Midwinter in Meryton

  Midwinter in Meryton

  Meg Osborne

  Published by Meg Osborne, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  MIDWINTER IN MERYTON

  First edition. December 18, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Meg Osborne.

  Written by Meg Osborne.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Also by Meg Osborne

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Christmas won’t be Christmas without the Gardiners, Elizabeth Bennet thought, as she stared dolefully out into the darkness that surrounded Longbourn. She knew, although she could not see, that the ground would be coated in a blanket of white, the sight of which would ordinarily have filled her heart with joy. That the same dreaded snowfall had kept her aunt and uncle from joining them in Hertfordshire for Christmas, however, was enough to seriously alter her feelings towards it. She shivered and moved away from the window.

  “Lizzy!” Mrs Bennet barked from her own cosy corner close to the fire. “Do not linger so long near the window. It is cold, and I dread to think of you developing a chill!”

  Lizzy smiled and obediently moved closer to the rest of her family, congregated around the meagre fire in the hearth. She thought it rather more likely that her mother’s concern was for her own wellbeing rather than her daughter’s - for should Lizzy develop a cold, the illness would doubtless work its way through the whole household before long - but she quickly repented of the thought, snatching up a poker and jabbing energetically at the logs as she drew closer to the fire.

  “Hey!” Lydia scuttled back, brushing invisible embers from her skirts. “Be careful!”

  “Do not sit so close, then!” Lizzy retorted, folding her feet under her and dropping, unceremoniously, to the ground.

  “One has to sit close if one wishes to feel any benefit at all!” Lydia said, with an injured sniff. “I do not see why we must always keep the fire so low. It is freezing, and I honestly wonder whether Papa has any feelings at all.”

  “He does!” Mr Bennet’s voice rose from his own chair, some distance across the room. “But he also has at least some notion of cost and, with this perpetual ice-age, procuring fuel is an expense indeed. Let us be prudent, then, and save what we have.”

  “I know one thing we could happily use to stoke the flames!” Lydia grinned wickedly and leaned forward, snatching Mary’s book from her hands and holding it perilously close to the fire.

  “Lydia!” Mary squealed. “Give that back!”

  “Haven’t you read it enough by now?” Lydia asked, scowling at the small book of sermons that was scarcely seen out of her sister’s hands. She pursed her lips, mimicking Mary in a cruel, but unfortunately quite accurate, simper. “Fordyce says...prudence is the very essence of true Christianity. Better to freeze into a block of ice oneself than the risk the extravagance of three, rather than two, logs for the fire!”

  Mary scowled, but Lydia had an adoring audience in Kitty, who reached for the book and attempted an equally amusing impression. As was most often the case, she lacked Lydia’s skill, and her cruelty, and Mrs Bennet did not allow her to finish her recitation.

  “That’s quite enough, Kitty,” she said, with a frown. “Mary, do not wail. Nothing shall happen to your precious book.”

  It was Lizzy who retrieved the volume, slipping it silently back to her sister who, she noticed, was indeed blinking back tears at the thought that poor Fordyce would end up in the flames. She hugged the book to her chest and glared, reprovingly, at Lydia, who merely laughed and inched closer to the fire.

  “Well, I think we shall have a very pleasant Christmas!” Jane remarked, ever the peace-maker. Unlike her sisters, who were sprawled in unladylike fashion on the rug, she had commandeered a chair and sat with the delicacy that confirmed her position as the beauty of the Bennet family.

  “Yes, very pleasant!” Lizzy grumbled. “With nothing to do and nobody to see. I, for one, can think of at least three Christmases that were better - for we shall have no guests, no Gardiners, no nothing!”

  “No nothing?” Jane teased. “Dear me, Lizzy. You must be in a mood, for your grammar is usually the last thing to slip.”

  Lizzy laughed, shaking her head. Her sister always knew what to say to lift her spirits. It ought to have been the other way around that Christmas in particular, for Lizzy knew, better than the rest of her family, how deeply Jane mourned the loss of Mr Bingley. Smiling contritely, she crept closer to her sister, raising up on her knees to drop a penitent kiss on her cheek.

  “You are right, as ever, Miss Bennet. I ought not to be so bad-tempered this close to Christmas. I have my sisters, what more can I ask for?”

  Mr Bennet cleared his throat pointedly from his corner, and Lizzy turned to grin at him.

  “And my parents, of course. What richness! How could anybody wish for anything more?”

  Lydia snorted, determined to disagree.

  “Well, I think it is a fallacy to declare oneself content when one is not. Mary, which is worse, to wish for more than one has - that’s avarice, I suppose - or to lie about the fact that one does?” She batted her eyelashes and folded her hands primly in her lap. “What does dear Mr Fordyce have to say on the matter?”

  Mary opened her mouth to respond but said nothing, sensing, wisely, that this was a trap and whatever answer she gave would be to invite derision. Instead, she lifted her book to her eyes, and opened it, apparently at random, losing herself in its pages in an instant.

  Lydia and Kitty looked at each other for half a moment before dissolving in giggles.

