Page 56 of May I Have the Pleasure
Sitting
Darcy seemed startled by her assertion they could eventually become Mr and Mrs Bennet.
Elizabeth gave him a minute to respond, but when he continued to think, she finally said, “I see I have you flummoxed.”
“Not necessarily… but Iwouldlike to know exactly what you mean.”
“Of course,” she said, then stared at the ground for a minute or two. “Let me put it this way. Which of my sisters would you suppose most resembles my mother in her youth?”
Darcy thought about it a moment before replying as if handling a live snake. “It sounds like a trick question, but I suppose I will blunder into your trap. Based on my personal observations, I would assume Miss Lydia.”
She nodded. “Most would agree… emphatically… but they would be wrong.”
“Who then?” he asked in real curiosity.
“She was Jane.”
That answer seemed to startle the man, who apparently had nothing to add.
“In her youth, my mother was universally acknowledged as the most eligible debutant in Meryton. She was lively and lovely; bright and pretty; personable and funny. She was the daughter of a solicitor, so she did not grow up on an estate, but she looked like Jane. She had a happy, lively personality, and everyone loved her. My father took her to wife with all the pride you might imagine of a man snatching up the brightest jewel of the county.”
“What happened?” he asked with some confusion.
She sighed resignedly. “My father’s disappointment happened. Most people would agree she is a woman ofmean understanding and uncertain temper. You witnessed it yourself. However, she was not always thus. Let me ask youthis—what would Lady Catherine say about a woman raising five daughters without a governess?”
“I am not certain she would survive the shock,” he said with a chuckle, not liking the dark turn of her countenance.
“And yet, she raised five of us, and three of the five do not really qualify as what my father calls thesilliest girls in England.She must have donesomethingmore right than your experience might indicate.”
“As you said earlier… please elaborate.”
“Jane was five and I was three when Mary was born, so I have to speak of those times based on my grandmother and uncle’s recollections. My fatherobviouslydid not spend all his time in his book room back then. He actually played with us as children, educated me as he would a son, and made some effort with Jane and Mary. Mother was proud and happy to have produced three fine children, and they assumed a son would come along in good time. After all, producing four girls in a row is very-very unlikely.”
Darcy nodded, being unable to come up with a single example of even four, let alone five.
“When Kitty was born, and then Lydia did enough damage to make further children impossible… she started to… despair. She and my father had quite optimistically never curbed their spending, always assuming a son would come along to break the entail. When it did not, my mother let her perceived failure start making her shrill and nervous. My father eventually concluded he had married imprudently.”
“You sound like you disagree.”
“I disagree emphatically! He was estate raised, Oxford educated, and proud of his intellect. He married a woman clearly similar to other women in his sphere, but he never made any effort toteachher to fulfil her role. He made no effort to save for us, or to insure we were marriageable, or to raise the estate’s income, or… well, anything, to be honest. When Lydia was born, it was as if they both justgave upand quit trying.”
Darcy grunted. “To be honest, I think my father did the same thing when my mother died. I always tried to honour him, as if their love was so strong he could not survive its loss, but I eventually took it as a sign of weakness. Georgiana was young and needed her father, but he was… just… not there. As you would say, he was aparticular idiot.”
Elizabeth giggled, much to his surprise and pleasure.
“I suppose, we both want to ensure we do not repeat the mistakes of our parents. That brings me back to my basic fear.”
“Can you explain it?” he asked, still looking perplexed.
Elizabeth stared at him, wondering if he just assumed Fitzwilliam Darcy could overcome any and all obstacles.
“My parents’ marriage was very uneven, and they spent twenty-five years exacerbating their differences. My father apparently thought a seventeen-year-old-solicitor’s-daughter should be able to debate like an Oxford don, and my mother obviously thought a handsome estate owner should be able to do the manly things involved in keeping them prosperous. There followed decades of disappointment, and they both took their regrets out on each other.”
“And you are afraid we might do the same?”
“As they say, ‘the apple does not fall far from the tree.’ If we marry, youwillbe ridiculed by your family and friends for taking in an unknown penniless adventuress. Our nameswillbe bandied about the tittle-tattle sheets. Societywillpunish me for reaching above my sphere. I will likely resent you at times, and you will have a hard time not repaying that resentment with your own. The difference is they will disparage me to my face, and you behind your back, but disparage us, they will.”
Darcy started to speak several times, apparently attempting to dispute the assertion, but eventually seemed to accept her thoughts had a logic of their own. Worse yet, her thoughts eerily matched his own thoughts on the match since leavingHertfordshire.
