When Mrs. Bennet roused herself from bed the morning following the Lucases’ ball, at a later hour than was her usual habit, she discovered what great treachery had befallen Longbourn while she slept. Her best punch recipe had gone missing from its place of safekeeping—a small crack in the larder wall behind the onion bin. On top of this, a shopkeeper had perpetrated a most despicable fraud on Mrs. Hill, passing off middling-grade sugar at top price. Such coarse stuff would never produce snow-white icing for the wedding cake.
By the time she joined her family at the breakfast table, Mrs. Bennet was in a state of such agitation over the apparent conspiracy to ruin Jane’s wedding breakfast, she could scarcely be bothered to notice that two of her other daughters were missing. The news that Lydia had been packed off to Brighton without so much as a fare-thee-well hardly signified, except for the satisfaction that at least one Bennet girl should dine on decent fish—for there was naught but common oysters and a few sunken-eyed cod to be had in Meryton!
A note arrived from Netherfield, and, in another singular example of Mrs. Bennet’s distraction, Jane was allowed to read it unmolested.
“How shocking!” Jane said, upon reaching the letter’s end. “Mr. Bingley reports that Miss Darcy took gravely ill during the night. Mr. Darcy arranged for her immediate removal to town, that she might be seen by their physician at once. It is not known whether he will return for the wedding.”
“Well, there is a comfort!” Mrs. Bennet exclaimed. “Such a proud sort of gentleman, carting the poor girl all the way to London rather than engage the services of a country doctor. Let him miss the wedding, then. At least I shall not be forced to suffer his contempt when he is offered nothing finer to drink than second-rate Madeira! That Mr. Hurst can stand up for your Mr. Bingley just as well. So long as his cup is never empty, he does not quibble about the contents.”
All this Jane imparted to Elizabeth upon her return that evening. Elizabeth was relieved that such a plausible explanation of the Darcys’ hasty departure had been managed. It was fortunate indeed that Mr. Darcy’s reputation for haughtiness amongst the Meryton populace lent credibility to an otherwise rather incredible tale.
If Mr. Bingley knew more about the true situation than his letter intimated, he appeared not to have told Jane. And Jane, being a trusting soul, did not question her sister further. When presented with her lovely new parasol, she admired the elegant lace trim, the fineness of the silk, and the delicate tooling of the handle. Her mind was attuned to every detail of the wedding preparations, but in her delight and preoccupation she completely failed to note Elizabeth’s exhaustion and distress.
Indeed, over the course of the next few days Elizabeth became accustomed to the sensation of invisibility. She moved through Longbourn in a strange and lonely capsule of silence. At any moment, she expected a terse summons to her father’s library to meet her reckoning, but her transgressions thus far garnered Elizabeth only demotion to the sort of treatment her father typically reserved for her younger sisters—distance and derision. With the imminent arrival of houseguests and a fast-approaching wedding day, Mrs. Bennet had more use for Elizabeth’s hands than her opinions, and if her second daughter seemed less inclined to conversation of late, so much the better. Neither Kitty’s sulking nor Mary’s sermonizing required any response from her.
Therefore, Elizabeth kept company with her own thoughts more often than not. She created countless scenarios in her mind, mentally tracing the routes Mr. Darcy might have traveled in his pursuit of his sister and Mr. Wickham. She tried to imagine at what locations he might possibly receive her uncle’s express and guessed how rapidly thereafter he could return to London. Whenever she was able to picture a sequence of events that placed him at the Darcy townhouse an hour earlier than her previous best estimate, she took heart. By the second morning after her trip to London, she felt it more probable than not that he was at least en route to town, and at best already there. She hoped in vain for confirmation of his arrival, even as she knew any such communication to be impossible. Even if propriety allowed him to write, she could not expect him to trust such delicate information to a letter.
It was the third day after Georgiana’s disappearance, and two days before Jane was to become Mrs. Bingley, when the Gardiners arrived at Longbourn for the wedding. As much as Elizabeth longed to claim her aunt’s exclusive company, she knew Jane deserved the greatest measure of the visitors’ attention. When the ladies adjourned to the drawing room after dinner, she listened politely, if impatiently, as Jane and Mrs. Bennet acquainted her aunt with every exacting detail of the wedding preparations. When Jane mentioned Miss Darcy’s sudden illness and the unlikely return of Mr. Darcy for the ceremony, Aunt Gardiner exchanged a subtle glance with Elizabeth, but otherwise received the knowledge with no hint of recognition.
