TWENTY-SIX #2
Then she turned directly toward Elizabeth.
“I take it you are Miss Elizabeth?”
The pointedness of the question made something unpleasant shift low in Elizabeth’s stomach. There was something distinctly wrong in it.
“Yes,” she said.
“Then it is you I have come to see,” said Lady Catherine, still looking directly at her. “I should like a private word with you.”
It was not a request.
Mrs. Bennet, all smiles and visible delight, gestured Elizabeth toward the door with both hands. “Of course, of course. Lizzy, show her ladyship the tulips in the garden, or perhaps the—”
“The garden will answer,” said Lady Catherine.
Elizabeth led the way, Lady Catherine following behind.
As they proceeded, Elizabeth noticed their noble visitor continuing to inspect the property with visible disapproval, making occasional dissatisfied sounds beneath her breath.
Elizabeth scarcely attended to any of it.
Her thoughts remained fixed entirely upon one question.
What could Lady Catherine possibly want with her?
They proceeded in silence along the gravel walk until they reached the path between the bare hedgerows and the tulips.
Elizabeth had not wholly abandoned the Mr. Collins theory by the time they arrived at the far end of the path, though she had begun wondering whether Lady Catherine might truly be small-minded enough to travel this distance merely to scold her for rejecting him.
Lady Catherine stopped abruptly.
“I shall speak plainly,” she said. “I have no patience for circumlocution.”
“I would not expect otherwise, ma’am,” said Elizabeth.
Elizabeth watched Lady Catherine’s eyes travel over her once more with unmistakable disapproval.
“You have formed an attachment to my nephew,” she said. “Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley.”
Elizabeth regarded her with unaffected calm, though her knees had begun, entirely without permission, to tremble.
“I observe you do not deny it.”
“I see no particular reason either to confirm or deny it to someone who has not established any right to the information,” said Elizabeth pleasantly.
Lady Catherine’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“My right is that of a family member who has my nephew’s best interests foremost in her concerns, which is considerably more than may be said for a young woman who has cultivated an acquaintance with a grieving widower for motives transparent to everyone possessing eyes to observe them.”
Elizabeth felt something cold and precise settle within her chest. She kept her expression perfectly steady.
“I have cultivated nothing,” she said. “Mr. Darcy and I have spoken upon several occasions through the invitation of mutual acquaintance. That is the whole of it.”
“The whole of it,” repeated Lady Catherine with a delicacy strongly implying she knew considerably more than Elizabeth wished her to.
“You have been upon several excursions with my nephew within the past week. I understand this forms part of an elaborate scheme in which your sister pursues Mr. Bingley with equal determination. The Bennet family’s intentions within this neighbourhood are not obscure, Miss Bennet. Merely unacknowledged.”
“My sister’s attachment to Mr. Bingley is entirely their own affair,” said Elizabeth. “As for myself, I have done nothing that was not entirely proper and nothing that was not at Mr Darcy's own initiative.
“Mr. Darcy’s initiative,” said Lady Catherine, “is precisely the difficulty. My nephew is not well. He is not presently in a condition to exercise the judgement this situation requires, and it therefore falls to those who care for him to exercise it in his stead.”
“Mr. Darcy,” said Elizabeth, with a composure she felt rather proud of preserving, “is a gentleman of considerable intelligence and perfectly sound judgement. I would never presume to exercise it in his stead. I confess myself surprised that anyone professing to esteem him would do so.”
Lady Catherine regarded her a long moment.
“Mr. Collins did mention your stubbornness. I perceive now it was for Fitzwilliam’s sake that you rejected his proposal. One can scarcely blame your ambition, considering Fitzwilliam possesses considerably more than the entailed estate which would eventually have come to you as a clergyman’s wife.”
“My rejection of Mr. Collins had nothing whatsoever to do with Mr. Darcy,” said Elizabeth. “But affairs, as I have already stated, are not for someone who has established no right to them.”
“You are clever,” said her ladyship. “That much is apparent. But allow me to tell you something which cleverness cannot reason away, Miss Bennet.” She paused.
“My nephew is intended for my daughter Anne. It has been the wish of both his mother and myself since they lay in their cradles. The arrangement has never been publicly declared, but the understanding exists and remains unchanged.” Another pause, deliberate and exact.
“I have spoken to my nephew. He now recognises the impropriety of his earlier mistake. Whatever encouragement you may imagine yourself to have received through your manipulation of his sentiments does not reflect his settled intentions.”
Elizabeth had to exert real effort to prevent her knees from giving way altogether. The brave composure she had maintained thus far had begun, very suddenly, to fracture.
Not because she believed it. Not entirely. Certainly not the part concerning Darcy suddenly seeing reason. She had sat beside him upon a fallen log less than twenty-four hours earlier and heard him say things no man says whilst already committed elsewhere.
Yet she could not be entirely certain. Not when Darcy had spoken so little of Anne. His other cousins, Colonel Fitzwilliam and his brother he had discussed extensively, but Anne he had always passed over lightly.
“Furthermore,” Lady Catherine continued, and something in her tone altered — only slightly, yet enough to command Elizabeth’s full attention in an altogether different manner — “my nephew is a gentleman who has already suffered severely. The last young woman who attached herself to him without proper regard for family counsel or the realities of his situation…” She looked directly at Elizabeth.
“Well. You are perhaps aware how that ended. A tragic accident. The young woman dead before the wedding day had concluded. It was almost as though the marriage had never taken place.” She held Elizabeth’s gaze without the slightest hesitation.
“I do not say this to distress you. I say it because sentiment has consequences, Miss Bennet, and in my nephew’s case those consequences have already proved exceedingly grave. ”
The garden stood entirely silent.
Elizabeth could hear the sound of her own breathing.
She understood perfectly what Lady Catherine was doing.
She understood the cruelty of it with complete and terrible clarity.
Darcy’s wife’s death had nothing whatsoever to do with sentiment or with anyone’s failure to heed Lady Catherine’s counsel.
Elizabeth did not believe that for a single instant.
Yet standing there in the cold garden beneath Lady Catherine’s unwavering gaze, she became aware of something she had not permitted herself fully to confront since growing close to Mr. Darcy — the full weight of what she was moving toward and what it might ultimately cost.
Not her.
Him.
If she proved mistaken. If she overestimated either what she felt or what he felt or what might truly be possible between them. If the certainty she possessed so firmly in her bedroom that morning proved rather less certain in the actual living of it.
Those doubts already belonged to her though she had not considered them.
Lady Catherine had not planted them.
She had merely discovered them, precisely as a woman of her particular intelligence would, and held them mercilessly to the light.
“I believe,” said Elizabeth carefully, “that you have now said what you came to say.”
“I have said part of it,” replied Lady Catherine. “The remainder I leave to your good sense, should you possess any.” She gathered herself. “I trust I shall not be required to make this journey again.”
Then she turned and walked back toward her coach without waiting for a response or setting foot inside the house again.
Elizabeth remained in the garden.
The cold settled gradually around her.
She stood within it a very long time.