Later that evening
The servants were set into turmoil as a presentable meal was cobbled together for the Archbishop and his retinue, though served rather later than typical for dinner in the country. Guest rooms were aired and bedding freshened. The crowd from the Hunsford vicarage was invited, including Sir William Lucas, who was prevailed upon to stay for the service of his son-in-law since the highest man of God on earth—absent the King—would perform it.
It had been Sir William’s first inclination to flee the county with his youngest daughter, as if worried that something in all of the recent deaths was of a catching nature. The auspicious character of the officiate for the next day’s funeral was such that Sir William’s stories of his investiture at St. James’s might be eclipsed by new tales, at least for a time.
Because the best drawing room could not be used—given that it housed the corpse of a murderess—the ladies withdrew to the music room and were eventually joined by the men. Mr. Bennet made a considerable study of Elizabeth and judged her withdrawn. When Darcy was not speaking to others, he was as absorbed by staring at Elizabeth as he had ever been, while she appeared to study the pattern on her teacup or the painting over the mantle. Mr. Bennet noticed Elizabeth slowly and somewhat stealthily (to anyone’s eyes but her father’s) following Darcy’s progress around the room, staying near enough to hear his conversations but hanging back from being drawn into them. Mr. Bennet could not like what he saw. Given the friendly terms the two had evidenced that morning, he could only resolve to puzzle out his daughter’s uncharacteristic behaviour later in quiet and solitude. A cot had been erected for him in the book room at the vicarage since the father of the mistress of the house deserved the best bed. Mr. Bennet was well pleased with the arrangements.
Darcy requested a bath before bed, and as he and his valet awaited the footmen with the water, the keeper of the Darcy wardrobe cleared his throat. When his master made no acknowledgment, Stafford repeated the noise at greater volume.
Darcy looked up from idly running a manicure stick under his already immaculate fingernails. “Stafford, are you unwell?”
“No, indeed, sir. I am fit as ever.”
“I fear for your tonsils all the same.”
“If I may, sir?”
Darcy knew his man must have gossip to impart. “I am yours to command, Stafford.”
“It has come from the servants at Hunsford to the servants of Rosings, and thus to me, that a certain gentleman only lately arrived sent an express to Longbourn directly upon your departure from the vicarage this morning.”
Darcy smiled slowly and, he had to own, rather victoriously.
“The maid, Nell, also let it be known that stems of wildflowers were seen tucked into the bodice of one of the Bennet sisters in the afternoon before she changed for dinner. It was the younger, dark-haired one, Miss Elizabeth. The purple orchids were quite noticeable against the lady’s black silk, I am told. She was thought irreverent. Not setting the proper example, it was said.”
Darcy was still laughing when his bath was poured. He settled into the soothing water with Anne’s journal, which Colonel Fitzwilliam, with a leer, had turned over to Darcy for his perusal.
“Mind you,” the colonel had said with a convincing expression of vulgarity, “it will keep you awake. Or perhaps alert. No, a better word is ‘aroused.’ Yes.”
After several pages, Darcy began to feel genuinely discomfited. Anne’s revelations were far more disturbing than appealing. Darcy shivered with distaste for what he was reading. To be naked and discovering the arts and allurements that a man he assumed was Wickham used to coax eagerness from Anne left Darcy disgusted with them both and with his own shameless male member.
When he flung himself into bed, his thoughts turned wanton without his leave. His imagination was too energetic: leaping from purple orchids against smooth skin to suckling at the bosom of a gently moaning bride. Thus, the actions Wickham visited upon his cousin, Darcy imagined performing upon Elizabeth Bennet. If mere musings roused such a mania of passion, Darcy must fear sleeping.
Just before midnight, the Hunsford vicarage
The night air was cool, too cool for the light nightgown Elizabeth wore as she leaned indolently against the window of the room she shared with Jane. She had been overheated the entire evening at Rosings. The sensation grew worse after her brief but sobering introduction and private word with the Archbishop of Canterbury. He knew she would have been a victim of Lady Catherine’s but for some happily timed distraction, and he enquired what her thoughts might have been.
