Page 2 of Expectations (Obstinate, Headstrong Girl #7)

CHAPTER ONE

SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT

E lizabeth wakened abruptly, giving an involuntary start at the sight of large dark eyes staring from about three inches above her face.

“Cassandra, how many times must I ask you not to do that?” she demanded, but then spoiled her lecture by scooping up the little girl and engaging in the sort of boisterous play that Cassandra adored.

Truthfully, and despite the child’s early-morning liveliness, she was grateful her niece had recovered her spirits, for the most part, after the tragic loss of both her parents in a carriage accident last spring.

She worried more about Cassandra’s quieter, more introspective twin brother.

“Shall we waken Tommy?” Elizabeth asked.

“Oh, he’s awake. He wanted to read Papa’s Bible.”

Elizabeth’s heart clenched. Tommy was a very intelligent lad, and although he could, at the tender age of six, read fairly well, the Bible was a bit beyond his ken.

However, shortly after Bingley’s death, he had come to Elizabeth wanting to know his father’s favourite book.

Charles Bingley had never met a book he could not ignore, and Elizabeth, uncertain what to say, had hefted the large family Bible, pointing out his name—Thomas Charles Bingley—written under births recorded within it, and told him of the day that his papa had proudly, carefully recorded the births of his son and daughter therein.

Since then, ‘Papa’s Bible’ had become Tommy’s book of choice; there was nothing inherently wrong with that, of course.

It was just that the boy still searched so desperately for a connexion with the man who had, for the most part, ignored his son while he was alive, and then died too young, well before Tommy was old enough to be more than a baby in the mind of his father.

Elizabeth’s own grief was great, but not so overwhelming as it might once have been; in truth, she had been losing Jane, gradually, since shortly after her sister’s difficult recovery from the birth of her twins.

Jane, desperate to regain and retain the attentions of her flighty, irresponsible husband, had, in the last four or five years of her life, spent far more time in London than at Netherfield.

She loved her children, of course, and sent letters to them frequently.

But infants and toddlers do not thrive upon such distant forms of communication, and it had fallen to Elizabeth to ensure the children had a robust family life, and were not left to the servants to raise.

Mrs Bennet criticised her second-eldest daughter endlessly for this decision, frequently suggesting people in the village with whom the children might be left so that Elizabeth could join her sister and brother-in-law in town and find herself a husband.

Elizabeth would not hear of it, no matter how kindly meant.

She loved those children so deeply, she could not imagine leaving them—and of course it gave Jane great comfort to know they were well cared for.

At the same time, Jane could not seem to appreciate what her sister’s sacrifice entailed, for when she did come home for brief periods, she had resented that the children were far more comfortable with Elizabeth than with herself.

Though they both had tried not to show it, the relationship between the sisters had grown ever more distant.

To the children, Jane had been a beauteous, golden queen who flitted in and out of their lives at irregular moments; she was ‘Mama’ and Elizabeth was not, but her loss, although tragic, made very little difference to their daily routines.

Bingley had accompanied Jane to Netherfield even less often; when he was there, he would visit the nursery, greet his children enthusiastically, and then be off calling on neighbours or riding some new mount or shooting—but seldom remaining in the country long enough for the twins to really know him at all.

Tommy, always uncomfortable with strangers, had cried, usually, if his father tried to pick him up or otherwise engage with him.

It was not until after Bingley’s death that the boy seemed to wish so earnestly for him. Still, the paternal neglect had been even more difficult for Cassandra, who, like her mother, had wished for nothing more than his attention and sought it eagerly—usually to little avail.

“Auntie, can we visit Great-aunt Philips today? She always has such delicious biscuits.”

“I will probably not go into Meryton until next week, perhaps when Grandpapa next goes out.” The walk was just a bit farther than was comfortable for the twins.

She had a wagon to pull them, but the unrelenting rain of the last week would have made a muck of the road.

It would be best to wait until Mr Bennet had business in the town and took the carriage, which was seldom enough; since her daughter’s death, Mrs Bennet had not gone at all.

Cassandra pouted at this refusal, but soon found another topic.

“Maribel Long wore a new dress to church on Sunday. She told me she was sorry for me, that I had to wear something so old and faded.” Cassandra looked up at her aunt speculatively, to see whether this insult had provoked the appropriate outrage.

