Chapter 15
Longbourn Land
The Next Morning
It was a cold day, with a wintry sun shining feebly from a pale blue sky.
Elizabeth pulled her scarf up a little higher, warming her nose and mouth against the sharp nip in the frozen air, before tugging it down again to take deep appreciative lungfuls of the crispness.
Meryton fell away behind her, while Longbourn, obscured by woods, lay ahead.
That morning, the cook had informed Mrs. Bennet that the main oven was, to use the distraught woman’s own term, dead.
Someone would have to be summoned to fix it, but in the meantime, Longbourn must have bread.
Elizabeth, feeling restless, had volunteered at once to visit Meryton and the baker and order a week’s supply of bread to be delivered.
She had waited just long enough to bid the Gardiners goodbye and then set out.
It had been a pleasant outing, if a cold one, with the warmth and sweet smells of the bakery a welcome reprieve from the out of doors.
The chill and the frozen ground had their own appeal, though, the air lending itself well to the clearing of a head.
Elizabeth thought of Kitty and Lydia. She had learned only this morning that they had been invited to return to London with their relations for a few weeks.
There had been much scrambling to pack trunks and to don pelisses and scarves and gloves, and then the entire Gardiner family plus the two younger Bennets had piled into the carriage and driven away amid the fluttering of handkerchiefs from the remaining ladies.
Longbourn would be quieter now, but Elizabeth completely understood her younger sisters’ decision to spend additional time with the Gardiners.
The girls would be much better entertained in Town with their beloved cousins and easy access to shops and theaters and the park than they would be in slow, slushy, cold Meryton.
It would be odd for them to not be in residence at Longbourn, and despite enjoying a quieter home, Elizabeth would miss them.
She would miss her aunt and uncle too. Although they had not been to her and Jane a second set of parents in the same way they had been to Kitty and Lydia, they were still close and dear.
Not that Longbourn would be entirely bereft of visitors.
There were always the Lucases and Aunt Phillips and now the Netherfield party, as well.
Mr. Darcy rose, tall and handsome, in Elizabeth’s mind, and she allowed her thoughts to dwell on him.
The last time she had seen him was at church the previous day, his expression grave and attentive on old Mr. Allen as the rector preached his sermon.
She had not had a chance to speak with him, which had disappointed her.
She wondered how he was dealing with the ending of his engagement.
At no point had he displayed the mien of a man crushed by disappointment and grief, but surely such a thing as a broken engagement must render anyone a little melancholy?
Of course, Caroline had said that it had been arranged by their respective elders, so perhaps he did not mind, but Caroline was such a kindly and sweet-tempered lady it was hard to imagine him finding the match objectionable.
Elizabeth hoped that Mr. Darcy did not feel too dejected.
She wondered if, engagement at an end, embarrassment or discomfort in sharing a house with his former betrothed would send Mr. Darcy away from Hertfordshire.
She would be sad to bid him goodbye. Though there was no reason to think he felt any partiality for her, Elizabeth could no longer deny her own feelings for him, and she would miss him when he departed the county.
“Elizabeth! Good morning!” a voice cried out, and she turned in surprise to discover that the Bingley carriage had stopped beside her, and that Caroline Bingley was looking at her with a smile on her face.
The glass window between them made it difficult to speak with ease, and so she merely smiled and said loudly, “Good morning, Caroline!”
Miss Bingley turned to speak to someone else in the carriage, and a moment later, the door popped open to reveal, to her surprise and pleasure, Fitzwilliam Darcy.
He stepped down onto the road and said, “Miss Elizabeth, might I have the honor of walking home with you?”
She stared at him in wonder but recovered within a few seconds. “Yes, thank you. That would be very pleasant.”
He pushed the door shut, and the carriage pulled away. He held out his arm to her. She took it and felt her cheeks flush, but she was hopeful that he would think her rosy color was due to the cold.
“I hope you are well, Mr. Darcy?” she asked as they began walking toward Longbourn at a rather slower pace than usual.
“I am,” he said and turned a smiling face toward her, which caused her heart to skip a beat. Really, he was very handsome, especially when he smiled at her!
“Are you well?” he inquired a moment later, and she nodded. “Yes, thank you.”
They walked in silence for another minute and then the gentleman said, rather abruptly, “I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to you in private, Miss Elizabeth.”
“Oh?” she said, and now her heart was hammering in her chest.
“I wish to tell you that I admire you very much. I daresay that is a great surprise, and perhaps rather forward, but when I think of … well, the truth is that for two years, I have been trapped by family honor in an engagement which was not to the liking of myself or Caroline. I tried my hardest not to give in to my attraction to you these past weeks, not because of you, but because I was lawfully engaged to Caroline, and I did not wish to … I am afraid I am not saying this very well. I apologize.”
She stopped right there by the side of the road and turned and reached out both of her hands, which he took. Even through their gloves, Elizabeth could feel the strength in those hands.
“I do understand,” she said. “I do. The truth is that I am very attracted to you as well and did my best to suppress those feelings since you were engaged to another lady. I do not suppose that two people who have only known one another for a few weeks can be genuinely in love, but I do respect and admire you greatly. You are a good brother, and intelligent, and hardworking, and generous.”
“Thank you. Your kind words are more than I had hoped for,” he said, smiling broadly, and then it was as if a cloud had covered the sun, as his cheer gave way to a frown.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he said before she had time to be too concerned, “I feel I must tell you something of great import. It is a very private matter, but I know I can trust you not to speak of it to others.”
