A Dishonorable Offer

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Mr. Phillips paced in his tidily furnished drawing room. He studied Elizabeth and Jane. Elizabeth kept a calm smile pasted on her face, and resisted the urge to brush at her hair or shout at him.
“Why both of you?” He at last whined, “When I sent Kitty off to get her away from that woman I knew I’d need to take one girl to relieve Gardiner, but why both? Do you really not prefer London? Don’t you have any consideration for me?”
Elizabeth shrugged and smiled. “I am delighted I shall see all my friends again — and I have missed the ability to walk in the country.”
“Jane, couldn’t you have stayed in London? Not even out of affection for me? You do not even know how to walk — though it may be healthy for you — you’ve become plump. You’ll lose your figure, and then what vanishing hope I have of getting rid of you will go.”
Elizabeth looked away from her uncle and rolled her eyes as Jane replied with her pretty voice, “You know Mama wished me here.”
In a brief burst of optimism, Mrs. Bennet had Jane come back when she heard a wealthy gentleman had taken Netherfield Park. Elizabeth would follow Jane wherever she went. However, by the time Mama met them at the post stop midway, she was completely convinced none of her daughters would ever marry. Lydia, after all, was no longer a daughter.
“I won’t spoil you two like I’m sure Gardiner did.” Mr. Phillips stamped his foot. “You hear me! I’m sure you are both immoral like Lydia, and useless like your mother. I want my spare room back, so you both will bed down in the attic. I won’t provide new dresses, pocket money — nothing. I’m done spoiling wanton girls. I gave Lydia more than she deserved, and look what happened. A blacksmith. That trollop. That bitch. She stared at that man’s muscles when he came to my office. Not again.”
Jane blushed at Mr. Phillips’s crudity. But she replied, “Oh — we do not mind at all. It is quite natural, and you must want to save everything for your own children. We will be perfectly content in the attic.”
Elizabeth found it quite hard to not roll her eyes at Jane being Jane.
Mr. Phillips stared at Elizabeth, and with less grace than Jane, she said, “Yes, Uncle. Can you at least pay the fee for the circulating library—"
Mr. Phillips stomped his foot angrily. “No. A hundred times no. I do not want either of you, but I married that damn woman so I must provide shelter and food for her slatternly sisters and nieces. But nothing more. Nothing more.”
"It is not much money, and" — Elizabeth could not resist smiling impishly, though she knew as she spoke it was a mistake — “reading novels will keep me out of trouble. I really think that if Lydia had read more—”
“No trouble! You will not seek trouble! If you do anything, I’ll throw you out in the cold and make Gardiner take you all. If you need to read to stay out of trouble, there is the Bible, and I can loan you a legal reference.”
There was enough space in the attic to allow a bed for both Jane and Elizabeth to be set up, and there was a small wardrobe for them to share. The room used to house an extra maid, but as Mr. Phillips decided Elizabeth and Jane could help with some housework, he was letting one of his servants go.
There was no heating in the room, and it would get cold during the winter. And, being the highest room the house, it would be stuffy in the summer. Not important, Elizabeth decided, they would spend little time during the day in the small room anyways.
Elizabeth grinned and suppressed the urge to hop up and down to hear what sound the floors would make. She was so happy to be back in Meryton.
The walls were thin white plaster, and there was a window that faced on to the main street through Meryton. Except when she had climbed the church steeple, Elizabeth had never looked down at the familiar street from so high up. The people looked small. The roof sloped down, and their bed was nestled against where its angle intersected the hardwood floor.
“Jane, you shall sleep closer to the wall, so that you are the one to bang your head every morning.”
“I would have to in any case,” Jane said as she folded her undergarments and placed them into a drawer. “You often stay awake quite past a proper hour reading.”
“And I shall continue to do so.”
Elizabeth pulled out the small coin purse from her reticule. She weighed it in her hand, and tossed it up to hear the clinking. She had nearly a pound saved. It was enough for several months of library fees and tallow candles, if her uncle insisted on making her pay for any candles she used. Which he would.
Elizabeth wrinkled her nose, she hated how the cheap candles guttered and smelled. Well, nothing to do about it.
More cheerfully Elizabeth decided that she could convince the Gardiners or Charlotte to give her a little more pocket money for Christmas. At least she would always have new books to read.
Elizabeth grinned. “Mr. Phillips is awful — he is, Jane, do not deny it — but I am so delighted to be back. Country walks once again! Trees and soft dirt beneath my boots, instead of great paving stones, no more endless lanes of houses. We’ll be able to see Charlotte and Mary regular once again, and all our other friends. And the smell — I only realize now that it is gone, but it is gone. It of course is terrible for Lydia — but I am glad.”
Jane smiled at Elizabeth. But something in the way she looked over at the cramped room with its bare walls and angled roof said that she was not satisfied.
It worried Elizabeth. Jane would not have married Mr. Thomas, not in the end. But Jane had become desperate enough to think of it. Mama had endlessly accused Jane of being an awful daughter because she hadn’t found someone with a little money to marry before Lydia wrecked all hopes.
Of course then Mama accused Elizabeth of sabotaging her sister. If Mama knew how Elizabeth had begged Jane to not marry Mr. Thomas, she would have been truly incensed. Mama had always been suspicious of Elizabeth since Charlotte married Mr. Collins instead of Jane.
Elizabeth went back to the window and saw a hill in the distance. She hadn’t walked to that summit in two years. Tomorrow she would!
Jane would soon perk up. They were back in Meryton and surrounded by the friends they had barely seen for the two years since Mama went bankrupt. People here were more relaxed than in London, and Jane would become happier now that she was part of the neighborhood again.