Page 43 of The Last House in Lambton (Pride and Prejudice Variations #6)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

T he weather was typical for that time of year, but I went to the stables and the kennel, to the steward’s office, and to speak to Mrs Reynolds.

I periodically visited her in her room to ask after the general condition of the house and determine what she might need to address any concerns.

She would have much rather died than asked for anything, but it was a ritual that paid dividends.

She never failed to receive me with a warmth that was perhaps beyond what any other housekeeper would demonstrate to a master, but she had known me since I was a child, and I indulged her fondness, since I secretly relied upon the security of her maternal goodwill.

“How is Mrs Jennings today?” I asked as our conference drew to a close.

“Not very well, sir. She is in low spirits as I understand it, the poor lady.”

This sent me directly upstairs to see what I could do for—well, not for Mrs Jennings.

When I was admitted entrance, Elizabeth’s hair was slightly undone as she knelt in front of her great-aunt, lightly trying to rally her, and I wondered how long she had been working to entice the widow out of her sulks.

“Come, come, Auntie. Will you not at least look out the window? We might see a pheasant! Would that not be wonderful?”

It was not often the lady was not in a complacent, malleable state. But it had struck me of late that she was increasingly forgetful, and that day, she looked unmistakably cross, shrinking pointedly away from her relation as though she were being forced by a stranger to swallow a bitter medicine.

Elizabeth’s glance at me was ripe with anxiety, and that was sufficient to induce me to enact desperate measures.

I sent to the kennel to retrieve the smallest, daintiest whelp—the runt, who would have been drowned were I a different man.

Thinking there were very few people in the world who could resist a puppy, I scooped her up and carted her up to the parlour.

As I passed a mirror, I caught sight of myself.

A faint grimace and long-suffering sigh rather told the tale.

It boggled that I was so enslaved I would respond to a mere look, but there I was carting a dog up the grand staircase, and I felt it a matter of my own survival that Elizabeth never know the extent to which I could be twisted around the crook of her elegant little finger.

Fortunately for the ladies—and unfortunately for my campaign to withstand Cupid’s assault upon me—my mission proved curative. The feeling of distress that had filled the room instantly evaporated, and I was rewarded with a display of Elizabeth cooing unrestrainedly into the face of an infant dog.

Lord, my heart! If she were ever to look at me like—but I must have been staring. She became embarrassed to have so forgotten herself and with a prim little flourish, returned the runt to my custody, and I was, in effect, dismissed.

That night, Elizabeth came down to dinner.

She looked determined to be happy and to make my sister equally so, and Georgiana was quite ready to laugh.

She had become increasingly untroubled by the possibility Wickham might smear her name, and her spirits rose to a degree of lightness I had not seen in some time.

As though I were not already enchanted, in one stroke, Elizabeth commiserated with Georgiana about her fear of coming out, reconciled her to the need to do so, and reassured her that she would do well enough.

Since in all my attempts to fortify her resolve I had only ever helped to terrify my sister more, I sat in total wonder to witness such dexterity.

But it was when Elizabeth answered my sister’s enquiry into the members of her family that the lady’s true genius showed itself. Having my own unflattering opinions, I had been quite curious what she would say about her sisters, how she might minimise the faults of their education and upbringing.

But Elizabeth made no such attempt. She simply related to Georgiana the unadulterated truth, but her assessments were so deftly presented in the context of general human ridiculousness, it was impossible to judge them as harshly as I had.

Her description of her middle sister Mary’s playing and singing nearly sent Parker out of the room, but it was such a brilliant portrait in miniature, my opinion of the poor girl softened considerably.

As she had so many times before, Elizabeth spoke in layers upon layers.

Georgiana laughed herself into tears, and the members of the household who were privy to this history were informed of the precise placement of the Bennet family in the strata of society—an old family, buried in the country, gentrified but not rich.

Meanwhile I, who had been to Meryton and seen these people for myself, was taught just how Jane and Mary, Lydia and Kitty had turned out as they had.

The inadequacies of their characters were somehow more understandable to me as a result of that glimpse into the haphazard, unequal, and neglectful manner of their upbringing.

Even the parents, who were sketched by default, and whom I would have bitterly condemned for stupidity, suddenly struck me as mere human beings, subject to the whims and struggles of life with whatever inner resources they had.

I could not help but think of Aurelius’s advice: Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.

That is precisely what Elizabeth seemed to be doing.

Unable to effect any change in their characters, she was teaching herself to bear with her siblings by becoming conscious of their faults and the reasons for them.

She did not spare them from her wit, but clearly, she loved them very much.

At the very end of her caricature of her life at home, she laughingly, though plainly, begged my sister never to visit Longbourn, forcing me to see that it was not so much the folly of her family that caused her pain, but our judgment of them she dreaded most.

I contributed very little and served more as an audience to the interplay between Georgiana and her particular friend, but the conversation had a profound effect on me, nevertheless.

I could not take my eyes off the lady who was revealing to me how my harsh opinions, so poorly disguised, were a genuine weakness.

Who was I to judge anyone’s character if my own was so imperfect?

I had despised poor, neglected Mary Bennet, and if that did not show me the smallness of my mind, nothing could.