Mr. Darcy & Elizabeth

by Alyssa Jefferson

  CHAPTER 18

  __________

  When Elizabeth and Jane had been with the Campbells for a fortnight, they received a note from Miss Whipple to the following effect:

  My dear friends,

  I am, as I am sure you could have suspected, utterly despondent without you. Despondent! I have had nobody to accompany me to any party besides my mother, and I am sure you are aware that I can have no enjoyments at all when she is with me. However, I am not without hope of better things to come, if you and our dear friends the Miss Campbells will grace us with your company. My very generous Aunt and Uncle Hadley are to have another ball! The one last month was so very well attended that it would be scandalous not to repeat it. I told my Aunt so, and she quite agreed with me. She has named Tuesday as the date, for there is never anything else to do on a Tuesday.

  Shall you join me? All four of you? My mother will be our chaperone, of course, so Mrs. Campbell need not fear for your safety. Write to me immediately and tell me you shall be our guests!

  Yours,

  Etc.

  Elizabeth laughed when she read the letter, handing it to Jane with a smirk. “Utterly despondent!” she cried.

  “Do not be unkind,” Jane chastised, though she smiled. “I do not suppose it will be in our power to attend,” she added, folding the letter and replacing it in its envelope.

  “Why not?” Elizabeth said. “What can be wrong with the idea?”

  “The Campbells are such excellent hosts,” Jane replied, “and we have had entertainment and enjoyment of some sort every evening. It would not be appropriate for us to presume—”

  “They are so good to us as to provide entertainment for us, but I hardly think it is because they wish to. I rather think the Campbells would be relieved if we were to suggest a scheme for our own enjoyment.”

  Jane considered this point for a moment. “We were just with Miss Whipple, however,” she said. “What would they think if we ask to go to her again?”

  Elizabeth replied, “That she is a friend of ours? That we are hoping to bring our friends together for the mutual enjoyment of each? Perhaps that it would be ungrateful to refuse an invitation from so kind a friend?”

  “You did not think she was a particularly kind friend before, Lizzy,” Jane said, though her tone was gentle.

  Elizabeth sighed. She did want to go to the party, but gratitude to Miss Whipple was hardly the reason for it. Hoping to convince Jane through some other means, she decided it would be best to leave matters to chance—or, to a measured chance, for she had a strong suspicion of how it would be. “Why do we argue? We need not decide. Let us give the letter to Miss Campbell so that she may decide.”

  “She will be too kind to refuse,” Jane protested, though her argument was audibly weakening, hesitation reflecting in her voice.

  “Miss Margaret, then,” Elizabeth said. “She is like me. She is not too kind to say anything.”

  Jane smiled gently, shaking her head. “Very well,” she replied, “let us bring the letter to her.”

  Elizabeth’s triumph was perfectly concealed when Miss Margaret instantly cried, “A party! Oh, we must go!” upon a quick perusal of the letter. As it was, Jane needed to ask both Miss Campbells, and ask them again, before she could believe their agreement to go to the party not a sacrifice but a pleasure. When she was finally convinced, however, the matter became what to wear, and how to fix their hair, and if new gowns should be purchased, and if there would be time to have them altered if they were.

  For their parts, Elizabeth and Jane had very little money left for any purchases of the kind. When it was determined that there would not be time to purchase new gowns, Elizabeth was relieved—for she had no intention of opening her limited purse as freely as she had done in the past. She was by no means at ease in light of her stepmother’s most recent letter to Jane.

  Some families are the sort that keep with their own set, enjoy one another’s company, and experience pleasures away from home as temporary excursions rather than a way of life. The Campbells were this sort of family, and their daily habits showed their values. The Hadleys, and probably the Whipples, too, were a different sort of family. They were ostentatious, social, restless, and jealous. To be the best family among their own sets were their highest priorities, and to achieve this, parties were given and impressions made nearly constantly. The Hadleys were so highly committed to impressing everybody they knew that it was practically instilled in the family’s values. To that end, they had invited all their best connections to attend a ball that was to exceed their daughter’s coming out in grandeur and prestige. They believed their odds of having the Radcliffe family among the guests would increase if the Bennet sisters were invited, and therefore they commissioned their niece to extend the invitation to them.

