Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
elizabeth
The day after Mr. Darcy asked me to marry him, I awoke thinking that I must tell Charlotte what had happened. Charlotte was Mrs. Collins, my friend. I had come to stay here precisely because she had asked me to come. I should not have been here otherwise. I could not say that the visit had been an unpleasant one, overall, of course, but it had certainly been rather bewildering.
Mr. Darcy!
Asking for my hand in marriage!
None of that made any sense.
But when I got out to breakfast, Charlotte wasn’t there, and neither was Maria, her younger sister. Mr. Collins was there, and he informed me, “Mrs. Collins and her sister have gone into town this morning to do some shopping for ribbons for their bonnets.”
“That’s odd,” I said. “That is exactly what they did yesterday.”
“I don’t think so,” said Mr. Collins into his tea cup. “You must be mistaken. Anyway, they wished to go quite early so that Mrs. Collins could be back in time to accompany me on my outing to visit a few sickly members of the church.”
“Really?” I sat down at the breakfast table. “But that’s what you did yesterday as well.”
“No, no,” said Mr. Collins, looking up at me. “We have been planning this for Thursday all week.”
“But today is Friday,” I said. “Yesterday was Thursday.”
Mr. Collins tutted at me, amused. “Oh my, Miss Bennet. You are confused.”
The rest of the morning was eerie. It was Thursday. Again. I don’t see how it could have been Thursday, but it was. It became quite clear to me when I went on my morning walk.
I usually would walk alone, but sometimes, Mr. Darcy would join me, which always confused me, because I knew he didn’t like me, and he knew that I didn’t like him, and yet, even after I told him that this was my favorite walkway and that I thought I might be here every morning, he kept showing up and walking along with me.
He wasn’t there that morning, though, and he hadn’t been there yesterday.
No, yesterday, it had been Colonel Fitzwilliam who was there when I was walking, and he was there again, in exactly the same spot, wearing exactly what he had worn yesterday.
I knew that it was Thursday, again, but some part of me could not quite accept this. It was madness. So, I said, “You are making quite a habit of walking this way, it seems.”
The colonel gave me an odd look. “I am, in fact, making a tour of the park, and this is where I end up today. I have not walked this way before, not in a year. I do it the same way each year, you see.”
Yes, this was what he had said to me yesterday.
I grimaced and started walking off, shaking my head, unsure of what to say or do.
He fell into step with me. “You would not mind if I accompanied you?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I would not. But I must say, colonel, given what you told me when we walked together yesterday, I cannot keep it off my mind now, and I think I had better come out with it. You said it would be unpleasant if word of what Mr. Darcy did would get round to the lady’s family, but that is my family. It is my sister who was connected to Mr. Bingley—”
“Wait a moment,” said the colonel, stopping his movement. “What are you speaking of, Miss Bennet? We did not walk together yesterday, and I remember no such conversation, but it is true that Mr. Bingley was considering marrying a lady for whom there were strong objections. Only you did not hear anything about Mr. Darcy preventing the union from me.” He gave me a helpless smile. The colonel was not handsome, not exactly, but I found his countenance pleasant when he smiled, and I had to admit I had developed something of a fancy for him.
I had sort of hoped, yesterday, that it would be Colonel Fitzwilliam coming to see me whilst everyone else was at tea, not Mr. Darcy. But it had been the odious Mr. Darcy, and if this Thursday were happening again, it would mean that I would have to live through that awful proposal again.
The thought of that went through me like a gust of strong wind. I looked over my shoulder, back the way I had come. I suddenly had very little energy for walking. “Colonel Fitzwilliam, I’m afraid I must excuse myself. I find I am not feeling well.”
“Oh, that’s unfortunate,” he said to me. “May I escort you back to the parsonage? Please, allow me to do so. If you are feeling poorly, you should not be walking alone.”
I really wished not to have any company at all, but I could see from the set of his jaw that he was not going to be easily talked out of it, so I decided it would be best to acquiesce. “All right, but I find I must make haste,” I said to him. “I am ever so ready to get off my feet.”
“Perhaps we should find a place to rest, Miss Bennet.”
“No, no, I must get back to the rectory immediately,” I said, and I took off, practically at a run.
He kept pace with me, however, but we both ended up a bit winded, which precluded any further conversation.
Once back at the parsonage, I said hasty goodbyes to him and threw myself into my room. I did not come out for luncheon. And when everyone left for tea, I did not go, saying I felt quite poorly.
I waited for Mr. Darcy to arrive.
He did not.
