Page 24 of The Fee Entail

Ducklings

Mystery Narrator

Ducklings! That is what we looked like, four little ducklings all in a row. That was an analogy, and I was just a bit proud of myself for thinking of it. A year earlier, I would not have known or cared what an analogy even was. Now I was using one to order my thoughts, which were still a little jumbled but becoming, I hoped, more rational over time. How Mary would love to hear me say that!

My fellow ducklings and I had just been through a very trying year, with governesses and tutors and masters and lessons and music and drawing and dancing and deportment from dawn to dark and hardly any fun at all. We were only allowed into Meryton once a week, closely supervised. We were allowed to go to the monthly assemblies, but Papa watched us like a hawk the entire time, and Mama was not allowed to speak to anyone on any subject that included one of us. After all that, over the course of a year complete, we were in essence, ducklings. Four little ducklings that all looked and acted and spoke and moved and behaved and comported just exactly as ladies should. We were demure and polite, well-spoken and kind, well-dressed and elegant. We all had a few accomplishments to boast of, but we had been cut and measured and hammered and forged and doused and flattened and moulded and filed into the shape of proper young ladies, such that I doubt a stranger could even tell us apart. If one of us happened to have a suitor, and we switched brides at the last moment, I doubt the hapless groom would even notice or be overly concerned if he did.

In front, naturally, was Jane, as was right and proper according to the myriad rules of propriety and civility and decorum. Once the eldest, always the eldest! Jane could easily pass as the Mama Duck if she had a bit more assertiveness, but no casual observer would notice. She was calm and serene and gentle and kind just like she always was, but she seldom truly smiled any more. What fun she had in life took a terrible blow when the man I like to think of as ‘Bingley the Bastard’ (though a proper duckling would never say such a thing, or the even worse things I think but will not write) broke her heart. He and his pernicious sisters and his stick-up-the-backside friend abandoned her without a word. I never knew if it was because of my shame or they were already planning to leave, but I believe the latter (another word I would not have used a year prior). To this day, I do not believe the Netherfield herd even knows what happened that terrible night of the ball. My father managed to mostly keep it hushed up, though he had to practically put a muzzle on my mother to accomplish it, and certain of the Netherfield servants required money to keep quiet, and threats to keep from asking for more. I was not supposed to know that, but proper ladies are quiet as church mice, which makes us adept at eavesdropping, should we decide to pursue the sport.

After the night of the ball and my shame came Lizzy’s terrible-in-every-way marriage a few weeks later. I believe that broke whatever was left of Jane’s spirit. After that, she resembled a mirror more than anything else. She just reflected whatever the person talking to her wanted to see. In a full year, I did not see a single display of anything save amiability on her countenance, and I doubt anyone else could either. A stranger might see whatever quality had attracted Mr Bingley in the beginning, but it would not take long to see that her depth had been leached out of her.

Mary followed Jane, and I had to sheepishly admit that the year of constant lessons suited her. She now played the pianoforte beautifully, and we all truly enjoyed her talent, where before we had to mostly avoid it to maintain our ears and our sanity. Father banned Fordyce from the house, and in the end, after much cajoling, Mary was happy to have something to replace it. She certainly had more of Papa’s attention now that Lizzy was gone; but whether that was a good thing in the end or not remained to be seen.

Papa was changed by the ordeal, and nobody thought for the better. None would admit it, but I know he forced Lizzy to marry that horrid parson. Lizzy pretended all was well and tried to keep knowledge of it from us, but for the past year, she had sent the blandest letters ever written and said nothing at all about anything at all. What more proof could you possibly want that something was terribly amiss than Lizzy losing every bit of her impertinence?

Next in our little line was Kitty. She got tarred with my brush at the ball and suffered as much as I did, though she was not nearly as guilty. In fact, she was not guilty of anything at all except for sisterly affection. At the time, I thought I was doing exactly as I should. Of course, I knew it went against the rules of society, and definitely against what Mary and Lizzy and Jane tried to teach me, but it was ever so much fun, and I was following exactly where my mother had been pushing me for my entire life, so what could be wrong? Why should I not marry a handsome, well-mannered, and gentlemanly officer?

It turned out everything could be wrong, and with one foolish act by one foolish girl on one foolish night I destroyed all the hopes for all my sisters; not that they were all that wonderful to start with. Jane was now three and twenty, nearly as on the shelf as Charlotte Lucas, who was now eight and twenty. Jane had not had a serious suitor, or any suitor at all for that matter since Netherfield, and she seemed resigned to spinsterhood. Mama’s constant lamentations became completely nonsensical; for it seemed Jane could be so beautiful for nothing… all because of me.

I only hoped against hope that somehow, I could redeem myself and my sisters, because my heart was broken into tiny little pieces and crushed underfoot by Lizzy’s misfortune, and who knew if the rest of us would survive? We certainly would not if we depended on Papa, as he seemed to have lost whatever grip on sanity he was keeping. I managed to scratch out a few talents, including a surprisingly beautiful singing voice according to my sisters, and I think I need not be terribly embarrassed by my efforts at the quill.

So, there we were. Our little duck march came to a surprisingly quick end. It was only half a mile from the coach stop to our eventual destination, so it took almost no time at all. Jane knocked on the door and waited… and waited… and waited. Once, twice, thrice, she knocked, and yet we waited, wondering if the housekeeper was deaf.

