She stood up and adjusted her parasol. “Now, I will awaken my lazy sister and announce that tea is ready in the drawing room. You must have some refreshment before you leave. The girls’ elderly nurse, Nanny Chilcot, whom, as you know, has rooms in the east wing now she has retired, has, I believe, been called into action to care for Victoria so we can all eat in peace. Indeed, I will be surprised if we manage to extract the infant from her arms when your carriage is called!”
She turned to her duties as mistress of Pemberley and tried to push her worries about Jane to the back of her mind.
So many years had passed since the twins had been born and Elizabeth was certain that most people would have long forgotten that she had almost lost the younger twin. Anne was a healthy infant but Jane had been tiny, fragile and her parents were told by the doctors that she might not survive. For weeks they had hardly strayed from the nursery, desperate for the child to thrive.
Thankfully, as the months passed, Jane had grown stronger, although she never had her sister’s robust constitution; always the first to be ill, to catch a cold, to tire when walking or riding. Elizabeth knew she had treated her differently from the other children; shielding her from anything unpleasant, not allowing her to ever take unnecessary risks, always concerned that she was not over-tiring herself.
Bennetta should, of course, have taken her place as the child most in need of care, but then Bennetta, whose arrival in the world had almost ended her mother’s place in it, had never and would never rouse the same tender emotions in Elizabeth. She loved her wild child dearly, but apart from two years previously when she had fallen from her horse and lost her memory forseveral days after hitting her head, she had never had a day’s worry about Bennetta’s health.
Now she was beginning to realise that this constant protection of Jane had, perhaps, been inadvisable. Throughout her nearly twenty years, Jane had never had to make her own decisions or been allowed to suffer any discomfort. She had never learnt to deal with any hardship. Was that why this silly affair with Digby Frobisher had affected her so badly?
Elizabeth sighed, woke her sleeping sister and gathered her guests together for tea. Daughters were a great trial and she wondered if her mother had lain awake worrying about her five girls. Then she smiled and thought, ‘Mama worried about getting us married. Our characters were our own affair.’
Upstairs in the cool of the library, the girl who was causing her mother so much concern was gazing out of a window at the splendour of the great parkland below her. This room had a northerly aspect and so was cool even on the hottest of summer days.
Nobody had needed to sculpt or force the surroundings of Pemberley into beauty, no Capability Brown had been hired in the past to provide a magnificent landscape—nature had managed that all on her own. Admittedly, in one or two places, a tree had been felled to produce a distant view of woods and high hills but great oaks and Spanish chestnuts cast their shade on the lawns.
The flower gardens on the southerly side had been extended by the Darcys in the years since their marriage, and fell away in tiers of white, red, pink and yellow, roses and lilies. Little paths wound through the flowers and in places small fountains burbled bright cascades of water into pools.
Jane, who was usually only too happy to sit and read, occasionally glancing up to enjoy the scene before her, now sat on the deep window sill, half hidden behind the heavy brocadecurtains. She knew she could not stay there much longer. It would be extremely discourteous to Cassandra not to go downstairs and admire the baby.
But Anne would be there and the thought of facing her twin at the moment filled her with dread. How could she have been so callous, so unkind? Did Jane mean so little to her that she could hurt her in this fashion?
“I truly believe she does not see me as a person at all,” she murmured to herself. “All our lives, I have just been a pale copy of her, to be ignored, not someone with real feelings and emotions.”
Then somewhere deep inside her head a voice muttered, “But you liked being overlooked, allowed to go your own way, enjoyed being ‘just Jane’ so that no one queried you or argued. You never had to defend your thoughts because you never told anyone what they were. It isn’t all Anne’s fault!”
But she was too unhappy to listen for long or give the voice any attention: she stepped down from the window sill and straightening the pale blue silk that billowed over her petticoats, she tightened the darker blue sash and brushed tears from her cheeks.
‘No one here understands,’ she thought. ‘Mama loves Papa, of course, but I am sure she has never felt this way, never had someone tell her how ardently they admire and love her and then…Well, I am going to stay with dear Colonel Fitzwilliam. I’ll be safe there at Deerwood Park. Free from Anne’s barbed comments, Bennetta’s knowing looks and Mama’s questions.’
