Chapter 7: For the Good of Blueberry Bread
The field of gold ripened wheat waved cheerfully in the soft summer breeze that swept across it, a startling contrast to the pale morning sky with its wispy clouds and harsh sun. Elizabeth paused momentarily in her work to admire the beauty of morning, her blue eyes raised Heavenward, a peaceful smile playing across her lips.
"Good day, eh, lass?" Johnny Carson, the Bennet foreman, wrinkled Elizabeth's hair fondly, looking over his fields with the air of a proud father. "And what a wonderful crop! Blessed be to God for giving me this bounty. Ole Johnny couldn't have imagined of a better one, even in me dreams."
Elizabeth smiled dotingly at the old Irishman, slipping her youthful brown paw into his weathered hand. "You deserve it, Johnny. All this hard work has paid off, and now you shall be rich!" Laughter bubbled forth from her lips and she set the heavy wooden scythe to rest, leaning her tousled head against it as a perch. "I thank you for letting me help you and Francis and Carl. It is a welcome haven from Mama's endless chatter."
"Well, lass, be thankful you have a mother to call your own. They're not something to be taken lightly, mothers." His hand strayed carelessly to his grizzled beard and Elizabeth noted with alarm the absent look that entered his eyes. She squeezed his hand tightly, as if transferring some of her youthful energy into his elderly veins.
"Of course I am thankful for Mama, dearest of Johnny's'," she told him appreciatively, watching with satisfaction as his wide blue eyes reverted back to their usual Irish gusto. "Though she is rather trying on ones nerves." Picking up the wooden scythe, she returned to her work, leaving Johnny to contemplate her statement.
"I been hearing tales that you and the Darcy lad have been getting along all right."
Elizabeth smiled. "You could call us friends, though we seem to bicker more than we get along." She paused momentarily to brush flecks of sweat from her forehead. "He's much more agreeable than his two friends, though. Charles Bingley is very kind, but he's rather gullible and George Wickham is silent and elusive." Elizabeth shrugged inwardly. "An odd pair of friends, entirely unsuited to one another."
"Opposites attract, lass," replied Johnny with a satirical smile. "Like me and Bridget." His eyes crinkled merrily, most likely recalling the unusual marriage that had made him so happy. "Yes, back in the old days of Ireland……"
Elizabeth glanced at him; his thick mane of salt-and-pepper hair, withered frame, and dancing blue eyes touched with sadness. She smiled at him affectionately and continued with her work.
…."but I won't bore you with the details, lass. Tell me more about your new friends. How long have they been here?"
Elizabeth shrugged. "I don't know, perhaps a week, a week and a half. I haven't seen them for two days now."
"They'll be back. Don't you worry." Johnny picked up his scythe with effort. "Me limbs aren't as nimble as they used to be," he said with a minor groan, bringing the scythe to the base of the wheat. "Though I'm stronger than those lazy lads." He pointed with a faint grumble to where his two sons had delayed in their work to flirt with a flock of pretty village girls.
"Oh, let them be, Johnny. I have heard that Francis might marry Adelaide, and her father is very wealthy and most likely will grant her a substantial dowry. So let them be for a while."
Johnny gave another grumble. "Don't count thee chickens before they hatch, lass. I'd much rather them be helping me get me crop in than fiddling their time away goggling at the girls." He spat angrily onto the earth, excusing himself to Elizabeth.
"Don't worry about being polite in front of me, Johnny," she told him, no hint of a reprimand in her voice, "I don't care three winks if you spit. I do it all the time. A great stress reliever, so I say."
Johnny laughed appreciatively. "You're a mighty unusual lass, Lizzy. But I wouldn't have you any other way." He turned back to his scythe and Elizabeth turned back to hers, and they worked until sundown in companionable silence.
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"Oh, Elizabeth!" Jane flew down the garden path to meet her
muddied sister, freshly returned from the wheat fields, her hair
tousled and face red with sunburn. "You shall never guess!"
Elizabeth cringed inwardly. If this were anything about a ball invitation……
"We've been invited to the Netherfield Ball being given!"
Elizabeth sighed deeply. What else had she expected? Jane never got excited about village bonfires or the Mayday celebration, only about 'balls' and 'parties'.
"Of course, we're too young to attend," continued Jane, oblivious to Elizabeth's discomfort, " but there is to be a smaller party for children on the estate grounds. I am so excited, for we are all to have new dresses!"
Elizabeth moaned. She hated being fitted for new clothes, it was tedious and boring. And, for some odd reason, the seamstress seemed to especially enjoy pricking her with all the pins. "Wonderful, Jane, simply wonderful." Her tone was flat and sarcastic, but Jane chose to ignore it, so excited was she in anticipation of the 'party'.'
"And Mama says we are to ride in the carriage and what fun it shall be! There will be dancing….."
"I can't dance."
"And we shall get to see Isabella and Henrietta and Julietta."
"They are half-witted and have no conversation."
"And we shall get to act all accomplished and grown-up!"
"I am not accomplished or grown-up, so I guess I cannot attend," Elizabeth smiled, a plan coming to mind. "I shall feign illness and you may go without me."
