Teaching Eliza, page 23
FOURTEEN — HOME
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BEING BACK AT LONGBOURN WAS, at first, as much like a dream as had been London when she had first arrived. Everything seemed quite unchanged, yet at the same time completely different. The house, the lands, the farms, the town, were all just as she recalled them. Her mother offered her silly comments and lamented that poor Lizzy had returned without a husband, and whatever became of Mr. Darcy’s ten thousand pounds, anyway? But she was certain that Lizzy had enjoyed her many balls and soirees and must surely have returned with some lovely trinkets and with yards and yards of lace and ribbons upon her new gowns. Her sisters, Kitty and Lydia, asked only after what she had brought them, and about the men in London, and whether Lizzy had danced with any officers. Her father, as she had expected, cast a wry eye on the goings-on in the house, and uttered something about finally being able to hear two words of sense at a time, now that she had returned, and retired to his library.
Her arrival had occasioned a great deal of excitement as much for her companion—a viscount no less! Even grander than Professor Darcy!—as for her precipitous homecoming. The carriage had been met by the whole family and many of the servants too, all eager to see the grand conveyance in which she had travelled, and she had been allowed to enter the house first, before even her mother, with Freddy on her arm. Mr. Bennet was not in awe of the viscount, but had comported himself with the dignity appropriate to their guest, and Mrs. Bennet had been so much in awe of him that she had said almost nothing, which suited Lizzy rather well. Freddy had stayed for tea, then for dinner, but had insisted upon beginning his return to Town, keen to take advantage of the lengthening days as they approached summer.
“A viscount, Lizzy! You had not told us! Oh, what riches you shall have! Your sons will be earls!” Nothing she could say would convince her mother that she was not to marry Freddy, and in the end, she rolled her eyes and announced that she needed to see to her unpacking.
After the crowded streets and noise of London, Lizzy revelled in the open spaces of her little corner of Hertfordshire. The morning after her arrival she set off for Meryton, accompanied by her two youngest sisters. She revelled in the mile-long walk, uninterrupted by racing phaetons and curricles, yipping dogs and urchins underfoot, or the bustle of shopkeepers and delivery boys and attending maids. There were no parades of fine ladies exhibiting their elegance in the parks, no displays of the latest manners by the young dandies of Town. On her walks in the park in London, Freddy would have been dancing around her, quipping on the colour of his new coat or on some acquaintance’s newly purchased curricle with his monogram embossed upon the leather of the seats that he had commissioned solely to impress a sweetheart. The noise and frippery and chaos had been her constant companions these past months.
Instead, Lizzy now realised how much she had missed the unpretentious and honest farmers who worked her father’s land, the friendly boys of the village, the pretty and unspoiled girls on the farms. She waved at the men and women she knew as she walked by, thinking she must go and see Mrs. Wiggins’ new babe, must take a basket to Old Mrs. Chancey, must see how Mr. Pollard was managing at the school the vicar had recently established for the town’s boys and girls. The sky was clear and blue, and the wildflowers in the meadows and the birds winging from branch to branch all seemed to her as a welcome back, an affirmation that this, not London, was her place.
Oh, there were things and people from Town that she would certainly miss. The opera, the theatre, the museums: these all entranced her and she delighted in them, and was sad to think that they would have to remain rare treats, rather than common engagements, but she could live very well without them. Harder to leave without regret were some of the people she had befriended in London. She truly would miss the good sense and generosity of Lady Malton—forever Aunt Patricia in her mind. She would miss their morning chats over tea, their walks through the crowded streets, and the countess’ biting commentary on the ladies and gentlemen they encountered on their daily excursions. She would miss her gentle encouragement and her intelligent and witty conversation.
She would miss Freddy, despite his trivial ways. He might place more importance on the outcome of a horse race on which he had wagered no pennies than on the outcome of the war in Europe; he might ponder more seriously on whether his cuffs ought to extend one-and-a-half or two inches from his coat than on the meaning of the latest lines by Wordsworth or Coleridge. And yet, he had a good and kind heart and he had proven a most worthy companion and a steadfast friend. She had grown to cherish his friendship.