Mr. Bennet appeared in the doorway. “Elizabeth, I will see you in my library.”
Elizabeth slowly put aside her needlework and complied with his request, trying to behave as though it were a request and not a demand phrased to brook no contradiction. She entered the library to find both her father and uncle waiting in grim silence.
“Be seated, Lizzy,” her father said. “I fear this will not be a brief interview.”
Elizabeth seated herself on the edge of the indicated chair, unable to relax into its comfort. “Papa…” she began in an impassioned attitude of defense, as Mr. Bennet quickly shushed her with a curt wave of his hand.
“I believe I shall do the talking for a spell, Elizabeth.” He opened the top drawer of his desk and withdrew a folded paper. He opened it forcefully, snapping the creases flat, and held the offending missive at arm’s length, squinting to make out Elizabeth’s compact penmanship.
“Dear Papa,” he read aloud in a dispassionate tone. “Lydia and I are gone with Mrs. Forster. Lydia will travel on to Brighton as invited, but I will go only so far as my aunt and uncle’s in Cheapside. Such dreadful events as necessitate this hasty trip I cannot begin to explain in a note, but please trust that only the most dire circumstances would prompt me to take such an action without your permission. Please be assured that your daughters are safe, and I promise to explain the entire matter upon my return. I have given Kitty and Lydia to understand that this journey is undertaken with your permission. For the sake of your daughters’ reputations and the security of all concerned, I beg you not to contradict this assumption until I speak with you again. Your daughter, Elizabeth.”
He folded the letter crisply and carefully replaced it in the drawer. He then sat back in his chair and confronted his daughter. “Well, Lizzy? What can you possibly have to say for yourself?”
Elizabeth had felt her throat steadily constrict as her father read the note aloud. “I am most heartily sorry, Papa, for the distress my actions have caused you. I know in writing such a letter I took great liberties with your trust and forbearance. It was necessary to go to London without a moment’s delay, for …”
Here Elizabeth paused. How much ought she tell her father? The details of Miss Darcy’s elopement were not hers to divulge, but she knew a vague explanation would not appease her father’s curiosity.
“Yes, yes,” her father interrupted impatiently. “You may spare me the tale of this dastardly Mr. Wickham and his elopement with Miss Darcy. Your uncle has explained as much to me already, as well as your role in their discovery. To think that man’s smile had all of Meryton so charmed! But the revelation of his true character is no less shocking to me, Elizabeth, than the outrageous behavior of my own daughter. However did you learn of this elopement? Furthermore, why should it be any of your concern?”
Elizabeth was grateful that her father was already acquainted with the facts of the matter and she need not actively betray Mr. Darcy’s confidence once more.
“I happened to meet Mr. Darcy while out walking that morning. I came upon him shortly after he had learned of his sister’s disappearance. Her note to him suggested they would be bound for Gretna Green, and he was a
nxious to be off in pursuit of them. It was only after he had left that I recollected something Mr. Wickham had once said—something Mr. Darcy himself could not have known—and it convinced me that the couple had fled to London instead. Had there been any way of alerting Mr. Darcy to this information, I should have done so. As it were, I felt the only hope of discovering Miss Darcy in time to preserve her reputation rested in my hands.”
Mr. Bennet shook his head. “Lizzy, we all know Mr. Darcy to be a proud, disagreeable sort of man. What were you thinking, to meddle thus in his personal affairs? Did you honestly expect he would welcome your interference?”
Until that moment, the thought that Mr. Darcy might take offense at her actions had never crossed Elizabeth’s mind. So long as Miss Darcy was safe, she had reasoned, he could only rejoice and be grateful for her intervention. Her father’s disapprobation, however, suggested she may not have considered all the implications of her involvement.
“I would have done the same for Maria Lucas, or Mary King, or any other unfortunate young lady taken in by Mr. Wickham’s schemes,” she said. “Had Lydia or Kitty any fortune to speak of, Wickham might have just as easily absconded with one of them. But you are perfectly correct, Papa. It was a presumption on my part to involve myself, and Mr. Darcy would have every right to resent me for it.”