“My dear, were you bewitched by the jewels you have inherited?” His eyes were kindly but not disinterested.
Elizabeth could not lie, for this was a man to whom one should deny nothing, but she was loath to expose herself, even to one bound by God to keep any secret to himself. “The distraction was not in the bedchamber of Miss de Bourgh, Your Grace, but rather, it was something I saw in the hall.”
After looking quizzically at her, the Archbishop’s right eye appeared to twitch as the corners of his mouth rose. “I have toured Rosings, Miss Elizabeth, and can recall nothing remarkable in that part of the house”—his voice dropped—“excepting the portrait of my cousin Fitzwilliam Darcy.” His eye twitched again.
Elizabeth wondered whether it was voluntary; was the Archbishop of Canterbury winking?
Upon remembering their exchange in the dead of night, she was certain her response had been as flimsy as the garment she was wearing. She raised the cowslip she had been playing with to her nose, breathing in the sweet, clean scent. If she pressed some of the flowers, she could keep them in a small box with her letter from Darcy and the pink diamond ring. It would not be enough, but it was all she could expect.
She sighed and breathed in the scent again. No, there could never be enough to sustain her through the long years of spinsterhood ahead, but she had managed to make a friend of him. She was certain Mr. Bingley would offer for Jane, and the newly forged friendship with Mr. Darcy would make the married life of her dear sister easier.
Elizabeth returned to bed and fell asleep with the cowslip held over her heart.
Chapter 16
Two Funerals
Tuesday, 21 April 1812
Darcy and the congregation stood in the Hunsford chapel as the Archbishop progressed up the aisle. Because of the girth of the deceased, Mr. Collins’s eternity box was built around him. The pallbearers, Darcy included in their number, would only be burdened for the brief distance to his grave in the churchyard.
Darcy glared at his cousin, who was at last prevailed upon to behave seriously. He next looked to Bingley, who was, in his turn, watching him with a countenance full of concern. Mr. Bennet was watching the ceremony with a mien of gravity Darcy would not have expected. Darcy could not know his friend and cousin were thinking only of him, and Mr. Bennet’s thoughts were also absent from the proceedings, dwelling instead upon his daughter Elizabeth.
In the rear of the church, townsfolk of both sexes gathered to watch no less a personage than the Archbishop of Canterbury speak honestly, and therefore briefly, of the merits of William Collins. He had been a faithful husband, had mended a breach with his family, and had shown uncommon devotion to his patroness (the lady was not mentioned by name). Beyond this, not much more could be said without either speaking disparagingly of the dead or breaking the limits of truth.
The Archbishop offered a little homily about justice that amused Mr. Bennet, for there were precious few other lessons to be drawn from the life of William Collins. Many of the townsfolk did not understand the connection between the Archbishop’s commentary and the death of their vicar excepting that they knew justice could be swift. This they had learned from years of being subjected to the inexhaustible righteousness of Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
The villagers from Hunsford and the tenants of Ros
ings Park were also keen to observe the man who was now widely known to be Anne de Bourgh’s heir. Much good was generally known of Colonel Fitzwilliam, but speculation circulated swiftly as to whether or how soon he would resign his commission and take up residence in his inherited estate. Or would he spend much of his time in the de Bourgh London establishment hunting for a wife? There was chatter about his connection to one, perhaps even two, of the ladies visiting at the vicarage, but nothing substantial was confirmed.
Therefore, it was an interesting addition to the spectacle when the two Bennet sisters and Mrs. Collins’s young sister arrived in the churchyard to witness the burial. These young ladies wore dark grey gowns and stood with their respective fathers, maintaining demure downcast expressions throughout the traditional burial verses.
