Page 35 of Heiress of Longbourn (Pride and Prejudice Variations)

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Netherfield Hall

18 th March, 1812

Jane Bingley looked outside the window, enjoying the sight of blue skies and budding trees, and then, with a shake of her head, turned back to the desk and the plain piece of foolscap lying there. It was noon, and there were still many hours before she had to change for dinner, but she had quite a few tasks to complete after writing her sister, and thus she had best get on with it.

Dear Lizzy,

I have been praying for Lydia and those stricken with measles in Derbyshire. It is obviously a ghastly scourge, and I am thankful there have been no deaths in Kympton.

Charles and I are very happy, yes. I would not say this to anyone else but you, dear sister, but living at Netherfield has shown me how difficult Longbourn is at times. Of course I love all of my family, but Mamma is, as you know, anxious and fretful, and the younger girls are – or at least they were – incredibly noisy much of the time. Really, it was Lydia, and with Lydia in Kympton, Kitty and Mary are much closer friends, very much to the benefit of both. Kitty spends more time reading and little time talking about officers, and Mary has agreed to wear her hair in a less severe style and has even added a few ribbons and knots to her gowns.

I expect Mamma has told you about Mary’s suitor, Mr. Standish. He is a pleasant young man and an eligible gentleman. Curates, by all means, are paid very little, but he has a three hundred pound allowance from his father, who has a substantial estate in Sussex. I did not, of course, ask for those details, but Mr. Standish has already asked Father if he can call on Mary, and Father told Mother, and Mother told me. She is pleased at the possible match, though slightly fearful that Father is teasing her about the disposition of Longbourn, and that Mary might really be the heiress.

Really, as much as I love our mother, she is utterly ridiculous at times. Charles will always take care of her and our sisters, regardless of what happens in the future.

I ought not to criticize her, but she is exasperating at times

Charles and I are very well, thank you. Marriage has provided its share of surprises, and one of the biggest is how much Charles enjoys spending time with me. As long as I can remember, Father has avoided Mother for most of the day, far preferring to hide in his library than interact with his wife and, to a lesser degree, his daughters. Charles has responsibilities with the estate, and I am managing the household, but we spend most evenings together, talking or reading in perfect amity. It is in all ways delightful.

I am thankful that his sisters are elsewhere, too. Our hours would be far less pleasant if Caroline and Louisa were here ever complaining about this and that.

Well, I had best finish this letter as we are having a number of guests for dinner this week, and there is still planning to be done.

With much love,

Jane

P.S. I see, in re-reading this, that I have complained about a number of individuals. I know you understand my heart, but please do not allow Lydia to read this, as she might mention it someday to our parents, which would upset everyone.

Jane folded the letter and sealed it with wax, and then stood up just as the door opened to reveal her husband, dressed in riding attire, his handsome face flushed with cold and exertion.

“Charles,” she said with a smile. “I just finished writing a letter to Elizabeth and was planning to speak to Mrs. Nichols about next week’s dinners.”

“Can that wait until later?” he asked. “I find myself famished after a hard ride this morning and hoped we could enjoy a small nuncheon together.”

“I would enjoy that above all things,” Jane replied, smiling at her dear husband, thankful anew that Charles truly enjoyed spending time with her.

***

Brighton

In the past, George Wickham had relished a brisk ocean breeze during the balmy summer months at one seaside resort or another, where he would stroll the promenade and admire the prettiest ladies out and about. He had, like any sensible person, never sought the seaside in winter, when the breeze went from pleasantly cool to bone-bitingly chilly, and the dampness in the air clung to one and got into the lungs.

So, of course, it was to Brighton that Darcy and Fitzwilliam, in all their sly cruelty, had sent him. It was a benighted place for a regiment to be drilling, with soggy ground underfoot and leaden skies overhead and an iron-gray ocean near to hand. Another gust of wind slammed into Wickham’s back, ramrod straight and stiff as a bayonet, his eyes on the sullen clouds above as he stood at attention. His jaw clenched in discomfort, abused muscles complaining, and even the thick wool of his red coat was insufficient to keep him warm.

“Dismissed!” Colonel Mitford roared, and the men of Lord Lucas’s 34th Foot immediately dissolved into a maelstrom of relatively cheerful humanity. The drilling for the day was completed, and now it was time for the men to retreat to the comparative luxury of their tents or into the pubs, which eagerly welcomed the trade of the foot soldiers currently stationed in Brighton.