  Miss Whipple, for her part, had gotten what she needed from the Bennet sisters, and she would just as well see them again as not. She was offended by the idea of Lord Norwich needing any incentive besides herself—being rather deluded about her own charms—to attend. Yet the invitation was made and accepted, and she was forced to wait at the front of the house for her guests to arrive before she could enter the party.

  Jane, Elizabeth, and the Miss Campbells happened to enter at the same time as the Radcliffe family. Though the gentlemen did not escort the ladies inside, there was an acknowledgement between the parties that placed the Bennet sisters in a most flattering light. Miss Whipple’s envy propelled her toward them rather more aggressively than she meant, but her smile was all saccharine delight as she said, “My dear Miss Bennet! Miss Eliza, too, and the Miss Campbells! How do you do? I am so very pleased that you are come!”

  Jane spoke so kindly that it made Miss Whipple rather sick, for she had grown tired of her guest’s genuine sweetness relatively early in the girls’ visit, and was now quite out of practice in tolerating it.

  “I suppose, Eliza, you shall keep your cousin all to yourself tonight,” she said.

  Elizabeth did not feel quite on a footing with Miss Whipple to make her casual use of her name permissible. Moreover, she had absolutely no wish of dancing with Lord Norwich, nor of keeping him to herself for conversation, or for any other reason. She replied, “As much as it depends on me, I have no intention to do any such thing.”

  Miss Whipple scoffed, her jealousy rendering her quite unable to believe that any person could be insensible of the great conquest Elizabeth evidently had won.

  “We were very grateful to be invited, Miss Whipple,” Miss Campbell said, curtsying. She was not well acquainted with Miss Whipple, being older than her and having not the disposition for frequent, friendly chat that Jane had.

  Miss Whipple waved her hand. “Yes, yes, and I do hope you shall enjoy yourselves greatly. I shall introduce you to my aunt, for she is just inside.” Seeming now to recollect her duty, or at least to find wherewithal to privilege it over her irrational thoughts, Miss Whipple led her friends inside to the room where all the other guests were gathered.

  Elizabeth’s eyes were scanning the room for somebody else when she met the gaze of Lord Norwich.

  “Oh, Jane,” Elizabeth said suddenly, “You ought to greet Lord Norwich, if he comes to us. It is most proper that he speak with you, as the elder sister, rather than me. If he wishes to dance with either of us, moreover, I believe you ought to be first. Do not you think you ought to dance with him?”

  “I would,” Jane replied, smiling pleasantly, “if he asked me.”

  “I am sure he shall,” Elizabeth replied, “for who here is as beautiful as you, even by half?”

  However, even amid this speech, their cousin was coming closer.

  “My fair cousins,” he said, bowing when he reached them. “How do you do?”

  Jane opened her mouth to reply, but Miss Whipple instantly put herself forward before anybody else had the opportunity. “Why, Lord Norwich, we meet again! Had I any idea you would be at this ball, I should have worn emerald—for I understand emerald is
your favorite color.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Indeed? Yes, I have shown a preference for emerald in the past—yet this evening, I must confess my taste is all for lavender.”

  Elizabeth, who happened to be wearing a lavender gown, took a step backward.

  Miss Whipple’s laugh was forceful. “How kind of you,” she said, “to single out your cousin, though her true family connections are so low! She would feel rather out of place here, I am sure, if you were not to elevate her with your notice.”

  At this comment, both Jane and Elizabeth were astonished, and the Campbell girls were quite angry. Elizabeth turned to meet Miss Whipple’s eyes and saw in them a gleam of malice—of jealousy—that she had never seen appear to such a degree before. Miss Whipple was, she began to perceive, no friend of hers. She was rather a full adversary, a decided rival in pursuit of Lord Norwich. Yet Elizabeth had no wish for any connection to Lord Norwich! However, her anger at being so unfairly represented superseded any other feeling, and she was about to answer when Miss Campbell herself said, “Why, I hardly think there is any truth in that description! The Miss Bennets have very fine connections, Miss Whipple, I assure you. We all have a friend or two in trade, but we have not all the decency to be gracious about it.”

