If I Were Mrs Darcy

by Sophia Grey

  She had come to the West End with a plan. She would go to Grosvenor Street with the express task of speaking to Mr. Bingley, if he were not there, then she would speak to Caroline and demand that she deliver the letter she carried in her reticule to her brother, and if there was no one at home, she would have deposited her letter in the letterbox and hoped that it would read its intended recipient.

  Her letter was a plea, a desperate bid for Mr. Bingley to reconsider his affections for Jane and throw aside the counsel of his friends and sisters. She admonished him for the ease that he had cast Jane’s affections aside and assured him that her sister was by no means entertaining any other offers or prospective beau’s… nor had she ever. She had read and re-read her letter many times, but no matter how much she tried, she could not bring herself to speak as ill of Mr. Darcy as she would have wished to in the past. He had turned Mr. Bingley’s heart from Jane as a matter of concern for his friend, but with no thought as to how it would affect the lady in question. Indeed, she was sure that Mr. Darcy had not considered Jane’s feelings in the slightest, just as he had never considered hers. They were, quite simply, beneath him.

  However, it was Caroline Bingley and her sister that Elizabeth believed deserved the brunt of her anger. They had known Jane, spoken with her, called her ‘dearest’ and made her believe that they were friends only to turn upon her like jackals.

  “Miss Bingley,” Elizabeth blurted out as she drew near. “Miss Caroline Bingley!”

  Caroline turned, startled to be called out to in the street in such an ungenteel manner, but Elizabeth pushed aside the brief flash of embarrassment and increased her pace. Several people turned to look and Elizabeth could hear small gasps of amazement and shock as they passed her. The look of astonishment on Caroline’s face was one that Elizabeth wanted to savor, but it was impossible.

  “Miss Eliza Bennet? I did not think to ever see you in London, especially so far from Cheapside!”

  Elizabeth ignored Caroline’s quick barb, and did not see the point in correcting her on where Gracechurch Street was located. “I am visiting my aunt and uncle,” she replied swiftly. “Much like my sister Jane did just after Christmas.”

  Caroline Bingley smiled thinly, but Elizabeth could see suspicion and cunning in the other woman’s eyes. “Oh, did she, indeed? How lovely. It was a lovely winter was it not, Louisa?”

  “Yes. She wrote to you several times.” Elizabeth held up the address Mrs. Gardiner had given her so that Miss Bingley could see it. “Is this not your address on Grosvenor Street?”

  Miss Bingley squinted at the piece of parchment in Elizabeth’s hand and then straightened. “I can hardly read that script, but yes, that is the correct address.”

  Elizabeth could feel her face heating with anger, and she scolded herself inwardly for not keeping her composure. “Do you deny that you received letters from Jane?”

  Miss Bingley smiled slyly. “I do not deny it,” she said smoothly. “Louisa, Charles, and I were kept very busy by our friends and I do regret that her presence her presence here in London went quite unnoticed.”

  “Yes, I had quite forgotten,” said Louisa brightly.

  “How dare you,” Elizabeth whispered harshly. “Jane is a kindest person in this world, and you are not deserving of her friendship. In fact, I do not think you know the meaning of that word.”

  Miss Bingley’s eyes shifted to the people passing by, and she smiled and nodded to someone she knew. “Miss Bennet this is most irregular,” she said quietly. “To be accosted in the street—”

  “I have spoken to Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth interrupted her. “And he has told me that it was he who told Mr. Bingley to abandon his affections for Jane.” Mrs. Hurst had the decency to look nervous as Elizabeth continued speaking, but Miss Bingley stood straight and tall and glared back at her accuser. “But what little hope I might have had that you, her dear friends, might come to her aid and tell you brother that he was mistaken in listening to Mr. Darcy has been dashed by your cruelty to Jane and your refusal to see her or even give her the comfort of your counsel in such a time. You have been false to her as you have been false to your own brother. I hope that you are suitably ashamed.”

  “Ashamed?” Miss Bingley laughed. “What shame is there in protecting our dear brother from tying himself to a family such as yours? Your mother is a harridan, your sisters are fools, and you, Miss Eliza Bennet—you are standing on a street corner in a very fine neighborhood making an embarrassment of yourself.”

