by Meg Osborne
“I like it,” Anne said, firmly. “It is so long since I had young women of my age to associate with that I am quite jealous of you and Mary. Imagine, a house full of sisters, and a built-in group of friends! It must be heavenly.”
“Hmmm!” Elizabeth laughed again. “My dear Anne, if I thought your mother would permit it, I would invite you to visit Longbourn, so that you might see how misinformed you are on the nature of sisters. In fact, you will see for yourself on the day of Mary and Colonel Fitzwilliam’s wedding. Alas, I love my sisters dearly, but to call them kindred spirits would be to be generous indeed.”
Anne smiled, acquiescing to Lizzy’s point in the absence of any experience of her own to draw upon. The pair sat quietly together for a moment more, until Lizzy stood.
“Might I press you to walk a few steps with me?”
Anne shook her head.
“I am quite content here, thank you, but please do go and enjoy your walk. If I am still here on your return I will go into the house with you. The sun is so warm for the time of year, and the flowers so beautiful that I am loathed to leave them.”
Elizabeth nodded, bidding her friend goodbye, and continued on her walk. She darted a glance over her shoulder and saw Anne pull a scrap of paper from her reticule. Another letter? She smiled. No wonder Anne wishes for solitude in which to read it. She felt a flicker of danger, wondering whether she ought to confess her suspicions to her friend, and better counsel her against such behaviour. It was unwise, to exchange letters with a man when there was as yet no agreement in place to their courtship or future marriage. Yet what other option do they have? she reasoned. Lady Catherine would never permit any connection between them, particularly if she intends Anne to wed Mr Darcy. Her only hope is to reason with her mother once Mr Darcy is married. Then there can be no alternative, and Lady Catherine will surely bow to her daughter’s wishes in order to see her happy, even if it is not what she might have chosen. Even as she thought the words, she acknowledged their difficulty. Lady Catherine was like Mrs Bennet, but, if it were possible, with still firmer will, and Anne was not bold enough to withstand her, she had admitted as much. Well, then we must help her, Mr Darcy and I. I am sure he wishes to see his cousin happy.
So decided, she was free to enjoy her walk, and found her steps winding towards the walled garden that Mr Darcy had shown her so recently. She recalled their conversation then, the stilted way he had spoken. Had he intended on proposing, even then? That might explain his agitation. Elizabeth felt a flicker of delight in her stomach and tried to quell it. It is a business arrangement, recall. He said as much. You are merely getting swept up in thought of romance where there is none.
Her silent lecture was somewhat effective, and her excitement had settled into a vague sense of expectation, as she entered the small garden. It was only when she realised the garden was not deserted that her nerves rose once more. The garden’s occupant recognised her at the same time she recognised him, and there was a mutual exclamation of surprise that was not unhappy.
“Mr Darcy!” Elizabeth cried.
“Miss Elizabeth, I did so hope we might speak again before the day was out. Have you had any more time to consider my question? Please, do not imagine me to be pressing you to a conclusion, I am merely curious -”
His manner suggested this was not entirely true. “Curious” did not begin to explain the anxious way he walked towards her, or the frown that darkened his already fierce expression. He was in such a state of agitation that Elizabeth thanked Mary silently once more for her counsel. Without it, she, too, would be as unsettled as the man before her, she felt certain. Yet in his case, she possessed, with a few short words, the ability to ease his anxiety.
“Yes, Mr Darcy, I have made my decision.” She drew in a short breath, her heart pounding a staccato against her chest. “I accept your proposal.”
Chapter Fourteen
Colonel Fitzwilliam had been sitting in the parlour with Lady Catherine in comfortable silence when Mary joined them. She was easily pressed into playing, and Richard was amused to see the smile tugging at her lips as she pondered a particularly happy secret.
This picture of contentment would only remain undisturbed for an hour more, before the door flew open to admit Darcy and Elizabeth, both smiling and, Richard noticed with interest, scarcely willing to part from one another for more than a moment.
