by Jane Lark
Mr Collins walked to Rosings to pay his respects and informed Darcy and his cousin… The tip of the quill tapped Jane’s chin… Colonel Fitzwilliam… That he entertained a guest at Hunsford Parsonage who was known to Mr Darcy, Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
Darcy was now besieged by both surprise and pleasure.
Something firm and hopeful gripped hard, like a fist, in Darcy’s chest as he offered to accompany Mr Collins home, to visit the women. Was it his fate to meet Elizabeth Bennet again? Darcy’s emotions rolled within Jane, swaying like waves in an ocean as the quill swirled over the paper forming the letters telling of Lizzy’s surprise that he’d call at the parsonage. But she was neither glad nor annoyed. She was more interested in Darcy’s cousin.
Darcy watched Elizabeth’s and Fitzwilliam’s interaction with envy twisting in his stomach. Fitzwilliam opened up conversation easily and had Elizabeth smiling and talking animatedly in moments. To Darcy she had curtseyed with civility, then remained silent.
He sat in the small parlour, unable to think of words to add to the flow of conversation, and Elizabeth barely looked at him, her beautiful eyes were all for Fitzwilliam.
At last it dawned on Darcy to ask after Lizzy’s family.
Her reply was polite, and yet with her quick mind and prejudiced judgement of what appeared Darcy’s indifference she took the opportunity to pressure him cruelly into conversing. “My eldest sister has been in town these three months. Have you ever happened to see her there?” Lizzy’s ill-feeling and ill-opinion caught in her chest, as she swallowed away the sudden bitter taste in her throat. In her opinion her sister had likely been ill-treated by his friend, and certainly by his friend’s sisters.
Darcy could not believe his ears. “I have never been so fortunate as to meet Miss Bennet.” Guilt punctured his chest with the sharp thrust of the tip of a fencing sword. He had known Miss Bennet was in town, he had been told by Miss Bingley. They had both believed it entirely unwise to tell Bingley. Bingley was being lured into a snare and neither of them would allow it to happen to a man of such a happy nature. Bingley would never endure a marriage which turned out to be false.
It seemed Miss Elizabeth Bennet had taken offence to the loss of her sister’s hope.
Soon after, Colonel Fitzwilliam suggested they take their leave and Darcy rose. But he left the parsonage with mixed emotions. His heart still harboured a strong attraction for Elizabeth Bennet. She had lost none of her charm. Yet he had lost none of his discomfort.
Lizzy’s only view on Darcy as he left them was that she wished to know exactly why he and Bingley had quitted Netherfield with such haste. It all seemed suspicious now. Darcy had looked too confused and awkward when she had asked about seeing Jane in London.
Fitzwilliam, being a man of easy manners, walked to the parsonage to visit the women repeatedly in the first week of his stay at Rosings. But Darcy hid himself away with his aunt and his female cousin, Miss de b… —the right name still did not flow through Jane’s fingers—too embarrassed to face Elizabeth. He could think of nothing more to say to her than what he had already asked. Yet the situation was taken from his hands when his aunt invited the party from the parsonage to join them at Rosings after dinner on the Sunday evening.
The candle’s flame flickered and then guttered into extinction, but the room was not dark, it was a light grey. Dawn was breaking already and Jane could see enough to pick out the dark ink against the white paper. She could see well enough to write.
She lay down the quill and stood, then walked to the windows and opened each set of shutters, bringing as much light into the room as she could. The sun had not risen, it was still below the horizon, yet it was close enough to make the sky a light blue-black, rather than pure blackness, and the moonlight tinted it silver.
Jane walked back to the table, her bare feet quiet on the wooden floorboards, then tucked her nightdress beneath her and sat once more, before picking up the quill. She dipped it in the ink.
Fitzwilliam claimed Lizzy’s attention from the moment she arrived at Rosings, sitting close to her. He now not only had the advantage of his relaxed approachable nature, but of having called upon her often and having shared several exuberant conversations.
Lizzy was absorbed; she enjoyed lively conversation above anything.
Darcy’s attention and gaze were regularly pulled towards Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam, as Darcy tried to catch elements of their constant discourse. They had turned to sit sideward, so they faced each other and excluded everyone else.
Jealousy invaded him. Damn her for her magnetic nature.
“What is it that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it that you are talking of?” Lady Catherine de… called.
Lady S & S was in Jane’s mind as the next words flowed onto the paper: her stiff manner and her way of ordering everything about her.
Lizzy would be ordered to the pianoforte for her penance. She should not have spoken of music to Colonel Fitzwilliam, then he could not have told Lady Catherine that had been their subject. But Lizzy accepted her seat there politely if not willingly, and with Colonel Fitzwilliam as her companion she was not too upset over her situation away from the rest of the party.
Darcy rose. The music gave him an opportunity to draw nearer, to listen. She played pleasantly, perfectly tolerably.
She looked up, her gaze full of the judgemental, condescending appraisal she reserved for him. This was why he had stayed away from the parsonage, and yet when he was in a room with her there was no strength in him to keep away.
Her gaze returned to the movement of her fingers. “You mean to frighten me Mr Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me?” She did not look up anymore while she continued to tease him. “My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.”
