Elizabeth did not know if the trip was helping her sister heal her broken heart, but one thing was certain—neither of them would return to Longbourn the same.
This evening they were to attend a performance of chamber music at Lady Atwood’s little salon, and they had hardly been in the room five minutes before she supplied them not only with glasses of wine, but also with two gentlemen to talk to. Gentlemen in red coats.
“Miss Bennet, Miss Elizabeth,” she cried, waving her fan, “May I present to you my nephew, Captain Atwood, and his friend, the Honorable Colonel Fitzwilliam. Gentlemen, the Misses Bennet are in town from their home in Hertfordshire, and I have discovered I cannot do without them. If they are not careful, I shall steal them away from their aunt and uncle and make them stay with me.”
Curtsies and bows were made, and the usual pleasantries exchanged. Captain Atwood was a slight but rather dashing young man, of the type who might have been sure to turn Lydia and Kitty’s heads. Colonel Fitzwilliam, more than a decade older, was not handsome, but in all other respects most truly a gentleman, whose well-bred pleasantries merely reminded Elizabeth how much more refined both officers were than the militia members she had known in Meryton.
“I feel I must in all fairness confess to you ladies that you are not wholly unknown to me,” he said presently. “For I have heard a tale of two remarkable beauties from the Hertfordshire countryside from a cousin who is well-acquainted with both of you.”
“I cannot imagine who that might be,” replied Jane.
“Do you know a Mr. Darcy of Pemberley?” he asked. “It is from him that I have received this report.”
“Mr. Darcy!” Elizabeth could hardly contain her astonishment. “Mr. Darcy is your cousin!” As to resemblance, she saw little, for Colonel Fitzwilliam did not have the features or the height of her erstwhile intimate. And as to manners, aside from both men’s refinement, she saw nothing at all. Colonel Fitzwilliam was everything open and amiable. Mr. Darcy never had been either.
Not that it had stopped her fascination from forming.
“Do not mind my friend,” said Captain Atwood. “He has not the wisdom to know that one should never mention the name of a more handsome friend in the presence of ladies one wishes to impress.”
“Is it my cousin’s appearance that so disadvantages us?” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “Or some other quality he holds that other gentleman lack? I say it might be more material considerations that form his chief fascination among all the ladies of the town.”
Elizabeth felt her cheeks heat at the thought, though clearly the colonel had meant it as a joke.
“Indeed,” said Captain Atwood with a laugh. “For it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife.”
“And those reliant on the income from their army commission are naught but confirmed bachelors,” finished the Colonel. “You see, ladies, we would not blame you at all if you found us boring compared to my cousin.”
“Do you suppose,” Elizabeth said evenly, “that each single woman in town is therefore in want of a husband? Perhaps we are as confirmed old maids as you are bachelors.”
“I will allow you to be many things,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “But old is not one of them.”
“And I will add,” said Elizabeth, with a smile she hoped did not look as strained as it felt, “you have a singular advantage over your cousin tonight. He is not here.”
Another advantage was that she was not furious with the colonel, though that sentiment was better left unspoken.
As the concert would soon begin, Jane and Elizabeth allowed their new acquaintances to escort them into room where the musicians had been placed. The ladies were given seats, and the gentlemen withdrew to the rear of the room.
So Mr. Darcy was speaking of them to his relatives! Elizabeth shuddered to think what it was he might be saying. Despite Colonel Fitzwilliam’s protestations to the contrary, she knew for a fact that she had never once been described as a beauty by Mr. Darcy. She was tolerable. Jane, perhaps, deserved the praise, but she’d never gathered that the gentleman thought much of her sister, either. She had not recalled him ever dancing with her.
Though he might have, if he had not become so ill at the Netherfield ball.
Heavens, was it possible Mr. Darcy had told his cousin what had transpired between the two of them? Her indiscretions in the hedge maze? Their balcony behavior on the night of the ball? She glanced behind her and saw the men in red coats standing together. Captain Atwood saw her and smiled, but Colonel Fitzwilliam was in deep conversation with another man, and did not look up.