  Elizabeth’s cheeks flamed and her fist tightened around the parchment she carried. Miss Bingley’s silken smile reminded her that there was nothing she could do in this moment. Nothing she could say that would make them change their minds or speak well of Jane to their brother. They had admitted their guilt, and their pride in the part they had played. Elizabeth gritted her teeth and smiled grimly.

  “I see. If I cared for your good opinion, I would offer some apology, but I do not. I regret that my sister chose to give her affections to a gentleman who is so unlucky as to have two such you for sisters. She would have been miserable in your company, and I am thankful now to have seen your true selves revealed.”

  If Caroline Bingley was shocked by Elizabeth’s words, her expression did not show it. Her smile stayed in place and her eyes glittered in the sunlight. Louisa Hurst, for her part, looked chastened, but furious, as though it consumed every ounce of her will to remain silent.

  “If you are quite finished, dear Eliza, Louisa and I would like to continue our walk We shall be late for tea at Mrs. Larkson’s. Do give our very best regards to dear Jane when you see her next. Tell her that I long to see her again.”

  Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at Caroline Bingley and glared at her. If a look could reduce a person to ashes, it would have been the very look Elizabeth was directing at Mr. Bingley’s sister. “Do enjoy your walk,” Elizabeth hissed. Caroline Bingley and Mrs. Hurst walked past Elizabeth with their shoulders straight and their chins held high and Elizabeth watched them go with white-hot fury quaking through her limbs.

  With a determined stride and a furious look in her eye she stormed down the street toward the address her aunt had written on the piece of parchment she carried in her hand. If she could not speak reason to Caroline Bingley, perhaps her brother would listen.

  She found the white-painted door at number thirty-seven Grosvenor Street and rang the perfectly polished bell. She waited nervously upon the front step with her eye upon the darkening clouds overhead. It would be worth every bit of misery she would experience at being caught in an afternoon rain shower if she could deliver the letter she had written into Mr. Bingley’s hand.

  The door opened and Elizabeth smiled as a tall gentleman with a broad silver moustache answered the door. Elizabeth racked her memories, trying to remember if Caroline or Mrs. Hurst had mentioned the name of their butler, but she could not. “Good morning,” she said quickly as she pulled the letter from her reticule. “Mrs. Hurst sent me with this letter for Mr. Bingley… would you be so kind as to deliver it to him?”

  “Where did you get this,” the man asked loftily as he surveyed Elizabeth with a critical eye. Elizabeth thought quickly and then bobbed a clumsy curtsey.

  “From Mrs. Larkson’s, sir,” she replied. “She said it was ever so urgent.” A gentleman in service to Mrs. Hurst would not expect that she was someone whose society would be cultivated by his mistress.

  “Indeed,” he said loftily. With a deep sigh he held out his hand for the letter but Elizabeth clutched it tightly.

  “She asked me to have your promise that it would be set into the gentleman’s hand immediately.” The man narrowed his eyes at her but nodded sharply. It would have to be good enough. If she pressed him for any answers as to Mr. Bingley’s whereabouts he would become suspicious. He took the letter and examined the handwriting. “Thank you, sir, I will be on my way,” she called out brightly, hoping to distract him from his scrutiny.

  “Good day,” the m
an grumbled and he closed the door as Elizabeth rushed down the stairs and walked quickly back the way she had come. She could only hope that the stern-faced man would take the letter to Mr. Bingley without questioning its origins. She had taken great pains to make her hand as neat and legible as possible. Perhaps it could even pass for Mrs. Hurst’s penmanship. It was all up to chance now, she thought as she hurried along the sidewalks that would lead her back to Gracechurch Street. It had been a longer walk than she had intended, but she took the soreness in her feet and the fatigue in her mind as fair payment for doing this service for Jane.

  Perhaps it would be enough.

  Perhaps, despite everything, she could turn her sister’s sorrow into joy.

