Chapter 22 #2
“Certainly, certainly. Your wish is my command.” Mr. Collins bowed again.
“I would never presume to intrude upon matters of such consequence. I meant only to assure you of the continued good health and greatness of your relations, which dear cousin Elizabeth shall soon have the opportunity to verify for herself, should Providence smile upon our domestic arrangements.”
Elizabeth winced.
It was slight. Anyone else might have missed it.
Darcy did not.
“Domestic arrangements?” Bingley asked, bewildered.
Mr. Collins drew himself up with solemn satisfaction. “I have come to Longbourn, sir, in the hope of healing old family divisions and making what amends lie in my power for the unhappy entail. A gentleman in my position must act with delicacy, but I trust my meaning is not obscure.”
He punctuated this last statement by taking Elizabeth’s arm on his and patting it with his other hand.
Darcy’s hand tightened upon the reins.
Obscure? The man was as obscure as a church bell.
He meant to marry Elizabeth. Or he thought he did. This ponderous, self-important, abasing, arrogant oaf had looked at Elizabeth—Elizabeth, with her courage, wit, intelligence, and fire—and judged her a useful solution to an entail.
Something hot and violent rose in Darcy’s chest.
He could not remain.
If he stayed, he would say something unforgivable. Perhaps to Mr. Collins. Perhaps to Lady Catherine through Mr. Collins. Perhaps, worst of all, to Elizabeth, whose face was already marked by too many injuries he had caused and too many hopes he had failed to protect.
“Bingley,” he said abruptly, “I have forgotten something of importance.”
Bingley turned, startled. “Forgotten?”
“Yes.” Darcy gathered the reins and mounted with more haste than grace. “Pray excuse me. Ladies. Mr. Collins. Gentlemen.”
He did not wait for a reply.
He turned his horse sharply and rode out of Meryton at a pace too swift for the street, slowing only when the last houses fell behind him and the open road stretched ahead.
Even then, he did not stop. The cold air struck his face, the horse’s strides beat against the road, and still the image pursued him: Elizabeth pale and silent while Mr. Collins spoke of Hunsford, Rosings, and domestic arrangements.
Darcy pressed his heels lightly to the horse’s sides and let him run.
It was cowardice again. He knew it even as he fled.
But if he had remained another moment and heard that man call her dear cousin Elizabeth once more, Darcy did not know what he might have done.
∞∞∞
Elizabeth watched Darcy ride away with her cheeks burning and her heart sinking lower with every strike of his horse’s hooves against the street.
For one brief, mortifying moment, when Mr. Collins had spoken of domestic arrangements and Darcy had gone so very still, she had allowed herself to feel something like comfort.
It was not a generous comfort, nor a wise one, but it had come all the same.
Darcy was not indifferent. Whatever else might be true—whatever fears, disapproval, pride, or prudence held him apart—he had not heard Mr. Collins’s broad hint with cool unconcern.
He had reacted.
The knowledge ought not to have mattered.
It did.
And then he had left.
Abruptly. Almost rudely. With some hasty excuse to Mr. Bingley and a bow that barely satisfied civility before he turned his horse and fled the scene as if the sight of them all had become intolerable.
The small comfort vanished.
So he was affected by her, then. Enough to stiffen. Enough to grow cold when Mr. Collins spoke of Lady Catherine and Anne de Bourgh. Enough to be disturbed by the possibility of her becoming Mrs. Collins.
But not enough to remain.
Not enough to speak.
Not enough to look at her and let her know she was not ridiculous for feeling wounded.
Elizabeth’s throat tightened. In some ways, it would have been easier if he had not liked her at all.
Then his distance might have been merely pride, or indifference, or an opinion formed at the assembly and never altered.
But if he did like her—if he had felt something in the library, at dinner, in the looks and conversations she had treasured despite every effort at sense—then his withdrawal meant something far worse.
It meant there was some defect in her, or in her family, or in her circumstances, strong enough to overpower whatever regard he had begun to feel.
That was a thought too painful to examine in the middle of Meryton.
“Lizzy?”
Jane’s voice reached her as though from across a great distance.
Elizabeth blinked and turned. Mr. Bingley stood near Jane, his expression earnest and anxious, while Kitty and Lydia protested with great energy that they had only just arrived and had not yet seen half the shops.
