Pride / Prejudice

by Ann Herendeen

  Elizabeth stood before her friend, speechless with horror. Now she was seeing the unvarnished picture of marriage, the shining Holy Grail of every innocent young woman’s quest.

  Charlotte let an impish smile return. “Besides—how does one endure maggoty beef and sour milk after feasting on cakes and ale? How can I return to his bed if—”

  Elizabeth giggled through her tears. “Oh, I do see that. More like rancid butter and game that’s hung too long, though, don’t you think?” She paused before asking, “Did you say you thought you might be breeding?”

  Charlotte lowered her eyes. “I’m hopeful, but it’s too early to tell. He’ll have to leave me alone then, but until I’m sure we must keep trying. The only way for us both to get what we want.”

  Mr. Collins, bustling in a few minutes later, found his wife and her friend in the back room as usual. He stared, uncertain as to what seemed off in some way, or out of place—heads bent close over needlework in the fading daylight—and had that been a sob or more of a gasp?—but his attention soon returned to more important matters. “You will be delighted to know,” he said in his preaching voice, “that we have again been favored with an invitation to Rosings.”

  As his heavy tread receded along the corridor, Charlotte murmured, “Won’t Mr. Darcy be delighted!”

  COLONEL FITZWILLIAM HAD at first merely been indulging in the standard raillery between men on learning that a friend’s interest was caught by a particular woman, but as he saw his cousin’s behavior over the next week or so, in modest gatherings at the parsonage and in the more formal setting of Rosings, he began to take in the reality. Darcy, always in command of his every action, whose wit shone in company, was so quiet, saying little and with a peculiar, vacant smile on his face, that the colonel had to shoulder the burden of the conversation. Not that it was so very heavy. The lady was every bit the paragon his cousin claimed. She was not beautiful, but her finely drawn features were so animated and her slight form so feminine and graceful, it was difficult even to address the required few polite remarks to the other inhabitants of the room. Her presence overshadowed everything around her—all this, without any deliberate attempt to dominate, and with a modesty and humor that both mocked and flattered her admirers.

  “It’s a damned shame, Miss Bennet’s situation, when you think of it,” Fitz exclaimed with force during another of their evening strolls. “A damned shame.”

  “How so?” the colonel asked.

  Fitz recited more or less the same speech he had given at the Brotherhood, describing the entire Bennet family and enumerating their various sins. “It’s the mother, really,” he said in conclusion. “While ultimately the responsibility for any family’s conduct lies with its head—the father—almost all of the evils in this instance stem from her ignorance and vulgarity. What makes it so abominable for Elizabeth is not only her superior intellect and her refinement, but that she’s so painfully aware of her mother’s failings. My God! When I recall how the woman talked of subjects no lady would dare to mention in polite society, in terms no person of breeding, man or woman, would use. And how valiantly the daughter worked to disguise it all, to dress it up in better form or change the subject. All without committing the opposite and equal offense, of appearing to contradict a parent or treat her with disrespect. It must seem like endless, excruciating torture for her, a swan trapped among carrion crows.”

  The colonel raised an eyebrow. “Miss Bennet does not appear especially oppressed.”

  “That’s just it,” Fitz said. “She endures it all, but is not diminished by it. I was certain she could not have spent her entire life in such deprivation, and must have had the benefit of a town education, but she denies it.”

  After a long silence, the colonel resumed the conversation in a somber tone. “You will receive a word or two of advice without biting my head off?”

  “Why should I? Go ahead, man.”

  The colonel looked worriedly into his cousin’s face. “Be careful, Darcy. I don’t think you really see her. You see her in the way you’d like to.”

  “What the devil do you mean?”

  “Forgive me, but I’m going to speak frankly now. I think you’re in love, probably for the first time in your life. And you don’t have the least idea of how to proceed.”

  “I assure you I have no improper intentions.”

