Sufficient Encouragement: A Pride and Prejudice Variation (When Love Blooms Book 1)

by Rose Fairbanks

  “A letter from Miss Bingley and others from our aunts that I have not read yet.”

  William smiled just a bit. “You should get to them. I believe you will find them most amusing.”

  “How so?”

  “It seems Richard is engaged, and Lady Catherine is probably full of the usual words about how I must honour my duty to marry well, all in reference to Anne.”

  “Arlington is determined not to have her?”

  “In his mind, the arrangement is what cost him Claire, and after over a decade of resistance, he is unlikely to give in.”

  Georgiana nodded. “What is this about Richard? Is he actually marrying, or has Aunt Eleanor simply found another perfect match for him?”

  “Both!” The smile returned, and Georgiana was pleased to see it. It was the most animated he had been in a week. “She dragged him to a dinner with Lady Belinda while we were…” He trailed off, and the smile disappeared.

  Georgiana ached for her brother. He could not even bear to say the name of the county they were in.

  “Away,” he finished at last. “She and her parents were guests of the Matlocks on Christmas Eve. He had been immediately smitten at their first meeting weeks ago. I did not say anything to you because Richard believed nothing could come of it. I have not had a letter from him yet on how it came about, but he proposed on Christmas Eve under the mistletoe. Our aunt is planning a lavish wedding already. They will return to London tomorrow and will be holding an engagement dinner soon.”

  “Oh my! Well, our aunt must be proud of herself! A son engaged at last and to the lady she had long wanted as a daughter.” William nodded. “Anything else?”

  “I believe Bingley will be arriving soon. That is all I could make out from his letter.”

  Georgiana smiled. “If only there were small printing presses available for personal correspondence!” Gathering up her letters, she stood. “I will go to my chambers to read mine and reply.” Before leaving, she kissed her brother’s cheek. “It will get better,” she said.

  “How do you know that?” he asked while scowling.

  “It is what you told me after Ramsgate, and you were correct.”

  She would have said more about how he still had a chance with Lizzy but knew he did not want to hear that again. She silently exited and hoped for patience.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Darcy growled in frustration as the words and numbers before his eyes blurred. His eyes would not focus; they were too strained from constant work. His back ached from hunching over his desk. Tossing aside his pen, he reached for his cup of coffee and grimaced at the taste. Cold coffee was his abhorrence. Hearing the clock chime midnight, he considered tossing another log on the fire and trimming his lamp to continue working through the night, but it was no use. One week of separation, and continual activity and work had done nothing to lessen the pain he felt at Elizabeth’s refusal.

  This time a week ago, he confidently planned his encounter with Elizabeth. He would honour her request to know about his dispute with Wickham. It was not something he would speak with many about. He had known Bingley for years before he told him anything about his experiences with the cad. She would understand how much he respected, trusted, and cared for her. Instead, he fulfilled only his own selfish impulses by kissing her, and his brain was in too much of a fog to think coherently.

  He felt as though he had been living in an eternal nightmare since she refused him. For Georgiana’s sake alone, he went through the motions of life. He could not be angry at Elizabeth, though. Perhaps she had planned with Wickham to entrance him—he could not know for sure—but the fault was his. If he had never sought to interfere with Bingley’s life… If he had told her about Wickham earlier…

  He had thought only of himself countless times in their acquaintance. He considered at first only how her connections and position in life would affect him. He had not considered at all how she would feel in his world of heartless vultures whom he despised. He considered only saving his friend from a marriage based on a fickle choice. Once he realised his actions were unwarranted, he never considered how Elizabeth would have perceived them. One of his primary concerns about Bingley’s attachment to Jane was the shortness of its duration. It had not even occurred to him before proposing that he had known Elizabeth for an equally short amount of time. He had not trusted her with the truth about Wickham when he knew the man was up to no good and had known of her curious nature. He had wanted to preserve his pride. Now he realised that to fall in love was to lose all pretension and assuredness.