  If Miss Whipple was chagrined by this speech, she showed it not. Instead, with a wave of her hand, she said, “Oh, la. Miss Eliza knows I was only joking. She is just like me; she loves a joke.”

  “Your manner of joking is singular,” Miss Margaret replied.

  Lord Norwich, however, laughed. “Oh, I have long known all my cousins’ connections, Miss—”

  “Whipple,” the young lady filled in helpfully, though she blushed at the necessity, for it was quite humbling to have known herself forgotten by him. “Juliana Whipple.”

  “Miss Whipple,” he said. “I assure you, I cannot be frightened off by a connection or two in trade. I am not an Earl yet, you forget! I can associate with anybody.”

  This attitude toward the privileges and honor of his station was unimpressive to all the young ladies—excepting Miss Whipple. She laughed and said, “How true! And I am certainly glad that you have chosen to accept my cousins’ invitation this evening.”

  “I understood that several of my friends would be present,” he replied by way of explanation. Then, turning to Elizabeth, he said, “It has been weeks since we have met.”

  “Indeed,” Elizabeth said. “I hope your parents are well.”

  “They are,” he said. “They should have come this evening themselves, if they had not an invitation from Lord Bradbury. I suppose you know, they are very intimate with that family.”

  Elizabeth neither knew nor cared, but she gave a civil reply of, “Please give them our regards.” She curtsied slightly and turned to walk away from him, but he reached out an arm instantly to detain her.

  “Are you to run off so quickly? I suppose you fear I will not follow you, but you see? I am not so fickle as some. Wherever you go, I shall be there.”

  “Indeed, sir, I have no such schemes in my head,” Elizabeth said.

  “Nay,” he said, “I believe you are testing me.”

  “That is just what she would do,” Miss Whipple said. “Good heavens, Miss Eliza, show some respect for your noble cousin!”

  Lord Norwich laughed. “Oh, she does not offend me. She is only too charming!”

  Miss Whipple had to force herself to smile. “I believe many men say so—and I cannot wonder at them, for she is no proper young lady. Are you, Miss Eliza?”

  Jane and the Miss Campbells were still close at hand, and the gasps that followed this insult must have been enough to alert Lord Norwich to its falsehood. However, Elizabeth spoke for herself, face red with anger. “I have not the pleasure of understanding your meaning, Miss Whipple. I am sure there is nobody who knows me well who would be justified in offering such a description.”

  “You need not be concerned over appearances in my presence, cousin,” Lord Norwich said. “I am quite through with being proper, I assure you.”

  Again, he reached out and touched her arm. This time, she pulled it away and said, “However, I am not.”

  Recognizing that her scheme was not having any effect, Miss Whipple laughed loudly and affectedly. “Oh, I am only joking! Of course, it is all a joke! Eliza loves nothing better than a joke, you see, and I am quite the same way. I am always laughing, always in a good humor.”

  It would have been highly gratifying for Miss Whipple if Lord Norwich had smiled at her then, or even looked at her, but he still had eyes only for Elizabeth—while she had eyes only for an escape. She was relieved then by the rather forced intercession of her sister, who was so mild tempered that nothing but the gravest of insults could provoke her to speech. Even so, insults against herself she could and did bear. It was only an attack on Elizabeth that was unacceptable to Jane.

  “Miss Whipple, I cannot imagine why you should say such scandalous and false things about someone who has always been a friend to you. My sister has never given you or anybody else a reason to speak of her so deceitfully. I am quite ashamed of you! I cannot think what she has ever done to you to merit such a crude attempt at humor!”

