by Jessie Lewis
“Go for long solitary walks and hum to your heart’s content, I should imagine.”
She gave a small breathy exclamation and clung to him more fiercely, whispering of her love. He tightened his embrace but said no more.
“I ought to have listened to you and stayed away,” she whispered at length.
“You ought to have returned to me instead of coming here alone.”
“I did not wish for you to see me pacing. I promised you I would remain calm.”
“You did. You are well though, I trust?” He dipped his head as he enquired, attempting to catch her eye, but she would not meet his gaze.
“In the way you mean, yes,” she replied.
A less reassuring answer he could not imagine. He lifted a hand to her chin and tenderly but firmly tilted her face up. She resisted at first but then yielded with a sigh and allowed him to see her countenance. When he did, cold fury flooded his gut.
“She struck you?”
“Aye.” Her flat tone spoke volumes as to her bitter disillusionment.
“What the devil possessed her?”
“I told her I am with child. And she is not, and she despises me for it.”
Darcy felt a vein in his neck throb. “She did this knowing you are with child?”
Elizabeth nodded.
He could not immediately respond, so livid was his rage. When he felt able to speak without cursing, he unclenched his teeth. “We will be leaving at first light, we will not be returning, and you will not be seeing your sister again before we depart.”
Elizabeth wrapped her arms about herself and turned to the dying fire, its dwindling light just enough to set aflame the tear that ran down her cheek. “You will hear no argument from me.”
10
Prejudice, Thy Power Is Sinking
Monday, 5 October 1812: Kent
Colonel Fitzwilliam watched his cousin step down from the carriage and look up at the house with unconcealed contempt. He did not blame Darcy for his rancour and admired his decision to come at all, though it did not surprise him, familiar as he was with his fierce loyalty. He was also familiar with his disinclination for forgiveness; thus, he was not at all sure what to expect from the visit. He set his drink down and made his way to the entrance hall.
“Fitzwilliam!” Darcy exclaimed, shaking his hand. “We did not expect to see you here.”
“It was a recent decision. Grandmother was determined to attend, but I had the devil of a time wriggling out of my engagements.”
“Your grandmother is here?”
He grinned. “Ineludibly so.”
“And Lady Catherine consented to this?”
“In no way, shape, or form! But she has used all her energy complaining and has none left with which to drive her out.”
“Is she very ill then?” Darcy enquired gravely.
“Montgomery informs me she has good days and bad.”
“And where is Montgomery?”
“He has taken Anne and my grandmother to Hunsford village. You may as well take the opportunity to settle into your room and change before dinner.” The housekeeper had engaged Elizabeth by then in a discussion about lady’s maids or some other such trifles, and Fitzwilliam took the opportunity to discreetly enquire how well Darcy had weathered his stay in Hertfordshire.
“Another time,” he replied darkly.
Never had there lived such a proficient at conveying abject loathing in the mere curl of a lip; Darcy’s scowl told a thousand words, and it did not take a genius to deduce something dire had occurred. And now he must suffer Lady Catherine’s censure also!
“De Charybde en Scylla, eh?”
“Précisément,” Darcy replied flatly and turned away to escort his wife upstairs.
***
Since their falling out in the summer, Darcy and Lady Catherine had been in company but once, at Ashby’s ball, and Fitzwilliam did not believe they had exchanged more than a few venomous glares on that occasion. With Lady Catherine’s continued campaign of calumny and decidedly underhanded tactic of being incurably ill, he knew not whether this encounter would go much better. Watching them reunite that evening, therefore, made for an anxious few moments.
Darcy stood guard over Elizabeth with a storm seething in his eyes and a snarl prowling about his lips. Lady Catherine came in on Montgomery’s arm, her new infirmity almost the first thing one noticed about her after the raging umbrage emanating from her in waves. As heavily as she dropped into her chair did her gaze fall disdainfully upon Elizabeth, on whose shoulder Darcy immediately placed his hand, as though to prevent her from even contemplating rising.
“You came then?” Lady Catherine said curtly.
Darcy had affected the ominous stillness that marked him as one of the few people of Fitzwilliam’s acquaintance capable of unnerving him.
“Lady Catherine, you will greet my wife and me properly, or we shall leave.”
Her countenance coloured crimson. “I hardly know how,” she croaked. “Your wife is my incumbent’s cousin, a tradesman’s niece! What am I to call her?”
“Mrs. Darcy,” he replied in an eerily low voice. Fitzwilliam was rather surprised he had stayed to answer at all.
“I certainly shall not! My daughter was to be Mrs. Darcy. My sister was Lady Anne Darcy. This…girl from nowhere at all is not worthy of the name!”
“You shall not be the judge of who deserves my name, madam.”
“I ought to have been, given how ill you have chosen!”
In a move that clearly demonstrated she was not afraid to defend herself, her husband, or their marriage, Elizabeth raised a hand to cover Darcy’s where it gripped her shoulder and interrupted them both. “Lady Catherine, whether you like it or not, I am now your niece. I should be very happy if you were to call me Lizzy as Mrs. Sinclair does and pray we might waste no more time discussing it.”
