A/N - This chapter is unedited. Please let me know if you see any issues or where you think the story might drag. What do you think about this chapter? Does it fit? Does it need more/less? Let me know your thoughts.

Let me know if you continue to see any issues with consistency, language/usage, or just too much information. This story will be published on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited at some point once it is finished (new target: September 10?).

Chapter 28

At Longbourn, Mr and Mrs Bennet were once again on their own. Jane and her husband had briefly stopped to visit before and after their trip to Pemberley and had shared much of that great estate. Mrs Bennet had never been given to introspection, but she wondered idly if she would ever see the estate — or her grandchild — and was troubled with the answer that came to her. Before she would see either, she would have to apologise to Lizzy. Lizzy was her most troublesome daughter, the one that should have been born a son to break the entail. She refused to do her duty to her family and marry the heir, leaving him for Charlotte Lucas to marry instead. One day, she would have to cede her role as mistress of Longbourn to Charlotte Collins, and that was all Lizzy's fault. However, with Mr Collins having been sent away from England … she paused in her thoughts as she considered what that might mean for the entail.

Granted, Lizzy had made up for her failure to accept Mr Collins somewhat by marrying Mr Darcy. Mr Darcy was fabulously wealthy, and he would introduce her other daughters to rich men. Although it had not worked with Jane since Jane married a barrister. While his father owned an estate, he was a second son and would never inherit property.

Her other girls were all gone, and that was Lizzy's fault as well. She did not particularly mind that Mary was gone, especially as Mary had befriended Mr Darcy's sister. Surely that would place Mary in the path of a good match once Miss Darcy was out in society. Kitty was at home more than any of the others, but she was often occupied with her companion, and Mrs Bennet did not like that woman at all. Her favourite, Lydia, was away at school. Lizzy had insisted upon it after Lady Lucas had raised a fuss about Lydia's liveliness at an assembly. Someone had mentioned it to Lizzy in a letter, and Lizzy demanded Lydia go to school, and now even Lydia was not the same. Lydia was following in the path of her other sisters now, and her liveliness was restrained. She had apologised to the Lucas family for her behaviour last autumn, and she knew this was also somehow Lizzy's fault. Her Lydia would have never done such a thing. What on earth did Lydia have to apologise for?

Just now, Lydia and Kitty were far away in Derbyshire, visiting Pemberley and meeting their nephew. They were invited by Mr and Mrs Darcy and escorted to Pemberley by an Earl and Countess. That was something to brag about, but her friends would ask why she was not travelling to Pemberley to see the new grandchild. Her husband's reluctance would only excuse it for so long, especially since Jane said Lizzy absolutely refused to travel to Longbourn.

Likewise, Mr Bennet rarely mentioned Elizabeth, his former favourite. His wife knew he received letters from her occasionally — Mr Bennet rarely stirred himself to write, although he wrote his twice-monthly letters to Darcy as required by their agreement. He would occasionally write letters in response to Lizzy's, but these were few, and most of the news about her second daughter came from her other daughters. Mrs Darcy wrote to her sisters regularly, all of them, and they wrote to her just as frequently. But without any of her daughters in the house, there was little she could hear, at least until one returned. Even so, the girls were careful not to say too much about Lizzy in front of their mother, although, of course, a few things were occasionally shared or overheard.

"Mr Bennet, Lydia says the Earl and Countess were so welcoming and polite to her and Kitty," Mrs Bennet cried one morning after receiving a letter from Pemberley. "Of course, they likely only do it because they are Lizzy's relations, but still, they offered to transport our daughters to Pemberley. If only I could have travelled with them." Her thoughts trailed off as she considered the likelihood of that occurring.

"Well, Mrs Bennet," her husband replied, "it is unlikely the master and mistress of Pemberley will ever invite you to their grand estate, and that is entirely due to the letters you sent to your daughter after she was wed. Were you to apologise, your second eldest daughter might be persuaded to invite you."

