Chapter 13
Bingley was pacing the drawing room as the company waited for the Miss Bennets. They were not late but the fact that everybody else was there and they were not made Lady Catherine irritable.
Darcy looked nervous also for he did not know how to treat Miss Elizabeth after her outburst about Wickham.
When at last they entered the drawing room Bingley caught his breath at the vision before him.
“Miss Bennet!” he exclaimed softly, as though the very utterance of her name were the first draught of air he had taken since quitting her presence.
Immediately he walked towards her and without pause took her hand in his and placed a soft kiss on her knuckles, “How wonderful it is to see you again, Miss Bennet.”
Darcy observed, with a concern he scarcely permitted himself to show, that the lady appeared somewhat thinner and paler than when he had last seen her. Might it be merely the consequence of a London winter; or had her spirits indeed suffered more deeply in Bingley’s absence as her sister suggested?
However, as soon as Bingley smiled at her, her own smile split her face and she immediately looked livelier... and healthier.
Darcy silently reproached himself most severely for the arrogance of supposing he understood the hearts of others better than they did themselves.
He who had not even discerned a lady’s decided dislike of him; by what presumption had he imagined he could judge the affections of another, whose happiness was wholly unconnected with his own?
“Miss Bennet I presume,” Lady Catherine called to the lady.
Mr Darcy approached, “Yes Aunt, this is Miss Jane Bennet.”
Jane dropped to an elegant curtsy and introductions were made around the room.
Lady Catherine studied the young lady from the top of her hair to her shoes, then harrumphed, “Yes Miss Bennet you are very pretty, a lot more than your younger sister Miss Elizabeth.”
Jane blanched but Elizabeth laughed, “Yes my lady, my mother never allowed me to forget that minor detail.”
“Well, your mother has some wisdom then. I was told that she is of a rather nervous disposition.”
“Were you? Well I suppose if you had five unmarried daughters and an estate entailed away from the female line, you might be a little anxious as well,” Elizabeth replied in her mother’s defence.
Even as she spoke she was sensible of her own surprise; for she had long been disposed to laugh at her mother’s nerves. Yet when considered with proper seriousness, she could not deny that there was indeed abundant cause for such anxieties.
“Upon my word,” said her ladyship, “you give your opinion very decidedly for so young a person. Pray what is your age, Miss Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth laughed and considered not answering the lady but even she realised how rude that would be, “I will be one and twenty in June your ladyship.”
“Yes, as I presumed you are very young, but fortunately not at all beyond hope yet.”
“I beg your pardon?” Elizabeth looked at the lady dismayed.
“Yes, I believe I shall endeavour to improve you Miss Elizabeth. Let that be my present to your mother; and in time to your husband, when at last you discover the gentleman who will relieve your parents of so spirited a charge.”
Darcy snapped his head up and glared at his aunt.
Elizabeth laughed again, a little nervous this time, “How do you propose to improve me, my lady?”
“You will meet me in my private sitting-room tomorrow at three o’clock and we shall have an afternoon of instructions that will result in an overall refinement to every aspect of your life.” Lady Catherine said leaving Elizabeth no room for refusal.
Colonel Fitzwilliam had until now been most uncharacteristically silent; his attention wandering more often than not toward the eldest Miss Bennet and her most devoted admirer.
At his aunt pronunciation, he laughed outright, “And are you sufficiently brave for such an undertaking Miss Elizabeth? Should you require reinforcement I could summon half a dozen of my fellow officers, all prepared to stand gallantly to your defence.”
“You will remain silent, Richard. Your opinion and your wit are neither welcomed nor required.” Lady Catherine glowered at her nephew which made the Colonel laugh harder.
Elizabeth laughed lightly, yet beneath the mirth laid a touch of distress. How have I been so grievously unfortunate, she thought, as to draw upon myself Lady Catherine’s scrutiny, and her pity; to persuade her that I am in need of improvement?
At that moment the gong announcing dinner sounded and the group removed themselves to the dining room, with Bingley offering Jane his arm, scarcely letting her go for the rest of the evening.
***
The following day, as the afternoon wore on the more nervous Elizabeth became, anticipating her ‘improvement’ session with Lady Catherine.