  “For God’s sake, Darcy, I should think not.” The colonel felt outrage building in him at the mere thought of the lovely, innocent Miss Bennet, overwhelmed by his cousin’s admittedly fine form and handsome face, his fortune, and his high position in society, accepting an indecent arrangement. He thought of her strong character, knew his imaginings were absurd. He laughed to cover his discomfort. “No, I know you better than that. But my guess is you don’t even comprehend how critical it is with you. How much longer are you planning to stay here—another week?”

  “Just about.”

  “Well, my advice is, don’t do anything rash,” the colonel said. “Whatever your feelings, she’s not in love with you.”

  “Yet you see how she behaves with me.” Fitz shook his head. “All propriety, nothing coarse, but you remember I spoke of an understanding between us? It’s even stronger now. When we walk together in the park, or I call at the parsonage, sometimes we say very little, but there’s no constraint, no sense of awkwardness.”

  “It may simply be that she doesn’t care to exert herself if you won’t.”

  “Ah, but she does exert herself when she has an audience. She never wastes an opportunity to tease me in public,” Fitz said, that same smug smile on his face the colonel had seen at Miss Bennet’s first visit to Rosings.

  “I agree, as far as that goes,” the colonel said. Miss Bennet did tease his cousin a great deal, far more than himself, for which he felt a strange mix of gratitude, in awe of her sharp wit, and disappointment, knowing she would never waste her abilities on anyone she considered unworthy, or unable to stand up to her enfilading fire. “But I don’t see love there, or any pronounced partiality. I’m sorry, Darcy. If I thought for a minute she returned your regard, I would be giving you very different advice.”

  “Are you certain it’s not envy speaking?”

  “It most certainly is envy,” the colonel said. “But it doesn’t change my observations. Still, if you like, I’ll sound her out, discreetly of course, and let you know what she says.”

  “Military interrogation, colonel?” Fitz said.

  “Nothing of the sort,” the colonel said. “Merely a directed conversation, as we say.”

  “Oh, she’ll hold up,” Fitz said. “I’ll wager you a pony she won’t break.”

  FITZ SAW IT at last, the solution to her problems—and his. Should he tell his cousin? He thought not. Not yet. The colonel had already reported the results of his “interrogation,” for some reason choosing to dwell on yet another instance of Elizabeth’s obsession with her sister’s thwarted acquaintance with Charles.

  “Nearly found you out, Darcy,” he said. “Asked a great many pointed questions about your Mr. Bingley. All I could do to act as if I didn’t know the particulars. Do me a favor, will you? The next time you meddle in some poor woman’s affairs, have the kindness to keep the sordid details to yourself.”

  No, just because the man commanded a good regiment and wore a smart red coat and had whored around for the past fifteen years didn’t mean he knew anything more about an incomparable like Elizabeth Bennet than Fitz did.

  He went over it in his head, just to make sure. All the flirtatious, witty remarks and gibes that proved she recognized in him her equal, her chosen mate. Strange how he could recall every conversation, word for word, from the first moment of their meeting, yet in her presence he was as dumb and stupid as a backward schoolboy. He supposed it was the way of love. But she showed no such infirmity. No doubt it was a man’s weakness, and perhaps she suffered from a very different ailment peculiar to women.

  The comment about poetry killing off all bu
t the strongest of loves. “If it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination,” she had said, during that revealing visit of her mother and sisters to Netherfield, “I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.” That had been his first intimation that she was more than just a bright, pretty girl, but someone who might conceivably comprehend him, share his tastes and his preferences. How could she know his detestation of all the modern drivel unless she felt it too?

  And then there was her pleasure in dancing and music, in walking and in reading, the Greek ideal of the health of the body and the mind, neither one to take precedence at the expense of the other. She had scoffed at Miss Bingley’s ill-natured remark that she preferred reading to any other pastime. She understood intuitively, not having enjoyed the benefit of a classical education, the sound principle of nothing to excess. The way she had compared Fitz’s reluctance to extend himself in company to her own lack of diligence at practicing on the pianoforte. That was the clincher. She wouldn’t say such a thing to him if she didn’t intend the underlying implication as well as the literal meaning. She was too perceptive to say things and be unaware of the connotations.

