For it became harder and harder to find the courage to shatter her sister’s happiness.
SO, DAYS PASSEDand then a week, and Elizabeth did not tell Jane at all.
Jane was so happy. Why not allow Jane to be happy without giving her something to worry about, after all? Why not let it all be and simply wait?
Of course, Elizabeth could not keep everything secret forever. She must eventually tell her sister, or have her swelling belly betray her.
But then, no, she realized. With any luck, she would be away in Lambton with Mrs. Gardiner when that happened, and she might not actually have to tell Jane at all. She could keep it entirely a secret from everyone, perhaps.
Elizabeth was not certain how she felt about that. She wanted Jane to know. This event had changed her, altered something in the way she looked at the world. When she came out of the ordeal, after she had to give up her own sweet babe, she wanted there to be one person who loved her and understood what she had gone through, and she thought thatperson should be Jane, because Jane was the person she was the closest to, and the one she loved more than anyone else on earth.
She wouldhaveto tell Jane. But then it became about finding the right moment, and Jane was still radiant. Every moment they had alone, Jane talked of her plans for the wedding, of her plans for her life with Mr. Bingley, of how she had despaired of things ever going right again, and then he had arrived on her door.
It was quite difficult to bring it up, Elizabeth found.
And then the Bingley sisters descended on Netherfield. They came to call at Longbourn with their brother one day, Miss Caroline Bingley and her sister Mrs. Louisa Hurst, and they spent much of the visit taking only the barest care to conceal their disapproval of the entire Bennet family.
“Oh, that couch must be ancient!” said Caroline.
“Why, we haven’t used this style of cutlery in some time,” said Louisa.
“Do you do all this with only one maid between all the women in the house?” said Caroline, who was speaking, at the time, about the hairstyles of the Bennet women. “That is astonishing.”
Kitty spoke up at that point to say that they helped each other with their hair and also with dresses.
“But of course you do,” said Caroline.
Mr. Bingley seemed entirely oblivious, in that way that men are when it comes to women who are not getting along. He would likely protest that everything sounded polite, and therefore could have contained no displeasure.
But even Mrs. Bennet, who was often not so very capable of telling when she was the butt of the joke and the like, said, after they had left, “I do not think those Bingley sisters approve of their brother’s marriage to Jane!”
Yes, that much was obvious.
Jane was in distress about it. She proposed that they invite them for tea and that they do everything right and seek to soothe and impress them. But Elizabeth had to advise against this, for the household was not capable of being impressive, even without Lydia here, and Jane had to agree this was likely true.
Instead, Jane took to placating the both of the Bingley sisters whenever she was in their presence, reporting back to Elizabeth that this was having entirely no effect that she could see. “Lizzy, Caroline is the worst. Louisa seems to follow Caroline’s lead, even though she is older and is a married woman, but if they are in agreement, they will both come after me like hawks.”
Elizabeth, who had seen it, knew it must be true, and she was not certain what to advise her sister to do.
Mr. Bingley, of course, was no help at all. If Jane appealed to him, which she of course would do in a very timid way, since that was Jane’s temperament, he would assure her she was imagining things, that his sisters loved her, that everyone must love her, that it would be impossible for anyone to think anything otherwise, that they only must look upon her, feast upon her beauty and grace, and then they would be incapable of even forming an insult.
“He is in love with me,” said Jane. “He is not seeing anything clearly.”
Elizabeth resolved, one day, to come along with Jane and to see what she could do about it all. She was not going to attempt to soothe the sisters, however, but rather to give them back a little of what they were putting out, and to try to show them that not everyone in the Bennet household could be pushed to the side in such a way.
However, she was unable to do anything of the sort, because she was interrupted by a letter from Mrs. Gardiner.
Mrs. Gardiner had not trusted the letter through the post, and had given it to a servant, who had been instructed to onlyput it in the hands of Miss Elizabeth Bennet, and to do so as discreetly as possible.
This servant had come to find her at Longbourn and been told Elizabeth was at Netherfield. Instead of waiting for her to return, which would have been more discreet, he’d come to Netherfield and had her summoned from the tea, but—in the name of being discreet—he had said not to tell that it was for a letter.
Elizabeth knew it was worse than if he had simply said it was a letter. Now, everyone at the tea table was wondering what could have caused her to be summoned. And then she read the letter, and she could not think of any of that anymore.
It was not good news.
Well, Elizabeth supposed it depended on your perspective of that.
Mrs. Jacoby was with child, at long last. A babe of her own, meaning that she would not need Elizabeth in any capacity. However, Mrs. Gardiner wrote, the cottage in Lambton was still there and still available. They could go there anyway, with the same ruse, at least temporarily. The problem became that after Mrs. Gardiner delivered her babe, that Elizabeth would still need to tarry in the cottage for some months until she was delivered. And though Mrs. Gardiner could stretch out the time of her recovery for some time, there was a limit to how long such a thing was believable. It was one thing if she were staying there with Mrs. Jacoby, who was also increasing. It was another entirely if it was only Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth.