Her ladyship looked as though she had been asked to dance the waltz—with Lord Byron, in a whorehouse, naked. She turned to regard Mrs. Sinclair with disgust. “You call her Lizzy?”
“Do not be jealous, your ladyship. I have several nicknames for you also,” the older lady replied.
“To shorten one’s Christian name shows a vulgar coarseness of manners.” Lady Catherine narrowed her eyes at Elizabeth. “It is precisely this sort of disdain for decorum with which you disgrace my nephew.”
Privately, Fitzwilliam laughed at how well Elizabeth knew her husband, for she observably tightened her grip on his hand, tethering him in place. “Come now, madam,” he said. “What is to be gained by continuing to make such charges? There is no foundation for them.”
“No foundation?” Lady Catherine cried with a scornful laugh that devolved into a noisy and unpleasant clearing of her throat. “How is it, then, that I hear naught but tales of her shameful disregard for propriety, her constant arguing with Darcy, her struggles to perform the simplest of duties as mistress?”
A brief glance at Darcy prompted Fitzwilliam to hastily inspect the wider vicinity to ensure no firearms lay within his reach. “That is absurd,” he said to his aunt. “Where have you heard such nonsense?”
“All of London has heard it!”
“Your ladyship,” Mrs. Sinclair interjected, “I really must disabuse you of the notion that your circle of three acquaintances constitutes the whole of London.”
Montgomery, also glancing anxiously at Darcy, added his quiet yet stern voice to proceedings. “And may I remind you of my hopes for reconciliation, madam? I beg you would accept Darcy’s consent to make peace before he rescinds it, and for all our sakes allow these vile rumours to be forgotten.”
“Would that these were rumours, sir!” Lady Catherine croaked, pulling a handkerchief from her sleeve and holding it near her mouth. “But I saw for myself evidence of one
of her violent altercations, the tale of which I have since heard repeated abroad. And let us ask Darcy to deny it was necessary for him to drag her from the arms of another man mere days before his wedding.”
Elizabeth’s eyes opened wide, and Darcy’s fury took on a wild edge of incredulity.
To Elizabeth, Lady Catherine continued. “I am no stranger to the particulars of that infamous affair, young lady. I know it all. How you willingly received that man’s addresses, the patched-up arrangements made to keep you away from each other afterwards—”
“That is enough!” This Darcy actually shouted. He broke free of Elizabeth’s hold—or she released him, Fitzwilliam was not sure which—and stepped towards Lady Catherine. On either side of him, all other occupants of the room sank away from him into their chairs like the Red Sea parting.
“Unless you wish me to leave this place forever, to refuse Montgomery and Anne the assistance they desire, for our families to be publicly and permanently divided, you will apologise to Elizabeth. You will welcome her with all due respect as my wife, and you will desist your reprehensible incivility this instant!”
But for Lady Catherine’s rasping breath, there was silence as she and Darcy glared at each other in a monumental test of wills. It was Anne who broke the stalemate. “Please, Mother. I am grieved enough at the prospect of losing you. I would not wish to lose my cousin also.”
It was a painful and courageously honest observation—and most effective. Lady Catherine sagged in her seat, and though her expression was cold and her words clipped, she nonetheless ceded her enmity.
“I apologise, Mrs. Darcy.” She moved her eyes to her nephew before adding, “I am glad you are come,” whereupon she fell victim to a virulent spell of coughing, which Fitzwilliam would have attributed to the avoidance of further capitulation had he not espied the spots of red on her handkerchief. “I have exceeded myself,” she sputtered. “Excuse me.”
Anne and Montgomery led her from the room with the promise of re-joining everyone for dinner once they had her settled. The door closed. Fitzwilliam let out a slow breath. Lady Catherine had apologised. Darcy had not renounced the de Bourghs for all eternity. The only bloodshed had been on Lady Catherine’s handkerchief. All in all, the encounter could have gone significantly worse. With a relieved shrug, he moved to join Darcy and Elizabeth.
“I am well, truly,” she was saying. “Only a little tired.”
“Then you must rest,” Darcy asserted, looking far more concerned than a simple claim to fatigue justified.
“You cannot think I mean to desert you after that?” she objected.
“You must rest,” Darcy repeated, rather severely. “I shall have a tray sent up for you.”
“Fear not,” Fitzwilliam assured her. “I believe between me, the dinner table, and Lady Catherine’s cognac, he will be adequately consoled.”
Elizabeth smiled gratefully but did not seem ready to acquiesce.
“I should leave them to it, my dear,” advised Mrs. Sinclair, pushing herself to her feet with her cane. “Men are never satisfied with things until they have ranted about them in their cups. I shall dine with you upstairs if you have no objection to it. All the promise has gone out of the evening anyway now that her ladyship has shuffled off to bed. With any luck, she might shuffle a bit too far and topple right off the end of her mortal coil.”
***
“Bloody Hell! I ought never to have brought her here!” Darcy exclaimed as soon as the door shut behind the two ladies.
Fitzwilliam went directly to the sideboard, of the opinion that getting foxed and grumbling about the whole sorry mess was a fine idea. “She seemed to hold her own.”