“Fitzwilliam!” Lady Catherine exclaimed. “What possessed you to rush into the room like that? See, you have startled poor Mary out of playing.”
Richard glanced over at his bride and thought it entirely likely that “poor Mary” was delighted to cease from playing to allow the news she evidently anticipated to be shared. Richard, too, drew his conclusions and had already stood and crossed the room to shake Darcy's hands before his cousin had uttered the words.
“Miss Bennet has consented to be my wife, Aunt. Will you congratulate us?”
There was a sharp intake of breath from Lady Catherine, but it was ably disguised by the rejoicing of both Richard and Mary, who hurried from her seat at the piano to Elizabeth's side, throwing her arms around her sister.
“It is settled then?” Richard asked, looking carefully at his cousin. Darcy, for his part, seemed more relaxed and happy than he could ever recall seeing him, and could barely contain the smile that lifted his features.
“It is.” He turned towards Elizabeth and his smile was muted somewhat. “We spoke this morning, and again this afternoon in the garden, and I know that Mr and Mrs Bennet already approve the match.”
“You do?” Elizabeth turned a questioning glance towards him. “You did not tell me as much!”
“I wished to determine your parents’ position before putting the question to you,” he confessed. “But as your father reminded me in no uncertain terms, their endorsement would have little influence on your decision, so I did not wish to speak of it before now.”
Elizabeth’s own smile grew.
“You spoke to my father?”
“I did.” Darcy’s chest lifted in pride. He dropped his voice to murmur that only their small group might catch. “He was more than happy to accept an alternative to the marriage orchestrated by your mother. You must write to him, Elizabeth, and repair any damage to your relationship.”
Elizabeth nodded, looking at Darcy as if she did not quite recognise him.
“Well, I am delighted with this news!” Richard said again, reaching for Mary’s hand. “To think, when I came to Hertfordshire we were both of us bachelors, and now look! How quickly life can change.”
There was a harrumph from behind them, and the group parted, each young person turning to look at Lady Catherine.
“I am glad one of us is “delighted”, Richard,” she said, drawing herself up slowly to her full height. “I cannot say the same of my own feelings.” She glared, first at Darcy and then at Elizabeth. Her voice dropped dangerously low, and Richard found himself unconsciously shifting so that he was a little in front of Mary, as if he were protecting her from a dragon and not his own aunt. At this moment, I am lost to determine the difference! he thought, with a desperate flicker of amusement.
“The marriage cannot happen,” Lady Catherine said, firmly. “Or have you forgotten your position, Fitzwilliam?”
“On the contrary, I am most aware of it,” Darcy countered. “Both Elizabeth and I are children of gentlemen, neither of us is otherwise engaged, there is no obstacle I can see that will prevent us from marrying.”
“No obstacle?!” Lady Catherine screeched. “And what, pray, do you call your own cousin? You and Anne have been betrothed since childhood - that is as binding as any engagement might be.”
“I beg to differ, Aunt,” Darcy said, deference giving way to irritation. Richard glanced back at him, surprised to see his well-mannered cousin already reacting with such anger towards the woman he usually treated with such respect. He could not fault him, for Lady Catherine's objections, though not surprising, were nonetheless not to succ
eed.
“Neither Anne nor I wish to marry one another. We never have, and no amount of engineering on your part will force it to happen. I have made my choice.” He reached for Elizabeth's hand, and after half a moment's hesitation, she offered it. The hesitation did not escape Richard's attention. There was some edge, still, to their interaction. Could it merely be nerves? They seemed happy with their decision to marry, indeed, but there was not quite the expression of affection he had imagined, nor the ease of being together that had settled over him and Mary the instant their engagement was agreed.
Lady Catherine said nothing at first, yet a riot of emotion played across her features as she clearly debated how best to respond.
“I am not surprised,” she said, at length. “It seemed apparent to me that Miss Bennet is a most conniving individual, and, not content with breaking my curate’s heart with her flighty ways, has proceeded to ensnare you, Fitzwilliam.” She glared at him with disdain. “Frankly, I thought you more intelligent than this.”