He was charming enough, but that did not mean he was any more of a gentleman than his cousin had proved to be. And, thanks to Mr. Wickham, she knew that Mr. Darcy was not a gentleman at all.
Elizabeth whispered to Jane from behind her fan. “Do you find it strange that Mr. Darcy should have mentioned us to his cousin?”
“Oh, Lizzy,” Jane replied, “you must not linger over his slight of you the night we all first met. His first impression might not have been the kindest, but I do believe he found you quite charming by the end of his visit to Hertfordshire. Did he not ask you to dance several times?”
“We danced,” Elizabeth mumbled. “But I should not have thought his opinion of us so warm that our names would be recognizable to his cousin. Do you suppose men issue such reports of every lady they meet?”
“Surely you cannot accuse me of having insight into the male mind,” her sister responded. “After all that has come to pass I will argue that I am hardly a reliable source on the subject. Perhaps he wrote Colonel Fitzwilliam a letter while we were all staying together at Netherfield. Your illness was acute enough that it might merit a mention—” she caught sight of Elizabeth’s expression of alarm “though I am certain Mr. Darcy would only relate the general news and not spread stories of an intimate nature.”
Elizabeth was not quite as certain as her sister. For what could be more memorable than a report of carrying a senseless girl in a nightdress through a darkened garden? If such gossip was spreading among Mr. Darcy’s acquaintance, it was a relief they made it so rarely into the higher social circles.
The music began, but Elizabeth could not enjoy it as she otherwise might. The worst part of all of this is that in the past week or so, she had felt almost as if the entire season of Netherfield had passed at last. Jane was acting like her old self again, and Elizabeth had put all the confusion of the period behind her.
Or, at least, she had thought she had. But as the music went on, she felt her own heart swelling with renewed anger. She could not trust, as her sister did, the word of Mr. Darcy never to spread the story around. After all, this was the man who had stolen an inheritance from his own father’s godson. He was not the gentleman he presented himself as, and his careless tongue might ruin her yet.
He had certainly managed to ruin this lovely evening, whilst not doing anything so mundane as making an unexpected reappearance in their lives. Not that Elizabeth wanted to see him again. No, Mr. Wickham’s revelation, back at Longbourn, had been quite enough to quell any lingering sentiment she might still have held for the master of Pemberley.
They had never received a visit from Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, though Elizabeth, at least, had not expected one, and Jane appeared to have become reconciled to its lack, especially as their own social calendar filled up with their new acquaintances in town. Who had time to mourn Mr. Bingley and his sister when there were so many fascinating people in London with whom to spend time?
Elizabeth was all the more relieved to see her aunt’s predictions come true, and that her sister’s affections for Mr. Bingley were as malleable and swiftly passing as his own had seemed to be. Of course, with her pretty face and kind nature, it was little wonder Jane might attract admirers wherever she went, and learn, perhaps, that Mr. Bingley was not so singular as he might have once appeared. Too, the new firmness in her character, that h
er disappointment seemed to have awakened, only added to her other manifold charms. She certainly spoke up more than she had at home, and had more to say on the world beyond their little country village.
As the concert ended, and they all applauded, she was hardly surprised to see Captain Atwood again appear at their sides and offer to escort the ladies through the crush to the punch table.
Jane smiled at the Captain. Elizabeth smiled at both of them.
Yes, this was all proceeding according to plan.
Chapter 17
A few days later, Captain Atwood paid them a call at Gracechurch Street.
“And to think Lydia was bemoaning your chances of meeting any officers upon leaving Meryton,” said Mrs. Gardiner, with no small touch of humor. She called for tea, and they all settled back in their chairs for a delightful visit.
Captain Atwood was the same charming self he had been when last they had met, and Mrs. Gardiner took quite a fancy to him.
“Did you always live in town, sir?” she asked, during a discussion of London’s various parks and which ones he liked best for horse riding.
