Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Two days after Jane and Mary’s first call, Elizabeth and Georgiana returned the visit to Longbourn. Darcy had not spared Elizabeth the particulars of the gossip being circulated about her, and Charlotte had called at Millwood Cottage the very next day.
“They do not really believe Miss Bingley,” Charlotte had said with a small shrug, “but they wonder where you might have gone. Jane mentioned that your grandfather had returned, and that alleviated some of the concern, but with Miss Bingley spreading her tale and no one knowing where you had gone, many began to be worried for you.”
Elizabeth smiled, not without irony. “Then I suppose I must reappear in Meryton and assure everyone that I am well. It has been several years since anyone saw my grandfather, and I suspect many have forgotten that he purchased Millwood Cottage as a place to stay in the area.”
“Yes, I had not remembered either, but once Mr Darcy told me, I recalled how little he liked staying at Longbourn,” Charlotte said with a laugh.
After some discussion with her grandfather regarding this news, Elizabeth was convinced that paying a round of long-overdue visits—to the Bennets, the Lucases, and a few others—would be the surest way of putting such nonsense to rest.
“Gossip seldom survives when daylight shines on it,” her grandfather observed. “A few well-chosen appearances will do more than any denial. I will show myself at Longbourn as well and speak to your uncle. He knew where you were, but I suppose he could not trouble himself to make it known.”
Her grandfather, Mr Darcy, and Colonel Fitzwilliam were to accompany the ladies on their calls for only a brief time.
The visits—which Elizabeth argued ought to have taken place the day after Jane and Mary’s return—were delayed while the earl waited for several men known to him and to Colonel Fitzwilliam to arrive.
These men, all former officers who had served alongside the colonel and were personally known to the earl, would act as footmen; their true charge, however, was to watch over Elizabeth and Georgiana wherever they went.
Elizabeth understood that the gentlemen would accompany her and Georgiana only as far as the Bennets and would not join them in the subsequent calls.
Instead, they would endeavour to learn what they could of Mr Bingley.
Should he still be at Netherfield, Lord Granfield intended to call upon him with Colonel Fitzwilliam in attendance.
As for Mr Darcy, it was evident that his willingness to go to Netherfield would be determined solely by whether Caroline Bingley continued to reside there—a circumstance Elizabeth understood perfectly well.
She had been surprised by how candid he had been the night before when he explained his abrupt departure from Netherfield to them all.
Elizabeth had long been aware of that lady’s interest in him, but had not expected her to be so brazen as to attempt to force a connexion.
The notion that any woman would deliberately attempt to compromise a gentleman struck her as foolish; even if he were honourable enough to offer her marriage as a result, she could not imagine that such a lady would afterward be treated with any real kindness.
Shaking off these thoughts, she returned to the matter at hand.
Elizabeth knew she had been remiss in not writing to Jane sooner, but she had been so occupied in preparing Millwood Cottage for guests that it had simply slipped her mind.
That Jane seemed to hold the matter against her had seemed evident on her visit to Millwood, and Elizabeth wondered slightly at its cause.
“You might have written sooner,” Jane had said. There was little doubt her words were kindly meant, but they still evoked a measure of guilt in Elizabeth. “Truly, I did not know where to send a note, and I have been at a loss to know how to find you. Papa would not tell us anything.”
For the briefest of moments, she considered that Jane might have heard Miss Bingley’s claims that Elizabeth had behaved scandalously, but surely her cousin would not believe her capable of acting in such a way.
At Longbourn, they were greeted with great warmth; Mrs Bennet, in particular, was delighted to host Mr Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam with effusive praises, but she met Mr Grant more cooly.
Likewise, Kitty and Lydia were ecstatic to have an officer of the Regulars to speak with and upon whom to practise their flirtations.
Despite Lydia proclaiming him “not as handsome as Sanderson or Wickham,” he had far better stories, she decided by the end of the visit.
None of the guests reacted at the mention of Wickham, but Elizabeth exchanged a glance with Jane and Mary and thought she read their looks correctly.
