Chapter Nine
Elizabeth held on to the back of a chair in Papa’s book room, her grip upon the frame very tight indeed. She had not wished to slap anyone since she was a child, but Mr. Collins was as provoking as Lydia had been at five.
“You cannot possibly think that a kiss on the cheek under a sprig of mistletoe is cause for scandal, Mr. Collins,” Papa said wearily.
“It was on the lips!” Mr. Collins fanned himself like an outraged matron.
“It was an accident, Papa. I moved to say something to Mr. Darcy just as he . . .” She blushed.
“You could not stop talking long enough for a kiss?” he asked merrily. “This is admirable, Lizzy.”
Mr. Collins was turning an alarming shade of red. “You must understand, cousin, that Mr. Darcy is promised to Miss de Bourgh.”
“Who promised him?” Papa inquired with a smirk. “For as much as his aunt might wish it, she cannot issue a proposal on the gentleman’s behalf.”
“My aunt would like nothing better,” Mr. Darcy said, entering the room. “However, it is not true.”
Elizabeth sighed in relief, surprising herself. She shot an anxious glance at Mr. Darcy only to find him gazing at her with a soft smile. Clearly, he had heard her.
She looked away. Papa ought to be annoyed that the man had let himself in without so much as announcing his arrival, but he simply sat back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach. He was enjoying himself immensely and would make no move to remove Mr. Darcy from their company.
Traitor.
Mr. Collins was blathering on about Miss de Bourgh, her mother’s excellent fortune, her father’s grand estate, and something about the glazing of windows. It was in the middle of his laudatory oration that she saw it.
Mr. Darcy rolled his eyes.
It was an astonishing thing to witness, and she could not help but laugh. It was no more than a snicker, really, but it stopped Mr. Collins in the middle of some statement that had him pointing his finger in the air and waving it about. He was incredibly affronted.
It was Mr. Darcy’s fault, but would he be the object of Mr. Collins’s ire?
“Mr. Darcy,” her father said, “if you would be so kind as to return the use of my book room to me?”
Mr. Darcy’s brow creased, and he tossed a worried glance at Elizabeth. He was concerned for her.
Well, good. She would not allow him to fret for long, but Mr. Darcy deserved to be left dangling for a time. Elizabeth would not meet his eye.
After a pause fraught with tension, Mr. Darcy nodded once and strode out.
“I am pleased you have come round to my way of thinking,” Mr. Collins said, and moved to take one of the chairs.
“I only detained you to warn you, Mr. Collins,” her father said.
“Warn me?”
“You are soon to be a married man, Mr. Collins,” Papa reminded him. “You must think of the future. Your living, as you know, is a lifetime appointment.”
“Yes, Lady Catherine de Bourgh has so graciously . . .”
Papa interrupted Mr. Collins at once. “Does Lady Catherine have other livings in her gift? Can she do more for you than she has already?”
“But . . .”
“You need not act in any way you do not wish, of course,” Papa said placatingly. “However, I would take Mr. Darcy’s side, for I suspect that he has more to give.”
“You may have meant well,” Elizabeth added quietly, “but I am sure Mr. Darcy felt all the offense of his aunt’s clergyman taking him to task over a sprig of mistletoe.”
Mr Collins shifted his weight from one foot to another. “Perhaps I ought to make my apologies. Yes, perhaps I should.”
“I think that is a very proper notion,” Papa said, opening the door to the hall. Mr. Collins bustled out, and Elizabeth smiled at her father.
Mr. Collins’s voice rang out from the hall. “Mr. Darcy, sir! I must offer my most humble apologies!”
She shook her head. “You know his apologies will be endless and drive Mr. Darcy to distraction.”
Papa matched her smile as he shut the door and Mr. Collins’s never-ending requests for pardon were muted. “I thought you would appreciate that. Insult for insult, as it were.”
Elizabeth glanced away. “He is not so very bad.”
“Indeed?” Her father observed her carefully before saying, “He did tell me a story about this Lieutenant Wickham your sisters are so fond of. Was he telling me the truth?”
“I believe that he was.” She sat in a chair near the hearth. “I was fond of Mr. Wickham too, but as it turns out, he was merely using me to take some sort of revenge upon Mr. Darcy.”
“Hmm.” Papa pushed his spectacles up on his nose. “I gather he has done worse than Mr. Darcy related to me, but how have you come to such a conclusion?”
“Well, I had a story from Mr. Darcy which makes a great deal more sense than Mr. Wickham’s. Thus, I was forced to revise my first impression of Mr. Darcy.”
Her father smiled. “Oh dear. This must be serious, for I know how much you dislike revisiting your initial opinions.”