“There, again, you are misguided, Aunt,” Darcy’s voice was low, dangerously quiet. “Elizabeth has done nothing to ensnare me, indeed, if either one of us had to persuade it was the other way around. I posed the question, quite unexpectedly. If you must be angry at either of us, it must be me.”
Lady Catherine gasped, then turned and stalked out of the room. The door barely closed behind her before the group could hear a theatrical stream of sobs coming from her retreating figure.
“Well,” Richard said, turning back to his cousin. “We escaped with our skins. I think she took it rather well.”
He shrugged off the murderous glare Darcy shot him and turned to Mary, guiding her back towards a seat, and gesturing to Darcy and Elizabeth to follow.
“Now, let us talk details. When shall you marry? Where? I hardly think poor Mr Collins willing or able to conduct such a service. Not when his patroness is so vehemently opposed.”
Elizabeth’s upright posture sagged, then, and he hurried to reassure her.
“Yet you need not fret. Darcy is well positioned enough that you might marry anywhere. Surely a special licence would not be too difficult to obtain?”
“No, indeed,” Darcy said. “And I think it the wisest course of action.”
“Ought I -” Elizabeth faltered. “Ought I to leave?”
“No!”
“Definitely not!”
“Oh, Lizzy, please stay!”
A chorus of voices stilled her in this suggestion before she had even fully made it.
“It is but a few days until our wedding,” Richard commented. “Surely we might all ride out the storm until then. Then, once you have seen your family, you might decide where best to remove to.”
“BUT A FEW DAYS” WAS scarcely to be endured, when Lady Catherine de Bourgh was against you, as Elizabeth soon found out. She kept to her room as much as possible, prevented from the glorious outdoors by the torrential rain that began that very evening and continued, unabated, for two days straight. Meals, however, were not to be avoided, although Lady Catherine took the first few in her room and was, as she relayed via her servants, “far too unwell to take more than a morsel of food, and certainly did not wish to see anybody.”
Had it not been for Anne, Elizabeth would have fled Rosings before the end of the day that she and Mr Darcy had announced their engagement. As it was, she felt uncomfortably as if she were outstaying her welcome.
“Nonsense!” Anne had dismissed her out of hand. “You are not to go anywhere, at least not until your family come. It’s only a few days more and we are all so very pleased to have you.” There was a thump from overhead, the sound of Lady Catherine grumpily rearranging her room, which she had done on an almost daily basis, as a way of showing her displeasure without having to actually be in the same room as Elizabeth.
If Elizabeth's response to Lady Catherine's reaction had been to falter, Darcy's was to hold ever firmer to their plan.
“I shall not be dictated to,” he insisted. “She has held the spectre of a marriage I did not wish for over my head for more than half my life: I certainly shall not abandon my own wishes merely to appease her.”
“Your own wishes?” Elizabeth turned his own words back upon him. “You said yourself it is but a business arrangement. Is any arrangement worth damaging one’s family?”
“Did you consider the fate of your family when you flatly refused to marry Mr Collins?”
They were walking, as had become their tradition, despite the weather. Whenever there was a break in the rain, Elizabeth wished to be out of doors and away from the ministrations of Lady Catherine. Darcy had accompanied her on her first venture, evidently fearing she might do some injury to life or limb, with the agitation which compelled her into motion. Since then it had, much to Elizabeth's surprise, become the favourite part of her day.
“You know I did!” Lizzy protested. “But the situation is hardly the same. My family lamented me rejecting a marriage, yours wishes you would.”
“I cannot reject what I have first sought,” Darcy maintained. “No, Aunt Catherine will relent in time. In any case, it is not as if I am jilting my cousin to marry you. Neither one of us wished for the wedding. I rather fancy my own mother would have objected the union, had she lived long enough to know of it.” Darcy grimaced. He had explained to Elizabeth how often Lady Catherine had held the memory of his mother over his head, as a compelling force in directing his activities. He had begun to wonder, of late, whether any of the wishes Lady Catherine attributed to the late Anne Darcy had indeed originated with his mother, or whether they were Lady Catherine's wishes only, given additional legitimacy with the invocation of Darcy’s mother’s name.
