Mr. Darcy's Undoing

by Abigail Reynolds

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2011 by Abigail Reynolds

  Cover and internal design © 2011 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Cathleen Elliott

  Cover image © Erich Lessing/Art Resource

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

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  Originally published in 2007 by Intertidal Press as Without Reserve

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Reynolds, Abigail.

  Mr. Darcy’s undoing / Abigail Reynolds.

  p. cm.

  1. Darcy, Fitzwilliam (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Bennet, Elizabeth (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Courtship—Fiction. 4. England—Social life and customs—19th century—Fiction. 5. Gentry—England—Fiction. I. Austen, Jane, 1775-1817. Pride and prejudice. II. Title.

  PS3618.E967M688 2011

  813’.6—dc22

  2011027392

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  To

  the readers at Austen Interlude and Hyacinth Gardens

  who encouraged me to keep writing,

  and especially to

  Ellen Pickels,

  who made my books possible

  Chapter 1

  By the time the ladies of the Bennet family reached the Assembly Rooms in Meryton, Elizabeth was already beginning to regret her decision to attend that evening. Her interest had been slender to begin with; she had no desire to be in the company of the officers, particularly Mr. Wickham, and she was not yet recovered from the emotional blows she had received during her recent visit to Kent. Between the persistent complaints of her younger sisters regarding the unfairness of their father’s decision not to remove the family to Brighton and her mother’s unending reminiscences of the Assembly where Jane had met Mr. Bingley, she was quite ready to be left to her own company. Only the sight of Jane’s pallor as Mrs. Bennet continued to hold forth on her loss of Mr. Bingley gave her any sense of purpose. She squeezed her sister’s hand reassuringly.

  When they entered the Assembly, several of their friends came up to greet them and to welcome Jane and Elizabeth back to Hertfordshire. Elizabeth was sorry to see that Mr. Wickham was indeed among the crowd; she had seen him twice already since her return. In addition to her other grievances, she had a fresh source of displeasure, for he had made clear his inclination toward renewing those attentions which had marked the early part of their acquaintance. This could only serve to provoke her, and she lost all concern for him in finding herself thus selected as the object of such idle and frivolous gallantry. While she steadily repressed it, she could not but feel the reproof contained in his believing that however long and for whatever cause his attentions had been withdrawn, her vanity would be gratified and her preference secured at any time by their renewal.

  As she saw Mr. Wickham approaching her with a charming smile, no doubt planning to ask her for the honour of the first two dances, Elizabeth turned a brilliant smile on the gentleman to her right, an acquaintance of many years’ standing by the name of Mr. Covington, who was in possession of a small estate some ten miles from Meryton. She did not know him particularly well, but his native good humour and enjoyment of company rendered him welcome wherever he went, and Elizabeth was not displeased to have his company as an alternative to Mr. Wickham’s.

  “Mr. Covington,” she exclaimed. “It has been quite some time since I have seen you—I dare say it was before Christmas at least.”

  “You would be quite right, Miss Bennet,” he replied. “Owing to my mother’s recent illness, I did not have to opportunity to attend events such as these this winter, and by the time I returned, you were off on your travels, and very much missed.”

  “I am sure,” said Elizabeth with an arch look. “With the introduction of all the officers, ladies are now always scarce, so I would imagine that the absence of any lady would be noted.”

  “The others may speak for themselves, Miss Bennet,” he said with an appreciative smile, “but for myself you were missed only for the lack of the pleasure of your company. To make up for my loss, would you do me the honour of dancing the first two dances?”

  Elizabeth accepted with a smile; after the stressful nature of her recent interactions with Mr. Darcy and then the discomfort of Mr. Wickham’s company, it was pleasant to spend a few minutes in the company of an agreeable and undemanding young man like Mr. Covington. The reassurance that she was still sought out as a partner by men other than the officers did not go amiss either.

  She talked happily with him through the first set and afterwards joined him for some refreshments, hearing all the news of his mother’s illness and recovery, the effects of the winter on Ashworth House and his tenants; and telling him amusing stories of her journey to Kent and London. She left him without particular regret when one of the officers asked her to dance.

  It would have been difficult not to enjoy herself, given the plethora of available partners, and she was successful for the most part at avoiding Mr. Wickham; the one time he managed to catch her and request her hand for a set of dances, she could fortunately plead that she had already promised the dances to another gentleman. Reflecting on the native injustice of the fact that a lady could not refuse to dance with one gentleman without refusing all other partners as well, she made a point of avoiding him after the set of dances were over. Fortunately, Mr. Covington again materialized by her side, offering her refreshments and a hope she would join him for another dance, to which Elizabeth was happy to give a positive response, as it meant one more set where she could evade Wickham.

  She was pleasantly exhausted by the end of the evening, and was able to ignore her mother’s constant revisiting of the event on the way home and recitals of every officer with whom Lydia had danced.

