If one wished to assign blame for the impossible situation, Lizzy felt the onus ought to rest at Mr Collins’s too-large feet. Of course, it was her mother who had enacted the actual expulsion, but Lizzy understood her—as much as one could ever understand Mama. Mrs Bennet had been overly encouraged by Jane’s triumphant match with Bingley into believing that she could be as easily rid of her least favourite daughter.
I was too slow to recognise the signs of Mama’s intentions—so obvious, in retrospect.
“How could I have guessed, though?” Lizzy argued with herself. “Whomever Mr Collins marries will eventually become mistress of Longbourn. It is impossible to conceive of receiving either of my parents’ approbation for my assumption of that position!”
Of course, Cousin Collins was repellent to her, but even had he not been, she had been taught to believe, from a very young age, that she would never marry. Her mother’s small portion was to be split between her other sisters; none was to come to her. Mrs Bennet had told her so often enough—and who would marry one so impoverished?
While her father…her father said nothing to her at all. Ever.
Even without her shock, distaste and dismay at the ridiculous proposal, she must refuse Collins’s offer. That refusal would be expected of her. A niggling idea escaped her control. What would her parents have done, she wondered, had Mr Darcy’s interest been a serious one? But she stopped this line of thought immediately; he had never, by word or deed, indicated any feelings other than contempt and half-hearted apology. The one dance they had shared over the course of his one-month visit was not any sort of courtship, and a couple of sentences muttered from atop a horse were hardly a proposal. Had not they all agreed that his departure shortly thereafter only hastened Jane’s happiness? Absent his gloomy, disapproving friend, Bingley and Jane had been engaged within a fortnight. She had vowed to never think of it again.
And for a few days after her mother’s threat of expulsion, Lizzy had truly expected her mother to change her mind. Mama had never been known for her constancy. In fact, it was an unwritten rule of the household—Mama’s temper flared, and an hour later, whatever punishments and discipline administered were forgotten and never enforced.
Father certainly neither supported nor encouraged obedience to his wife. And while he never spoke to Lizzy, neither did he engage much with any of them. His life was spent in his book-room, unaffected by the moods and tempers of the ladies of Longbourn. An appeal to him, of course, would be useless.
Nevertheless, Mama knew the work Lizzy performed to make life at Longbourn more comfortable! Lizzy had taught herself to brew teas for easing Mama’s megrims and Kitty and Lydia’s monthlies, as well as a poultice excellent for relieving the pain of Mr Bennet’s gout. Amongst her sisters, she was the peacemaker, able to divert the most stubborn argument, and so clever at wordplay and skilled at pantomime that she had often been able to turn a row into giggling fits. Mama had been sending her into the village on little errands since she was six. She had been sewing her own dresses, and many of her sisters’, since the age of nine or ten. Many were the evenings where she read aloud to them all—and she had noted her father doing as poor a job at pretending not to listen as Mary. Sir William had once complimented her abilities after she had recited a scene from Hamlet, saying she had made his blood run cold. “As good as a play, listening to you, Lizzy-girl!” he’d enthused.
Still, after three days had passed in which her mother would not look her way even once, she’d had a new thought: Perhaps I ought to tell Mr Collins I have changed my mind. But even as she had steeled herself to approach him, Charlotte had come to Longbourn with news of her engagement.
And after that conversation, Lizzy had seen the resentment—and disgust, even—in Mrs Bennet’s eyes, and known Mama would never change her mind before Friday—the day Lizzy was to be sent away.
* * *
“We will visit Mr Bingley’s relations in Scarborough, and after, he has taken a cottage in Brighton for our wedding trip. It will be lovely to be near the seaside, and it is said to have the most glorious gardens!”
“Now you are simply boasting. Lizzy, Jane is crowing about going to Brighton—”
“I was not, Lydia. I was simply telling—”
“I have to leave,” Lizzy interrupted the argument in progress.
Her sisters had congregated in the green parlour, the coolest one in the house on this unusually sultry early-July afternoon. It was presided over by a large portrait of Percival Earnest Bennet, a sharp-eyed ancestor who stared imperiously down his nose at all who dared gather in his illustrious presence. Mrs Bennet hated it, of course, but her husband would never agree to its removal.
Her sisters peered up at her blankly. Well, all except for Mary, who avoided addressing Lizzy whenever possible and used the opportunity to turn the page of her book, as if no one had spoken. This did not trouble Lizzy, as those to whom Mary did speak were often subjected to Fordyce’s constructive criticisms.
“Are you going to the village?” Kitty asked.
“No,” Lizzy replied. “I mean, I have to leave Longbourn. On Friday, I am to be taken to London with Mrs Long, who visits her sister’s family there. Mama has instructed her to drop me at her brother’s, who, apparently, lives and works there.” She held up a small, faded trade-card. “She has ordered him to find me a position, she says.”
Jane’s brows rose. “No, surely not, Lizzy. You must be mistaken.”
Lizzy’s stomach clenched a little. Most all of her prospects rested with Jane, but she could not predict Jane’s response with any certainty.
Jane was very sweet, very kind. Lizzy cherished the hope that, once married—an event occurring in less than a month—Jane would invite Lizzy to live with her at Netherfield. Netherfield was twice the size of Longbourn, and she knew she could easily keep out of Miss Bingley’s way. Her plan had been to ease into the situation—and especially once Jane was with child, there would be a hundred ways she could make herself useful. She knew that Jane was genuinely troubled by the treatment Lizzy often received at Longbourn and, had she been permitted, would have taken her part on any number of occasions.
But that was the trouble, was it not? She had not been permitted, and there was not a rebellious or confrontational bone in her sister’s body. Jane could never think ill of anyone, living to please her difficult, fractious parents and soon—it was to be presumed—Mr Bingley. Neither did Jane think for herself when she could help it, and the idea of her presenting defiance to anyone was ridiculous. But surely a desperate circumstance would inspire a room amongst so many at Netherfield?
“Mama has been angry at you before,” Lydia offered, not sounding particularly concerned. “Stay over with Charlotte a few days, and it will all blow over. I cannot believe anyone would blame you for refusing that nincompoop Collins. He is utterly ridiculous. She is in a temper, is all.”
Lizzy bit her lower lip. “She said none of us are to go near the Lucases ever again, now that Charlotte is engaged to Collins. That we must avoid speaking to them. She is telling her friends I am to visit her brother in town, and she told me she will eventually report that I have married from there. I am never to return. She…she is not reasonable.”
“Does she even have a brother in London?” Kitty asked. “I have never heard of one.”
Lizzy shrugged, fingering the faded parchment card proclaiming ‘Edward Gardiner, Solicitor’, and remembering the letter with its address in Cheapside. “She must. She gave me his card and a letter for him. And she has not the imagination to invent one.”
The Bennet sisters all nodded, except for Mary, who had not turned a page in some time and hastily did so to prove she was not listening.
“But a position? Surely not,” Jane protested, her expression troubled.