Chapter 7 News Which Must Produce Agitation
CHAPTER SEVEN
NEWS WHICH MUST PRODUCE AGITATION
“Ihave some news,” said Elizabeth over the dinner table at the Gardiners’.
As ever, the table was laden with all manner of good things in abundance—venison, potatoes, a salad, boiled corn, and delicious fresh bread—but she found herself too nervous to eat, at least until she had told her mother of her plans.
She wondered if she was selfish, to risk ruining the nice meal Mrs Gardiner had planned for them, but then decided she ought not to delay.
“What is it, Lizzy?” Jane enquired.
Mrs Bennet did not look up from buttering her bread, and Elizabeth sent her aunt a nervous glance. Mrs Gardiner gave her a calming smile that bolstered her courage.
“I have been offered a unique opportunity by Lady Catherine de Bourgh. She is Mr Collins’s former benefactress.”
“Oh yes,” said Mr Gardiner. “Quite wealthy, I believe?”
“Her daughter, Miss Anne de Bourgh, is the heiress of Rosings Park and has an enormous fortune and extensive property.”
Mrs Bennet sniffed. “How well for her that her father did not succumb to one of these nonsensical entails!” Putting aside her bread, she began a well-trod lament. “How those Collinses can lay themselves down at night in a home that is not legally their own—”
“Yes, Miss de Bourgh is very fortunate to have such things,” Elizabeth interrupted. “Alas, no matter that she is so very rich, she was jilted by her own cousin to whom she had been betrothed.”
“If I remember correctly,” Jane added, “did not Mr Collins say she had been too sickly to be presented at court?”
Elizabeth nodded. “But now her mother insists she must come to London for the Season, where she will be presented at Court, and find a husband. Her mother fears she will end a spinster.” Elizabeth swallowed hard before adding, “They would like a friend to be with her, one who might offer companionship and courage. A…paid friend.”
It was Kitty who understood it first, at least in part. “Ooh! She should hire me! I would be her friend and then I would be able to go all about London, to all the fanciest—”
“They have hired me,” Elizabeth said quietly.
“No,” said Mrs Bennet firmly. “I will not have it.”
“Mama,” Elizabeth began, but Mr Gardiner was quickly into the fray.
“Sister, it would be an excellent chance for Elizabeth to be among society at a level she would not have access to otherwise.”
“For all the good it would do her!” Mrs Bennet retorted. “Who will want her after she has been a servant to this woman?”
“That is the best part of it,” Elizabeth said quickly. “Her mother does not wish it known that I am being paid for my friendship. It is to seem as much as possible as if I am merely a friend.”
“How much will you be paid?” Lydia enquired.
Elizabeth gave a little flick of her hand. “An allowance and some new gowns.”
The questions after that came in a torrent.
What did Miss de Bourgh look like, how much did Elizabeth think she had, what would Elizabeth wear, where would she sleep at night…
They went on and on, her sisters barely stopping for breath.
Elizabeth had one eye on her mother throughout; the mention of the money had interested her a little, it seemed, but she was yet silent.
Mrs Bennet remained quiet about Elizabeth’s venture through the rest of the meal and into the time in the Gardiners’ drawing room.
Mr and Mrs Gardiner’s eldest daughter, Elspeth, was called from the nursery to exhibit for them.
Elizabeth’s next youngest sister Mary immediately joined the girl and began to work on some duets with her while Kitty and Lydia giggled with one another in the corner of the room.
“Well, Sister,” said Mr Gardiner jovially. “What say you to our Lizzy? I think it a fine notion to form such a connexion! And if the girl does marry, only think of what gratitude they shall owe her!”
“I suppose this is what it has come to,” said Mrs Bennet, sitting up in what she no doubt thought was a brave posture. “If only Mr Bennet had not died! Then—”
“Then we would still be in Hertfordshire, as lacking in prospects there as we are here,” Jane inserted.
Everyone paused, turning to look at her. Jane so rarely gave an opinion that when she did, it was perceived as more worth the hearing.
“If your father had been alive,” said Mrs Bennet, “even now that Mr Bingley would be—”
“But Papa is dead,” said Elizabeth. “There is no use thinking of what might have been. We must go on with what is.”
This is madness. Darcy was seated at his club, surrounded by wealthy young men who were alternately talking, arguing, laughing, boasting…
and all he could think of was a darkened room in a rustic little public house in a town no one cared about.
Nay, he thought not of the room but of the woman he had found within it.
It has been two months, he reminded himself. Two months and she had not left his thoughts for a moment. He was obsessed with the memory of her, in a manner which had never before afflicted him.
I am being absolutely ridiculous. I am certain that when I do meet Miss L again, the reality of her will be nothing to these nonsensical dreams I have built of her in my head.
He sighed heavily just as his cousin arrived. Saye tossed a folded sheet down in front of Darcy. “Here is that.”
“What is it?”
Saye took a seat in the chair nearest to him. “From our darling aunt.”
“Something in your aspect tells me it is not the long-overdue apology I am owed?” Darcy sent his cousin a wry smirk as he unfolded the page. A moment later, he threw back his head and laughed, hoping it did not sound as forced as it was.
“What is it?” Saye enquired.
“Do not pretend you have not already read it—the seal was broken.”