Her mocking achieved the opposite of what she probably intended; instead of sending him away in fear of embarrassment and full of self-consciousness, it amused him. A glow rose inside him to hear her light taunting voice aimed at him, that he might participate in her lively chatter. He was no longer fearful of participation in her witty rebuffs, he had known her longer than his cousin, he had spent enough hours in her company to know her ways and respond. “…you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which, in fact, are not your own.” A smile pulled at the muscles of Darcy’s face and parted his lips when Elizabeth laughed openly.
Then she looked at Fitzwilliam but continued to tease Darcy, accusing him of telling tales on her to make her appear bad, before threatening that such behaviour would encourage her to reciprocate.
Darcy hardly cared, she was smiling at him, and including him in her conversation. Her eyes danced with merriment, intelligence and happiness. “I am not afraid of you.” The taunt slipped from his tongue with an ease that was not normally his.
Fitzwilliam called for the details of her charge against Darcy. It was no more than that Darcy had refused to dance with anyone other than the women he knew, on his first seeing Elizabeth Bennet. When he excused himself with that defence, it was thrown back at him.
“…and nobody can ever be introduced in a ball-room.”
A grunt of humour almost escaped Darcy’s throat as she looked at Fitzwilliam and asked him to tell her what to play, but Darcy was not done with the conversation, or the possession of her attention.
“Perhaps I should have judged better, had I sought an introduction; but I am ill qualified to recommend myself to strangers.”
Lizzy looked at his cousin, and asked for Fitzwilliam’s view of Darcy’s claim. “Shall we ask him why a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, is ill qualified to recommend himself to strangers?”
She was wicked. Why must she taunt him so and yet encourage his interest so inexplicably?
Fitzwilliam gave her her answer, claiming that Darcy could never be bothered with
such things.
“I certainly have not the talent which some people possess, of conversing easily with those I have never seen before.” He had told her that before, though, and so he told her more. “I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.”
Elizabeth’s head rose and she looked directly at him. Those eyes.
“My fingers,” said Elizabeth, “do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women’s do. They have not the same force of rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault—because I would not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman’s of superior execution.”
Elizabeth Bennet was a clever woman and she had wit. He was amused and entertained by her. She also spoke the truth. A smile pulled up Darcy’s lips, and even lifted the muscle at his temples. “You are perfectly right. You have employed your time much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you can think anything wanting.” Perhaps, though, her analogy may help her better understand him. “We neither of us perform to strangers.”
Further conversation and amusement was denied him by his aunt approaching and drawing him back to a chair beside his cousin.
It was Lizzy’s turn to watch. She had experienced such a conversation, or nearly such a conversation, with Darcy only once before. In the drawing room at Netherfield when her sister Jane was ill. He had been writing a letter to his sister and then accused Miss Bingley and Lizzy of walking about the room only to show off their figures.
Lizzy watched every moment of the conversation he shared with his female cousin, and every look he sent his cousin’s way. There was no warmth. There was no sign of affection. If Miss Bingley wished to claim Darcy as her own it was quite possible she might be able to; he certainly showed no greater affection for Miss de… with whom he was supposed to be engaged.
The quill slipped from Jane’s fingers, and she sat back with a tired sigh, only now realizing how sleepy she felt.
She looked at the windows. The sky was yellow, orange and pink. Dawn had broken. She rose, stretched her back and walked over to the bed, then climbed in between the cold sheets.
Her head was still full of Darcy and Lizzy. The scenes in which Darcy was continually to be found in Lizzy’s favourite place and would not be dismissed. The time he called upon her at the parsonage in Hunsford and discovered her alone, and then himself tongue-tied. The scene of his regretful proposal… and all else, played through Jane’s head. Except now these scenes would be played out after Bingley, Darcy and Bingley’s sisters had left Netherfield, and it would be Colonel Fitzwilliam who must let Lizzy suspect Darcy had encouraged Bingley to leave.
Now these scenes would play out at Rosings, in Rosings Park, with Lizzy in a retreat away from the eyes of her family.
The darkness finally claimed Jane and cloaked the images in her mind, settling over her and drawing her into sleep.
Chapter 16
A knock hit the door.
Jane’s eyes opened. The room was bright.
She looked at the window. The sky outside implied it was full day.
The knock struck again.
“Jane.” Her name was whispered through the door. ”Are you awake?”
Jane yawned. It was Cassandra outside. “Yes!” she called back.
The door opened. “Hello, you dreadful lie-a-bed.”
Jane smiled. Cassandra looked at the manuscript which was left in two higgledy-piggledy piles on the table and the quill that had been left to fall as it would.
“It is past midday but now I see why you have not risen.”
Jane smiled. “Inspiration gripped me, I could not allow it to walk away.’
“No,” Cassandra smiled her agreement and acceptance.
Jane sat up. “I suppose you wish me to rise.”
“I would appreciate your company. George Cook has left, and Mr Hill and Mrs Hill with him—” Cassandra shut the door and came across the room.
“Why?”
