“Go on, colonel,” Fitz said. “Pick it up and let’s go in. While we stay at Rosings we serve under a stricter general than your lenient Wellington.”
“Wellington lenient?” The colonel permitted himself one last snort of laughter. “Now there’s a match for our aunt. I’d like to see those two in single combat! There’d be a perfect understanding there, I can tell you.” He pocketed the offending butt and went inside.
“That would be something to see,” Fitz said as they tiptoed up the stairs.
“Indeed,” the colonel replied. “Similar to yours with Miss Bennet, I imagine. A fight to the death.” He had reached his room and he jumped inside as he spoke, slamming the door against Fitz’s hammering fist. He was still chuckling as he threw the cigar butt out the window and fell into bed.
ANNE DE BOURGH tossed and turned during what was supposed to be her afternoon nap. She would not take more laudanum. Not until she understood what was happening.
Why did Mama want her to marry Mr. Darcy? What was she to do with such an enormous, ferocious brute? What was she to say to him? He was not respectful, and not in the least deferential. Oh, he deceived people, but she knew what he was—clever, sarcastic, and cruel—although you wouldn’t have guessed it from the way he usually behaved in company. She had heard him at dinner that first night, him and the colonel. They had been making fun of her and of Mama. Too bad she couldn’t tell Mama, but that would only make things worse.
Now he was in love with that nobody, that friend of Mrs. Collins’s, Miss Bennet. Mama didn’t see that either. They were very much alike, Mama and Mr. Darcy. It was wonderful how Mama never saw anything she didn’t want to see, that didn’t fit with her ideas of how things ought to be. What a luxury, never to have to pay attention to intrusive, repulsive facts. But that was because Mama was so strong. She thought she could bend the entire world to her will.
Once Mama knew of Mr. Darcy’s fickleness she would insist on forcing the match, so as not to be defeated. Lady Catherine had never been defeated. Well, once she had been, but it had been a very convenient defeat, leaving her better off than before. When Papa had died. She had lost her great battle to make him into what she wanted him to be, but she had been left mistress of his estate, his wealth, and their one child.
Mama had always been sympathetic, even gentle, with her frail daughter. That was her one weakness, mother love. But she would not compromise in this, the whole purpose of her existence, reuniting the family through the marriage of the two wealthy cousins, Mr. Darcy and Anne, the children of the Fitzwilliam ladies, the old earl’s sisters. What was Anne to do, how was she to stand up to Mama? Anne was her father’s child. Quiet, sickly, the least exertion making her gasp for breath. Not really meek and mild, but she pretended to be, because it was easier.
Anne knew she would just die if she had to marry Mr. Darcy—tall and robust and bursting with animal spirits. Why couldn’t she find a small, quiet, unobtrusive man who would worship her and be grateful for her fortune and leave her alone? There were men who didn’t even desire women, or so she had heard. Why couldn’t she have one of them?
She had thought, long ago, Mr. Darcy was one of them. Something Mama had said about his foster brother, Mr. Wickham. Perhaps he was one of those men who preferred his own sex. From things she had inferred, as a young girl listening to adults’ truncated conversations, the things left unsaid, unfinished sentences, from gestures and facial expressions, she knew there was something not quite right about Mr. Wickham, but she couldn’t tell precisely what. Not that it mattered. Mama would never let her marry an obvious fortune hunter. Why that should be so bad Anne could not understand. Surely there would be a favorable settlement. Mama would see to that; she always drove the hardest of bargains. Anne’s husband could enjoy his share of the money and leave her in peace, grateful for his freedom. They might not even have to live together. He could stay in town, spend his days in debauchery and dissipation, while Anne dozed away her life at Rosings, unencumbered by any society more demanding than Mrs. Jenkinson. How perfect it might be…
Well, there was no harm in preparing the letter. Anne rose quietly and moved to the writing desk. Please, don’t let Mrs. Jenkinson hear. What a lucky chance that this Mrs. Collins was so kind and so discreet—and needed money. Obviously she hadn’t married Mr. Collins for love, poor woman. She had offered her services casually, circumspectly, at their very first meeting, under cover of Anne’s bored, dutiful inquiries. Do you need anything in the village? It’s no trouble. So much better to get the laudanum anonymously, rather than asking the apothecary directly, even if he was willing. Mama would worry and ask questions and would never rest until she discovered what was wrong. This way, all she had to do was explain to Mama where the allowance money went, but perhaps Mrs. Collins would be able to help with that too.
