Page 3 of A Most Favourable Match

“How well that all sounds!” Mrs Bennet responded with a deep sound of satisfaction. “Titled, rich and amiable. It is all that Jane’s beauty deserves.”

“Anything else of note, Lizzy?” enquired her father. “I fear that titles and riches often prevent young men from developing sensible minds, especially when their womenfolk think too much of them.”

Elizabeth smiled and shook her head. Thankfully, the intelligence she had to give was nothing that could cause her father any alarm. “Lord Grantchester is not a fool, I think. Nor is he uneducated. For example, he and his friend Lord Keeble can both recite poetry in a most animated and engaging fashion, both ancient and modern, English, French, Latin, and Greek. He certainly put my knowledge of theAeneidto shame one evening, but he made me laugh over it at the same time.”

“Most excellent,” her father said with a satisfied nod. “I should not like a silly son-in-law, regardless of his other undoubtedly excellent qualifications.Thank you, Lizzy. You have put my mind at rest. Lord Grantchester sounds far less stupid than the average peer.”

Mr Bennet sat back in his chair and polished his glasses while his wife looked up from the letter to tut at his attitude and language once again.

“Well, it seems we should all have the chance to meet Lord Grantchester himself before long. Jane will be home next week, and Lord Grantchester will be taking a house in the district… ‘for occasional use,’ she says. Occasional use?!”

“No doubt he wishes to remain in London, where his friends and family are,” Mr Bennet responded with a shrug. “I see nothing strange in it, aside from the expense, which is naturally of less consequence for a rich man.”

“He ought to be at Jane’s side,” Mrs Bennet remarked, slightly indignantly, before shaking her head and laughing to herself. “No doubt he shall change his mind when the time to part from her comes. We’ll see what ‘occasional use’ looks like then, or I am much mistaken.”

“Lord Grantchester ought to take Netherfield Park,” Mary commented. “It has been empty for a long while and is most convenient both for Longbourn and the London road.”

“Yes,” agreed Mrs Bennet brightly. “That would be most suitable, wouldn’t it?”

“If a little large for a single man,” put in Mr Bennet.

Mrs Bennet waved away her husband’s caution with a dismissive hand. “Pooh! Perhaps he will bring his two married sisters and their husbands with him, and then he will need a large house. Imagine Meryton society then, elevated by such people of rank, and all thanks to Jane.”

“We ought not to get carried away in making plans for Lord Grantchester or this marriage,” Elizabeth added in support of her father’s more reasoned thinking. “Our hopes are bound to be disappointed, and it is not in our hands, in any case. Let us wait and see what Jane has to say about everything when she arrives.”

To this, Mrs Bennet gave only a scornful harrumph. “Not get carried away? You are quite as perverse as your father sometimes, Lizzy. Of course, we are bound to get carried away. Imagine Lady Lucas’s face when I tell her! It is a most favourable match.”

Elizabeth nodded slowly and without real conviction. Though unwilling to disagree aloud, she found herself wishing that she had indeed stayed longer in London. Then she might be more certain of Jane’s prospects for happiness in such a sudden and unexpected marriage. She could not remember Lord Grantchester having a single conversation with Jane that he might not equally have had with Elizabeth, his sisters, or most other ladies in the room.

“I hope so,” she answered her mother.

Chapter 1

“Tell me again how it happened, Jane. I must hear it,” begged Mrs Bennet for what Elizabeth felt was the hundredth time since Jane had arrived home two days ago, collected by the Longbourn carriage from the London stagecoach. “How did Lord Grantchester propose to you?”

With that, their mother settled back on the sofa again, setting down the embroidery hoop on which she had not completed a stitch in some weeks, but still took up in the parlour sometimes as though she might. The sound of Mary practicing scales on the pianoforte sounded through the wall from the drawing room and would usually have caused complaint from Mrs Bennet. Today, it was ignored.

“There is little to tell, Mother,” Jane answered. Elizabeth, who was watching her sister closely, noticed the small, embarrassed sigh she gave at being made to repeat the story yet again, but their mother did not. “We danced together twice at the Morgan House ball and then ate an ice. After that, Lord Grantchester suggested a walk in the gardens, so we went outside with Aunt Gardiner and Lord Keeble. They walked behind us.”

“How very tactful of Mrs Gardiner,” commented Mrs Bennet approvingly. “How skilfully she brought things on.”

“From her letter, I believe our aunt was as astonished by the news as everyone else,” Elizabeth remarked, but was rapidly hushed by her mother, who often preferred her own fantasies to reality.

“Do go on, Jane,” Mrs Bennet urged.

“After a while, Lord Grantchester told me that he liked me very much and wondered if I would do him the honour of marrying him. It was rather unexpected, and I did not know what to say at first. He was very good, assuring me that he did not require an immediate answer and that I might talk it over with my relatives first.”

“But you did accept him that night,” Elizabeth said with a slight frown, unable to quell the instinct that it might have been better to have taken Lord Grantchester’s advice. “So very quickly. I wondered why?”

“Well, she loves him, of course,” snorted Mrs Bennet, as though stating the obvious. “Something that you would know nothing about, Miss Lizzy, since you will not exert yourself to find a husband at all.”

In contrast to their mother, Jane hesitated before replying to Elizabeth’s question. She made no remark on Mrs Bennet’s assertions. “I am sure that Lord Grantchester is a good man and I do like him very much, Lizzy,” Jane said earnestly. “I believe he will be the kindest of husbands. Seeing how happy our engagement has made everyone, I am sure I have made the right choice inaccepting him.”

“Of course you have, my clever little duck,” Mrs Bennet crowed, casting a glare towards Elizabeth. “You’ve no need to explain yourself to Lizzy or anyone else. It’s all quite natural, to my mind.”

But was it? Jane was always so modest and softly spoken that it was hard to discern the deeper feelings below her simple words and faint blush. Equally, their mother’s presence was likely some restraint on sisterly confidences. Then again, Jane had spoken little of her private feelings on her engagement alone in their shared bedroom either.

Elizabeth felt a faint pang. Was marriage to be the end of the close relationship they had enjoyed since childhood? Perhaps it was. Maybe it would be Lord Grantchester to whom Jane would now confide her secret thoughts and feelings, not Elizabeth.