  * * *

  Elizabeth waited with a nervous heart for the day to arrive that she would set out for Hertfordshire once more. Each time the doorbell rang she jumped thinking that it would be Miss Bingley come from across town to abuse her in a more private setting, or perhaps even Mr. Bingley at the door to make her answer for her boldness. But it was nothing. A letter for her aunt, a stack of papers for Mr. Gardiner from his clerk. Nothing for her except a brief letter from Jane expressing her excitement at Elizabeth’s impending journey home to Longbourn and a question as to how she had come to leave Hunsford so soon.

  Elizabeth read the letter carefully, but did not write a reply. She would be home soon enough, and would be able to explain all that had transpired. Or, at least, some of it.

  Though the household was surprised to see her home so soon after her departure for Hunsford, it was clear to Elizabeth that her presence had been sorely missed. Lydia and Kitty moped around the house as news that the garrison would be moving south to Brighton for the summer months spread through Meryton. As Jane told it, Lydia had threatened, cried, and begged to be allowed to go along, but though she had been invited as the companion of Colonel Forster’s wife, Mr. Bennet had not allowed it. “The house was in misery for days with wailing and complaints from Lydia at Papa’s cruelty, from Kitty at being forgotten yet again, and Mama as she insisted that our father took no care as to the well-being of his daughters.”

  Seated at the vanity as she brushed out her dark curls, Elizabeth laughed gently at the thought of the noise in the house—Mr. Bennet detested noise, and could most often be counted upon to do his utmost to ensure that such cacophonies did not occur. But their mother was also correct in one of her most frequent criticisms of him—he had a will of iron, and when his decision had been made, there would be no dissuading him from it. Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief that Lydia had not been allowed to go, and found herself pausing to think about what might have happened had she been taken away from the family’s watchful eye and left to the care of the militia and Mrs. Forster.

  The Colonel’s wife was as empty-headed as Lydia herself, which is how Elizabeth suspected they had become such particular friends… no good would have come from that particular adventure, of that she was very sure.

  “But now you are home,” Jane said with a smile, “and all is as it should be. But why have you come back from Hunsford so quickly? I was to understand that you would be there for the better part of a month… surely nothing so terrible could have happened so soon after your arrival?”

  Elizabeth set down her hair brush and rose from the vanity. “Oh, but Jane, something did happen.” She sat next to Jane on her sister’s bed and grasped her hands. “I saw Mr. Darcy at Hunsford.”

  “Mr. Darcy! Whatever business could he have with Mr. Collins?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “Not with Mr. Collins, I assure you of that,” she laughed. “Lady Catherine de Bourgh, the great patroness of Mr. Collins’ illustrious career, is none other than Mr. Darcy’s aunt!”

  Jane’s eyes widened in surprise. “Did you speak to him? Perhaps he would be able to say why Mr. Bingley has not returned to Netherfield Park?”

  Elizabeth tightened her grip on Jane’s fingers. There was so much she wanted to tell her sister, and yet she could not be so cruel as to tell her everything she knew. “He had something entirely different to say to me, Jane. You remember how Mr. Wickham disappeared from Meryton and abandoned his commission?”

  Jane grimaced and nodded. “Indeed, Lydia was inconsolable, though she seems to have recovered from that particular wound now that another tragedy has arrived to replace it.”

  “It is Mr. Darcy who was the architect of that departure,” Elizabeth said, and though Jane gasped in surprise she continued and relayed all that Mr. Darcy had told her about Mr. Wickham’s past and his betrayal of Mr. Darcy’s young sister.

  “But that could have been Lydia—” the horror was evident in Jane’s voice and Elizabeth felt a familiar twinge in her stomach at the remembrance of that night at Netherfield when she had leapt to Mr. Wickham’s defence. If she had only known the truth...

  “If it were not for Mr. Darcy’s intervention, it very well could have been,” Elizabeth said gravely.

  “Was there anything else? He could not have come all the way to Hunsford just to tell you this…”

  “No. We argued, Jane. I was as brash and rude as he… you would have been ashamed and proud of me all in the same moment as I am when I think back upon it. But Jane… he offered me a proposal. He declared that against his will that he did love and admire me, though his actions and words had proved nothing but the very opposite of such affections!”

