by Jessie Lewis
Her greatest vexation was that, in contrast to how much Mr. Darcy must now hate her, she had begun to miss him. She was weary of her family’s immodesty, wary of the militia, forbidden from engaging with Mr. Bingley lest Jane call it flirtation, and afraid to sigh within one hundred yards of Mr. Greyson lest her mother call it love. She felt desperately alone and fancied that some time spent with the astute, worldly, gentlemanly Mr. Darcy would suit her very well indeed. She began to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. His arms wrapped around her would have soothed away all her ills. Her fingers played an entirely erroneous chord, dissonant and grating.
“Your playing has not improved at all I see, Miss Bennet.”
Elizabeth gave a squeak of surprise and jumped an inch off her seat. How long Lady Catherine de Bourgh had stood in the doorway, regarding her with a disapproving sneer, she dared not suppose.
“Forgive me, Miss Elizabeth!” Hill called from the passageway beyond. “I could not persuade her ladyship to wait in the parlour.”
“I quite understand,” Elizabeth assured her, coming to her feet. “Be so good as to bring us some refreshments in there now, would you?”
“I do not care for refreshments,” Lady Catherine stated imperiously.
“Very well. I hope you will not begrudge me some. I have been practicing very diligently.” Indicating that her visitor should follow, Elizabeth walked the short distance between the rooms and chose the seat farthest from any other in the room.
Lady Catherine’s lips thinned almost to the point of disappearing, but she nonetheless chose a seat and sat on it. “You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason for my journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I come.”
“Indeed you are mistaken, madam. I am quite unable to account for the honour of seeing you here,” Elizabeth lied.
“You ought to know that I am not to be trifled with,” replied her ladyship in an angry tone. “A report of a most alarming nature reached me yesterday morning. I was told that you, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would be, in all likelihood, soon united to my nephew, Mr. Darcy. I went immediately to London to have it confirmed as a scandalous falsehood. He was adamant there must have been some mistake, that no such rumour could possibly exist, but I instantly resolved on setting off for this place to have your word that you would never accept an offer of marriage from him.”
Elizabeth’s heart sank. She had visited him already! “If Mr. Darcy has said no such rumour could exist, I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far.”
“He may have denied the existence of the rumour,” she replied with narrowed eyes, “but he would not—nay, he could not deny the foundation for it. I perfectly comprehended his feelings. He is infatuated. Your arts and allurements have drawn him in.”
“If that were the case, you could hardly expect me to refuse an offer, having gone to so much trouble to extort it from him.”
Lady Catherine sucked in a breath, coughed sharply, and grew even more vexed. “Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such impertinence as this. I am almost the nearest relation Mr. Darcy has in the world and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.”
“But you are not entitled to know mine.”
“When your concerns begin to obtrude upon mine, then I most certainly am entitled to know them!” She leant forwards in her chair, piercing Elizabeth with an icy glare. “Because of his fascination with you, Mr. Darcy has reneged on his engagement to my daughter. Now what have you to say?”
Elizabeth scarcely knew what to think but schooled herself to composure, for she would not satisfy Lady Catherine’s hope of intimidating her. “A decision not to marry Miss de Bourgh, if indeed such a decision has been made, is by no means proof that he will offer for me.”
“Do not be deliberately obtuse. Of course it is! Do you imagine me ignorant of the attention he showed you in Kent? He and his cousin have been intended for each other from their infancy, yet you, a woman of inferior birth and wholly unallied to the family, have caught his fancy, and now my daughter has been forsaken!”
“That cannot be blamed on me! I have no control over Mr. Darcy’s whims!”
“Regrettably, that is precisely what you do have, and I mean to see that you use it as duty and honour prescribe. I would have you promise me never to enter into an engagement with him or act in any way that will prevent his marrying my daughter.”
Elizabeth’s head throbbed. “I am neither honour nor duty bound to do your bidding and can only pity Miss de Bourgh for being so. I shudder at what mortification will be hers when she is forced upon a man disinclined to the union. Have you no regard for sensibility?”
Lady Catherine scoffed disdainfully. “Frankly, I am more concerned with her security. My daughter requires a husband who will be considerate of her delicate constitution, who has consequence enough to elevate her reputation despite her absence from Town, who will manage her estate properly in the interests of her heirs. Do you suppose the world brims over with such men? Good, conscientious, distinguished men? It does not!” Her ladyship’s voice became more hoarse the louder it grew. “Equally, my nephew requires a wife who will bring credit to his name, not ostracise him from the sphere in which he was raised. Do you not consider that a connection with you must discredit him in the eyes of everybody? The alliance would be a disgrace, and you must be the one to prevent it since he is so bewitched by you he will hear no reason on the subject from anybody else.”
Elizabeth’s heart pounded in consonance with her head. “I do not see that you have given me good reason to do so. So far, you have catalogued Mr. Darcy’s virtues, informed me that he has denounced all other engagements, and impressed upon me the depth of his regard. It seems to me your ladyship has rather come to commend the union.”
