Page 1 of The Last House in Lambton (Pride and Prejudice Variations #6)

CHAPTER ONE

I could not escape the feeling that no good had come of the arrival of the party of gentleman and ladies at Netherfield Park.

Admittedly, their coming had generated a great deal of excitement for us, but when they closed the house and went to London, it seemed all Meryton was left bewildered by the disruption they had caused.

The commerce and opportunities that naturally sprung up around the opening of a great house dwindled.

The air of general expectation also faded, and we seemed to have sailed into the windless seas of the dreaded doldrums. Even Sir William Lucas’s family, whose most recent triumph in seeing their eldest daughter engaged to Mr Collins, had subsided into the humdrum of everyday life once the banns were read, and the realisation struck home that no reasonable person could brag about such a bridegroom.

In any case, the buffoon, also known as my cousin Collins, had been anxious to reunite with his patroness and left for Kent in the interim.

He would return in January to be married, and once he was gone, hardly anyone thought to mention him, perhaps because we were all so dispirited from a different man’s absence.

Mr Bingley, whose sunny good looks and bright, amiable eyes radiated his wish to please everyone he met, had left our village fairly displeased.

And of all of the persons and places affected, Longbourn stood out as the worst casualty.

Our home, once hectic with the excitement of five daughters on the verge of their future, had been reduced to shambles by the gentleman’s abrupt desertion.

My mother was in a perpetual state of nervous collapse, and my two youngest sisters, who had been rendered stupid by their dreams of rich husbands, were now at each other’s throats like dogs contesting a bone that neither one possessed in the first place.

This fractiousness assured my father’s retreat farther into the dark corners of his book-room, and as a result, he often took his tea there alone.

My middle sister, Mary, whose turn of mind was already too puritanical, had become positively dour in her observations, more than once quoting the sobering verse , ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, wheremothandrustdestroy, and where thieves break in and steal.’ And though I longed to stuff a ball of yarn in her mouth when she spoke so piously of our disappointments, I also begrudgingly appreciated her accuracy, for life did indeed feel as though it was, under cover of smiles and gay chatter, in a constant state of dissolution.

Why, I wondered, must hope always be followed by disappointment? Why is it that excitement must always end in dullness and laughter so often followed by tears?

I had always enjoyed a happy disposition and was more apt to laugh than to sigh over the imponderables of such discouraging circumstances, but my dearest Jane’s sorrow over the loss of Mr Bingley had rendered me no less dour than Mary.

Jane sat over her needlework, pale and stoic, striving to smile and looking as though her face would break for the effort, and I inwardly cursed Mr Bingley, his sisters, and their horrible guest, Mr Darcy.

I suspected that particular gentleman of malfeasance in the matter, for he obviously held sway over Mr Bingley, and he had never once attempted to disguise his disgust of my family.

Undoubtedly, he had a hand in the gentleman’s decision to close his house, and I doubt he once regretted leaving my sister to the gleeful gossips or the specious expressions of pity she now endured.

As for Mr Bingley’s sisters, those vicious cats who had used my sister’s sweetness against her, the less I thought of them the better for my soul, since the temptation to cast bitter curses upon them was too great to ignore.

In a mood of desperation, I had confided a taste of these reflections in a letter to our aunt Gardiner in London, and God bless her, she immediately issued an invitation for Jane to visit the metropolis.

This prospect was met with relief by everyone except my father, who never met any happening with relief.

He pretended instead to be sceptical on account of the expense but only because he could not forgo an opportunity to tease our mother.

In the end, he did not stand in Jane’s way, nor had any of us really believed he would.

However, when my eldest sister approached me with a heartfelt request that I accompany her, claiming Mrs Gardiner had even hinted she might bring me along, my father baulked.

“What?” he asked, peering over his spectacles at me. He had his finger firmly planted on the exact spot he had left off reading and made a harrumphing sound when I replied.

“I would like to go, Papa.”

“Of course you would like to go,” he said, “but that does not mean I would like to send you. ”

“But what more would it cost, sir? The carriage is not an expense, since you will already have secured it for Jane, and there is no cost for lodgings.”

