Page 10 of Old Boots (Pride and Prejudice Variations #3)

CHAPTER TEN

I declined to dance any more sets and instead spoke briefly to Sir William Lucas before finally gratifying myself by finding a chair next to Mr Bennet, who was subdued and required nothing of me.

Two sets later, I was again waylaid by Sir William as I crossed the room, and upon hearing the last strains of the dance were about to be played, I excused myself and went directly behind Miss Elizabeth and took her arm.

She had just been speaking to Mr John Lucas, who moved away when I approached, and was somewhat startled to be so possessively handled.

“Calm yourself,” I said in a low voice. “I am only taking you for refreshments.”

“Upon whose permission do you do so, sir?” she asked coldly.

I chuckled and bent closer to her ear. “Your father’s. He is peckish and does not want to fight a crowd for his plate. I have secured him one of two tables in the alcove and he wishes for his daughters to join him.”

“Gracious, how gallant you are,” she said with an arch look, but I felt her relax and knew I had not truly annoyed her. I saw her sisters ahead of us and swept them up, steering the party towards a premium spot in the refreshment room that had cost me a shilling to secure.

Apparently, Meryton society had not learnt the general expectation that people should be allowed the dignity of eating without interruption.

. As we ate, people milled in front of us and engaged one occupant of the table or another.

At one time in my life, this would have annoyed me greatly.

But tonight, while Miss Bennet and Miss Mary were speaking for a prolonged period with Mrs Philips, and Mr Bennet was detained by the lady’s husband, I made use of their distraction to smirk at my table companion.

“I do hope you do not imply by that stupid look that I am to congratulate you, sir,” she said.

“What look is it that you object to?”

“The look often used by Bandit when he wants half my biscuit.”

“I see. And precisely what, may I ask, am I trying with this so-called stupid look to beg from you?”

“You want me to congratulate you for your show. ”

“What show, miss?” I asked, dripping with innocence.

“You know very well what show. I suspect you have never in your life stooped to notice any lady, leaning against a wall, thinking she wasted her money on dancing slippers.”

We spoke in lowered voices so as not to be overheard. “Much you would know about it. I would venture to guess you have never been without a partner unless you wished to be.”

“I would be forced to mutter touché’ were it not for the fact that my sister Mary and my friend Charlotte are so often overlooked as to cause me pain to see it.”

“And yet,” I said, “I do not detect the slightest approval from you for my efforts.”

“I had not thought you so dull-witted.”

“By all means, say what you wish to say,” I cheerfully replied, momentarily forgetting to lower my voice.

She answered in something like a vicious whisper. “I would have to be simple indeed to believe your motivation for leading out those particular ladies was purely charitable.”

“I do not know that I have ever been accused of being stupid for thinking someone was stupid,” I mused. “Did you indeed just do so?”

“Your hearing, at least, is acute,” she said sweetly.

I paused. In truth, I stopped to savour the tartness of our conversation that left the taste of sweetness in its wake.

In that moment before speaking again, however, I heard Mrs Philips ask Miss Bennet, “What news from Kitty and Lydia?”

Miss Bennet’s reply was drowned out by laughter from the next room, but her expression and that of her two sisters were clear. They looked slightly miserable at the mention of their siblings.

Miss Elizabeth must have noted my curiosity. Perhaps I frowned a little. There was some secret not yet revealed, and I puzzled over it.

“Will you call at Longbourn tomorrow, Mr Darcy?” she asked.

“I had planned to, unless you think my arrival would be a nuisance after a late night.”

“By all means come, sir. If the weather is fine, we can walk farther than we normally do and wear out that horrid animal.”

An assignation! My own horrid animal, the red one in my chest, bounded and capered in anticipation. Stay, I told it briskly. She has suggested a walk, not a tryst. We will probably have the entire village strolling after us.

We did not. I had gone perhaps too early to be polite the next day, but Miss Elizabeth was alone at the door with Bandit on a lead.

“Papa,” she called softly into the book-room after receiving me. “I am going with Mr Darcy and Bandit up to Oakham Mount.”

I started out with pleasantries. What time had they left the ball, and had they enjoyed themselves being out in society after such a period of quiet?

Miss Elizabeth’s answers were slightly impatient.

She did not need that sort of preamble, and since it is not natural to me, my attempts at light conversation soon dwindled into silence.

I decided to wait to be told whatever it was that she intended to tell me.

Fifteen or perhaps even twenty minutes ticked by in a glacial progression. It was a long time to endure a terse silence. More than a half-dozen times I nearly burst out with a remark about the clouds or a suggestion we cross the road—anything other than sitting on a proverbial chair of nails.

“I suppose you are wondering about my youngest sisters,” Miss Elizabeth said at last. Her voice was raw, so little did she like having to speak to me of the subject.

“By no means should you tell me anything about them if you do not wish it. Perhaps I should tell you that I have a sister I have never mentioned?”

Her head whipped around, and she scoured my face with her eyes. I did not force her to press me for more information.

“I became her guardian when she was just eleven years old. I was only two-and-twenty and ill-equipped to parent a grieving child. And too, I was utterly overwhelmed by my circumstances. My father’s estate is large, his holdings complex and varied, and his fortune, though healthy, is like every other fortune. ”

She cleared her throat. “How so, sir?”

“It is constantly under siege. And it is constantly on the verge of draining away, or dwindling, or being wrestled out of my control.”

“I had not thought?—”

“No, nor had I. But a rich man may as well have a target on his back,” The memories of having learnt this hard truth pressed in upon me and rather than indulge them, I spoke with light disinterest. “Forgive me. I did not mean to make it sound as though you should pity me.”

“Then you shall pardon me if I do not,” she said drily. “And your sister? How old is she now?”

“Georgiana is sixteen.”