“Well, Edward, you have spoken with the gentleman himself. Does he hold Lizzy’s interference against her?”
Elizabeth looked to her uncle sharply. “You have seen Mr. Darcy?”
“We all know you to be a clever girl, Lizzy, but it appears Mr. Darcy is no simpleton himself. When he found no trace of Miss Darcy or Wickham in the next few coaching stages toward Scotland, he quickly returned to town. From what he told me the following morning, he arrived rather late in the day and only returned to his home after making an exhaustive search of the coaching inns and some unsavory districts he knew Wickham to frequent. When he did return to his townhouse late that night, he was exceedingly relieved to discover his sister already there.”
Relief surged through Elizabeth as she received the knowledge that Mr. Darcy was safe in London. She inhaled deeply, feeling as though she drew her first real breath in three days.
“And Mr. Darcy called on you the next morning?” Such happy news she would gladly hear repeated.
“Yes. I take it Miss Darcy was rather disinclined to divulge any details of her adventure, so he sought the information from me. And, of course, there was the matter of what to do about this Wickham character.”
“What to do about him?” Elizabeth was confused. “Is he not in debtor’s prison?”
Her uncle chuckled and took a slow sip of sherry, vexing his niece greatly with each moment he delayed his response.
“Lizzy, on such short notice, I was by no means able to assemble a strong case against the man. I had to call in several favors just to convince a magistrate to apprehend him on the basis of a 2-pound 7-shilling debt to a tailor. Such a flimsy charge was enough to have him held a few days, but nothing more. Once I acquainted Mr. Darcy with the details of Wickham’s arrest, the resolution was his to decide. He could attempt to build a stronger case that would merit imprisonment, or allow him to be released and deal with the scoundrel on his own terms.”
Mr. Bennet refilled the sherry glasses. “Were I in his situation, I would rather run the man through and be done with him myself.”
A duel! Elizabeth’s stomach lurched violently. “Surely Mr. Darcy would never resort to bloodshed!”
“He thought long and hard about it, Lizzy,” her uncle replied. “I cannot say I blame him. In the end, however, he chose the more difficult alternative and began to assemble a list of Wickham’s likely creditors. Had time been less scarce, he might have delegated the task of canvassing them to his solicitors. I offered my own assistance in approaching the creditors in trade, but it fell to him to locate the gentlemen, make inquiries into gaming debts they had likely forgotten or would prefer to forget, and persuade them to press charges. It was an endeavor that consumed the entirety of the past two days, and one that occasioned Mr. Darcy no small amount of degradation.”
“But the case against Mr. Wickham—is it now sufficient?”
“Oh, yes. Wickham will be on his way to The Fleet soon enough. That is, unless Mr. Darcy exerts some influence to obtain a sentence of transportation.”
Elizabeth considered the mortification Mr. Darcy must have undergone in approaching his peers and old friends on such a mission. She imagined him proceeding from gentlemen’s clubs to elegant homes, inquiring into his acquaintances’ personal affairs and deflecting any similar inquiries into his. If the motive for his sudden interest in bringing Wickham to justice were ever known, Miss Darcy’s reputation would be irreparably tarnished.
Surely her father and uncle spoke truly when they said a duel would have been the easier and more satisfying course of action. But even if Mr. Darcy emerged from such a confrontation unscathed, his sister’s reputation would not, if the cause of the duel ever became known.
Something akin to regret took root in Elizabeth’s mind for the first time since her impetuous decision to go to London. When she had sought her uncle’s assistance, having Wickham arrested for nonpayment had seemed the ideal solution to the Darcys’ problems. Now she realized for the first time the predicament in which she had placed Mr. Darcy. Her actions had left him two alternatives, one of which placed him in physical danger and both of which skirted uncomfortably close to public disclosure. Left to his own resources, Mr. Darcy might very well have located his sister himself and devised an entirely different way to handle Wickham, one that was both safe and discreet. He might have remanded him to Colonel Forster to be charged with desertion, or quietly arranged his transportation to the Americas with none the wiser.