“This is not to be borne!” Lady Catherine struggled out of her chair and sucked in great wheezy breaths of outrage as she stalked to stand before her. “Do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede. I shall not…” Her tirade faltered. She frowned and peered more closely at Elizabeth’s countenance. “Heaven and earth, what is that?”
Elizabeth sighed quietly, surprised it had gone unnoticed this long, notwithstanding her artfully arranged hair. “A bruise, ma’am.”
Lady Catherine recoiled. “On your face? Wherever does a person obtain such an injury?”
“I acquired this one in Meryton.”
“And you claim to be a gentlewoman? Never in all my days have I seen the like!”
“I believe it is yet to become fashionable in London. Perhaps next Season?”
Lady Catherine’s eyes grew flinty. “Your impudence has lost all its charm, Miss Bennet. I insist you tell me how you came to be wounded thus.”
“I was struck.”
“You have been brawling?”
“I hardly think brawling is—”
“And this behaviour is what my nephew plans to inflict upon us! Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?”
Elizabeth stood up. “Lady Catherine, I have nothing more to say, and my head pains me. I beg to be importuned no further.”
“You have yet to give me your word.”
“True, and behaviour such as this will never induce me to give it. You had much better go, for you are wasting your time with me.” She strode to the door, leant upon it for a moment while a wave of dizziness passed, then continued to the front of the house.
Lady Catherine followed, barking demands and invectives all the way. “I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet,” she concluded as she swept past and climbed into her awaiting carriage. “I send no compliments to your family. You deserve no such attention.”
Elizabeth did
not trouble herself to reply and returned hastily to the house. The walls swam about her, and she clutched the back of a chair with one hand and her head with the other. She was inordinately grateful when Hill came to her aid, helping her to bed, giving her a measure of the tincture prescribed by Mr. Jones and mercifully agreeing to conceal the extraordinary visit from the rest of the family.
Left alone, Elizabeth almost immediately succumbed to sleep, unable to reflect clearly on any of what had been said whilst her head throbbed thus. Lucid or not, however, thoughts of Mr. Darcy were still foremost in her mind as she drifted off, and though that was not an unusual occurrence, this was the first occasion such thoughts had ever been accompanied by hope.
***
Monday, 1 June 1812: Hertfordshire
Peabody lit one of Mr. Bingley’s finest cigars and leant back in his chair. “She’ll be one of old man Bennet’s.”
“Hush your tongue before the walls hear you!” warned Mrs. Arbuthnot.
Peabody shrugged and blew out a smoke ring. “What say you, Mr. Banbury?”
“I noticed a resemblance, I’ll grant you,” answered Mr. Bingley’s manservant from behind his newspaper.
“The master’s noticed it, too.”
“How do you know that, then?” jeered Mrs. Arbuthnot, “Tell you himself, did he?”
Peabody smirked, tapping his ash on the flagstones. “He caught her scrubbing the grate in the library. Near buttered his breeches when he saw that face. I tell you, he’s noticed the replica, just as he’s noticed the original.”
Banbury lowered his paper. “Indeed?”
“Aye,” Peabody assured him with a sage nod. “And no person can look so much like another without being from the same seed. If Amelia’s not old man Bennet’s by-blow, I’ll eat my hat.”
“I care not who her father is,” groused Mrs. Arbuthnot, “so long as she keeps the brass shiny. If it keeps the master happy to have her looking like his fancy woman, then more’s the better. Might be as he don’t forget my tip this quarter.”
“The resemblance is not so very marked,” Banbury opined. “Miss Eliza has a smaller nose and less pointy chin. And much prettier eyes.”
Peabody did not reply. His attention was now on the glass of Mr. Bingley’s best port in his hand.
***
Thursday, 4 June 1812: Hertfordshire
Elizabeth peered longingly into the garden. It had been a long week confined to the house, first by faint spells and then, when those receded, the weather. She yearned for air and exercise to banish the confusion Lady Catherine’s visit had occasioned. Denied any such relief this day, she sat in the window seat in the parlour, paying scant attention to her mother, sisters, or book, tracing raindrops as they slithered down the glass and thinking about Mr. Darcy.
As recently as last week, he had convinced his aunt of his enduring regard. The possibility of his loving her still was more gratifying than she could have imagined possible a few short weeks ago, yet it was scarcely to be believed. Indeed, it was impossible to believe. Lady Catherine could not know of her nephew’s previous offer or indeed how very much he must now be repulsed by the notion of a second. She must be mistaken.
A flash of movement drew Elizabeth’s eye to the paddock; a rider was coming towards the house. For one horrid moment, she thought it might be Mr. Greyson. Mr. Greyson who had pressed his thigh against hers throughout last night’s dinner and afterwards insisted she play the pianoforte, only to repeatedly brush his hand the length of her arm as he turned the pages for her. Mr. Greyson, who mistook her mother’s encouragement for permission and with whom she had no desire whatever to be in company.
The dread of that encounter was soon replaced with a greater terror as she caught sight of the rider’s red coat. She quite unintentionally cried out.
“What is it, Lizzy?” Jane enquired, all concern.
