Chapter 16
“You have been lucky in Georgiana’s new companion,” observed Colonel Fitzwilliam, slowing his horse to a trot and then a walk as they came within sight of Rosings’ lower lawns, returning from a morning ride through the estate’s considerable woodlands.
“Your sister is thriving. It does me good to see it.”
Richard Fitzwilliam’s blue-green eyes gazed at the figures in the garden with interest and satisfaction.
Georgiana and Elizabeth Bennet were playing Pall Mall on the smooth grass with Mrs Collins, all three young women pink-cheeked and laughing, their hair somewhat awry.
Such energetic pursuits suited Miss Bennet well, Darcy noted to himself.
Anne de Bourgh sat watching the group wistfully, wrapped in woollen rugs and shawls and fussed over by her former governess. The elderly Mrs Jenkinson had remained with the family as companion and occasional nurse after Anne reached her majority. Lady Catherine was nowhere to be seen.
“Indeed,” Darcy returned, in full agreement but careful in how he spoke of Miss Bennet, or even looked at her in her present, becomingly dishevelled state.
“Miss Bennet has been a boon to us. If only Miss Jenkinson would encourage Anne in useful activity, perhaps her health would improve. I sometimes think our cousin is only as much an invalid as Lady Catherine wishes her to be.”
“Would you like to tell our aunt as much?” laughed the colonel. “I’m not sure that I should care for that task, although I have faced down Napoleon’s troops.”
“Certainly I would, and I have done so before,” said Darcy stoutly.
“Our aunt trumps me with the words of her paid pet physicians. If Anne will not stand up for herself as mistress of Rosings, there is little more others can do than talk. Lady Catherine might as well run the place as no one. At least the estate is taken care of and its people well-employed.”
“I should never doubt you to speak your mind, Cousin,” remarked Colonel Fitzwilliam. “You have that much in common with Miss Elizabeth Bennet. My word, I thought Lady Catherine was going to explode at supper last night when Miss Bennet gave her opinion so freely on the education of young ladies.”
Darcy could not help smiling at this memory, too.
Elizabeth Bennet was one of the few people not to be overawed or entirely quashed by the formidable personality of Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
In contrast, Mr Collins, the rector at Hunsford, almost crawled before his patroness on his belly, in what Darcy considered to be a disgustingly undignified fashion.
“Some of Lady Catherine’s ire last night was more for me, I suspect,” commented Darcy.
“If you remember, I insisted that Elizabeth should be seated beside you, rather than separately, down the table with Mrs Jenkinson. That rather highlighted my disapproval of our aunt’s usual practices in distinguishing station so unnecessarily at family suppers. ”
“Elizabeth?” queried his cousin with a raised eyebrow, rather than picking up the substance of Darcy’s remark. “You address one another by Christian names?”
“A slip of the tongue,” Darcy quickly corrected himself, not having realised that he had spoken in such familiar terms and hoping this was the first and only such error. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
“Well, you were right to insist on Miss Bennet’s place last night,” the colonel remarked, his sandy-haired face both cheery and thoughtful. “She is a gentleman’s daughter and far superior in mind to the average Rosings supper guest, too. I could not have asked for better company for myself either.”
“Miss Bennet certainly knows her own mind and speaks it,” Darcy ventured. “It is as well that her mind is sharp and sensible, or it would lead her into difficulties.”
“Oh, I doubt there are many difficulties that a young lady like Miss Elizabeth Bennet could not surmount,” Colonel Fitzwilliam praised her further. “She seems most capable, as well as charming.”
“I am sure she is,” responded Darcy cautiously, still self-conscious after his misuse of Elizabeth’s name.
“It is a shame she has no fortune,” continued his cousin with a sigh of resignation. “With a dowry, Elizabeth Bennet is exactly the kind of woman I would wish to marry. Intelligent, practical, and pretty, too.”
At this, Darcy pulled up his horse and stared at his cousin.
“Do not look so offended, Darcy,” Colonel Fitzwilliam chuckled. “If you will employ such engaging young ladies, you must expect bachelors like me to consider marrying them. Sadly, in my case, my own lack of fortune means that I must look further for my future wife.”
Darcy attempted to laugh in return and started his horse walking again.
He still felt himself bristling at his cousin’s words, even though they had been spoken privately and respectfully.
Why on earth should it bother him so much that a respectable gentleman paid his sister’s companion such a compliment?
