Chapter 32
AN ILL-NATURED RUMOUR
The Bennet ladies spent the chief of the morning after the party in comfortable at-home gowns and slippers. Elizabeth made a brief foray into the garden to seek her lost necklace to no avail. She went then to Hill, asking her to ask the maids to let her know if it was found.
She returned to the drawing room in time to hear Lydia announce, “I think I shall go and see Aunt Philips and see what goes on in her place. Kitty, come with me.”
Kitty saw no objection to the scheme, and within quarter of an hour, the pair were merrily off to Meryton. Approximately an hour later, they returned to the drawing room, now in high dudgeon. Elizabeth and Jane exchanged looks as the pair stormed in.
“Well, how do you like this? It is all over town,” Lydia cried out. “They say Lizzy was in the garden with Sir James—”
“Or in Papa’s study,” Kitty supplied. “Aunt Philips said that some people are saying she was in there with him.”
“And so what if I was?” Elizabeth interrupted indignantly. “The door was open, and we were only talking!”
“That is not what they are saying,” Lydia informed her sister ominously. “They are saying your bodice was nearly ripped off and that you ran off in tears.”
“Some say you ran into the garden in tears,” Kitty added. “Others say you ran into the house but that he had your necklace.”
Elizabeth groaned. “Of all the nonsense! That is not at all what happened.”
“Is it true?” Unseen by any of them, Mr Bennet had arrived in the drawing room. “Your uncle was just here, Lizzy, and he is quite alarmed by what he has heard.”
“Of course it is not true! Well…it is, but not in the way it sounds.” Over the sound of her mother’s vociferous dismay, Elizabeth hastened to explain that her conversation with Sir James had led to her retreat into the garden alone where she had snagged the bodice of her gown on the thorns of the roses.
“What were you doing amid the thorns in an evening gown?” Mr Bennet enquired.
“I… Nothing. I just noticed a dead rose and bent to remove it.”
Mr Bennet looked dubious, then turned to their mother. “Frances, if I promise to hear all your lamentations at full volume later, do you think I might have some peace now? We must get to the bottom of all of this because, for now, things look dire indeed.”
“Let me take you upstairs, Mama,” Jane said immediately. “Kitty, Lydia… Come, let us go upstairs with our mother and allow our father to speak to Lizzy. I believe Mary is up there already. No doubt she would like the company.”
As her sisters and mother fled, Elizabeth turned to her father. “Papa, you told my uncle it was silly gossip, did you not? Surely no one could think—”
“If half of what your uncle says is true, it is well beyond silly gossip. Ladies have been ruined for far less,” said Mr Bennet ominously. He folded his hands behind his back. “Take me through things step by step that I might understand what exactly the truth of the matter is.”
Quickly, Elizabeth did just that. Her father was silent, wincing when she mentioned going into his study with Sir James and frowning when she said she went off into the garden alone.
“And Sir James remained in the study? While you were in the garden?”
“It was right when the rest of the party had rolled up the rugs and started dancing,” Elizabeth said unhappily. “Otherwise someone else likely would have been about.”
“And thus there is no one but Sir James to vouch for any of this,” Mr Bennet concluded. “Elizabeth I cannot like the manner in which you make decisions these days. I had always thought you cleverer and yet it seems you mean to make as much trouble as any of your sisters.”
“I do not mean to make trouble, Papa. Sir James will speak up and clear it all. He no more wants his name blackened than I do.”
“That is true. I wonder should we go to Ashworth to speak of the matter?”
The drawing room door opened then, and Hill entered bearing a card. She handed it to Mr Bennet who looked at it. “It seems we will not have to. The man himself has come to call.”
Sir James awaited them in Mr Bennet’s study, which adjoined the library. He did not seem overly distressed, and that alone brought Elizabeth even more reassurance. She hoped they might keep this bit of foolishness from Mr Darcy, or at least to minimise it into what it was, which was nothing at all.
Mr Bennet took a seat behind his desk and waved Elizabeth and Sir James into the chairs opposite.
He was quick to introduce the subject of interest. “I hope, young man, that you have some answer for all the nonsense being spread about? I had a new book I meant to spend the day with and so would like as quick a resolution as possible.”
