“Broadminded?” she finally responded to Mr. Bennet. “Perhaps. But not as indomitable as they believe themselves.”
Mr. Bennet looked at her intently and wondered if perhaps he might need to warn his daughter to some unclear challenge, but quickly dismissed the necessity for he was sure his daughter could easily best this woman’s predictable pomposity.
When the ladies retired to the drawing room, Lady Catherine sat herself across from Mrs. Darcy. Georgiana having brought her tea, she considered the moment opportune to discover how her nephew’s wife comported herself when he was absent from the room, when she could not be shielded by her husband’s stature and reputation. “Mrs. Darcy, how did you enjoy the Viscount Highpointe’s wedding? I do not believe we ever exchanged impressions.”
Elizabeth furrowed her brow, unsure of the lady’s intent. It was such an arbitrary inquiry. “Lady Richmond organized a splendid affair.”
Lady Catherine smiled. “As such an excellent alliance merited. Correct and propitious in all ways.”
Elizabeth was more annoyed than offended. Such insinuations would never be offered in front of Darcy; to encourage they not be repeated to her she felt it best to show indifference to the intended slight. “Indisputably,” Elizabeth replied coolly. “Very correct and propitious. It will be such a pleasure to have them all here. I trust you have been informed that they will all arrive to Pemberley in a few days’ time?”
“Will they?” she responded, surprised. Lady Catherine had clearly not been made privy to the Viscountess’ recently discovered vice and the need to remove her from perilous influences; in fact, information regarding the young bride’s predilection for gambling and the resulting debts had been carefully kept from everyone who need not know. The family lived in dread of what ill-intentioned rumours and exaggerated accounts would be spread about town once the summer months were over and the Harrels found themselves once again at the centre of a bustling, dissipated and gossiping circle.
“They are all travelling to Covingford and will pass a few days here before continuing on. Pemberley is of course not directly en route, but Lady Richmond expressed great impatience to visit in her last letter to me,” Elizabeth replied with an arch smile.
Lady Catherine saw she could not easily discompose her nephew’s wife. She stopped conversing with her as abruptly as she had begun and turned to Georgiana and began to inquire as to her practice habits.
Miss Anne de Bourgh was seated across from her mother and silently observed the exchange between her mother and her cousin’s wife. She wondered, as she had at Rosings Park, how this young woman had the audacity to speak to her mother in such a fearless, provoking manner. For her part the mere sound of her mother’s voice raised slightly in ire or irritation was sufficient to have her retreating into silence. So many opinions she would share with her mother if she dared, so many contrary opinions.
The gentlemen arrived into the room and she looked to her cousin with a new curiosity. They had never been close, never shared the uncomplicated childhood light-heartedness he had shared with their Fitzwilliam cousins. Yet she had always liked him, primarily because he did not pester her for answers and conversation. There were so many moments in their lives when they had shared a room together and not a single superfluous word had been exchanged; she deeply admired his ability to sustain a serene silence for extended periods of time. He had been the only gentleman to whom she could imagine herself married. He was naturally reserved, he never prattled away tiresomely as other people were so lamentably wont to do. And then, aside from Lord Richmond, he was the only person to whom she had ever seen her mother defer. It surprised her that he had married such a woman as he had—but not for the reasons her mother found so objectionable. His wife was talkative and lively and demonstrative and gay and she had long believed her cousin to be like herself, welcoming, desirous of quiet and solitude.
Her reflections were interrupted when Jane came to converse with the quiet, sullen young lady. Jane’s generous heart could not abide a person looking so alone in a crowded room. She could not know that Miss de Bourgh did not enjoy conversing; her head ached continually and she truly preferred silence. Fortunately, her mother grew tired and excused herself for the evening, allowing her to immediately follow. As Miss de Bourgh quit the room and ascended the staircase, she heard the rumbling of voices and conversation and laughter inevitable from a drawing room filled with friends and relations in good standing. She hoped their stay at Pemberley would be of short duration. At Rosings Park there was no such cacophony to break the sweet prolonged silence of the unoccupied rooms.
Chapter 36
Secret Hopes
There were few things Darcy found as invigorating as a brisk morning ride across Pemberley’s lands on Trajan, a fast and agile horse if ever there was one. To do so in the company of his friends added an extra measure of vigour to the exercise. Mr. Thorney in particular was an exceptional rider and they had an established, salubrious rivalry between them since the summer they were adolescents and Darcy had spent a fortnight at Edgewood Hall for the first time. It had been the summer after his mother had passed and his father had sent him there as a distraction; every morning they had ridden against each other, Thorney’s younger siblings cheering on the competition heartily. The late Mrs. Thorney had been a warm and caring woman and it had been as reviving a visit as his father had hoped it might be. Today Thorney had been the victorious rider, but they were well matched.
Darcy walked into the house and found his cousin Anne sitting on a chair near the principal staircase. “Good morning, Anne,” he said cheerfully, for he was in fine spirits after such a superb ride.
