*** and the division between Jane and Elizabeth begins . . .***
The Bennet brides-to-be endured rain and were reduced to epistles from their beaus for the remainder of the week. Elizabeth enjoyed a fastidious exchange with her intended, disagreeing about the pains of sending errand boys back and forth between the houses to deliver the messages and learning about the challenges of Mr. Bingley's recovery from his fall and loss of a favorite ride.
Jane suffered greatly. Poor Mr. Bingley's missives lacked the careful and neat handwriting of his friend, and instead were full of inkblots, crossed out lines, and added scribbles in the margins to make sense of lines where he had invariably forgotten to write a crucial word. Even if Jane had wished for privacy in their correspondence, none was to be had for it took multiple readings by at least two of the sisters to find a full meaning in his letters.
"Do you think Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy will come to Meryton for services?" Jane nervously asked Elizabeth as they waited for the two carriages that would take their family to the first reading of the banns.
"Mr. Darcy intimated so, though he mentioned Miss Bingley argued such attendance was not compulsory." Elizabeth frowned in the lone mirror hanging in the hall as her bonnet continued to slip down and shade her eyes. Lydia or Kitty must have borrowed it at some point and stretched the fabric.
"It will be such a delight to be reacquainted with Mr. Bingley's sister," Jane said, pushing her positivity upon her more practical sister. Jane tried to give Lizzy patience, reminding herself that her sister held no experience in longing for a love interest over time and distance. The two had used the stormy weather to repair the breaches in their sisterly affections. The long days had given them time to talk and reveal many of the secrets they had kept as a direct result of Jane falling in love with Mr. Bingley and Elizabeth's haphazard courtship with Mr. Darcy.
Boarding the carriages spared Elizabeth from answering her sister in any meaningful way, yet a quarter-hour passed before the two vehicles began to roll away from Longbourn. Their mother and younger sisters fought over who would sit where, and twice, one or the other forgot their shawl or other frippery.
Elizabeth sulked in the squashed traveling conditions, preferring most Sundays to walk to church. But the half week of rain still muddied the roads, and the last desire on her mind was to arrive with her petticoats six inches deep in mud. From there, her mind wandered to imagining every negative comment and conversation Miss Bingley contrived to hold with her Mr. Darcy in the four days she had his company all to herself.
Her distraction was so thorough, she was almost angry with Mr. Darcy himself, who stood stoically outside the church with Mr. Bingley, anxious to greet the Bennets upon arrival until she laughed heartily and shook her delusional anxieties. If Mr. Darcy held any interest in Miss Bingley, he would have availed himself of her availability long ago and Miss Bingley's desires mattered not a bit of influence to him.
"Good morning, Miss Elizabeth," Mr. Darcy began as he assisted his intended and her two younger sisters from the second carriage, greeting each one. Mary and Kitty looped arms to walk into the church together to their family pew, giggling as they left Elizabeth alone with Mr. Darcy. "And how are you, my dear?" he whispered, leaning his head ever so slightly to speak where only she might hear.
"I am well," Elizabeth said, accepting his arm as an escort into the church. The couple waited for Mr. and Mrs. Bennet to begin the promenade first, as was their due, and then Mr. Bingley and Jane to walk behind them. As they waited, Elizabeth felt an arousing tickle of Mr. Darcy's fingers stroking the inside of her exposed wrist between her glove and sleeve, eliciting a foreign response of desire most inappropriate for one about to walk into a chapel. She blushed, and Mr. Darcy, sensing her distress, ceased.
"My apologies," he muttered. But Elizabeth swiftly shook her head as they began to walk forward.
"I appreciate the sentiment, just not the timing." The two shared a conspiratorial smile as they walked into Meryton's small chapel, a smile that faded as the seating arrangements for service appeared. The Bennet family pew held her father, mother, Jane, and Mr. Bingley, with Kitty and Mary on his other side, leaving only enough room for one more. Behind them, sat Caroline Bingley, doing her best to appear unaffected.
Mr. Darcy, being the gentleman, escorted Elizabeth to her family's pew, and then slipped behind her, sliding all the way down to the side where Miss Bingley sat, quite alone.