Lydia and Kitty rushed to the window, leaning over her in their rage to see. “La, ’tis only Colonel Forster!” cried Kitty.
“I thought the pigs had got out,” Elizabeth said feebly, too shocked to admit how much the sight of a red coat had frightened her.
Colonel Forster presently arrived at the house and expressed his dismay at finding Mr. Bennet from home, for he had important news.
“There is nothing you can have to say that we cannot hear, sir,” Mrs. Bennet assured him. “We have grown quite accustomed to being astonished these past weeks.” She proved quite insistent, and Colonel Forster eventually relented, conveying the news that Mr. Wickham had been apprehended. Elizabeth could not comprehend why that intelligence should make her hands shake.
“My dear Colonel Forster, what wonderful news!” her mother exclaimed. “We shall be able to sleep peacefully in our beds at last. How shall we ever thank you?”
“I cannot justly accept your thanks, madam. Though my men did assist in the search, it was Mr. Darcy who had him found and arrested.”
Despite her mother’s assurances, Elizabeth was not prepared to be quite that astonished. “Mr. Darcy? But, I—”
“Yes, it was rather a strange turn of events,” the colonel agreed. “He had written to warn me about Wickham. Unfortunately, his letter arrived too late, thus I was obliged to reply not with thanks but with an account of Wickham’s violence and desertion. Thereafter, nothing was to be done in the search that he did not arrange himself.”
This prompted Mrs. Bennet to declare him a fine young man, adding, “I knew nobody could really be that disagreeable! Would that half the young men these days were as good!”
“He truly is good,” Colonel Forster replied, “for he has also settled the majority of Wickham’s debts in Meryton—more than a thousand pounds.”
“A thousand pounds!” Mrs. Bennet screeched. “Heaven and earth, his fortune must be vast to afford such a sum!”
Elizabeth shared a glance with Jane, and together they redirected their mother’s raptures from Mr. Darcy’s wealth to the somewhat less vulgar subject of his generosity with it.
Elizabeth hardly dared suppose the wish of protecting her had added force to whatever other inducements led Mr. Darcy to take so much trouble. She could not even be sure whether he knew it was Wickham who had injured her. She did think it possible that his decision to write to Colonel Forster might be a result of her reproofs, and she respected him all the more for the graciousness and humility he had shown in doing so. It was yet another thing to admire. Indeed, there was nothing she had learnt about him in the weeks since his proposal that had not deepened her regard. She would not be whimsical enough to say she loved him, but never had she felt so certain she could.
Nevertheless, the greater swelled her affection, the heavier grew her heart, for naught spoke more eloquently of the improbability of his renewing his addresses than his continued absence. His aunt’s claims notwithstanding, he stayed away, and whatever he might feel was moot.
***
Friday, 5 June 1812: Hertfordshire
Bingley was foxed. He knew this, because each of the tankards on the table before him overlapped the other by several inches. He wished he knew which one of them held his ale.
“Speaking of women,” somebody said, slapping him heavily on the shoulder and sitting down next to him, “how goes your courtship?”
Had they been speaking of women? Bingley barely recalled to whom he had been talking, let alone what they had been discussing. “Terribly!” he slurred. Then his forehead thumped onto the table, and laughter erupted all around him.
“That bad, eh, old boy? Come, tell us all about it.”
Would that he could explain it, but he was tied in such knots, he knew not how to begin. He had come back to Hertfordshire to court Miss Bennet, the handsomest woman ever to have walked the earth and for whom he had pined all winter. Yet, it was not she who trespassed his dreams at night. Tha
t honour was reserved for Elizabeth, possessor of the most provocative smile, penetrating eyes, and extraordinary, tempting figure of any woman of his acquaintance. Elizabeth whom he had carried in his arms, broken and beautiful. Elizabeth with a marked resemblance to the maid he had squeezed past in the narrow passage to Peabody’s pantry earlier… He lifted his head and propped an elbow on the table, pointing his forefinger at the sea of expectant faces. “’Tis the wrong one!”
“Ah ha! He is wavering!” another voice cried, banging the table triumphantly.
“I told you he would. They all do. Only took him a little longer than most.”
“Damn it, Bingley, you’ve cost me a florin!”
Bingley squinted at them all. “What are you blathering about?”
“Miss Bennet, man,” Henry Lucas, sitting opposite him, said with a grin. “The enthralment wears off after a while, does it not?”
Guilt sent a hot flush up Bingley’s neck. “It does?”
“Invariably, my friend. Trust me, I have known the Bennets all my life. I have watched more than a few men follow the same course.” Addressing the entire table, he said loudly, “Boys, shall we? Attend, Bingley—the Bennet Ballad!”
Bingley almost fell off the bench when, without warning, the man on his right gave forth a booming note, from which several others took up their harmonies then burst into a rowdy tavern song.
Take the fifth for a wife only if ye dare,
For a man tied to her will needs must share.
A ripple of sniggers and snorts rolled around the table, and more voices joined in the evidently well-known song.
Wed the fourth if you value not common sense,
For asinine prattle will deafen you hence.