Page 21 of Old Boots (Pride and Prejudice Variations #3)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

T hat night, I savoured every word written of Longbourn by Mr Bennet’s daughters.

All three ladies had written a page. Jane Bennet’s hand was as serenely elegant as her person.

She wrote of the weather, which was mild, of the neighbours, who sent well wishes to her father, and of the complacency and happiness with which they anticipated Christmas.

Mary Bennet wrote more charmingly than she spoke, using large, rounded strokes.

She gave her father an artless summary of her reading, liberally sprinkled every sentence with her deep sense of morality, and expressed a kind of existential hope for the unending improvement of mankind.

It was precisely the sentiment that every coming new year inspires in the hearts of idealists the world over, and I hoped her father would reply rather more gently than he might wish .

With my heart in my throat, I turned to the page I had purposely set aside for last. Like the veritable mooncalf, I ran my finger over the script, slanted, sharp, and gorgeous to behold.

Papa,

I do not call you dearest because you have caused Jane to worry. You know we have been on pins and needles to hear of your safe arrival, and you should be ashamed to have waited so long to write. And now I must tell you what my sisters will not.

Half the tenants are sick with a cough, the rector has visited us twice over twice in the mistaken belief we need his lugubrious consolation at his time of year, and Sir William and Lady Lucas have continued to be curious about your stay in Derbyshire.

Aunt Philips, too, has been relentless in her questions, and if you do not send me a diagram of the number of rooms, fireplaces, and windows, you must at least speculate on the amount of silver and plate to be found at Pemberley.

I know you shall do so because only you would find her vulgar curiosity amusing.

It has been well over a year since I have taken you to task for anything.

You have been too mild and, dare I point out, pitiful, to chastise.

I can do so safely now, having seen with my own eyes your horrible letter.

Jane is knitting you a scarf, thinking you are indeed cold all day and fretting you might come down with a fever.

I hope you are at least a little sorry, though I admit that the resumption of your pranks is a cause for reluctant joy.

But you must promise to spare Miss Darcy, at least, and Mrs Annesley, too, for they are far too well bred to be played with.

And now I must close with the assurance that I did just as you privately asked me to do on the day you asked me to do it.

Mama’s gravestone is cleared of slush and covered with holly branches, juniper, and ribbons fashioned into a sort of pretty, festive hatchment.

It was the best I could do without hot house flowers which would have wilted in an hour.

And when Jane slipped out to visit Mama later that day, she said she wept to see such a tribute, and wondered aloud who might have done such a thing for our mother.

We then all of us went to the churchyard to ritualise and to satisfy our grief by looking upon her headstone so sweetly adorned.

I know you did not want me to do so, but I hinted that you might have had a hand in it, and this caused everyone to weep again.

She closed with a brief, fierce declaration of filial love which must have caused the old gentleman to resort to his handkerchief, for I nearly had to myself.

I read her letter once again, and again in the morning before I slipped it to Mr Bennet at the breakfast table.

He ignored me as he pocketed his letter and I pretended not to notice.

“How long is Mr Bennet staying with you?” Richard asked with artful disinterest on the following day.

We had taken our horses out for a spanking ride on the muddy path from the stable to the eastern pasture, since it would not do to let them fret from inactivity in the confines of their stable boxes. I had taken my sister out earlier and was exercising yet another of my horses on this second run.

“As long as he wishes.”

“Will you return with him to Hertfordshire?”

“Why do you ask? Would you care to do the honours?”

“Do not be testy, Cousin.”

“I shall cease being testy when you cease being curious about affairs that do not concern you.”

“Affairs, is it?”

I smiled enigmatically at my interrogator. “I have many affairs of which you know nothing.”

“Apparently. I have arrived at Pemberley and seen for myself you are on intimate terms with a gentleman with whom you have nothing in common. ”

“I trained his unruly dog.”

“Did you? I would be more inclined to believe that you are the unruly dog in need of training.”