“It was agreed that Mr Hill ought to travel to London in order to manage some of the legal claims over the inheritance, and George Cook volunteered to take them up in his carriage.” Cassandra sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Oh.”
“Did Mr Hill tell you that we were named in Mary Leigh’s will?”
“No.”
“They are only token remembrances and yet I feel very honoured.”
Jane laughed. “I do too. Fancy Mary Leigh recalling distant cousins with such a kindness as to remember us with gifts no matter how small. It shall help me brag of my being a descendent of aristocracy when we reach Frank’s. People will believe me if I say The Honourable Mary Leigh remembered me in her will.”
Cassandra smiled. Then she looked at Jane’s hand as it gripped the sheet.
Jane looked at the ink stains too.
“I think it wonderful that you have begun writing again.”
“Do not speak too soon.”
“What are you working on?”
“First Impressions.”
“Lizzy and Darcy…”
“Yes, and do not ask me more, but you shall be impressed when I am done, and it is perfected. Then I will allow you to read it. Darcy has found himself to be a man of much greater depth than even I knew.”
Cassandra smiled again as Jane threw back the covers and climbed out of bed.
The breakfast hour had long past and so Cassandra and Jane walked down three different staircases to reach the kitchens in the old undercroft, with all its medieval arches.
It would soon be time to leave this place. The thought hurt Jane’s heart. She never wished to leave.
Yet they would be going to Frank’s home. To be welcomed into his family.
A maid prepared a pot of tea and Jane and Cassandra sat down at a long table, as at the other end two maids were busy rolling out pastry for pies for the table upstairs.
There was an atmosphere here that was industrious, alive, and yet homely, it was that which carried in the warmth from the ovens, the conversation and the sweet and savoury smells scenting the air. It was why Jane’s mother loved the kitchens.
Jane and Cassandra drank their tea, then ate freshly baked bread with cheese made and matured in Stoneleigh Abbey’s dairy, and then they sat and watched the servants prepare the dinner, talking with them. It was not until the hour came to ready themselves to dine that they returned to the grand areas of the house.
~
When Jane walked into the drawing room later, dressed for dinner, it was with a face expressing her surprise. There was a stranger in the room.
“Miss Jane Austen, please meet my cousin and friend, Mr Holt Leigh.” Mr Leigh walked across the room with the new guest. Mr Holt Leigh bowed.
Another cousin. Jane curtseyed. She had not heard mention of his arrival when they had been below stairs.
“Mr Holt Leigh and I met while I was at university.”
Jane nodded as the man in question took hold of her fingers, bowed over them and then kissed their backs. “Miss Jane Austen. What a pleasure. I am very glad to meet you. You must surely be my cousin also, to one removal or another.”
When Cassandra entered the room, Mr Holt Leigh’s introduction was repeated.
He was an easy-going man of considerable conversation, and he and Mr Leigh talked about their history together. It was one of the most entertaining meals Jane had enjoyed in her days at Stoneleigh Abbey. It was surprising how much of a difference congenial conversation could make to an evening.
It seemed a very dull place then, when the women, now Lady S & S, Mrs Leigh, Jane, her mother and Cassandra, withdrew and awaited the men in the drawing room. Jane stood, and walked to the window to look out. The farmyard could be seen as the drawing room was elevated. She watched the pigs in their sty as she waited for the men to come in, and the conversation to begin again.
The problem with the plot in First Impressions was that there continued to be no jeopardy between Darcy and Lizzy. Mr Collins’s character had added much, but he had not added that. Jane was still not happy with the story. It was not as good as she wished it to be.
There was something missing.
Masculine laughter echoed from the hall a moment before the door opened and the men came in.
Jane turned, glad for the change of focus, and for the new dimension Mr Holt Leigh added to their party. Lady S & S barely managed a word about his sentences, and he spoke with a low voice that drew attention and made everyone listen more intently. The tales he told were also captivating, and humorous.
“We should do something tomorrow.” Mr Holt Leigh leant back and slapped his hands on his thighs. “Ladies, I am sure you have not come all this way to sit about the house, we must entertain you before you leave Stoneleigh Abbey.”
Jane looked at her mother, she must have shared that they were at the end of their time here.
“We have not been to Warwick Castle,” Lady S & S answered.
“But have you been to Kenilworth?”
Lady S & S lifted her chin, she did not like to be challenged even if it was with a question. “We have already been to Kenilworth. Warwick is a large castle that is neither ruined, nor abandoned.”
“I am well aware what Warwick is, my Lady,” Mr Holt Leigh replied with a smile.
“But does Warwick Castle have a moat? My mother-in-law’s castle has a moat, you see, Holt, and Kenilworth did not,” Mr Leigh teased.
“You know it does, James,” Lady S & S snapped.
“And I know that Broughton Castle’s moat is of a very grand, gothic style, ma’am.” Mr Holt Leigh looked at Jane, her mother and Cassandra. “But Warwick is equally impressive. I absolutely concur with Lady Saye and Sele, that if you have seen Kenilworth then of course you must see Warwick. Its stateliness might be compared with the Tower of London. Ladies, what do you say? Shall we visit a very grand castle rather than wander about a ruin?”