  She flirted but she was not a tease. She laughed but she was not cruel. She mocked, but with the smooth, neat cut of a scalpel, leaving a clean wound, rather than the pulpy mess of a surgeon’s saw, and nothing she said was untrue, at least as it appeared from her perspective. The way she always harked back to Wickham. Now that was an irritation. And hinting about her sister, as if Fitz had done something wrong there, when he had clearly only helped his friend out of a difficult situation. But she would come to see Fitz’s side of things, once they were engaged and he could open his heart to her.

  He had acted rightly. Charles could never stand up to that family. But it had at last occurred to Fitz that he could. My God, since when did he give a tinker’s damn about a bunch of pushy, vulgar provincials? He’d like to see the woman who could face him down. That bawd of a mother would melt like an April snowfall as soon as he directed the full force of his scorn at her.

  Lord, what an exhausting, constant battle Elizabeth must have to wage, maintaining her dignity among that flock of scavengers and drabs. No wonder she was so slender and ate so heartily.

  No, Charles was well out of it. But poor Elizabeth…Not “poor” as in pitiable. There was no woman one felt less sorry for than she. But she did need rescuing, the more so because she didn’t repine and look downhearted, but laughed and jousted her way through life as if she were the only daughter of a wealthy peer, with all prospects before her, instead of…He spared a sigh for her hopeless circumstances and a sad shake of the head at her courage.

  Well, this was where Fitz could step in. He would lay it all before her, his scruples and his doubts, because she would know he was lying if he proclaimed a love that had simply sprung fully formed, like Athena out of Zeus’s forehead, with no birth pangs or struggles. And he would present to her all the advantages he was offering, just in the event she hadn’t had it drummed into her from all the mercenary talk in Hertfordshire. It was always a good idea to show himself in the best light. He had made a wretched job of it so far, knocked off course as he had been by seeing her clear in all her starry luster, no longer in partial eclipse from the shrouding presence of her family.

  How grateful she would be! He lay in bed longer than usual, allowing himself a shameful long moment of indecent pleasure, imagining the extent of her gratitude and the manner in which she would express it. Fitz would tell her, No my love, that is not appropriate between husband and wife, but she would insist in her charming, stubborn way, and he would give in, let her do it, just a little. Not all the way, not to the extent of coming in her mouth…

  He opened his eyes and swore as he soiled the sheets and his nightshirt. Probably the maid would give a detailed report to his aunt on everything, right down to the very condition of the bed linens.

  Damn it all, what did it matter? Wasn’t that the point? He was Fitzwilliam Darcy, with ten thousand pounds a year, the master of the richest estate in Derbyshire, and he could do as he pleased. He could certainly please himself about marriage, Lady Catherine or no Lady Catherine.

  If she said a word to him he’d tell her just what he thought of her offensive manners and her pathetic, sickly daughter. Trying to fob off an invalid wife on a healthy, vigorous man like him. That would shut her up. And he would bring Elizabeth back to finish out her visit here, at Rosings, as his betrothed. He let loose again, another long white string, thinking of her here, in his room, at night, permissible because they were to be married.

  He jumped up and called for his man. He must bathe and dress quickly and eat breakfast on the run. He was going to propose to the lady of his choice.

  Fifteen

  THE PEN BIT into the paper so hard it tore a large jagged hole and lodged itself in the blotting paper beneath like a knife in a butcher’s block. “Damn it!” Fitz said. “God damn it!”

  Colonel Fitzwilliam, passing in the corridor, crept by the doorway unheard and unseen.

  Fitz took another sheet of paper and began again. This time the writing came out heavy and ink-splattered, but legible. He pressed on, finding the words poured out of him effortlessly when telling of Wickham’s deceit, however distasteful the subject and unfit for a lady’s eyes. Paradoxically, what should have been easy—explaining about Charles and how Fitz had not thought Jane really in love—was far more difficult. He got over that as quickly as possible and concentrated on answering the greater charge, of mistreatment of his foster brother.