Later, everyone returned rather late, having obviously been asked to stay for dinner, and I poked my head out of the room to hear them all laughing together as they parted company to go to their own rooms.
Maria Lucas was staying in the room right next to mine. She looked as though she was floating, her face beaming with happiness. “Oh, Elizabeth, you’ll never believe what happened,” she said to me.
“Oh?” I said.
“Mr. Darcy asked me to marry him!” she exclaimed.
“Did he.” I furrowed my brow. That was very odd.
fitzwilliam
On my thirty-second Thursday (or thereabouts) something very strange happened.
Elizabeth Bennet came to tea.
She had never done that before, and I didn’t know what to think about that. After all, I had been living this day, over and over again, for over a month at this point, and no one else ever varied their behavior unless I did something to prompt it. But I had not seen Miss Bennet that day, so I could not have prompted a change in her behavior. Indeed, I had determined I would not see her at all if I could help it. I was still smarting from the way she’d turned down my marriage proposal.
I had been planning to ask Maria Lucas to marry me again. Yesterday, it had been quite enjoyable. She had been shocked, simply shocked, effusively grateful, and I had been overjoyed to have caused someone some happiness in this day that would not end.
But now, with Miss Bennet here, against all sense, I could not find it within myself to do it. I simply kept gaping at her.
She, for her part, stared mostly at me, which was strange, I realized, because she usually seemed to rather pointedly ignore me.
So, the tea was different. Usually, we all discussed the fact that Miss Bennet wasn’t there, first of all.
But she was there, so we didn’t do that.
Then my aunt would launch into a long and detailed discussion of Miss Bennet’s lack of prowess at the piano. “I have told her often to come and play on Mrs. Jenkinson’s instrument. She would not be in the way there, and I believe I have made that plain. One cannot improve if one does not practice, after all.”
So, my aunt said this, actually, but just to Miss Bennet.
Miss Bennet gazed at me as she responded to my aunt. “You have informed me of this before, Lady Catherine. It is only that there is a reason I have not practiced the piano-forte hitherto, you see, and that is that I do not enjoy playing it.”
I snickered, in spite of myself. Was Miss Bennet funny? How had I failed to notice this? I held her gaze, raising my eyebrows.
“Well, of all the impudent answers to give, I think that’s quite one of the worst!” exclaimed my aunt. “We do not apply ourselves, Miss Bennet, because of pleasure. We apply ourselves because we wish to improve.”
“Yes, well, I suppose I am defective in that way,” said Miss Bennet.
I laughed out loud.
“Oh, Mr. Darcy? You laugh?” Miss Bennet glared at me. “This is because you are convinced you are perfect in every way, as we have well established in our previous conversations.”
“No, no,” I said. “I distinctly remember telling you, Miss Bennet, that there is—within everyone—a propensity to imperfection. And I said your defect was that you willfully misunderstand me.”
All right, so…
There might have been more to the idea of proposing the Miss Bennet than it just being a lark.
I could not, of course, really marry her. Of course.
And as I said, there was little to recommend her, truly.
But she was rather sharp-tongued, and when I say “sharp” I mean that she was intelligent and quick witted and that she tended to wield her words like weapons from time to time.
“Oh, yes, I do remember that conversation,” she said. “It was another conversation in which I brought up Mr. Wickham, and you got very red in the face and sputtered a lot.”
Another conversation?
She and I had only ever discussed Mr. Wickham the one time unless you counted two Thursdays ago when I proposed to her. I tilted my head to the other side, eyes widening in interest.
“Mr. Wickham,” spoke up Colonel Fitzwilliam. “That man is a villain. I don’t know why he’s still alive. If it were up to me, I’d have strung him up.”
Miss Bennet turned to the colonel in confusion. “What?”
“Forgive me,” said the colonel. “That wasn’t an appropriate thing to say at tea. I repent of it. Let us speak of something else. Perhaps the sweet cakes here? I quite like the almond ones. Are they a different recipe than usual? Can someone find out from the cook?”
I got up from my seat. “Miss Bennet? You haven’t been repeating Thursdays, have you?”
She got up as well. “Oh, Lord in heaven, you too?”
“What are you doing?” said Lady Catherine. “Both of you, sit down this instant.”
“No,” I said. “Miss Bennet and I are going to go for a walk together, just the two of us—”
“That would be the height of impropriety,” said Lady Catherine in disgust. “What has gotten into you, Fitzwilliam? Sit down this instant. You too, Miss Bennet.”
Miss Bennet sat back down.