Jane stopped dead in her tracks, so pale it looked as though she might fall into a swoon. Elizabeth grasped her elbow in a concerned fashion. "You must go, Lizzy!" she wailed, her sweet, melodic voice suddenly dramatic and high. "For Mary and Kitty and Lydia are all to young, and if you do not go, then I shall not be able to either!"
Elizabeth rolled her eyes, surprised at Jane's melodramatics. With a half-hearted sigh and wave of her nimble features, she skirted from her sister's maniac embrace so as to allow herself the freedom of breathing. "I'll think about it, Jane. Though, as you well know, the idea is certainly not appealing."
"But I am sure you would have an excellent time, Lizzy, just consider….."
"I detest parties of any sort. Everyone's so polite and well-mannered. It's absolutely sickening." Lizzy knew she was being cross and disagreeable, but after an entire day spent in laboring in the fields, one could hardly argue that she hadn't a right to be.
Jane glanced sympathetically at her dirtied sister, mentally comparing her own neat, starched gown and Lizzy's mud-stained disaster of a frock in her mind. How different they were! Yet how much they admired and respected each other. "Please consider it, Lizzy. Please. I should so wish to go. After all, Charles is going to introduce me to his sister……"
"Charles!" Elizabeth's head snapped up with alarming rapidity. "For goodness sake! When did you start calling him Charles?"
Jane, realizing the error of her mistake, blushed deeply. "It is nothing, nothing. We are, well, we are good friends, I suppose. I, um, I met him on the lane one afternoon, after running some errands in town for Mama." She fumbled with her bonnet strings, averting her eyes from her sister's intense stare. "I promise! It is nothing more that friendship!"
"As if it would be anything else," reprimanded Elizabeth harshly, her speech curt and abrupt. "After all, Jane Bennet, you are only nine years old. Are you really planning to marry him already?" That exclamation made her smile, though it succeeded in only furthering her sister's mortification.
"No, of course not. We are only friends. Charles is very kind, like a steward brother. I, he. Well," Jane's speech became intermingled with clumsiness, making her close her lips in resolute firmness. "I should say nothing more on the subject, as there is nothing more to be said."
Elizabeth smiled playfully, though her usual gusto was lost in the tiredness she felt from the afternoon's laboring. "Alright, Jane, dear. I'm glad you and Charles are friends. You both are so alike, it is almost frightening."
Jane, blushing an even deeper hue of crimson, resolutely contradicted the statement, though in her heart she knew it was the truth.
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"Please let me stay home with you, Betsy? I promise I shall be
good. And I hate parties!" Elizabeth angrily surveyed herself in
the mirror, swishing the white frock in mute disagreement. "I can't
dance and I'll most likely get into some trouble, so it would be
much more beneficial if I stay home tonight and read the Bible to you
by the firelight"
It was the eve of the ball, and the Bennet household was in frenzied anticipation, with servants skirting the halls in rapid footfalls and Mrs. Bennet screeching so loudly that everyone's hearing was threatened. Elizabeth and Jane's room was a peaceful solace, as Lizzy was not excited at all about the party and Jane was so happy that she had no words to express herself with.
"As much as I would love for you to stay home, Lizzy-my-Lizzy, you know that it is your duty to attend. All your little friends will be there to amuse you, and the children's party is to be outdoors in one of the little garden courtyards, or so I've heard." Betsy prided herself on her 'connections' ,as she referred to them, and she had a very good source out of the Netherfield Hall kitchen.
Elizabeth sighed defeated. "Yes, all of the prodigious London crowd shall be there, and then all of the insipid Hertfordshire crowd shall be there and it will be so crowded that I'll go crazy!" She jammed pins into her hair angrily, wincing slightly as Betsy intertwined her tresses with a blue silk ribbon. "Must I truly go?"
Betsy nodded stoutly, her figures taut and resolute.
"Yes you must, Little Miss, no complaints. If you are good, I'll
have some blueberry bread and warm milk waiting by the fire when you
return. But if I hear anything bad….."
"Blueberry bread!"
Elizabeth's ears popped up as alert as a cocker spaniel's, "oh,
truly, Betsy? You know it is my favorite? But you always let me help
you make it!"
"But this time you'll be at the party. Be a good lass and you'll have your bread."
Elizabeth sighed discontentedly. "I be Napoleon doesn't have to go to insipid parties and sit and chat about insipid people and eat insipid sandwiches that couldn't fill a flea's stomach."
Betsy clucked angrily, continuing to arrange her mistress's hair.
…."and Napoleon doesn't have to wear insipid dresses with insipid bows and insipid shoes and insipid jewelry that's much too large and itches." Elizabeth obediently handed Betsy the silver-toothed comb. "And Napoleon doesn't have to do insipid needlework and insipid dancing lessons and insipid……"
"Hush, dear. Your mother's coming. I heart the carriage pulling up. Remember what I said." Betsy half-heartedly completed Lizzy's hair before dodging by the door and bobbing politely to the lady who entered.
Mrs. Bennet ignored her, instead concentrating on the scrawny figure positioned by the mirror. "Are you ready, Elizabeth? Everyone's waiting."
"I'm ready alright," replied Lizzy, standing up and winking slightly at Betsy. "I shall go to the party. For the good of England, Napoleon, and blueberry bread!"
