Chances Come, Ney Mitch [snow like ashes series TXT] 📗

arranged it so that he sat at the head of the table. I sat down to his left, and his cousin sat to his right. Next to the Colonel, Jane sat, and our aunt and uncle sat at the end.

“Also,” Mr. Darcy began, as the first course was served, “since our conversation started in a wonderfully eccentric manner, I never got around to asking, have you both been enjoying your time at Cheapside? For it is a delightful sort of area in London.”

“Oh, we have, very much,” Jane said. “A chance that we get to come to London is always a blessing. It is diverting. Also, it gives us a peace that cannot always be achieved when in Hertfordshire. It is always quite interesting how, despite that we live in the country, noise can always find us.”

“I cannot agree more,” Colonel Fitzwilliam confirmed, amazed by her. “I suppose it is the way with family. The relationship that we have with each other can sometimes tend to us vexing and aggravating each other. And then our voices collide together, and we create noise. So much noise everywhere.”

“The way of family.”

“Aye, the way of family.”

“But that is the oddest thing sometimes,” I added. “We often say so much, but then sometimes, we still know so little about each other. For example, Jane and I have recently received a letter from one of our sisters, Kitty. In it, she expressed isolation and a feeling of being unwanted, and her voice never being heard. In truth, I feel as if she was saying that we see her, yet we do not see her at the same time.”

“Lizzy,” Aunt Gardiner chided me, “that is a private matter. Perhaps Kitty would not wish for you to speak of it.”

“I was quite swept away with the comfort of the company,” I admitted, seeing the wisdom of her words. “I felt a kindred spirit all around, and I felt able to tell our hosts anything. I suppose that I just wished for their advice on the matter. After all, they are family men. Also, I know that they are the sort who would not mention Kitty’s feelings to anyone outside of this circle. And yet, I just realized that you are quite right. I am overstepping myself.”

I continued to eat my food, wondering how I could recover from this situation. To my surprise, I saw Mr. Darcy begin to speak, from out of the corner of my eye.

“Well,” he began, “while I understand the need for discretion when it comes to family, I am acquainted with Miss Kitty. And I would not ridicule her feelings, for my sister has felt similarly before.”

“She has?” I asked.

“Yes, she once mentioned something like that to me. Despite that she and I see each other often, I had not known she had ever felt that way.”

“That is what Jane and I have been going through ever since Kitty sent us the letter,” I added. “We wondered why we had never seen Kitty’s feelings until now.”

“I had felt the same way, initially,” Darcy echoed, his voice relieved, “so, your feelings are quite natural. Yet, over time, I realized that it was not my fault. Sometimes, we people can keep so much from each other, and we can be a secret to those who are close to us. Therefore, you must forgive yourselves. For it is the way of life. If you would confide in me, I would not spread Kitty’s feelings around and leave her to the tides of gossip. And I can vouch for the Colonel, he would not say anything.”

“Nay, I would not,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, still looking at Jane. “We are fine with hearing the difficulties of sibling connections. I would not judge your sister for feelings that we all have at some time or another.”

Jane and I looked at our aunt and uncle.

“What is the right thing to do?” Jane asked them.

“Well, since the gentlemen do not object,” Uncle Gardiner said, “and Mr. Darcy is acquainted with Kitty, I suppose no harm can be done.”

I gave them an exaggerated sigh. “I have permission to be impertinent now. Good. For impertinence seems to be the only way that real communication can be achieved.”

“When our sister, Kitty, wrote to us,” Jane reported, “she was upset from the news that one of our other sisters was invited to something that she was not. Next, she recalled that she was never particularly invited to ever go anywhere.”

“And this shook her confidence,” I added, “for she wondered what about her was meant to feel so invisible, so unworthy of receiving any particular regard. She was beginning to wonder what her place was in the world.”

I continued to give details about Kitty’s letter as we ate.

When Jane and I spoke of it, Darcy’s face had mostly been passive the entire time. Yet, when we finished, his expressions began to change as he elaborated his views on the matter.

“Well,” Darcy began, “I stand by what I said before; there is no way you both could have known what Kitty was feeling. However, it runs deeper than that.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, I think I see what Kitty is feeling,” he elaborated, “because, the way that she describes others as seeing her is the precise way that I would often view her myself.”

“You did?” Aunt Gardiner asked.

“Yes. I do not deny that when entering Hertfordshire, I quickly viewed Kitty as just an echo of her younger sister, Lydia.”

“That is an easy mistake to make,” Uncle Gardiner offered solace, “for we all have a tendency to consider one when we see the other.”

“Yes, but with Kitty, it is more-so,” Jane pointed out. “For Lydia has the louder personality of the two, so I believe that Kitty has it harder. Her personality will always get swallowed up by Lydia, and up until this point, I attributed it to her allowing it to be so.”

“Yet, what if it is simply that she is not given much right