*** A good Bennet brawl is always welcome in my book! :) - EAW ***
"For once in your life, keep your distance from me!" Jane shouted as she rushed for the refuge of their shared bedroom, with her younger sister following behind up the stairs. The sudden commotion disturbed the quiet night at Longbourn after the dinner at Netherfield Park.
"But Jane, I didn't mean it. I never intended–" Elizabeth managed before Jane uncharacteristically closed the door between them, keeping Lizzy out in the hall, and Jane in their room.
Kitty and Mary appeared from their room, dressed in their nightgowns. Mr. Bennet had not allowed them to attend the dinner, explaining that just because both girls had been out in the past, did not necessarily mean every social invitation was for them.
It was just as well as their attendance would have further pushed the intimate family dinner to being more lopsided and gentlemen to ladies than the three to five ratio Miss Bingley had to arrange seating.
"What happened? What's upset Jane?" Kitty asked, bewildered to see such a quarrel between her two eldest sisters.
"Nothing, go back to bed. Jane is upset, and I'm sure it shall pass," Elizabeth attempted to turn the door handle, finding Jane had locked it! Elizabeth opened her hand and with a flat palm began to bang on the door. "It is too late for such childishness, this is my room too! You have to let me in!"
Behind them, the girls were startled to hear footsteps on the creaky stairs and they turned to see their father retiring for the night.
"Girls," He greeted them, as they pushed themselves flat against the wall for him to pass to his room. But Kitty could not leave the situation alone.
"Papa, Jane has locked Lizzy out of their room," she tattled.
Mr. Bennet continued his slow walk down the hall. "They'll find a way to work it out. If not, I do believe there is an extra bed in your room."
Mary sized up the situation, and gently led Elizabeth away from the door as her tears fell freely down her cheeks. She called after their father and wished him a good night, and he turned around to see more maturity in his two youngest daughters than what had occurred that evening from his older daughters. Once safely ensconced in the room holding three beds, Elizabeth openly sobbed as Kitty tried to placate her and Mary fetched a nightgown for her to wear as they were of a similar height.
"I'm sure whatever has happened, Jane will be sorted in the morning," Kitty offered and Lizzie nodded.
"You did not miss a fun evening!" Lizzie managed, gulping for breath to settle her emotions. She wiped her eyes as they stung from her salty tears, and a small belch from the rich wine disturbed her speech. "Most of the night I played a game of keeping Mr. Darcy away from our parents. You know how they suddenly seem to disapprove of my match," she said, and the younger girls nodded as the subject was one they had discussed amongst themselves. "Miss Bingley, that absolutely horrid woman, doted on Jane, which was all well and good, had she not taken every opportunity to insult me. Then just before we went in for the meal, Jane warned me to mind my tongue!"
Mary and Kitty exchanged a shared look of shock, and it was Mary who asked how Miss Bingley had insulted Elizabeth.
"She raised a glass to toast Jane and Mr. Bingley for their engagement and her eternal happiness that they would be remaining at Netherfield Park, and how she had just agreed with her brother to also stay in residence for a time to support Jane. And then Mr. Darcy cleared his throat, and Miss Bingley believed he wished to say a few words. The silence that fell was awkward and obscene, and I braved saying that Jane was not the only woman in the room engaged to be married."
"No, Lizzy!" "You didn't!" Marry and Kitty said at the same time.
"I did! If you had seen her smirky face, you would have said something as well, Mary! You know you would have! And then Miss Bingley said that my engagement with Mr. Darcy was of a peculiar sort, she had not wished to toast it before it was announced in church!"
The younger girls didn't know how to contradict Elizabeth in her passioned pleas for understanding, but thus far, it seemed as though Elizabeth had been the transgressor.
Kitty encouraged Elizabeth to get back to the disagreement. "Jane would forgive a small rudeness," Kitty tried to reason. "Did something else happen?"
