Chapter Text
Jane
The first few months of her marriage and new family life had been nothing but serenity and bliss, Jane reflected, and therefore some mayhem was bound to follow.
So it was with the month of March.
The Bennet Girls had never experienced a winter with the ferocity of their first in Derbyshire. Back in Hertfordshire, the snow had been minor, lovely, and idyllic. A small dusting to bring a beautiful, sparkling coat to all it touched. Sometimes there was enough to play at throwing snowballs or making snowpeople.
Two days after they departed Pemberley’s New Year’s Eve celebration with the Darcys and Matlocks, the snow began to fall in fat, persistent flakes. The farmers had been predicting snow, but what followed those first flakes was a storm the likes of which Jane, Lizzie, and Lydia had never seen. Tree branches shook and waved violently in the wind, men cleared the paths and roads in the village as well as they could, only for drifts of snow to gust back over within an hour or two. Mrs. Kiddy had been quite beside herself, though the larder was quite well stocked. Mrs. Mellor feared for the state of the linens, and not being able to wash and air out in accordance with her rotation schedule. Jane could only soothe them and smile to herself at the two ladies’ dedication and fretting. But it was her first understanding of what it really meant to be snowed in.
Robert himself had dug a tunnel through the snow once it finally stopped so Lydia could visit the stables. Lizzie led a grand snowball fight amongst the young people of Kympton, one that went on for hours, and trampled down a good deal of the snow on the roads and to the path to the church, so Jane remarked to Robert that she could hardly repine Lizzie’s exuberance, unladylike as some might see it. Jane knew that when Lizzie did not expend energy her restlessness had negative consequences, and long walks were out of the question.
The villagers managed to clear a path to the pond just outside the end of the main road, and to sweep the surface of the large pond to make it fit for ice skating. Jane verified with Robert that it was safe, and he took Lizzie and Lydia to skate, telling his wife that there was no question the water was frozen three feet deep, as cold as it had become. Jane had stayed back, despite being a fair skater, because she had begun to suspect she was increasing, though it was certainly too soon to tell.
And so passed January and February, with novel winter amusem*nts and Jane’s growing certainty that there was to be a babe.
In the first days of March, she felt what her Aunt Maggie had described to her as the quickening – a small wriggling feeling in her lower abdomen announcing itself.
Jane had been in her bedroom sorting through stockings, determining which could be mended, and which must be discarded or put to another use when she felt it. She sat down where she was, just in front of the chest at the foot of her bed and put her hands over the spot. There had been a hard little bump forming, and she knew it was the start of the babe, but Aunt Maggie said the first moments to truly begin making plans was the quickening. And now the quickening had come.
Though she could feel nothing through her hands, she continued to feel that little wriggling sensation intermittently. Jane sat for a few minutes more, thunderstruck by all this meant. A new little life coming into the world, a continuation of herself and her family, a representation of the love between herself and Robert, and tears came to her eyes. She sat mesmerized, crying and smiling while staring through the window at the dripping icicles outside her window. Spring was coming in all senses of the word.
This was how Robert found her.
He knelt down, running his thumb under her eyes, peering into her face. “Dearest, are you well?”
“Robert, I have never been so happy. Are the roads clear enough to reach the Rickmans’ farm, would you say?”
“Aye, if not now, then in a day or two we should have enough melt that we can send a messenger and reasonably expect him back. Is it…” Robert trailed off. “Is it for the elder Mrs. Rickman?” he said, naming the local midwife.
Jane smiled and took his dear face in her hands. “It is. You are to be a father, and I a mother.”
Robert leaned forward and engulfed her, rocking her from side to side, kissing her cheek, and finally her lips. He lifted her and carried her around to the bed, where he lay her down and began to stroke down her torso until Jane guided him to the little bump.There he held his wife and forming child and they talked for a long time of names, and the child’s looks, and whether or not it would be a boy or a girl, and how pleased all their family would be.
They ignored the sounds of Lizzie and Lydia laughing in the hallway over the Misses Wesleys’ younger brother and how he was determined to press his suit with Lydia, though he was only nine years old. They heard the sounds of Joanie brushing the rug in the hall, but stirred not a bit from their happy talk. They heard the post come and go, and the sound of a delivery at the kitchen door, and the general rumblings of an active, happy household, but not an inch did Mr. and Mrs. Marshall allow themselves to be moved whilst they dreamed and planned for the future.
Such serenity in the Marshall household could not last, sadly. The first of March brought Katie rather unexpectedly. Jane smiled ruefully as her sister-in-law presented herself the first moment that travel was possible.