  Her accusation ran in his head, over and over. Had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner. All because of “poor Mr. Wickham.”

  Fitz ground his teeth, remembering. So long ago. Years. And still he could see it all, seared into his memory. Christ, Fitz, you’re such a gentleman. You think you’re God’s gift, don’t you?

  The large barn at Pemberley. George naked to the waist and his breeches around his knees, lying facedown in the straw but twisting the top half of his body around to smile up at Fitz behind him. Fitz had finished now, spent and limp, and lay partly on top of his beloved, an arm around his smooth shoulders, the bony, hairless chest. Fitz wondered if George had grown any hair in the five and more years since.

  “Do you love me too?” Fitz asked. He had been crying it into George’s neck as he made love to him—a boy’s passion that had matured and strengthened into a man’s. “I love you, I love you.”

  George lifted his bowed head and turned to look up at Fitz. “Love you? Are you really that stupid, Darcy? Do you honestly think I’d put up with all this swiving and sweating for love? God, you’re an imbecile. But generous. I’ll give you that.”

  Fitz hadn’t had an inkling. Not one suspicion. Had he? All those years, from boyhood on into early manhood. All the whippings and the scoldings, the sad, stern lectures from his father. “Fitzwilliam, I am disappointed in you yet again. I continue to believe you are not wholly bad, not irredeemable, that reformation is still possible, but sometimes I am close to despair.”

  It had started out so innocently. A stolen apple or two from a farmer’s orchard; a broken window from playing baseball too close to the house; the bird shot out of season when they were testing Fitz’s new fowling piece. And always George used the same argument—that he was but the steward’s son, forever dependent on the favor of his benefactor. The least sign of bad character, even a boyish prank, could be used as reason to relegate him to his rightful lowly position. He could be beaten or severely chastised, perhaps even sent away, but Fitz, son and heir, could confess to the crimes with no real consequences. “He’s your dad,” George said, deliberately talking like one of the farmhands, emphasizing the distance in their stations, even though his father had been a gentleman and George had been educated the same as Fitz. “You’ll get off easy.”

  At first George had been correct. Old Mr. Darcy had reprimanded them and read them sermons, but he had seen nothing so very wrong i
n hungry boys plucking apples from a branch overhanging the orchard wall, or in a high-spirited ballgame. The incident with the fowling piece had been another matter. “Nobody hits a partridge by accident,” he’d said. “I thought you were old enough to handle firearms responsibly. Seems I was mistaken.” He had whipped Fitz himself for that, and taken the piece away for six months. They’d missed the entire shooting season.

  But George always made it up to Fitz. That first time, when they were but twelve and thirteen, Fitz had been so unbelieving and ecstatic at the realization of what he had dreamed about for the entire past year as an impossible, unobtainable hope, he’d have committed murder for the chance—the merest chance—of being granted a repetition of the favor. And each time, George barely had to hint at what he expected from Fitz—and what he was prepared to offer in return. Nothing coarse or crude, only the half smile, the lowered eyes, the expression of remorse and the glimpse of tears if Fitz seemed about to balk.

  Then, as they grew older, the crimes became more serious. Stolen money, poaching, and last and worst of all, what had almost got Fitz disowned—the trouble with the cotter’s wife. Fitz still felt sick when he thought of it. George had been sneaking off every afternoon to some mysterious rendezvous. Unlike their other adventures, he wouldn’t let Fitz share in this or even tell him what it was. “Just a little sport,” he said when Fitz asked.

  “I like sport too,” Fitz said, smiling shyly at the reference to their usually unspoken pleasures. “You know I’m not jealous, Wick, but can’t you at least let me come along?”

  “Not your sort of thing, Fitz,” George said, spitting for emphasis like the laborers he emulated. “Just be my eyes and ears, will you?”

  God, he’d been naïve. It hadn’t crossed his mind that George would want a woman. Ladies, that he could understand, but for boys their age ladies were as out of reach as the High Impures maintained in their own establishments by London’s wealthy libertines.