It would not have been genteel for the grieving widow to make an appearance. The assemblage could not know Charlotte Collins was humming absently with a light heart as she oversaw the final preparations for the shoulder feast to honour the pallbearers, though half a dozen might suspect her true sentiments.
Mr. Bennet and Sir William Lucas turned away with their daughters and were the first to leave the cemetery. Bingley and the colonel fell in on either side of Darcy for the brief walk to the vicarage after seeing the Archbishop on his way.
Bingley rubbed his shoulder and moved his arm as though discomfited.
“Not made for such work?” the colonel enquired.
“No, nor do I wish to become so. I prefer fencing and riding to lifting weights for exercise. I say, Darcy…” Bingley hesitated. “Might I have a word with you later this afternoon or this evening…soon?”
The colonel leaned around Darcy to add, “Bingley, if you are going to speak of what you mentioned to me earlier, I would join you.”
Darcy stopped. “I must complete the arrangements for our aunt’s burial tomorrow. But it is a simple affair, so perhaps over port this evening?”
“That will suit,” Bingley affirmed. He strode ahead to reach the Bennets.
Darcy glanced at his cousin. “And Bingley’s subject?”
The colonel shook his head. “I shall not speak of it now and will only say that our first thought is to spare you any further dismay, Cousin.” He patted Darcy on the back.
“You make an ominous start for one who will not speak of ‘it,’ whatever ‘it’ might be.”
The colonel only shook his shoulders in an apologetic shrug. “Then I shall distract you with this: George Wickham was the father of Anne’s baby. I have the earlier volume from Mrs. Collins.”
Darcy stopped dead still. He closed his eyes, opened them, and schooled his countenance into its usual sanguinity. “I suspected as much. It all makes perfect sense except for calling him Mr. C.”
“Mr. Charming…”
“Ah. Of course.”
The cousins continued their journey.
“But what you and Bingley have to say is worse than this?” Darcy asked as they neared the fence of the vicarage garden.
“I have said all I shall say for the present.”
The gathering in the Hunsford vicarage was at first a crush. Mr. Collins had been so enamoured of his patroness that he had overlooked the social obligations most vicars and their wives view as part and parcel of their charge as leaders of their Christian flock. Charlotte understood her husband’s failing but had not sought to redress it, assuming instead that the deficiency would sort itself with time. Hence, the great curiosity to see the improvements to the house boasted of by Lady Catherine was no surprise to Charlotte.
Maria and Jane served coffee and tea. Elizabeth assisted Charlotte with greeting guests and seeing to everyone’s comfort, for she had now been in the country some weeks and was generally known as a particular friend of the vicarage household and a pleasant if temporary addition to the neighbourhood.
Most of the townsfolk did not stay above half an hour, enough time to partake of the food, bow to Colonel Fitzwilliam, peer at the lofty Mr. Darcy and his pretty but shy sister, and wonder at the absurd enchantment Mr. Collins had expressed for the rather unexceptional features of the dwelling’s interior. The stairway in the main hall was no more perfectly situated than any stairway in any other home of middling means. The arrangement of the book room at the front of the house merely revealed Mr. Collins had been the busybody they all suspected him to be. Surely, anyone wishing to close themselves up with books would have preferred the lady of the house’s charming sitting room at the rear of the building. Their inquisitiveness slaked, they departed believing that William Collins had been, in truth, as thoroughly pretentious as he had seemed whilst alive.
The Rosings and Hunsford parties were soon left to themselves in the best sitting room. Bingley conversed with Jane as she placed the tea service upon a tray held by Nell. Charlotte and Sir William sat with the colonel and Georgiana. Mr. Bennet was near to them but contributed only the occasional sage nod or sardonic smile. His attention was more involved with the faltering attempts at conversation between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth.
Darcy cleared his throat. “Miss Elizabeth, are you surprised at the curiosity of the villagers?”
