Chapter XIX
If she had known the effect she had upon Smith, Lizzy would have impertinently ascribed it to his status as a female-deprived convict. Elizabeth Rose Bennet was no fool. Men had enjoyed her company, but as a friend and not as an object of affection. True, John Lucas had, for a time, pursued her…but she had been but three-and-ten and he four years her senior. Although she had begun to feel feminine stirrings as her body changed from girlhood to that of a woman, to an adolescent Lizzy, John was the older brother she had never had. The idea that she could ultimately share his bed had made her shiver in disgust. Eventually, though, like all the men who crossed Longbourn's threshold, he had pined for Jane's notice. Lizzy understood that she did not own beauty of her elder sister's caliber.
After all, is that not what attracts a man? Jane's classical beauty, golden hair, willowy frame, and all the right curves in all the right placesi has been sending Meryton's young men—and a few of the older ones—into blank-eyed adoration since the day she began to blossom. And, more than one of them took up a pen to compose painfully lame couplets as paeons to Jane.
Not so for Lizzy Bennet, she had often scoffed. No, I am too brash for my own good and find too much pleasure in rambling about the countryside catching freckles not husbands. Mama mourns the fact that I would rather climb a tree or argue Tacitus' Germania than wanly sit above my embroidery on a chair in the parlor.
While they waited for Annie to return with the tea tray, Smith defied Lizzy's best attempts to draw him out. He sat stock-still, staring intently at her, his ice-blue eyes boring a hole deep into recesses she had yet to explore. To relieve that disturbance in her soul, Elizabeth deployed her arsenal of conversational bon mots in the hopes of doing more than being forced to stare at the man-shaped void seated across from her. Words that were uttered seemed to vanish the moment they struck his carapace as if smoke sucked up a chimney. William Smith was a man seemingly determined to deny the convention of polite drawing room discourse.
Her exasperation finally overcame her good regulation and Lizzy figuratively threw her hands in the air and exclaimed, "Mr. Smith, sir: one must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together. I have done my best, but I can only hold up the entire conversation for a short time.
"Unlike my youngest sister, Lydia, I find it impossible to chat at length upon a subject without some counterpoint from others in the room. I will not presume to suggest that Lydia will offer an exposition with any sense. I only know that I am unable to burble on without some words from others in the room. Then I can argue, dispute, or expand as necessary.
"In this, I am inclined to believe that you and I may not be dissimilar. We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb."
Unknown emotions tugged at his features as if a cloud had swept across the sun, casting a moving shadow upon the meadows beneath. What memories had clawed their way up to the surface of his consciousness, Lizzy could not say.
In a moment, though, his face settled, and he responded in a way that betrayed neither friendliness nor pique, "This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure. How near it may be to mine, I cannot pretend to say. You think it a faithful portrait undoubtedly."
"I must not decide on my own performance."
A tiny grin at her victory in drawing him out from his self-imposed purgatory crossed her lips. Elizabeth allowed herself a small shift in her approach, seeking to learn more about their first encounter.
"A most sensible habit. Self-examination if not criticism, Socrates notwithstanding, can lead one to spend too much time with one's most dependable company, oneself!"
Lizzy giggled at her use of three forms of the indefinite pronoun before adding, "Perhaps with practice, you may overcome your taciturnity and me my outspokenness.
"Unlike many of my sorority, though, I am a very curious miss. I am, thus, apologizing in advance if any questions I ask may cause you discomfort. You must feel free to forgive me and ignore those which you do not wish to answer," she lightly replied.
Smith's eyes widened at this. Usually, women would be on the hunt for juicy morsels which could be passed along to other tittering chinwaggers. This Miss Bennet never ceased to surprise. As she had averred, she was unlike any young lady he had ever known.
In a rumbling baritone he replied, "T'is true, Miss Elizabeth, I cannot satisfy you with a recitation every element of my life about which you may be curious. There are some aspects I care not to revisit, not because your knowledge of them could lower me in your eyes—I am a convict after all—but rather because I am far too ashamed to speak of them.
"There are others barred to me by law and by honor."
The last word confirmed much to Lizzy without her having to inquire further.
Smith had to be a gentleman, although one who had failed both himself and his class. Although she had been fortunate to have had the example of Uncle Edward Gardiner to prove the contrary, all-too-often she had to endure without comment the slurs cast by long-nosed gentlewomen upon the character of those in trade. However, Lizzy also knew that just as there were honorable gentlemen and licentious rakes, there were also upright, even distinguished, men of business who suffered because of those who regularly engaged in sharp practices and trumpery.
However, men in trade did not incur debts of honor, settle affairs of honor using the code duello, or insist that their word of honor was as good as any solicitor-written contract, without which no self-respecting tradesman would ever do business. A merchant could survive if his honor had been impugned. A gentleman could not.
No, the word honor was unique to men who lived as Elizabeth's father did, and Smith's use firmly placed him in that band.
Her thoughts were briefly interrupted when Annie bustled in bearing the tea tray. After the girl had set it on the low table between the couple, Lizzy busied herself pouring. Smith replied to her questions about sugar and cream offering simple instructions without embellishment. Lizzy could not help but notice that his eyes strayed to the small plate of Mrs. Hill's vaunted lemon bars, a treat that rarely survived Lydia's two-handed raids whenever the Bennet women gathered in Longbourn's parlor. Today, though, the one who gazed with a degree of greed was a man who surely had not known many—if any—sweet treats in years.
Lizzy reached down and, using two fingers, gently nudged the platter closer to William Smith. He looked up, a wistful expression on his face, in silent appeal. She gave a minuscule nod, one step above imperceptible. Encouraged, he lifted the smallest confection and set it upon his saucer.