At first, Elizabeth sat frustrated that her youngest sisters had not seen fit to consider that perhaps they should sit with Miss Bingley, and allow the two couples prominence with their parents. But as Mary began to kneel to pray, Elizabeth turned her head ever so slightly. She could plainly spy Mr. Darcy in the pew behind her, gazing back at her in the manner she had learned represented his highest regard. His eyes didn't break away, even as Miss Bingley handed him the hymnal and the congregation began to sing the processional selection.
Dutiful, Elizabeth turned away and bowed her head as the cross trooped past. Reverend George Wakeman took his place in the lectern, while all sang the last strains of beseeching the angels' favor. Thankfully, Lizzy knew the natural rhythms and timing of her home vicar, she only felt slightly guilty stealing glance after glance at Fitzwilliam during the reading of the Gospel. Each time she muttered a response with the congregation, she caught herself watching his lips, mesmerized by the mouth that professed devout faith and yet was so very pleasing to kiss. She blushed as she reflected on their trek in the woods, and then more so when she felt Kitty tug gently on her skirt that she was one of the last to sit back down.
During communion, Lizzy again found herself distracted by the thought of sharing a communal cup with Mr. Darcy, one after another, as Jane and Mr. Bingley had in front of her. Unfortunately, the pews had been dismissed from the side where her father sat, and so, Mr. Darcy was not directly behind her, Miss Bingley was. She accepted her remembrance and followed her sister back to the pew, only daring a glance up at Mr. Darcy as he walked by again.
Finally, Elizabeth kneeled and prayed in earnest for her mind and heart to be delivered of the incessant passions she felt for Mr. Darcy, a prayer that as it flitted across her mind, she just as quickly begged the Lord not to grant. For what good would it do for a wife to be unaffected by her husband? She pondered on what remedy there could be for her current affliction, for she felt bereft without him and highly agitated around him, that at last, she settled on a prayer most eager brides find: that God sees fit to see them married in haste!
Elizabeth paid much more attention to the service through the prayers of the people and benediction, up to the point that Reverend Wakeman finally came around to parish announcements.
"I must say, I am elated to share the most delightful news, news that perhaps some of our congregation is already well acquainted with. Could I ask Miss Jane Bennet and Mr. Charles Bingley to please stand?" Reverend Wakeman beamed down at eldest Bennet daughter he had baptized himself, more than two decades ago.
Elizabeth held her breath as she waited for her name and Mr. Darcy's to be called, but Reverend Wakeman extolled the graces and good disposition of Jane to the rapt attentions around them. Elizabeth squirmed in her pew and she wondered what glad tidings and blessings he would say about her when he pronounced the first week of the banns to have been read and asked for any objections. When of course there were none, he invited the happy couple to again sit down and asked if there were any other announcements for the parish from Sir William Lucas.
Breathing became an accelerated affair as Elizabeth tried to process what had just happened. Her sister had the banns read, but her name was not called. Tears welled in her eyes and the final processional out of the church grew blurred in her vision. She did not nod in reverence of the cross and instead turned panicked-stricken to look at Mr. Darcy. Her face, reddened from crying with tears down her cheeks was met with his stony expression of indifference, one Elizabeth did not mistake for ardor. No, Fitzwilliam was very angry, and she had seen this look once before. In Kent.
Kitty's sharp elbow brought Elizabeth back to her senses as they were waiting for her to get up and leave the pew because the Lucases had congregated at the other end where Mrs. Bennet spoke rapidly about Jane's great fortune.
Utterly incensed, Elizabeth stormed out of the church even forgetting to wait for Mr. Darcy's escort, and trudged over to the far corner of the churchyard, near the tree line. She clenched her fists and wished for all the world for Mr. Darcy not to see her throw a petulant fit over what must have been a misunderstanding. She would speak to Reverend Wakeman, and explain, yes, and that is what she turned around to do, only to see Mr. Darcy already speaking to the vicar. Her father had joined the conversation, and something about the men's postures gave her pause. Reverend Wakeman placed a benedictive arm on Mr. Darcy's forearm in some sign of reconciliation, and Mr. Darcy jerked his hand away. He did not bow, whistled for his horse, and took his mount.