We finally decided to walk around the side of the parsonage, and that is where we finally saw the thing we had all been hoping and praying and wanting and waiting and looking for over the last year. Our poor little duck governess in the sky, I am sure, looked at us in censure, because we did not care. We all let out very loud, bloodcurdling, and most unducklike screams at the same time.

Our sisterly connections had changed completely as well. Now Jane and I shared a room, and as like as not one or the other of us cried into our pillows from time to time. Kitty blossomed under Mary’s tutelage, and Mary came out of her shell to become someone I loved to be around; so in the end, they were good for each other. Kitty and Mary were as inseparable as Jane and I, and everyone was content with the arrangement. Two little pairs of ducklings! I had to wonder about our propensity to pair up (yet another new vocabulary word) and thought with nearly immeasurable sadness of how isolated Mary must have felt before Lizzy left, always the odd one out; always the overlooked one. Perhaps not everything about the previous year was bad.

“LIZZZZZZZZYYYYYY!”

When we first saw her, Lizzy was, curiously enough, feeding poultry with a basket on her hip, wearing what looked like a farmer’s dress and apron, with her hair in a simple knot and a plain straw bonnet. She had chickens, ducks, geese, a pig as far as I could tell, and even a goat wandering about in the fields.

We all saw her at the same time, and losing all that remained of our duckness, we hitched up our skirts and ran like little hoydens leaving a burning building being chased by wolves (perhaps I overdid the lesson on analogies… or is it exaggeration?).

Lizzy dropped the basket and started running just like we were. We all met in the middle of her field like the clashing of two great armies, hugging and kissing and screaming and crying. Papa before Netherfield might well have chuckled and commented on the fact that no two words of sense were spoken together for many minutes. Papa after Netherfield would have scolded us and sent us back to our studies.

“Lizzy! Lizzy! Lizzy! Lizzy! Lizzy! Lizzy!”

“Jane, Mary, Kitty, Lydia! What are you doing here? This is so wonderful! We are all together again! How did this happen? Where are your things? What are you doing? Come inside! No wait, stand back and let me look at you! No wait! Wait! Oh, I shall go all distracted.”

I have no idea what other nonsense we all babbled over the next five minutes. Her poultry put up quite a fuss, but they were no match for our duck brigade in the way of squawking and honking. We all started talking and crying and crying and crying and talking, and it was wonderful in every way. Finally, all the sisters were together again, and by the looks of things, we might be so for some time. What in the world was Papa thinking? For the moment, I cared not for his sanity. All my sisters were together, and for the moment, all was right with the world.

Waistcoat

Darcy

I was not eavesdropping that time! Truly, I was not! Not even close! I caught my waistcoat on a passing branch while walking through the woods to the parsonage, so when I got to the edge of the path, I paused to repair it.

Naturally, whilst repairing the damage to my attire to the best of my abilities, I saw she was feeding her poultry again. I did not want to disturb such an important activity for the third time in the six days since I arrived (only six days… a lifetime). I probably should not admit to being a bit frightened of her geese, so I thought it prudent to wait and just watch her for a while. I am absolutely certain it could have been no more than a minute or two; well, ten at the most.

Even after all the confidences and awkward moments of the previous week, I knew I was still far from being out of the wilderness with Elizabeth. All I had accomplished thus far was to move away from the portion where she kept her mantrap. In a month, I might reach the edge of the wood, and for the moment, I wanted nothing to go wrong.

Of course, all that fell out of the window as soon as they saw Elizabeth. I knew from her reports that they had been completely disconnected for a year, but it did not seem to matter in the least. I doubt I have ever seen five such happy people in my life, and I once again seriously wondered about their father’s sanity. Why had he kept the sisters apart; why had Elizabeth? Did any of the sisters know the true state of things at the parsonage? Had they any notion of the endeavour they were about to land in the middle of? And of course, the biggest question: why did he send all four at once, going against his agreement? Was his health in even more precipitous decline? I did not know but was determined to find out.

I was still well out of sight, working my nerve up to approach Elizabeth again, when I saw all four of her sisters walk around the corner of the parsonage. I thought it the better part of either valour or wisdom to allow them their reunion without my presence. Perhaps I should have turned around and returned to Rosings, which I admit would have been the most gentlemanly thing to do, but I was rooted to the spot as usual.

The remaining Bennet sisters looked different, as if they had gone through some momentous changes over the year. Perhaps it was not just Elizabeth who endured a difficult year. Gone were the nearly constant giggles and flirtatious manners of the two youngest and the constantly disapproving look of the middle. Sadly as well, gone were the constant smiles of the eldest. They all appeared to be everything mild and proper with respect to deportment for any young lady. There was no skipping, jumping, exclamations, or anything else I had come to expect as a natural part of the Bennet character.

There was such joyous screeching and fluttering that I was quite jealous. Nobody in my family had ever greeted anyone else with that level of joy in five generations at least. That the sisters all endured something was clear. In fact, it must have even been beyond the hints of scandal I heard about from Elizabeth. Perhaps they were subjected to a very strict governess or held in a French prison camp. Perhaps their father finally decided to do his duty and make them actually marriageable. For the moment, they seemed able to just feel the joy of reunion.