Mr. Darcy & Elizabeth

by Alyssa Jefferson

  His comment was spoken to the room in general, but Elizabeth felt singled out by it, and she was sorry to have to tell him that she would not be there. However, Miss Whipple performed that task for her. She said, “Yes, of course I shall be home, and Mama, too. But not dearest Miss Bennet, nor Miss Lizzy.”

  He glanced at Elizabeth in surprise.

  “We are to go to our friends the Miss Campbells,” Elizabeth reminded him. “We have promised to come to them for the four weeks next.”

  “Yes, and you are to leave me desolate,” Miss Whipple added dramatically. “You are to have endless fun without me.”

  “Indeed not,” Jane replied. “We shall see you all about town, I am sure. Why, only tomorrow evening we are to see Thomas and Sally, and your mother may very well wish to see it, as well.”

  “Ah, is Thomas and Sally playing?” Mr. Darcy asked, his eyes straying again to Elizabeth.

  “Yes, at the Theatre Royal,” Miss Whipple said drolly. “I know all about it, for you know I am always interested in what is playing at the theatre. Papa hates going to plays, however. I shall never convince him to go.” She looked teasingly at her cousin as she added, “He is like you. Never interested in drama.”

  Though he only stayed thirty minutes, Mr. Darcy’s visit was a bright spot in the day for all three young ladies. Miss Whipple always loved the distinction of a visit from a friend or family member—particularly if it was a gentleman. Jane was delighted to see Elizabeth admired, and Elizabeth was energized by having another opportunity to talk to somebody of whose conversation she never seemed to tire—at least lately. She could not deny after this visit that she was beginning to like Mr. Darcy, and that she hoped he might feel something similar toward her—though her confidence on that subject was nothing like Jane’s, being far too inexperienced in love to be certain of anything.

  It was a most unpleasant change for her, therefore, when Lady Sarah returned from Arlington Street with information that made her already disagreeable presence even more uncomfortable for Elizabeth.

  “You have certainly been coy,” she said to Elizabeth when she saw her, for she happened to return to the Whipples’ house just when Jane and Miss Whipple had gone upstairs and Elizabeth was alone.

  Elizabeth frowned. “Have I?”

  “You must know that you have,” Lady Sarah said, but now she was smiling with a look so unfamiliar to Elizabeth that it took her a moment to realize it was pride. Happy pride, in her. Nothing had ever been so odd. It was only another second before Elizabeth realized what the reason for her pride must be.

  Shaking her head, Elizabeth said, “Whatever you may have heard, ma’am, please do not believe that I—”

  “That is just what Lady Radcliffe said you would say,” Lady Sarah replied. “She said you are not comfortable discussing it, and therefore I shall not force you.”

  “But there is nothing to tell—”

  “No, no,” Lady Sarah said, a smile appearing on her lips again. “Say nothing more of it. Only know that I approve. I heartily approve, and I know that your father would approve, as well. In fact, to approve is quite an understatement. I am delighted! I had always wished you to marry well, but this is beyond anything I imagined. Quite extraordinary! And that my brother and his wife do not disapprove is best of all, so you need not worry yourself on that account. Who, my dear girl, has ever been more fortunate than you?”

  Elizabeth sighed in frustration. “I will not pretend to be ignorant of what you speak, for I am aware that Lord Norwich has been telling his mother that more subsists between us than truly does,” Elizabeth answered, and finally Lady Sarah’s smile began to falter. “However, for you to be pleased at any news, true or unfounded, about him and myself does surprise me. Are you not always hearing of his behavior as most scandalous? Does he not give his family grief?”

  “Oh, la,” Lady Sarah said. “He does nothing worse than any other young man of his age and position.”

  “Nay, nor nothing better,” Elizabeth replied. “Why should I marry someone who is known to all his friends and family as immoral and selfish?”

  Having heard Elizabeth speak of her alleged beloved in this way was too much proof in her stepdaughter’s favor. Still, where one wants to believe something, it can be almost impossible to convince otherwise. “You need not say anything more,” Lady Sarah replied. “I will allow you to keep your secret, if you so wish it. I will not require any openness with me. You and Jane are just the same. You want to keep all these matters to yourself, though they concern far more than you alone.”

