Page 42 of The Longbourn Bloodline

“Five spinsters residing at Longbourn.” Mrs. Bennet fluttered, shaking her teacup. “That will not do. What I wonder, Lizzy, is what did you do to compel Mr. Darcy into giving Longbourn to Jane? Whatever could have prevailed on him to do so? Did you give him a kind word? A smile? Or a promise?”

“She must have kissed him,” Lydia chortled. “Mamma, you hung a huge kissing bough in the small parlor. Mr. Darcy and Lizzy were in there for quite some time.”

“I did not give Mr. Darcy anything,” Elizabeth declared hotly. “He wished to know my opinion, whether he should change the entail for Jane’s favor, and I nodded. That was all.”

“A nod?” Mrs. Bennet’s voice rose incredulously. “Lizzy, did I not teach you anything? When a gentleman of consequence wishes to speak privately, you do not sit there and nod. You permit him to be overcome by your beauty and charm, and then you accept his proposal with becoming modesty. Then you come out and tell your mother so she can order the wedding silks!”

“That was not what happened, Mamma,” Elizabeth protested.

“Obviously not,” Mrs. Bennet wailed. “A man just does not give up an inheritance for nothing. He must have wanted something from you, Lizzy.” Her eyes narrowed with predatory hope. “Did he propose and you refused him? Tell me you did not refuse him. Tell me, Elizabeth Rose Bennet, that you did not reject another heir of Longbourn, because if you have, I shall… I shall…”

“He is no longer the heir of Longbourn,” Mr. Bennet said, “and there was no proposal to decline. I was sitting right outside, and Lizzy was uncharacteristically quiet.”

“That is precisely my point!” Mrs. Bennet wailed. “If Lizzy had only exerted herself to smile or been kind to Mr. Darcy, had shown him the smallest spark of feminine warmth instead of her habitual haughty disdain—he would have offered for her, and she would be Mrs. Darcy with Pemberley, and Jane would still have Longbourn, and we should all be secured twice over. But no! My headstrong, obstinate, mulish daughter sits in a parlor with the finest gentleman in England, and he gives her the family estate, and she says, ‘thank you very much, now please leave!’ Oh, the waste! The shocking, spectacular waste!”

“I did not say ‘please leave.’” Elizabeth’s hands were shaking, and Jane noticed, pouring another cup of tea for her.

“You said nothing at all! Oh my nerves, my poor, poor nerves.” Mrs. Bennet assailed the soft-boiled egg with a teaspoon. “And now he is gone, riding to Matlock as we speak. When he gets there, his aunt will introduce him to some earl’s daughter with forty thousand pounds and connections to the Crown, and he will forget he ever set foot in Hertfordshire, and Lizzy will be a spinster at Longbourn writing letters to no one while Jane and her husband—” Mrs. Bennet stopped, struck by a new thought. “Jane, if you are the heir, then any man who marries you must take our name. He must become a Bennet. Oh! Oh, that is—Mr. Bennet, is that true?”

“It is a condition of the entail, yes.”

“Then we must find Jane a husband who does not mind being renamed! Oh, but most gentlemen would object—their pride, their family honor—we must find a younger son, perhaps, or a gentleman without consequence who would welcome the improvement! Mr. Bennet, what about that pleasant Mr. Bingley who was at Netherfield? He was quite fond of Jane, and he is in trade, so his name carries less weight.”

“Mr. Bingley left Netherfield without a word, Mamma,” Elizabeth said, the old sting returning—made sharper still by Darcy’s confession that he had urged Bingley’s departure. She could not dwell on it now, not with her mother’s gaze fixed upon her like a pair of loaded cannons.

“He will return now that Jane is an heiress,” Mrs. Bennet said, dabbing her eyes with a napkin. “Dear Jane, do not look so distressed. Perhaps that fine colonel will return. He seemed quite taken by you.”

“Mamma!” Elizabeth’s temper flared. “Are you not concerned about fortune hunters? Shouldn’t Jane decide on a man based on his character and not his ability to scent out Longbourn’s income?”

Mrs. Bennet’s teaspoon stopped mid-strike. “Longbourn’s income. The improvements Mr. Darcy was making. Has he abandoned them? The new ballroom? The mill and the tenant cottages? There are invoices, Mr. Bennet! The northern fields were to be drained. The dance master, Monsieur Belcourt, is engaged through February, and Mrs. Beaumont requires her fee quarterly. Who is to pay for all of this if the no-longer-the-heir has bolted back to Derbyshire?”

“I believe Mr. Darcy has fully funded the accounts,” Mr. Bennet said. “He is not a man who leaves things half-done.”

“Well, that is something, I suppose.” Mrs. Bennet sniffed. “Though I would have preferred a son-in-law to a settled invoice.”

“I believe, Mamma,” Jane said, with a sympathetic glance at Elizabeth, “that Lady Lucas has not yet heard our news about the changed entail and my inheritance.”

The effect was instantaneous. Mrs. Bennet’s eyes, still damp with tears, sharpened with competitive fire. Lady Lucas—that woman who had crowed about Charlotte’s advantageous match with Mr. Collins, who had practically wallpapered her drawing room with her daughter’s good fortune until the man had the discourtesy of expiring—Lady Lucas did not yet know that Jane Bennet was an heiress.

“She remains entirely ignorant,” Mrs. Bennet exulted, and a smile spread across her face like a cat settling before a canary. “She does not know. Mr. Bennet, I must call on Lady Lucas this morning before anyone else can tell her. I must be the first; it is only right, it is news of this magnitude. I shall wear my blue spencer.”

“Take Lydia and Kitty,” Mr. Bennet suggested, with the transparent motive of clearing his breakfast table. “And Mary, if she can be persuaded to leave her sermons.”

“I shall not leave my sermons,” Mary said. “But I will come, as it presents an opportunity to model the deportment Mrs. Beaumont requires when delivering news of social significance. A straight spine and a measured tone, with the chin held at the angle of composure.”

“Exquisite,” Mrs. Bennet said, already halfway to the doorway. “Kitty, your posture! Lydia, put down that ham! We are calling on Lady Lucas, and we must look as though we have always been heiresses.”

The breakfast room emptied like a theatre at the end of a play, with Mrs. Bennet shooing her three youngest daughters like baby chicks, clucking all the way down the corridor and already rehearsing their good fortune.

Mr. Bennet lifted his gaze from the newspaper he had been studying assiduously. “Well, Lizzy, it appears you have received everything you wished for. Jane is the heir, and Mr. Darcy has gone away. No improvements are needed on your part, and your pink journal can remain unused. Jane will learn how to steward Longbourn. You can retire to the window seat with a book and rejoice that Mr. Darcy gave away an estate for less than a song.”

Elizabeth swallowed, bracing herself for her father’s final pronouncement.

“I only wonder, dear Elizabeth, whether your victory tastes as sweet as you expected.” He folded his newspaper and departed the breakfast table.

Elizabeth and Jane sat alone at the table. The teapot had gone cold; the toast rack stood half-empty. Through the window, the bleak December morning spread pale and still across the frozen garden, and the lane where two riders had passed not half an hour ago lay empty and quiet.

Jane took Elizabeth’s hand. “Are you well?”