Of all things, the woman had come by sleigh! Jane had to laugh at her sister’s ingenuity for avoiding her husband. Robert could only roll his eyes and say, “Katie, my goodness. You made the horses and your coach drive twelve miles in what’s soon to be muck, and then had the man saddle the horses for the last leg just to pay a call? Could not you have waited until the roads were passable? Where on earth did you abandon Booth’s sleigh? Will not he be cross?”
“Oh, phoo, Robert! I didn’t want to miss Lizzie and Lydia’s company, now did I? They only have another six weeks in Kympton. And the sleigh is just at the edge of the glebe. All is well! Now, Jane, which room shall I take? I hope to stay for a few weeks. The groom will come with my trunk soon enough, and I have some fabric I found in a lovely shop in Nottingham that I simply had to purchase for you…”
A few days later they received word that Robert’s mother had been ill, and Robert had to make his way to Woodlands to see her. “Is your Mama in danger, do you think?” Lydia had asked at breakfast as Robert shared the contents of his elder brother’s note on their mother’s health.
“I think she has come close to it, Lyddie, but ultimately she is past the worst of it. It appears pneumonia weakened her lungs considerably, and the cold, dry winter has made it worse for her,” he answered, perusing the note once more.
“Shall you go to her today or tomorrow, dearest?” Jane asked, worry creasing her brow.
“I think today, my love. Katie, will you come?” And the siblings made plans to get to Woodlands Dower House on horseback. It was seven miles of muck and mud, and they would likely need to break their journey to rest the horses.
There was an unexpected ice storm that night, and Jane could only pray that the two had made it safely. An express arrived the next morning saying they were well, but they found their mama sadly diminished, and would stay at least a week, if not two.
And finally, there was what happened to Lizzie, and what on earth any of them were to do about it.
By mid-March the weather had finally begun to turn in Derbyshire, and the snows were melting with the warming earth. Lizzie had been confined to walks around the village and its nearest environs, and had been itching to be let loose into the countryside. Nearly all the snow in the fields and on the paths had melted down but for what lay in constant shadow, and a sudden cold snap froze the mud into passable terrain.
That morning at breakfast, Lizzie turned to Jane and asked, “Do you mind if I go out for the day? I find I am running mad, and only a walk will do. I can only harass the bookseller and milliner so many times on my marches up and down the town!”
“Of course, be off with you. Do take Hobbes. Mrs. Mellor and I have much to do to prepare for Robert’s return. I believe Katie will come back. They were fortunate enough to get the sleigh back to the Booths’ estate. Mr. Booth shall have to send a carriage for her to return,” Jane said, more speaking to herself.
Lydia snorted. “That is if she ever does go home! Her husband must be a dreadful nightmare.”
“Lydia!” Jane said. “We do not know anything of Mr. Booth, not really. ‘Tis not fair to speak of him so.”
Lizzie looked up from a letter she had been re-reading. “Surely you must know something of why she does not stay long at home? Winter must be hard on her if she cannot bear to be there.”
“Of course I can make some assumptions,” Jane said slowly. “She is unhappy in her marriage, that is clear enough, but I cannot pretend to know the full story. I believe there is a personality mismatch,” Jane responded, pouring herself another cup of tea and eating another muffin. She had reached the stage of her pregnancy where her cravings became utterly rapacious. The babe growing within her had a ravenous appetite for gooseberries, apparently, and Jane had consumed nearly two jars of Mrs. Kiddy’s preserves in the last week.
“Did she not know they were a mismatch before they wed?” Lydia asked with some interest.
“Perhaps in the early days of courtship, it did not signify,” Lizzie said. “I know very few couples who are in perfect harmony most of the time. Robert and Jane, Aunt Maggie and Uncle Edward. But truly, I can think of no others. Perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Wesley? They seem particularly suited.”
“One cannot know everything,” Jane said. “You cannot even know how you might come to dislike something you once thought was charming.”
“Surely it is too soon to turn one of Robert’s former virtues into a current fault?” laughed Lizzie.
“No, no!” Jane laughed back. “Robert is perfectly amiable, and every day I appreciate and love him more. No, it is not of my own dear husband I was thinking. I had…well. I had Mama and Papa in mind.”
“I do not believe Papa ever liked Mama,” Lydia said with a huff.
“He did, once,” Jane said. “You were not yet born, but I have memories of them laughing together when I was very young. Do you remember, Lizzie?”
