Page 15 of Friendship and Forgiveness (Mr. Underwood’s Elizabeth & Darcy Stories #7)

In the week between Christmas and Sylvester, Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley were united in holy matrimony.

A light dusting of snow covered the churchyard.

Enough white to give the day a wintry charm, but not to make every step a trudge through deep drifts.

After the ceremony Bingley and Jane took the new carriage back to Longbourn for the wedding breakfast. It was a large well sprung vehicle with wheels that were almost as tall as Elizabeth and that had been burnished till they glowed. A fine liveried carriageman perched to the front drove it. Bingley had purchased the vehicle especially for the wedding.

Elizabeth went with the larger band of onlookers back from the parish on foot.

She soon arrived back at her home — year after year Longbourn seemed more truly her home than her memories of the big house next to a channel and near their mills in Manchester. The school had never felt like home .

And now Jane was leaving, and she had lost Caroline.

At least she still had Papa.

Longbourn was a fine red brick building, tall, with lines of windows looking out in each direction. There was a big extension on the south side that Papa had built to make a larger library. The oak door at front was framed by two marble posts. Thick lines of smoke rose happily from all the chimneys. The air was crisp, but there was no breeze.

The merry band of well wishers pressed their way into her house, and there were enough of them to fill the place up to bursting.

Jane had been lovelier this morning than Elizabeth had ever seen her, the blond hair hanging in curls around her face, wrapped in a fine yellow silk dress that had been made specially for the occasion. Glowing red cheeks, besotted delight in blue eyes, and that graceful gaze, that longing, smiling, happy gaze as she’d looked into Charlie’s eyes.

Elizabeth hated that one of her emotions had been an intense pang of envy at her good luck and longing for the same happiness.

Charlie had been equally delighted and besotted as he admired his bride.

Elizabeth watched everyone go into Longbourn, and she pressed her blue kid gloves against her face.

Papa stepped out the door, and he called to her and she entered the house after him.

Elizabeth had heard no word from Caroline, placed as an unwanted jewel in the hoard of her dragon aunt Matilda. Perhaps this lack of a letter was because she would not forgive Elizabeth for her betrayal. Perhaps it was due to some delicate shame at her own actions. Or perhaps Matilda would not let her send a letter to anybody, even someone who had been so long a close connection as Elizabeth.

That would be very like the old woman.

No matter what the cause, her friend had not sent her a letter.

No accusation; no apology.

Not once in Elizabeth's life had she gone a full month without an exchange of conversation, in paper or person, with Caroline.

Her closest friend was missing, and her heart longed after her.

That evening, after Jane and Charlie had been feted, embraced by all, kissed by Mama a dozen dozen times, shaken hands with by Papa three times, toasted with speeches totaling almost an hour in duration, and sent off into that first, interesting and significant night of marital bliss, Elizabeth sat down at her little lady’s desk in the drawing room to write a letter to Caroline.

Maybe it wasn’t Caroline’s place to break this silence, and attempt to… converse again.

Elizabeth sat and scribbled out a very familiar, “Dearest Caroline”.

And then she got stuck.

A bit of nibbling on the end of the goose feather nub of her pen.

Why was this difficult? — Heavens! She’d refused an extremely eligible match for Caroline’s sake, from a man who had featured more in Elizabeth’s thoughts as the weeks passed, not less.

She had done no wrong!

Elizabeth had acted as God, society, and her conscience demanded. She had been a better friend to Caroline than Caroline had been to herself.

And so Elizabeth was off, angrily scribbling down every resentful thought that had roiled and nauseated in her brain for the last month:

What sort of relationship did you imagine you would have with Mr. Darcy? You fool! Fool! Fool! Fool! Even had your plot succeeded, Mr. Darcy would have despised you for the whole of your lives. That estate you admire, those walks, the admiration of your friends, the envy of the world — was that all you hoped for? Cold compensation for a husband who hotly hated you, and who would know how to make his despite known. You foolish creature, how could you not see that this would end in tears?

And Charles!

You ought to have known simply from the observation of his excellent character that Mr. Darcy was not such a man as could be managed with such low tricks. He would refuse. You meant to make Charles fight his dearest friend, you meant to force a man who had no fondness for you into a marriage — what possible consideration could have driven such stupidity ?

You betrayed your brother. You betrayed me. You betrayed Christianity itself! You betrayed… your own humanity. The gentility in your blood. Your breeding, your every friend, all who had an interest in your wellbeing.

YOU betrayed! You betrayed! Not I. Not I. Not I!

And did you not notice that Mr. Darcy preferred me? How did you not see that — now that I know his preference, it was clear that he looked at me, sought conversation with me, while he barely offered you tolerance. All that could be done to forward a match between the two of you was done by everyone, by me, by your sister — even by Charlie through inviting Darcy to stay in the same house as you.

And how did you repay our efforts?

With evil.

You repaid us with the most scandalous, disgusting behavior ever known outside of a novel or a newspaper. You destroyed Charlie’s friendship with Mr. Darcy — he has not once replied to a letter Charles sent him. And he declared he would have no further connection with the Bingley family. You did this!

Caroline Bingley, you did this!

And you hurt me— yes, Mr. Darcy admired me. But I was not seeking to have him for myself. I do not know for certain whether I even would have accepted him. You had declared him as your property, and I respected that. I never sought his attention, and every time he gave it to me, I encouraged him to shift his attention upon you. You saw this with your own eyes. And then you accused me in that way — as though I had stopped you from trying to entrap a good, honorable and decent man into marriage because I wanted to steal him from you.

He was never yours!!!!

Perhaps he could have been mine — you stole that chance of discovery from me.

I never was able to wonder, to try falling in love with him. Because you would not have forgiven me. You were determined to have things the way you wished them, and when that did not work… What was there left for me?