  The absurdity of this statement was more than Elizabeth felt equal to answer at the moment, and it was fortunate that the arrival of her sister and her friend removed the need for a reply.

  “Oh! Lady Sarah, you have come,” Jane said, smiling as she curtsied, then approaching her with a pleasant, “How was your visit to Arlington Street?”

  “Enlightening,” Lady Sarah replied. “I hope,” she added with a meaningful look at both sisters, “that I will make many such visits with you by my side in the future.”

  Jane’s heart had a disposition to love and be loved, which must have been the explanation for her being so easily swayed by these words. She was so touched by them that she believed her stepmother must have forgiven her, and she gave so warm an answer as made her stepmother almost ashamed of treating her so coldly. Yet not even Jane’s sweetness could break through so cold a heart as Lady Sarah’s, and she left the Whipples’ home shortly thereafter without any promise or plans for seeing the girls again—not for coming to town, nor for bringing the girls to Longbourn, nor even to send them any further allowance. Her only hint upon departure was that Elizabeth should write to her as soon as she had any news to share that might brighten her eyes and improve her spirits, for she was rather forlorn in the country in the summertime. If she did not love Mr. Bennet so much, she said, she would certainly live in London.

  A day like the one Elizabeth Bennet had just endured would be exhausting even if she had not been abandoned by all those closest to her on whom she had grown to depend. Elizabeth had always confided in her father when she was a girl, and as a young lady, she still longed for the power of speaking to him. But he was far from her, and moreover, he happened to be in love with the woman who had become her chief nemesis. She had not the confidence in her father to test his affection for her by placing it in that particular competition.

  When Miss Watson had come to Longbourn, Elizabeth had gained a lifelong friend and confidante—but this friendship, too, now seemed nearly worn out. Miss Watson seldom wrote to Elizabeth, which must have been due to her engagements with little Sarah. The omission, whatever its cause, still stung.

  Not even Jane, for all her good qualities, could earn Elizabeth’s true confidence. She had been so secretive with Elizabeth this summer. Though they were closer than any of their other sisters, Elizabeth felt a firm difference of opinions between them on matters related to their stepmother that threatened to widen the distance Jane’s secrecy had opened.

  Feeling lonely and longing for a companion, Elizabeth went upstairs that night and wrote to her Aunt Gardiner. It was their last evening with the Whipples, and Elizabeth’s ostensible purpose in writing was to send their aunt a new address. However, with paper before her, she found her feelings spilling out. Jane’s broken engagement, the odd misunderstanding with Lord Norwich, her stepmother’s unexpected visit—she shared it all. Everything that clouded Elizabeth’s thoughts spilled onto the paper, and when she was finished, she had covered more than six sides of paper in details of the past several weeks—details that she hoped her aunt would prove a worthy friend in concealing, considering, and perhaps even advising.

  Two trunks were packed, two beds were made up, and the Bennet girls were eager to depart Wimpole Street for the fresh start they anticipated finding in Portman Square. The Miss Campbells were, in character and manners, very unlike Miss Whipple. Though Elizabeth was grateful to Miss Whipple for her kindnes
s in hosting them, the warmth of her feelings toward her ended there. Having been sometimes abandoned and neglected by her parents was, in Elizabeth’s opinion, a very poor excuse for her behavior. After all, had not Elizabeth and Jane been just as much, as well as orphaned? Yet they had maturity and manners that Miss Whipple might never attain.

  “How glad I am,” Elizabeth said, after she and Jane were settled in the carriage sent by the Campbells, “to be at last away from Miss Whipple.”

  “Lizzy!” Jane cried, but she was smiling. “You must know better than to speak so of our friend.”

  “Friend?” Elizabeth said. “Jane, she only wanted us with her insomuch as she could use us to meet Lord Norwich. She has done very little besides manipulate and embarrass us for four weeks together!”