“Perhaps she sees Anne alone, and you and Colonel Fitzwilliam both matched,” Lizzy began. She had long wished to raise the issue of Anne's secret romance with Mr Darcy, yet still feared what his response might be. Whilst she could appreciate the romance of keeping such a liaison secret, and the necessity of doing so, when faced with Lady Catherine de Bourgh, but she rather fancied Darcy would not view the matter so sympathetically.
“Yet Anne does not want for company,” Darcy said, with a philosophical shrug. “In truth, she values her solitude, as do I. No, that cannot be it. It is merely her dislike of anyone or anything disrupting her plans.” He grinned, and Elizabeth felt a sudden realisation that she rather liked this rebellious side to the usually upstanding Mr Darcy. “Well, we need not endure it much longer: tomorrow your parents and sisters arrive, and Mary and my cousin will marry, and thence to the north. We might accompany them, if you wish? I shall arrange for a special licence. How would you like to marry at Pemberley?”
Pemberley. The word was still something of a talisman to Elizabeth. She knew little of the place, although Darcy had at last been pressed to afford her some description. He spoke logically, gentlemanly, of acreages and maintenance and land value. He told her next to nothing of what she truly wished to know: the history of the place. Some description of its interiors, a picture she might hold on to before seeing the place for herself.
“Georgiana will be there, of course,” Darcy continued.
Elizabeth's ears pricked up. “Your sister? Oh, I rather fear she will not think me suitable for her brother.”
“Nonsense!” Darcy scoffed. “If anything, she will think me unsuitable for you.”
“Will she know the - the true nature of our agreement?”
Darcy did not falter for a moment.
“I am yet to write, but shall do so this afternoon, in advance of our journeying there. She will no doubt be glad to hear of my marrying, for she, like many other women in my life, wish only to see me “settled”. He grimaced. “As if I could not have achieved such a state as a single man.”
There was a wistful note in his voice that Elizabeth fancied suggested that, despite his bravado, he, too, felt the impossibility of such a thing.
“I shall be glad to see Jane again,” Elisabeth remarked, as they turned a
corner and began their journey back towards the house. “I wrote to inform her of the news, as you know, although she is, at present, sworn to secrecy.”
“And will she manage such a thing?” Darcy’s voice was light, teasing, but Elizabeth leapt on him.
“My sister is the very soul of discretion!”
“Of this particular sister, I will indeed agree. She is undoubtedly the most sensible, excluding Mary and yourself, of course.” He paused. “You did not write to inform your mother of the news?”
Elizabeth groaned.
“Had I done so, we would have heard the shrieks even from Longbourn. No, Mr Darcy, you must witness her rapture first-hand, when we tell them tomorrow.”
“I wait with anticipation,” he grumbled, in a tone of voice that suggested he could think of few fates he less wished for himself or any other.
“Our families notwithstanding,” Elizabeth ventured, after a few moments of quiet progress. “You do not regret our plan?”
“I do not,” Mr Darcy insisted. “I know you might have preferred the sweeping romance of some novel, but might security and companionship be balm enough, in its absence?”
Elizabeth nodded, although her heart sank a little at his matter-of-fact tone of voice. She had become swept up in the idea of marriage - and marriage to Mr Darcy. She had begun, oh so very slightly, to imagine it a marriage not of convenience, but of choice - of his choosing her, and she him. When she looked at him, she could not help but appreciate the handsome line of his features, the way his dark eyes contained multitudes of feelings he did not often share, and rendered all the more important when he did, as he had begun to do on these walks of theirs. She began to appreciate him more, and look forward to their life together. But I do not love him, she reminded herself. If we might be friends and spend our life together contentedly, that is more than I might have hoped for, either with Mr Collins or no man at all by my side. As Mrs Elizabeth Darcy she would have status and consequence, - and an aunt who despised her.