Fair Stands the Wind Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Epilogue

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Fair Stands the Wind

  Copyright © 2017 by Catherine Lodge

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any format whatsoever. For information: P.O. Box 34, Oysterville WA 98641

  ISBN: 978-1-68131-018-3

  Cover design by Zorylee Diaz-Lupitou

  Images: 123RF and public domain

  Layout by Ellen Pickels

  For SC Roberts, Sarah Pesce, and Zorylee Diaz-Lupitou who helped me polish my rough diamond and, as ever, for Marcelle Gibson, who first persuaded me I could write.

  Thank you from the bottom of my heart, you bobby-dazzlers.

  Chapter One

  The assembly rooms at Meryton were hot, crowded, and consumed with curiosity. The local oracles had prophesied the attendance of their new neighbour and, unlike the oracles of old, had gone on to estimate his fortune, his height, and his single state in uncommon, if implausible, detail. All that remained was to view the gentleman and his party, the oracles having fallen into dispute as to their number and relationship to the main attraction of the evening.

  The five Bennet sisters had been kept close to their mother all evening, for that worthy lady was intent upon throwing some one or other of them into the path of the newly arrived Mr. Bingley as soon as possible and before Lady Lucas got to him or, worse, Mrs. Goulding and her bony niece.

  Elizabeth Bennet did her best to stifle a sigh. Her mother’s careful arrangements—“Jane, you must sit on my right and, Lydia, you on my left since you are the most handsome of my girls”—had left her isolated between her sister Mary and a pillar. Since the former had brought one of her interminable conduct books, she was scarcely more company than the latter. Elizabeth exchanged looks of commiseration with her best friend, Charlotte Lucas, also seated firmly beside her own mama, and did her best to possess her soul in patience.

  On the stage, the serpent player gave a preparatory honk, and the band swept raggedly into the third set of the evening. The dancers bowed, curtsied, and began the figure, Mr. Wright leading off with his left hand as usual and being put firmly back in place by his partner. Elizabeth counted the people present, counted the ladies, subtracted the one from the other to produce the number of gentlemen—which gave the number of women who would be without partners—counted the number of feathers in Lady Lucas’s headdress, divided the number of feathers by the difference between the number of ladies and the number of gentlemen, and was faintly cheered when the result turned out to be a prime number. She sighed and was just about to commence an attempt to calculate the floor space of the ballroom, based on an estimated average length and breadth of the floorboards, when the main event of the evening finally occurred.

  The doors opened, and the party from Netherfield swept in, led by an undeniably handsome, if somewhat overdressed, lady. The object of everyone’s curiosity was a smiling, young gentleman of perhaps four-and-twenty, regrettably shorter than the first entrant, whom he introduced as his sister. Despite that, he was by no means ill looking and appeared good-humoured, which—as Mrs. Phillips remarked in a rather too penetrating whisper—was better than mere longshanks any day of the week.

  This remark gained immediate and unfortunate point when the rest of the party entered: another lady and gentleman, who ignored each other so pointedly they had to be married, and a final gentleman. The latter was a very tall, dark-haired young man, somewhat older than Mr. Bingley, well dressed in a dark blue coat of austere cut, who had chosen to disfigure a particularly fine countenance with a pair of green-lensed spectacles. The buzz of speculation, which had begun to die down, rose again to renewed heights, a noise that did not go unnoticed by its object who became—although it scarcely seemed possible—even more upright and impassive.

  Mr. Bingley was making introductions, and an immediate and rather ill-bred silence fell as everyone strained to hear. “… my sister Hurst and her husband and my particular friend Captain Darcy of the Royal Navy.”

  There was a moment’s fascinated silence until, after a hurried wave from Sir William Lucas, the band was recalled to its duty, and the set began from the beginning. Under cover of the music, a search for some source of information on this newcomer began with little attempt at concealment.

  To everyone’s surprise, it was young Mr. Goulding who supplied the keenly felt deficit. Denied a long and deeply desired career at sea by his position as his father’s heir and by his mother’s completely erroneous conviction that he was “delicate,” he had been forced to satisfy himself with newspaper accounts of the war at sea. As he said to his friend Robert Lucas, “That must be Darcy of the Achilles. You must have read about him! Took the French privateer Liberté off Ushant last year and intercepted a prime convoy the year before. Made over £30,000 in prize money alone. Was captain in that business in the Baltic—you must have read about it, Bob; it was in all the papers!”

  This was better than even the most enthusiastic mama could have dreamed. A wealthy sea captain who must be single, for when would he have had time to marry? And visiting Netherfield too—what could be more convenient?

  “He must be in want of a fine, healthy, and above all, young wife,” said Mrs. Bennet with a particularly unpleasant look in the direction of Charlotte Lucas. “Lydia, sit up straight and pull your shoulders back,” she added in what she incorrectly thought was a whisper.

  Elizabeth sighed and did her best to hide behind her pillar. Every time she thought her mother could embarrass her no further, she was proved wrong. Elizabeth did her best to convey her apologies by a look, but Charlotte, with colour rather higher than usual, was ignoring her.