  ***

  The first week of Elizabeth’s return was soon gone. The second began. It was the last of the regiment’s stay in Meryton, and all the young ladies in the neighbourhood were drooping apace. The dejection was almost universal. The elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat, drink, and sleep, and pursue the usual course of their employments. Very frequently were they reproached for this insensibility by Kitty and Lydia, whose own misery was extreme, and who could not comprehend such hard-heartedness in any of the family.

  “Good Heaven! What is to become of us! What are we to do!” would
they often exclaim in the bitterness of woe. “How can you be smiling so, Lizzy?”

  Their affectionate mother shared all their grief; she remembered what she had herself endured on a similar occasion, five and twenty years ago.

  “I am sure,” said she, “I cried for two days together when Colonel Millar’s regiment went away. I thought I should have broke my heart.”

  “I am sure I shall break mine,” said Lydia.

  “If one could but go to Brighton!” observed Mrs. Bennet.

  “Oh, yes!—if one could but go to Brighton! But Papa is so disagreeable.”

  “A little sea-bathing would set me up forever.”

  “And my aunt Phillips is sure it would do me a great deal of good,” added Kitty.

  Such were the kind of lamentations resounding perpetually through Longbourn House. Elizabeth tried to be diverted by them; but all sense of pleasure was lost in shame. She felt anew the justice of Mr. Darcy’s objections; and never had she before been so much disposed to pardon his interference in the views of his friend.

  But the gloom of Lydia’s prospect was shortly cleared away; for she received an invitation from Mrs. Forster, the wife of the colonel of the regiment, to accompany her to Brighton. This invaluable friend was a very young woman, and very lately married. A resemblance in good humour and good spirits had recommended her and Lydia to each other, and out of their three months’ acquaintance they had been intimate two.

  The rapture of Lydia on this occasion, her adoration of Mrs. Forster, the delight of Mrs. Bennet, and the mortification of Kitty, are scarcely to be described. Wholly inattentive to her sister’s feelings, Lydia flew about the house in restless ecstasy, calling for everyone’s congratulations, and laughing and talking with more violence than ever; whilst the luckless Kitty continued in the parlour repining at her fate in terms as unreasonable as her accent was peevish.

  “I cannot see why Mrs. Forster should not ask me as well as Lydia,” said she, “though I am not her particular friend. I have just as much right to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am two years older.”

  In vain did Elizabeth attempt to make her reasonable, and Jane to make her resigned. As for Elizabeth herself, this invitation was so far from exciting in her the same feelings as in her mother and Lydia, that she considered it as the death-warrant of all possibility of common sense for the latter; and detestable as such a step must make her were it known, she could not help secretly advising her father not to let her go. She represented to him all the improprieties of Lydia’s general behaviour, the little advantage she could derive from the friendship of such a woman as Mrs. Forster, and the probability of her being yet more imprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must be greater than at home.

  Although he heard her attentively, her father, concerned more with his own domestic peace, was not disposed to agree with her reasoning, nor with her concern for the very great disadvantage to them all arising from the public notice of Lydia’s imprudent manner. Elizabeth was forced to be content with his answer, but her own opinion remained the same, and she left him disappointed and sorry. It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on them. She was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her disposition.

  She was happy to be distracted from both Kitty’s lamentations and Lydia’s raptures when Mr. Covington and his mother came to call. Mrs. Covington was a contemporary of Mrs. Bennet’s, but her nature was quite different, being both eminently practical and tactful; a combination which had served her well during her years of managing the Ashworth estate by herself following her husband’s untimely death and before the majority of her son. Elizabeth was not surprised to find that, after greeting Mrs. Bennet cordially, Mrs. Covington chose to locate herself between the two eldest Miss Bennets; she had always had a suspicion that Mrs. Covington found Mrs. Bennet’s company to be rather trying, though her manners would never have indicated as much.

  Elizabeth expressed her pleasure at Mrs. Covington’s return to health. On this subject Mrs. Bennet waxed lyrical, including referring to every illness she herself had ever suffered as well as those of most of the neighbours. Elizabeth and Jane were finally able to interrupt this flow with a discussion of their recent visit to Town. Mrs. Bennet, with little to say for herself on this topic, spent a rare moment of observation, and caught sight of an unguarded look on Mr. Covington’s face as he gazed at her second daughter. Never backward to credit what was for the advantage of her family, or that came in the shape of a lover to any of her daughters, she was immediately delighted. She began to offer him attention, and mark her deference for his opinions sufficiently to catch the embarrassed attention of her daughters.

  At this point, Lydia, who had just returned from Meryton, where she had paid a visit to Mrs. Forster, burst into the room with her usual energy, barely stopping to greet their guests before launching into a lively rendition of her adventures in the town and the plans she and her friend had made for her stay in Brighton. She took off a mournful Kitty to see her latest purchases, leaving behind a room that seemed much quieter for her absence.

  Mrs. Covington, with the slightest of frowns, asked Mrs. Bennet, “Is your family travelling to Brighton this summer, then?”

  Mrs. Bennet explained the circumstances, bewailing a little her husband’s cruelty in not permitting the entire family to go.