She would also miss Richard. When had the colonel become Richard to her? She hardly knew when he had grown almost as dear to her as a brother. Was it when he began to pay attention to her friend Charlotte? He, who had seen not the plain face or the lost bloom of youth, but the gem that lay within her dear friend, who had been ready to face his family’s wrath over his choice because his affection was so deep. He, who had been the counterpoint to Darcy’s overbearing and tyrannical ways, who had spread a sheen of civility on all that transpired in that awful study in Darcy House. He too had become a friend, and one whom she would miss dreadfully in time, once the novelty of her return had worn off.
And what of Darcy himself? She hardly even knew what to call him in her innermost thoughts. He was no longer her teacher, and their intimacy had forbidden to her the title of professor. One does not melt into the arms of one’s professor as one does one’s inamorato, one’s betrothed, one’s lover. ‘Darcy’ seemed too formal a name for him now, after their intimacy, and yet she could not countenance calling him by his given name, even in her mind. He would remain “He” until she could clear her thoughts and her memories of the emotional whirlwind that the very thought of him provoked. How could he have kissed her so tenderly one minute, then belittled her the next and cried ‘Thank God that’s over’? What of his words had been truth and what mere artifice to gain her willingness to further his project? Had those moments of tenderness and vulnerability, when she thought he had revealed his true self, merely been brilliant examples of acting, the world being his stage? She had thought she had seen beneath his veneer of rudeness and disdain into the man beneath, but now, perhaps, she thought that the incivility underlay everything else. He had sought her heart, and she had begun to give it away, before he had trampled on it and left it bleeding in the dirt.
And hers was not the only heart Darcy had broken. Charlotte’s too, and Richard’s, were victims to his high-handed arrogance. Of Darcy’s own heart, she cared little. So much more painful was the damage he had done to others. With these thoughts roiling in her mind, she knew she must see Charlotte, and at least try to explain what had happened. Perhaps, if her friend were willing, she could somehow contact Freddy, her dependable Freddy, and request his assistance in reuniting the two lovers. She hoped that Charlotte was not so destroyed by her encounters with society that she would refuse to attempt a reunion, or that Darcy’s cruel words had not damaged her vision of a life with Richard beyond repair.
Lost in thought as she had been, Lizzy had not realised she and her sisters had already achieved the town. She looked around as they crossed the bridge over the small stream that demarcated one boundary of the village. The high street looked as it always had, and the aroma of warm yeasted sweets emanated from Mrs. Johnson’s bakery. The sounds of the smithy reached her ears, with the clanging of metal on metal, and from the stables behind the inn a street yonder, she could hear the horses whinnying and the voices of stable hands trying to calm them. Mr. Oldham, the bookseller, had a small table on the street by his door, and her sisters had already started towards the milliner’s shop that displayed a series of bonnets in its window. Here, a group of matrons stood talking together as they watched their children run through the streets after a stray dog; there, a small gathering of red-coated officers strutted by the tavern, although its doors would not open for some hours. A handsome young officer doffed his hat and bowed to her sisters as they passed, and they giggled in response, but did not vary from their goal of the new bonnets in Mr. Aberley’s window. And there, down the street, around the corner, and another block down, she would find Lucas Lodge and, she hoped, Charlotte. Screwing her courage to the sticking place, she called after her sisters to tell them of her destination, and she set off in search of her friend.
Charlotte was in the kitchens when Lizzy arrived. Seeing her friend, she hastily removed her apron and left the sauce in the capable hands of the young girl who helped with some of the household tasks. “Lizzy!” Charlotte gaped, “When did you return home? I had no notion you were to visit!”
“Not visiting, Charlotte, but here to stay,” she sighed. Lizzy took the chair Charlotte offered her, then stood again and asked her friend to walk outside with her. “I am too tired of sitting and being polite. I need to move,” she explained.
