Page 12 of Vain and Useless

One morning, the footman entered with a note for Jane and Elizabeth, which came from Netherfield. The servant who had brought it awaited an answer, and Mrs Bennet delayed the reading of the note for some time by commanding her daughters’ attention with her demands that they tell her who it was from and what it said.

“Mama, we cannot answer you if we have not a moment’s peace to look at it,” Elizabeth reminded her. Mrs Bennet subsided with pursed lips, and Jane read the letter aloud. It was an invitation from Miss Bingley for the eldest two Bennet daughters to dine with her and Mrs Hurst that evening; the gentlemen would be dining with the officers, she said, and they might speak freely of subjects of interest to ladies without fear of boring the gentlemen.

“It is very unlucky that the gentlemen will be out,” Mrs Bennet said.

“May we have the carriage?” Jane asked.

“No, my dear, you had better go on horseback. It is likely to rain, and then you will stay and see Mr Bingley.”

“And am I to walk there?” Elizabeth enquired in disbelief.

“I need you at home, Lizzy,” Mrs Bennet said repressively. “There is nothing for you at Netherfield anyway.”

“I had much rather take the coach, and go with Lizzy,” Jane objected mildly.

Mrs Bennet claimed that her husband could not spare the horses, a fiction he supported when pressed. Jane was forced to reply to Miss Bingley with word that only she would be able to attend, and later to depart on old Nellie while Mrs Bennet regarded the darkening sky with satisfaction. Jane had not been gone long before the rain began to fall, and very soon thereafter it fell in sheets. Elizabeth and Mary were uneasy for their sister; Lydia and Kitty seemed hardly aware she was gone out in the deluge; their mother was delighted.

While the family were at breakfast the next morning, a note came for Elizabeth in Jane’s hand, informing her that she had got wet through the previous day and had thereafter been taken ill with a sore throat and headache. Lizzy was not to be alarmed at any report of the apothecary coming to see her, for her kind friends had insisted that he must. Below this was a postscript in another hand:

My dear friend, be assured that your sister will receive every attention while she is with us. Miss Bennet is rather more poorly than she admits, and I have called for Mr Jones with my brother’s eager permission. We await him even as I write this. I think she will be with us for several days, and as I know you will wish to see her, you must consider Netherfield quite your own during this time. If your father’s carriage is not available, I will send my brother’s for you. Come to visit or come to stay, whichever suits you best.

Yours,

Caroline Bingley

She looked up from this note immediately and said, “Jane has been taken ill as a consequence of being soaked yesterday evening. Mr Jones has been called, and Miss Bingley invites me to attend Jane. May I have the carriage?”

Mrs Bennet shook her head emphatically. “There is no need for you to go to Netherfield and interfere, Miss Lizzy. Jane will do better with Mr Bingley without your impertinent opinions.”

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at her mother but forbore to reply, turning instead to her father. “Papa, you will allow me to go to Jane, will you not? Miss Bingley has invited me to do so in the kindest and most generous terms.”

For once, Mr Bennet proved willing to endanger his peace by opposing his wife. “I do not think it right that Jane should be left in her sickbed without so much as a visit from her family. Of course you may go, Lizzy.”

“I am going out visiting shortly,” Mrs Bennet declared triumphantly, surprising everyone who had heard her say not five minutes earlier that she was very tired and glad she was not expected anywhere. “The carriage will not be available.”

Elizabeth smiled, a thin, insincere stretching of the lips. “It is no matter. Miss Bingley offered to send her brother’s carriage for me. I did not like to impose, but as I have my father’s permission to go, I shall write to accept her gracious offer.” She set her fork upon her plate and stood. “Oh, I nearly forgot to mention—I am invited to stay as long as Jane is ill. Do tell Hill to set one less place for dinner, Mama.”

She left before Mrs Bennet could form a response, but heard her father laughing as she passed into the corridor.

Miss Bingley and her brother both awaited her as the carriage pulled up before Netherfield, though the day was damp and the wind huffed impatiently across the park. They hurried her inside, the servants following with the valise she had brought with clothing for Jane and herself. Elizabeth’s enquiries after Jane’s condition were not very favourably answered.

Mr Darcy emerged from the parlour to bow to Elizabeth and convey his wishes for Miss Bennet’s swift recovery as they approached its door; they left Mr Bingley with him, and Miss Bingley showed her up to Jane’s room and left her there with assurances that anything they required should be provided upon the instant. Jane was delighted to see her, though she was not equal to much conversation. Elizabeth prepared cool cloths for her forehead and cajoled her into taking some well-sugared tea.

Mr Jones, the apothecary, arrived at last and having examined Jane pronounced that she had caught a violent cold and left her with some draughts and stern instruction to remain abed until the fever had passed. In the wake of his departure came Mr Bingley’s sisters. Neither appeared at all at ease in a sickroom, though one expressed real concern while the other commented languidly that it was ever so shocking to have a bad cold.

Jane’s fever and headache increased in the course of the afternoon, and though she insisted that Elizabeth go down for dinner, she did not object to her sister’s plan of returning to her directly after the meal. Elizabeth’s appearance downstairs was greeted with many civil enquiries as to Jane’s condition, which she was unable to answer with any word of improvement. In Mr Bingley’s manner she detected a particular solicitude; his anxiety for Jane was evident in his offer to send to London for a physician.

Mr Hurst and his wife were alone in their indifference to Jane’s illness. The gentleman had no attention for anything but his glass before the meal and his plate once they were seated. Mrs Hurst insisted upon advancing conversation about people and places with which Elizabeth was unfamiliar, but received only short replies from her companions before they turned the subject to one in which she might participate.

After the meal, the sisters repaired to Jane’s room with Elizabeth. There Mrs Hurst attempted to draw her younger sister’s notice away from their guests once more, her inattention to Jane so blatant as to be uncivil. Elizabeth felt sorry for her new friend; it was plain that Miss Bingley was frustrated by Mrs Hurst’s behaviour, but to reprimand her before guests would be beyond the pale. When they were summoned to coffee, Miss Bingley all but pulled her sister from the room.

“I do not think Mrs Hurst approves of her brother’s interest in you, dear sister,” Elizabeth remarked when they were gone. Jane merely shook her head, for her sore throat made speech painful. Elizabeth knew that if she could speak freely, she would excuse Mrs Hurst entirely, insisting that she was merely uncomfortable in the sickroom of a new acquaintance. She fell asleep shortly thereafter, and Elizabeth felt she ought to make an appearance in the drawing room.

The whole party were playing loo and invited her to join them, but she excused herself by saying that she must soon look in on Jane again and would amuse herself with a book. Mr Hurst could not understand that she should prefer reading to cards, and his wife supported him by declaring that Elizabeth was such a great reader, she had pleasure in nothing else. Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy gave her reproving looks, but her attention was fixed on Elizabeth, a little smirk playing about her lips.

Against this slander Elizabeth defended herself by mildly declaring she had pleasure in many things, smiling through a sincere desire to flay the odious woman with the sharp side of her tongue. How Mr and Miss Bingley came to have such a sister, she could not fathom; even Lydia, who could be carelessly cruel, had never to Elizabeth’s knowledge been deliberately so.

Miss Bingley recalled Mrs Hurst’s attention to their play, and Elizabeth was left to enjoy a volume of Cowper she found on the table. When she felt she had done her duty to her host and hostess, she bade the company a good night and returned upstairs to tend her sister.