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Chapter 8

Two weeks passed away with Leonard becoming more and more convinced that his son was purposefully pretending to be simpler than a man who had obtained top Cambridge honors should be, and Horace wondering what more he could do to delay his father from finishing his education on running the estate. Finally, Leonard had enough.

"Horace," his father called, beckoning him into his study, "it is time we had a talk."

Horace entered slowly, shoulders bent forward, head hanging down a little. He had been waiting for his father to state that he was done with his tomfoolery and it appeared that moment had come.

Horace sat before his father's desk and waited. Leonard shut the door and sat himself down.

"I am certain I have taught you what you need to know about running the estate. Why are you pretending to wallow in ignorance?"

Horace remained silent. He did not think there was any answer he could make that would please his father.

After Leonard waited for a while and determined that Horace would make no answer, he proceeded.

"Under the terms of your grandfather's will, now that you have reached your majority and returned to Longbourn, the estate is yours for life with the remainder under the entail to your oldest son."

Horace nodded. He was well familiar with the provisions of Phineas Bennet's will as it pertained to him.

"Your grandfather in an earlier version of his will made the same arrangements with me and the entail to you, but he was wise to revise once you were born and showed every sign of successfully reaching adulthood. This was wise of him because he knew I would be tempted to make you break the entail at this time and sell the estate to fund my escape."

Horace saw his father look past him, to an invisible future, even as he continued to speak.

"When I learned of this alteration after his death, I thought he was wrong to make this decision, as I was happy with your mother and had no desire to go anywhere at that time, or rather any desire I had was tamped down for her sake and yours. However, it appears that your grandfather Phineas knew me better than I knew myself because once my Lizzy was gone all I could think about was my desire to leave this place far behind."

He sighed, thinking of his vibrant Elizabeth flushed with fever that nothing could quell and gone far too soon and then the unbearable loneliness of living in a house without her in it.

"But I still had a responsibility, to him, to you and to Longbourn. I worked to maintain your inheritance. While I could have siphoned off larger funds and you may not have even noticed, I properly limited myself to what I could save from the profits of the estate that did not need to be reinvested. I have left you more than sufficient funds even should there be a problematic year or two."

Leonard sighed again, "What my father could not do, no matter how he arranged matters, was commit me to this land for the duration of my life. I was meant to be a sailor, to go where my king saw fit from whatever position I rose to in the navy. While it is too late for that life now, and I prefer exploring to fighting, it is not too late for me to strike out for someplace new. Why do you seek to oppose me in this? Is it not my time to finally do what I wish to do?"

Horace thought about maintaining his silence, but finally decided he would be selfish and have his say.

"Father, grandfather was not wise. I wish he had left Longbourn to just me and you. I would have happily joined with you in selling the estate and returned to Cambridge. That was the life I was meant to live, not this one."

Horace looked out at the fields visible through the window; he knew it was his inheritance and this was now his place in the world, but even as he stared at the land the classrooms of Cambridge rose up in his eyes until he saw naught but them.

"You have your dreams and I have mine, but someone now long-dead has decided he knew what was best. However, you are not the only one who misses Mother. Yet one of the worst parts about her dying was that I knew I would lose you, too."

Horace saw his father's eyes widen as this comment, but Leonard remained silent.

"Over the years it was always clear what you felt about being at sea." Horace recalled all the times he saw his father stare at the ship in the painting. "Since mother died you have made no secret of the fact that you wish to return to that life, that the only delay to such an outcome is in your waiting for me to be ready to maintain the Bennet legacy."

Horace tried to keep his voice steady as he continued, "Yet there were many hints before, that you settled for this life rather than sought it. I suspected mother would not yet be cold in her grave before you began plotting your escape, but I thought by the time she passed from this world that you would have either passed yourself or be too old to go back to the sea."

Horace heard his voice take on a higher pitch when he asked, "Why in losing her, do I have to lose you as well? You are correct that you have already taught me what I need to know but knowing these things does not replace you. Can you not find a way to be happy here?"

Leonard was shocked by his son's desire for his presence. He himself had no strong desire for his father's ongoing presence, but perhaps that is because he knew from a young age that his place was on a ship, sailing far away from England. He was treated like a man for many years before being summoned home and placed firmly under his father's authority once more.

Horace was disquieted by his father's failure to say anything and final spoke again, "Father, forgive me for my selfishness. I only hoped that perhaps if you found another wife that you might wish to remain, and there was more time to interest you in such a pursuit the longer you believed you still needed to teach me."

Leonard finally responded, "Horace, I did not know you felt this way. I have considered whether I could be happy remaining if I took a wife, but I am uncertain. It would be different if your mother could return. I am sure I could be happy enough again if she still lived."