  Resigning himself to another sleepless night of misery, he lit a candle and extinguished the lamp at his desk. After his father’s death five years ago, he found comfort in routine. He would go to his club on the morrow because that is how he passed Friday mornings. Blessedly, it would be nearly empty as it was still the holiday season. Then he would sit in the drawing room while Georgiana played the newest pianoforte piece she had worked to perfect this week. His aunt had sent around a note today inviting him and Georgiana to dinner on Saturday. Darcy wondered if Arlington would come. He always got testy this time of year with his parents.

  And so life would go. One day at a time. Without Elizabeth.

  The next morning came without a hint of sunshine. A cold rain greeted the busy city of London. Darcy entered his club thinking that at least the foul weather would keep the dandies indoors lest they get mud on their boots. He looked around for some acquaintances and found a group having a rousing political debate.

  “What do you think of these lunatics up North, Darcy?” asked an older gentleman named Mr. Morris, who served as a member of Parliament for Nottinghamshire.

  Darcy raised his eyebrows in question, and another in the group, Lord Peters with a minor barony, fulfilled his inquiry. “The followers of the so-called King Ludd. Frame breakers.”

  “I had not heard of more recent attacks,” he said.

  “You may not have been in London, but it must be a concern in Derbyshire,” Lord Peters said.

  “I was not at Pemberley,” said Darcy. “I have been visiting a friend in Hertfordshire. I have heard nothing of it from my steward.”

  “You do not have any interests in factories, do you, Darcy?” Mr. Morris asked.

  “A little, but as a magistrate, I could be called on to judge in a case.” That he also had several collieries, which powered the factories, he chose not to mention.

  “Well, transportation for the crimes is not nearly enough. These are mad men! They are not satisfied with merely breaking the machinery. They want to kill the owners.”

  “You would have compassion on them if you saw what their lives have become, with factories stealing their livelihood,” said a young man about Bingley’s age whom Darcy did not recognise.

  “Be silent, Byron,” Lord Peters said. Darcy understood the man to be Lord Byron, who had spent years travelling, although he had inherited his barony at age ten. “Your soft heart will be the ruin of us all. Do you want to encourage rebellion like in France? There must be rule and order.”

  Rather than continue to listen to insults, Lord Byron left, and Darcy considered his tenants. Many of them contributed to their income by crafting textile goods. He sold the wool from the sheep on his home farm to mills in which he had invested with Bingley and had a keen interest in their welfare, but many of his tenants harvested their wool and knit it in their homes. Even more, he knew of many estates that were losing farmers as young people increasingly chose to live in the cities and hoped to work their way up in the factories.

  Bingley’s great-grandfather had been the son of a small freeholder and weaver but became a manufacturing inventor. He was one among many but managed to patent his creations through money won in a card game. From there, his innovations proved invaluable. His son moved up from the factory floor to an overseer and invested in several successful mills. Bingley’s father removed himself from overseeing the daily functions and intended to purchase his own estate but di
d not live to do it. The task now fell to Bingley.

  The Bingley success story, and several like it, filled the imaginations of many ambitious factory workers. For them, this was an exciting era in which to live and full of opportunity. However, the men before Darcy only felt the fear of changing winds disrupting their own privileged lives. Fewer tenant farmers meant less rental income for the landowners. Many attempted to adapt by investing in industry, and yet dissatisfied cottage workers could destroy all of that with the toss of a match. Lost income always equated to a loss of power, and there would always be men desperate to keep their scrap of it.

  “To you, it is a matter of pounds and pence,” Darcy said, “but you forget that, to the workers on both sides, it is a matter of their ability to live. We must learn to live in harmony. Consider why the frame breakers feel the loss of income so acutely. They are not living in the lap of luxury.” His eyes drifted to the buttons that strained against Lord Peters’ midsection. It was an expensively made suit, and yet the man would soon need a new wardrobe, again, if he did not restrain his gluttony.