It did not surprise her that their father had said nothing of Wickham to his family, yet she could not help but wonder whether the account Mr Darcy, the colonel, and her grandfather had shared with a select few had begun to circulate in Meryton.
She suspected that Mrs Philips, at least, would be quick to make known that militia officers were not to be so readily trusted, given what Mr Darcy had confided to her husband; however, as that information had been shared only two days earlier, and Elizabeth could not be certain what her youngest cousins had heard.
Rather than wait and speculate, she spoke.
“But ought you not to be wary of such men?” she asked.
“What do you truly know of them? From what my grandfather has said of his dealings with the Regulars on the Continent, not all officers—despite their claims to gentility—are as diligent as they ought to be.”
She paused, then turned towards the colonel.
“Surely, Colonel Fitzwilliam, you can attest to that. Militia commissions do not always attract the most scrupulous gentlemen. Some leave substantial debts in their wake. Others can scarcely afford their uniforms, much less the obligations they contrive to accumulate.”
“La, Lizzy, you are so very dull,” Lydia proclaimed. “I have every intention to marry an officer, and we shall go to balls and parties every night. We shall be quite happy indeed.”
Elizabeth had barely suppressed a grimace at her young cousin’s foolishness when the colonel intervened, his tone amiable and unruffled.
“Hardly, Miss Lydia. Even though I am a colonel in the Regulars—which, I assure you, pays rather better than the militia—I cannot contemplate marriage without first considering whether a lady possesses a dowry, and a substantial one at that. I should be most reluctant to ask a wife to follow the drum, and most ladies, particularly those of your class, would scarcely relish relying upon my modest income for their support.”
He continued with good humour as if unaware of Lydia’s dawning disappointment.
“When I am in England, I depend largely upon the kindness of friends and family for my lodgings, for I maintain no rooms of my own beyond those at my father’s house.
I take quarters in the barracks when I must, but they are scarcely suitable for a married man—and, in any case, a wife cannot be housed there. ”
Nodding to the colonel and offering him a small smile, Elizabeth could not deny that he possessed more depth than she had first supposed.
She had grown fond of him as a friend in the past few days, and she expected to enjoy his visit—but as a husband?
On that point, her mind was perfectly settled.
No matter her grandfather’s wishes, she would not marry the good colonel.
Although Elizabeth fancied she saw a flicker of understanding pass between Kitty and Lydia, before more could be said on the subject, the door to the drawing room opened and a rather large man entered the room. Mr Bennet stood a little behind him, an amused expression upon his face.
Without waiting to be welcomed—or even for an introduction to the gentlemen present—the man advanced a step and immediately bent himself into a series of earnest, hurried bows.
They were neither deep enough to be dignified nor shallow enough to be merely polite, and Elizabeth watched with a mixture of surprise and second-hand discomfort as he attempted to address two men at once.
“Mr Darcy. Colonel Fitzwilliam,” he announced with conspicuous enthusiasm, inclining his head first to one and then the other, his eyes flicking between them, careful not to give offence by lingering too long on either.
In his eagerness to greet these men, he entirely overlooked the older gentleman nearby.
“I am delighted—most exceedingly delighted—to make your acquaintance.”
It was the colonel who recovered himself first. Drawing himself up, he spoke with a cool formality Elizabeth had never before heard from him. “You must forgive me, sir, but who are you? We have not been introduced.”
The man paused—not in embarrassment, as Elizabeth might have expected, but as though considering how best to proceed.
She watched as he adjusted his coat with deliberate care before inclining his head again, this time with the air of a man convinced he had now struck precisely the correct degree of ceremony.
“Oh—pray forgive me, sir. My enthusiasm quite carried me away. I am William Collins, the rector to your august aunt, the noble Lady Catherine de Bourgh, of Rosings Park in Kent.” He straightened, evidently pleased by the connexion, and clasped his hands before him.
“I was granted the living just after Easter of this year—a most generous act on her ladyship’s part, for which I shall ever be grateful.
Indeed, she has been so very kind as to invite me to her table at whist on more than one occasion since my appointment. ”