by Meg Osborne
“How clumsy of me!”
Darcy was surprised to distinguish that her tone of voice had changed. This was not the confident, care-free Elizabeth who seemed to delight in tormenting him with comments he could never entirely determined the true nature of, criticism or comedy. Her voice shook, so little that it would be scarcely noticeable, had he not been sitting quite close to her, or paying her such intent, if covert, attention. It was a perfectly innocuous question, he thought, his frown deepening. And yet it provokes such a reaction?
“Mr Collins is my father’s cousin,” she said, quickly, to the people sitting near them, as if in an attempt to draw them into the conversation and yet, Darcy rather fancied it was more an attempt to buy herself some time to formulate a satisfactory answer to his simple enquiry. At length, she turned back to him with a deferential smile.
“He seems very fond of Hertfordshire, Mr Darcy, and is already making plans as to what he shall do when Longbourn reverts to him.” Here, her voice sharpened, and Darcy could not fail to miss the heavy criticism she levied at her absent cousin. He, too, was angered on her behalf. All concerned might be well aware of the eventual fate of the estate: he was no stranger to entailments and the perverse provisions of wills and property, but that was no invitation to waltz into a family home and claim it, while the patriarch of that family was still hale and hearty.
“I hope your sisters do not find his presence too upsetting,” he said, thinking that whilst Elizabeth might be of strong enough constitution to turn Mr Collins’ snide comments back on himself, and rather enjoy doing so, Jane would certainly take his words to heart. Another thought flitted through his mind, but he attempted to ignore it. Still, it bade him ask a question.
“He is not yet engaged, I believe?”
This caused Elizabeth almost to choke on her meal, and it took her a moment to reply, her voice strangely choked when she did.
“No, sir. He is not engaged.”
She did not meet his gaze. In fact, she seemed to engage all her efforts in purposely avoiding his gaze. He looked up at Mr and Mrs Gardiner, who seemed likewise unsettled by the comment.
Understanding dawned, and his brow furrowed even further. A proposal - worse, a failed proposal. No wonder Elizabeth had escaped to London at her earliest opportunity. Had Mr Collins heard the rumours of “her” behaviour - or rather, the behaviour of the other Elizabeth Bennet, and attributed them, as he had done, to her? Sympathy welled up in him, for it must have stung to be so misjudged b a member of her own family, worse still than by a stranger. Yet he also felt somewhat nettled by the thought of any action of Mr Collins’s causing Elizabeth Bennet distress. Surely she did not care what that oaf of a man thought of her? Surely any failed engagement between them would be a source of relief to Elizabeth, at having escaped a future joined forever with him? He returned to his meal, puzzling over the mystery that a woman of such character and intelligence as Elizabeth Bennet could ever in a hundred years wish to marry the idiotic Collins and yet - he drew in a breath, and glanced up, anxious that this reaction might have caught the interest of his dining companions, but noted with relief that the two couples had moved on to other topics, and Elizabeth had once more been engaged by Mr Prior in listening to him expound the virtues and vices of London society at that particular time of year. Nobody had noticed his shocked realisation, and he was free to return to it. Elizabeth might loathe and despise Mr Collins, might rail at the thought of marrying him, but if he was to inherit Longbourn upon Mr Bennet’s demise then the only security she could offer her family would be in securing Mr Collins himself. Perhaps that had been her plan all along, a plan ruined by the actions of Sophia Radcliff in her disguise as “Elizabeth Bennet”.
Darcy was not a calculating man. He had never needed to be. He had fortune, position and masculinity on his side. Although he did not wish to fall victim to a penniless woman’s schemes, he did not entirely misunderstand her reasons for doing so. Security was a scarcity for a woman. It was why he guarded Georgiana like a lion, why he had been willing to risk everything to secure her safety and ensure her reputation remained intact after George Wickham had attempted to run away with her. Elizabeth Bennet had no older brother to secure their family’s safety, and if marrying Mr Collins would do it, he had no doubt that she would be cool-headed enough to do so, and keep her mother and sisters safe, no matter what she thought of the man himself.