  The set ended, and Mr. Bingley wasted no time in soliciting an introduction to Jane. Elizabeth thought that she was probably the only person in the room who could see just how nervous her sister was. Although Jane was used to the attention paid to her beauty, the outbreak of speculation and comment that followed the invitation was still discomposing. Captain Darcy danced with Miss Bingley and, as far as Elizabeth could see, they exchanged no more than a handful of words throughout the set.

  The set ended. Mr. Bingley was introduced to Amelia Wallace, and Captain Darcy was bowing before Charlotte Lucas. Elizabeth looked down to hide her grin as Lady Lucas returned Mrs. Bennet’s ill-natured expression. When she looked up again, she saw Charlotte was pink with pleasure, for at seven-and-twenty she had been forced to concede the floor to younger girls for the last two years. Elizabeth thought Charlotte appeared in particularly good looks. The gossip had reached positively frenzied proportions as Charlotte and her partner threaded through the measure, especially as they exchanged considerably more conversation than the captain had shared with his previous partner.

  Elizabeth shifted on her cane-bottomed chair and wished
the evening were over. The anxiety that she had striven hard to suppress all evening flooded back, and she clasped her hands in her lap and began to calculate how many seconds might pass before she could hope they would be going home.

  “Lizzy, if you cannot sit still like a Christian, you can take Kitty and repair the flounce on her hem. That clumsy Harker boy trod on it.” Gathering up a complaining Kitty, Elizabeth headed to a room at the rear where a servant waited with pins and thread for such emergencies. Together they patched up the errant hem, although the length of the tear meant it took them quite a quarter hour to repair it. Kitty was wild to return to the dancing, but Elizabeth lingered near the door for a breath of cool, fresh air.

  The stars were out, and the full moon was visible over the market cross. She stepped out a little way for a proper view and was startled to see the unmistakeable figure of Captain Darcy being helped into what was presumably Mr. Bingley’s carriage.

  As she returned to the light and heat of the ballroom, she thought to herself how unmannerly it was to be overcome by drink so early in the evening.

  Shaking her head, Elizabeth returned to the dancers. The previous set had finished, and the next was almost complete. Charlotte was now dancing with the senior Mr. Harker, her colour still high, obviously enjoying the unaccustomed attention. Jane was partnered with Richard Lucas—no prospects there; Lady Lucas would see to that if Sir William did not—and Kitty and Lydia were bouncing around with a couple of younger sons, hardly more than children themselves. Elizabeth hated having to think about her sisters’ marital prospects in this manner; it was so sordid. If it were just a case of Jane and herself, she knew they would both rather scrimp and save on £50 a year each, but Mama and the younger girls—! She halted that line of thought with a firm stamp of a mental foot.

  She composed her face, straightened her back, marched back into the ballroom—a determinedly pleasant expression on her face—and took up her seat next to Mary. The set ended, Mr. Bingley asked Jane to dance once more, and Elizabeth’s heart sank. No doubt, in her mother’s mind, matters were now completely settled, and they could all live happily ever after on Mr. Bingley’s money. It was so difficult to know what to want. Did she hope that Mr. Bingley would fall desperately, and preferably quickly, in love with Jane so that they could all batten onto him like leeches, or did she hope that he would not, in which case they could all live in genteel—and doubtless improvident—poverty instead? It was all so unfair! Mr. Bingley seemed like a pleasant young man. Why could he not have met Jane when the matter was not so unhappily pressing? She thought of her poor father alone at home, and her eyes filled with tears. She realised she would have to move her chair behind the pillar before everyone noticed.

  “Oh, Lizzy, whatever is wrong?” It was Charlotte, escaping both her partner and her mother. “I do hope Mr. Bennet is not worse?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “No, it is not that.” She nodded towards Mr. Bingley and Jane as they crossed hands and led the set down the room. “A pleasant new neighbour has come into our circle, and we are obliged to see him as some sort of quarry whom we are duty-bound to pursue.”

  Charlotte laid a hand on hers. “I am very much afraid, my dear, that this is the lot of all women without fortune. Your situation is merely more urgent than most.” They sat for a moment, watching the dancers. “And he does seem very taken with Jane.”

  “Dear Jane!” said Elizabeth. “Who could fail to be taken with her? It is merely a shame that she is obliged to tow the rest of us behind her.” Then, changing the subject firmly, she asked, “I am afraid you must have had a very uncomfortable set. I saw your partner being helped into a carriage outside. Did he make himself unpleasant?”

  “Captain Darcy?” Charlotte looked surprised. “Not at all. He was perfectly polite. He is not perhaps a practised dancer nor an easy conversationalist. I must admit I had the impression that he was conversing by a sort of rote, the size of the hall, the number of couples, the fine weather—you know the sort of thing—but it was all unexceptionable. We parted quite amiably. Mr. Harker came and asked me to dance, so I did not see the captain leave. Perhaps he was unwell?”