Elizabeth cleared her throat and pointedly stared first at the tray and then at his lap.
Smith colored and raised an eyebrow.
Again, Lizzy nodded.
Her smile of satisfaction at his selecting a second, larger, lemon bar was a reward that pleased him as much, if not more, than his first bite through the icing drizzled atop the citrusy shortbread.
His eyes closed as memories flooded his palate.
The two sat companionably for a few minutes. Then Elizabeth carefully placed her cup on the side table. Her look signaled the end to the silence. Smith sat straighter awaiting her questions.
Lizzy launched into her interrogation saying, "Please rest easy as I am not going to beg information on why you came to be working in a convict labor gang. I am going to apply my own motto—think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure—to your recollections. Thus, it is incumbent upon me to ease your path in response to my queries. I will strive to stick to the general and accepted forms of polite conversation. You will have to decide how far you wish to go in reply.
"I know that you and your compatriots arrived in our region several months ago. I assume you labored in other areas before Meryton. However, as I have traveled little except to visit my uncle's house in Town, I am always curious about other parts of the country. Where else have you worked?"
Opening up about his life over the past five years proved to be easier than Smith had imagined. Miss Elizabeth was a compassionate listener, keeping her questions general as any well-schooled young lady would. She never pressed but asked about Newcastle's climate, Derbyshire's foliage, and how roadways were always well-laid and straight.
Smith's travelogue turned on a particular point when a great pink sandstone edifice rose in his mind. His reverie deepened as he slid into a dreamlike state recalling his deepest desire, to stroll with this particular lady on the crushed limestone path around the lake, its packed surface crunching underneath their boots. His gangling, blonde-haired sister gamboled around them in her starched white pinafore pinned to her mint-green muslin gown. Georgiana's beribboned hair swirled around her head, wreathing it in gold. Elizabeth threw her head back and laughed as the child bobbed and weaved in her joy to be with her brother yet again. Miss Bennet's lavender scent filled his nostrils and aroused feelings he had kept locked away for years if he had ever felt them at all.
As his voice faded into nothingness, Lizzy prompted him, "Mr. Smith…Mr. Smith. Where have you gone?"
His study fractured into a thousand shards. As reality—his world—flowed back in, his stomach sank, and his mood soured. He was bereaved at the loss of that which he never had possessed. This was a world…one of tea and polite conversation…that he could not aspire to…least of all with her: at least not now when the path forward was so dark.
He nearly stuttered, so great was his disquiet, "You must forgive me, Miss Elizabeth. I suddenly have become quite fatigued. I fear that I must break short this most pleasant of interludes. If you will excuse me."
Smith winced as his attempt to make a fast exit aggravated his injuries. Once on his feet, he nearly ran from the room, down the hall, and through the kitchen. He pounded through the door leading toward the back garden.
Standing on the stoop, he vented his frustration upon the only object available, the brine bucket, empty now since his bandages had recently been refreshed. A left-footed kick launched the unfortunate vessel onto the sward, recently reduced by James' scythe. He had taken several steps into the yard to renew his attack on the pail when her firm, but whispered, admonition froze him.
"Mr. Smith! Calm yourself!"
Those words stopped his outburst. He stood there behind the house while the kitchen's fug flowed through the open door and enveloped him in its yeasty arms, Smith's blue distress was arrested by the sound of her voice. He closed his eyes and listened to her indoor slippers rustle ever closer as she crossed the browned stubble leading from the kitchen door to his side.
Lizzy placed her hand upon his arm. Her floral aroma splashed great gouts of color upon the scape that stretched behind his lids and vanished into the distant recesses of his unconscious mind. His turbulent spirit found her closeness soothing. All anxiety over what might be in a potential future retreated as he centered his attention on what was in this exact moment. Anticipated loss was replaced by the pleasing idea of his—and her—proximate present.
Miss Bennet's whispered concern firmed his conviction that this instant was all that mattered and outweighed every other that had snapped through his life like a deck of playing cards being manipulated by a sharp. Each of the two-and-fifty pasteboards was separate and unique when laid on the green baize. Yet, if the pack was held in one hand, every card rubbed against its adjacent mates and created something which most would see as a single item. Such was a man's life, Smith mused.
He cracked his eyes and looked down at the vision of loveliness inches away. Elizabeth's color was heightened, and her eyes betrayed worry over his sudden flight.
She urgently continued, "I fear that I overtaxed you with my interview. I do wish you had recalled my admonition about remembering the past."
His gulp filled her momentary pause. But he said nothing in reply.
"I do hope that we may remain friends for I find your discourses about England's geography to be quite stimulating," she lightly added squeezing his arm. The potent emotions that simple gesture released deep in his abdomen threatened to overtop barriers that had been in place since his parents' deaths.
Smith allowed himself the luxury of gazing warmly at the delicate fingers that creased the sleeve of the shirt which had been loaned to him by Edward Benton.
He had been unworthy of notice before this day and probably would be tomorrow. In this moment, however, nothing that happened to him since that awful night on the streets of Lambton left him believing that he was anything less than the man he had been raised to be.
He covered her hand with his and received the greatest reward for which he could hope: her sharp intake of breath through slightly parted rosy lips.
Any further effort to move forward was forestalled by a nasal voice breaking the mood, "Cousin Elizabeth? Cousin Elizabeth? What would my patroness think if she and not I had been the one to come upon you being so familiar with a servant?"
Dear Friends…I will endeavor to upload fresh chapters twice a week. I am currently in the midst of Ch 25…and the writing is offering its challenges to find its way to an authentic rendition of the events that now, necessarily move ahead at a quicker pace.
i All About That Bass, Meghan Trainor and Kevin Kadish, 2015.