Page 5 of Friendship and Forgiveness (Mr. Underwood’s Elizabeth & Darcy Stories #7)
One day about a week later, Elizabeth received a letter from Caroline that had been hurried over by one of the Netherfield footmen:
My Dearest Eliza,
I had the shock of my month this morning when I found that Mr. Darcy’s cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, had joined our party overnight. I half jumped out of my skin when I came down in the morning to find him and Darcy already lingering over their coffee, even though it was only eight, and breakfast had not properly been served.
He is to remain for some unspecified duration. Charles had invited him to freely join us any time he wished. Is that not very like Charles? To invite everyone, without consulting the comfort of anyone else in doing so.
Colonel Fitzwilliam has been assigned to — or assigned himself to — some duty involving the training of the militia quartered in Meryton. I cannot help but think that his chief aim is to merely be hosted in a fine estate without the annoyance of dealing with his father, the earl.
I, beyond any doubt, am delighted by a happenstance that might provide pleasure to Mr. Darcy, but for my own part I consider it likely that he will make the company too crowded.
In the first proof of this supposition, my brother and the gentlemen are to dine with the officers, and they have taken the carriage. My suspicion is that we shall not see them till quite late in the evening.
If you and Jane are not so compassionate as to dine today with Louisa and me, we shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives, for a whole day’s tête-à-tête between two sisters can never end without a quarrel. Come as soon as you can on the receipt of this.—Yours ever,
C Bingley
Upon reading this note, Elizabeth immediately handed it to Jane, remarking to the table, “The gentlemen have been so gauche as to leave Caroline and Louisa alone — without the carriage.”
“Shocking,” Mr. Bennet laughed. “Out to dine? Gentlemen dining with other gentlemen — where shall it end?”
“With noise, drink, smoke and billiards no doubt — apparently Mr. Darcy’s cousin has joined them. The son of the earl,” Elizabeth replied. “The fear though is what will happen with the ladies in their absence.”
Mr. Bennet grinned across the table at Mrs. Bennet. “Another eligible gentleman in the neighborhood. I told you we have no need to go to London.”
“Oh, Lord! That does not signify at all.” Mrs. Bennet said placidly, “I could always convince you to take me up to town, if I really wanted to go.”
“At this rate,” Mr. Bennet replied, “there will soon be twenty such eligible gentlemen.”
“It would be a great burden on you, if you were forced to visit them all,” Mrs. Bennet replied unperturbedly. “But it does not signify for us as my excellent husband has ensured that none of my daughters need worry about how well she shall marry.”
And Mrs. Bennet gave her husband one of those glowing looks of approbation, the acquisition of which had likely been Mr. Bennet’s aim in teasing her so.
“It was all for the purpose of advancing the progress of the sciences, arts and manufactures of England,” Mr. Bennet said with some satisfaction.
His lady replied, “Just so dear. Pass me the butter would you?”
Jane put down the note, and said, “We are to go over to see Louisa and Caroline.”
Mrs. Bennet stood from the table and walked over to the window, and with a frown replied, “Seems like to rain. You must take the carriage.”
Joining her by the window, Mr. Bennet put his arm around his wife, and said, “Don’t you think it would be better if we send them by horse — then if it does rain they will be trapped there until the gentlemen return. Three eligible fellows — two if we admit that we know Charlie too well to be impressed by his fortune. One of them is the son of the earl. The earl, note you. Not an earl. But the earl.”
Elizabeth laughed at her father. “I am not certain that was actually Caro’s phrasing.” She held out her hand to Jane to take back the note.
With a laugh Mr. Bennet said, “Now, now, Lizzy — since your mother will not do the duty of a woman desperate to marry off her daughters, I must take the part. Do you not wish to marry the son of the earl?”
“It was how Caroline wrote it.” Elizabeth said with a laugh. “ The earl. Apparently the rest have left the kingdom — but I believe from something I heard once that he is the second son, the one who went into the army.”
“Oh.” Mr. Bennet airily waved his hand. “Nothing about it then, of course you do not want to marry him in that circumstance. Only the heir will do for you . You may have the horses for the carriage then — though they will be dearly needed at the farm.”
“Are you certain, Papa?” Elizabeth replied. “You have five daughters, surely one can be wasted upon the second son of the earl? — if the horses are so badly needed today, that is.”
“Of course you will go by carriage,” Mrs. Bennet said, clucking her tongue. “If you were caught in the rain you or Jane might catch a cold — though it would be Jane. With your constitution I never worry about you .”
“I would not,” Jane replied laughing. “I do not get sick any more often than Lizzy does.”
Twenty minutes later, the carriage had been hitched and brought around. Elizabeth and Jane sat opposite in the amply sized, well sprung vehicle. Papa had made the purchase a few years before when he returned to Hertfordshire after he sold out his interest along with managing the sale of Charlie's portion in their manufactory after Uncle Bingley died.