“When does your leave expire?”

“Three Kings Day.”

“Should you not visit your mother?”

“I should, but I would much rather linger here and bother you with questions about your affairs. ”

“By all means, stay. Georgiana, at least, enjoys having you here.”

This was how we expressed our affection for one another.

He knew I was up to my neck in something deadly serious, and I refused to enlighten him.

It was precisely how he dealt with me whenever I pressed him about the gravity of his postings on the Continent.

I knew Richard was in harm’s way simply by the nonchalance with which he claimed to be sitting idle well behind the forward push, or when he sometimes hinted that Wellesley did not even know of his existence.

More than once, I suspected my cousin was one of the notoriously foolhardy tools the allied generals used to advantage like pegs on a board.

I shuddered, not just from the cold, and kicked into a gallop that ended in a race the likes of which had enraged my mother in bygone days .

We celebrated the new year, and I watched Mr Bennet grow sprightlier with every passing day.

To my great surprise, he was a cherished favourite with the ladies.

My sister doted on him, and like a tame wolf, he accepted her care with the fond toleration he showed his eldest daughter.

In other words, he kept his fangs hidden.

To Mrs Annesley, he devoted himself with a great deal more respect, though sometimes he indulged in a brief show of wicked sarcasm in an attempt to make her laugh.

That lady, however, had a way of simply looking at him with eyes of gentle reproof and an expression of sad disappointment, not in her pupil, but in her own inability to influence him.

This look, common to the best governesses, could throw a protégé into instant docility and even horrible remorse, with nary a word spoken.

Mr Bennet thrived under her watchfulness, and he was also careful with Richard, perhaps because a colonel still fresh from a war does not give off the scent of fair game.

To me, however, the old gentleman became a highlight in an otherwise uneventful season of quiet. He observed me with the amused irony of someone who knew my deepest secret, and I acknowledged that he likely did. He seemed to be content to outwait me, and was perhaps guilty of taunting me a little.

But I was equally content to hold my hand close to my chest. I had not yet spoken aloud in my own mind what he wanted me to blurt out in confidence to him.

Why would I weaken just when the resolve in me grew so strongly?

I looked unblinkingly at Mr Bennet’s enigmatic smiles and returned equally unreadable looks, and by degrees, I sensed my stock with him grew. He was coming to respect me.

That was not to say he was completely healed of all his griefs. There was still one point of pain, and it was this that came to my notice just days after my cousin returned to his regiment in preparation for leaving for the Continent yet again.

We sat together in the library, listening to the faint sounds of Boccherini coming from the music room on the far side of the house.

My guest looked oddly bleak, and I watched him surreptitiously.

A letter had come from Longbourn which prompted this return to his aged countenance, his slumped shoulders, his humbled silence.

“What is it, sir?” I asked quietly. I could endure his suffering no longer.

He handed me the letter he held so despondently in his hand. “You cannot have been at my house so frequently that you do not know I have two daughters in school at Bath.”

“I am aware. Miss Kitty and Miss Lydia.”

“What do you know of them, then?”

“Enough, sir. ”

“You know that my youngest is enrolled in Mrs Trencher’s matchmaking school?”

“I do.”

“I wonder you still consort with us. Had my wife not so recently died, my neighbours would be hard-pressed to speak to us. They have, however, out of pity for our loss, refrained from noticing my daughter is so disgraced I must resort to trying to buy her a husband.”

He waved at the letter with faint disgust and put his forehead in his hand. I took it up and read.

Dear Papa,

I know this letter will pain you, but I fear you must bear it for Jane’s sake.

You may have guessed we had planned to have Kitty and Lydia at home with us for the holidays.

Indeed, to have done otherwise would have been cruel and remarkable.

Kitty did come to us, and she is unrecognisably better behaved for her banishment.

Lydia, however, did not come. She chose to stay a parlour boarder with Mrs Trencher.

A gentleman has lately made himself agreeable to her, which accounts for her hesitation to leave Bath.

