Chapter Twelve
Elizabeth and Kitty took dinner on trays in Kitty’s room, where Elizabeth’s belongings had been brought. “You will stay with me, for we have a great deal to speak of, sister.” Kitty was cheerful, even as tears streaked her rosy cheeks. She and Elizabeth had made themselves comfortable in their bedclothes, and they drank a great deal of wine with their meal, which they consumed sitting cross-legged atop Kitty’s bed.
The curtains around it were drawn, as if to contain their whispered secrets, as the sisters each took a turn explaining their romance withMr. Darcy. Kitty had a great deal to say for only three days of courtship, but Elizabeth heartily agreed that she had been horribly ill-used after such first-rate wooing. She had more to say of her own experience, and she spent above an hour regaling Kitty with a detailed account of her time in London.
Kitty pushed her remaining food around on her plate before setting it aside and leaning back with a heavy sigh. “Do you suppose we made it quite impossible for them to tell us the truth? How odd that we should both be so fascinated by the name Darcy – a family trait, perhaps!”
“I have always thought the name held so much allure – my favorite aunt once bore the name, and she wore it so very well.” Elizabeth told Kitty all about Lady Anne, and explained how she had been drawn to the romance of her aunt’s tragic history and beautiful happy ending.
“I see. I suppose I have been enchanted by the tales of a man who does not exist. I always fancied the cousin my guardian invented, for he sounded like just the man to make me happy. Perhaps I ought not to have been drawn to such tales of decadence and debauchery, but I have been terribly bored here at home with no friends my age, and only my governess for company.”
Elizabeth yawned, and found she was tired of anguishing over Mr. Darcy – Mr. Worthing, as she must accustom herself to calling him, though she wished to call him a great many other things first. “How can we carry on speaking of these two shameful cads, when there is something much more interesting to discuss? We are sisters – it is beyond remarkable that we have found one another, and purely by chance!”
“Perhaps it was fate, Lizzy! I do not know why I never asked to meet you, before.”
Elizabeth laid back against the pillows beside Kitty, who immediately cuddled up against her. “Especially as you have been so lonely here, my poor sister! I know why I have never inquired of Mamma, for I know she disliked your father very much.”
“It is strange that he should have thought so ill of you, when you were only a very small girl.”
“Mamma has told Jane and me very little of that time. My father died when I was two years old, and Jane was four. We lived with Lady Catherine for about a year after that, when her daughter Anne was three. Lady Catherine had just lost her husband, too, and she grew very attached to my mother. I sometimes wonder if she pushed for the match between our mother and Mr. Cardew to keep her close, for she was quite pretty, and she would surely have remarried eventually. I do not think Mr. Cardew wished to raise two children who were not his own, and Mamma said that he felt exceedingly disobliged to have been left to raise you without our mother.”
“I suppose that is why he married Lady Grey so hastily,” Kitty mused. “Not that she was ever especially maternal. She sent William away to school as soon as his guardian, her first husband, was dead. After Papa died, I was afraid she would send me away, too, but then she took ill, and Miss Annesley came to Wildewood to care for me. I was also ten, when they died.”
“You and Mr. Worthing have that in common,” Elizabeth mused aloud.
“He is very compassionate and tender-hearted toward me. He can be hard on me, at times, especially as regards my studies, which I do not enjoy at all. I have no sense of mathematics, and I find history to be tedious and far too full of dreary old men, and not enough women with swords. I like to read and sing and draw, and he is generous in his praise of me for it; sometimes I think he enjoys my silliness and whimsy, for I know he is lonely here, too. Of course,hemight go to London whenever he wishes!”
Elizabeth smiled at Kitty’s earnest effusions. “I have only been to London once, just lately. Jane and I were always at Rosings with Mamma – Lady Catherine.”
“What is she like? I hope it is true that my father misrepresented her to me.”
“I daresay he did not!” Elizabeth laughed heartily as she imagined how her mother must have railed at him for abandoning her and Jane. “You were named for her, you know. Our mother treasured their friendship. She is a fearsome woman, but for those she loves, that ferocity is the deepest token of affection. She has extremely high standards for us, and she has been different since her daughter Anne died – there was a softness that was somehow extinguished. But then, there have been several losses in our family, in recent years – my uncle the earl, our cousin Robert, who was meant to marry Jane, and my aunt Anne’s second husband, Sir Geoffrey, who was an excellent man and our nearest neighbor. My aunt Anne, whom I admire so much, has felt everything so keenly that my mother has hardened.”
Kitty squeezed her hand. “But she loves you?”
“Very much,” Elizabeth said, feeling it wholeheartedly. “And she is going to be so angry at what I have done – what I have done, and all for nothing! Ugh! And Jane will be so worried, when she ought to be joyously preparing for her wedding!"
“My sister Jane is getting married? Oh! You said she was to marry someone called Robert, who died. And your uncle is – was – an earl? Lizzy, you must tell me everything!”
And so, Elizabeth did. The two sisters got cozy under the covers, and they stayed up late into the night sharing their histories. Elizabeth had a vast deal more to say than Kitty, given recent events, but Kitty was happy to hear all that she had to say.
When they were very near to falling asleep, Kitty against cozied up against Elizabeth, who wrapped an arm around her, as comfortable as if they had known one another all their lives. “Lizzy?” Kitty yawned and nestled against her pillow. “Do you think it mad that I am in love with Mr. Darcy – er, Mr. Bingley – after only three days?”
“Utterly.” Elizabeth gave a soporific laugh. “But by the third day of my acquaintance with… ugh, Mr. Worthing… I was quite enamored, and perfectly ready to be fallen in love with in return.”
“And had it much to do with the name of Darcy?”
Elizabeth stared into the near-darkness of the room. “A little, though I am mortified to own to it.”
“Me too.” Kitty was quiet for a minute, yawned again, and then asked, “Shall we ever forgive them, do you think?”
Now it was Elizabeth’s turn to yawn. She considered this, and was filled with a barrage of pleasant memories. “I have serious doubts, Kitty – and I intend to crush them.”
***
When William heard from Mrs. Lane that Kitty and Elizabeth were going to take another meal alone together upstairs, he plucked a pair of roses in the garden and added them to the breakfast trays the maid brought up to the ladies. He also penned them each a brief note of apology, expressing a wish to speak with them at their earliest convenience.
Bingley caught him in this conciliatory act, and looked affronted. He leaned over William’s shoulder, boldly reading the notes. “What are you doing? Winning back the ladies’ good graces without me?”