“I have been waiting for you,” Anne responded quietly.
“For me?” Darcy replied uneasily. Anne had never, that he could recall, sought out his company or his conversation.
She stood up now and as per usual he was momentarily surprised to find her taller than one would expect. She always walked and sat so meekly and slightly slouched that she appeared smaller than she actually was. Her voice was as mumbled and quiet as ever though and he was required to lean forward to hear her well.
“Cousin, may we speak in private?”
“Certainly,” Darcy replied and led her into a small room off the principal staircase. It was a space where visitors on business to the house could await his availability. Formally furnished and with windows overlooking the gardens, it was not an intimate space. He closed the door behind them and waited for her to begin. Anne wandered over to the window and stared out at the garden where she saw a small group of children at play.
“Where did those children come from, cousin?” Anne inquired at last. “I saw them yesterday as well running about in the lawn. There seemed a great deal of them.”
“Not so many; just three. They are the children of my guests, naturally.”
“I abhor children,” she said with unexpected vigour.
“Pardon me?”
Anne turned into the room and stared at Darcy a moment. “Women are first subjugated to their parents, then to their husbands, and finally to their children who are, in and of themselves, nothing more than a nuisance. They are generally loud and restless and demanding.”
Darcy was dismayed by her declaration; he would have never imagined her to hold such harsh, unnatural opinions. “You do not consider children rather the blessing of any family?”
Anne sighed impatiently and looked away. “I do not wish to speak about that. That is not why I requested this audience. I would like your assistance.”
“Of course; I am at your service.”
“First I wish to thank you for disobeying mother.”
“Disobeying her? She does not command me,” he replied scrupulously.
“No, but she does command me. I meant for your marrying where you pleased.”
Darcy was intensely relieved by her declaration. He had half feared that his cousin was to make some sort of recriminatory scene when she requested to speak to
him. “We never spoke of your mother’s wishes; that was my mistake and we ought to have done so. It did not seem decorous. You must understand that I believed myself to be completely free.”
“You need not offer explanations; I have no wish to admonish your actions. All the contrary. You are a gentleman in control of his destiny and so acted. As I would if I were free to do so.”
“How would you act?”
Anne raised her eyes and looked at him squarely for the first time and spoke in a voice as clear and strong as he had ever heard from her. “I would never marry.”
“Never?”
“I would have married you if you had agreed to mother’s plans. I have not the strength required to counter my mother’s wishes. Given my own preferences, I would never marry. Rosings Park is mine. What need have I of a husband?” she added with marked abhorrence.
Darcy felt a heavy weight of guilt he had not known he had been carrying lift from his conscience. He had known himself to be a gentleman free of any obligation to another when he offered to Elizabeth, but he had never been certain that his cousin had understood it as such, never been entirely certain she had not considered herself jilted and betrayed. He let escape a deep, unshackling breath. “Anne, we should have spoken of all this long ago.”
“Perhaps. We are speaking of it now. Your choice to marry as you pleased has given me courage. Will you help me?”
“How can I help you?”
“You must convince mother I need not marry. With the exception of our uncle, you are the only person to whom she listens. She would certainly not heed my opinion.” Anne’s voice dropped again to its customarily quiet, weak tones, as though the mere thought of speaking so forthrightly to her mother was enough to sink her spirit.
“What you ask is impossible. I will speak to Lord Richmond on your behalf if you wish, we expect him tomorrow; it would be improper for me to speak to your mother on the subject of your marriage, and so soon after my own. You must comprehend.”
Anne stared at Darcy and her expression grew closed and cold. “You are not so courageous after all,” she replied harshly. “You were merely selfish. People are such a disappointment.”
She walked past him without another word and retreated immediately into her beloved silence. What good were conversations and confidences, she wondered? They conducted to nothing, she was sure.
Darcy was left in utter dismay. Rarely had he been so astonished. Where he had thought her meek and trod upon by her mother’s greater will, she was only disagreeably sullen. He was shocked to discover that in her silence she was harbouring such cold feelings, such a defiant, wilful isolation. Horror at what his life could have been had he acquiesced to his family’s wishes washed over him. “Good God, what misery we have all been spared!” he cried. Immediately he left the room in search of his wife, a powerful need to see her smiling, joyful countenance overwhelming him.
She had gone to the cutting garden to select flowers for the parlour. He went there and as he came into the garden heard her softly humming a cheerful tune as she picked through the flowers. He came up to her, caught her hand as it dropped a flower into her basket and spun her round. She smiled brightly.
“My dearest, loveliest Elizabeth!” he declared, pulling her into his arms and kissing her warmly.
“You are very affectionate this morning,” Elizabeth replied, laughing merrily. “To what do I owe such a delightful greeting?”
“I love you!” he responded passionately. “You are the delight of my soul; you make my heart sing. You are my most trusted confidant, my faithful lover; I shudder to reflect on what else could have been.”