Despite the gnawing hunger in his stomach, Wickham turned his steps away from the brightly lit taverns and inns lining the streets and back towards the canvas tents huddled together like overgrown clusters of mushrooms. It was a measly sort of shelter, entirely inadequate to his tastes and needs, but it was the best he would get, and it was better to be alone inside grimy canvas walls than rubbing shoulders with the riffraff and commoners that made up the other soldiers. The commissary would serve for his dinner tonight, bland as it was. Far from sufficient for a man accustomed to dining on fine beef and fresh vegetables and hot buttered bread! But the rations were, at least, still plentiful. According to some of the seasoned soldiers, rations on the Continent were sometimes thin and far between when the troops were engaged in forced marches or battles. Mud for breakfast and marches for dinner, one grizzled man had said with a laugh.

The other soldiers swirled away towards the town, leaving Wickham alone, as he preferred. He had no wish to appear cheerful when his own mood was so low. Cheap tavern food and cheap ale held no appeal to him. Likewise, he had no wish to banter with yokels and uneducated workers. He thought longingly of his time in Meryton, when his red coat and officer’s commission, paired with his handsome face and person and natural amiability, had earned for him the admiration of the local ladies and the trust of the merchants who had extended credit to the militia officers. The only price to pay had been a handful of exercises on the village green in fair weather, with an admiring crowd gathering to watch. His current circumstances were a far cry from such memories, surrounded as he was with unwashed, smelly, lower-class men and mud and rain, forced to drill all day long with cold hands cracked and bleeding with the unaccustomed hardship and the chill.

For a wild moment, Wickham thought of Marshalsea. At least the prisoners there were inside, protected from the elements, not forced to slog through mud in interminable drills! Had it been foolishness to choose the army over mere debtors’ prison?

A minutes later, he shook this insanity away. No, he had heard tales of the horrors of a debtors’ prison. They were rank with vermin and disease and abuses of the wardens, the prisoners locked in tiny cells, freezing in the winter and broiling in the summer, forced to sleep on thin pallets of filthy straw. His circumstances in the army were miserable, but he was, at least, not locked within a cell.

Though his freedom was an illusion, Wickham reflected bitterly as he ducked through the flap of the tent. With sour relief, he noted that Williams, the rough, loud-voiced fellow who slept in the cot on the other side of the tent, was absent, likely drinking himself insensate at some lowbrow pub. Wickham sat on the side of his own cot, staring moodily into space. No, he had no freedom here. He was constrained by the unreasonable demands of the bad-tempered officers, who treated him with the same contempt as the rest of the privates, with no respect for his education or his gentlemanly habits. He was forced to rise at unnatural hours, to drill with rifle and bayonet, and to march with the rabble surrounding him.

In theory, he could flee. It would not be difficult to steal some money from his fellow soldiers, sufficient to get him to London, at least. It would be easy enough, once there, to disappear into the underbelly of that great city, losing himself in the seething mass of miserable humanity who were nameless and faceless to all the more gently bred people. But that, too, was no more than an impossible dream. He could not stay among the dregs and the criminals for long, and both Darcy and Fitzwilliam were terrifyingly determined in their persecution of him. He would never be free of the fear of them as he drifted from one place to another, making a living off of what? His looks alone? He would need at least a veneer of respectability for that.

He would have to avoid any soldiers, too. If he were caught, he would be labeled a deserter and hung. At best, he could hope for a flogging, but having seen one of those already, and the unfortunate soul thus punished, well, that was equally unthinkable.

It was a miserable conclusion, and it turned Wickham’s stomach as he reached it. But as unbearable as his life currently was, any other options would potentially be far, far worse. He was truly stuck in this nightmare.

***

Dining Room

Netherfield Hall

Dinner Time

All the spare leaves had been put into the Netherfield dining table to accommodate the numerous guests squeezed into the dining room. Mrs. Bennet gossiped happily with Lady Lucas and Mrs. Long, while Kitty, aided by the two Long sisters, made shy overtures to young Mrs. Harriet Forster, recently married to Colonel Forster. Charlotte Lucas conversed sedately with Mary Bennet, Maria Lucas batted her eyelashes at several red-coated officers, and Sir William spoke jovially about the weather with Colonel Forster, who divided his time equally between his dinner companions and his pretty new wife.

