Page 18 of Old Boots (Pride and Prejudice Variations #3)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

W e went to Hertfordshire, the four of us snugly fitted in the coach.

Mr Bennet entertained us with a wry tale of having met his heir for the first time not six months ago.

The man must have been a caricature of the old gentleman’s imagination, since no one could possibly be so strange a combination of stupidity, false humility, and self-importance.

“Did you visit him?” I asked, recalling Miss Elizabeth’s claim they had never met the man. Did she even know her father had made his heir’s acquaintance?

“Having lately learnt of my wife’s fate, he came to Longbourn unexpectedly while my daughters were visiting Mrs Gardiner,” he explained.

I wondered whether this was when his youngest girls had been taken to school, since Mr Bennet looked momentarily grieved.

But he roused himself from his reflections and said, “He had the effrontery to appear at my doorstep to announce he came to pick a wife from among my girls.”

“He could not have!” Mrs Annesley cried with amusement in her voice. “You have said that only to make us laugh.”

“I am in earnest, madam. He did indeed offer to marry a daughter to lessen the sting of the entail.”

I reluctantly thought such an arrangement might have been for the best. “He did not succeed with the ladies?” I asked.

“He was never given the chance. I would rather see my daughters at the mercy of the parish than forced to live with such a fool.” Mr Bennet chuckled at the expressions of horror on the faces of the ladies sitting across from him.

“You do not believe me, but I am sincere. He was a stupid brute of a man, dressed as a parson, who bowed and scraped at anyone who even smelled of quality. I offered to have him horse-whipped off my estate if that would make leaving easier for him, but he left voluntarily, presumably to Kent.”

“No. Surely not!” I said, whipping my head around to stare at Mr Bennet. “Mr Collins is your cousin?”

“You have met him, have you? But this is wonderful! You can certify my account of him as fair, for even now, Mrs Annesley is looking at me with disbelief. ”

I shook my head in dismay. “He is in possession of the living held by my aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”

Mr Bennet again laughed aloud. “My cousin’s esteemed patroness is your relation, is she?”

I could not express any of my damning opinions of her. Instead I said, “You are right. He would never have done for your daughters, sir.”

My sister asked how Lady Catherine could have selected such a man for a living, and I replied, “You have only to think of our aunt to know that she would prefer someone she can dominate. To see them together is exquisitely painful, though I believe Mr Bennet would find such a farce the most entertaining thing he had witnessed in his life.”

My sister shuddered, Mr Bennet smiled to imagine it, and very soon we were at Longbourn.

I am loath to admit how fiercely my heart pounded upon my return to a place that was ever-present in my mind.

To cover my discomposure, I made a show of being glad to see Bandit and even unbent enough to ruffle his ears.

He answered with ear-piercing barks of joy, slobbered on my sister’s gloves, trampled Mrs Annesley’s shoes, and seeing the boy approach from the stables with a lead, he then made a game of running wildly down the drive, through a field, and into the spinney while being chased by half the household.

“Oh Bandit,” Miss Bennet sighed complacently. Miss Elizabeth went forward to my sister, took her and her companion into the house, and the rest followed. I spoke to Reese about the horses, begged my groom to aid in bringing the dog back home, and then I, too, went inside.

What I saw at the door to the parlour arrested me. There, sitting on a sofa between Miss Bennet and Miss Mary, with Miss Elizabeth on a chair close by, was Georgiana, beaming her joy.

I came quietly into the room and exchanged a look with Mrs Annesley. And though I was sure that lady would rather sit by the fire or be shown her room, she had the good grace to allow Mr Bennet to take her to his book-room to see the published journal of the notable naturalist, Sir Joseph Banks.

I turned back to the cluster of ladies on the sofa.

“But we are behaving very badly to harry you with our attentions,” Elizabeth said as she stood and offered her hand to my sister. “May I take you to your room? Your maid has been here this past hour, and I am sure she has put things just as you like them.”

Mary followed them up the stairs, leaving only Miss Bennet in the room .

“I hardly know my father, sir,” she said. “Is he indeed in such good spirits or is he making a show for us?”

“What you see is what he has shown to me since we left Hertfordshire, which is a rising interest in the world and an animation in his conversation. You were right that he only needed a change in scenery, but I am sorry to take him away from your family at the festive season. Would you not come with us? We could delay a day or two?—”

“You are kind to offer it, sir, but you see, my sisters are expected from Bath. It is all for the best. I did not know how Papa would manage seeing them again, and in fact, I have so dreaded Christmas I had delayed sending for them until it could be put off no longer.”

“When do you expect them?”

“Tomorrow. You must think me an ogre not to send for them the moment I could freely do so, but I kept them as parlour boarders for the past two weeks out of cowardice, I suppose.” She paused and looked downcast before adding, “I should perhaps explain that my father is forcibly reminded of my mother when he sees my younger sisters, but Lydia in particular casts him into gloom, for she favours our mother in both looks and manners. I feared he would sink back into the low spirits from which he has so lately begun to heal. ”

After a slight pause in which Miss Bennet mastered her ruffled feelings, I spoke lightly and with a smile in my voice.

“You must write to me if there is anything you need. You may do so without fear of further raising the expectations of our acquaintances, and I daresay my reputation would survive even if you did.”

She looked up in surprise and smiled warmly. I was then able to ask her what I wished to know, what my gentle jest had alluded to.

“Has it been difficult for you?”