Sir James nodded and offered Elizabeth an encouraging smile. “I fear this is all my fault.”
Mr Bennet tilted his head sideways. “How so?”
“I ought to have made my intentions known to you before speaking to your daughter.” He smiled. “I apologise for any disrespect and assure you none was intended.”
“And your intentions were…what?”
Sir James’s eyes were steady on her father. “I made an offer of marriage to your daughter in your study last night.”
“A proposal to which I said no,” Elizabeth said quickly.
“No, in fact, you did not,” said Sir James gently, turning towards her. “I spent the whole of the evening reviewing what was said and not. Yes, it is true, you said you do not yet love me, but I believe in time—”
“In time, nothing! Sir, much as I have come to regard you fondly, I cannot marry you!”
Sir James did not reply to her, saying instead, “Mr Bennet, I wish very much to marry your daughter despite her reluctance for the match. As you are aware, I can provide an excellent life for her, one in which every comfort will be assured for her and for your other daughters as well should they need it.”
Mr Bennet said nothing, and only gazed steadily at him. It was Elizabeth who protested, saying, “Was it you, then, who began these absurd rumours? Surely you did not believe forcing me into marrying you would lead to felicity?”
“Elizabeth, please believe me when I say I had nothing at all to do with the gossip surrounding last night. However, given that such gossip has emerged…might we not see it as providential in some ways?”
“Providential!” she gasped. “No, the damage to my reputation is not providential!”
“We must marry,” he insisted. “And we will be happy in it, I promise.”
“You need to refute them!” Her voice sounded shrill even to her own ears. “It is in your hands, to tell them it is all wrong!”
“I cannot, I fear,” said Sir James mildly.
“You must,” Elizabeth nearly shrieked. Then, striving to be calmer, she said, “My good name is called into question, and it is you who can set things straight. Who must set things straight.”
Sir James extended his hand, closed, towards her. “I nearly forgot,” he exclaimed. “You must have missed this last night.” He handed Elizabeth her missing necklace.
Her heart plunged, and she did not miss her father’s gimlet-eyed gaze as she took her necklace. “Wh-where did you—”
“While I awaited you and your father,” he said, “I noticed it on the rug near that fainting couch, where we sat last night.”
“It is not a fainting couch,” she protested. “You did not even—”
“Elizabeth,” he interrupted. “Do you not realise, all of this tattle affects my name as well? There are some who say I forced myself on you. I cannot have people thinking I am a brute, can I?”
“What you might wish them to think is the truth which is that nothing happened at all!” Elizabeth felt wild-eyed and desperate as she cast a glance at her father. “Papa? Do you not think Sir James ought to be correcting people’s misapprehensions?”
Mr Bennet was still looking at her hand, the one which contained the necklace, and said nothing.
“I did not begin the rumours and have no notion of who did,” Sir James replied. “But I am enough a man of the world to know that denial will get me nowhere. It is far more believable that we were two recently engaged people who got a bit carried away in the expression of our affection.”
“I fear he is correct,” said Mr Bennet. “Once the tongues begin to wag in earnest, there is precious little to be done to stop them. Truth matters very little when there is a good story to be told.”
“The best, most decisive thing I can do for your reputation is to marry you,” said Sir James. “And that I will do with great joy.”
She stared at him, astounded, until a feeling of her chest closing in beset her.
“Elizabeth?” Mr Bennet said, half-rising and leaning towards her.
She began to struggle for breath, feeling her respirations come faster and faster even while it seemed no air could enter her lungs. Her necklace bit into her hand and tears fell from her eyes as she gasped out to her father that she could not breathe.
Her father asked Sir James to excuse them and called for Hill to come to her aid. Hill’s aid was unneeded; as soon as Sir James left, her chest loosened and she could again breathe.
“Well, that was certainly a display,” Mr Bennet said as Hill closed the door behind her.
“It was no display,” Elizabeth said, wounded. “I could not get my breath.”
“You must marry him.”
Her chest tightened, but Elizabeth maintained control. “I did nothing wrong, and I refuse to be punished for it.”
“It appears that you did a great deal that you ought not to, starting with going off alone with a man. A man who is lately in possession of your necklace.”