Nothing.

Damn you, Caroline. Damn you, damn you. Damn you!

And you now have the temerity to be silent, and make me reestablish the connection if we are to remain friends.

That is not right! You should damned write me first and apologize , damn you.

Elizabeth pushed the paper away and flexed her cramped hand. She gasped. Sweat had soaked the back of her dress.

So… it would appear that she was in fact a little angry at Caroline.

At least Elizabeth had profited from this writing exercise by becoming properly acquainted with a fact about herself that she had managed to keep from learning before.

Hurt hand, tight jaw, she felt exhausted and sweaty, even though the fire was on the far side of the room. Elizabeth sighed and leaned back in her decorative bronze and pink chair.

Only Papa was still in the drawing room, tired from the ceremony — and in Lydia’s case an argument with Papa attempting to convince him to let her come out now instead of making her go back to school after the holiday. Elizabeth’s sisters and mother had retired.

Elizabeth had been taught the same habits of propriety as Caroline and all the other girls in their seminary — she did not think she had ever in her whole life so much as thought , let alone written down damn .

As for speaking that word?

She had never considered doing so since the day that three of them had all been made to rinse their mouths with soap by Mrs. Castle, even though it had only been Lady Amelia who had used the word, while Elizabeth and Caroline giggled at hearing it spoken by a schoolmate.

Well.

Zounds, and dash it all. Take the deuce and to the devil with it.

Elizabeth carefully folded the sheet filled with her bile in half. And then in half again. And then she folded it once more.

She went to the fire, and deliberately tossed the sheet in, waited for it to catch flame, and then she stirred the ashes around with the poker until it was completely consumed.

“Wrote a note to dear Caroline did you?”

Elizabeth looked at Papa in surprise. “How do you know?”

He smiled. “I do not think you have any other correspondent that could make you mistreat paper and your desk with such thoroughness.”

Flopping onto the divan nearest Papa, she sighed and looked at him.

He looked back with his usual sardonic expression, setting his book aside. “Well?”

Elizabeth pulled at her hair.

Mr. Bennet added, “If you mean to complain about ‘why must matters be so involved and tangled’ or ‘why cannot all things be the way I wish they were’ or some similar nonsense, I will make you read a very good collection of sermons selected by Mary for possessing the peak, the very greatest promise of being improving.”

With a startled laugh, Elizabeth replied, “What if I ask, why can I not be a child again, or maybe fifteen? Would that be sufficient for such a fate?”

Mr. Bennet laughed. “That would condemn you to reading a work of natural philosophy on the nature of time. Maybe Aristotle’s physics. You will learn that time can only go forward.”

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time,” replied Elizabeth.

“Dour sentiment,” was Papa’s smiling reply to the quote.

“If you dislike the days going so fast let’s try this: Yon light is not daylight, I know it, I. It is some meteor that the sun exhales. To be to thee this night a torchbearer, And light thee on thy way to Mantua.”

Papa laughed. “Let me rather try: Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late school boys and sour prentices.”

With a flushed and half startled laugh Elizabeth replied, “Donne? Hardly a proper reading material for a schoolgirl.”

“And that is my actual response to why you cannot be a child, or fifteen once more: You would not like to be so young again, not near as much as you think you would.”

“I would like it if matters between Caroline and I were so simple as they were when we were both fifteen.”

“A warning, dear Lizzy.” Papa wagged his finger in her face. “Perilously close to begging for the world to become easier. Another such speech, and it shall be the Reverend Fordyce’s sermons for you!”

Elizabeth stuck her tongue out in reply. “See how much like a fifteen year old I am?”

“Like a five year old — at fifteen you had long since ceased such displays.”

“Ha, I do so like being a child.”

“While I, however, prefer you at your present age.”

“You do? — you often talk of how happy those days were when we were all children, and you’d have us sitting in the library to play while you read, drew your sketches, and wrote.”

Papa replied, “It’s a pity you never learned to draw better.”

“I’d learned it was a low practical craft.”

“As for that — it is useful. Hmmmmm. Those were happy days… not happier, since I am very happy now, but more… perfect in some way. I was stretching my abilities to their fullest extent. Success was not certain. I was surrounded by those who I loved. I worked daily with my dearest friend. Your mother was happy… she thrived under those circumstances of effort and privation, never complaining after she understood that our business scheme might work and gain security for all of us forever. And I was surrounded by my children. Young, in need of protection and play, smiling and dear… There is some… important deficiency in a child. What I mean is that now you are my equal. I still am the superior in experience, but that is not a difference of fundamental type. You are a rational creature, a creature capable of determining her own mind, making her own choices, and choosing her own companions — when you make mistakes, they shall be your mistakes. And you shall grow from them. Yes, I prefer you to be you , even though I do miss the sweet little child who loved to sit on my lap while I read to her.”

Elizabeth felt her throat choke with some emotion, and she took her father’s hand. “My dear Papa.”

“Did you note it? — I shed a few tears this morn in Longbourn chapel. I could never have been happier, nor more proud, to see Jane make such a match with a boy who I’ve loved since he was three.”

“I saw,” Elizabeth replied. “She never looked more beautiful than when she smiled at Bingley as he walked up the aisle to join her at the front of the room.”

“I suppose I now have my answer for you regarding the concern that prompted this whole line of conversation.”

“Oh? I confess I begin to forget where we started,” Elizabeth replied.

“You must decide. You must decide for yourself how you shall relate in the future to Caroline.”

“That is wholly unhelpful.” Elizabeth grinned at him. “For I knew that from the first.”

Papa smiled at her. He rose from his seat, ruffled her hair, and with a yawn excused himself to bed.

In the end Elizabeth wrote a simple letter to Caroline:

Dear Caroline,

I miss you.

Still your devoted friend,

E Bennet