  “Yet without her, we would have had nowhere to go,” Jane reminded her.

  Elizabeth was quiet for a moment. “We could have stayed at the school.”

  Jane’s smile did not reach her eyes. “I am glad we had somewhere respectable to go,” she replied.

  “Now I feel ungrateful.”

  “As you should.”

  Elizabeth looked up at Jane in time to see her laugh. Elizabeth laughed as well. “Do you not believe that the longer we live with her, the more we would become like her?”

  Jane shook her head. “No, Lizzy, I certainly do not.”

  “Only consider!” Elizabeth insisted. “People are not independent of their friends and neighbors. We are products of our families; we are evidence of our friends. Consider how those in a certain set all adopt a certain way of dressing, of speaking, even of thinking. Opinions from one part of town to another are all dictated by the people therein.”

  “Very well,” Jane replied. “And what does that have to do with becoming like Miss Whipple?”

  “We spent every day for four weeks hearing of her opinions, immersed in her interests, observing her manners,” she replied.

  “I rather think,” Jane said, “that observing a person one does not wish to become like is perhaps the best method of preventing oneself from developing those qualities.”

  Elizabeth smiled, and Jane said, “Lizzy.”

  “No,” Elizabeth said. “That will do. You have told me you agree with me, though you said it in a different way.”

  “I—” Jane stopped, blushing and laughing. “I do not wish to say anything unflattering about her, however.”

  “And we will not,” Elizabeth replied. “To gossip is for smaller minds, in any case. I am only doing it, you see, because I have just left a friend who gossips constantly.”

  Jane shook her head, but she was smiling. “A friend,” she repeated.

  “Very well,” Elizabeth conceded. “In any case, it is fortunate, very fortunate, that we are leaving now. As for you, you have been prevented by your time with Miss Whipple from becoming as vapid and shallow as she is. And as for me, I have left just in time to avoid meeting her fate!”

  CHAPTER 16

  __________

  The delight the Campbell sisters expressed upon seeing their friends arrive in their father’s carriage was everything exuberant and sincere.

  “Lizzy!” Miss Margaret cried, waving from an upper window in the towering house where the Campbell family made its home.

  Elizabeth waved up at her friend, turning to smile at Jane in silent excitement. Their lodgings at Gracechurch street had been modest yet comfortable. The house on Wimpole Street was certainly fashionable, but it was not large. Their friends the Miss Campbells, however, lived in a townhouse that could be called nothing but luxurious. If Lady Sarah had intended this summer to be a penance for the girls, she certainly had not hit the mark by leaving them to be invited somewhere superior in comfort and dignity even to Longbourn.

  The Miss Campbells departed their window to meet the girls in the parlor, where the Campbell family was assembled and waiting. How odd a contrast to be in a household where the mother and father were present—nay, not only present, but interested in the goings on. For Elizabeth and Jane sat down with their friends to share stories of their summer visits and engagements, and Mr. and Mrs. Campbell sat nearby and spoke with them the entire time.

  “How was Bath?” Jane asked Miss Campbell. “Was everything charming?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Miss Campbell said. “I wish we could have taken you along with us!”

  “We are so glad,” Mrs. Campbell added, “that you have finally come to us. Anne tells us every year that she wishes to invite you, and yet it is never in your power to come!”

  “Indeed, we have been highly fortunate this summer,” Jane replied, with a look on her face that almost made Elizabeth laugh—for it was clear that Jane had only just reached this epiphany. Compared with the penance her sisters must surely be suffering at Longbourn, and compared even with the hard-fought freedom a marriage to Mr. Pembroke would have provided, Elizabeth still felt confident that she and her sister had made the right decisions for themselves—or at least, she felt it in that moment.

  Before the family left for the theatre, Elizabeth and Jane both changed into their finest gowns and had their hair fixed by Mrs. Campbell’s own maid, that they might be perfectly suited for the distinction of being seated with the Campbell family in the seats of honor. They were walking just behind the Miss Campbells into the theatre when Elizabeth spotted none other than Mr. Darcy himself. She instantly smiled, then looked away, lest he realize that her smile was for him. Yet her heart danced inside her chest as she remembered Miss Whipple’s words—that Mr. Darcy was not a fan of drama. Yet he had known she would be at this play, and now he was here. Her eyes could not stop themselves from seeking him out. She looked again, and it was clear that he had seen her. He bowed.