“Not in the least. I pretend not to understand the broadest hints and refuse to be baited into any conversation in which your name is featured. And now that my father is going to Pemberley for Christmas, I suspect my neighbours might be confounded and begin to wonder whether perhaps the case is just as I have told them—you are my father’s friend. ”

“I am that, and as such, you must rely on me. Promise that you will not hesitate to apply to me should something arise that would make your father miserable to confront.”

She reached out her hand to me, and I took it. “I promise, Mr Darcy.”

Elizabeth joined us on the very heels of that private conversation, assuring Miss Bennet that Georgiana was comfortably situated and that Mary had finally rescued Mrs Annesley from her father’s library and taken that lady upstairs.

Mr Bennet, having no one to talk to about Sir Joseph, appeared at the parlour door, announced his intention to pack his things, and offered to show me my room.

When we reached the hall, he said, “I have no idea where we have put you. That is Jane’s room, Elizabeth is there, and Mary is here.

I am certain Mrs Annesley is in here,” he said, since the door was ajar and she could be seen speaking to his middle daughter.

He then knocked on a door and said, “This is either Miss Darcy’s room or your own. ”

Carsten opened the door to a bedchamber the size of my dressing room at home.

The accommodations were as simple as a good inn, sparse but spotlessly clean.

I was relieved not to find myself in the room of one of the younger sisters, fitted out with dolls on the dressing table, and a clothespress stuffed with bric-a-brac.

My valet did not look quite convinced, and so I said, “This reminds me of my old room at Pemberley. I was very comfortable there.”

Dinner at Longbourn was equally simple to the guest rooms. Yet, I found myself utterly charmed by the lack of apology with which it was served.

If there was ever a mark of quality, it would be the complete acceptance of one’s place in the world, neither slighted nor lacking, not embarrassed or even proud.

The inelegance of country fare was completely compensated by the familiarity of the diners, and I watched with complacence as Mr Bennet embellished his exploits in the shops and exhibitions of London with occasionally dry and mischievous remarks.

The Miss Bennets were enthralled by the resurgence of these remnants of the father they once knew, and they did not fuss or fret over my sister.

Georgiana was quiet to be sure, but she was not the centre of attention for once, and before my eyes, I watched her relax.

I saw then how the constant pressure of solicitous concern, even on the part of people who care deeply, might be oppressive to someone so shy.

What my sister wanted was a little neglect, to be ignored for once, and to be given the privacy of anonymity.

Miss Elizabeth must have recognised this, for she directed the conversation towards her father or to Mrs Annesley and studiously avoided applying to Georgiana for remarks.

I wished to catch the lady’s eye, to somehow thank her with a grateful look.

But, alas, she was studiously avoiding me as well.

All that was left for me to do was to aid her in her quest to shield my sister from the intrusion of being noticed, and so I entered into the conversation with a determination to be interesting.

I hoped, by speaking widely, including Miss Mary, and even striving to entertain for once, to earn an exchange with the liveliest mind at the table.

But she refused to be baited. To my chagrin, the only time I managed to capture Miss Elizabeth’s attention was when Mr Bennet casually mentioned our time spent with Mr and Mrs Gardiner after the lecture at the Royal Society.

Only then did those wildly intelligent eyes fly to my face, intent, I suppose, on discovering a particle of condescension for which she could condemn me.

“Indeed,” I said pointedly to her elder sister, and speaking with the most objectively sincere intonation I could conjure, “I enjoyed making the acquaintance of your aunt and uncle. Do you visit them often?” I then threw my auditor a look of challenge, for I had conquered my sanctimony in regard to her shabby connexions, and I dared her to find fault in my reference to them.

She instantly looked at her plate, and then at her sister Mary, the candelabra, the napkin on her lap—she was desperate, in fact, to look anywhere other than at me. This was just as well since I could not disguise my triumph over a point scored.

The punishment I endured for having just once discomposed a lady who discomposed me with shocking regularity was to be relegated to the rank of a chair or even the rug. If she looked at me at all, she did so as though I were an inanimate object.

Meanwhile, my sister sat with Mary Bennet, and that unlikely pair who spoke so seldom, found something to speak about, albeit in voices so low as to exclude the rest of us.

Mr Bennet continued his campaign of charm, passed out his gifts brought from London, teased and cajoled his serene daughter as to the contents of the packages, and sternly warned his second daughter against opening anything before the twenty-fifth of the month.

He applied to Mrs Annesley to further annoy the ladies by asking whether his purchases would suit and pretending to fret about his choices.

The eldest fell for his ploy, and tenderly reassured him in advance of the perfection of whatever he bought, which left his second-eldest the job of promising to rip open the paper on every single package and to pass unsparing judgment on his unreliable taste within five minutes of his leaving in the morning.

This sort of talk cut me out entirely. I was relegated to the corner with only Bandit for company, and even he had nothing to say to me.

Having evaded capture by his pursuers from Longbourn, he returned home hours later at a full run.

Apparently, he was chased to the kitchen door by an enraged tenant as the result of a raid of the neighbouring farm.

This episode ended in the exchange of the dog’s life for an apology and six chickens from Miss Bennet’s poultry yard. Bandit, oblivious to his narrow escape, slumped his head onto my knee and allowed me to stroke his ears.

“Worn to a thread, are you? You are an idiot.” I spoke in a low, desultory voice, and he thumped his tail twice before sinking down into a curl at my feet in satisfied exhaustion.