“No, I confess I learned to ride on much wilder terrain. My family is from the north of England, near Cumbria, and I spent many summers of my youth with a cousin in Derbyshire.”
“Derbyshire!” said Mrs. Gardiner. “I, too, am from that county. I miss its beauties. The peaks! The forest! I find it the most beautiful of all counties.”
“Ah, but have you been to Cumbria? The lake district is unsurpassed in beauty.”
“I have not,” she said. “Though my husband has promised me a trip this summer. Perhaps the Lake District shall be on our itinerary.”
“You cannot do better, madam, and if you will allow it, I should be happy to suggest to you the route you might take and the inns I should recommend.” He looked to Elizabeth. “Have you any interest in travel, Miss Elizabeth?”
“Oh, yes, if I am given the opportunity. My father, for all his virtues, likes to remain close to home. My sisters are always after him to plan a trip to the sea, but he scarcely even likes to go to town.”
“I can well believe it. It was much the same for my family in Cumbria. Though upon my father’s early death, I was sent to live with cousins in Derbyshire. The love of travel caught hold of me then, and I decided upon the army as a profession in large part that I might see the world.”
“And where have you been?” Elizabeth asked. “Any adventures in India?”
“Alas, I settled for Dover.”
They all laughed.
“I do believe I should like even a glimpse at Dover,” said Elizabeth. “I have never seen the sea.”
“It is all the poets claim and more, Miss Elizabeth,” said Captain Atwood. “Dark and wild, shining and gay. Dangerous and splendid—”
“Do stop,” she said, “Or I shall be quite consumed with envy!”
“Of course,” he replied, with a gallant little bow. “I should never wish to discomfit you.”
As Captain Atwood took his leave, he asked if he might call again and take the ladies riding in his curricle. “It is not a tour of the Lake District,” he said, “but we might have a pleasant time.”
“We should enjoy it very much, thank you,” said Jane.
When he had departed, Elizabeth turned to her sister and smiled. “There now,” she said. “There is a man you should not be ashamed to have as an admirer.”
Jane laughed. “Me? Oh, Lizzy, have a care. He hardly spoke a word to me this past half hour. If he is an admirer of anyone in this house, it is you.”
“No, that is impossible.” Jane was the pretty one, the kind one, the one who had collected beaus back in Hertfordshire. Jane was the one they’d brought to London to help get over her last romantic disappointment. It was Jane who deserved an admirer, not Elizabeth.
Yet after the next visit of Captain Atwood, Elizabeth could no longer deny where the man’s interests lay. He brought her a book about the towns along the sea.
“If we are to cultivate your longing,” he said, “I should like to do it in words more eloquent than my own. You may have this on loan from my library.”
They may have driven through the parks that afternoon, but in their conversation, they were at Ramsgate, at Eastbourne, at Brighton. They quite decided between the two of them that, regardless of Mrs. Gardiner’s fascination with the Lake District, it could not be compared to the glories of the wild ocean. Nobody could catch cold by the sea, nobody lacked an appetite by the sea, nobody wanted spirits, nobody wanted for strength. Sea air was healing, softening, relaxing—fortifying and bracing—seemingly just as was wanted. If the sea breeze failed, sea bathing was the certain corrective, and where bathing disagreed, the sea air alone was evidently designed by nature for the cure.
“Well,” said Lady Atwood, when next they took tea with her, “I have heard you and your young man have quite decided on the location of your honeymoon.”
Elizabeth blushed. “I might well deserve to be teased, but believe me when I say I do not count my recent activities as anything more than a minor flirtation. I have come to town to enjoy myself, Lady Atwood. I would not take a husband even if one fell from the sky.”
She was not at Longbourn now, with her mother’s constant concern of getting her daughters married to any one, at any cost. She did not need to look at every man as a potential suitor.
“An apt description for Captain Atwood, though,” said their friend. “For he has appeared from nowhere, as far as the marriage-minded mamas in town are concerned. Six months ago, he would not have made a suitable match for anyone. But he was recently made heir to a tidy little estate in Derbyshire. Two or three thousand a year, my husband says. Better catch him now, Miss Elizabeth, before word gets out about the change in his fortune.”