“It must have come loose,” Saye replied nonchalantly. A moment later, with no shame whatsoever, he said, “Very well, yes, I read it. The old gal has some cheek, does she not?”
“One almost has to admire it,” Darcy agreed. “Five thousand pounds or she takes me to court for breach of promise. Never mind that such a suit would be wholly without basis.”
“I daresay she believes that her will alone ought to be sufficient basis.” Saye nodded at the man who had deposited a drink in front of him.
“She will not get a farthing from me,” Darcy retorted. “She may take me to the courts, as she wishes, but it will come to nothing, I assure you.”
“I cannot blame you,” said Saye through a sip of his drink. “But…”
“But what?”
“Rather unseemly, do you not think?”
“Unseemly or not, I refuse to bow to her nonsense. If it requires a judge to prove me right, then to a judge I shall go.”
“Hear, hear,” Saye agreed, raising his drink to Darcy, then taking a drink. “But it will be an humiliation.”
Darcy gave a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Let her have her diversion with me. I am not paying a madwoman for her delusions, even if my intransigence means I absent myself from the Season.”
“As if you need a reason to absent yourself from the ballrooms.” Saye gave a scoffing laugh. “In any case, I am sure that is not necessary. I am able to warn you in advance where Anne and her new friend will be and—”
“What friend?”
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet. She is to be our cousin’s phalangite in the war on the noblemen of the ton.”
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet? Of the Hertfordshire Bennets?”
Saye shrugged. “I am sure I have no idea. Lady Catherine’s parson inherited the estate, ousted her and her vast quantity of sisters, and now they are poor.”
Darcy nodded his head. “I am not unacquainted with the situation. Bingley’s place in Hertfordshire abuts the Bennet family seat which I suppose we must say is now the Collins family seat. Poor girl must have been forced to take employment, then.”
Saye shook his head. “Miss Bennet is not a companion in the strictest sense. A friend, albeit one who is compensated for her friendship. Someone to accompany Anne to parties and make it seem like she is agreeable enough to attract at least one female friend.”
“Call it what you will, but it is employment. But never mind that; it is good for her to comprehend the reality of her circumstances and do what needs to be done.”
“She seems an agreeable girl. I only hope she can withstand such a close association with them.” Saye took a drink then added, “I daresay Anne is not the only one sickly in the family.”
“What do you mean?”
“Something is wrong with our aunt.”
“Pray stop calling her that, as I would like to forget the association right now.”
“Very well. Something is wrong with Lady Catherine. Her colour will change from too flushed to too pale in a moment, and she seems to have lost her vigour.”
Darcy frowned. “Do you think something is wrong with her heart?”
“Could be,” Saye agreed. “Nothing for it if there is, but perhaps that is why the sudden provocation to see Anne settled?”
“I had hoped it was because they had finally given up the notion that I would relent and marry Anne.”
“In fact,” said Saye with a smirk, “I daresay you might thank Georgiana and Wickham for one thing. Lady Catherine has decided you are not good enough for Anne now. ‘If he cannot even care properly for his sister…’” The last was intoned in a voice meant to sound like their aunt.
The reminder of that situation made Darcy wince and look round them before shushing his cousin and changing the subject. “Do you think she believes she might die?”
Saye inclined his head. “Perhaps she will.”
No matter how angry Darcy was with his aunt and cousin, this information pained him. He wished ill on no one; he merely wished they did not wish ill on him.
“And what of your own marriage prospects?”
Saye scoffed, shook his head, and signalled the servant to bring him a drink. “My father has been lately pushing the daughter of the Earl of Peverel at me.”
“She is very beautiful. Has an excellent fortune too, I think.”
“Oh, I despise her,” he told Darcy. “Florizel nearly bit her.”
“I hope she was not injured?”
Saye waved his hand. “She was uninjured, but you know how good he is at judging character. The very fact that he took such a dislike to her told me all I needed to know.”
“Do you mean to let your dog choose your bride?”
Saye shrugged. “Ought not he to have some say in the matter? She will be mistress of him too, after all. What sort of mother will she be if she cannot even earn the approval of my dog? And she despises the country, you know. Says she dies of tedium in any place but Brighton or London.”
“As do you.”
“But children need the country air to grow properly,” Saye informed him. “One cannot have a proper family without time in the country.”
As it was, Darcy agreed with that sentiment. “Since when are you so worried about your children? Is there another family scandal afoot?”
“Hmm, you would like that, would you not?” Saye smirked.
“No, I am afraid you are unchallenged in your position as the blot on the family escutcheon. Noisy and unkempt as they are, I have just begun to think children might be quite agreeable. They do say the most absurd things, do they not? It would be as if Florizel began to speak—who could imagine what sort of oddities might come from his head?”
“So you wish to have children because you think they will say amusing things?”
“Particularly the tiny ones. Like little drunks, or so I am told, and quite diverting.”
Darcy did not reply. He had his own wants and schemes of course.
An heir—he needed that, but he did not mean to procreate only to fulfil a duty.
He wanted to teach a child to ride, to scamper about playing little games with him or her.
He wished to enjoy childhood in the way he had not when he was himself a child, lonely and quiet in the vast nursery, a nursemaid dozing in the corner while he played his solitary games.
“Well then, fie on the earl’s daughter. May you meet the lady of your dreams soon,” Darcy said with a clink of his tankard on his cousin’s.