It had, if only Cassandra knew it, but Elizabeth kept her tone even in reply. “Your dress is not at all faded, if not quite new.”

“I hate wearing ugly ol’ black.”

“I do too,” Elizabeth replied, and made a decision.

“I think it is time that we discard it. Your mama and your papa would not want us to be dark and gloomy for a whole year, I do not think.” In fact, it would have been perfectly appropriate for the children to have shed them a month ago, and as for herself, much longer than that; it was only that they had grown so much lately, their former clothing no longer fit, and she had been hoping to hear from her uncle some better news, financially, before purchasing them new wardrobes.

If Cassandra had to wear the blacks she hated, Elizabeth did not feel right about donning her own colours.

The familiar anger at her dead brother-in-law simmered.

Bingley had wasted his fortune, in gambling and risky investments and overspending.

He had never purchased the estate that his father had meant for him to buy, and had seldom provided the necessary investments for the one he had leased to prosper.

Uncle Gardiner had, in fact, negotiated them out of its remainder, so that they would not have to try to limp along until Michaelmas.

They now lived in Longbourn’s ‘dower house’—really more of a dower cottage.

At first, it had seemed an ideal solution: Elizabeth would be able to live in a home of her own, with a few servants—it had come with the older couple who were its caretakers—conserving what was left of the children’s fortune.

Several months later, however, she was re-evaluating the decision.

The children, in truth, had even less than she had understood in the beginning, after the payment of Bingley’s debts.

What was more, she suspected her uncle of paying out of his own pocket or at least supplementing what little they had.

She knew she ought to confront him with his largesse and insist that they remove to Longbourn, and yet, concern for the children had silenced her, at least at present.

They had been uprooted from their home once this year, already.

The sole entertainment at Longbourn these days was listening to Mrs Bennet mourn, from the bed she seldom left, the loss of Netherfield and Jane—in about that order.

This, along with hearing her father’s ideas for the children’s future, was unappealing in the extreme; she counted upon his general indolence to prevent them from coming to fruition.

Once returned to Longbourn, she would surrender all authority over the children; she loved her parents but would resist allowing them that power.

Reluctantly, she remained, but guilt and worry resided here with her as well.

“I think we could remake my red-spotted muslin into a dress for you, if you like,” Elizabeth suggested.

Cassandra hopped up and down, clapping. “Oh, I would love it, Auntie, above all things! Thank you! Thank you!”

Elizabeth leant down and gave her niece a kiss. “Now, go to Bess and ready yourself for your day, and allow me to ready myself for mine.”

The children had a nurse of sorts—no longer the dignified Mrs Tilson, nor the full complement of under-nurses and nurserymaids, but Bess was a jolly girl of good character who had eight younger siblings and was well able to manage the two Bingley children.

Elizabeth did her best to instil proper behaviour, speech, and even such lessons as were appropriate for children of a tender age.

I did not have a governess, and I managed , she reassured her pained reflection in the looking glass. Besides, they are still very young .

The problem was that as they grew, so too would their needs and expenses. This peaceful little home she had created was a temporary solution only. She shivered in the chilly room as she dressed—she did without fires in this chamber unless she could see her breath.

“Mistress,” Mrs Sergeant interrupted Elizabeth’s ablutions in her usual stern tones. “You have a caller.”

Mrs Sergeant and her husband, known only as Sergeant—whether it was an appellation or a former military rank, no one knew—were the cottage’s caretakers, and for a very small additional sum, ‘did’ for them.

They were no longer young and not quite elderly, and neither were they…

typical. They performed such duties as they determined were necessary, and had decided opinions upon what those duties might be and how they ought to be performed.

One did not, precisely, give them orders.

Still, they were hardworking, respectable, diligent… and very importantly, affordable.

“Me? Truly?” Everyone knew that Elizabeth did not entertain callers.

She was hardly a hermit; Longbourn was close enough, and if any gatherings were undertaken, that is where they convened.

The cottage’s cook did not even live in, but was a married niece of Mrs Hill who came daily to prepare meals, except Sundays, when they took them at Longbourn.

Elizabeth had no companion, unless one counted Mrs Sergeant, and one most certainly did not.

Mrs Sergeant plunked a card on the dressing table in reply. With cold fingers, Elizabeth picked it up and read the name inscribed thereon:

Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy .