The Husbands of Elizabeth Bennet, Volume Two: A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Christine Combe

Author:Christine Combe [Combe, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnet Books
Published: 2024-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Elizabeth did not go down to dinner.

After her cry out, Mrs. Gardiner advised her to lie down again, and she was in no state to argue. After ordering a warm compress for her eyes, she lay for some time with the warm, wet cloth over her face and considered everything her aunt and Charlotte had said, her reaction to their wisdom, and what it meant for her going forward.

She still believed only a year of widowhood too soon to contemplate another marriage. She still believed that she was not ready to move on from Henry. But she would be a simpleton indeed if she held on to his ghost so tightly that she passed up the chance to be loved again. He certainly hadn’t passed it up. Well, it could be said that he had ignored every chance that came his way for six years, but then, if he had not, she never would have met him.

Perhaps it wasn’t that it took six years for his heart to heal, but simply six years before God felt he was ready, she thought. I suspect we both needed to be ready for each other at just the right moment.

Did God think she was ready to move on? Elizabeth had no idea if the kindness and understanding of her aunt and her friend—and yes, her sister also—was His way of giving her warning or simply telling her to keep her eyes, and her heart, open.

One thing she was sure of, however, was that she’d had quite enough of talking about it. If it was meant to be that she would meet some incredible man and fall in love again, so be it—but she would not go looking for love, and she would not have it continually discussed in her presence. It was too unsettling, and she intended to make this clear to her relations at the first opportunity.

An hour or so after Mrs. Gardiner and Charlotte had left her alone, Elizabeth rose and rang for her maid. After tidying her hair, she went to find her children. The boys, strangely, were not in their room—and given the lateness of the hour, they ought to have been—so she went into the girls’ room to see if they were there before allowing herself to be concerned.

She found them together before the fire in Isabella and Margaret’s room, all of them dressed for bed and wrapped in dressing gowns and boy-sized banyans. Thomas sat cross-legged on the floor with a sleeping Meg’s head in his lap, while the twins occupied the two chairs. Bella appeared to be working on a sketch while Harry read to them all.

“Mamma!” said Isabella, who looked up a moment after she opened the door.

Harry stood and turned to face her. “Are you feeling better now, Mamma? Aunt Mary said you had to lie down with a headache, and then Aunt Gardiner and Mrs. Edison came, and they went to your room and when they came out, they said you still weren’t feeling very well.

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