  “Very well!” Elizabeth said, feeling an unusual flare of sympathy for her middle sister. Confinement to the house certainly did not seem to suit Lydia, who had become increasingly cruel in her teasing as the day wore on. Lizzy was rarely bothered by such comments, for she laughed them off or treated Lydia to a parrying blow and, skilled in the art of discourse, she was invariably able to outwit her sister and win the match. Mary, though, was not, and Lydia was unkind to continually plague her like this.

  “I dare say Mr Fordyce would find only one of us meets with his approval.” She wrapped one of Jane’s hands in both of hers and squeezed. “Perhaps two. What a pity the Bible does not promise us dreadful Heathens salvation through the goodness of our sisters, but our spouses.” She sighed, theatrically. “I guess there is no hope for you and me, Lydia, after all!”

  Mrs Bennet tutted, for, although she was not an especially pious woman, she did not entirely approve of Lizzy’s liberal references to heaven and hell, and in so holy a season as Christmas! She cleared her throat and determined to change the subject, seizing upon the first name that floated through her mind.

  “I wonder what Mr Darcy has been doing today,” she sniffed. “I hope he and Mr Bingley have been safe in London since the snow came. I imagine life continues quite unchanged in town.” She stared, almost wistfully towards the fire and Lizzy saw a shadow of the young woman she must have been, twirling from dance to dance and at the very centre of society.

  “I hope Mr Bingley has dragged him to every single party he can find!” Lizzy declared, with a spiteful smile. She knew there could be little punishment worse for quiet, proud Mr Darcy, who was certainly to blame for t
he Netherfield party’s sudden evacuation from Hertfordshire. He, surely, had sought to separate Mr Bingley from Jane, seeing, as Lizzy did, how much in love the pair were. It would be just like him, to be so proud as to think he knew best and best for Mr Bingley, did not mean Jane Bennet.

  “I wish he had taken me!” Lydia moaned, sinking her head theatrically into her hands. “I shall go mad trapped indoors another day. I wonder if we might venture out of doors tomorrow. Surely the snow cannot possibly get any worse!”

  FITZWILLIAM DARCY STALKED through the empty rooms at Netherfield Park. They were not empty, of course, for in planning their removal to London, Caroline Bingley had left the majority of the rooms in the house untouched. Therein had lain the problem, of course, for scarcely had they reached London than the realisation was made that Charles’ own valise had been forgotten. He had been of a mind to turn the carriage around immediately and return. Had it not been for Caroline’s histrionics - quick-thinking, she would no doubt have termed it - the whole party would have come clattering back to Hertfordshire just as quickly as they had left it. Instead, they had managed a week, two weeks, three without it, and Caroline swiftly turned her brother’s attention to some new task or sliver of gossip, real or invented, until the matter slipped his mid again. At least, with Christmas approaching, he could be dissuaded from it no more and had taken to referring quite often of returning to Netherfield for it and a handful of other reasons including, doubtless, the affection he still nursed for Jane Bennet. Caroline had railed, and then pleaded, turning up quite unbidden on the doorstep of Darcy’s house and asking if he would possibly undertake the errand without them so that Charles’ anxieties might be appeased and she might continue to keep him with her in London. They had an engagement, she said, a pressing one that could not be got out of. He, Darcy, might make the journey to Netherfield and back alone far quicker than they would manage it in a group, and she knew he, of all Charles’ acquaintances, could be trusted. This compliment had been delivered with a polite smile, a sly beating of her lashes, an evident ploy to flatter him. Not only, he thought, so that he might do her bidding, but to convey the very deep affection she nursed towards him that he had unfortunately not succeeded in leaving at Netherfield Park along with Charles’ belongings.

  At least in undertaking this errand, he might put some temporary distance between Charles’ sister and himself, and for that reason alone he consented. It was not until he was halfway to Hertfordshire that he dared admit, in the quiet of his own mind, that Caroline Bingley was not his true motivation for the trip. Nor, even, was Charles, for the man had money enough to replace any item he lacked, and he rather thought that his constant returning to the matter of the missing valise was merely a ploy designed to facilitate his own return to Hertfordshire which was his true intent. Caroline would bring an end to that the first chance she got. No, Darcy’s assistance in separating Charles from an impending proposal to Jane Bennet had not been entirely unselfish. At the very same moment he recognised the risk to his friend’s heart, he was confronted with a similar risk to his own. But it was not for Jane Bennet that Darcy’s heart yearned, but for her sister. Elizabeth Bennet could not be left behind him, nor could he escape the memory of her in London, for everywhere he went he saw some point of interest that would amuse her, some person she would take great delight in meeting or in mocking. It was her voice in his head, narrating a ball or a dinner that saw him through his three weeks’ sojourn in society.

  So, armed with an excuse to return, albeit briefly, to Hertfordshire, Darcy could do little more than agree. He had not bargained on the weather.