What would Mama say when Mr. Darcy married this Miss Bennet? It was almost comical. Anne permitted herself a brief smile. What fun it would be to see Mr. Darcy take on Mama—except Mama always won in the end. Men were chivalrous, that was the problem. Or else they were simply terrified and gave in to Mama rather than being eaten alive or burned up in her fiery wrath. But Mr. Darcy was tough. If anyone was equal to Mama, he was. He was her nephew, after all. And not so gallant, from what Anne had seen these past two weeks.
Perhaps Mama would have such a great fit of apoplexy that she’d die. Or maybe her heart would burst from being so unexpectedly contradicted and thwarted. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Anne would be left alone. She could do whatever she pleased. She wouldn’t have to marry at all. Was that possible? Why not? She must let Mama keep thinking that everything was going as planned, so that when the news came she was so unprepared that…
Anne wondered if it was very wicked, picturing her mother’s demise in such vivid detail. It didn’t signify. Imagining something never made any difference. Unlike Mama, who believed wishing made it so, Anne had long ago learned the futility of hope. Only dreams had any value—escape, however temporary—and laudanum was the surest way to bring them.
Thank goodness the colonel had no great fortune. He would be worse even than Mr. Darcy. So plain, so loud, the stink of cigars—and that horrid uniform. Why did people claim to find a red coat appealing? It was so hard on the eyes. Black was nice. Comfortable to look at. A small, thin man in a black coat, who consorted with other men like himself, but who cared for Anne alone among her sex. A gentle, quiet young man who might sit languid at her feet and read his verses to her or who might paint or draw her portrait. He would hold her hand and whisper how beautiful she was, how precious to him. Of course you mustn’t play the pianoforte, he would say. Only silly females who have no higher accomplishments squander their strength on such an empty pastime. Dancing? No, that is far too fatiguing. May I sit beside you and fan you while you read?
Anne finished the letter for Mrs. Collins, put the money inside, and folded and sealed it. She was tired now, ready for sleep. Moving back to the bed, she tripped over a shoe.
“Oh my heavens!” Mrs. Jenkinson called from the boudoir. “Are you well, Miss de Bourgh?”
Anne reached for the draught on the bedside and drank it down. “Perfectly, Mrs. Jenkinson,” she called in the weakest voice that would carry to the next room. “Please don’t trouble yourself.” She lay back on her pillows, imagining the slight breeze from his fan…
Fourteen
“I THINK HE’S in love with you,” Charlotte said. The two friends sat at their sewing in Charlotte’s chosen room, tucked safely in the back of the cottage. It was dark and plainly furnished, with no view, but it had the one great advantage: Mr. Collins, returning through the front door from visiting parishioners or working in the garden, would give plenty of warning of his approach.
“Don’t be silly,” Elizabeth said. She poked the needle through the center of an embroidered daisy, like stabbing her finger in an eye. Day’s eye, it meant. With but a slight change it would be Darcy. She had never felt so angry as during th
ese past couple of weeks, the way he spoiled her solitary walks near the Rosings Park with his sudden appearance in the lane, even in company rarely speaking, but merely stared at her, all smiles and feigned innocence, as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t ruined Jane’s life.
“What’s silly about it?” Charlotte pursued her argument. “He’s as silent and worshipful as an acolyte in the presence of the goddess.”
“That’s very poetic, Charlotte, but with Mr. Darcy it’s far more likely to mean he’s bored, or going over his accounts in his head to save time when he returns to Derbyshire.” Elizabeth almost wished he were in love with her, to be able to have the power of ruining his life, revenge for Mr. Wickham and Jane, and perhaps Mr. Bingley as well. But there was little chance of that. Never had she known anyone less capable of love. She pierced the ragged daisy again, snapping a thread.
“At least you’re not pretending not to know who I’m talking about,” Charlotte said.