Mrs Bennet scowled at that. "I would be surprised at that," she retorted. "Since marrying such a rich man, Lizzy believes herself to be so above us. She would not condescend to invite the likes of us to Pemberley."

"She has invited all her sisters; she has only refused to invite you and me," Mr Bennet said. "Perhaps it has something to do with our parenting. Or the fact that we cannot afford to travel there ourselves since we must retrench to pay our debts."

"Your debts, Mr Bennet," she said bitterly in reply. "I was not the one who gambled more than I could afford."

"Ahh," came the reply, "but I did so to give you and our daughters a better chance when I 'shuffle off this mortal coil'. We could have been more prudent, perhaps, and laid by an annual amount toward providing for our daughters, it would not have been so important to you for Lizzy to marry Collins. When she refused him, I felt I needed to do something to stop your complaints; however, my something did not work so well. We were fortunate Mr Darcy asked to marry our Lizzy when he did, or we would have been in dire straits."

"Yes, and why did you not tell me about any of that until after it happened? There was much about that wedding that you failed to mention at the time. Why did you insist on it being a rushed affair, and why did you not allow Lizzy to come home to have it?" Mrs Bennet demanded.

"It seemed best at the time," he replied indifferently. "I did not have the money to pay for the grand affair you would have felt was necessary, and allowing them to marry in London quickly meant less fuss. Darcy and his family paid for Lizzy's trousseau, the wedding, the breakfast — the whole thing — with little effort on my part. Plus, by granting Mr Darcy to do as he wished and marry quickly, it made it easier for me to ask for the loan I required. I expected him to pay the whole thing — I was rather surprised when they insisted it be a loan and not a gift."

Again, Mrs Bennet scowled. "They should have gifted you the funds you needed," she insisted. "I still do not understand why they required it to be a loan."

"Mr Darcy claimed to have experience with men who gamble and felt it was best that I forfeit my 'pound of flesh' to ensure I do not do anything like this again. Lizzy also felt that I needed to take steps to provide for my other daughters and ensure they were well brought up since she thought we had not done so well. Regardless, with very little expense to me, my second youngest daughter now has a companion, which you have bragged to all our neighbours about, and Lydia has gone off to school. Jane is married, although perhaps not as high as you would have liked, and Mary and the other girls will attend events at a much higher level of society when they accompany Mrs and Miss Darcy into society. We will have little to do to ensure the rest of our daughters make admirable matches, and I dare say our son-in-law will be persuaded to foot the bill for them as well when that happens." Mr Bennet proclaimed all of this airily as though it made little difference to him.

"You would deprive me of seeing any of my other daughters court and marry as you did with Lizzy?" Mrs Bennet asked disbelievingly. "If they remain in London with Lizzy, we will surely never see them again. All my girls report that Lizzy is adamant that she will never visit here."

"Again, madam," Mr Bennet said, "if you were to offer a sincere apology to Lizzy, she might entertain the notion of being in your company again someday. With all our daughters from home, our expenses have been far less, and we still have funds to provide ourselves with some of the luxuries we prefer. I have even been able to catch up on what we owe to our son-in-law as he has been a demanding task-master, and I prefer to have him off my back as soon as possible."

Mrs Bennet did not respond to this provocation but continued to ponder what her husband said. She felt frustrated with his nonchalance in addressing these issues and was rather aggravated with his attitude toward the future of their youngest daughters. However, she also recognised that if something were to happen to her husband, Elizabeth was the only daughter who would be in a position to assist her. Jane was married, yes, but her husband was a barrister. Mrs Bennet did not realise that his position was different from that of a solicitor and that Mr Hastings had a far better living than she imagined, as she thought his income would be similar to that of her father and brother.