Jane looked up the length of her table in satisfaction and briefly caught her husband’s eye. He smiled at her adoringly before turning back to his conversation. Jane shifted her attention to the food. Portions were ample, and the food was skillfully prepared by the cook, all sourced from Meryton and its surrounding environs. The Bennets had dined with the Lucases many times, and Jane, after becoming mistress of her own home and speaking with her housekeeper and cook, had decided to opt for the thrifty Lady Lucas’s example rather than that of her own mother. A sensible woman, Lady Lucas set an eminently practical table, shorting no one even with a healthy appetite, but not sending for all the finest and most fashionable of foods from Town with no regard of the cost. Netherfield might garner a higher income than Longbourn, but Jane did not wish to become a spendthrift with her husband’s wealth.

At any rate, though Mrs. Bennet might later disapprove of the table her daughter set, no one eating dinner currently had any complaints. The guests were consuming their repast with gusto, and the mistress of Netherfield was satisfied.

When everyone had eaten their fill of rout cake for dessert, Jane stood up from her place at the foot of the table and led the other ladies out of the room, leaving the gentlemen to their wine.

Thanks to the diligence of the servants, the drawing room was already generously warmed by a roaring fire, and the ladies separated into small groups. Jane, after being certain that all of her guests were comfortable, made her way to Charlotte Lucas, who had taken a seat some distance from the fire.

“How are you this evening, Charlotte?” she asked, lowering herself into a chair across from her friend.

“I am very well. Thank you, Jane. How are Elizabeth and Lydia?”

Jane bent a thoughtful look at her friend. As far as she knew, it was generally accepted by the local families that Lydia had indeed run off with Alexander Wickham and duly married him, and this pregnancy was not in any way suspect. It would not surprise her if Charlotte, a sensible and intelligent young lady, suspected there was more to the story, but she also knew her friend to be kind and discreet, so there truly was no fear of any scandal spreading via Miss Lucas. Her mother, Lady Lucas, loved to gossip, though, so it behooved Jane to speak carefully in company.

“Elizabeth is very well,” Jane finally said, “and Lydia has a little more energy, though she is still somewhat ill.”

“I hope that her sickness will pass soon,” Charlotte said placidly. “Do you know if Elizabeth is planning to stay in Kympton for much longer?”

“I suspect she will,” Jane said. “Not only is she assisting Lydia, but she and our new brother, Alexander, are assisting the people of Kympton through a measles epidemic.”

“Mary mentioned the epidemic,” Charlotte said.

Jane wrinkled her brow. “Elizabeth has not written to you?”

“She wrote briefly a few days after arriving in Derbyshire, but not since then.”

“I am sorry,” Jane said awkwardly. “I am certain it is only because she is very busy.”

Charlotte smiled and said, “My dear Jane, I did not wish to make you feel badly. Elizabeth is, without a doubt, working very hard. I am aware that managing a household is a substantial amount of work, and with this epidemic, there are doubtless not enough hours in the day.”

Jane smiled back, relieved, and said, “That is true. I have, of course, been observing my mother’s oversight of Longbourn for many years, but it is different when the responsibility is all my own.”

“Jane, my dear,” a familiar voice said from her right.

Jane turned to find her mother standing a few feet away, with Lady Lucas at her side.

“Yes, Mother?”

“I was just speaking to Lady Lucas, and she agrees with me that you simply must replace the furniture in here. It is at least five years old and not at all of the latest style.”

Lady Lucas opened her mouth, obviously to protest, but Jane merely said, “Mamma, we spoke of this already. The estate has been neglected for some years, and we must use our excess funds to repair cottages and drain fields and fix fences.”

Mrs. Bennet huffed in exasperation. “I declare I do not understand you, Jane. That is Mr. Bingley’s concern, not yours, and you owe it to your position as Mrs. Bingley to have modern furniture. This chair you are sitting on, it is far too heavy and dark!”

Jane folded her hands and listened as her mother rambled on and was thankful when the door opened to reveal the gentlemen. As she rose to greet her husband, it occurred to her, not for the first time, that perhaps Netherfield was a trifle too close to her childhood home.