To force herself into a measure of ease she went for a long walk, while to avoid Mr Darcy she kept to narrow tracks with low branches, where he would not be able to fit his enormous, black stallion.
The day was beautiful and Elizabeth got lost in its beauty; the spring day at Rosing's had drawn her into its softer shades, where the light fell tenderly upon the budding hedgerows and the air was sweet with damp earth.
She had wandered farther than prudence advised, delighting in the solitude before she had to return and face her hostess, when a sharp cry pierced the quiet afternoon.
It was neither the cry of a bird nor the startled rustle of a hare, but the unmistakable distress of a child.
Elizabeth hastened toward the sound and soon came upon a most alarming scene: a boy of perhaps eight years stood pale and trembling beside a fallen mongrel, whose flank bore the angry mark of a stag’s antler.
Not twenty yards distant the deer itself, startled, magnificent, and indignant; bounded away through the trees.
“Oh! Pray do not be frightened,” Elizabeth called gently, approaching with careful steps. “The creature has fled.”
The boy, though striving for composure could not prevent the tears that brimmed in his wide grey eyes. “He only meant to chase it miss,” he said, gesturing to the dog. “Ted would not have harmed it. I am certain he would not.”
Elizabeth knelt at once with no regard for her muslin skirts.
The dog’s breathing was laboured but steady; the wound though bloody did not appear mortal.
With a steadiness that surprised even herself, she tore a strip from her petticoat hem and bound the injury as neatly as any village nurse would do.
“You are very brave,” she assured the boy, “and so is Ted. But bravery must sometimes yield to sense.”
He gazed at her as though she were a woodland apparition. “You speak like a lady in a book,” he said with earnest admiration. “Are you... are you a princess?”
Elizabeth laughed, “Alas, no! I am only a traveller who has lost her way and found better company than she expected.”
With her assistance the boy, who declared his name to be Peter Holler led her by a winding path to his family’s modest farm at the edge of the Rosing's lands. The fields were neatly kept and smoke curled industriously from the chimney.
Mrs Holler received them with alarm that soon dissolved into gratitude. Elizabeth explained the encounter with modest brevity, accepting no praise for what she termed “the smallest exercise of neighbourly duty.”
Mr Holler, summoned from the barn insisted that she take refreshment before returning to the great house.
Throughout it all young Peter scarcely left her side. He watched her with a devotion so undisguised that his mother was obliged twice to prompt him to close his mouth.
When at last Elizabeth rose to depart, Peter followed her to the gate, “I shall remember you always,” he declared solemnly. “When I am grown, I shall rescue ladies and dogs in the woods; and I shall think of you.”
Elizabeth, touched beyond expectation placed a hand lightly upon his shoulder. “Then I hope Master Peter that you will first remember to keep your dogs from deer and harm’s way.”
His blush was as brilliant as the setting sun behind Rosing's Park and Elizabeth returned to the manor house with a lighter heart, reflecting that even in the shadow of grandeur the truest nobility was often found in the humblest fields.
When she left the Holler’s farm she knew she was already very late for her appointment with Lady Catherine, as it was already past 3 in the afternoon; by the time she arrived back at Rosings it was almost 4 O’clock.
Elizabeth had no idea that her delay in meeting Lady Catherine would set in motion a train of events, a sequence of incidents which could have neither been foreseen nor avoided and that would in time change many people’s lives and rock others to the very core of their existence.
***
Earlier on the same day
Lady Catherine cackled maliciously as she held the little muslin bag firmly in her hand.
It was vital that she treated the contents as the danger that they in fact were.
She could not afford accidents that threatened her own life, but it was also imperative that everything looked as inoffensive as possible.
She had asked Mrs Quinton to acquire, for her personal use, a small mortar and pestle.
Into this mortar she now poured the contents of the little pouch.
The white crystals looked like coarse salt and were, from all appearances, odourless and tasteless.
But once ground into a fine powder they would serve her purposes very well.
She then turned out the glistening white powder into a delicate porcelain sugar holder, and then set it in the centre of the small parlour table near the cups and saucers.
Once that task was completed she proceeded to wash her hands with soap and dry them thoroughly, along with the equipment she had used in the process.