“Jane! Jane! Oh, here you are. I guessed you would be in the library.”
In a riot of dark curls, her younger sister, Bennetta, rushed through the door in a swirl of lemon spotted muslin, the huge sleeves which her father disliked so much, tied above and below her elbows with dark green ribbon. Jane could not remember atime when Bennetta did not rush: she seemed to run through the whole day, whirling from room to room, from plan to plan. Was she ever unhappy? Jane thought not and envied her most deeply. Surely Bennetta would never know the pain of betrayal by people she loved.
“Mama has sent me to find you. Aunt Lydia and Cassandra will be leaving soon. You must come and say your goodbyes and admire Miss Vicky. Lord, Jane, what is wrong with you? Even Anne has held the baby, although I think from the look on her face, Miss Vicky might have disgraced herself at that very moment! And I have run out of complimentary things to say about someone so small and pink. Now, do come. And try to be cheerful. You are making such a fuss over a silly man! There are so many men in the world to meet and attract. Crying over just one seems ridiculous to me.”
Jane was silent as she followed her sister downstairs to make polite conversation with the departing guests. There was no escape from comments and speculation whilst she remained in Pemberley. She could not wait to escape and be in the sympathetic company of someone who would always put her first, only have her wellbeing at heart.
She said her goodbyes and was surprised but delighted when Susannah whispered that she was to accompany her on the morrow and was so looking forward to visiting Colonel Fitzwilliam’s country home.
Two days later, a carriage travelled slowly up a steep hill in the county of Dorset: Jane and her companion were traveling in luxury and comfort. It was another hot day but with September almost on them, the heatwave that had covered the country was finally on the wane; indeed, from the state of the muddy road it looked as if there had been heavy showers in that part of Dorset that morning, although now the sky was clear.
They had passed fields that were being harvested, the workers bent double in long rows, billhooks flashing as they cut down the lines of wheat. In other meadows, groups of women were binding the cut wheat into bundles, children running around, laughing and playing. On the higher hill slopes, flocks of sheep grazed.
At a reasonable pace, because the ladies did not wish to be thrown around inside, the carriage travelled on, through neat villages of thatched cottages, fording shallow streams and stopping occasionally for the team to be rested.
The remains of a picnic box packed with inviting bites to tempt even the most ladylike of appetites now lay on the carriage floor, almost empty. They had made good time on the journey from Derbyshire, stopping one night at Longbourn, in Hertfordshire, to visit Jane’s grandmother and Aunt Kitty, then skirting around London instead of driving through the noise and bustle of the great city.
Jane had been glad that their visit to Mr and Mrs Collins had only been for one night. She had to admit she was not fond of her Aunt Kitty or her husband. The former was a large lady, very fond of her food, with a bad complexion, complaining voice and manner. Mr Collins also had a great deal to say but Jane thought him pompous and his ingratiating manner annoyed her.
Although she tried to find a dutiful affection for her grandmother, she found the very elderly Mrs Bennet silly and annoying and marvelled, not for the first time, that this was her dear mama’s mother.
There was only one subject of conversation, the marriage of Catherine—Mr Collins’ daughter by his first marriage—to Sir Robert Courtney. At least Jane had the satisfaction of seeing Susannah treated with more respect and appreciation than shown by her Aunt Lydia. As Robert’s elder sister, she wasreceived with all polite attentions and given precedence at the dinner table, even though she was unmarried.
Apart from endlessly talking of “Lady Courtney”, the Collins’ household revolved around the child Harriet; an unattractive little girl, as tall as she was wide, with a stubborn disposition, not helped by being spoilt to extremes by her parents and grandmother.
Glad to be away from Longbourn, Jane gazed out of the window and saw not the beauty of the countryside but her own pale reflection under her pale green hat; she looked white and drawn, her eyes shadowed in dark circles. There was a little dirt on the inside of the window and, with a gloved finger, she drew a round face with a smile curving across it, then rubbed it out hastily. She couldn’t recall the last time she had smiled.
