An Unequalled Affection

Part 8

"Jane? Is that you?"

Mrs Bennet's voice quavered with concern, and Jane swallowed a sigh as she and Mary crept over the threshold and into Longbourn. The house was still quiet and dim with sleep, but Mrs Bennet was awake, clutching her nightclothes and peering over the bannister towards them, white as a ghost. "What has happened?"

"Nothing, Mama," Jane murmured. "Go back to bed. Mary and I just went for a walk."

This was not an outright lie, for whilst she had fled the clearing quick enough she had not continued immediately home but taken a meandering path through the woods. It had been a few long moments before she had realised she was being followed and when she saw it was Mary, not Elizabeth, who came after her she had relented, slowing and allowing her sister to close the gap between them.

Mary had been quiet then and she was quiet now, slipping a thin hand into Jane's and steering her towards the parlour. She closed the door softly behind them and both girls waited until they heard Mrs Bennet footsteps pad back towards her room.

"We ought to have something to eat," Mary said, in a surprisingly sensible tone that brooked no disagreement. Jane said nothing but her stomach growled loudly, betraying that she was indeed very hungry.

Mary took charge, requesting a breakfast tray be brought for them both to the parlour and poking life into a fire that was all but dead and quite unnecessary for the time of year. Jane watched her, wondering if she ought to help but feeling quite unsure she would be able to find the strength to rise from her chair even if asked to. At last, Mary presented her with a steaming cup of tea and slid into a chair opposite, attending to her meal in hearty silence.

"You have not asked me what I think," Jane remarked when she could bear the quiet no longer.

"About what?" Mary's words were muffled, and after swallowing, she repeated them. "Asked you what you think about what?"

Jane pulled a face, but she was not annoyed. She did not get the impression that Mary was being deliberately obtuse, rather that she was allowing Jane to steer the conversation in whatever direction she wished it to go in. It was a kindness, and Jane was grateful.

"Did you know they planned to duel?" This was the question she truly needed answering. She had blamed Lizzy for encouraging such foolishness, but she could not quite lay the same mantle of blame on Mary's thin shoulders and, with time and quiet to reflect, she could not help but think it did not belong to Lizzy either.

Mary nodded, cautiously at first but then with resignation.

"I did, but only a short while before. It is why Lizzy and I went there, to try to stop it."

This made Jane's frown deepen. It explained her sisters' presence there in the clearing. Her lips quirked. And it would be so like Lizzy to hear of such a thing and launch herself into the middle of it, never mind how much danger she might place herself in. She tried to stop it, not to encourage it. Jane bit her lip, regretting how immediately she had turned on her sister. Oh, it was all such a mess!

"How I wish nobody wanted to marry me at all!"

She had spoken her thought aloud almost without realising it but hearing the words solidified them for her and she nodded, the idea gaining ground.

"Yes, I see now there is but one solution open to me, one way to resolve this - this nightmare!" She stood, striding towards a side-table she knew contained a few bits and pieces of use to the whole family: scissors, string, paper and writing implements. "I will do it now and you must help me, Mary."

Mary's white face grew whiter still, her eyes on Jane's hands as she deposited a clutter of objects on the table and angrily yanked a chair into place before it.

"Help you...how?"

"I am going to write a letter," Jane said, grimly. "Two letters! They shall say the same and we shall send one to Mr Bingley and one to - to Colonel Fitzwilliam." Jane could not help the way her heart clenched at the thought of how bitterly she would hurt Colonel Fitzwilliam with her note. No more than he has hurt me by his foolishness! How could he think that to wound - perhaps to kill! - Mr Bingley would ever endear me to him! If I loved him before I certainly could not after that! She swallowed, a lump rapidly forming in her throat. If she loved him. Was it decided, then? Had she come upon a truth without even truly meaning to? I do care for him, she reasoned, her gaze glassy as her thoughts tumbled this way and that. He showed me kindness and attention when I sorely needed both. But I do not know...perhaps if there had never been Mr Bingley. If he had not come back...

But he had come back, and she, Jane, could languish in indecision no longer. The hand that held the pen she dipped into ink shook and she drew in a long, steadying breath as she thought over what to say.

Mr Bingley.

She traced the familiar name easily enough, but then came to nothing but blankness. How to proceed. Her brow furrowed for a moment in indecision before she drew herself up, making the decision she knew she must make. With determination, she wrote quickly, her neat cursive soon filling half a page. Without pausing for breath, she slid a second clean sheet of paper free and wrote almost an identical note for the colonel. It could not be entirely the same, for she felt she owed him at least some part of an explanation for the course of action she had decided upon. Signing her name with a flourish, she put the pen down and leaned back in the chair, utterly spent, even as the rest of the house began to rise and greet the day.

"There," she whispered, lining each letter next to her and reading them through. "That's done, then."

"Done?"

Mary had not moved but now she jumped to her feet and hurried to Jane's side, peering over her shoulder to read both letters at a glance.

"Oh!" Her mouth fell open in surprise and Jane felt Mary's cold hand on her shoulder. "You do not mean it -"

"I do." Jane nodded with grim determination. "Indeed, I do. I should rather die a spinster than have my heart torn in two with foolishness as it was this morning." She folded each letter and quickly sealed them, turning in her chair to pass them to Mary. "Please, Mary, will you see that they receive them today? I think I shall take another cup of tea up with me to bed. I feel so tired and am not sure I am equal to Mama's questions this morning."

Mary nodded, thin-lipped and anxious, but Jane felt as if a weight had been lifted. She was no longer torn between Mr Bingley and Colonel Fitzwilliam. She had washed her hands of them both.