  Morris shook his head. “Come, Peters. We will get nowhere with him. He is friends with a Bingley after all.”

  The other man agreed. “Then there is his uncle! Do not forget how he defended the Americans and their rebellion.”

  “If we are at all lucky, the next session will teach the upstarts—both weavers and the Americans—a lesson,” Morris said while leading Peters away.

  Darcy sighed and called for his coach to be sent for. He had always been seen as too liberal to the poor by the ton, as was his father before him. Lord Matlock was still criticised for his support of the American colonies’ desire for independence. He was not a political radical by any means, although he did support Catholic Emancipation. He did not support the French Revolution and staunchly supported the King and aristocracy. Still, Matlock thought his past association with the most liberal Whig faction, especially now that war with America seemed imminent, was the reason why he was not appointed prime minister after Prinny became Regent, and the Tory Perceval was kept on instead.

  The debate with Morris and Peters only brought to Darcy’s mind memories of assisting the Harrison family in Hertfordshire. They were far from the disturbances of the North, but it was only a matter of time before Mrs. Harrison’s loom, which sat in the corner of their hearth room, would be of no use. He wondered if Mr. Bennet and the other gentlemen of the area were prepared for the changes. The manufacturing craze had taken the Northern landowners by surprise, but the South ought to see it spreading.

  Worse, the attitudes his peers had about their lessers were precisely why he had been originally concerned about a match with Elizabeth. Now he recognised precisely how pretentious he had been. His treatment to those in Hertfordshire was nigh on unforgivable.

  Arriving at his home, he found Arlington waiting for him.

  “Ah, you emerge at last,” Darcy said to his cousin as he handed him a glass of wine.

  “My last hurrah,” the bleary-eyed viscount replied. He looked the worse for wear from what must have been too much entertainment and not enough sleep over the last week.

  “Last?” Darcy raised his eyebrows. Had Miss Bingley changed her mind?

  “I finally visited her grave,” Arlington said softly without meeting Darcy’s eyes.

  Darcy’s surprise turned to astonishment. Ten years ago, Arlington had loved a young French émigré who worked in the Matlock household. Their cousin, Anne, had just come out, and at last, it looked as though the wishes of their families would be fulfilled. The arrangement between the parents had been planned since Anne’s birth. However, Arlington refused to submit to their expectations, and his father retaliated by cutting his allowance.

  Miss Claire du Val’s father had worked in the King of France’s household and was among the first to flee for Britain after the storming of the Bastille. Her father and mother were hired by the Matlocks in junior positions. Claire eventually became a housemaid. Her family was of absolutely no distinction and had little money. Arlington struggled with the thought of a life of poverty, and Claire refused to put him in such a position. After months of consultation with a solicitor, it was learned that Arlington could sell a London house inherited from his mother’s line that the family rented out. They would not live in style, but the interest from the sale would be adequate to support them. Unfortunately, Claire had already quit her position in the Matlock household and lived with an aunt at the coast where she caught a cold that quickly turned to scarlet fever. Arlington made it to her death bed, but there was nothing that could help her. He refused to speak to his parents for years and until now had never visited Claire’s grave site.

  “Congratulate me. I am to be married,” he said without enthusiasm but raised his glass.

  “You have been back to Hertfordshire as well, then?”

  Arlington furrowed his brows and then settled them in understanding. “Ah no. No, that was a misguided effort to punish my parents again.”

  “They are sorry,” Darcy said. He did not always agree with his older relations’ values in life, but he hated the division in his family.

  “I know,” Arlington said. “Claire is buried in Kent. Hertfordshire would be rather out of the way.”

  “You went to Rosings,” Darcy said while leaning back in his chair. He never would have imagined Arlington would agree to marry Anne after all these years.

  “Well, I do dislike the London ladies, and Anne has rarely left Rosings.” He shrugged. “If I am to make a marriage without affection, I might as well please the family and save Anne from her mother. I likely saved you as well,” he said before taking another sip.