“The cost is that I will be left alone in this house with Kitty, Lydia, Mary and your mother,” he said drily.

“But it is my mother who is driving me to beg for this favour, Papa.”

“Because she is peeved you would not have Mr Collins? My word, child. I thought you were made of sterner stuff. When could you not easily throw off her rebukes?”

He dismissed me then, and I wandered back to Jane in a state of dejection. The thought of leaving home had momentarily struck me as a kind of salvation, and my disappointments of late were compounded by this most recent blow.

Later at dinner, however, my father saw for himself the kind of abuse I endured when my mother began speaking of Jane’s trip to London.

“Now Jane,” she began, “you must be sure to visit Miss Bingley, and make Mr Bingley aware you are in town.”

“Yes, Mama,” my sister replied quietly.

“And I will send some money with you to take to the drapers. You will buy pretty muslins for all your sisters. You must pick something pretty for Mary. I despair of her looks, you know. Perhaps a yellow?”

Mary looks a corpse in yellow, but none of us had the temerity to say so. Thankfully, my youngest sister inadvertently did Mary a service when she cried, “But I want yellow, Mama!”

“Very well, my love. You will have the yellow, and Kitty should have pink. Perhaps blue for Mary? But I do so love to see you in blue, Jane.” She sighed. “Well, I suppose Mary will have to have green again, so you can get the blue one.”

“Yes, Mama,” Jane said. And then she lifted her head and dared to ask, “And Lizzy? ”

My mother snorted. “Lizzy? You will get her nothing, for she deserves nothing from me. She is ungrateful and selfish. And in the spring, she will wear the cast-offs of her better-behaved sisters.”

“Mama!” Jane protested almost as a gasp.

Indeed, everyone at the table had stopped to stare at our mother, their spoons suspended over their soup bowls.

“And what does it matter what she wears, hmm? She is determined to live her life as a spinster and will end up a menial, working for Mrs Collins in this same house when I am gone. She may as well dress as a drudge now for all I care.”

I cast a glance of righteous satisfaction at the head of the table where sat my father, and he answered me with a weary nod of acknowledgement. I then easily dismissed the remainder of my mother’s commentary, for I knew by his gesture Papa had relented and would let me go to London with Jane.

The change of scene did indeed pull my sister out of the chasm of tragedy into which she had fallen.

Our aunt Gardiner was most engaging, and our uncle was sensible.

Between the two of them, their gentle attempts to bolster Jane’s wounded feelings could hardly be withstood entirely.

And though she was not as happy as she had been, she was more reconciled and complacent in the face of her circumstances.

My own loss of optimism was much harder to reconcile. I hid it well under a hailstorm of happy chatter and seeming enthusiasm for London life. In reality, however, I had begun to think of life in general and to wonder what would become of me.

My mother’s constant harangue about spinsterhood hit too close to the bone to ignore.

What prospects did any of us truly have?

Even Jane, whose beauty and goodness were undeniable, failed to bring a man who obviously admired her to the point of marriage.

Rather than attach himself to a girl with no dowry and questionable connexions, Mr Bingley had fled the temptation.

I pictured myself in a brown dress with a starched white collar, fetching tea for Mr Collins, and I inwardly shuddered.

I fell prey to these musings mostly on the occasions of quiet in which we sat in the parlour concentrating on our embroidery, and I was in just such a miserable imagining when the housekeeper brought Mrs Gardiner a letter.

Neither Jane nor I paused in our work. Letters to our aunt were common enough, but when she let out a small sound of dismay, we both looked up questioningly.

“My aunt Jennings,” she replied abstractedly in answer to our unspoken inquiries. She continued to peruse her letter for a few moments before she put the paper in her lap with a sigh.

“Is something amiss?” Jane asked with gentle concern.

“My aunt in Lambton has sent word, asking for me to come to her.”

“Will you go?” I asked. “Jane and I will see to the children if you decide you must,” I added hopefully. If our aunt were called away, my sister and I could hardly stay in London without an excuse.