She was quiet for a few moments and finally said, “Somewhat. I remember them laughing about a visit from the Gouldings once. Something about a very silly bonnet that old Mrs. Goulding wore during a morning visit. They had a little private joke about it, and I remember so wishing to be able to be in on the joke.”
“Right,” said Jane. “But then their sharing jokes seemed to wear out. Mama turned into a joke for Papa, and she just became sillier and sillier as a result. Who knows why? No sons? The entail? Their lack of economy always pressing on them? It takes work not to allow familiarity to lapse into contempt.”
Lydia was looking thoughtfully off into the distance. “I wish I had known them like that. What a shame.” After a moment’s silence, she asked, “Might I ride Lady in the paddock today?”
A few hours later, Lydia had come home and was resting in her room, tired after not having ridden for so long. Jane was alternating between balancing the household ledger and making a list to prepare the nursery when she heard stomping in the hallway. She put down her pen in some alarm, and was about to stand to go to the door when it swung open and Lizzie entered the drawing room.
Her face was red, whether from the cold, or the tears she was shedding, Jane could not say. Jane had seen Lizzie cry many times over the years, and knew that right now her present state could be chalked up to furious anger. “Good God, what is the matter?” Jane cried out.
Lizzie paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, still wrapped in her warm pelisse and bonnet and let out a loud growl. “I hardly know where to begin!”
“Are you hurt?” Jane said, approaching to help remove Lizzie’s outer things.
“No, I am not. Well, not in body,” she replied as she untied her bonnet and threw it atop the pelisse on the sofa.
“Then for Heaven’s sake, what is happening?” asked Jane.
“I can scarcely believe it myself…Mr. Darcy just proposed to me.”
Jane’s jaw dropped, and Lizzie took this for sufficient encouragement, and launched into her tale.
“He came upon me in the grove that borders his lands and Mr. Reed’s. I was quite vexed, you know, for he had interrupted so many of my walks when I was on Pemberley grounds. Certainly that was his right, but I thought if I stayed off the man’s property, I should have some peace from him.
“He seemed almost to be looking for me, if you can credit it. Almost as if he knew I would be out today, the first day one could really take a ramble in so many weeks. He was on his horse, and he dismounted when he saw me. I thought it might be possible to pretend I had not seen him, but there was no way I could do so without being horribly impolite. I curtsied and he said nothing. I therefore excused myself, and told him I really must be returning to the parsonage, but he stopped me, begged I would stay for a moment.
“He started to fidget with his crop and paced back and forth for a moment, almost as if he was forming some resolution. Then finally he came before me once again and said, ‘In vain, I have struggled. It will not do. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.’” Lizzie paused to take a deep breath, and Jane muffled the cry of surprise she wished to let out. It was surprise, and yet it was not surprise, for Mr. Darcy certainly was rather focused on Lizzie, for good or for ill, who could say?
“I know that my expression was beyond all belief. That I gaped, and certainly stared and doubted, but he must have interpreted my silence as encouragement, therefore he continued. He went on to say that he had long admired me (I can scarcely believe how he can say so, given what he told Mr. Bingley the first night we were in company), but that the vast difference in our situations in life had long kept him silent. He said that his family had great expectations that he would make a brilliant match, and that a marriage between ourselves would be viewed as nothing less than a degradation in the eyes of his family and friends, but that there was nothing for it, and he must succumb to his feelings for me.
“I will admit that I was not insensible to the compliment of garnering the notice of such a powerful man’s affection. Had he not dwelled with such spirit on my inferiority of connections, of my inherent unsuitability to be wife to such a man, to my lack of fortune or usefulness in the first circles, perhaps the conversation would not have devolved as it did. Angry as I was, I did politely refuse his suit.
“He was surprised, Jane. He spoke of apprehension and anxiety when he asked me for my hand, but I could see he was sure of my acceptance. He said, ‘And this is all the reply I am to have the honor of expecting? I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavor at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance.’
“I told him that I might as well inquire why with so evident a desire of offending and insulting me that he told me he liked me against his will, against his reason, and even against his character? Is this not some excuse for incivility, if indeed I was uncivil?
“I probably should have stopped there, but he just kept glaring at me until I finally said, ‘I have other provocations. You know I have.’
“‘And pray, what can those be?’ He practically snarled at me.
“I told him, ‘Had my feelings not been decided against you, had they been indifferent, or even had they been favorable, do you think any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who interfered so brazenly with the happiness of a most beloved sister?”
Here Jane interjected, “Oh, Lizzie, that hardly matters anymore. I think it very likely that he did me a favor, even though his interference was wrong, if indeed he did interfere.”