“Have you -” he began, seeking once more to engage her in conversation and in some way distract her from the influence of the odious Prior. That man paused for breath, and Darcy launched himself into the breach. “Have you any plans for your time in London, Miss Bennet?”
“Not very many,” she admitted, smiling cautiously at him. Her features still betrayed a hint of her anxiety, but she was almost entirely herself again. “I hope to visit some of the museums and galleries.”
“And you doubtless have friends you wish to spend time with.”
“No,” Elizabeth said, with a philosophical shrug. “I do not have very many acquaintances in London at present, and left my two dearest companions: my sister Jane, and my friend Charlotte, at home in Hertfordshire. Fortunately, I am not discontent in my own company.”
This answer surprised Darcy, for he felt certain that every woman craved the contact of other women. He almost always came across them in packs, if unmarried, or coupled with their husband once wed.
“I find it is often best to plan a solitary visit to a museum, for then you may go at your own pace, and enjoy whatever exhibitions speak most to you without worrying about what your companion finds dull, or would prefer to be viewing.”
“But then you have nobody to talk to about it!” Elizabeth said.
“Ah yes, I forgot,” Darcy permitted himself a small, slightly teasing smile. “Miss Bennet has many opinions and dearly loves to share them.”
“Whereas Mr Darcy forms only a few and holds tight to them as if they were a prized pearl, never to be surrendered or replaced with anything else.”
“I happily exchange my opinions when they are proved to be wrong, Miss Bennet.” He smiled at her contritely, an apology in a glance. “I am not incapable of owning when I have been mistaken. I am very sorry for confusing you with the false Miss Bennet, for judging her actions as your own. It was wrong of me, and I shall do all in my power to ensure nobody else makes the same error.”
“I doubt it can be prevented,” Elizabeth said, with a sigh. “Although I think it rather cruel that I must face the judgement and punishment for Sophia’s foolishness, it will take time for the truth to become known, and I am in no desire to ruin her to do so.”
“You are too generous,” Darcy said, frowning. “If anyone had tried so maliciously -”
“Oh, I do not think her entirely malicious.” Elizabeth smiled. “Misguided, foolish, but not malicious.”
“In any case, she ought to be held to account for her actions...” Darcy trailed off, wondering how Elizabeth could so easily excuse actions that had caused her such harm. He readily held a grudge and would continue to bear ill-will against all those who had hurt him. Such mercy was a surprise to him, and he said as much.
“We have all made mistakes in our past, Mr Darcy. I like to think we might all be afforded the opportunity to move on from them.”
Darcy nodded, thinking of Georgiana, and Wickham, and wondering if Elizabeth Bennet might not have much still to teach him on the matter of forgiveness.
Chapter Eleven
“Shall we dance?” Mrs Huntington glanced slyly at her husband, who hung his head in resignation.
“We shall, my dear, assuming your guests wish it.”
“Delightful!” She clapped her hands and beamed around the room. “Who shall play for us first of all?”
Darcy glanced around him, wishing fleetingly that to be good at piano was not considered solely a feminine pursuit, for it would have provided him with the perfect excuse to hide in a corner and not to dance. That not being the case, he permi
tted a small smile at the plain young lady who did step forward and claim the piano seat as her own. People took their places for the first dance, and Darcy summoned his nerve, approaching Elizabeth directly, where she stood with her aunt and uncle. Mr Prior had momentarily moved away, and Darcy knew that he would likely return to claim a dance with his dinner companion before long, so he stepped forward in his stead.
“Miss Bennet, perhaps you would care to dance?”
Elizabeth looked at him, surprised to be asked, even more so to be asked by him.
“Yes,” she said, cautiously taking the hand he offered and following him to their place in formation with the other couples dancing.
“You are very kind to invite me, Mr Darcy, when I know you so dislike it.”
“There are many things that I dislike that I must nonetheless undertake,” Mr Darcy said, with a grim smile that faltered as his words reached his own ears and he heard the unspoken insult that nestled within them. “That is - I mean that I do not dislike dancing so very much with the right partner.”
