Chapter Five #3
Miss Caroline Bingley stepped from the room with a candle in one hand.
She lifted the other to pat her coiffure into place.
Her expression, lit by the candle’s small flame, was serene and pleasant, and she began to stroll down the hallway, presumably to return to the ball.
As the family and their guests were expected not to return to their rooms until nearly four, the hallway remained dark.
Miss Bingley, her mind clearly on other matters, turned to take a family stairway to the ballrooms without observing them.
When they were sure she had gone, Richard let out an exaggerated sigh.
“Say what you will about controlling your emotions, Darcy,” he grunted.
“It is better to have a wife who cannot help but show what she is feeling. That one might just kill you in your sleep and look none the worse for wear in the morning.”
Together, they made their way to the front of the house to await their carriage.
There were no further words spoken between them.
Darcy’s anxiety grew ever sharper with the inactivity, and Richard just stood motionless, vision fixed on a spot over Darcy’s shoulder.
Darcy knew his cousin’s vacant stare hid an analytical mind already reviewing possible risks and potential solutions.
It had always been thus. They remained in the front hall, Darcy tapping his foot impatiently as muffled strains of music and laughter from upstairs drifted down to them.
He heard the crunch of carriage wheels on gravel and the coachman calling to his horses.
He was relieved that his coachmen had been so quick, and he threw open the heavy door himself, eager to get to Longbourn and Elizabeth.
He pulled up short at the sight of the coach. It was not his, though it was familiar. He could just make out the family crest in the light of the torches. Good God. What in blazes is she doing here?
“Bloody hell…” he heard Richard whisper, half in frustration and half in awe, as the steps were lowered and one of Bingley’s footmen reached inside.
What else could possibly go awry this evening?
“Nephew!” cried a very familiar, very imperious voice. “You will attend me!”
Elizabeth gave a brief greeting to Mr. Hill and flew up the stairs, Francis’s maid behind her.
“Lord Tavistock said to have your trunks sent after, miss, but is there anything you might wish to bring with you tonight?” she asked.
Elizabeth noticed that candles had been lit for her and that there was already warm clothing laid out upon her bed.
She stopped for a moment to gather her wits, and then listed a few items and began to move about the room.
She never went anywhere without her drawings, sketchbooks, and pencils and she did not trust anyone else to pack them up properly.
For the same reason and for privacy’s sake, she would need to collect her correspondence and notes.
Then she would only require her personal grooming items, which she asked the maid to assemble.
The trunks that had accompanied her aunt to London should have everything else she needed.
“Do you know if they have made arrangements for my mare?” she asked.
“No, miss,” the girl replied. “But I would guess they have. The master is very thorough, he is.”
Elizabeth gave the girl a little smile. “I have been rather distracted, I am afraid. I have not even asked your name.”
“Oh, it is of no matter, miss,” the girl said with a small smile. “The whole house was in uproar today. I quite understand.” Elizabeth waited for a moment until the maid’s face lit up. “Oh! Delilah, miss. My name is Delilah.” She bobbed a curtsey.
She remembered Francis’s words and replied, “I am Miss Russell, Delilah.”
“Yes, miss.”
She sized the girl up. Delilah was young, perhaps Lydia’s age. She was neatly attired and pretty, in a girlish sort of way. She also seemed eager to please.
“Delilah,” Elizabeth said, “I am in a great hurry to get to my aunt. Where should we begin?”
Delilah smiled. “Let us take down your hair and make you more comfortable for a carriage ride, miss. The gentlemen will have to take some time to change as well.”
Elizabeth nodded and sat down. As Delilah’s deft fingers undid her hair, pulling out hairpins and brushing out the tight curls, she gazed into the mirror before her, visually tracing the shadow and light in every plane of her features.
A specter stared back at her and she beat back a nearly overwhelming urge to weep.
Elizabeth imagined, longingly, the path that crossed the fields between Longbourn and Netherfield.
Walking there with her sisters, the ground wet with dew and autumn rain, was already a part of her past. She absorbed the dark reflection of the room behind her, the one that she had all but abandoned since the beginning of Mr. Collins’s visit, and knew that however temporary her stay at Longbourn had been, she would miss it.