”He admitted that he did, and moreover that he rejoiced in his interference! Perhaps his actions helped to contribute to a happier situation. But it was not his affair, as I told him when he made the same objection as you did just now.” Lizzie’s indignance was visible in every part of her body, her countenance, her tone.
Jane bit her lip. “You said more, I take it?”
Lizzie continued. “I told him that his treatment of myself, from his dismissal of me at the Meryton assembly — in a crowded ballroom, no less!, to his insufferable presumption in our affairs, his disdain for the feelings of others, his unwillingness to show consequence to others’ humanity when in company so decidedly below his own all lead me to know I could never be married to such a man.
“He said, ‘Should I have flattered you instead? Hid my very reasonable scruples that prevented me from making an offer to a woman of no fortune or connections, who is closely related to a tradesman who lives in view of his own warehouses? For months, I have fought the forming of any design on a marriage between ourselves, only to be met with such a flaming show of ingratitude. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. I am not ashamed of the feelings I have developed for you, they are natural and just. Would you truly expect me to rejoice in your situation in life, which is so decidedly below my own?’
“I do not know that I have ever been so angry in my life, Jane. For where were we to go from here? I refused him, and he could not begin to understand why, though he asked for my reasons. I certainly would not have otherwise detailed them without such provocation. Then he refused to accept them as good enough. All I could think of was ending our interview with the hopes of never seeing each other again. The very idea that I should show gratitude for one who has so little respect for my very existence and history. I could not stop myself from saying, ‘You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern in which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner.’ No, Jane, that is not all. Though you look as pale and startled as Mr. Darcy did when I said that. No, I barreled forward,” Lizzie said, looking chagrined for the first time in her return to the parsonage.
“I said that he could not have offered me his hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it. I could see he was mortified, but still incredulous. Certainly any woman should leap at a proposal from Mr. Darcy, should they not? So I continued. I said, ‘I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could be prevailed upon to marry.’
“At this, he finally seemed to hear me: my dislike for his treatment of our family, my repulsion of his manners, his behavior in Meryton finally sunk in. He made some remarks saying that he understood, though with the greatest bitterness imaginable. He bowed and left me there in the grove.
Jane remained silent with her fingers against her lips. She could not help but feel pity for Mr. Darcy, a man who she always thought might admire her little sister, but what a curse! To admire and love one whom he did not truly understand how to love!
Nor could she help worrying what this might mean for Robert’s position at the rector of Kympton. Surely Mr. Darcy would not be so vindictive as to take make things difficult for the man who supported two Bennets and one former Bennet?
She looked at Lizzie’s tearstained face and gave her another handkerchief. “Dearest Lizzie, all will be well, I promise you. I want you to go to your room. I’ll send Joanie up with a glass of wine and some food, then I insist you try and rest your mind.”
Lizzie took a shuddering breath. “You do not blame me for refusing him?”
”Blame you! Oh, no! You cannot be with a man you cannot respect, nor a man who doesn’t respect you. Look at Mama. She hid it as well as she could, but she was so unhappy.” Jane grabbed Lizzie’s hands and hugged them into her lap.
“He doesn’t respect me, does he,” Lizzie said woodenly. “He is drawn to something about me, I saw it at Pemberley. Whether it was that I am good for his sister, or he no longer finds my looks so unmemorable and wishes to…make a wife out of me. None of that is honorable, nor is it love. How would such a man care for a woman over the years, how would she be made to feel in her own home?”
”You did the right thing, dearest Lizzie, and now we must accept that this happened and move on in whatever ways we can.”
Jane assisted Lizzie up to her chamber and helped her change into a nightrail and robe. She then went and instructed the maid and housekeeper on restoratives, and ensured the room was nice and warm. Jane even went to the kennel and clucked at Hobbes to follow her, and furtively led him to Lizzie’s room, where he immediately threw himself against her feet as she ate and drank her wine.
The next day brought Robert back to the parsonage. Jane and the servants met him at the door, and it was only after he greeted Mrs. Mellor and assured her he was neither starving nor frozen that she let him be, saying that she would have water prepared for a nice hot bath within the hour that she and the others bustled off.
He led Jane with some urgency to his study, and closed the door behind them. “I never wish to be parted from you so long ever again, my love,” said Jane. Robert responded by pulling her to the sofa where he threw himself, and guided her on top of him. He kissed her with a great deal of intensity, the likes of which he had not done since perhaps the first week of their married life. Jane reached down and adjusted her skirts, then moved to the flap of his breeches and Robert helped her sink down on him. They worked quickly and efficiently to couple their bodies together, reaching their conclusions quickly.
