Blended Bennets: A Sweet Pride and Prejudice Variation by Victoria Lynn

Author:Victoria Lynn [Lynn, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independently published
Published: 2024-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It was not yet high summer, but London already seemed overly warm to the Bennets. Still, their Aunt and Uncle Gardiner were welcoming, their cousins were thrilled with all the attention they garnered from Jane and Mary and Lizzy. Visits to the warehouse and the modiste were interspersed with kite flying and chasing games in the park and with feeding the ducks in the pond.

Games were played, stories were told, books were read and the young Gardiner children were uniformly sorrowful when it was time for their Bennet cousins to return to the country.

The ladies, however, were more than willing to return. Even Thomas was glad to shake the dust of the city off his boots, which he considered odd as he had, in his youth, enjoyed city living as much as country life. It had been too many years, he thought. Too many years of wide-open spaces, of gentle breezes even in summer, of neighbors who were friends and always available for a long slow conversation instead of hurried greetings in passing. Longbourn beckoned. It had, as he had hoped it would, become home once again.

Their return was joyful, for the younger girls could not remember a time when both of their older sisters had been gone and Lizzy had become a sister to them also. The house had felt too quiet to them, particularly since they had been avoiding their mother.

After hugs all around the girls all went upstairs and were allowed to see the dresses that the older Bennets would wear during half mourning, Lydia being especially pleased at the way the jewel tones looked on Mary. “I just knew those would be the right colors, Mary you look beautiful,” enthused Lydia.

A flush colored Mary’s cheeks, but she hugged her youngest sister tightly. “You are quite right; I was very pleased with them and I might not have thought they would suit me so well without your advice. Thank you, little sister. And now, let us find the trunk with the dresses for you and Catherine. We will have to do the final finishing on them, but I believe you will both be very pleased.”

Dinner that night was festive, though Mrs. Bennet was dining with Mrs. Hartwell in her sitting room, as Thomas had requested. And it was inevitable that they discussed Mrs. Bennet.

“Mrs. Bennet has calmed considerably, but I do not believe she is yet reconciled to losing Jane,” report Mrs. Annesley. “Mrs. Hartwell and I have discussed her situation. As long as her daughters were from home, she had no one to witness her tantrums and so there was little reason to give into her nerves. Now that you are returned, Mrs. Hartwell feels there could be a resurgence and she suggests that we designate the main parlor as the one where all save she will spend their days and Mrs. Bennet can take her leisure in the summer parlor.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” agreed Lizzy. “And it will be only another month complete before we can begin using the new wing.

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