This attempted recovery at least provoked a smile in Elizabeth, and Darcy found himself marvelling at how brightly her eyes sparkled in the candlelight, how much the smile lifted her features and made her altogether prettier than he ever recalled thinking her before.
“I believe there was a compliment hidden somewhere in there,” she said, with a murmured laugh. “And for that I thank you.”
They continued in companionable silence for a moment, while Darcy thought furiously of something more to say. The other couples dancing seemed easily to find words to share with one another and he marvelled at their ability to speak so easily and not struggle, as he did, to find interesting and relevant topics.
“Do you realise our friends will likely be dancing at this moment, also?” Elizabeth said, with a smile.
“How so?” he asked, returning the smile and waiting for the joke he was sure would follow.
“Why, it is the evening of the Meryton assembly! Do you think their drama can possibly match ours?” Her eyes lit up with fun, and he recalled to mind the confrontation between the two Elizabeth Bennets, the real, and the false, and shook his head.
“I imagine it will be entirely dull by comparison,” he said. “Let me predict for you what is likely to take place. Bingley will dance all evening, chiefly with your sister, but with a fair amount of equanimity, for my friend loves to dance and is talented at it.”
That does not surprise me,” Elizabeth said, with a polite nod in compliment to the absent Mr Bingley.
“Your sisters, doubtless, will thoroughly enjoy themselves, each in their own way.”
“Indeed!” Elizabeth laughed. “Mary will delight in the music, Lydia and Kitty will come to blows over some handsome young gentlemen entirely unsuitable for either of them. Jane and Jane alone will enjoy the evening as a lady ought, for she will spend much of it in dear Mr Bingley’s company.”
“She is fond of him,” Darcy remarked. He had not intended it entirely as a question, but Elizabeth took it as one.
“Do not you think so?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. “I feel them inordinately suited to one another, and so happy when they are together that anybody pausing to observe them cannot deny the affection they have for one another.”
“Indeed,” Darcy sighed. “I own you are perhaps right, although I felt certain on first meeting your sister that any affection was largely on the part of my friend.”
“He is more effusive, but that does not necessarily mean his feelings run any deeper.” Elizabeth countered. “I would have thought one as reserved as you, on occasion, might acknowledge the truth of that.”
Darcy paused, realising that Elizabeth’s reasoning was entirely accurate. Had he judged Jane as if she ought to match his friend exactly? He, himself, could not begin to compare to Bingley in terms of joviality and sociability, and yet he presumed the delicate young lady he had fallen in love with would? It was error, again. He frowned. He had never before thought himself easily capable of error. Close association with Miss Elizabeth Bennet seemed only to prove how little he had understood himself before now.
“You think it best when a couple do not closely resemble each other in manner or status, then?” He had voiced the thought aloud almost before he was aware of having thought it but did not immediately wish to retract it. He was interested to hear Elizabeth’s thoughts, feeling that this evening he was seeing her truly as she was, not as he imagined her to be. She was kinder, wiser, more beautiful and brilliant than she had appeared to be in Hertfordshire, and he could credit nought but her own self for the change.
“I think certain similarity is important, but it is impossible to imagine men and women to ever be entirely alike,” she reasoned. “How, then, do you imagine they will go along happily together for a lifetime, with no differences to prompt conversation?” Her eyes sparkled, and he sensed she had answered his question truthfully, but with no small measure of humour.
“Conversation again,” he remarked, drily. “I forgot, Miss Bennet values conversation above all else.”
“Above silence, certainly!” Elizabeth laughed. “Except when I am reading, for then I do so dislike to be disturbed.”
He raised an eyebrow, imagining it close to impossible to find any corner of Longbourn where she might read, undisturbed.
“Ah, at last, I understand your penchant for walking,” he said. “Quietness abounds out of doors, when it is scarce within.”
“Do you refer to my sisters, Mr Darcy?” Elizabeth asked as the dance drew towards its conclusion. “Lambs that they are, I confess, we are not a quiet family by nature.” She paused. “Except, perhaps, for Jane. Even Mary is too fond of her piano - and her own opinion - too often be considered quiet.”