  Nothing could be clear to a mind so enamored as Elizabeth’s was that evening. Even as she scolded herself for being ridiculous and having no reason to be so excitable, her traitorous heart would not stop pounding.

  When the doors to the theatre seats were open, the chaos resulting in the room enabled Mr. Darcy to come to her—and he did come, directly.

  “Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” he said softly, bowing again.

  “Good evening, sir,” she said. Her delight that he had come to her could not be hidden, and she smiled as she added, “I am glad to see you here—that is, surprised and glad. Miss Whipple said something that made me think you did not like plays.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I like some plays.”

  “Indeed? Which ones?”

  “Hamlet, to start.” Elizabeth had to hide her smile, for this evening’s production was no Shakespeare. “A Tale of Mystery. What do you like?”

  She shook her head. “Oh, too many to name. But the play is not necessarily my favorite part of going to a play.” At his quizzical look, she added, “I like to go to the theatre. I like the people and the atmosphere. It is something that was entirely new to me when we came to London with my stepmother the first time, and I loved it then. I still love it now.”

  “How your life must have changed,” he commented, “when your father remarried.”

  “Indeed,” she said. “But now I hardly remember my life before.”

  “Except that there were fewer plays,” he offered, and she laughed.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Fewer plays, and everything was simpler.”

  “I see,” he said, and he met her eyes in such a way as showed himself to be no stranger to a nostalgia similar to her own. “Are you settled comfortably in Portman Square?”

  “We are indeed, I thank you,” she replied. “Did Miss Whipple tell you where we were living?”

  “She did,” he replied. “I hope your removing from her house will not prevent—” he paused. “That is, I hope she shall not be totally removed from your company. I believe you both have been a positive influence on her.”

  Elizabeth smiled, feeling genuinely the compliment he had paid her. “Oh! No, sir,” Elizabeth replied. “Indeed not! She shall see us as often as she wishes. A
nd in four weeks, classes shall resume at school. I—” she considered for a moment. “I…imagine that we shall return to live at school then. With our sisters.”

  “Do you not know your plans?” he asked.

  She did not. Realizing this, she experienced a taste of the discomfort that seemed to plague Jane continually. She had not given much thought before to the notion that her living at the school was financed by her stepmother, contingent upon her wishes, and not at all a guarantee. What if Miss Watson did not return to town? What if Lady Sarah called the girls home again to live with her? Elizabeth did not have the same nature as Kitty and Mary; it would be difficult for Lady Sarah to mistreat her the way she did them. Yet had not things changed at home? Would not they all be uncomfortable the longer they lived there? But where else was there for her to go?

  Her anxiety was clear in her face, and when Mr. Darcy spoke again, it was in an attempt to redirect their conversation toward a pleasanter topic.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “It is not for me to know or to insinuate—” He hesitated. “It is as you have said before. We are not all equally independent.”

  She tried to shake off her worry, smiling at him. It helped that he seemed to understand—or at least, that he attempted to do so. “Never mind. What happens shall happen. I will adapt.”

  “Will you? I admire such a spirit.”

  Elizabeth smiled, feeling her cheeks flush and blushing more for the embarrassment that knowledge produced.

  “What other plans have you now that you are living with your friends in Portman Square?” Mr. Darcy asked.

  “I do not know,” Elizabeth replied. “I believe Mr. Campbell often drives to Hyde Park. Perhaps we shall attend concerts, as well. All the ladies are fond of music.”

  “Are they? And are you fond of music, as well?”

  “Oh! Yes,” Elizabeth said, as though it was perfectly obvious.

  Mr. Darcy had a naturally serious expression, but Elizabeth believed she saw a hint of a smile in his eyes as he said, “I remember, you were very fond of the music at Mrs. Jackson’s concert.”