  “I can well understand why you would be reluctant to allow Lydia to go without being there to supervise her in person,” said Mrs. Covington decisively, misunderstanding Mrs. Bennet’s intended purpose in wishing to bring her family to Brighton. “It is not a place for a young girl on her own; the officers of the militia here seem to be gentlemen, but there are many others who are wild and unmanageable. A girl like Lydia could easily become a target for an unscrupulous man. No, Mrs. Bennet, I fully agree with you that she should not be allowed to go without you.”

  “That is what I have told Mr. Bennet time and again!” cried Mrs. Bennet. She was not prepared to spoil the mood of a prospective suitor for one of her girls by correcting the misapprehension that she did not approve of Lydia’s journey.

  “I should agree as well,” interjected Mr. Covington, who had been watching Elizabeth’s face, and had gathered a good idea of her opinion of the matter. “I would not allow her to go by herself—though I certainly hope for myself that your family will not be travelling to Brighton any time soon. Why, Miss Bennet and Miss Elizabeth have only just returned!” He smiled warmly in Elizabeth’s direction.

  Mrs. Bennet was delighted by this additional hint as to his intentions. “Well, you need not worry, Mr. Covington. Mr. Bennet has made it clear he will not allow it,” she said, with just a hint of testiness. “But Lydia has her heart set on visiting Mrs. Forster there this summer; they are such dear friends, you know.”

  Elizabeth found it quite astonishing that her mother was being so deferential to the opinions of their guests; and while she could not begin to comprehend why this should be so, she was perfectly willing to take advantage of it. “Could not Lydia visit Mrs. Forster in the autumn instead, at the regiment’s winter headquarters, when she would only be with the __shire regiment, whom we know and of whom she is such a favourite?” she asked.

  “An excellent thought,” said Mrs. Covington firmly.

  Mrs. Bennet began to look decidedly vexed; she did not wish to dash the hopes of her favourite merely for Lizzy’s sake, but Mr. Covington was quite eligible, and it certainly seemed that Mr. Bingley was never to return. “Well, I am sure Mr. Bennet will give it due consideration,” she said querulously.

  The visit lasted for over an hour, and concluded with an invitation to dine at Ashworth the following week. Their guests had no sooner departed than Mrs. Bennet’s raptures began. “Oh, my dearest Lizzy!” she cried. “Mr. Covington! Oh, why did you say nothing of it to
me! He will do very well for you, indeed. You shall be mistress of Ashworth! Oh, Lord! Of course, it is nothing to what Mr. Bingley would have been, but we must learn to live with our disappointments. He will do quite well for you, though I cannot imagine why he did not choose Jane or Lydia instead—but there is no accounting for men’s thinking!”

  Elizabeth lifted up her eyes. “I must remind you that Mr. Covington has not expressed any intentions at all towards me, nor has he suggested he is calling on me. I suspect he was doing no more than paying a neighbourly call.”

  “Nonsense, Lizzy!” Mrs. Bennet cried. “Come ten miles just to visit? I think not! No, mark my words, Lizzy, you will be the next mistress of Ashworth!”

  Elizabeth could see there was to be no reasoning with her, though she remained unconvinced that Mr. Covington’s interest in her was anything more than a passing fancy.

  She was forced to reconsider this question, though, after their dinner engagement at Ashworth. It could not be denied that Mr. Covington was particularly attentive to her that evening, soliciting her opinion on a variety of matters, and going so far as to offer the party in general, but Elizabeth in particular, a tour of the house and grounds.

  Elizabeth felt the compliment of his attentions, but was cautious. She did not wish her liveliness to mislead him, as it apparently had both Mr. Collins and Mr. Darcy in their different ways. Mr. Covington, though, she had known since the days when she wore her hair down, although never particularly well. This was, to her recollection, one of only a half dozen or so times she had been to Ashworth House. It was a well-kept house, slightly smaller than Longbourn, and not particularly well suited to hosting large parties; and since old Mr. Covington’s death until his son reached his majority, his mother was less active in the neighbourhood circles than she might have been otherwise.

  She felt a little discomfort at the idea of her old acquaintance becoming her suitor. She had never thought of him in that way, though, as she thought back upon it, he had been more attentive to her than usual for some time now, which she had attributed to his natural affability. She could certainly find no reason to object to his interest in her; he was well respected, amiable, responsible, and she had never heard ill report of him, nor could she recall any instance in which she had been personally displeased with him. If she had not thought of him in the way a woman thinks of her lover, she reasoned, it was likely the result of her unfortunate experiences in the last months, which did not render her likely to look upon any man in such a manner. In some ways it was more surprising that she had not considered him as a candidate for her affections—he was certainly more suitable for her than either of the two men who had been her favourites, Wickham and Colonel Fitzwilliam, and he could be very agreeable. Perhaps, she thought, choosing a suitor based purely on immediate liking and attraction was dangerous, since it allowed a scoundrel such as Wickham to take advantage of her; it might be that a sensible match with a man she knew and respected was a better option. Perhaps it was nothing more than his very familiarity that had led her to overlook him.