"Your Mr. Darcy has a mean temper, Lizzy," Kitty said, as she had joined her sister's side and watched the display.
"No, he doesn't," she said, tears falling anew and cursing herself for this fresh penchant for crying. "He just cannot abide impropriety and rejection. Nor can I," Lizzy finished, as her father called for her. She did not think to disobey, for she had a number of words to share with her father, in private.
The carriage assignments jumbled, as Mrs. Bennet and Jane rode with Mr. Bingley's sister and Mr. Bingley. Mary and Kitty would take the second Bennet carriage home, but Elizabeth cared not for any of it as she accepted her father's hand and used the leather strap tacked overhead to find her seat in the conveyance.
"I am grateful we found this time alone, Elizabeth. I'm very concerned about your behavior with Mr. Darcy."
"And I am very concerned about my family's treatment of Mr. Darcy. Why were the banns only read for Jane?"
Mr. Bennet scowled as the carriage began to roll away, leaving the churchyard. "You cannot expect to be the same as your sister," Mr. Bennet explained.
Elizabeth looked dumbfounded. "But yet, I am the same as Jane. I am engaged to be married. You gave your blessing four days ago!"
"And I've yet to sign a marriage contract!"
With a heavy sigh, Elizabeth realized she could not contradict her father's declaration. He spoke the truth, and Jane was engaged an entire week before she came to her understanding with Mr. Darcy. In that time, both Mr. Bingley and her father had sat down with her Uncle Phillips, but she was not privy to the terms of the settlement. She wondered if Jane even knew the terms.
"There were four days of rain! You punish my choice of husband over the weather?"
Mr. Bennet shook his head. "There are other concerns, many I detailed to you the night he applied for your hand. Are you certain, Lizzy, that you wish to align yourself with a man who not one person can speak well of in our neighborhood? Ordinarily, I would cast aside such trifling matters of popularity as meaningless, until I witnessed the man's temper this morning."
"You do not know him as I do, he was injured and he does not express himself as he ought to around new people."
"Nay, child, he was a brute. Reverend Wakeman calmed him down, and still, he jumped on his horse to ride away. Tell me, did he even farewell you?" Mr. Bennet drove his point home and Elizabeth felt her eyes prick anew with tears.
"Why? Why are you being so cruel? If I did not read into his actions, why could not you? Was it not you who told me it was my turn to be crossed in love? Or did you mean not a love that took me away from here? Mayhap I should set my sights on John Lucas." Elizabeth met her father's cruelty with her own.
Mr. Bennet groaned and adjusted his posture on the bench to spy movement outside the carriage window. A rider on a horse that looked a great deal like the very gentleman he disfavored rode in the distance, towards Longbourn.
"I would no sooner see you with that slavish oaf than tied to a rich man who values you too little, that's all. Please believe me that my actions are for your benefit and protection. An old man can learn from his mistakes, a time or two," he said, as the carriage came to a complete stop.
As soon as Mr. Bennet descended the stairs, he was accosted by Mr. Darcy.
"I request a private word with Miss Elizabeth, please sir," he said, with all deference to Mr. Bennet.
Mr. Bennet threw his hands up as Elizabeth clambered out of the carriage and answered for herself.
"Yes! Yes, you may have a word!" She accepted Mr. Darcy's hand from the carriage.
"I am quite unneeded. Unneeded! She won't take my advice anymore!" And he left the couple to themselves.
The two ignored Mr. Bennet entirely, and a stable hand rushed forward to take care of Mr. Darcy's horse.
"You have my apology, madam, in the way I conducted myself, and I wondered if we might stroll in your family's garden?"
Elizabeth twisted her lips in slight annoyance, as he had run off and left the church without saying a word. As the second Bennet carriage could be spied coming up the lane, Elizabeth gave up her torture of poor Mr. Darcy in exchange for the two of them to walk alone, without her younger sisters joining them.
"Follow me," she said, and she took off with a laugh, her legs grateful for the exercise after sitting so long that morning both at church and in the carriages.