity. You cannot imagine the strain of entertaining such conceit, nor how exhausting it is to encourage Mr. Collins’ devotion to her whims. I am certain he would sooner construct a monument in her name than attend to his actual duties. One would think he had been knighted each time an invitation to dinner arrives from her quarter.
I suppose, Eliza, that I deserve this fate. It is no secret that I made my choices with my eyes open, but that does not soften the edges of regret. Perhaps I thought I could manage him, but managing a fool proves a task beyond even my patience. I cannot help but wonder if Mary might have borne his absurdities better. She at least shares his zeal for sermons. If I have wronged her in securing this match, I acknowledge it now. I sought security, and in doing so, perhaps compromised more than I anticipated.
But enough of my lamentations. I have written partly to extend an olive branch. Your recent success in improving the circumstances of your family, though I begrudged it at first, speaks well of your perseverance. My mother tells me of Kitty’s improvement each time she writes, and also of yours and your sisters’ visit to Ever After End to find husbands. With Jane’s expectations, and the absence of your mother, I am certain she will find success there.
I cannot pretend to understand how fortune favored you and your family so decidedly, but I am willing to lay aside my envy. If you can forgive my petty grievances, I would welcome you at Hunsford when you have finished your lark in Somerset. It would ease the burden of this house immeasurably to have you here, even if only for a short time. Lady Catherine finds little fault with visitors of proper connections, and I believe your presence would both entertain and distract her. Bring Mary as well, if you wish. Mr Collins speaks of you all often, and considering his regret that my actions have severed a connection between him and his family, it would please him to see you both, I am sure. Besides, there are few people I can truly speak to – and fewer still I trust with the truth of my situation. I would feel great relief in unburdening myself to you as we used to do.
I await your response with hope, though I would not blame you if it were tinged with skepticism.
Yours,
Charlotte Collins
Elizabeth’s eyebrows rose further and further in disbelief as she read Charlotte’s letter. Grief and anger washed over her as she recalled each exquisite emotion, every pang of pain and mortification that her closest friend had caused her since she had been struck with financial good luck. She wanted to cry out the injustice of Charlotte placing her in the position of finding the strength to forgive. The woman seemed to have an unlimited number of audacities to produce!
She wished for nothing more than to burn the note, and to return all that followed unopened. But for her cousin’s sake, she would eventually accept the olive branch. Perhaps it might take time, a great deal of time, for her to forgive Charlotte with her whole heart, but Elizabeth remembered well her cousin’s distress that the actions of his wife might tear him from his newly found relations forever.
Elizabeth and Jane vowed to Mr Collins before his wedding that there would always be goodwill between him and the Bennets. She would not break her promise, but an immediate reply was too much to ask. First, there was the fact that Charlotte had insulted Elizabeth and Mary all over again by assuming they would not find matches at Ever After End. Elizabeth knew Charlotte had the wit to know when she was offending, and though it was true that Elizabeth did not expect to leave the house party wed, it was rude and ungenerous of Charlotte to suppose she would not find success.
She supposed that if she did not marry anyone from the house party, that she might visit her cousin and his wife in the spring, and encourage Jane to begin the long business of improving relations between Longbourn and Lucas Lodge. For now, she would let Charlotte wait for a reply. She was in no mood to write a tolerable letter today. Tomorrow was not likely either.
Joan returned at length with Elizabeth’s meal. Elizabeth ordered a tray for dinner, and requested not to be disturbed for the rest of the day. Her head still ached, there was no one at Ever After End that she wished to see; she would take the opportunity to rest by the open window with a book for the remainder of the afternoon and evening.