An Unexpected Ally

Part 6

Watching Mary speak about London, Jane almost wished she had been there. She missed the hustle and bustle of the town, and when she imagined the balls, the assemblies, the concerts and lectures that Mary spoke of with undisguised enthusiasm, she could not help but feel a pang of envy.

"And Mr Bingley? How is he?"

It was Mrs Bennet who asked this, oblivious to the sharp glare she received from both Elizabeth and Mary for asking such a question in Jane's hearing. Swallowing against a lump in her throat, Jane forced herself to play peacemaker, speaking his name for the first time in what felt like forever.

"Yes, how is Mr Bingley? And Miss Bingley? I am sure you saw a great deal of them and Mr Darcy. Do tell us how our friends fare, Mary."

Our friends. That made it sound as if Mr Bingley was almost nothing to her now. As he is. She wished only that she might persuade herself as easily as the rest of her family.

"Oh, well enough," Mary said, with an airiness to her voice that made the statement seem true. Yes, Jane could imagine Mr Bingley was well enough and happy enough and busy enough in London. It had certainly seemed that way, in the few words she had received from Caroline Bingley. He has forgotten me entirely. The fact that Mr Darcy should return now, without him, must surely only solidify that fact.

And I am pleased, Jane thought, willing herself to smile as Mary conjured another image of London's many bustling parks. She was pleased. She nursed a secret - not truly a secret, for Lizzy knew it and she suspected, from the way Mary's dark eyes continued to rest on her, before bouncing away again only to return, that if she did not know the fact of Jane's informal engagement she surely suspected it. She knew of Colonel Fitzwilliam, at least, and of his regular calls at Longbourn.

"But I am sure life here has not been at a standstill," Mary said at last, when she had grown tired of the incessant questioning of her family. "Jane? Lizzy?"

"Of course you only imagine Lizzy and Jane to have things to tell!" Lydia sniffed, with a bitter toss of her head. "Don't you care at all for what Kitty and I have been doing in all this time we were away? You might have written!"

"I did!" Mary protested, looking wounded. "I wrote to all of you! Lizzy was the only one who made efforts to respond, so in the end, I addressed myself to her." She glanced around the room. "I did tell her the news was to be shared."

"I liked your letters," Kitty said, in a surprising show of solidarity. She had missed Mary more than anyone might have expected her to. "Although I do wish I might have been asked to go. I have only been to London -"

"Jane has news!" Lydia remarked, eagerly silencing her sister and becoming the centre of the conversation in one easy movement. She shot a wicked grin at her sister. "Don't you?"

"Not really." Jane could feel her cheeks colouring and looked down at her embroidery that she had been clinging to, without actually working on, for the past quarter-hour. "Nothing worth sharing."

Lydia sighed dramatically before leaning forward and beginning, in a stage-whisper designed to antagonise her sister, to describe to Mary the latest happenings at Longbourn.

"Colonel Fitzwilliam has been calling her ever so often. I wonder if Lizzy ever thought to mention that in her letters."

Lizzy was studiously avoiding everyone's gaze, so studiously that it caught Jane's attention and she turned to Mary, who did not seem in the slightest bit surprised by Lydia's revelations.

"She mentioned it." Mary looked at Jane. "I gather he is very agreeable and engaging, although of course, I have that from Georgiana." She smiled. "Who is a little biased."

"Oh, we are all biased where Colonel Fitzwilliam is concerned," Mrs Bennet remarked from the settee where she had been happily dozing and listening to the chatter of her daughters. "He is ever so agreeable! Far more so than his cousin, although -"

"Mama!"

Mrs Bennet shrugged her shoulders.

"I do not see why I should be criticised for stating a fact. It is only my opinion that Mr Darcy is less agreeable than his cousin, although I am sure you will all agree with me..."

"Mama, a thing is either a fact or an opinion, it cannot be both," Lizzy said, quietly. She was flushing a deep and brilliant red, but none of the sisters, save for Jane, seemed to have noticed. She kicked her discreetly, which made Elizabeth look at her, but before she could query the change in her countenance, Mrs Bennet had spoken again, her voice taking on a shrill, self-pitying tone she favoured when she felt ill-used by her daughters.

"Very well, it is my opinion, which clearly counts for nothing in the eyes of certain members of this family, that Colonel Fitzwilliam is quite the most agreeable and most charming - not to mention handsome - gentleman of our acquaintance. I shall endeavour not to say anything bad about Mr Darcy, and I suppose it must be acknowledged that he seemed a good deal more amiable this afternoon than I recall him being in the past..."

"He was very kind to escort me back from London," Mary piped up, eager to praise her benefactor. "And his sister is so very agreeable -"

"Ugh! If you are going to wax lyrical about the divine Miss Darcy again I am going to go upstairs," Lydia groaned, hauling herself to her feet. "Anyone would think you had never had a friend before, Mary!"

Mary said nothing, but Jane thought it entirely possible that there was a degree of truth to Lydia's teasing.

"I am pleased to hear that she is agreeable, Mary," Jane said, eager to comfort her sister in the best way she could. "What a pity she could not be persuaded to accompany her brother back with you, that we might know her as well."

"It is a shame," Mary agreed. "She was quite eager to come, but Mr Darcy would not hear of it." She shrugged her thin shoulders. "He insisted that he had business to attend to and would not be here for very long..." She trailed off, looking at Elizabeth, who had sniffed and tossed her head as if wishing for this particular part of their conversation to end.

"I do not see why he bothered to come back at all, in that case!" she remarked, her eyes flashing with something that might have been annoyance. "He had already caused such upheaval by leaving in the first place, why come back again at all?"