  One advantage of being a woman who seldom rose her voice was that, whenever Jane did speak in anger, everybody listened to her. Miss Whipple, the Miss Campbells, and even Lord Norwich all fixed their eyes on her face, and a moment later she was too embarrassed by their attention to continue. Blushing, she said, “But where is Lizzy?” For, amid the commotion, Elizabeth had turned and slipped away.

  What a relief it was to be away from Lord Norwich and Miss Whipple! Elizabeth could hardly believe how quickly her schoolmate had turned on her. She knew that they were never truly friendly with one another, yet they had never been vicious to each other. Miss Whipple’s blatant and malicious lies were no less surprising than they were horrible. Elizabeth had never believed that Miss Whipple was truly unkind, or she should never have consented to her and her sister coming to her that summer. Though she had had no dependence on Miss Whipple’s friendship, and in fact had never liked her very much, her betrayal still stung.

  The party was well attended, and Elizabeth’s wish when she first entered—to see if Mr. Darcy was also at the party—now faded into the back of her mind. She was anxious, angry, and confused. Solitude and reflection were what she needed before she would be up to the task of speaking pleasantly with anybody. She hoped that Mr. Darcy would not see her, while she was red-faced and almost shaking with anger.

  Near the back corner of the room was a small display of plants, and in the shadows, Elizabeth hoped that she might be hidden among them until she could regain her composure. The fragrance of the flowers was mild and sweet, and Elizabeth closed her eyes and breathed it in. She was glad that her schooling was over, that she might never see Miss Whipple again. She had always believed that Miss Whipple liked her and her sister, but now she saw that their favor with her was only safe so long as they had nothing she wanted. Their beauty and popularity she had never envied, until the attention of a particular man had been added to it. Yet what, beyond his peerage, did anybody see in Lord Norwich? Miss Whipple’s poor judgement must erelong be its own punishment—but that was little consolation to Elizabeth this evening.

  She missed Miss Watson. She missed her father. Tears stung her eyes and she hugged her arms close to her chest, feeling so alone that she could have wept. A few more moments of reflection were enough to remind her that she ought not allow herself to lose her composure here, in the midst of many who were not her friends and would be neither gentle nor discreet. A few moments more, and she reminded herself that she would, in all probability, see her sisters and governess again soon, for school was to resume. She was not totally abandoned; she had her friends the Miss Campbells, and she had Jane. She breathed deeply, and she had just achieved a state of calmness that, if continued in for a few moments, would have restored her fully to good cheer—when she felt someone’s
touch on her arm.

  She looked up and saw Lord Norwich. “Miss Elizabeth,” he said softly, “forgive my interruption. Your sister has summoned you. She is in the library.”

  “The library?” Elizabeth asked in surprise and confusion. “But why is she there?”

  “I know not,” Lord Norwich replied, “but she asked me to bring you to her there.”

  Something very singular must have happened to cause Jane to go away in the midst of a ball, and to summon her thither. Elizabeth’s fogginess of mind clouded her judgement, and though she did not feel quite convinced by Lord Norwich’s account, she still followed him through the door.

  Elizabeth preceded the gentleman into the library, and she turned around to face him when she noticed—rather unsurprisingly—that there was no Jane in the room. Indeed, there was nobody there at all.

  “Sir, what is the meaning of this?” Elizabeth said angrily.

  “I could wait no longer!” Lord Norwich replied. “I have been driving myself mad with longing to speak to you, yet having never the opportunity to do so! But now, we are alone, and now, I may be candid.”

  “I pray you would not, sir,” Elizabeth replied. “I have not consented to a private audience with you; you have brought me here under false pretenses.”

  “Nonsense,” he said, smiling and coming closer to her. “You must have known that Miss Bennet would not be here. Why should she be, in the midst of a ball?”

  “I did not know!” Elizabeth cried. “Why would somebody lie about it?”

  “It was not a lie,” Lord Norwich replied, “it was merely a ruse. I suppose you know the difference. A ruse is a means to an end. I knew you would never come away with me otherwise, and therefore what choice did I have?”