Mary looked disapprovingly toward the officers, who were still smiling at Lydia’s liveliness, and Mr. Collins stood beside Elizabeth with an air of significance she had no wish to interpret.
“I beg your pardon,” Elizabeth said. “What was that?”
Jane’s eyes searched hers with gentle concern. “Mr. Bingley has offered to escort us home, if we are too fatigued to remain in Meryton. I asked what you thought.”
Elizabeth drew herself together. “That is very kind of Mr. Bingley.” She looked toward him with what she hoped was a composed smile.
“But if you have time, sir, perhaps you might allow Jane a little more fresh air first? I should hate to ruin the pleasure of our younger sisters when they have only just begun their shopping.”
Mr. Bingley brightened at once. “I have all the time in the world. That is, I have quite enough time. I would be delighted to walk with you as long as Miss Bennet feels equal to it.”
Jane’s smile broke over her face with such warmth that Mr. Bingley appeared, for several seconds, to forget both speech and the public street in which he stood.
Elizabeth watched them with weary approval.
There, at least, was a kind of happiness that did not hide itself behind duty, fortune, and family calculation.
Mr. Bingley’s heart was in his face, and Jane’s, though gentler and more cautious, was not as carefully concealed as she believed.
Elizabeth hoped, fiercely and suddenly, that nothing would come to spoil it.
Then she attempted to take a step and discovered she could not.
Mr. Collins had somehow taken her arm.
When had that happened?
She looked down in astonishment at his gloved hand resting upon her sleeve, not tightly enough to be improper in the broadest sense, yet with a possessive assurance that sent alarm through every nerve.
He was speaking—of course he was speaking—his voice moving steadily onward as though no interruption, human or divine, could alter its course.
“—and you will find, dear cousin Elizabeth, that Hunsford possesses every comfort which a lady of modest and rational expectations might desire. The parsonage is not large, certainly, but Lady Catherine has been so condescending as to advise upon the shelves in the principal sitting room, and I flatter myself the closet space is not inferior to what may be found in many houses of greater pretension. The village itself is genteel, though small, and Rosings Park is within such easy distance that one may enjoy all the advantage of great society without the burden of maintaining it oneself.”
Elizabeth stared at him.
He smiled down at her as though she must be delighted.
She was not.
“Lady Catherine,” he continued, guiding her a few steps toward the nearest shop as if the thing were settled, “has the most exact notions upon every domestic arrangement. She is particularly attentive to the proper width of ribbon for young ladies of discretion. She does not approve of extremes, either in ornament or opinion. I am certain you will benefit greatly from her advice.”
Elizabeth summoned every particle of restraint she possessed and did not jerk her arm away.
“I am sure Lady Catherine’s opinions are very numerous,” she said.
“Most justly observed! Numerous and excellent. You will hear them often, I trust.”
That trust nearly undid her.
She could not cry again. Not in Meryton. Not before Lydia, Kitty, officers, Mr. Bingley, Jane, Mr. Collins, and half the shopkeepers in Hertfordshire. She would not be reduced to tears because Darcy had ridden away and Mr. Collins had attached himself to her arm like an ill-bred burr.
Instead, she turned toward the milliner’s window. “I believe Lydia wished to see the ribbons.”
Mr. Collins, delighted by the turn toward ribbons and already prepared to connect them to Rosings, followed her inside.
The shop was narrow, crowded, and blessedly arranged with counters and shelves that made close progress difficult.
Elizabeth moved at once toward a row of trims displayed along the far wall, choosing the tightest passage available.
Mr. Collins, after one attempt to keep hold of her arm and nearly overturn a box of gloves, was forced to release her.
Elizabeth breathed for the first time in several minutes.
Lydia and Kitty descended upon the ribbons with happy cries.
Mary stood near the door, disapproving of both ribbons and officers, though Elizabeth suspected her disapproval might have softened had the officers been more inclined to admire moral essays.
Jane and Mr. Bingley remained just inside the shop, speaking quietly.
Mr. Collins, having lost Elizabeth’s arm, transferred his attentions to the harried proprietor and began explaining Lady Catherine’s standards of respectable trimming.
Elizabeth trailed her fingers along a length of blue ribbon and reminded herself, firmly, that she did not have to marry Mr. Collins simply because Darcy did not want her.