"Mr. Bingley had not been himself most of the evening. He actually told Mama in the parlor before dinner that her queries into his household expenditures were meddlesome and unwelcome," Elizabeth smiled as she recalled her mother's face at the set down.
"That is not like Mr. Bingley at all!" Kitty agreed.
Elizabeth stood to pour herself a glass of water from the basin. Her throat had suddenly become parched dry. After she guzzled the water, she suddenly felt very guilty for the majority of her behavior. She understood more and more how Mr. Darcy felt so very altered in circumstances where they were neither at their best.
She lowered her voice and stared at the half full cup in her hands. "I saw Mr. Darcy this afternoon in the village, you saw him when he walked me home?" She accepted the nods from her sisters that they were following the wide jumps in time as Elizabeth tried to recount the important parts. "He told me today that Mr. Bingley has suffered bouts of aggression and melancholy, all since his accident. I supposed at first it was just the loss of his horse."
She paused, and again the guilt of her actions made the contents of her stomach twinge with indigestion. "Being harsh with Mama was not the only strange thing. When Mr. Bingley stood, I noticed he grasped a chair for balance, as did Mr. Darcy."
"Oh dear, Mr. Bingley is not well!" Kitty exclaimed and Elizabeth blanched.
"He is well, just not quite well," she explained. "After the rudeness over the toast, eventually the subject naturally came up about when and where the wedding would occur. Mama pushed for two weeks from now, directly after the third bann is read. To my surprise, Miss Bingley suggested the end of November to coincide with the anniversary of last year's ball."
"A ball! Tell me that Mr. Bingley has consented to throwing another ball! Last year's was so magical, and this time, Maria Lucas can attend!" Kitty suddenly grew distracted that her closest friend in age and temperament was now out due to her elder sister, Charlotte, marrying their cousin the year before.
"Yes, Kitty, there is to be a ball."
Mary frowned and counted on her fingers. "Will it not be too dark?"
Elizabeth marveled at Mary's swift calculations, then gazed out at the moon outside. She just as easily spied it was a little more than half-full and gaining since the previous week had been dark. A little more than a month and a half until the anniversary of the Netherfield Ball would assuredly land too close to a new moon. She left the glass on the nightstand.
"At first, Miss Bingley's suggestion was dismissed out of hand by Papa, though he might have sought only to avoid the ball. The conversation swirled and I panicked that Papa would agree to Jane and Mr. Bingley marrying before the month is out!" she said, not elaborating that her fear of Jane marrying first would delay her nuptials until well after Christmas or later.
She could not be sure that her parents would force her to endure such a long engagement. Her paranoia rested on how Mrs. Bennet would likely feel secure in attaining Mr. Bingley's fortune and a future of enjoying the highest comfort even after the family lost Longbourn when their father did die. Without fear of the hedgerows, little remained to entice Mrs. Bennet in promoting Elizabeth's match. She still maintained that Mr. Darcy was an unpleasant sort of fellow and expressed dislike whenever the opportunity, but not his earshot, presented itself.
"And you and Jane dream of a double wedding," Kitty said, with an aspirational lilt to her voice.
"A sound economy," Mary added.
Elizabeth nodded, happy her younger sisters appeared to be on her side.
"So why is Jane angry? The wedding and the ball were moved . . . to . . ." Kitty tried to calculate, but grew frustrated. "Mary?"
Mary shrugged. "I would guess a month's time?"
"Precisely that," Elizabeth said with a big sigh. Another silence fell and she finally had to confess. She walked over to the bed Lydia once occupied and pulled back the coverlet and the sheets, then climbed into bed wriggling her toes against the coldness that met her bare feet. Gazing up at the cracked plaster above, she wondered how long it would be thus and if Mr. Darcy's houses suffered from any neglect in repairs? Would the bedrooms be drafty from cracks in the ceilings and walls? Or would the house be like Netherfield Park where a servant restarted the fire before you even rose from bed in the morning?