  “Perhaps,” said Elizabeth dubiously and then winced as she heard Lydia screaming with laughter, apparently oblivious to the disapproving looks, notably from Miss Bingley and the rest of the party from Netherfield. Charlotte patted her hand, and they sat in companionable silence until the assembly was over.

  Mr. Bingley and his party managed to get away early, and Elizabeth was heartily grateful. She had heard her mother plotting to waylay him and invite him and his party to dine, or something equally improper, before visits were exchanged. Kitty and Lydia made nuisances of themselves in the carriage as usual, complaining about the draft and squeeze. Poor Mary was sunk in what Elizabeth was coming to suspect was silent misery and as for Jane, Elizabeth could only imagine the weight of the expectations placed upon her. As Mrs. Bennet fretted, speculated, and triumphed over their neighbours, Elizabeth could see her eldest sister sinking further and further into her own unhappy thoughts.

  Longbourn was warm and welcoming. Only Mr. Hill, the butler, and Sarah, Mrs. Bennet’s maid, had waited up, which meant that her father must be asleep and comfortable. That at least was some relief to Elizabeth’s anxiety, as were Mrs. Bennet’s fierce orders to Kitty and Lydia to be quiet and be sure not to wake their poor papa. Obviously, Doctor Wallace’s instructions had finally sunk in. Elizabeth wondered, not for the first time, what the doctor had really said in his last interview with her parents.

  She undressed for bed in the room she had shared with Jane since they were both small, then burrowed beneath the blankets for the welcoming warmth left by the hot brick. Jane was still brushing her hair, the hundred measured strokes that had always seemed like a complete waste of time to Elizabeth.

  “What was Mr. Bingley like, Jane?” She had to ask, and very probably, Jane would welcome a chance to talk.

  “Very pleasant. He comes from somewhere in Yorkshire. He intends to spend his inheritance on an estate and has taken Netherfield on liking.”

  “Yes, but what was he like?”

  Jane shrugged, a most un-Jane-like gesture. “He seemed amiable—willing to be pleased with his company. It is so difficult to converse properly whilst dancing, but I should not object to furthering our acquaintance, and he is hardly hideous.” She laid down her hairbrush and came over to sit on Elizabeth’s bed. “I have been thinking—perhaps you should consider going to Aunt and Uncle Gardiner instead of me. If I have indeed caught Mr. Bingley’s attention, I had better stay here while you go and”—her lips twisted—“try your luck in London.”

  For a moment, Elizabeth thought her sister was about to cry, but as the thought formed, she saw Jane wrestle herself back into her usual composure. What was the use of crying? They had discussed their situation for many hours, but the facts remained unaltered. Mr. Bennet was seriously ill, his estate and income were entailed on a male cousin, and unless at least one of them married and married well, the rest of the family would be consigned to a life of near destitution. While Jane and Elizabeth might be able to obtain employment as governesses or companions, the youth and frankly poor education of their younger sisters would bar them from any such position. Mrs. Bennet was unlikely to be able to manage on her daughters’ tiny inheritances and would be obliged to throw herself on the mercy of her brother, whose own growing family could not help but restrict whatever provision his undoubted generosity would oblige him to make.

  With her accustomed efficiency, Jane twisted her hair into its usual night-time plait, blew out the candle, and climbed into bed. As she tried to sleep, Elizabeth thought that not the least evil of their position was the creation of this knowing, measured, worldly Jane.

  Chapter Two

  The next day, Mr. Bennet was rather better after his first good night’s sleep in almost a week, the return of the
brighter weather lifting his spirits as it normally did. Elizabeth brought him his morning coffee and read the newspapers to him until Mr. Lester, the new steward, arrived. After checking that her father was not too tired, Elizabeth allowed him in to her father’s room to discuss a little estate business.

  Although it felt disloyal, she had to admit that the estate was currently in a more prosperous condition under Mr. Lester’s management than it had ever been under her father’s less exacting regime. It was all the more unfair that this would probably accrue to the benefit of her father’s heir rather than to his closer family. The sudden illness that had struck him down at such a comparatively young age had quickly proved how sadly improvident that regime had been. When the seriousness of his illness had first become apparent, her father had instituted a regimen of retrenchment and economy, but after many years of indulging his own whims and those of his wife, it had proved difficult to lay aside more than a few—a very few—hundred pounds.

  However, the sun was out, the dull drizzle that had depressed everyone’s spirits had lifted, and Elizabeth was determined to seize the opportunity for an hour’s walking in the woods about her home. The autumn leaves had all fallen, and the paths were sadly muddy, but she knew the area so well that she could predict with some certainty those walks where the footing would be sound. So she headed for the higher ground, threading her way between a stand of gloomy pines.

  From her vantage point high about Longbourn, she could look towards Netherfield and indulge herself in a few moments of happy daydreaming. Perhaps Mr. Bingley would fall helplessly in love with Jane and all their troubles would be over. The rest of them could settle in a little house in the neighbourhood, and gradually they would all find respectable, prudent husbands—though she resolutely refused to imagine what such a man would want with Kitty or Lydia—and live happily, or at least contentedly, ever after.