She had been Elizabeth Bennet here. She had not wanted to be, but in the end, it had been good.
She thought perhaps Mr. Darcy would agree.
“I am right here, Aunt Catherine,” Richard said blithely, stepping forward. “How may I be of assistance?”
Lady Catherine de Bourgh, tall, imposing, and clearly incensed, brushed past him without a word.
“Aunt Catherine,” Darcy welcomed her, giving no outward sign of his desperation to be rid of the woman, “I cannot begin to account for your presence in Hertfordshire of all places, and at such an hour. What has happened?”
The old lady leaned in and shook a piece of paper at him. “How can you think to deceive me? Why would you even make the attempt?” She frowned, taking in their clothing. “Where are you going?”
Darcy managed to still an angry reply, though a strangled sound did manage to escape.
He would have to forgive himself for that small loss of control.
It had been a wonderful evening at the start, but it was becoming increasingly trying.
From the corner of his eye, he spied his cousin hovering nearby.
Ready to intervene before I pick the woman up and place her bodily back in her carriage, Richard?
“What sort of inelegant utterance is that, Fitzwilliam Darcy?” she demanded, so close to him that Darcy could smell the stew that had likely been her ladyship’s most recent meal.
“Aunt Catherine,” Darcy responded, his jaw nearly too tight to speak, “I resent the implication that I am in any way dishonest.”
“I have the proof of it here, nephew,” Lady Catherine declared, again holding up a folded sheet of paper in her hand. “A servant of yours in London was so kind as to send it to me. Did you believe you could hide it from me forever?”
None of my servants would send you anything or they would find themselves without a position.
“What proof, Aunt Catherine? Of what do you speak?” Richard asked coolly. “We will get nowhere if you continue to speak in riddles.”
“I will not hold this conversation out of doors like a common…”
Darcy held up a hand, palm out. “Enough.” He gestured toward the house. “Let us enter.”
Richard gave orders to the coachman to take the horses around to the stables while Darcy hoped against hope for the appearance of his own equipage.
He had a vision of hopping inside and departing while his aunt waited for him indoors.
But Richard was already showing Aunt Catherine inside and still had to ride twenty-odd miles tonight.
He could not in good conscience leave his cousin on his own to ride another three.
“Best to see what the old girl wants,” Richard whispered as Darcy reached his cousin and they reentered the house. “We shall finish with her swiftly and get Bingley to put her up for the night.”
The sight of Lady Catherine in Bingley’s study was jarring, and whatever she was about to say was certain to aggravate him at a time when he was already dreadfully agitated. Darcy composed himself. It was important never to appear anything other than perfectly calm when in his aunt’s presence.
His aunt waved the paper at him, and he could see now that it was a letter.
“Your own father desired it,” she said to Darcy. “How you can deny it when it is here in his own hand? For shame, nephew.” Her face was turning red and her hand shook.
“May I see that, Aunt Catherine?” Darcy held out his hand.
She gave him a haughty look. “I cannot be sure you will not destroy it.”
He did not withdraw his hand. “I will make no response to that. Nor will I reply to your accusations without seeing what you have brought.”
She handed the letter to him, and he felt Richard stand at his shoulder.
It was a letter from his father, advocating a marriage between himself and his cousin Anne de Bourgh.
It was Aunt Catherine’s favorite wish, to unite Rosings and Pemberley, even though he had stated unequivocally some years ago that he was not bound in any way to his cousin nor she to him.
He had ignored the repetition of her desires afterward.
His father had never said anything to him about marrying his cousin, and one declaration of his freedom was all Darcy had stooped to make to his aunt.
He did not wish to wed his cousin Anne; Anne had no wish to marry at all.
He studied the letter. The writer could not be clearer.
It is my dying wish, Catherine, to complete this business between Fitzwilliam and Anne.
I have not the time for a contract, but you may consider this letter as my binding promise.
It was his father’s hand, except… He stared closely at it before his aunt tore it away. He shook his head.
“I have never seen that letter before, Aunt Catherine,” he said wearily. “I wonder you took the trouble to come all this way on so slight a provocation.” His legs fairly trembled with the desire to be on his way.