Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I n spite of the letter Elizabeth had penned to her aunt, thanking her for welcoming her to Gracechurch Street, Mr and Mrs Gardiner remained perplexed about the haste of, and reason for, her visit.

"Lizzy, I do not agree with your father's actions, but even you must admit that being admired by two eligible men, and receiving proposals from both, is quite the accomplishment."

"Eligible in age and income, Uncle. There is more to a marriage than gaining a good roof and one's own chair by the fire."

Regretfully, her favourite male relation did not smile at her joke. Nodding, he said, "Yes, there is securing your future. You have a good mind, and you use it in ways that can challenge others. It is not a simple thing to find a man of equal intelligence who can withstand the test of your cleverness and wit."

Her aunt was especially dissatisfied with the Bennets' behaviour towards Elizabeth. "A danger to Jane's engagement! Perhaps your parents should do more than laugh and indulge your youngest sisters' behaviours. They reflect poorly on you and Jane. Lydia should not be out; she is too young."

"Mary cared little for being out, but as Kitty neared seventeen, how could they not allow Lydia? Or shall I say, how could they ignore her tantrums?" Elizabeth tickled the chin of the youngest Gardiner, a babe of nine months who, unlike the three elder children, was still allowed to join adult conversations. "My father prefers his peace to our respectability."

Aunt Gardiner frowned. "Yet he worries about your respectability? Lizzy, you have said Mr Nugent was too green, yet also too forward in his attentions to you. Truly, with all the advantages of the match, was there no possibility you could come to see him as a husband?"

"If I chose to wait two years until his mind seasoned into something resembling a serious man and he was master of his own home and of his future?" Elizabeth shook her head. "No, I liked Mr Nugent but as with Mr Collins, I will not be the only voice of sense and intelligence in a marriage, nor shape my thoughts to please those of the lady who truly rules my home."

"This seems reasonable to me, though I enjoy having a lady rule my home." Mr Gardiner winked at his wife. "How is Jane injured by your refusal?"

"Mr Nugent is cousin to Mr Bingley's brother-in-law, Mr Hurst." Elizabeth's aunt and uncle exchanged a look, and eager to avoid any reproach, she quickly added, "Jane thinks Mr Bingley could assist Mr Nugent with some of the knowledge he has learnt from his friend, Mr Darcy, but that is terribly unfair to all involved. Mr Bingley was not the most diligent student, and Mr Darcy can only share so much of his time and intelligence."

Mr Gardiner chuckled. "I believe he shared both of those with you in November, Lizzy."

Fighting not to blush, Elizabeth buried her face in her cousin's swaddling blanket. She took a deep breath of his lovely baby smell before looking up and returning her uncle's look. "And there too it was drained as we dealt with Mr Collins."

"If your previous suitors lacked sense and character, it seems Mr Darcy is the opposite. Sense, character, intelligence, and fortune—all that you would seek in a husband."

"Although I am not seeking a husband?—"

"Do not shut the door on marriage because you have suffered through two odious proposals." Mrs Gardiner waved a finger at her. "Your uncle knows some fine gentlemen, and my friends have nephews and sons."

"No, please do not introduce me to any of them!"

"Lizzy!"

"Did my father not explain all of his plan in exiling me from Longbourn?"

Uncle Gardiner snorted. "His ridiculous notion of protecting Jane's engagement...obviously your mother provoked this action."

Elizabeth shook her head and surrendered the babe to his mother, who in turn handed him to the nursemaid. "My father has declared I must accept the next proposal made to me—regardless of the man's character, fortune, or sense."

Her aunt gasped but Mr Gardiner seemed amused. " You, more than anyone, understand your father's humour can take a perverse bent."

Turning to her uncle, she shook her head, replying, "He was everything serious. My surfeit of admirers and proposals has amused him for many years...merely saying those words—‘many years'—should be explanation enough that he is no longer amused, and thus demands I come to a decision and marry the next man who asks for my hand. The offer is likely, in his mind, to be the last."

The Gardiners exchanged an astonished look. "He cannot be so unfair to you," her uncle nearly roared, "to command you to a fate with any rogue or fool who seeks you out!"

"Edward, our Lizzy is too wise to allow such men in her company."

"You forget Mr Collins, surely the most foolish man in the church, if not all of England," Elizabeth said, almost wearily. She was tired of discussing affairs of the heart in which all the feeling was misdirected. Young boys enraptured by her skills in skipping stones or besting them in footraces, stupid men enraged by the same sort of impertinence she had yet to outgrow and determined to stamp it out, and young men too green to understand her and certain to grow horrified by her—not a serious or worthy offer among them. And yet a line had been drawn.

"Mr Nugent is all that most in my situation could hope for, and my disinterest in his affections—my ‘cruel refusal of his ardent proposal', as Mama calls it—is the height of impetuous neglect for my future. A selfish act."

Her uncle began to speak, but after a quelling glance from his wife, he said only, "A father wishes both security and happiness for his daughters, but an ultimatum is no guarantee of either."

Reaching for Elizabeth's hands, her aunt pressed them in hers. She could feel the solidity of the ring which encircled Mrs Gardiner's finger, a simple band of gold given to her as a symbol of faithfulness and felicity. Until this moment, in company with the happiest married couple she knew, she had not realised how much it meant to her to have a true marriage of affection, of minds and hearts that matched, loved, and understood the other.

Managing a wan smile rather than the sob she felt, Elizabeth agreed. "It is a hopeless business. If I enjoy a man's company and he misreads my friendship for something more, I must quickly end the acquaintance. And if I should feel that real affection could grow from the friendship, I am bound to disappoint any mutual feeling by fearing discovery of his true, not yet exposed, character."

"You are safe with us," her aunt reassured her, "safe from introductions to any man of our acquaintance, unless you wish it."

Relief surged through her, and she found herself able to smile. "Command me to play with my cousins, re-arrange your library, or, if you are truly daring, to practise my songbook...I am at your whims until I go to Kent, and certainly, other than her husband, Charlotte will know no men there from whom I must hide."