“Of course you can,” she said.
He released her hands and held out his arm, and they began walking toward Longbourn again.
“Last summer,” he said, “my sister Georgiana, who was not yet married to Bingley, journeyed to Ramsgate on the sea for a holiday as London was rather too hot for her.”
“I have heard that Ramsgate is lovely,” Elizabeth murmured.
“It is,” Darcy said, and sighed deeply. “Unfortunately, I had hired a governess companion for my sister, a Mrs. Younge, who turned out to be in league with an old acquaintance of mine, a Mr. Wickham, who grew up at Pemberley as the son of our steward. Mr. Wickham was not a good man, not at all. He ran up debts, and gambled excessively, and was a rogue of the first order. At Ramsgate, over the course of two weeks, he attempted to convince Georgiana that she was in love with him. When that failed, he drugged her with laudanum, and he and Mrs. Younge took her onto a carriage and began driving for Scotland in the hopes of forcing her to marry Wickham over the anvil.”
Elizabeth was certain that she was pale now, so horrified was she, and she finally gasped, “How dreadful! What happened?”
“By the grace of God, one of the maids at the hired house in Ramsgate understood what had happened. She was also literate and sent a frantic express to me in London with news of Georgiana’s abduction.
Bingley and Colonel Fitzwilliam and I immediately began riding north along the Great North Road, and we were fortunate to catch up with them forty miles from the Scottish border.
We managed to stop the carriage, and Georgiana succeeded in opening the door and jumping out.
Wickham came out with a gun and shot my cousin Richard in the shoulder.
I returned fire and shot the villain through the heart. ”
“I am glad!” Elizabeth burst out. “Oh, how very glad I am. Was your sister … all right?”
She saw his nostrils quiver, and he said, “They had spent several nights on the road at inns, and Georgiana was dosed repeatedly with laudanum to keep her compliant. As far as we know, my sister was not … not harmed, but we decided that it would be best for Bingley to marry my sister as quickly as possible.”
Elizabeth frowned at this. “Did she willingly marry him?”
“Yes, she did. When I was but a child, Bingley’s father, who left this life for the next some five years ago, rescued my father and me when our carriage was attacked by ruffians.
The senior Bingley was a remarkable shot and killed more than one of them, while the others ran away, although he took a shot to his left shoulder in the process.
My father was so grateful that he arranged for Bingley to be knighted, while also promising that his only son, and one of his daughters, would marry Georgiana and me, respectively. ”
“Oh! So that is why Caroline said this was a family arrangement.”
“Precisely. And while I have never felt any romantic interest toward Caroline, Georgiana was drawn to the younger Bingley from the moment they first met. My father did not wish for them to be legally engaged until she was at least eighteen years old, but in her mind, and in Bingley’s as well, they were bound to one another.
Indeed, I have no doubt that is why she was not attracted at all to Wickham.
They knew one another when she was a child, and he was a very charming and handsome man, with a silver tongue, but she has been devoted to Charles Bingley for many years. ”
Elizabeth felt a salty droplet slide down her cheek and dashed it away hastily. She was a confused mixture of enraged and saddened. Poor Mrs. Bingley!
“Did this foul man’s death result in any problems for you legally?” she suddenly asked, turning to gaze at him.
Darcy shook his head. “It did not. The local magistrate, who oversaw the investigation of the affair, was eager to hush it up given the situation. I am certain it helped that my cousin Richard is the son of an earl.”
“Not to mention that the colonel was shot by that horrible man,” Elizabeth said angrily. “Is he all right?”
“He recovered completely,” Darcy said and then stopped again. She stopped as well and looked up into his anxious face.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he said, “could you consider marrying a man who has killed another man?”
She did not need even a second to respond.
“Of course,” she said warmly. “You were rescuing your sister, which was very noble of you, and this Wickham person, well, I am very glad he is dead after behaving so horribly toward a young lady! What happened to Mrs. Younge?”
Darcy’s expression had relaxed noticeably during her short speech, and he said, “She was sent to Australia as a prisoner.”
“Good,” Elizabeth said, and she was so full of righteous anger that she released Darcy’s hand, grabbed his arm, and began stomping towards her home again at her most rapid walking pace.
He came with her, of course, and given his longer legs, kept up with ease, and after two minutes, she slowed down once more and said, “I am both angry and sad about Georgiana. How is she?”
Darcy grimaced and said, “She still is nervous and always has her personal maid, who is the girl who wrote us the letter from Ramsgate, or her husband with her at night, but she is doing as well as can be expected.”
“What dreadful people,” she snapped and then shook her head. “But enough of that, sir. Thank you for trusting me with this situation, and I assure you that I admire you greatly for rescuing your sister and will not allow a syllable of gossip to cross my lips.”
“I know you will not,” he said. “I cannot tell you how happy I am that you are not horrified by my decision to shoot my sister’s abductor.
I could have shot him in the arm, but … well, in any case.
I would like to court you, Miss Elizabeth, though perhaps not formally?
Because I only just left an engagement, and neither of us would like the gossip involved in that. ”
“We would not,” Elizabeth agreed, and now that she had turned her thoughts from Mrs. Bingley to her companion, she was suddenly supremely, gloriously happy. She smiled brightly up at him. “I think that an unofficial courtship would be wonderful, Mr. Darcy.”