But it was Charlotte Lucas who followed her mother into the parlor. Mrs. Bennet merely sat still, her chin held high and her expression cold. Mr. Bennet gave his sister a sardonic look and Mrs. Dashwood rose, ready to be civil. She asked Hill to bring tea, and bade the Lucas ladies take a seat.
Lady Lucas declined. “We do not mean to stay long. I have come to apologize, and so too has Charlotte.”
Mrs. Bennet sniffed, her lips curling with disdain. Mr. Bennet grinned at his wife, and then at the Lucases. “I am sure my wife will be glad to hear it. Her quarrel with you has brought herabsolutely no pleasure at all.”
“Nor I, to be sure,” Lady Lucas cried, extending her hand to Mrs. Bennet. “We all spoke in haste, and I daresay have repented that cruel and indecorous scene ever since.”
“Not I,” Marianne said. “I was neither cruel nor indecorous, for I merely expressed my amazement that the Bennets had spent so many years speaking well of you.”
Lady Lucas clenched her jaw and laid a hand on her daughter’s shoulder to still Miss Lucas, who appeared ready to reprise the malice she had shown them that day in the village. “It is true, we were all friends for many years, and we hope it might be so again. Is that not right, Charlotte?”
Miss Lucas closed her eyes for a moment and sucked in a deep breath before regarding them all tranquilly. “It may seem strange to you that I still mourn the loss of my betrothed, rest his soul, but my grief is no longer so great that I resent your good fortune and popularity,” she said through clenched teeth.
“My girlsarevery popular,” Mrs. Bennet said, fanning herself haughtily. “They have ever been beautiful, and now they have fortunes – I expect them all to marry far better than they would have done if my Lizzy had accepted Mr. Collins, when he proposed toherfirst.”
Mrs. Dashwood had resumed her seat, and she now gave her brother a subtle kick under the table. Mr. Bennet’s eyes sparkled with mirth as he addressed Lady Lucas. “Yes – well – I, too, lament the loss of Mr. Collins; a vastly amusing fellow. I daresay he was as eager to please and be pleased as Mr. Bingley! You would have made him an eminently suitable bride, Miss Lucas, for it is generally a blessing to be the cleverest one in a marriage.”
Miss Lucas stared at Mr. Bennet with unmasked astonishment for a moment before thanking him for his sentiments. “I am for London, day after next, to visit my brotherand his wife. I could not be content departing the neighborhood until I had made amends, and I know Mamma has missed visiting with you all.”
Elinor was skeptical of the lady’s sincerity, but even so she admired Miss Lucas and her mother’s forbearance, for the ladies of Longbourn were not making it easy for their guests to apologize. “We wish you safe travels, Miss Lucas. Perhaps you shall see Jane and Lizzy, though we expect their return a few days after your departure. I am sure you would be very welcome in Berkeley Street.”
“Jane and Elizabeth are returning to Longbourn? I suppose your relations will be going back to Devonshire, then,” Lady Lucas mused. “Well, perhaps everything shall be just as it was before, Fanny.”
Mrs. Bennet gave another contemptuous sniff. “I doubt it, for my Lydia has gone away just this morning to see the Forsters in Hampshire, where she will surely be greatly admired! And my dear girls in London have so many beaux – I daresay I shall be planning wedding breakfasts all through the spring!”
Mrs. Dashwood gave her brother another kick. He clapped his hands to curtail his wife’s triumphant ramblings. “Yes, yes, I am sure Longbourn shall be as much a den of feminine frenzy as it ever was. But perhaps our good fortune will be catching, eh, Lady Lucas? Very good of you to come and extend the olive branch, it is just what Mr. Collins would have wished.”
Elinor and her mother both offered the ladies a courteous smile, and Mary nudged Kitty, motioning for her to do the same. Margaret surveyed the tension and asked, “Would you like to play cards? We have made up a new game calledThunderation.”
Lady Lucas failed to conceal her affront, her forced smile twitching. “We have a few other calls to make, as dear Charlottemeans to bid the neighborhood farewell. But perhaps we shall meet again soon, at some dinner or party….”
Miss Lucas approached Elinor, careful to avoid meeting Marianne’s eye. “I have written to Eliza, though I fear she has no wish to hear from me, much less to meet with me in London. It was she who advised me to amend an old quarrel with my brother’s wife. Perhaps you will send this to her on my behalf?”
Elinor accepted a small folded note and nodded her head. “I cannot promise she will receive it before returning to Longbourn, but I shall try.”
The Lucas ladies took their leave just as Lady Rebecca was shown into the drawing room. Her face showed all her playful amazement at the sight of them, but she exchanged a few civilities with Lady Lucas and her daughter, and waited until they had left the house before she laughed at them. “Well! What was that? Have you reconciled with your offensive erstwhile friends?”
“I should have preferred them to beg a little, after all their horridness,” Mrs. Bennet huffed.
With all her usual relish for Mrs. Bennet’s antics, Lady Rebecca clapped her hands. “Brava, Madam – I should say so! I have still not forgiven them for making a public spectacle when I was not present to behold it! But I suppose they have seen the wisdom of behaving themselves more amicably, for their past behavior has cost them an invitation to my brother-in-law’s fete at Netherfield.”
“Exactly so,” Marianne agreed. She snatched Miss Lucas’s letter from Elinor’s hand and threw it into the fire. “There; we can at least spare Lizzy such a false display of remorse.”
Elinor shook her head, though she knew her censure meant nothing in the face of Lady Rebecca’s encouragement.“Marianne, you cannot destroy everybody’s post – perhaps Lizzy might wish to forgive her friend.”
Lady Rebecca let out a peal of wicked laughter. “Miss Lucas ought to pay her respects to Caroline Bingley while she is in London, for they are both as determined fortune hunters as I have ever encountered. But Jane and Elizabeth are expected in time for our festivities at Netherfield, are they not? They shall not have to suffer Miss Lucas for long in London.”
The subject of the party at Netherfield cheered Mrs. Bennet’s surliness, and when Lady Rebecca issued the inevitable invitation for Elinor and Marianne to return to Netherfield with her, Mrs. Bennet began to insist that Kitty should be included.
Lady Rebecca was unruffled. “Are you certain you can spare her for so long? I had intended to keep your nieces overnight, Madam, if you and Mrs. Dashwood would permit it. There is so much to be done to make the manor ready – we shall be more laborers than ladies of leisure. Charles is quite occupied in estate matters – some fallen trees at the edge of the property or some such excuse.”
Kitty wrinkled her nose at this. “Mamma, might I call on Maria Lucas instead? If we are really to be friends again….”
“Why, Kitty, you shall offend Lady Rebecca,” Mrs. Bennet cried. “Who cares for Maria Lucas when there are better friends to be met with?”
Marianne nudged Mary forward; Mary wrung her hands in front of herself, but said, “I will go with you to Lucas Lodge, Kitty.”
“And if the Lucases wish to keep you overnight, so much the better,” Mr. Bennet drawled.