  Jane’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “A proposal? But Lizzy! You refused him!”

  “In no uncertain terms.”

  “Was that reason you left Hunsford? Surely, not.”

  “Had Mr.Darcy been content with my answer, I should have been happy to stay longer. But, like our cousin Mr. Collins, he would not be dissuaded by my refusal. He returned three times to speak with me. Likely as not to lecture me for my harshness and demand an apology, which I shall not give!”

  Jane stared at her sister with wide eyes. “Three times?” she whispered.

  “And surely would have continued until I agreed to see him,” Elizabeth said ruefully.

  “He must be very much in love with you, Lizzy,” Jane said softly and Elizabeth’s heart twisted at the pain evident in her sister’s eyes.

  “He cannot be so much in love with me that he would offer me the insult of such a proposal. I would have done myself a disservice to accept it.”

  “I suppose I should count myself fortunate that I have not had the opportunity to decline any such proposal.”

  Elizabeth laughed lightly and kissed her sister’s cheek. “I have had quite enough for us both. But I have more news that I could not put in a letter.”

  “More? Oh, Lizzy, I do not know how much more news I can bear!” Jane said with a laugh.

  “This is good news, I promise,” Elizabeth said and laid her hand upon her heart. Jane still looked skeptical, but Elizabeth continued regardless of the fact that her sister began to make a fuss of preparing for bed. “I did see someone else in London.”

  “Oh, indeed,” Jane appeared more interested in what she had to say now.

  “While out walking I happened upon Miss Caroline Bingley and Mrs. Hurst.” Elizabeth watched her sister carefully but Jane said nothing. “We exchanged pleasantries and they wished me to convey their very best wishes to you and mama.”

  Jane tilted her head to the side and squinted in Elizabeth’s direction. “Did they? And how hard won were these well wishes?”

  Elizabeth flopped back upon the coverlet and let out a dramatic sigh. “Very hard won, indeed.” She pulled Jane’s pillow under her head despite her sister’s protests. “I also undertook a very daring deception,” she said slyly.

  “Lizzy! You did not.”

  “Masquerading as a maid from a wealthy household I delivered a letter to Mrs. Hurst’s Grosvenor Street address.”

  Jane paled slightly. “And to whom was this letter addressed?” Elizabeth yawned and sat up so Jane could retrieve her pillow.

  “To Mr. Bingley, of course,” she re
plied simply. “It was very clear to me that I would not be able to wring an answer for when they should be returning to Netherfield Park from anyone in that household by any proper means.”

  “Elizabeth Mariah Bennet I am shocked beyond all words,” Jane gasped.

  “Oh, Jane, do not mistake me. I have said nothing in that letter that I would not say to Mr. Bingley’s dear personage were he here in Hertfordshire to answer my questions.” Elizabeth hoped that her words were reassuring, but though Jane shook her head and fixed her with a stern stare, Elizabeth saw a spark of hope in her sister’s eyes.

  Elizabeth climbed off Jane’s bed and kissed her quickly. “Perhaps you will have reason to praise my boldness someday soon. And I shall hope to have the honor of being bridemaid at your wedding.”

  Jane pushed Elizabeth toward her bed and slid beneath her coverlet. She said nothing more as Elizabeth turned down the lamps and crawled beneath her own blankets.

  “Good night, Jane,” Elizabeth said softly as she blew out the candle.

  While Elizabeth’s eyes adjusted to the darkness and she focused on the sounds of the house as it settled around them she worried that she had, indeed, been too bold and that writing to Mr. Bingley had been a mistake.

  But as she tried to quiet her frantic doubts she heard Jane turn over in her bed. “Thank you, Lizzy,” she whispered into the dark.

  Elizabeth smiled but did not reply. She did not need to. Jane knew that she would do anything to ensue her happiness, and all Elizabeth could do was hope that it had been the right choice.

  12

  Spring faded into summer as surely as it always did, and while the militia prepared to leave for Brighton and Lydia renewed her bargaining and threats to leave with them, Elizabeth packed her valise for the journey north that she would undertake with her aunt and uncle.