Manner of Devotion
"Everybody likes to go their own way--to choose their own time and manner of devotion."
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
Chapter 9 - A Long-Expected Party
Mr. Bennet, not known to be a stingy man with his family (almost, at one point, to his own ruin with his youngest daughter), spared no expense and no invitation to anyone whom could claim even the slightest relation. Though Hertfordshire was no Derbyshire, by its own standards this was a grand celebration. Characteristic of Mr. Bennet, he did not host a ball ("My daughters are well-settled, thank you very much"). Instead it was a more general daytime celebration, mainly to accommodate his seventeen grandchildren, his four nieces and nephews, and his four great-nieces.
Aside from planning the menu and the accommodations, Mr. Bennet had one unpleasant duty. With Mrs. Philips' insistence, he sat in gathering with her and Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner about Mrs. Bennet, whose condition remained unchanged. She was still given to periods of confusion, but was hardly an invalid.
"I see no cause for concern," he said to his sister-in-law. "If anyone says anything of note, it will hardly be heard over the screaming army of children to descend upon us."
"I do not want my sister exposed to public denunciation."
"Then perhaps you should have lodged complaint between when my first daughter went out and a month ago," Mr. Bennet said, to which the Gardiners could not help smiling. "Mrs. Philips, with all do respect, my wife has not complained about her wits for almost six weeks now – and I have been counting. I can hardly lock her away for such a crime. Nor am I remotely willing to do so," he said. "If anything, she is to be commended."
The widow Mrs. Philips was overruled by the Gardiners, who agreed with Mr. Bennet, and then by the man in charge, and she silenced herself.
"There is cause for more general concern," Mrs. Gardiner said, and her husband nodded grimly for his sister.
"I am at the moment too happy and foolish to fathom it," he replied. "If this is to be her twilight, then I have decided to enjoy her now and wallow in misery later. After all, putting off important business has always been my proficiency."
In early August, the mass descended on Hertfordshire. Already the Darcys and the Bingleys were in residence, and everyone delighted in comparing notes about the differing accounts of Mr. Bingley's travels that he gave depending on his level of intoxication at the time. He showered his children and relatives with odd gifts. Though Indian goods had been available in Town for years, it was quite another thing to get it as a gift from a traveler who could say where he got it, how much and how long he bargained, and whose heritage was more insulted by the end of the bargaining before an actual price was affixed. "Apparently I do not care for a lot of shopkeepers' mothers," he said. "And I am a demon-haired dolt."
"That was already known," Darcy said, and was already looking out the window innocently when Bingley turned his head.
Another amusement was the fact that Mrs. Bennet could never seem to grasp the presence of Monkey, and was surprised every time she saw him. "My goodness, there's a wild animal in this house!" Such repeated proclamations did not put her on either side – those who despised the monkey (Darcy) and those who loved him (everyone else). Darcy had found an ally with the arrival of the Bradleys and the Wickhams in Isabella Wickham's cat. Fortunately, Monkey was a better climber and took refuge on the nearest person's head whenever the grey tabby entered the room.
It was on a shooting expedition with Mr. Townsend at Netherfield that Bingley said, "What happened to young Mr. Wickham?"
"The same thing that will happen to Geoffrey soon enough," Darcy replied.
"May I say the obvious?"
"Yes, he does look like his father," Darcy said. "Even more every day, it seems."
Mr. Townsend, who had not known Mr. Wickham senior, replied only, "Looks are not everything. Especially when his father has been described to me as having been dashing. And George is a sensible boy."
"He is," Darcy said, softening Bingley's anxious look. "Very sensible. He is set on Oxford as soon as he can manage it."
"Oxford?"
"Yes," he replied. "Probably for all the reasons we think." Mr. Wickham's alma mater, like Darcy's, had been Cambridge. "Besides the fact that Oxford was his grandfather's University," he said, referring to Mr. Bennet.
Done for the day, they set a time for next week, a day before the party.
"Am I inviting the Maddoxes?" Mr. Townsend asked.
"Only if you want to be eating fowl for months," Darcy said. "That is if you invite Her Highness."
"I wasn't going to say it," Bingley said. "Though, given the celebrations afterward, it might not be a bad idea."
