An Unexpected Ally

Part 27

"Jane? Jane, dear!"

Lizzy knocked a second time, then a third on her sister's bedroom door. She made her voice soft, as gentle as if she was trying to coax a kitten down from a tree.

"Jane?"

Her sister's answer, when it came, was thick and muffled, and Lizzy could not tell if that was because of tears or because Jane had buried herself under a pillow.

"Leave me alone."

Tempted to ignore Jane's instruction, Lizzy's fingers itched to turn the doorknob, but she drew her hand back before they even grazed its edge. Let Jane be awhile, she counselled herself, knowing how little she appreciated being disturbed when she was busy making sense of something.

And there must be a kind of sense to all this, surely?

Turning on her heel, Lizzy stalked back downstairs to the parlour, where Lydia and Kitty had crept back to join their mother and Mary, all discussing Mr Bingley - and Jane's sudden departure from the room - in hushed whispers.

"She won't come back downstairs," Lizzy declared, throwing herself down in agitation on the settee opposite the rest of her family.

"Poor dear." Mrs Bennet clucked her tongue but Lizzy could tell that at least some small degree of her sympathy masked disappointment at being denied a chance to speculate further with her eldest daughter about the meaning behind her former beau's sudden return.

Lizzy sighed, turning her attention to Lydia.

"How came you to know of Mr Bingley's return, anyway? I know you said Maria told you, but she is as inclined as anyone to make up such a story just to have something to gossip about."

Kitty gasped at Lizzy's cruel words but Lydia met her accusations without faltering.

"She heard it from her father." She jutted out her chin in a silent, defiant so there that she thought would silence Lizzy entirely.

"And he heard it from...?"

"Mr Bingley himself." This was Lydia's triumph, and she delivered it with a smile. "He crossed paths with Mr Bingley, Mr Darcy and Mr Darcy's sister who have all come to stay at Netherfield."

"Georgiana too?"

This was Mary, whose delight at being reunited with her friend from London was undeniable.

"What is she like, Mary?" Kitty asked, leaning forward and directing her attention to her sister. "Maria did not say much, but it may be that she did not know much. You are friends with Miss Darcy. Is she very pretty?"

Mary frowned, opening her mouth to say something about how she did not see what Miss Darcy's appearance had to do with her value as a person and as a friend, but Lizzy's attention remained fixed on Lydia.

"Then Mr Darcy must have known about it."

It was not a question, more a matter of her voicing a thought she could hardly bear entertaining.

"I dare say it was his idea!" Lydia replied, with a scornful smile. "You know that their retreat to London was at his suggestion. This return surely is, too. I wonder if he knows what damage his decision has done to poor Jane!"

Lizzy drew in a breath, nursing Lydia's words as tenderly as if they had been her own. Did Darcy know what he had done by encouraging Charles to return? He must have some inkling. And what of poor Colonel Fitzwilliam? If Jane was tormented by the return of a man she had once hoped to marry, what must he be thinking?

How cruel to do such a thing to his own cousin! It isn't true. It can't be.

"...Mr Darcy and his sister are very close," Mary was saying, with no small degree of pride at successfully making an audience of her whole family and having some intelligence to share that was welcomed. "I am sure that he missed her and that is why he invited her to join him at Netherfield."

Lizzy's brow sank into a scowl. There was no denying it, then. Darcy was responsible for creating the mess that now swirled all around them. Poor Jane! Poor Colonel Fitzwilliam! And poor Mr Bingley! If he cared at all, and Lizzy still could not decide which side of the argument for or against his caring she ought to come down on, then he would surely be hurt by the swift and absolute change in Jane's affections. Even if he left her first, perhaps his return signifies that he did still care for her after all. She reached a hand up to massage the frown-lines that were forming on her forehead. Oh, what a confusion this all was! And Darcy is to blame for all of it!

This, perhaps, rankled worst of all. Lizzy had fancied she knew Mr Darcy, had imagined she did, in any case. Had the version of him she had created in her mind been false all along? She had believed his claims, believed his good intentions. That very morning they had walked together and he had made no mention of the catastrophe he was inviting back to Meryton. He had sought to deceive her, which was worse than remaining aloof. I might have considered him proud and rude and a whole host of other things, but never deceitful. Now she wondered if she had known him at all, or merely seen two different faces he chose to wear. And why? Why not ever be himself?

There was a knock at the door that disrupted Lizzy's thoughts and Mary's treatise on the many virtues of Georgiana Darcy, and a servant stepped in, clutching a bouquet of beautiful, hot-house flowers.

"For Miss Bennet," he said, placing the vase that held them down on a table for a moment. "Ought I to take them upstairs?"

"No, leave them here," Mrs Bennet said, her eyes fixed on the bouquet. The servant retreated, closing the door behind him, and everyone was on their feet in an instant. Lizzy was quickest, snatching the card from where it lay nestled amidst the blooms and holding it out of reach of Lydia's eager, grasping hand.

"We oughtn't to read it," Mary began, but she was soon silenced by three sharp voices.

"It is only so that we might know who sent them," Lizzy explained, hurriedly opening the note and scanning it for a signature. She tried not to read its contents, but her eyes caught one or two words.

Unchanged affections...understand...must speak to you...

C. B.

Charles Bingley! Lizzy thought, folding the note and slipping it carefully into her sleeve.

"Lizzy!" Lydia wailed.

"What did it say?" Pragmatic Kitty cared little to see the actual note if she might yet be privy to its contents.

"I did not read it!" Elizbeth said, airily. It was only partly a lie. "I only looked at the signature." She turned to the flowers, fluffing them unnecessarily with one hand. "They are from Mr Bingley."

This caused a riot of whispered speculations to blow through the parlour like a gale, and Lizzy took the opportunity of her family's gleeful distraction to slip, unseen, through the door and scramble quietly back upstairs to Jane's room. She knocked gently on the door, then stooped and fed the folded note carefully through the gap between the bottom of the door and the floorboards.

"Mr Bingley sent flowers. I rescued his note before the girls could lay hold of it and thought you would wish to see it."

There was no answer from Jane, but after a moment's pause, the creak of a floorboard and the snatched disappearance of the note suggested she had retrieved it. Even now, she would be reading it. What would her reaction be?

Lizzy bit her lip, her heart full of concern for her sister and Colonel Fitzwilliam, and full of reproach for herself for being so instrumental in matching them. I oughtn't to have encouraged Jane to care again, she thought, wondering if she was to blame for the conflict that must be rending her poor sister's heart in two. She drew in a sharp breath, actively redirecting her blame towards the absent figure who deserved it more than she did. And Mr Darcy ought not to have interfered - again! - in my sister's happiness.

Her own heart was conflicted in this. She had almost believed she cared for Mr Darcy. How could she when his actions were so unfathomable? I was mistaken, she told her disbelieving heart. I do not care. I could not. He is responsible for all the suffering my sister endures, and I will never forgive him for it!