Page 29 of Mr. Darcy’s Victorious Bride

CHAPTER 9

Jane had not slept properly since Lydia came home. It was not that Lydia was difficult. Lydia was easier than Jane had ever known her, and that was the trouble. This Lydia ate what was set before her and thanked the servants. She turned the pages of a book at intervals that had nothing to do with reading.

Jane checked on her three times a night. Each morning Lydia said she had slept very well, and rubbed the back of her neck as she said it.

It was not only Lydia who kept Jane awake. Mr. Bingley had said nothing. He had been kind all week. He made Lydia laugh twice, and flattered Mama. But might not a gentleman be kind to a family and still decline to marry into it?

She drank her second cup of coffee black and scolded herself for selfishness. Then she drank a third.

It was the morning of the ninth day. Mr. Darcy had been in London two days, and Elizabeth was in the study reading his letter for the third time. Mr. Bennet had gone home to his library, where his body had presented the bill for three days of London pavement.

And Lady Catherine was in the sickroom, improving out of pure fury. Three days ago, one full line of the hymn before her voice collapsed. Yesterday, three lines. When the fourth defeated her she had struck the bedclothes with a sound that plainly meant again. Mrs. Jenkinson said she tried words at night, alone. No. More. Anne. The consonants blurred, the intent iron.

Mary had come over from Longbourn the day before, to be useful. This morning she had gone up with the hymn score and played it correctly, which was the problem. Mary played everything correctly: rigid tempo, flat dynamics, every bar marching after the last. Jane, in the doorway, winced.

Lady Catherine's good hand clenched. Her eyes opened. "Slower." Thick, slurred, unmistakable. "You are... rushing."

Mary froze on the keys.

"Play it... again." The right side of her ladyship's mouth strained against the dead left. "Slower. Feel the... words. It is not... a march."

Mary played it again, slower, fingers trembling. At the second verse Lady Catherine's voice came in underneath, slurred and furious, pushing through every word.

Jane pressed her hand over her mouth. A full sentence! It had not been coaxed out by gentle singing. It had been driven out by sheer inability to abide a thing done badly in her presence.

Mary finished and said, "Was that better, Lady Catherine?"

Lady Catherine opened one eye. "Toler... er... able."

Anne, at her needlework in the corner, caught Jane's gaze and shook her head very slightly. Do not make a fuss. Let her have her dignity. Jane went down to the hall and pressed both hands flat against the wall until she could trust her face.

In the morning room, Kitty was arranging flowers.

That was new. When had Kitty ever arranged anything before Lydia's disappearance? She had followed Lydia everywhere. Now she had spent five days hunting some use for her hands besides wringing them. She had landed on the vases. This was her fourth arrangement, and she was getting better. Michaelmas daisies, a branch of copper beech, and Kitty frowning at them with her whole attention.

At half-ten Anne de Bourgh came downstairs, which was unusual, and asked to be shown the kitchen, which was unprecedented. Mrs. Jenkinson was lying down, and Anne wished to make her mother's tisane herself. Jane offered.

Anne refused, politely and completely. "I have spent my life being done for. I should like to do something. Even if it is only a tisane."

She found the honey unaided and measured it exactly. She had watched others do for her mother for years.

Then the kettle proved heavier than she expected. Anne set it down with a clatter and gripped the table edge. Her breath came short, and her hands had begun to shake.

Jane started forward.

"Pray do not," Anne said. "It passes. It always passes. I need only sit a moment, and then I shall pour it myself."

She sat. Jane pretended to hunt for a spoon until the shaking stopped.

"Miss Bennet," she said, while the water heated. "Colonel Fitzwilliam is in Meryton, I understand. Will he call before he goes back to town?"

The question was careful. Too careful. Jane knew that tone. She had been using it herself all week. "He is at Meryton on Mr. Darcy's business. But I am told he means to look in on his way, tomorrow."

"Good." Anne poured the water and did not look up. "My mother requires people who will argue with her. Mrs. Jenkinson is too gentle. Your sister Mary played that hymn abominably this morning, and it was the best thing that has happened to Mama in a week. She needs people who will not treat her as fragile. The colonel is very good at that."

Jane heard everything underneath it. He sees her as she is. He sees me as I am. "He is very good at it," Jane agreed.

At the door, tisane in both hands, Anne paused. "Thank you for singing with her. She will never say it. But the hymns are the reason she keeps trying."