The Collins family arrived in time for services on Sunday, and for Mrs. Collins to spend time with her parents and her sister, now married to another retired soldier (perhaps England's most popular occupation). Trailing them were their four daughters, who were no doubt loved with the same subtle frustration that Mr. Bennet had loved all his unmarried daughters. Nobody dared to say "The Bennet Curse" in earshot of either of them.
Indeed, the dynamics had changed much since Mr. Collins' last visit to Longbourn, over twelve years prior. He still stood to inherit Longbourn, but whether he would have the finances to keep it up was an unanswered question. If he died without a son, the entail would die with him, and the property would be sold, presumably to Joseph Bennet (who could not inherit because of his illegitimacy). In fact, Mr. Collins' benefactor was none other than Mr. Darcy, master of Rosings, who set his pay. Fortunately Mrs. Darcy and Charlotte Collins remained friends despite the change in fortunes, and Mr. Collins was in no great financial trouble. In fact, he was no longer even obligated to give regular sermons, to the secret relief of everyone in Kent. He spent most of his days gardening.
Mr. Collins had not changed in his desire to please his patron and patroness with a deluge of compliments. Fortunately a plan was quickly discovered to divert this; Mr. Bingley trained Monkey to jump at Mr. Collins whenever the vicar started speaking to Darcy, who thanked Bingley profusely but stopped short of saying he had any other tolerance for that creature.
Final arrivals included the earl of Fitzwilliam, his wife, and three-year-old son Henry. The Kincaids sent their regrets, but Lady Georgiana could not be expected to travel so far with a newborn. At last the Maddoxes arrived, all four adults and all three children, with one lost Japanese thug in tow. True to Darcy's predictions, Prince and Princess Maddox were happy to join the hunting party, and Her Highness felled what seemed like an entire flock of pigeons. Brian brought a gigantic painted bow and succeeded in hitting many trees and other relatively wide, inanimate objects. His wife was all encouragement. Needless to say, the Bennet feast was not lacking in game meat.
Mr. Bennet was in high spirits, and just about everyone joined him as they sat down to a massive luncheon while their children played outside, in theory under watch by an army of nurses as the adults toasted his good health.
Outside, one adult refused to sit down for a long dinner with a bunch of barbarians, and instead slept off his own meal (which had been considerable) and drink (also considerable) against a tree while the smaller children tugged at his feet. "Mr. Mugen! Mr. Mugen."
"Go 'way," he said, lifting his leg and taking little Cassandra Darcy on a ride as she grabbed his ankle. "Little gaijin."
"Why do you wear sandals?"
"Why do you have tattoos?"
"Can you see like normal people?"
"Can I get a tattoo?"
"Can I see your sword?"
"Do you have a wife?"
"Do Japan people get married?"
"My dad says you're a convict. What does that mean?"
"How old are you?"
"Can you carry me on your back?"
He moaned and opened his eyes to the little children. "Ugh. Children loud. You know what children do in Japan?"
"No!" they collectively shouted.
"Children scrub floors! Like servants! You want be in Japan?"
The children screamed and ran away, or at least the youngest and most gullible did, to be amused by the next (and less cranky) thing. Mugen went back to sleep.
The older children had gathered by the fence, which was as far as they were allowed to go without supervision. Anyone over seven had the air of authority and tried to shoo away their younger cousins.
"So, when Grandfather dies, Mr. Collins gets all of this?" Charles Bingley (the third) asked, gesturing to Longbourn.
"Grandpapa's not going to die!" Anne Darcy cried, clutching her older brother. "Geoffrey, say it's not true!"
Geoffrey sighed and looked to Georgiana Bingley, who just shrugged. "Everybody dies, Anne. Besides, it would be weird if everybody didn't. There would be too many people."
"She's right," Geoffrey said to his sister.
"It's still not fair," Charles said. "Someone should decide who gets Longbourn. It shouldn't just go to Mr. Collins because he's Mr. Collins."
"That is the way it works," said George, who was sitting on the fence. "You shouldn't talk. You get Kirkland."
"Of course I get Kirkland. What do you mean?"
George huffed with authority. "You get Kirkland and Edmund doesn't, because you're older."
"What about Georgie? What if she wanted Kirkland?"
"She can't have it. She's a girl." This earned him a cold stare from Georgiana. "It's just the way the law works."
"You don't know everything, you know," Geoffrey said, in some attempt to soothe Georgiana. "Just because you're older."
"Fine. Look it up. Or ask your father."