Leonard thought then of his Lizzy, her small little body atop him dwarfed in his arms when she visited him, the pleasure they had gained at her initiative. Though she had never borne him another child, they both enjoyed their efforts to produce another.

He remembered when he stopped addressing her as Mrs. Bennet or Elizabeth and began calling her "Lizzy" and how intimate it felt and sounded on his tongue. He also remembered how she began calling him "Leo" and told him it suited him because he was large and mighty and brave like a lion. Somehow, they fit together better being Leo and Lizzy and it was these names that they always called each other when they performed the feather-bed jig.

He remembered the gradual shift in how he felt for her (as portended by the change in their names) and how he also believed he felt a shift in how she felt towards him. Leonard thought the increased felicity in their marital intimacies had freed him somehow to share all his secret thoughts with her, even the ones that revealed the ugliness within him and how then she had done the same.

Leonard remembered sharing about his own role in Guy's death with Elizabeth and telling her, "During the service for his death, when I should have been focusing on remembering him, I kept rejoicing in how I was spared his fate. I was so caught up in such thoughts that I did not even notice when he body was commended to the sea, did not even hear the splash, only realized it was over when everyone moved to resume their duties."

Another time Lizzy told him, "I hate my father, for feeling that I was of no value to him once he realized I would never marry well. I hate that he was so willing to part with me, that he never even bothered to ask me if I wanted to marry you before he agreed when you spoke with him."

Leonard remembered feeling a stab of panic at her words. "But you did want to marry me, did you not? I told him I had asked you and you had accepted."

"Yes, I did, but that is not the point. He did not care enough about me to confirm that your report was correct. Instead he was willing to hand me over to a man he knew almost nothing about, just to be rid of me."

Leonard remembered, finally, trusting Elizabeth enough that he could declare his new feelings for her. He rehearsed the words many times, and yet each time he planned to say them, remaining silent instead. He recalled feeling as shy as he had when he called on her that first time, yet what was there to be shy about in expressing love for his beloved wife?

Finally, one morning, when he awoke before her in what was now their shared bed, he resolved that this would be the morning that he finally declared the love he felt for her, and how difficult it was to wait the few minutes it took for her to awake as well. Eventually, she stirred and turned toward him, her eyes blinking slowly, remaining closed more than open, her blonde hair tousled as she never braided it at night now, since he had told her how much he enjoyed seeing her golden locks released.

Still more asleep than awake, she snuggled her face into his chest which was turned in her direction. They each then placed an arm across the other's naked flesh, hugging and pressing against each other. He then loosened his arm to stroke her hair back from her face and she gave a small sigh of pleasure, her eyes blinking open.

"Lizzy," he whispered against her forehead, smelling her hair, "I love you, most dearly."

She pulled her face back a little then and he could see her smile as she looked up and into his eyes. "And me, you."

He recalled the tremendous surge of joy he felt when she told him of her own feelings. They said nothing else then, just clasped each other tightly, lightly stroking each other's backs and eventually drifted off to sleep again.

When they later awoke, he irrationally feared he had only dreamed the exchange, so he told her again, "I love you, Lizzy."

She told him, "I am glad nothing has changed since we woke up earlier. I love you, too, Leo."

Leonard thought about how things changed after they made such declaration, how much more willing they both were to not conceal their signs of affection from one another. He delighted in seeing that when they were apart and she entered a room that he was in, her eyes always sought him out first, even before her beloved Horace. If she had lived past Horace's majority, Leonard could have never left her behind.

Leonard tried to refocus his thoughts to Horace's request, and told him, "Each negative answer I receive to my inquiries about joining an exploration (for simply sailing to the colonies or to another land does not appeal as much, though I will take that if it is all I can obtain), I wonder if I should just remarry and die on English soil, but would I ultimately be satisfied? I am not sure."

"Please father, at least consider whether there is a woman among us who could make you happy! I think our felicity would surely increase should Longbourn have a new mistress and we could send Aunt Pike away."

Leonard snorted softly, "As for the latter, you certainly have the right of it. I will confess that my sister's presence has given me added incentive to depart as soon as may be. But son, perhaps it is you who needs a wife. Surely you would be less troubled by my anticipated departure should you be starting your own family."

Horace gave a quick smile that did not reach his eyes, "I suppose that is possible, but I have no desire to marry yet."

Leonard answered, "Given the entail, it would be better if you married sooner. Some wives may give you a son immediately, other may not. A younger bride would also be prudent. Tell me, your sudden interest in Mrs. Goulding and Miss Lucas, was that for your benefit or mine?"

"Father, as I have said, I have no desire to marry yet. I thought one of them might be of interest to you."

"You may think me a buck fitch or a fool, Horace, but the only one to catch my eye is Miss Gardiner."