“Papa,” she said, aggravated.
Her father walked over to her and placed a light kiss upon her brow. “I always did wonder why you were so angry with him that night. You must know that you are very pretty, Lizzy. What one pompous man from London says cannot change that.”
“What I have learned, Papa, is that I am every bit as vain as the next young lady who wishes to be well thought of."
He chuckled. “Young men are vain too, Lizzy. Do not allow them to pretend otherwise.”
She nodded. “I shall not.”
Her father sat behind his desk and folded his hands before him, then peered at her over the top of his spectacles. “Is there anything to this kiss under the mistletoe, then?”
Was there? “How can I know until he speaks? And I believe he is unlikely to speak.”
“Well, just as he chooses,” her father said. “If he cannot pluck up his courage, he is not worthy of you.”
“Thank you, Papa,” she said affectionately.
He grunted and pointed to the door with the corner of the book he still held in his hand. “Yes, well, off with you. This house is entirely too full for my liking. All these young bucks about. I shall be pleased to see them all off when they go.”
“Jane will eventually go too, Papa, for Mr. Bingley will certainly declare himself before long.”
“Well, at least it is only to Netherfield.” He sighed. “Although I cannot suppose your mother will leave them in peace. You at least must promise not to live too far away.”
She tipped her head to one side. “I cannot make any promises, sir.”
Papa’s look was shrewd. “Perhaps all the way to Derbyshire, eh, Lizzy?”
She shook her head at him. “Perhaps never any farther than the cave near Oakham Mount. Do you think Mamma would give me the hermit’s position?”
His laughter followed her out into the hall.
Darcy bundled himself into his coat and walked out of doors before the odious toad-eater whom Lady Catherine had awarded a living realised he had lost his audience.
Thirty minutes of obsequious apologies with no sign of stopping was more than enough.
He had awaited Miss Elizabeth’s return, but either Mr. Bennet had detained her, or she had left him to his fate.
Darcy’s thoughts were in disarray, and he required peace and solitude to sort them out.
The park in which Longbourn sat was nothing to Pemberley, but it was quiet and well tended, in all a pretty sort of property.
He could easily see Miss Elizabeth in his mind’s eye as a young girl, dark curls bouncing wildly as she scampered about the grounds, clambering up trees and plucking exactly the flowers her mother wished to preserve.
The walk had been an excellent idea. He could understand why Miss Elizabeth enjoyed them.
As he reached the junction where Longbourn’s road met the one to Meryton, he heard a faint scream.
Darcy picked up his pace until he heard another woman scream, louder this time.
He ran. Sliding to a stop in the middle of the deserted Meryton road, he looked about him. It was all forest and trees on one side and hedgerow on the other here, so he could not immediately locate the source of the cries.
Snow had begun to accumulate on the ground, and though at the moment it amounted to only an inch or so, more flakes were drifting lazily down to the ground. His breath formed frozen clouds as he stood still, waiting.
Just as he was about to call out, a cacophony of voices exploded into screams and shouts, like a flock of birds. Outraged birds.
Women, the lot of them.
Then, to his surprise, the hedgerows parted in a way they ought not, and a man in a bedraggled militia uniform slithered through, landing hard on the wet, muddy ground. He stood, brushing himself off before he straightened.
“Wickham,” Darcy said. Of course. Who else could drive so many women to wrath all at once?
“Darcy!” Wickham hailed him as though he had not just been witnessed diving through the shrubbery. “Well met!”
Darcy could only shake his head at the man’s gall. “Never well met, Wickham.”
“I beg you, Darcy,” Wickham said in a low voice as he drew near, “help me back to camp.”
“What have you done?”
“Nothing that they did not want to happen, Darcy, you know me. Charm is all I require.”
A great hue and cry came from the other side of the hedgerow before one section of it violently collapsed and a crowd of nearly ten women trampled it into the ground in their haste. Young women all, but from a variety of classes.
“Hmm,” Darcy replied, masking his delight. “Less charm and quicker feet, I think.” He beckoned to a girl who was standing on the edge of the group and gave her a few instructions.
“Thank you,” Wickham said to Darcy as the girl ran off, and then attempted to hide behind him. Darcy was having none of that. He stepped clear.
“You said I was yer one an’ only, Georgie,” a comely young woman sneered, pushing through the others. “Got a kiss with the mistletoe and me wages besides, din’t ya? I shall ’ave the money back agin!” She held out her hand.
“Now, Kate,” Wickham said as he backed away, “you said that was a gift.”
The women surged around him, putting him in the centre of a squawking mob.