This visit was very much in a way Elizabeth visiting Caroline and Jane visiting Louisa.
While Elizabeth and Caroline were the same age — Caroline had been born only four months before Elizabeth — there was a gap of five years in age between Louisa and Caroline.
When they had grown up together, Jane and Louisa were the closest of friends, like Caroline and Elizabeth were, while Charlie served to be the happy bridge between both groups of girls, dragging them into scrapes, messes, muddy ponds, and games of sardines.
He had the most charming way of managing their parents of all of them, and it was a consistent fact that when Charlie was the one making their excuses for ruined dresses and annoyed neighbors that the punishment was milder.
Mrs. Bennet’s wisdom in ordering them to take the carriage was proven when they had not been on the road a full five minutes before the threatening gray sky proved that its threats were not idle, and that its soaking bite was worse than its tin-colored cloudy bark.
Jane looked out the window of the carriage and pressed her hand against her head. “I confess that I am happy that I need not ride in that weather. I have a slight headache today.”
Upon arrival, they rushed into the entry hall. The footmen held big round umbrellas over them as they ran, and as soon as they reached the safety of the house, all the girls embraced each other.
“I’d have had some anxiety for you both when this rain began,” Caroline said to Elizabeth with a laugh, “if I had not known that you’d use the slightest touch of clouds as an excuse to take the carriage rather than riding.”
“My wisdom is boundless,” Elizabeth replied, grinning. She had been made to learn to ride, and ride well, but she never preferred the exercise.
“And yet, I did not mean to compliment, but rather to censure,” Caroline said. “A decision must be judged by its quality, not by its outcome.”
The four of them went to the drawing room, and happily engaged in general conversation about general subjects for half an hour. Louisa pronounced her opinion on their new visitor, Colonel Fitzwilliam, that he was a very officerly man, and that she did not mind at all what friends of Charles and Mr. Darcy joined them.
From Caroline’s sour expression, it was clear that Louisa meant to distinguish herself from her sister, who had such an objection.
Before Elizabeth could pursue further her curiosity about Colonel Fitzwilliam, a son of the earl, Jane began to appear very pale and ill.
At the expressions of concern from the others she confessed herself to not feel wholly well, and then she soon admitted a headache with more than usual severity. They all encouraged her to lie down and drink some tea. The tea, more than the lying down, had a salutary effect on Jane, and gave her the strength to follow her disclosures of weakness with the avowal of a sore throat. Close upon this came the final revelation when Louisa placed a comforting hand on Jane’s forehead. “Oh dear! Darling Janey, you are quite fevered.”
Elizabeth worriedly pressed her own hand on Jane’s forehead, and was relieved to find that while her sister certainly was feverish, she was not burning up with heat.
The offer of a bed was immediately made to Jane, and it was easy to convince her to attempt to rest. The other three remained in Jane’s bedroom and spoke to each other quietly, to ensure that the invalid would have anything she wished, until the time became advanced, heading towards when Elizabeth and Jane would have otherwise left.
Elizabeth and Caroline stepped out and returned to the drawing room, and Elizabeth said slowly to her friend, “Perhaps we ought to leave presently since—”
“No, no. We cannot send dear Jane home — not until she feels better by far. And you must stay with her too.”
Elizabeth smiled and took Caroline’s hand. This had in fact been what she had hoped Caroline would say. “Thank you.”
With a smile Caroline added, “It will be so very like it always was — we must play cards and maybe sardines or blind man’s bluff.”
Elizabeth laughed. “I am not sure that we could make up a sufficient number for a good game of either without Jane, and—”
“Well yes, we must see Jane better first . But promise that you will be in no great hurry to leave after Jane has recovered.”
“Now that really would be like it always was,” replied Elizabeth, her eyes smiling. “All four of us — five including Charlie — in one house.”
Caroline lowered her voice, “I have an additional incentive for being happy that you are to be here. Mr. Darcy’s cousin did not just come for the morning — he is to stay here for the next few weeks, and—”
“No, no! I’ll not marry him just to encourage Mr. Darcy in his marital ambitions.”
Caroline laughed. “Lord! No! I would not push him upon you, not even if it would aid me. He is quite horrid.”
“This is the son of the earl?”
With a flush, Caroline waved her hands. “Not every well-bred man is well bred.”
“I must disagree, the statement is tautologically correct.”
Caroline frowned at her, hands on her hips. “Eliza! You always insist that a word can contain multiple meanings, not I.”
Grinning, Elizabeth raised her hands. “A score, a veritable hit. A proper round of grapeshot — but what then do you hope me to do with this Colonel Fitzwilliam?”
“Distract him! For God’s sake, carry on about him. Flirt with him — convince him to find a new object of his empty gallantry. The whole time we were at breakfast he hung about me, talking and talking. I could not stand it — not while Mr. Darcy watched us. What if Mr. Darcy gains the notion that his cousin has a serious interest in me? Can you imagine?”