“Oh, come now,” I said to her. “We really don’t have to listen to them. Nothing matters, you see?”
“Sit down,” said my aunt. “Of course you have to listen to me. I am your aunt. I am your elder. This is my household and you are my guest. You will show me respect.” She was getting rather agitated.
Miss Bennet ducked her head down.
“Miss Bennet, let’s go,” I said.
Miss Bennet eyed the colonel. “I should like to try the almond sweet cake, I think.”
“Sit down , Fitzwilliam Darcy,” thundered my aunt.
My shoulders sagged. I sat down.
elizabeth
I knew that the tea was going to turn into dinner, because it always did, but this time, I was actually there.
It was Thursday, again, and I had spent the day in a bit of a tizzy. Colonel Fitzwilliam had met me for a walk, again, and he told me that Mr. Darcy had separated my sister Jane from the man she had rather fallen for, Mr. Bingley. I had allowed this conversation to unfold today, even though it had already happened.
I was out of sorts.
Anyway, now, after the tea, there was a discussion about how none of us were dressed for dinner, and Lady Catherine was saying that this was not important and going on and on.
Mr. Darcy seized me by the arm and yanked me away from everyone else.
I would have protested, but he had said that thing, during tea, about repeating Thursdays. And there was the fact that he was the one thing that was not repeating. He had not proposed to me, not yesterday, not today, though everything else about each day had been exactly the same.
I was curious, I had to admit.
So, I allowed him to pull me into a sitting room and shut the door. He lit a lamp, because the daylight was fading outside, and the room was growing dark. He shook his head at me. “How long?”
“How long what?”
“How long for you?” he said. “This is my thirty-second Thursday or thereabouts.”
I gasped. “What? You can’t be serious! That many days in a row? Always the same?”
He eyed me. “So, I assume it’s been less for you, then.”
“Quite,” I said. “This is only the third time.”
He furrowed his brow. “That’s odd. I wonder if somehow I triggered something for you.” He darted out of the room.
I went after him.
He sprinted down the hallway, and I watched him in a discussion with Maria Lucas, who drew back from him, shaking her head, looking quite confused, protesting in the negative again and again.
He came back to the room and looked me over. “If Anne had been affected, I’m certain I would have noticed. She was not. So, it didn’t happen because I asked you to marry me.”
“You remember?” I said. “What are you doing, anyway, simply asking different women to marry you each day?”
He shrugged. “It’s frightfully boring living the same day again and again, Miss Bennet. You’ll see what I mean. I suppose it’s audacious, but I didn’t think it would matter. Every day it resets, so I didn’t think…” He scratched the back of his head. “Well, you do remember, so I am sorry. Please, really. Forgive me.”
I smoothed out my skirts. Well, this all made sense, didn’t it? “You did it out of boredom.”
“Indeed,” he said. “You can’t imagine it. Everything is the same. It’s maddening. On the third day, you haven’t quite gotten there, but trust me, within a week or so, you will be out of your head with it.”
“You aren’t actually in love with me.”
“Oh,” he said, giving me an apologetic look, “no, of course not. As I said, I’m sorry.” He tilted his head to one side. “Maybe it’s because you refused me.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “I take it no one else has?”
“Well, no,” he said with a laugh, that stupid smile on his face conveying exactly what he thought of himself, that no one would dare to ever refuse him.
I narrowed my eyes at him. I hated Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy with a fiery passion, and I would have hated him even if he hadn’t prevented my sister Jane’s every happiness with Mr. Bingley. I would have hated him even if he had not prevented Mr. Wickham—poor, very handsome Mr. Wickham—from getting the inheritance he was meant to have from Mr. Darcy’s late father. I would have hated him even if I had not overheard him refusing to dance with me because I was merely “tolerable” and not handsome enough to “tempt” him.
I would have hated him, because of this.
That arrogant look on his positively stupid face.
I seethed.
“I shall simply try harder to be refused, perhaps,” he said. “Or! No, I’ll ask someone who cannot marry me, shall I?” He went back out of the room.
I shook my head, still seething.
“Mrs. Collins!” He was yelling at the top of his lungs. “Leave your husband and marry me instead, would you?”
“What?” came Charlotte’s voice. She was laughing. “Your aunt is right to think something has gotten into you, Mr. Darcy, sir.”
“Say yes. Be my wife,” he declared in a loud voice.
“Stop that,” said Charlotte. “Of course I can’t marry you, Mr. Darcy.”
“Excellent,” said Mr. Darcy. “Quite good.”
“I’m ever so confused at this moment,” said Charlotte.