Page 90 of The Cheapside Runners
“I suppose you cannot start now without getting Mrs Black peeved with you, but you may start calling me Lydia at your leisure. I think I can speak for us all when I suggest we will be your sisters soon enough.”
Darcy looked to Elizabeth, who said, “I see no problem with you using Christian names for my sisters in private, though I shall insist on strict propriety in public, oranywherethat we can be overheard. Thetonwill try their best to break me, and there seems little profit in giving them one more club to beat me with. The other ladies can decide for themselves.”
“It took but a moment for all the ladies to agree to the scheme. Even Mrs Rose, who had never even told Elizabeth her Christian name was Edith, was happy to join the crowd.
Elizabeth continued, “As to inviting my parents or seeking their blessing… I should like to think about that overnight and discuss it tomorrow.”
“That is sensible. I will follow your lead on this,” Darcy replied.
The rest of the meal passed more peacefully with no fraught conversations. Elizabeth suggested that, since she was joining the first circles, all the ladies in the room should have new gowns for the occasion, including Mrs Rose, and the other teachers if they wanted them. That left Darcy wondering exactly how wealthy she was, because it was not a trivial expense, and she barely batted an eye.
When the evening came to a close, and Darcy reluctantly left to return to his cold, empty, dreary house, he took the brief opportunity to give Elizabeth a quick kiss.
As he was turning to go, she said, “You remember my strictures against procrastination. Let us go to Longbourn in the next two days and get it over with.”
Darcy suggested, “Let us meet with Gardiner tomorrow to strategise, and go the next day.”
Elizabeth agreed with a kiss, and he left very reluctantly.
~~~~~
“Whilst I do not usually condone outright lying, I feel no real compulsion to be entirely comprehensive with the truth,” Gardiner said the next morning as they sat with coffee to discuss the matter.
“Out of curiosity, do you object on moral grounds?” Darcy asked, but whether he was more inclined towards curiosity or procrastination was hard to tell.
“I feel my morals need only match or best whomever I am dealing with. I mostly avoid it for practical reasons. Every time you lie, you have to keep the lie in your head. If you can get by with simply omitting unnecessary details, it makes it easier by reducing the chances to contradict yourself.”
Elizabeth added, “It is also easier to recover from the truth being discovered if you were not outright lying. For example, if my father ever decides he wants to know what I have been doing in London all these years, he can discover it easily enough. I canjustify not telling him because he never really wanted to know, but if I had been outright lying to him, that would be much more difficult.”
Darcy said, “It seems that you have thought through a lot of moral dilemmas and conundrums?”
Elizabeth laughed brutally. “That is because of the school. Every conceivable moral question has been asked and answered. The first few years, it was not uncommon to have a question come up that I just could not answer without some thought and research.”
“I am impressed,” Darcy said, while giving her hand a little squeeze. “Everything I was expected to know was handed to me on a plate.”
“True, but your responsibilities are far greater. If I decided to shut down my school upon marriage, my future students would suffer, but the past ones are already fixed. If you did something wrong, hundreds could easily suffer greatly, and there is no possible way for you to escape the responsibility.”
Gardiner said, “I applaud these philosophical discussions, and recommend you keep them up through your life, but for now, perhaps we should deal with the issue at hand.”
Elizabeth nodded. “It matters not what we do for my wedding. I suppose I should even arrange for my parents to attend, but mostly because it would seem odd to have them absent. The critical thing is to obtain consent for my younger sisters.”
“That seems sensible, and I can host them. I feel no need for them to see your house or even be made aware of it,” Gardiner said.
“Perhaps I can do that one better. I could host them at Darcy house.”
Elizabeth thought about that for a time. On the one hand, the grandeur of the house might make her mother expend allher vulgarity before the wedding day, and it would keep her out of their hair as the girls prepared. It would be easy to have her occupied with shopping on Bond Street and having tea with the upper crust. Contrarily, she did not like establishing the precedent of having her mother in her house.
Darcy said gently, “I can understand your reluctance, but theyareyour parents, and they are far from the worst in the world. Are we to exclude them from our lives forever because of how they raised you? Are our children to never know their grandparents? Will it be up to Gardiner or me to walk your sisters down the aisle, or could they have their father should they so choose?”
“All good points,” Elizabeth said with a sigh. “I am reminded that on many occasions, I have had to council my students that bitterness punishes yourself for someone else’s failings.”
“Are you finding it difficult to take your own medicine, Elizabeth?” Gardiner asked with a laugh.
“Goose and gander, I suppose,” she laughed. “All right, we put them up in Darcy house. I doubt we shall even see my father after he sees the library, and with my mother…”
While she was thinking, Darcy said, “Perhaps Mrs Annesley could assist her?”
“We would have to triple her wage,” Elizabeth replied with a laugh.