She was also troubled by the thought of offering a 'sincere' apology. Part of her recognised that her letters to her daughter following her wedding had upset her daughter and her husband tremendously, but it did not change her belief that Elizabeth did not deserve the life she now had. It was beyond her imagination to think that a man like Mr Darcy could have been willing to accept a girl like Lizzy, and she still wondered what Lizzy had done to make that gentleman marry her. Having never truly loved anyone besides herself, she could not see or comprehend the obvious love that existed between the pair.

Similarly, Elizabeth found herself unable to evade news about her mother, as her sisters would occasionally share updates from Longbourn. Nonetheless, she refrained from actively seeking information. On occasion, Mary would broach the topic, urging Elizabeth to forgive their mother and mend the fractured relationship, citing the Bible's words about forgiveness. However, Elizabeth frequently stated her firmly held belief that the onus lay with their mother to take responsibility for her actions and refused to make any overtures toward restoring the relationship.

Though Elizabeth had forgiven her mother, she recognized that the relationship would remain severed. Even in the event of an apology, the prospect of a complete restoration seemed doubtful. Prior to her marriage, her mother had been prone to belittling and chastising her, which had left lasting scars on their bond. This tendency to demean and chastise her had deep roots, going back to Elizabeth's formative years. Despite forgiving her, Elizabeth could not ignore the emotional scars and lingering pain caused by her mother's hurtful behaviour and struggled with resentment toward her mother. Those wounds were not easily mended, and the mere act of apologising might not be enough to heal them completely, especially in light of the present problems. The longer her mother refused to apologise, the harder it became for Elizabeth to feel the situation would ever have a resolution.

Her relationship with her father had suffered nearly irreparable damage as well. His callousness in risking his family in the way he did, and his subsequent conduct, made it exceedingly difficult to reinstate the bond to what it had been before. His failure to fulfil his responsibilities toward his daughters, leaving the burden on the Darcys to care for them, added to the complexities of the situation. Mr Bennet only did what was required after forfeiting the new and expensive books he had purchased using funds meant for the loan's payment. Mr Bennet's refusal to disclose the true state of affairs to his wife until circumstances compelled him to do so had created additional problems, primarily in the letters Mrs Bennet sent criticising Elizabeth.

Regardless, Elizabeth had hoped that, eventually, there would be some restoration, especially after the birth of her son. It pained her that her father had so little to say about the event and that her mother remained silent — continuing her refusal to apologise for any of her behaviours. She was well aware that Mrs Bennet knew of the birth of the heir to Pemberley and, under normal circumstances, would have expected her to be elated. However, there continued to be no word from Longbourn, at least not addressed to Elizabeth.

"I received a letter from Mama today, Lizzy," Mary began one morning after breakfast.

"That is nice, Mary," Elizabeth said abstractedly.

"She and Papa spoke about the estrangement recently," Mary continued.

Elizabeth cut her off before she could say more. "I really do not want to know, Mary. Mama and Papa both have been wrong, and neither feels the least bit repentant. Papa has attempted to do what he should, and perhaps Mama has too, but she wrote such awful things to me, and until she apologises, I do not want to hear any of it."

"Papa said they spoke of her apologising, but he doubts it is likely. She cannot seem to move past the idea that you have the life Jane should have," Mary sighed. "I think sometimes that it was better to be the sister that was ignored, but you were the one she targeted."

"You are right, Mary, but speaking of this will not change matters. William and I have discussed it, and I have forgiven our parents and continue to attempt not to resent them. I cannot help their attitude toward me, but I can limit their ability to influence me and my family. William and I have our family now, and I have all my sisters," Elizabeth said, smiling at Mary. "The Gardiners and the Matlocks will act as our children's grandparents, so our children will not miss out on having a slew of people who love them and spoil them. Alex is quite spoiled already, with you and Georgiana addressing his every need and barely allowing William and me time with him," she teased her sister. "I am happy and content, and if our parents choose to continue in their resentment, then it will only affect them. I will not allow their resentment to become mine, and I will be satisfied."

Mary laughed, as her sister intended, but considered her words for some time after that.

Copyright 2023 Melissa Anne