“I haven’t lost my wits or my memory,” Elizabeth said. “You’ve been hinting at this for days now. And besides, who else could you mean? If it were Colonel Fitzwilliam we were talking of, you wouldn’t have to insinuate. Anyway, he and I have already had that conversation. He’s not free to marry where he pleases.”
“An earl’s son?”
“Younger son,” Elizabeth said. “He made it very clear. He’s the nicest man, a true gentleman, although he does claim to have read books he’s obviously never heard of, and I think I would have him in a minute, even if he is rather plain, and he smokes cigars, but he as much as told me that he would offer for me if he could afford to, but he can’t, so he won’t.”
“Very clear, Lizzy,” Charlotte said with a hint of her old warm laughter just below the surface of her subdued, married demeanor.
“Clear enough. You understood it.”
“Don’t bark at me.”
“I’m sorry, Charlotte. I know you’re being very brave.” Elizabeth put her needlework aside along with her anger, shamed into contrition by Charlotte’s example. Here was someone suffering genuine hardship, and yet unselfish enough to concern herself with her friend’s happiness. True, Charlotte had chosen her own fate, but her generosity deserved better than Elizabeth’s sharp tongue.
“Brave? What nonsense.” As always, Charlotte shrugged off Elizabeth’s demoralizing sympathy. “You see I have just what I always wanted. A husband and an establishment of my own, and perhaps a child. No, I have no need for courage, except for the visits to Lady Catherine. And they will taper off, I’m sure, as my novelty wears off. Oh, Lizzy, I shall miss you when you go.”
The desperation in her friend’s voice softened the last remaining shreds of Elizabeth’s resentment. “Dear Charlotte. I’m here for another three weeks. I should never have been so cold to you.” She sat beside Charlotte on the sofa, put her arms around her friend, and kissed her cheek.
“Ah, Lizzy. How I longed for that, back in Hertfordshire,” Charlotte said. “In a way I suppose it was easier for both of us. The clean break, instead of the lingering, festering decline of love into pallid friendship, then into the moldering grave of ‘my old acquaintance, married and living in Kent.’”
“I wish I could claim credit for so worthy a motive,” Elizabeth said. “The truth is, I was hurt.”
“You!” Charlotte‘s voice was less warm and she shifted out of Elizabeth’s embrace. “Don’t tell me you regretted turning down Mr. Collins’s offer.”
“Charlotte, please.” Elizabeth reached for her friend’s hands. “I think you know what I mean. I was hurt that you could so easily give yourself to someone so—so—I’m sorry, but I must speak plainly—lacking in intellect and inelegant in manner—when only the week before you and I had shared—”
“I see.” Charlotte slowly withdrew her hands. It seemed all she did these days was pull herself away from those who would possess her.
“But Jane helped me to understand,” Elizabeth said. “I know a little more now, all the reasons that prevent women from marrying for love, and force us to choose a situation where there is little chance of happiness. I had hoped that, perhaps, with all that was between us, that you would draw the line at—”
“Lizzy,” Charlotte said. “What are you saying? That unless I can get a Mr. Bingley or a Colonel Fitzwilliam I remain unmarried, for your sake? That’s asking too much for any friendship, even for ours.”
“Is it? Is it really?”
“Answer me this, Elizabeth Bennet: would you remain a spinster forever, for my sake?”
Elizabeth was caught, unable to lie flat out. “I never promised not to fall in love with a man, whatever our sentiments for each other. But I would not marry a Mr. Collins.”
“Not now, at twenty. What about in five or six years? What then?”
Elizabeth squeezed her eyes tight and shut her mouth into a thin line, shaking her head like a child refusing a draught of vile physic. “I couldn’t. Not after knowing a very different sort of man.”
Charlotte gasped. “Oh my goodness! Mr. Wickham! You have lost your—”
Elizabeth opened her eyes and stared. “Charlotte! If we were men, I would be entitled to call you out merely for suggesting such a thing.”
“If we were men,” Charlotte said, daring to smile, “we could do as we liked and laugh about it and boast to each other of our conquests.”
“Sometimes I wish—” Elizabeth stopped that line of thought, not sure she approved of where it was leading. “Do you really think me so far gone that I would forget everything and—”
“I don’t know, Lizzy. You sounded so…practiced.”
