“I wish I could say it was. In truth, I first sensed the gravity of my own oversights when Jane’s first brush with a suitor came to nothing.”
“Papa, she was but fifteen! Surely you would not have wished her to marry and leave us at such a young age.”
“Not at all, and doubly so because she wielded such a sensible influence over her younger sisters. But it is not that, Elizabeth, and do not play coy with me. You are too intelligent to feign ignorance of my failings as a father.”
She nibbled her lip and looked uncomfortably away.
“Aye, you may speak freely, Lizzy! Had I set aside over the years some small independence for you and your mother and sisters, you would certainly have attracted a suitor by now. It was shameful that Jane with her great beauty should have been nearly twenty-three before she was wed, and it was all the fault of my own inability to manage my funds more wisely.”
“Dear Papa, Jane could not be happier than she is now. If she had attracted another before, only think how miserable she would have been. She and Mr Bingley were smitten at their first conversation, and what a tragedy if she should have already been married to another!”
He snorted lightly. “You think to comfort me by this, but you have, in fact, poured salt upon the wound. Lizzy,” he chewed his inner cheek thoughtfully before continuing. “I know it was wrong of me to feel thus, but you have always been my favourite child. With your sharp wit and your easy way of laughing off your troubles, I loved you the best, I do confess. You are the most like myself, I suppose, and so it was my joy and delight to impart to you those hours and little bits of wisdom I might otherwise have reserved for a son. Aye, blush, my girl, but you know it for the truth.”
“I was only thinking,” she murmured to the floor, “that perhaps I received too much of your attention.” She raised those dark eyes to her father, glistening with feeling. “Lydia is rude and coarse, but that is only for want of training. She is quick, Papa, and eager for someone to invest in her. I am ashamed of myself for not seeing her more clearly.”
He studied her, his expression soft, and swallowed hard. When he spoke again, his voice was husky. “You may be right, my dear. Perhaps we shall see what her future holds after… well, after…. Ahem, well, today I speak of you. I would not see you injured by my own follies if I can help it, my Lizzy.”
Her lips tugged slightly upward. “Do you presume that I have some disappointed suitor who pines for my lack of fortune? Oh, if only I had thirty thousand pounds to my name! Perhaps then Mr Perfect would at last ask me for a set at the Assembly!”
He chuckled. “You have never wanted for dance partners, for men are not blind, but neither are they largely without sense. Many ask for your hand for half an hour, but few can afford to ask for a lifetime.”
This little speech of Mr Bennet’s cast a sudden pall over his daughter’s expression. Her mouth set gloomily and her features seemed waxen as the blood left them. The father narrowed his eyes in concern. “Lizzy,hasyour lack of fortune already caused you some disappointment?”
She jerked her gaze back to her father’s face. “No! Certainly not, Papa.”
He nodded faintly. “Yet you nurture some manner of regret. Was it due to Lydia’s escapade?”
She shook her head vigourously. “No!” but her breath caught as she uttered the word. At her father’s arched brow, she was compelled to make some explanation. “I was told—only once, mind you—that our family’s respectability was…. That is to say, that when Kitty and Lydia—and when Mama—”
He held up a hand. “You need say no more, Elizabeth. Again, I have evidence of how I have failed you. I give no credit to a man who could think poorly of you on your mother and sisters’ accounts, but—”
“Oh, he did not think poorly of me!” Elizabeth defended quickly.
“Did he not?” Mr Bennet drummed steady fingers on his desk, waiting, but Elizabeth was suddenly reluctant to say more. “I see. Or perhaps I do not, but it does not signify, I suppose. Lizzy, what I called you in for today was not past regrets, but a hope for your future.”
She shook her head. “What can you mean?”
His fingers tapped uncomfortably again on the desk. “It seems, Elizabeth, that you have a knack for winning men’s respect. I commend you, my girl, for I know few ladies—true ladies—of whom that could be said.”
“I do not understand, Papa.”
He rose abruptly and walked toward the window. Gazing out, he raised an arm to brace his weight against the glass as he spoke. “I have been concerned for you, Elizabeth. You have ever been of a hardy constitution and an easy temper—not as easy as Jane, but your good humour was more than sufficient to offset any complaint I might have. Yet that has not been your way of late. You are troubled by headaches, see as few people as you can, and nearly every second or third night since Christmas you have awakened us all with some horrid nightmare. Have you any notion of what has troubled you, Lizzy? Ought we to be sending for Mr Jones?”
“No! Oh, Papa, I do not know the source of my melancholy, but I am sure there is nothing Mr Jones could do.”
He turned to look steadily at her until she blushed, glancing down at her hands. “You have no ideas?”
She swallowed and shifted her toes inside her slippers. “None.”
He sighed and turned back to the window. “Your altered demeanour has been noted by more than myself. Oh, your mother dismisses it as concern for Lydia or some nervous sympathy for Jane, but others are as troubled as I. Mr Bingley…” here he paused and looked again to his daughter. “I do not know what I might have done to deserve such a generous man as a son-in-law, but I am inclined to impose upon his good nature where you are concerned.”
“You believe that I ought to live at Netherfield with them?” she asked softly.
“At Netherfield! No, I think that might be the worst of all for you. I never saw you so miserable as you were on Christmas Eve. No, Lizzy, I think you have grown beyond the humble walls of Longbourn, but I would not recommend that course. I think rather that a home and establishment of your own might suit your notions of happiness.”
What life remained in her cheeks now pooled somewhere in her stomach. Elizabeth shook her head, her lips forming a silent “No!” Her fingers gripped the sides of her chair as though her father would wrest it from her that instant and insist that she make her own way in the world. In the next breath, she had stumbled from it to nearly fall upon her father’s neck. “Oh, Papa, please do not say that! I am not ready to leave Longbourn, there is no place I should rather go!”
“Lizzy,” he grimaced, pulling her clinging arms from his shoulders and gently pressing her back. “Mr Bingley has made us an obscenely generous offer, one I feel honour-bound to refuse. However, when I look on you, I cannot bring myself to do it. He wishes to settle upon you five thousand pounds, in hopes that it may help you to make a better match than has so far been possible.”