  “I never would have agreed. Especially now…” He trailed off and looked at his wine. “I do not intend to marry at all.” The silence between them was deafening.

  “Your pain will wane,” Arlington said at last.

  Darcy returned to the sideboard to refill his glass and create distance between them. “Your Claire has been gone for ten years. As long as the woman I love lives, I cannot extinguish any hope through my own actions.”

  Arlington mutely nodded. “Mother is including Anne and me in the engagement party she is holding for Richard and his betrothed. I know he plans on calling tomorrow before the dinner. Prepare yourself. Mother is expanding the guest list and has set her mind to matchmaking the last bachelor in the family.”

  Darcy frowned and showed Arlington out. He went upstairs looking for Georgiana but did not find her in the drawing rooms. Instead, he found a letter in Elizabeth’s handwriting on the pianoforte bench. He doubted he would feel anything but pain at reading her words. No matter their ending, he was grateful for her assistance with Georgiana. Against his better judgment, he read.

  My new friend, if I could say anything to you without regard to our situations in life or the duration of our acquaintance, I would caution you about unfaithful friends. Beware the cunning arts of flattering individuals. While we are young, it is so tempting to please others, but friendship is not worth the cost of integrity. Matters of the heart should not be consigned to material advancement. Be not in a rush to consider yourself in love, especially.

  There were signs that Georgiana had read over that section quite often. The next lines appeared to be written in agitated spirits.

  When I wrote the above lines, I could not conceive their being relevant to my own life. I have just heard dreadful news. My dearest friend has accepted a proposal from a ridiculous man, my cousin. He can do nothing to bring happiness to her life except through his position as a well-established rector and the heir of an estate. Of his eleven days in the county, he spent almost all of them at Longbourn. Not three days ago, he proposed marriage to me—and was adamantly refused. They cannot love each other. They barely know a thing about each other’s temperaments. How has my one friend, save dear Jane, had such different opinions about marriage all this time yet I knew it not?

  She would have me believe s
he does it out of duty to her family and concern for them having to care for her. If that be the case, she might have married another gentleman. I declare this without reserve: There is nothing in the world, no attachment exists, that would make me act with such self-interested motives. There can be no happiness in a marriage that owes its beginnings to dishonesty and scheming.

  Elizabeth soon calmed herself and ended the letter. Darcy looked at the paper in confusion. How had she agreed to Wickham’s plot only days after writing this letter? The Elizabeth he knew, and confirmed in the letter, would not hesitate to call encouraging his suit to secure her sister’s engagement as dishonest. His grip on the paper tightened as he recalled, for the countless time, her arguments against him. They were on matters of honesty and integrity. While he did not doubt a person could be blind to their own faults, they could not feign the righteous indignation she expressed.

  It taught him to hope as he had scarcely allowed himself to hope since her refusal. If she had truly refused out of her stated reproofs and not as part of a preordained scheme, then he could hope to obtain Elizabeth’s forgiveness. He would show her that he had attended to her reproofs and would lessen her ill opinion. He would meet her again at Bingley’s wedding with no resentment of the past, and there he would determine if he could ever hope to make her love him.

  *****

  Elizabeth huddled near the drawing room window. It was a cold and cloudy late December day, but she needed the light to see her work. She ran her fingers over the smooth white fabric of an infant gown. She could not bring herself to visit the tenants on Boxing Day. Instead, Jane and Mary went to deliver the usual packages of coins, food, and clothes, with sweets for the children. Her father grumbled about the boxes more than usual this year, but she had thought it was only because her mother was planning a lavish wedding breakfast for Jane.

  Elizabeth could not stay away forever, though. Mrs. Harrison’s time was drawing closer, and Elizabeth expected news of the arrival at any moment. It was a cold time of year to bear a child, and the three eldest Bennet daughters had taken the time to contribute many blankets and clothes. She knew the tenants on her father’s estate were fortunate compared to many. Their charity trips were saved for Meryton residents rather than any Longbourn village dweller or tenant farmer.