“Not at all, sir. I am perhaps most astonished that more of the Rosings tenants did not attend. Surely, they might wonder at how the dowager mistress of Rosings spent the funds they laboured to produce for her. Charlotte said no more than half of them were present.”
“I hope they do not think my cousin will be so unappreciative a taskmaster as was my aunt.”
“That may be, but I believe they did not care for Mr. Collins and wished to avoid the appearance of falsely honouring him in death. More than once, he was heard to admonish them to acquiesce to every demand of her ladyship.”
“I know my aunt was unnecessarily officious in asserting herself into the lives of her tenants. I hope they will see she was an aberration in the family. The trust between master and tenants is a highly valued commodity. Much depends upon it. The Fitzwilliam name will have much to answer for, but the sense and amiability of my cousin will bring it all to rights, especially if he marries well…” Darcy looked at Elizabeth closely, hoping against his own wishes for some indication of her feelings for the colonel.
Elizabeth met Darcy’s questioning gaze without expression then lowered her eyes. “Indeed, to be attached to such a family is not the feather in a lady’s cap it once was, at least for the present. One can say of my family, Mr. Darcy, that whatever our other follies and weaknesses may be, at least there are no murderers in it. No one remarked on Mr. Collins’s buffoonery more than I—excepting perhaps my father—but my cousin did not deserve to die. He was unjustly accused; his judge and jury were not impartial, and they were wholly misinformed.
“And I am not insensible to the great detriment to one’s understanding when one is misinformed and then acts upon falsehoods without first learning the truth.” Elizabeth cleared her throat, which had tightened as she spoke, glanced at her father before venturing to meet Darcy’s sad eyes, and stood to make her excuses.
Neither Darcy nor Mr. Bennet knew what to make of her hasty retreat, but Darcy’s dejected confusion was noticed by Mr. Bennet.
The same day, after dinner, Rosings
Since there were no other ladies in the Rosings party and none included at dinner, Georgiana took the liberty of taking a tray in her rooms, leaving the men to themselves. Thus, Darcy, Bingley, and Colonel Fitzwilliam were still at the table in the family dining room, blessedly far removed from the small summer breakfast parlour, when the butler, knowing the men to be idle, brought the evening post.
Both Bingley and the colonel were quietly relieved to put off their discussion with Darcy for a few moments longer and welcomed the distraction. As the new master of the manor, the colonel was handed the salver, and he sorted the letters to their recipients. Bingley had a letter from Caroline, forwarded from
the Hursts’ London residence. She was not yet aware of his location, only that he was somewhere with Darcy. He read her scolding with amusement, recalling the great sensation of liberation that had accompanied Darcy’s original offering of an alternative to Bath.
Darcy had a letter from his steward urging his master northward for the spring planting, hiding his concern under a carefully worded veneer of politeness. The second letter he read was from Mrs. Annesley and elicited a more energetic response.
“Bloody hell! Damn the woman!” Darcy was on his feet.
Bingley and the colonel waited in shock for an explanation.
“From Mrs. Annesley. It is her resignation.” Darcy began to read as he paced. “It has come to my attention that some evil tendencies dwell in the Fitzwilliam family, and a lady in my position cannot be too careful of her reputation. The news of the crimes of Lady Catherine de Bourgh to murder a man of the cloth and the questionable death of her daughter, with whom I had understood Mr. Darcy to be betrothed, lead me to sever my connection with Miss Georgiana. I apologise for the necessarily precipitous nature of my actions, but I have found another situation and shall be removed from Miss Darcy’s establishment in London well before her return.”
The colonel huffed in anger. “I suppose this is what we are to expect now with the gossip spreading faster than our steeds can gallop. My father writes he will not join us for the burial and will not wear an armband. How will that look?” He waved the fine paper held in his hand.
“I suppose it will be impossible to find a new companion for Georgiana. If only…” Darcy stopped himself. If only Elizabeth had accepted me, Georgie would have an estimable sister and no need for a companion.
A Will of Iron Page 17