"Why can't we make a system where everyone takes what they want?" Charles said.
"Because then we'd be barbarians," George replied, but was ignored.
"Fine!" Geoffrey said. "I'm gonna take Kirkland then because my dad can beat up your dad."
"He cannot!"
"Can to!"
"His arm doesn't even work!"
"His hand," Geoffrey corrected. "And your dad doesn't even fence."
"He shoots."
"Stop it!" Anne shouted. "Our dads would never fight. And Dr. Maddox wouldn't fight because he can't see, so if we all had to fight, Mr. Bradley would win. So he gets everything!"
"He has one eye," Frederick Maddox said, referring to Mr. Bradley. "My dad has two, and they sort of work, so my dad wins."
"At what? He doesn't fight and he doesn't shoot," Geoffrey said.
"Shut up!" Frederick said, already angry. "He could beat up your dad! He's taller!"
"No he couldn't!"
"Yes he could!"
This quickly devolved into shouting, and eventually, Frederick threw a punch. Not a particularly good one (he was eight), but it didn't even connect before he fell on his back, and Geoffrey Darcy was knocked into the soft grass. Georgiana Bingley had gotten between them and instantaneously taken them both.
"Stop fighting!" she said. "Or I'll beat you all up! And then ... I take everything!" She turned to the stunned George. "And don't even say it because I'll throw you over that fence faster than you can finish your sentence!"
"She'll do it ... too," Geoffrey said from the ground.
There was a scared silence, and then finally, clapping.
"Good, good," Mugen said, shambling into the crowd as the boys picked themselves up. He patted Georgie on the head. "Now, children stop fighting. Is no reason. Your parents all weak. Huge wimps. I beat them all, take everything."
"... I told you guys it doesn't work like that," George said with a gulp.
The long day of feasting, chatting, gossiping, and herding the children (and some of the more inebriated adults) ended with a fiery crescendo of fireworks, supplied by Bingley and Brian Maddox. Mugen insisted that lighting the Chinese rockets would be "no big deal" until one blew up in his face, and he ended up dunking it in the pig trough to cool it. In the end he had only some ashes irritating his eyes to contend with, as it had been a very small rocket, but the rest of them were handled with much care. The children were allowed to stay up for the show, including the final one that vaguely made the shape of a dragon in its red and purple journey to the sky. Slowly they were all put to bed, and the servants dismissed for their own party (as they did certainly deserve one), leaving those adults still awake and aware to quietly enjoy the evening of one very long and memorable day.
"Thank you all for joining me," Mr. Bennet said in a final toast. "I doubt I shall turn seventy again, but with any luck, I will hit another nice round number and still have enough wits to realize it." With that he retired, his tightly held wife by his side.
"Perhaps there will be another Bennet after all," Darcy whispered to Elizabeth, who colored and swatted him.
"What there won't be is another Darcy tonight," she said, kissing him. "I am off to bed."
"I will be there soon enough," he said, holding back his yawn until she was gone. He really was getting older. He looked around; Bingley was asleep in the armchair, with Monkey curled up on his head, having made a bed out of his hair. Dr. and Mrs. Maddox had retired after their children were all put down. Nadezhda was doing some embroidery while Brian stoked the fire.
"Mr. Maddox," he said, approaching him.
"Mr. Darcy," he bowed. "You have the good fortune of being limited in your spirit intake, or you would be already asleep and dreading tomorrow morning like the rest of us."
"This is true," he said. "I heard a rumor from Bingley that you are to the Continent soon."
"Yes, for business. Nady and I are going to France to make a deal with a vendor. And she has never seen Paris. Why do you ask?" Even at his least alertness, Brian Maddox had developed a knack for knowing when something was on the wind.
"Is there any chance you have an interest in visiting Spain, if you are taking your company's ship?"
"It could be arranged," he said in a lowered voice. "What is it?"
"There was some kind of error with the bank in Madrid that supplies my brother with his income. Apparently the money never made it there. I'm not overly concerned about the money and I'm sure it will be sorted out or chalked up to a highway robbery, but I wrote Grégoire about it weeks ago and he hasn't written back."
Brian nodded. "He lives on the coast, doesn't he? Very far north?"
"Yes."
Brian paused, and said to his wife, "Nady, would you like to go to Spain?"
... Next Chapter - A Ghost in the Chapel