“You did not bring her to Hertfordshire?”

“You have met Mr Bingley’s sisters.” I glanced at Miss Elizabeth in full expectation she would understand me, and by the wry twist of her smile, I knew she had.

“Our aunt is a coveted acquaintance in society, and they long to be on her list of invitations. Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst are relentless in their attentions to my sister, and she finds it trying. But had I known I would meet you and your obliging sisters, perhaps I would have brought her.”

“What purpose could you possibly have for resorting to the butter boat? We have nothing to offer to justify such pretty sentiments.”

I bit back what I longed to say, which was even prettier and more sentimental, and said instead, “You are mistaken. You do have something to offer. My sister had a crushing experience when she was fifteen, and she is also painfully shy. I have hired a lady to serve as a companion for her, but I would like to see her surrounded by friends of her own age and disposition.”

“And we would serve, would we? No, do not answer that. I am being uncommonly provoking just now.”

“Are you? I had not noticed any difference in how you are behaving now as opposed to any other time you swipe at me.”

She smiled just a little and sank into silence. I wondered if Miss Elizabeth’s confidences had come to an end when she stooped to attend to Bandit’s paw after he stepped on a blackberry cane and pretended great interest in the bare branches of a hawthorn bush.

Eventually, however, and with a sigh of resolution she said, “My sister Lydia was also young when she embroiled herself in a wild escapade. She nearly eloped with a handsome, practiced card sharp who was, we now believe, running from his debtors. He would have certainly forced my father to pay a ransom for my sister’s recovery, and she would have come back to us ruined and unmarried.

A common story, I am afraid. Were it not for a headache that plagued me that night and kept me awake, I would not have heard Lydia’s attempt to leave the house, and she would have sunk my family in a most ruinous scandal. ”

“How did she meet such a rake?”

“Easily enough. He cut a liberal swath through our little society, claiming to be cousin to Mr King, who was conveniently away in Bath.”

“Your sister was young. Perhaps she was insensible of the danger.”

“That might be a suitable excuse for any other girl of that age, but it does not serve for mine. Lydia is wild to a fault, Mr Darcy. Wilful and flirtatious, and at that time, determined to be the first of my sisters to marry.”

“Why would she wish that?”

Miss Elizabeth heaved a weary sigh. “We must now speak of my mother, sir. My father married a pretty lady with lower connexions than he might have looked for had he not been blinded by her beautiful face. In her defence, my mother might have turned out better had she produced a boy child. Instead, she gave Papa only girls. And since the estate is entailed to someone we do not know, and because she was much younger than my father, my mother became frantic as the years passed that my father would predecease her. Her worst fears were that she would be left destitute, and her daughters would be sunk in humiliating spinsterhood. Her first thought in the morning and last thought at night was to see us married, and if she could, to see us married well.”

I kept silent, thinking her mother’s aspirations should not have been too difficult to fulfil. There were respectable men everywhere just bumping the ceiling of their station in life who wished for a gentleman’s daughter to elevate their status.

“We had no dowries,” she explained, and I wondered whether she could read my mind.

But still, they were the handsome daughters of a landed gentleman. Their prospects were far from hopeless.

“If you must have it, sir,” she said grimly, and then I knew for certain she could hear the thoughts in my head, “my mother was sister to Mrs Philips. She was just as loud as that lady and sometimes shockingly overt in her matrimonial aspirations for us. She was, in fact, quite vulgar about it. She could not see her attempts at matchmaking were off putting. More than one eligible gentleman ran from us, and I blushed to be pushed in front of one man after the other, suitable or not. I suppose sheer mortification caused me to counter her efforts by refusing to be demure.”

“So that is where you sharpened your claws, is it? On the hides of your poor suitors?”

“Consistently. But I digress. Lydia was caught. My second-youngest sister, Kitty, who is malleable and fretful, was discovered to be her accomplice. For the first time in his life, my father was shocked and remorseful. He was, you see, a hardened cynic by then, having lived with my mother’s hysteria and unable to respect her at all. ”

“And he sent them to school?”

“No, no. That would have been too simple. How can I explain such a stupid chain of events?”

“You need not.”

“But I wish you to know, sir. You would understand us better, I hope.” I walked along in anticipation of her explanation while she searched the sky as if for a reprieve from her confession.

At last, she glanced apologetically at me and said, “My father turned his self-disgust against my mother. He became even more cold and critical of her. He berated her intelligence, even in company, and he made a point of countermanding her every edict. She became fretful, weepy, and eventually took to her bed. I suppose she sought sympathy or respite from his disgust, but this ploy only earned her more displeasure. All of us, even Jane, regularly spoke to her bracingly, sternly, or even provokingly in an attempt to shake her from her ridiculous notion that she was ill.”

“And then she died.”

“Yes! And a more shocking day I cannot describe because none of us believed she was sick at all.”

“Of what cause did she die, may I ask?”

“Does it matter? In fact, she had a tumour, but that absolves us of nothing.”

“And yet you still believe she willed herself to die?”

“Had she not weakened herself so severely with such tortured thoughts and feelings, I wonder whether she would have fallen prey to her disease.”

“You resent her for having died?” I gently suggested after a long, respectful pause.

“I certainly resent my treatment of her, my lack of sympathy, and my failure to care for her when she suffered. As do we all. You have seen my father. He is humbled. He has become a very old man before our eyes. I abhor how this has changed him. He staggers under the guilt of believing he should have been kinder to her, that he, in fact, killed her with cruelty. We hold him blameless. We share his guilt, for as I have confessed, we were not always patient with our mother and found her complaints exasperating. Yet, no matter how much we absolve him, he cannot forgive himself.” She swallowed and looked downcast, before murmuring, “And look what all this has done to Jane.”