Vampire and Prejudice

Chapter 18 - Elizabeth

The Netherfield party did not return for a week. We all felt something had gone wrong, but dared not broach the subject. Jane bore it with quiet misery, while my mother was even more intolerable than usual, at least to me. Nothing would please her and she had resolved to see me as the root of all ills.

Miss Bingley sent a letter, explaining everything in an elegant hand, the gloating shining in every swirl of her pen. Mr. Bingley had no intention of coming back this winter and it was not to be known if he intended to come back at all. Furthermore, it was clear that certain designs and hopes were connected to Miss Darcy with whom they were to spend Christmas at Pemberley.

Jane took the letter as a sort of gentle letdown, believing that Mr. Bingley was indifferent to her and her friend tried to put it in the most polite terms possible. I had a different opinion, but it was of no use. Jane believed Miss Bingley incapable of deception, and I had to watch my sister's heart break in so many pieces that she would not leave her room.

"I hope you are proud of yourself, Lizzy," my mother said. She had decided that this was my fault as well. I bore her jabs with proud civility, since arguing with her on the subject was beneath my dignity.

There was not much to be done with Jane here and Mr. Bingley in London. If they would be gotten into a room together again, all would be right, no matter the meddling of Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst—of that I was certain. There were only two choices: sit and wait or go to town. Jane was not inclined to do the latter. She was not inclined to do much of anything.

"Would you go to London if I secured you an invitation from aunt and uncle Gardiner?" I asked, before I sent the letter. It was no use scheming if my sister was not willing to leave her room, let alone Hertfordshire.

"I don't see much use in it," was her meager reply.

"If nothing else, it might lift your spirits. You should care to be in high spirits if you are to have Mr. Bingley."

"I am not at all sure that I have any right to lay claim to Mr. Bingley. He was simply kind to me. There is no need to make something of it that it wasn't."

"Those are not your feelings, Jane. Those are not his, either," I insisted. Jane could not pretend indifference to me. She was too affected for her heart to be so cold in this matter.

"What good are feelings when there is only heartbreak to be had?"

"Do you love him?" I asked. There could be no heartbreak if the heart was not engaged to begin with.

Jane remained silent.

"Jane, do you love him?"

"I can hardly see how that matters."

"He loves you. I am certain of it. Others are certain of it as well. If he didn't love you, Miss Bingley would not be so determined to part you."

"You think too harshly of her."

"I judge her as justly as she deserves." I could not suffer to profess blindness to Miss Bingley's words and actions during my stay at Netherfield. She was a nasty little snake, even if she simply tried to please a worse entity—Mr. Darcy. I thought I was free of that name, but now I had to wonder if he had anything to do with this. Had he disliked Jane at any point to act with any cruelty now? I was sure not. But I could not dissuade myself from thinking that he simply was cruel for the sake of cruelty, his enjoyment of the fear and pain of others as evident as anything.

"If he loves me, then he knows he ought not. I cannot blame him for it."

"I can!" This was somehow even more horrible than what I had conjured before. For Mr. Bingley to love my sister and give her up because of the caprice of society. Surely he did not deserve her then, and I must care nothing for his happiness.