“Fitzwilliam! Something has occurred,” she cried in real alarm. Such a passionate declaration at such a quiet moment of the morning was entirely unanticipated and seemed a strange foreboding. He smiled at her anxiety, caressed her blooming cheek.
“I had a vision earlier of what my life might have been and it was dreary and cold. With you, Eliza, it is joyful and warm, it is a continuous delight as I had never before known.”
“At some time I must have done a very good deed, some special kindness of which I am in ignorance. Otherwise I cannot comprehend why I have been rewarded with your love and devotion. I do not understand what has occasioned such a beautiful declaration, but I most happily take it all in, my darling husband.”
“Do,” he replied, kissing her anew.
From the upstairs picture gallery Lady Catherine watched the exchange between them. She had been in the gallery considering the unpleasant addition of a new portrait to this hallowed hall filled with pictures of all her nephew’s great and noble ancestors when she espied her nephew’s wife entering the garden below. As she observed her, in a simple, unpretentious morning gown, picking through the flowers, her resentment was reborn with all its initial potency. She had lived for years with the gratifying conviction that once the restlessness of youth had been properly satisfied, Darcy would take Anne as his wife and Rosings Park under his care, thereby fulfilling both his duty to his family and all her own ambitions. Then this upstart had appeared and utterly bewitched him, destroying all her plans for uniting the two great estates and robbing her daughter of her rightful husband. Now she must start afresh when Anne was no longer in her first bloom—a bloom which had never been splendid--and find a husband for her listless child that she could trust and admire as she had once so trusted and admired Darcy.
Lady Catherine was no fool, no unworldly simpleton. When Mr. Collins had informed her of the rumours of an engagement between her nephew and Miss Elizabeth Bennet she had recognized at once that Miss Bennet was a young lady whose pretty face and spirited manner were more than sufficient to lure a gentleman into a compromise. Even now she could not deny that her nephew’s wife had a sort of vigorous grace, a peculiarly sweet defiance and delicate wit. That acknowledgement was as far as her admiration would go, however, and she certainly did not consider such charms were sufficiently extraordinary to justify Darcy’s throwing over Anne, his duty, his family and all society’s expectations.
How heedlessly she had behaved in her desperation to keep hold of Darcy for Anne. How grave an error when she rushed to Longbourn to insist the girl contradict the rumours and promise to forsake her nephew; still graver that ill-advised confrontation with Darcy in town. With what deceptively calm silence had he listened to her long and detailed accounting of her visit to Miss Bennet, allowing her, encouraging her to dwell upon every word, every audacious evasion until she had at last revealed Miss Bennet’s obstinate refusal to promise never to enter into an engagement with him.
“Pardon me,” he had interrupted her at last. “Are you quite certain? You are not perhaps mistaken?”
“Mistaken?” she had replied, in her anger blind to his intention. “Impossible to mistake so forthright and insolent a young lady. She absolutely refused to never enter into an engagement with you; declared she was determined to act solely in a manner that would ensure her happiness. Obstinate, head-strong girl! She is determined to quite the sphere into which she was born; determined to take you from Anne and claim you as her husband.”
Darcy had turned away from her a moment. She could not know so that he might compose himself, an exhilarating hope that Elizabeth might yet be his taking flight in his heart. When he turned back to his aunt his even, composed authority crushed the last hope within hers.
“Lady Catherine, Miss Bennet cannot take from Anne what is not hers. I have never declared to you or my cousin or to any person any intention of taking her as my wife. I am well aware what your wishes have long been, but they are only your wishes, and are certainly not my obligation. You have come to my home now with the resolve to make things clear. Let us do so. I am not at present engaged to be married and absolutely am without secret compromises of any kind. Should I become engaged it shall be to the young lady of my choosing and I shall be guided by nothing but my own wishes. I am entirely free to choose where I will and that is precisely what I intend to do
.”
“You are determined to have Miss Bennet as your wife? You would dare slight Anne for a girl of no consequence, no family? You would recklessly and blindly marry a girl whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath your own? You would debase the family’s noble lineage by wilfully aligning yourself to the son of your father’s steward? Had your mother lived to see such degradation!”
“Lady Catherine, you have said quite enough. You have made your position perfectly clear, as have I. There is nothing further to discuss,” he had replied coldly.
Now as she watched the couple abandon the garden arm-in-arm Lady Catherine felt a tremendous rage and a tremendous powerlessness. She wanted nothing more than to force a rift between that girl with all her poise and her infatuated nephew, to at the very least make him suffer even some small pang of regret, to make the girl comprehend that she had not won her place without suffering consequences for her ambition. But as they disappeared from her sight and she turned back into the room and let her eyes rest upon the recently hung portrait of Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy, Lady Catherine doubted not that hers was a hopeless aspiration.
To Teach the Admiring Multitude Page 39