“I am not out to catch anyone,” Elizabeth insisted. “Can not a man take a few ladies on a carriage ride without raising all this speculation?”
“Of course not,” said Lady Atwood, as if such things were preposterous.
“And how is it that the gossips have turned their attention to me?” she went on. “Jane was in that curricle, too.”
“And Mrs. Gardiner,” replied Lady Atwood with a smile. “Perhaps Captain Atwood is after an intrigue.”
Jane gasped, and Lady Atwood chuckled.
“Never mind me, Miss Bennet. I am an old married woman and thus allowed to be quite shocking and concern myself only with marrying off others. And do not worry overmuch about the wagging tongues in town. I know the direction of Captain Atwood’s affections only because I spoke to him myself. And though he praised Miss Bennet’s ample charms, his highest expressions of regard were saved for Miss Elizabeth, here.”
Elizabeth relaxed. She did not need any more stories spreading about her, especially if Mr. Darcy really had told his cousin about what had transpired between them at Netherfield. And what she had said to Lady Atwood was the truth. All she wanted was a simple visit to London with her family. She had not come here to find a husband. And she would not take the attentions of a gentleman with any degree of seriousness.
How could she weigh the import of a carriage ride and forget that of a kiss?
“You are both being silly,” she said now. “But I should never deny one the opportunity to laugh at another’s folly. So you may have your joke, and I shall have a few carriage rides through Hyde Park and a borrowed book from an amiable acquaintance, and there will be an end to the matter.”
But Lady Atwood did not cease her teasing, and Jane smirked at her from behind her teacup, as if pleased to see for once that speculation on such subjects was directed toward her sister instead of herself.
Later, when they were alone, Jane pointed out that it was entirely possible that Elizabeth had finally met her match when it came to exercising her wit for the sake of mirth.
“I shall not allow you or Lady Atwood to put it into my head that I am a party to a romance, when all I see is the stirring of a friendship. Do you not
remember what Captain Atwood said to us himself on the night we met? We cannot assume that a single man is always in search of a serious attachment even if he is possessed of a fortune of his own. Did we learn nothing from the example of Mr. Bingley? We all encouraged you to like him, thinking his attentions were in earnest, but he proved a very fickle young man.”
“True,” said Jane, and a glimmer of sadness passed over her countenance, like a cloud that momentarily shades the sun. “Very well, Lizzy. I shall endeavor not to make matches, nor allow others to make them for us, without very good cause.”
“Let there be no more marriages!” Elizabeth declared gruffly, slicing her arm down through the air. “To a nunnery, go.”
“The better to keep you away from the theater, Danish prince,” Jane responded. “But here. I shall promise to tease you about Captain Atwood only as much as ever you teased me about Mr. Bingley.”
There was a barb in those words, should Elizabeth choose to search for it. Not a large one, or a particularly sharp one. Jane was still too good for that. But she was not solely composed of sweetness and light. Elizabeth knew as much now.
“I was a foolish child, Jane, to speak and act as I did back at Longbourn. To assume such partiality was a mark of the seriousness of his regard was, perhaps, a failing of our quiet country life. A man in Meryton might not be allowed to show such marked favor without having sincere intentions. A man in London might do however he pleases, and no one will derive any expectation from it.”
“Yes,” said Jane. “I cannot remain angry at Mr. Bingley or his sisters in that case, for overestimating their regard for me. For them, it was nothing more than an amusement, as one might take in a kitten found in the barn.”
“Jane! You must not esteem yourself so little.”
“Oh, I do not. I am merely describing their opinion on the matter. For although we have been here many weeks and received many visitors, Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst have never once returned our call. We must conclude that the family does not mean to continue the acquaintance, and… that Mr. Bingley did not ever care for me.” She was silent for a moment, as the words settled around them like a mist.
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