Charlotte had not heard of the debacle after the ball; Lizzy had been too miserable to put pen to paper, and whilst she thought her mother might inform Lady Lucas that Lizzy was to return to Meryton, the news had not reached Charlotte. Thus, as they walked the lanes that wound in and out of the village, Lizzy opened her heart to her friend and divulged all.
“He loves you, Charlotte,” Lizzy said at last, when she reached the point in the tale concerning Richard. “He has been miserable without you, and when he heard what the professor had done, it was only by effort that he did not assault his person. He had thought that you were the one who broke his heart, and it was, instead, his cousin.”
Shaking her head, Charlotte let out a puff of breath. “Professor Darcy may have initiated this decision, but he was not wrong in what he said. I am not the colonel’s equal, nor will I ever be. I cannot be the wife he needs in society, and he would resent me one day. If he should seek a seat in Parliament, or a position in the government, I would only be a hindrance to him.” Her face was grim but resigned, and she fixed her gaze not at her friend but across the fields that lay beyond the hedgerow along which they walked.
“If he truly loves you, that will be nothing to him. He does not desire a seat in parliament, nor a post. He has done his service to his king and country and has no aspirations to any higher position. All he wishes is to be a country gentleman, and a country gentleman requires a sensible and caring wife who will support him in his efforts on his estate and be a good mistress to his tenants. For that position, you are most qualified. If he seeks you out again, promise me you will speak to him.” Charlotte looked up in alarm, and Lizzy murmured, “I know he was here and that you refused to meet with him. If he comes back, listen to him. Will you promise me that?”
Though she demurred at first, eventually Lizzy convinced her to at least let the colonel speak. “Yes, Lizzy. For you, I will promise!”
Turning the subject to lighter matters, the two women smiled, their hearts somewhat lighter, and returned to the village along the familiar lanes.
Despite all those aspects of village life that had remained unchanged during Lizzy’s sojourn in London, however, there were other areas in which a great deal of change had occurred. As far as Lizzy was concerned, the most notable difference from before she left was the absence of two of her sisters. Mary had always been the quiet one, the one who disdained what she deemed ‘foolish chatter,’ who would look down her nose at her younger sisters’ inanities and flirtations and who would take to the pianoforte or her books of sermons rather than engage in light banter or ambles through the countryside. The plainest of the sisters, more for want of effort and decoration than any real physical defect, she had grown up under the shadow of her two witty and sensible older sisters and been unequal to the spirit and playfulness of the younger. She had made her own space as a devout pedant, although lacking the serious education that would give her opinions weight. She had found her ideal place as Mrs. Collins, where her sermonising would find sympathetic ears in her husband and her serious dogmatism would be admired by Lady Catherine. But, to her surprise, Lizzy found she missed her sister’s presence at Longbourn. For all her pontificating and lecturing, Mary had been the voice of sense that often tempered Kitty and Lydia’s most extreme bouts of silliness, and her calm nature had soothed their mother where Lizzy’s patience wore thin and her other sisters found better things to do. Even those endlessly complicated and poorly executed pieces she endeavoured to learn on the pianoforte were missed, for now the only sounds in the house were her sisters’ shouts, her mother’s complaints, and the general noises from the servants as they went about their business.
As much as Lizzy found she missed Mary, so much more so did she miss Jane. So short had been the days between Jane’s marriage and Lizzy’s own departure for London that she scarcely had time to notice that her dearest sister was no longer there, sitting in the salon, humouring her mother, waiting for a good gossip before the firelight when they were preparing for bed. Jane was her confidant, her conscience and her sounding board, the voice of compassion to Lizzy’s judgmental tendencies. What would Jane make of the disaster after the ball? What words would she offer in light of the separation of Charlotte and Richard? Lizzy could never ask her, for Jane was married to That Man’s close friend, but Lizzy longed for the words of sense and understanding that her dear sister might offer, that they might help soothe her own mind.