Robert moved Jane so that her legs lay across his lap and her back was supported by pillows and the sofa arm. He caressed her belly, which was beginning to show a child with some obviousness, and he looked into her eyes with much tenderness. Again, Jane was struck with her good fortune. Problems could wait, misery and vexation could wait. For now, it was just the three of them.
That night at dinner, Robert detailed his mother’s health for Lizzie and Lydia, having already given Jane a full report.
“Oh, poor Aunt Susan!” Lydia exclaimed. “It is well that she is out of the worst danger, but pneumonia sounds so dreadful. She may not ever be the same, you say?”
”It certainly is a frightening state of affairs for poor Mama,” Robert conceded. “I had thought perhaps she might come back to the parsonage with me so she might not be alone, but her doctor recommends that she not be moved.”
”And your sister has come away?” Lizzie confirmed.
”I’m sorry to say she was obliged to, as Mr. Booth took ill and required her nursing,” Robert said. “It was probably the only thing that could have forced her to leave.”
Jane and Lizzie looked at each other, the same idea occurring to them both at once.
”What if I were to go to the dower house and nurse her?” Lizzie asked. “Aunt Susan has been so kind to us, I would be very glad to show her the same.”
Robert’s face bloomed with a surprised and relieved smile.
The next day Lizzie was off to Woodlands. She had confessed to Jane that she felt somewhat odd running away from her problems, but said “Ultimately, I shall do some good for Aunt Susan, and that will be my undue reward for cowardice.”
”Oh, Lizzie! ‘Tis not cowardice. Rather, it is discomfort. Go. Be with Susan. Rest your mind for a while, in a place where Pemberley does not loom only a few miles away,” Jane had answered, and Lizzie squeezed her hand.
Two days later, Jane was at work in the drawing room, cutting some very soft linen for another gown for the baby. Aunt Maggie had sent it, and the note said that this was the very type she had used for all her own children’s gowns.
She could hear someone being let in the front door and began to lay her work aside when Mrs. Mellor opened the door and announced, “Mr. Darcy, ma’am.”
Jane checked her surprise and stood to curtsy. “Mr. Darcy, sir, it is a pleasure to see you. Have you come to see Robert? He is presently at the church, should you wish to walk over there.”
”No, I thank you,” he said, waiting until the housekeeper closed the door and walked away. “I came to see Miss Bennet.”
Jane sat and simply said, “Ah.”
Mr. Darcy sank down on the chair opposite Jane’s seat and was silent for a moment. “Is Miss Bennet at home?”
”Sir, she is not. She has gone to visit one of Robert’s relations. They are ill, and she may stay a fortnight or longer,” Jane answered, considering what there was for any of them to say to Mr. Darcy.
“And is she, was she well?” There was some anxiety in his voice.
Jane was quiet for a moment, and then decided. “She will be well, Sir. But I am sorry to say that she has not been since she returned from her ramble. The day she met you.”
Mr. Darcy’s face went red.
”Mr. Darcy, I am not sure what to say to you. I am privy to what passed between you and my darling sister in word, if not in feeling,” Jane began and then stopped, unsure of how much to say. She stood and put her hand against her lower back, rubbing discreetly at some soreness.
Looking at the fire, Jane said, ”I must imagine that to you, Lizzie is a singular woman. I certainly find her so. She is bright, clever, witty, and has a beauty only made lovelier as one comes to know her. She is not pleased by wealth, or consequence. What pleases her most is to be understood and valued for who she is. Any man or friend who could provide that to her would be most sincerely valued in return. Lizzie is a woman worthy of being pleased, and most men’s pretentions are insufficient for the job of Elizabeth Bennet’s husband.” Jane was pacing as she spoke, and finally she turned to look at Mr. Darcy, whose face was open and astonished in a way Jane had never seen.
”We Bennets are not rich, nor are we particularly dignified. Our history is respectable, if not distinguished. Some of us are silly, some are reserved, some are sardonic or teasing. But what we are is honest, Sir. And if indeed you think Lizzie would have been a good bride for you, the only way she could ever be yours is by being truly respected and valued, even for the less desirable aspects of her history and character,” Jane finally sat down, and began to rub her stomach.
“You are well, Mrs. Marshall?” Mr. Darcy’s voice was a bit hoarse.
”Thank you, yes. He is kicking me rather ferociously today,” Jane answered, and then said, “ I know not what brought you today, Mr. Darcy, only that what you seek is not here. It is possible you might find it if you begin to look for it differently.”