“The chain is tricky! It always comes undone, and clearly it did last night.”
“There is no one to vouch for your character.” Mr Bennet sighed. “I understand that you might not be in love with him, but he will be a good husband to you. You will want for nothing. It is a match most girls in your position could only dream to aspire to.”
I dream only of Mr Darcy. She closed her eyes, barely stopping herself from saying it aloud. Time! She needed time in which she might hope and pray the truth would come out, or that somehow it was made right some other way.
Despite everything she believed in her heart, doubts again pricked at her.
Why had not Mr Darcy spoken already? What had stopped him back in Kent?
What stopped him after he had kissed her?
Was she merely a diversion to him? Perhaps seeing her again in Hertfordshire, amongst her low connexions and ill-behaved family, had reminded him of why a union between them was impossible.
Perhaps the gossip would send him back to London as fast as his horses could gallop.
Too many questions and too few answers, but one thing was sure: she could not yet surrender her hopes of Mr Darcy. “I need some time.”
“Elizabeth.” Her father said her name in a frustrated sigh and rose from his desk to go and stare out of his window. “I am absolutely amazed by your nonsensical manners of late.”
“Is it so nonsensical to ask for a few days to consider—”
“A few days? The rumours will only grow more heated the longer we delay in announcing your engagement.”
“Yes, but, it is only that… Well, you see…” With a deep breath, she decided she would confide in her father. “Mr Darcy—”
“Mr Darcy! What of him?” Mr Bennet turned to give her a hard stare. “I do not know what you were about the other day in front of the house—”
“I was about nothing! Mr Darcy and I danced twice at Mr Bingley’s—”
“Good lord!” Her father threw up his hands. “If you thought to lure Mr Darcy into an attachment with you—”
“Papa! I beg your pardon, but pray do not insult my character.”
“You are being an utter fool, Elizabeth. A fool!”
“I just told you we danced—”
“I do not care if he danced a jig on your foot; I assure you there is nothing there. He is only trying to amuse himself while his friend courts Jane!”
Stung into silence, Elizabeth raised her hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks. A numbness was falling over her, and she hoped it was not the harbinger of acceptance.
“Mr Darcy is an honourable gentleman,” she said quickly, not meeting her father’s eyes. “I believe he may offer for me—”
“Do you? And do you think that wish will remain once he hears what you and Sir James got up to in my study?” Mr Bennet shook his head. “Pray do not be an idiot, Elizabeth. He may wish to test the waters himself, but I assure you, he will not be taking a swim.”
Elizabeth gasped.
“Sir James will marry you, and I strongly suggest—nay, insist—that you marry him.”
“Papa, you are incorrect about Mr Darcy. We—”
“Do you think Mr Darcy is going to marry a woman with anything less than a spotless reputation? I am not so old that I do not know the concerns of the master of an estate. The last thing he can risk is losing Pemberley to Sir James’s bastard.”
“Papa!” Elizabeth gasped. “You know very well that nothing of that sort—”
“Nothing I ever thought I knew, particularly where you are concerned, is true. I am heartily disappointed in what you have done and how you have conducted yourself. The tattle going round is that you allowed Sir James liberties. Now you wish to add to them by bringing Mr Darcy and the liberties you permitted him into the mix? Shall we toss young Goulding’s name in as well?
They will think you have set yourself on the whole town! ”
Her cheeks burning, Elizabeth rose. “No matter what you think, I cannot and will not accept Sir James until I have spoken to Mr Darcy.”
“You will not go anywhere near Mr Darcy until you have accepted Sir James,” Mr Bennet retorted. “Now that I know exactly how silly you truly are. I doubt whether I can permit you to go up to your bedchamber without someone to chaperon the journey.”
She gritted her teeth. “Speak as you wish, but I am one-and-twenty now, and I will not—”
“One-and-twenty, hm? I suppose you fancy yourself quite independent. Very well, Lizzy. Take a day to form your reply, but understand me in this. If you do not marry Sir James, you will find yourself with an independence I do not think you are prepared for.”
She stared at her father, mouth agape. “Are you saying you would cast me out?”
“I have the reputations of this entire house to think of,” he said severely. “If you refuse to save yourself, I cannot let the others sink with you.”