It made no sense, and he tried to turn away from his own confused feelings.
“No offence is taken, Richard,” Darcy said. “Do not, however, let Lady Catherine take even a hint of your regard for Miss Bennet. Distinctions of rank cannot be loosened, in her view, and the very suggestion that an earl’s son might wish to marry into a family like the Bennets would be anathema.”
“I speak only to you in confidence,” his cousin assured him with another chuckle. “No word of such admiration will pass my lips before any of the ladies, and certainly not our aunt. You may tell her that for now, I am married to the army, and shall not seek another lady until I am released.”
Reaching the stables, they changed their conversation to one of the week’s supper plans and expected guests.
∞∞∞
“You have asked me if I am already looking for my next appointment and I have told you that I am not,” said Elizabeth Bennet’s clear and steadfast voice, reaching Darcy through the door of his aunt’s private sitting room.
“You have offered to find me another post, and I have refused. I intend to remain with Miss Darcy until Mrs Annesley returns.”
Lady Catherine had asked to see Darcy about Rosings business at half-past two, in another quarter hour.
Thinking her alone, he had come early, wanting to get the conversation over and done with.
Such summonses from his aunt were never a good thing and usually devolved into lectures on his duty to marry, or unsolicited advice on raising Georgiana.
Right now, however, his mind was diverted entirely into whatever wrongheaded assault on Elizabeth Bennet his aunt was attempting to conduct. What on earth could she mean by trying to persuade Miss Bennet to leave the Darcy family?
“You intend to remain under the same roof as my nephew, a highly eligible young man of fortune,” Lady Catherine said, her words bald and shocking in their revelation to Darcy as they must presumably be to Miss Bennet.
“Be warned that I will not have Fitzwilliam tricked or led astray into any arrangement that is disadvantageous to his future happiness.”
“I cannot imagine what you mean to imply, Lady Catherine,” returned Elizabeth after an audibly shocked gasp.
“I find that very hard to believe in a young lady with so sharp a mind and developed an understanding as yours, Miss Bennet,” responded Lady Catherine’s stentorian tones. “I have made myself abundantly clear.”
Walking down the same passageway, Colonel Fitzwilliam paused and looked inquiringly at Darcy on hearing some of this exchange. He shook his head disapprovingly.
“Georgiana will be very disappointed if Lady Catherine drives away her new friend,” he warned Darcy, who had just been thinking the same thing.
It was past time to interrupt, and Darcy knocked on the door and pushed it open in almost the same movement.
Elizabeth stood red-cheeked and defiant before the stately, brocade-clad Lady Catherine, her small hands balled into angry little fists. At Darcy’s entrance, she turned her head and regarded him with mingled alarm and relief. He nodded to her politely, giving no indication of what he had overheard.
“You wished to speak with me, Aunt,” Darcy said to Lady Catherine. His aunt had temporarily fallen silent, her flow of harsh and unfounded words cut short so abruptly that she needed to gather her thoughts once more.
“I shall leave you to talk privately with your nephew,” Elizabeth Bennet pronounced, an angry edge still in her voice as she bowed to Lady Catherine and then swept from the room. “Good day.”
∞∞∞
“The sooner Miss Elizabeth Bennet is gone from your household the better, Fitzwilliam,” opined Lady Catherine from beside the fire in her private sitting room.
Her voice was even more strident at close quarters and her manner imperious, an attitude that might work in commanding the will of poor Anne de Bourgh, or obsequious men like Mr Collins, but could do nothing but irritate her nephew.
“I thought you said you wished to consult me on Rosings estate business,” said Darcy with some impatience, realising that his aunt had captured him under false pretences.
“This is Rosings estate business,” insisted Lady Catherine emphatically. “It is Rosings business, and it is Pemberley business too. Are you too far under her spell to see the danger that young woman poses?”
“Under her spell? Miss Elizabeth Bennet does not even like me,” Darcy scoffed.
His aunt’s absurd assertion could not be dismissed too firmly.
“She is a respectable young gentlewoman who has proved herself an excellent temporary companion to Georgiana,” he went on.
“I see no reason to upset either Georgiana or Miss Bennet by dismissing her before Mrs Annesley’s return. Is that all?”
“Do not be so obtuse, Darcy,” snapped his aunt. “It is obvious to me and to the entire world that you are risking your own reputation and that of your family by employing such a young and attractive woman as companion to your sister.”