“I’m not, Charlotte. Spending time in Mr. Wickham’s company gave me a fairly good idea of the pleasures that marriage could bring, but it’s only conjecture, I promise you. He has been a perfect gentleman, not even attempted to steal a kiss. He let me know, of course, that if I were to indicate the least willingness, he would not be averse, but I have been strong.” There was almost a sob at the back of her throat. If Mr. Darcy hadn’t spoiled his prospects, Mr. Wickham would have a living by now and be free to ask her to marry, instead of having to dangle after heiresses. They wouldn’t be rich, but they would live as well as Charlotte and Mr. Collins—and be happy into the bargain.
“Poor Lizzy. Such fortitude.” Charlotte’s voice was bitter. “I wonder what that’s like, to actually wish a man to take liberties.”
“Haven’t you ever wanted anyone?”
“No, I mean, to have a man I wanted be attracted to me. It must be lovely to have to fend off a George Wickham or a Colonel Fitzwilliam. And now Mr. Darcy. No, if I had had three such suitors, even if none of them intended marriage, I doubt I could stomach Mr. Collins either.”
“Oh, Charlotte. It’s just that I’m a little younger, that’s all.”
“Lizzy, it’s all right. I’m not pretty. I never have been. It can’t be helped and you’ve never been insulting about it.”
“Don’t say that. It’s not true. You are lovely—slender and lithe and…Men are so blind. All they want are fat, fair, indolent slugs.”
“That explains why you have so many admirers, Lizzy,” Charlotte said with a laugh at her thin, dark, and lively friend. “You were never a fool. Don’t become one now just because you’ve had your head turned by a rogue in a red coat.”
“It sounds to me,” Elizabeth said, “as if you’re speaking from jealousy.”
“That’s unkind,” Charlotte said. “Most unkind. I have never wished anything for you but what I wished for myself—a good marriage and settlement. You have at least the chance of making a love match.”
Elizabeth felt like the lowest sort of creature. “Charlotte, I wasn’t going to admit this, not even to you, but now I must. Mr. Wickham is no longer courting me, assuming he ever was. He is pursuing a Miss King—so I hear. It seems that although she has freckles and no accomplishments, she does have a fortune of ten thousand pounds. Perhaps I should have swallowed my gorge and taken your Mr.
Collins after all.”
Charlotte exclaimed with proper sympathy, looking only slightly smug. “Ah, Lizzy, you’d never have tolerated him, not for long. It’s just as well things have worked out as they have.”
“I suppose,” Elizabeth said. “So long as you’re content.”
“I am, Lizzy. Truly I am,” Charlotte said in a whisper, although the maid was clattering in the kitchen and they were alone in this part of the house. “It’s only that, right now, it’s very hard for me, having you here, so close and yet out of reach.”
The sadness and longing in her friend’s voice effected the return to compassion, as a discussion of unwanted suitors could not. “I’m not out of reach,” Elizabeth said. “Not at all. I’m right here. See?” She took Charlotte’s hand and brought it to her breast, laying a soft kiss on her friend’s lips.
Charlotte, to Elizabeth’s horror, pushed her hand violently away and stood up, like a girl of twelve pawed by her drunken uncle. “Don’t.”
Elizabeth rose also, trying to control her weeping. She managed to remain silent, but her back shook with sobs.
Charlotte touched Elizabeth’s shoulder, relieved when her friend turned around again and wept in her arms. “I’m sorry, Lizzy. You don’t understand. I have made my choice and there is no having it both ways, not for women. Your Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley may be free to go on enjoying each other’s company after marriage as well as before, but we cannot. Please don’t make me say anything more.”
“But why, Charlotte? It’s not as if—”
“Because marriage is everything for a woman, but only one part of a man’s life. Once we accept a man’s offer, we are his entirely. Despise him how we may, suffer his mistreatment, if our consent was freely given we are wrong to go outside the marriage for any reason.”
“That’s slavery,” Elizabeth said.
“That may be,” Charlotte said, “but it’s the law. He can divorce me for adultery, yet the reverse is not true. And if he chooses to assert his authority over me with the rod or the whip, I must endure it, even to bruises or broken bones.”
Pride / Prejudice Page 17