“I can scarcely comprehend of such a home,” Darcy confessed. “My own has always been rather quieter than I might wish it, possessing only myself and the staff, and on occasion my sister.”
“I did not realise you had a sister!” Elizabeth exclaimed, surprised by this admission. “Does she remain at Pemberley?”
“She recently returned there from London,” Darcy said. “At present, she resides in Derbyshire. I had hoped to invite her to Hertfordshire at Christmas, but -”
“Oh, you must!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “Oh, how wonderful it would be to have her amongst your party over the festivities. Please do, Mr Darcy, I would very much like to meet her.”
“You would?” Darcy could scarcely keep the smile from creeping up his own face, in answer to Elizabeth’s enthusiastic reception of the Georgiana Darcy she had as yet never met.
“In that case, I shall write to her at once, for I imagine the two of you would make firm friends, Miss Bennet.”
***
It was a late evening when the Gardiners and Elizabeth at last reached their home. Elizabeth’s feet ached from dancing, although she had only managed three - two of which had been with Mr Darcy, to her surprise and enjoyment. He had proved himself a very adept dancer, and despite his protested lack of enthusiasm for it, she ventured to think he might have enjoyed the evening almost as much as she had. Indeed, by the end of the night, they had been conversing as old friends, and Elizabeth felt her cheeks weary from smiling. How Jane would roar with laughter when Elizabeth wrote of it! To think that she, Elizabeth, had so enjoyed an evening spent in the company of Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy! The news was so shocking that it almost outweighed any account of Sophia’s adoption of Elizabeth’s name and the subsequent mischief that had caused.
Bidding her aunt and uncle goodnight, Elizabeth retreated to her room, her mind still too wild to be conducive to sleep. Instead, she readied herself for bed and clambered in, pulling the sheets up to her chin, and relished the chance to revisit every hour that had passed before in her mind, turning it over first this way, and that, applying the best of her understanding to each in turn. Mr Darcy was different here, that much was certain. Was it the chance to see him amongst friends? But no that could not be
it, for Charles Bingley was his friend also. Perhaps it was London itself, the hustle and bustle of the place that made him quite unlike the man she had met in Hertfordshire. Yet, no, for she did not really feel that they were in London yet, having spent only a little time so far with friends of her aunt and uncle. She still had the main attractions of the city to explore, and anyway they could be of little consequence to Mr Darcy, who owned a house in London and thus must be only too familiar with its sights and sounds. What, then, could account for his changed persona? He was still as reserved as he had been in Hertfordshire, still such an easy mark for a teasing comment - yet here, she noted, he tended to return her strikes, or at least, take them with the humour with which they had been intended. He was still dreadfully proud, but, Elizabeth reasoned, perhaps he had cause to be. He was among his peers, here, and even she had to acknowledge how favourably he compared. Mr Prior, who had swooped in and attempted to ingratiate himself to her after the nonsense with Sophia, had been little more than a dandy, with the same idiotic streak as Mr Collins. Apart from their similarity in social standing, he was everything Mr Darcy was not, and she cared for him all the less because of it.
Her mouth dropped open in surprise, and though she was alone she still found herself whispering her thought aloud, so shocked was she by its sudden appearance.
“I cannot possibly care for Mr Darcy, can I?”
She shook her head, dismissing the notion as ridiculous, the product of a busy evening which had left her over-excited and not thinking clearly. Yet, once thought, the idea would not be suppressed. Certainly, Mr Darcy was handsome, she had never denied that. He was a gentleman in every sense of the word, albeit one too proud to ever think himself equal to the likes of one Elizabeth Bennet. Yet...had that attitude not been caused by his understanding of who Elizabeth Bennet was? He thought all the rumours attributed to silly, spiteful Sophia were true indicators of Elizabeth’s own behaviours, and, rightly, treated her with caution and distance because of it. Once he learned the error in his thinking, he had repented of it, and likewise treated her with more grace, more courtesy, more...care.