Page 3 of The Heir and Spare
“Tell me.” Lizzie searched the side of Jane’s face as they walked. “How was the lunch with Bingley’s sisters?”
Jane’s face grew troubled, and Lizzie almost regretted asking.
“They are…not as congenial as he.” She walked along in silence for a moment, but Lizzie didn’t pressure her.
She stopped suddenly. “In fact, I do believe they are openly insulting if you want to know the truth.”
Lizzie gasped. “What did they do to you? Did they insult you? Surely not with Bingley right there?”
“Oh no, nothing at all, not really.” She sighed. “You know those people who say nothing at all, not really, but they are saying so much. They leave so much to be assumed and to hurt.” Her face clouded further and lizzie was shocked to see a tear form at the corner of her eyes.
“What is this?” She pulled Jane into a hug. “What did they say or not say or whatever?”
“Oh, just things like, ‘Your mother would know about laughing.’”
Lizzie paused and frowned. “Wait, that’s it?”
“You know, because she was laughing so hard she had that coughing fit at the assembly and then she was so loud about me and Bingley, about us courting even before we knew one another.” She fisted a portion of her dress in her hand. “I’m sorry. I should be more loyal to our mother, but that was so embarrassing. Bingley heard, and we could hardly look at one another. He looked everywhere but at me. Then Caroline said things about Lydia too; about Mary’s playing the piano and her less than impressive voice. She said all kinds of things without saying anything at all and when I left I felt that every part of me was lacking in some way.”
“She talked about you as well? About me?”
“Well no. We were left off her list of people to criticize. But even Father. She hardly saw him at all but she had things to not say about him as well.”
Lizzie stomped her feet as she walked. “I really hate that kind of talk. Everyone seems so proficient at insulting in the most polite manner possible. I don’t often know how to counter it. If one is overly careful in their wording, never quite saying what you think they might be saying, how do you even respondwithout turning the conversation into something childish or brutish?” She frowned.
“Well, no matter. We don’t want to claim a proficiency in insulting others, do we?”
Lizzie laughed and then wrapped her free arm over Jane’s shoulder. “No, we do not. And you, my dear, could never be such a thing no matter if you desired it. But I.” She shook her head. “I feel…I am well on my way.” She tucked a strand of free hair behind her ear. “You must somehow disbelieve everything they insinuated and remember them to be the most boring, insipid creatures we have yet encountered. Who would want to be in the presence of a perpetual bored expression and a tight pinched face? She couldn’t be lovely with those evil thoughts running through her head. No one could. She will be doomed to ill looks and you will forever be fresh and lovely and a pleasure to look upon until your dying day.” She kissed her soundly on the cheek.
Jane laughed, pretending to wipe the offending gesture from her cheek. “I think you are also perfectly perfect and do not need to think ill of yourself. Though you have more wit than I, you would never purposefully be cruel, not like they were. I know this.” She toyed with a ringlet of Lizzie’s hair. “And thank you for that. Thank you for always being my strength and having my back.”
“We are quite a pair, are we not? We shall rise together or go down trying.” She laughed. “But truly. I do think Bingley is half in love with you no matter what his sisters say.”
“He does have a glorious sparkle in his eye.” Jane laughed, her face blushing profusely. “Is that how you tell? If a man loves you…does he sparkle like Bingley?”
“I’m not the one to ask as no one has loved me as of yet. But what I see in Bingley is definitely a high interest. He seems completely captured, living in the world of Jane Bennet, not aware of any other world. I would say that is half in love.” Lizziegrinned. “And yes, he does seem to have an extra sparkle for you.”
Jane nodded, seeming satisfied with that answer. And Lizzie hoped that none of his friend’s snobbery would rub off on him for she feared that her sister was herself if not half, all the way in love already.
They returned to the house with baskets of herbs and things for Cook which were soon almost forgotten in the wake of callings and shoutings from their mother.
Lizzie groaned. “What could be happening now?”
Jane shrugged, and they both left the baskets on the table in the kitchen and went following the noise.
Their mother was on her back in her bed, fanning her overly pale face. “Oh, my dear Jane, we are so unfairly treated! So unfairly. And here I thought that my Lydia would amount to something, would be able to have the same amount of opportunity as her sisters. But how can she? How? When she is so roundly ignored?” She clutched a paper, an invitation of sorts.
“What is that,Mama?” Jane reached for it.
At first her mother resisted. “No, I will not allow it. How could this Lord I-don’t-even-know-his-name include Mary but not our Lydia? What is he thinking?”
Jane and Lizzie shared a confused glance.
Lizzie reached for the paper and this time her mother let it go. The sisters skimmed the page.
“Elizabeth and Mary Bennet have been invited to the house party of one Lord Shackley. The pleasure of your presence is expected on August 1.”
Elizabeth let the paper drop, her eyes unseeing. What could this mean? She and Mary were invited to a house party? “Who is Lord Shackley?”