But Jane was wed and away in London, mistress of her own household, and Lizzy was here in her old home in Hertfordshire once more. Now, as she strove to find her place anew and re-establish herself in her life at Longbourn, she found she missed Jane’s company most dreadfully. Charlotte was a dear friend, it was true, but there were those things one told a sister that one could never divulge to a friend. There were aspects to her, insights into her soul, that Jane alone knew. Jane, and Darcy… No! She must not think of him. She fought those tendrils of thought and forced them from her mind.
Lizzy had also neglected at first to consider how she herself had changed during her months amongst the elite in London. She had learned and practiced her new accent so well that it had become her natural way of speaking now, and whilst she could assume her old patterns of speech if she applied herself, the effort was greater than retaining her crisp and clear aristocratic tones.
The consequences of this had not occurred to her at all, for she had expected to be accepted back into the society of her youth with all the pleasure which she herself anticipated. How sadly her assumptions were dashed when she discovered that her new accent and speech was not seen without contempt. The first instance of this realisation occurred one afternoon, after taking tea with Mrs. Long and her niece Alice, a young woman with whom Lizzy had been friendly since childhood. Tea was a pleasant and cheerful affair, during which the ladies had asked her every possible question about London, which she had answered in her usual arch manner. At the appropriate time, she had risen and taken her leave of the ladies, only to discover that she had forgotten inside the parlor a program from a concert which she had shown to Mrs. Long.
She was about to enter the room to retrieve it when she heard Alice exclaim to her aunt, “Oh, I thought I should never survive the afternoon, listening to Lizzy all high and fine.” Then, in the exaggerated tones of mockery, she attempted to mimic Lizzy’s fine accent. “‘Hoow doo yoo dooooo? Soh verry kayhnd of yoo.’ Oh, Aunt Harriet, I thought I would die to hear one more word!” And Mrs. Long laughed and agreed with her niece.
Lizzy stood by the doorway, so shocked and discomfited that she could hardly find her next breath. What wrong had she done these people, whom she had known her entire life, that they must mock her? What had become of former friendship? Was it only here, or was she thought of thus throughout Meryton society, to be an item of derision and amusement? The notion ate at her very soul. She forgot the concert program and turned around immediately, her face white.
Her London manners, too, had become a matter of contention for her. She had not realised how, under both the harsh glare and chastisements of Professor Darcy, and more so, under the gentle guidance of Lady Malton, she had completely adopted the refinements and graces of the upper classes of Town. These, like her new accent, had become second nature to her, as reflexive as breathing, and she could not think of abandoning what had become so much a part of her. She could not find fault with the “country manners” which Mr. Bingley had extolled upon his initial arrival in Hertfordshire, but she saw them now with new eyes, and understood the chasm between her new society and her old, recognised the origins of Darcy’s disparaging comments and Caroline’s haughty sneers.
Between her new habits and her prolonged absence, fitting back into Meryton society was much more difficult than she had imagined. The invitations were as plentiful as before, but now Lizzy perceived herself as an item of curiosity rather than a friend; she felt as much an exhibit in Meryton as she had been in London—more so, perhaps, for here, her acquaintances knew of her transformation and came to watch her, as a butterfly new from its cocoon, where they had all known the caterpillar. In London, she knew she could blend in and be accepted. In Meryton, that seemed no longer to be possible.
The greatest heartbreak came some three or four weeks after her return, when she came home from early morning visits to some of her father’s tenants, to find her mother in cozy conversation with her Aunt Phillips. She was removing her muddy boots in the vestibule by the kitchen entrance to the house, having engaged Mrs. Hill in a moment’s discussion over the state of the kitchen garden, and her mother must have mistaken the sound for the routine noise of the servants. As she sat upon the hard wooden bench and untied the laces, her mother’s voice came clearly to her through the open doorway.
“I don’t know what we shall do about Lizzy, Sister. She has become quite a different person. She was always above us, you know, but since her months in London, I hardly know her. She walks around here, with her high and mighty ways, and looks upon us lesser beings. Us! Her very family! I am quite overcome by this, and it strains at my nerves every day!”