Mr. Gardiner seemed to note Elizabeth’s growing discomfiture. “To be sure, Mr. Darcy had other methods at his disposal for dealing with Wickham, had he wished it, but he seemed bent on seeing the scoundrel brought to justice. He appeared to blame himself for not taking action long ago, when he first knew the true nature of Wickham’s character. Had he sacrificed a small amount of pride then, he said, he might have saved his sister and others a great deal of pain. Whatever injury recent events have inflicted on his dignity, Mr. Darcy seemed to view it as his own just punishment.”
Mr. Bennet was all astonishment. “This is a very different picture of the man! Here in Hertfordshire, he has been all officious arrogance from the very beginning.”
It pained Elizabeth to hear Mr. Darcy spoken of in such a manner, especially when her father phrased his vitriol in terms so close to her own unjust accusations in April.
“Indeed, Papa, Mr. Darcy has no improper pride,” she objected spiritedly. “He is most amiable.”
“So I was inclined to believe myself, until last evening,” her uncle said.
“Until last evening?” Elizabeth asked.
Mr. Bennet sighed, removing his spectacles to massage the bridge of his nose wearily. “Elizabeth, we have not yet settled the question of your involvement in this debacle. Do you honestly expect us to believe that Mr. Darcy encountered you by chance that morning? If he believed his sister to be bound for Gretna Green, I cannot credit why he would be lingering in the lane to Longbourn. Nor can I understand why he should pause to acquaint his friend’s neighbor with all the sordid details of his sister’s disappearance. Can you explain it?”
“I am afraid I cannot.” At least, I would rather not, she thought to herself.
“Neither could Mr. Darcy—not to my satisfaction, at any rate,” her uncle said. He countered Elizabeth’s shocked expression with a look of paternal authority. “I am not your father, Lizzy, but I am one of your closest relations. I felt it my duty, once a satisfactory resolution to this Wickham affair seemed secure, to ask some questions of Mr. Darcy. I had the opportunity to do so last evening, when he called to offer his thanks for my assistance. After expressing that I was happy to be of service to him,
I took the same line of questioning your father has just posed to you. I do not think it extraordinary that an uncle should ask a gentleman to explain the intentions behind a furtive daybreak rendezvous with my niece.”
“Furtive rendezvous!” Elizabeth spluttered. “I often walk out in the mornings! There is nothing so unusual…”
“You may save your explanations,” her uncle interjected. “Mr. Darcy admitted that chance had little to do with your meeting. You will understand then, Lizzy, I felt it my duty to inquire whether there exists an understanding between the two of you. I asked him to tell me, once and for all, whether he was engaged to you.”
“And what was his response?” Mr. Bennet asked, all the while regarding his daughter with puzzlement.
“He said he was not.”
“Is this true, Elizabeth?” her father asked.
Elizabeth nodded. “There is no understanding between us.”
Mr. Gardiner addressed her father. “Given the near escape of his own sister, I told Mr. Darcy that surely he could not fail to comprehend the danger Elizabeth assumed in this sequence of events. In the first place, simply agreeing to this clandestine meeting—then traveling to London completely unbeknownst to her parents.” He turned to Elizabeth. “Lizzy, you must realize you put your own reputation at great risk for the sake of protecting Miss Darcy’s.”
Her uncle rose from his chair and studied a framed map hanging on the wall as he continued. “I told Mr. Darcy, ‘If you have any regard for the honor and credibility of my niece, then promise me that you will enter into an engagement with her directly, as a matter of principle.’”
“Oh, Uncle!” Elizabeth gasped. She buried her face in her hands. “I cannot imagine how Mr. Darcy must have received such an insulting demand.”
“I will save you the trouble of imagining, Lizzy, for I will tell you his response. He was gravely silent for some time. Then he said firmly, ‘I can make no promise of the kind.’”
Mr. Bennet set down his sherry glass with a forceful clatter that made Elizabeth wince. “The nerve of such a man! Is this to be endured? Surely, Lizzy does not possess his connections or fortune, but she is a gentleman’s daughter and therefore his equal. It as not as though he would be quitting his own sphere to marry her.”
Elizabeth and Darcy- Ardently Yours Page 16