To be clear, Papa, he has offered for her.

Mrs Trencher wrote the terms of his offer, and since you directed Jane to answer your meagre letters, she was then faced with the awful dilemma of what to do.

She would not for the world give you the task of going to Bath to meet this man, yet she cannot do it herself, nor can my uncle, who is not Lydia’s guardian and cannot sign a settlement.

I know not what would be required to authorise him to speak for you or how it could be arranged.

But more than that prevents us from asking him to intervene.

You remember Lydia’s rages, and though you were not yourself, you must be aware how she abused our uncle when he enrolled her in that mortifying place.

That terrible errand was hard enough for Jane to ask of him.

Must we impose upon Uncle Gardiner again and ask him to settle her, Papa?

While Jane paces and wrings her hands, I am writing to you and sending this by express.

Only when this letter is gone shall I tell her I have made the decision for her.

Time is not our friend, Papa. Lydia will run away with this man if she must, for such is her nature.

You must rouse yourself, write to Mrs Trencher, and travel to meet him, and if he is not a criminal or a charlatan, you must give her away to him.

I do not ask you to act for me, but do this for Jane. Know that I would go myself and within the hour to spare you if it were in my power, but alas, I have no authority with which to act .

Your daughter,

Elizabeth

I sat silent for half a minute before I spoke. “Sign me over as temporary guardian, and I shall go on your behalf.”

He grunted. “I cannot be so cowardly.”

“Perhaps not, but you can be rational. I have experience with legal matters of every kind and of holding a position of bargaining power. I have the use of a private secretary who can scour this man’s history in advance of my ever meeting him, and I shall act in the best interest of your family.

You, sir, would be prey to all manner of memories, to feelings that might alter your ability to reason and affect your decision.

Even worse, you could make yourself ill in an attempt to escape the epithet of coward. ”

“I do not like sending a representative to see to my affairs. I would look like a scrub.”

I laughed, albeit gently. “You will survive.”

He sat in glum, silent resistance.

I continued to press him. “And that is the point, is it not? You must survive. I would like to deliver you whole to your daughters, for them to see you looking ten years younger in defiance of the hopes of your foolish heir.”

He glanced at me.

“Think man. Should you not become stronger and quickly, you must surely dwindle into your coffin, and though you laugh at the prospect, your daughters could yet end up at the mercy of the parish.”

“You use my own words most cruelly against me.”

“I know they will not be put to work, sir, but they shall be poor and suffer the indignity of being shuffled between their aunts and uncles. They are too proud not to be wounded by charity. You must swallow your pride and let me go. The weather is vile, the task is onerous, and you must now find the philosophy within yourself to assign guardianship to me.”

He closed his eyes in an expression of momentary pain, and I knew I had won my point. “My youngest resembles my late wife to an uncanny degree, Darcy.”

“Seeing her reminds you of your loss?”

“More than that, she reminds me of my failings.” He sighed and in a moment of self-understanding, he said, “I am ashamed of her, and I fear she might disgust you. And should you cross her, she will become a fury.”

“She is a girl of sixteen, not Alecto.”

“There you are wrong, sir. To think of talking sense to her in the event this man is a bad bargain or to be forced to agree to a vulgar match struck by this Madame Trencher because she has been…”

He could not say what he feared, and I marvelled to see him look so utterly defeated, ancient, and frail. Every ounce of his recently accumulated vitality had drained away at the mere prospect of dealing with his youngest daughter.

After a heavy pause, he said, “You have a legal man at your disposal, I presume?”

“I do.” I asked several questions, and we spoke for a few moments, until I said, “You will excuse me while I make arrangements. You must write to Miss Bennet and tell her that all will be done. They are not to think of the matter any further. Nothing could be easier than to sign settlements should this man prove worthy, and you shall write with news as soon as you can. Make no mention of my intervention, sir. They will only worry you have taken a turn for the worse.”