“You hope for me to make a pretense of interest in this horrid colonel?”
“Just a little — I know his sort. He is a second son, and if he is to marry at all, he must marry well. Any woman with a dowry of at least twenty thousand will do. But even with that much, and his salary as a colonel — hardly enough together to support a wife in proper style. Hardly enough.”
“Ah, and is that the chief element of his horridness? He hopes to marry without sufficient money set aside for the task?”
“Of course not. I would be quite the snob if I disliked every man who hoped to marry better than his desserts — he is horrid because he refuses to… oh, I can hardly describe it. You shall see when you meet him.”
It was as though the words summoned forth this devil.
With a clatter dampened by the mud and ongoing rain, the carriage returned, and with a cavalcade of footsteps and a gust of cold air the gentlemen entered the drawing room. Mr. Darcy led with his long stride, followed by Charlie and Caroline’s hated Colonel Fitzwilliam.
Elizabeth only had the opportunity for a brief first impression of him, middling height, not particularly handsome, a widows peak advancing into his hair, but his fine red coat hid wide shoulders, and the legs showed off by his white buckskins were muscular and thick. There was a peculiarly intent way that he looked over the room, as he entered, scanning every corner before he turned to smile with a pointed smirk at Caroline.
Elizabeth’s observation was interrupted by Mr. Darcy bowing to her. “Miss Elizabeth, I had not anticipated the pleasure of seeing you here today.”
His eyes.
What dark and intent eyes. Elizabeth’s color rose as she curtseyed to him. “Our intention had been to leave earlier.”
“I am sorry to hear it.”
“Oh, Charles,” Caroline exclaimed, but it was clear to Elizabeth that she was principally speaking towards Mr. Darcy. “Our poor Jane is sick with the flu! She fell ill during her visit. She insisted that she was well enough to take the carriage back to Longbourn, but I told her that was nonsense, and not to be borne! She must not think of moving, not at all until she is better. I’d do anything to care for her!”
Elizabeth did not provide permission to herself to smile.
She really was grateful to Caroline, and she knew that Caroline’s affection for Jane was as authentic as Elizabeth’s own affection for Charlie or Louisa. But her friend also hoped to appear all that was kind, accommodating, caring, and desirable in a woman before the object of her affections.
Charlie exclaimed with real concern, “Jane is here! And sick? Has the apothecary been called? How does she go on?” He looked up towards the ceiling, as though he could see through the fine wood paneling to the bedrooms above. “And in what room have you placed her? Is it warm enough — Mr. Morris told me that there is a hint of a draft in the west wing when I took the estate.”
“Calm, Charles.” Rolling her eyes affectionately, Caroline patted his shoulder. “She is in the east wing, the room is very comfortable, and with no draft, and Jane is resting. A maid is there with her to ensure the fire is kept up, and to bring her anything she needs. Don’t fret.”
Charlie actually wrung his hands together.
That wasn’t an invention of fever-brained novelists? Elizabeth had thought that no one in the harsh light of reality did that. Or at least, that it would only be women who would do so.
Colonel Fitzwilliam said to Caroline with a fine baritone, “Excellent display! You show every sort of caring for this friend. I admire a caring woman excessively.” Something in Colonel Fitzwilliam’s voice made that statement into a joke. “Now do tell: This Jane, is she particularly pretty?”
Caroline’s cheek twitched as she stared back at Colonel Fitzwilliam. Charlie also glared at Colonel Fitzwilliam, almost as though he was jealous of a man asking after Jane.
“A foolish question. Forget that I was ever so silly as to ask,” Colonel Fitzwilliam added, with a laughing look around the room. “Any girl taken sick is always pretty. But introduce me to your friend.”
“Oh, certainly,” Caroline said with considerably more enthusiasm. She looked at Elizabeth with that speaking look that desperately begged: Keep him from talking to me . “Eliza, Colonel Fitzwilliam, the son of the Earl of Matlock. Colonel Fitzwilliam, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, the daughter of Mr. Bennet of Longbourn.”
“One of the famed Bennet sisters!” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied enthusiastically. “I had been given the impression that each of you were fine looking women, but now I perceive that report has failed reality.”
“And she also has a dowry of twenty thousand pounds,” Caroline added in a biting voice.
Colonel Fitzwilliam grabbed Miss Bingley’s hand and squeezed it. “My dear creature! To hear such information delights me. I am so rarely surrounded by such bounteous bounties of female fortune. I am a simple soldier, who is used to being surrounded by women who are only bounteous.” He smirked in a manner that made the comment wholly lewd, and yet failed to — quite — cross the bounds of propriety.
Elizabeth giggled, unable to stop herself.