“It should not be necessary for her to hold her own,” Darcy shot back, accepting the drink Fitzwilliam handed him and taking a substantial swig. “This hostility is not good for the…it is not good for her health.”
“I must say, I have never considered Elizabeth to be a fragile sort of woman. Why the sudden excessive concern?”
His cousin stared into his glass for a moment or two, his expression softening into a small but exultant smile. “She is with child.”
“Bugger me, already?”
Darcy’s slight shrug seemed to ask what else he had expected. Fitzwilliam shook his head at yet another example of the man’s nauseating proficiency in all things and offered his hearty congratulations. “Do not blame yourself for having brought her here. I daresay, now the worst is over, Lady Catherine will calm down.”
“That had better be the worst of it. Another word of her vile philippic and we shall leave directly.”
“Oh, I rather think she will back down,” he said lightly, wandering over to seat himself at the pianoforte. He poked at a few of the keys. “You certainly made your point, old boy.”
Darcy’s brow contracted. He took an angry gulp of his drink and stalked to scowl out of the window into the night. “It is unfortunate that we came here directly from Hertfordshire. Events there left me in no humour to hear another word spoken against Elizabeth.”
Fitzwilliam closed the instrument and leant on the lid. “I think it high time you told me what the devil happened at Netherfield.”
Darcy’s frown deepened, accurately presaging the grim account he proceeded to give. When he was done, Fitzwilliam stared at him, appalled. “And this was her elder sister, you say? Not any of the ghastly younger ones?”
“It was Jane. Bingley’s angel.”
“Good God! How did you act?”
“I informed Bingley that I would no longer recognise his wife or receive her into any of my houses.”
Fitzwilliam raised his eyebrows and blew out his cheeks. “How did he like that?”
“Very ill, though he did not cavil.”
Snatching up his glass, Fitzwilliam left the pianoforte and joined Darcy in staring out onto the moonlit lawn. “That must have been very difficult. You have been friends a long time.”
Darcy breathed in deeply through his nose and nodded. “We have. But Elizabeth is my priority now. I shall tolerate no further injury to her honour or her person.” He quaffed the rest of his drink and snarled. “Neither shall I tolerate Greyson’s loose tongue.”
“I very much doubt Greyson has said a word after the little chat we had with him. Lady Catherine much more likely had that tale from Collins.”
“What about the rest of the claptrap she claims is circulating about London?”
“I daresay that is all invention—borne of jealousy, most likely. You broke a lot of hearts about Town when you married Elizabeth, you know.” Darcy levelled a stare at him. “’Tis true! There was universal despair amongst the ladies of the ton the day your announcement was printed in the Times. Miss Periwinkle attempted to take her own life by pricking her finger with her embroidery needle. Miss Wilson declared she had nothing left for which to live and threw herself off a pavement into a puddle. Lady Frances cried herself to death.” That earned him an eye roll. “Lord Tewkesbury’s heart just about stopped altogether. He had five hundred pounds on your marrying Miss Bingley.”
“Stop.”
“That one is not even a joke.”
It turned out his grandmother was correct. A stiff drink, a spot of discourse, and Darcy was almost smiling again.
***
Tuesday, 6 October 1812: Kent
The sun shone bright and warm the next morning, oblivious to the pall of gloom enshrouding everyone at Rosings. Eager to escape the house, Elizabeth left early to call upon her friend Charlotte Collins but found her not at home. On learning from the servant that she had gone into Hunsford village, Elizabeth walked there in the hope of seeing her but to no avail. Eventually, exercised but divested of none of the confidences she had hoped to divulge to her friend, she walked back in the direction of the house.
There, leani
ng against the stile separating the parsonage from Rosings Park, she found her husband awaiting her. He cut a dashing figure in his snugly fitted trousers, precisely placed hat, impeccably defined side-whiskers, and knee-buckling little smile.
“I was considering sending out a search party.”
She refrained from suggesting he ought to consider employing a permanent staff for the purpose. “My apologies. I thought you were busy with Mr. Montgomery.”
“We are done.” He pushed away from the stile and came towards her. “Are you too tired to walk a little farther?”
“No, I should like that very much.” Indeed, she was happy to stay out of Lady Catherine’s way for as long as possible. “Where shall we walk?”
“Any path you choose but that one,” he replied, nodding at the one leading to Rosings. She grinned at their like minds and then, curious to discover what changes the different season had wrought on one of her favourite haunts, set out in the direction of the grove that lined the park.
***
In truth, Darcy was not in a humour for walking, talking, or indeed anything but ordering his trunks packed and departing forthwith. It seemed every time he came to this cursed place, he must wrestle with violently conflicting notions of affection and duty and without much history of success. He had hoped some time alone with Elizabeth would improve his humour, and indeed, it did until he recognised her chosen destination. Then, with the remembrance of her unbearable rejection growing more vivid with every step, his spirits grew gloomier than ever.
“How went your discussions with Mr. Montgomery?” Elizabeth enquired.
“Well enough. He has the capital to save Rosings, provided it is managed carefully.”
“Hence his desire for your assistance?”
Darcy inclined his head but said nothing more. His attention had come to be fixed upon the gate at which he had handed Elizabeth his letter.