  It had started to snow before he had even left London, but instead of clearing, the weather had worsened with every mile, so that it soon became apparent that a decision must be made. His driver slowed the carriage to the side of the road and consulted him. Do you wish to return, sir, or to continue on? I fear the weather will trap us. Darcy had considered the matter, eyeing the heavy white sky and wondering at the wisdom of either decision. Would it be better to be snowed-in in Hertfordshire or in London? Was there even any guarantee they would reach London? They were closer to Meryton by this point, so it seemed the most sensible option to Darcy to continue on, and wait out the storm in the near-deserted Netherfield Park. Charles would not mind it, he knew, and Darcy rather relished the idea of a little peace and quiet. He even chuckled to himself at how well he had managed to escape the Christmas chaos of London by sending himself on an errand to the country just in time to be prevented from returning.

  “It is too typical,” he muttered aloud. “I had wished for a quiet Christmas alone but resigned myself to society for Charles’ sake. Now, for that very same reason, I am alone - quite alone - in the very place I sought to avoid.” His lips turned up in a grim smile. He could think of at least one young lady who, had she known of his predicament, would have laughed.

  The memory of Elizabeth Bennet’s musical laugh actually did the very last thing he expected it too. It provoked the same response, a low laugh gurgling in the pit of his stomach so that when a servant entered the room he now occupied, he was surprised and took a step back, before daring to approach the uncharacteristically amused Mr Darcy.

  “Sir?” he whispered. “Will you dine?”

  “Uh...” Darcy struggled to rearrange his features into something more appropriate and shook his head. “Perhaps bring me a tray in here. I will just take something light. Bread and cheese.”

  “Very well.” The servant bowed and retreated, and Darcy’s lips quirked again. His amusement would no doubt be remarked upon below stairs. He did not wish to be thought of as mad, particularly not if he was to be housebound alone for a few days before the weather cleared enough to permit him a return to London.

  He pushed a chair closer to the fire, and sank into it, determining he would be grateful for his blessings, for surely he had some to recount. It was Christmas, after all, and he, unlike the first holy family, had a roof over his head. Quite a roof, for Netherfield was comfortable indeed, albeit icy and abandoned at present.

  Then you must render it un-abandoned!

  It was Georgiana’s voice that came to him this time, and had it been any other he might have brushed it away. His sister, though, should be listened to, even if she was only a figment of his imagination.

  Yes, Georgiana? he asked his imagined sister. How do you propose I do that?

  His mind was silent for a moment and just when he had begun to wonder if he was indeed mad, he sensed how she would reply.

  You must make it jolly however you can. It is Christmas after all.

  “Christmas is but a season,” he remarked aloud. “And I am trapped here alone. It is hardly a recipe for jollity.”

  Still, his spirits lifted with the flames and when the servant returned with a tray laden with cold meat, cheese and bread, and a pitcher of ale, he ate hungrily, glad of his small feast.

  “Merry Christmas, Mr Darcy,” the servant remarked, as he bid a retreat.

  “Merry Christmas!” Darcy said in return, surprised to feel the warmth of the sentiment and the season spread throughout his whole body and mind.

  If he were to be trapped here a day or two or more, why not make the most of it? He had his wish: solitude. He had all the comforts he might require, for Charles kept a comfortable home and Darcy knew it well having spent the autumn there. His own belongings had gone on ahead of him, but for a very few, yet he did not feel the loss of them. He would be content and rejoice in the blessings of his misfortune. He might even come to enjoy this cosy winter holiday in solitude.

  Chapter Two

  Lizzy was the first of her family to wake, early on Christmas morn. She crept to the window and peeped out, no longer surprised to see the blanket of white which appeared to have grown still thicker overnight. She shivered, and pulled a shawl over her shoulders, folding her feet beneath her and creeping closer to the window. She had never known a winter like this one. The snow simply fell and fell, and never
did the temperature rise enough to melt it.

  It is all very well saying one does not object to being snowed-in, she thought, ruefully bringing to mind her own words at such an imagined fate. She had spoken quite glibly of the idea, claiming she, for one, would adore the idea of having nowhere to go and nobody to see. She would, at last, be permitted to lie in bed all day and read her books or talk in whispers with Jane, for the sisters continued to puzzle over Mr Bingley’s absence from their lives and plot some way in which Jane might yet win his heart. Their first plan, that Jane return with the Gardiners to London, had been routed almost immediately by the weather. The snow had come on so quickly and heavily that the notion of the Gardiners joining them for Christmas, as was their tradition, was rendered impossible. Lizzy had mourned the fact, for she adored her aunt and uncle and all of her cousins, and not to have Longbourn bursting at the seams at Christmas made it feel as if it were not Christmas at all.

  So, the puzzle of Mr Bingley’s affections remained unsolved, and Lizzy continued to hope and pray there would yet be a conclusion in her sister’s favour. Happiness could not come so near and then be snatched away from them, surely. Not at Christmas!

  A memory, slight and fleeting, danced through Lizzy’s mind and she bit her lip. Mr Bingley had left, certainly, and he had taken his friend with him. She did not imagine that she would mourn the loss of Mr Darcy, and yet the winter seemed an interminably bleak one without either gentleman on the horizon of their association. She had not fully appreciated just how much of a difference the letting of Netherfield Park but a few months previously would have on the small world of Longbourn, yet scarcely a day now passed when one sister would not mention, with a sigh or a giggle, what a pity it was that Netherfield stood deserted once more. But one party! Lydia would lament. That is all we were afforded. One single party. It is too cruel!