Finally, Elizabeth explained why Jane was so very cross, perhaps even unable to forgive her.
"When I worried that Papa would agree for Jane to marry in two weeks, before it was all settled for a months' time, I raised the issue of Mr. Bingley's accident. If he married too close to it, someone could challenge their marriage."
Both of the younger girls gasped in the relative darkness of the room as Mary had just snuffed the candle, adding an unintended dramatic effect to Lizzy's confession.
"But such an accusation is serious!" Mary scolded. Elizabeth sat back upright in the bed, her form outlined by the small amount of moonlight coming in from the window.
"And that horrid Miss Bingley didn't defend her brother! In fact, she looked away with a very guilty countenance. Father challenged Mr. Darcy, assuming my opinion to come from him. Then Mr. Bingley began to holler, and Mr. Darcy pointed out he was looking out for his interests, which then Jane, sweet Jane, spoke her piece . . ." Elizabeth trailed off, recounting the ghastly end of the dinner, closing her eyes tightly as though she suffered a nightmare.
"What . . . what did Jane say?" Kitty asked.
Elizabeth's eyes flew open and her emotions for Mr. Darcy clouded her accounting. "She told Mr. Darcy that Mr. Bingley no longer needed him looking out for his interests, not now or ever."
"Bravo, Jane!" Kitty said, and Elizabeth vented her disapproval with a small, guttural sound.
"She has suffered most acutely due to his interference," Mary agreed.
Suddenly, Elizabeth realized her sisters were correct. Just as Jane had scolded her in the carriage, that Lizzy only suffered a few months of affection for Mr. Darcy, she had pined for Mr. Bingley for over a year, even enduring a lengthy period of time believing he no longer returned the regard. The similarity between Jane and Mr. Darcy became clear in Elizabeth's mind, and her empathy for the man she had inadvertently pained since Easter transferred more sympathy to her sister.
"I avow, though on the surface it might appear I advocated for only my interests, it is a happy circumstance they aligned with Jane's. I do not trust Caroline Bingley, she had a direct hand in separating Jane and Mr. Bingley before," Elizabeth whispered, new tears struggling to form at her eyes as she had already cried too much. Her eyes stung acutely from their dryness being wetted again.
"But so did Mr. Darcy," Kitty said.
"Yes, but Mr. Darcy saved Lydia, and came back and put things right between Jane and Mr. Bingley. Miss Bingley, I'm sure, has returned only to meddle," Elizabeth accused.
"But when will she have a chance? What could she possibly do?" Kitty asked.
Elizabeth flopped back against the pillows, and then wrestled to her left side, trying to find a comfortable position in a bed so foreign to her body. "I cannot say, perhaps tomorrow. Mama and Jane are to spend the day at Netherfield and I am not to go."
"Will you be sad not to see Mr. Darcy?" Mary asked.
"No, not at all," Elizabeth said solemnly, then finally found the comic irony in the situation. Yes, it had been a pointed non-invitation for tomorrow from plans made in the carriage with her mother and Jane. But Elizabeth knew something they did not, that leaving her out of additional time with Miss Bingley was no punishment at all. "He won't be there, he and Mr. Bingley are riding to Baxter's Farm in the morning."
With nothing more to impart, Elizabeth tried to think through how she would apologize to Jane and help her see reason. In the end, she couldn't discern a way to show Miss Bingley's ill-intent while Jane was so adamant on a reconciliation with the woman.
As Mary's snores joined Kitty's coughs, Elizabeth took a few deep breaths as her head began to pound with a most ferocious headache, the direct result of all of her crying. As every thought began to feel as though it pierced her skull, she resolved to apologize and then wait for Miss Bingley to reveal her true colors. Then she would be ready to help Jane as she always had when her sister thought too good of people at her own peril. Begging the pain to cease, she fell into a deep sleep without even the pleasant dreams of Mr. Darcy to comfort her.