Darcy said, “Really, Richard? We are amongst ladies, not your—”
“Soldiery companions? Simple man! Simple man! You know me to be a simple man! — but Miss Elizabeth, I apologize for not falling prone immediately before the charms of your person and fortune.”
“That presents no difficulty,” Elizabeth replied, amused despite herself, though she now began to understand why he annoyed Caroline so much. “I am no demanding mistress, you have at least another three minutes to fall prone before me — though delay beyond that, and I may despise you forever.”
“Well then…” He studied at the rug, as though he were seriously considering sprawling on the ground to continue the joke.
“But Jane,” Bingley exclaimed. “Are you certain that she will be well? Poor girl! How can we have fun here, and speak so jocularly while she is ill. Would it not be better to immediately call a physician from London, just in case — I would far prefer to have wasted the fee than to have done less than everything for her.”
Caroline and Elizabeth exchanged a look.
But Darcy spoke first, “Bingley, the ladies have observed her already, and they are sensible persons with excellent judgement. If they think there is no purpose to calling a London physician, nor any reason for concern, then there is not. You will merely serve to make yourself and the others anxious if you insist in such a way.”
Charlie sighed, and he rubbed his face. “I shall go look in on her, to ensure there is nothing else that might be done for her comfort.”
“Uh,” Elizabeth said, “You really ought not.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Charlie replied, ingenuously.
Catching Caroline’s eye, Elizabeth nodded in a way that told her friend that it was her duty to make the first attempt to explain to Mr. Bingley the propriety of the matter.
“Charles,” Caroline said, “Jane is an unmarried young woman who is not your relation. It would be wrong to go into her bedroom, even with a maid present, and—”
“Oh, nonsense! I’ve never heard of such stuffed humbug. This is Janey! We grew up together. I assure you we spent an infinity of time together as children. In private bedrooms and everywhere else. Now, I will go and ensure she is well.”
So saying he swiftly departed the room, ignoring Elizabeth’s sputtered attempt to catch his attention again.
Caroline laughed as she and Elizabeth hurried after Bingley to ensure that what little propriety that might be maintained would be. “In private bedrooms and everywhere else! I can hardly believe my brother is such an innocent as to say that.”
“Oh,” Elizabeth replied, “he thinks of Jane as a sister, that is all.”
“All? That is all?” Caroline replied as they bounded up the stairs following Charlie. “I begin to think Charles is not the only hopeless innocent.”
“Nonsense, and impossible. They could not possibly admire each other. We all are in essence siblings! Charlie admiring Jane? No.”
The two found Charlie in Jane’s room, with the flustered looking maid standing to the side, while Charlie possessed her vacated chair and Jane’s hand. He spoke to Jane quietly in a low and soothing voice while she looked back at him with bright and shining eyes. Her face was fever flushed, and the skin damp with sweat, but despite that Elizabeth thought there was a fair amount of happiness in Jane’s expression as she softly replied to what Charlie said.
If she had seen anyone but Charlie and Jane behaving in such a way, she would have suspected an attachment. But since it was Charles and Jane, that was obviously impossible.
Caroline and Elizabeth stood side by side, statues maintaining a respectable female presence in the room as the two talked. The whole thing was quite disgusting and boring, though Elizabeth was happy to see Jane happy.
“Oh! She is exceptionally pretty.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s voice sounded behind them from the doorway.
With a little jump, Caroline exclaimed, “Gah! You! Have you no sense of propriety?”
So saying she shoved the officer out of the room, physically pressing him out with her hands.
Colonel Fitzwilliam smirked as she did so. “No, none. Simple soldier. How many times must I explain?”
He did however allow himself to be pressed out.
Jane asked in a hoarse voice once Caroline closed the door behind her to keep Colonel Fitzwilliam away from the sick room. “Who was that?”
“Mr. Darcy’s cousin,” Elizabeth replied. “A most ridiculous man.”
Jane looked at Bingley again, and she said with glowing eyes, “I am always grateful to see you, but you both ought to go — my illness may be catching.”
Bingley softly smiled at her. “Janey, promise, if you need anything — anything whatsoever, I’ll get it for you.”
“If you must climb the alps and fight tigers even?” Jane replied with a warm smile. “But begone with you and let me sleep.”
Once they were in the hallway Bingley angrily sniffed, “Whatever was Colonel Fitzwilliam thinking? Looking into the bedroom of a sick, innocent, helpless lady — a perfect angelic creature. It is wrong, improper — do not believe his act. He is no simple soldier. That man always knows what he is about. I like him, but I cannot wholly approve of him.”
“Caroline has enjoined me to pester him as much as possible,” Elizabeth replied, hiding her smile about how Bingley complained about Colonel Fitzwilliam’s impropriety while ignoring his own. “So I shall punish him amply.”
Bingley nodded, glanced back at Jane’s door, then nodded again. “Good.”