Chapter 19
Affronted Sensibilities
“Ishall be but a moment!”
Mr. Collins was some paces behind them, huffing and puffing most alarmingly, as he tried to catch his breath.
“Brisk exercising—as Lady Catherine says—is essential for keeping the spirits well!”
Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder as a significant yowl of distress emerged from Mr. Collins. He was hunched over slightly as Charlotte patted him on the back.
“Is everything well?” she called out.
“I am well!” Mr. Collins wheezed, even as Maria shrugged at her helplessly from Charlotte’s other side.
“Mrs. Collins, if you do not mind, I shall walk ahead with Miss Bennet,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “I have been astride my mount for too long.”
Elizabeth glanced at him surreptitiously.
Colonel Fitzwilliam—in a bid to separate her from the rest of the party—had steadily increased their walking pace from a gentle amble to a decided saunter, and then a brisk stride.
She had kept pace with him. After all, she was used to walking long distances.
But it was not as if she could have fallen behind.
The Colonel had offered his arm to her at the gate of the parsonage, right as they were setting off on their “short ramble along the greens”, and she had been holding onto it ever since.
What Colonel Fitzwilliam had not anticipated was Mr. Collins’ determination to remain in conversant distance with him…
Another wheeze and yowl reached them.
…that was, until the task of talking and walking had folded Mr. Collins over.
“Yes, do go on!” Charlotte said, waving them on. “We shall follow once Mr. Collins has had a moment to himself.”
So they did. Even as Mr. Collins’ breathless complaint “... but I am… well..” wafted in the wind behind them.
There was only silence for a while as Elizabeth and Colonel Fitzwilliam walked.
Their pace was brisk still. Small rocks and dirt crunched under their feet, and the sounds of Kentish countryside surrounded them. Elizabeth glanced at her companion.
“Shall we adopt a more leisurely pace, sir?”
Maria and the Collinses were quite behind them. Colonel Fitzwilliam glanced over his shoulder, and then fixed a shrewd look on her. “Very well, Miss Bennet.”
Elizabeth sighed when they slowed down. But it did not appear as if the Colonel would broach the subject of Mr. Darcy anytime soon.
So she did.
“I believe there is something we must discuss.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam nodded, keeping his eyes fixed ahead.
“I shall not beat around the bush, Miss Bennet,” he said. “You claimed in your letter that you can see the spirit of my cousin Darcy?”
Skepticism was clear on his face when his eyes finally met hers. Elizabeth pursed her lips.
“I do not know if I would put it that way. But, yes, that is the essence of it,” she said. “Mr. Darcy’s apparition has been communicating with me for a little more than two weeks.”
Her free hand strayed to where her reticule usually hung on her other arm. But there was nothing there that day. She had left it behind in the parsonage. Elizabeth dropped her hand to her side.
“We are uncertain if he… is truly departed… or if it is some anomaly heretofore unknown.”
She looked at Colonel Fitzwilliam expectantly, hoping for an answer to the last. A singular “hmm” was the only response she received.
They continued to walk down the main thoroughfare, lined with poplar trees on either side.
“Is this apparition here with us right now?” Colonel Fitzwilliam asked eventually.
Elizabeth looked about her. Only the sight of sunlit trees and greens greeted her. “I am afraid not. But Mr. Darcy usually appears in the morning around this time, or sometimes in the late afternoon.”
Her eyes strayed to the path in the distance that curved towards the avenue with the cherry trees. “He may yet appear.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam “hmmm-ed” once more and checked his pocketwatch. “It will be nine soon.”
They continued to walk in silence for some more moments. Elizabeth frowned. The day was beginning to get warm and she was beginning to get exasperated at what appeared to be total disinterest on the Colonel’s part to pursue the matter further. She decided to hurry things along.
“Sir, I know all this must appear quite mad but I assure you I have only a slight acquaintance with Mr. Darcy,” she said, looking at him insistently.
“If you have read the letter I sent you, you must know what it contained. I was not privy to any of the matters Mr. Darcy wished me to write until he dictated them to me. He only wishes to have his words conveyed to his sister. Though, I must admit, Miss Darcy’s letter is not ready yet. ”
Another “hmmm”.
Elizabeth tried to rein in her impatience.
“Is that not why you came to the parsonage?”
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s eyes glinted like steel as they settled on hers. “I came to take my measure of you.”
Elizabeth was taken aback for a moment. And then she glared at him.
“And what conclusion have you arrived at?”
“That is yet to be seen,” he said, sarcasm rife in his words.
“I was not born yesterday, Miss Bennet,” he continued.
“I believe we both know your true object behind sending me that letter. What I wish to know is how you got Darcy to tell you about Miss Georgiana Darcy. As Mr. Collins very helpfully let me know earlier, you were acquainted with my cousin earlier last year. I never believed the man’s tongue could be loosened against his will. Hmm?”
Elizabeth stopped walking abruptly, face burning with indignation. She removed her hand from the Colonel’s arm. She knew what he had implied.
“Sir, if the circumstances were not so strange, I would be gravely offended by such aspersions on my character!”
The man snorted. “So you say, Miss Bennet.”
“Yes, it is indeed what I say!” She clutched at her skirts to stop her hands from trembling. “Because it is true.”
“Yet it is you who can see Darcy while his own family cannot,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, glaring back at her. “The woman who—in your own words—has only a slight acquaintance with the man. It all seems rather fortuitous, would you not say?”
Elizabeth took in a deep breath, and tried to calm the agitation thrumming through her. She could not leave off just yet. The matter was far too important.
“I wish I could say your suspicions are invalid, and I know how all of it appears because it was difficult for me to accept at first as well when it started,” she said. “But it is indeed Mr. Darcy’s apparition. And the letter I sent you were in his words. At least, the portion after mine.”
Elizabeth glanced behind her to see how far Maria and the Collinses were. They seemed to be strolling more peacefully, and were still at some distance from her and Colonel Fitzwilliam.
“I know not how it came to be this way, or how such a thing is possible. It boggles the mind,” she continued, turning back to her suspicious companion.
“All I can say is that even if you do not believe me, I would hope that you take the letter for Miss Darcy once it is done. Please do not deprive her of it!"
Colonel Fitzwilliam grimaced.
“Very good, Miss Bennet! Brilliantly done! Pulls on the heart strings and all that,” he said.
“But, of course, you must know that very well!
" A shadow passed over his face. "How many such apparitions have you seen in the past? Perhaps a wealthy aunt of another acquaintance? Or someone’s dog that passed away and wished to say goodbye to its beloved mistress? Yes?”
Elizabeth glared at him. She was at the end of her patience with the man.
“Neither! Because this is the first instance, and I would very much prefer it to be the last.”
She dropped her hands from her skirts. Face burning.
“Sir, if you believed I was a fraud, why did you come all the way to Hunsford?”
The desire to turn around and storm away burned through Elizabeth. But she held herself in place, meeting Colonel Fitzwilliam’s accusatory gaze with her own.
"Why not set the letter on fire?” she continued. “Would it not have been more prudent to assist your ailing cousin than to come here and participate in all this charade?”
“But that is where you are wrong, Miss Bennet,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied, his tone clipped, gaze thunderous. “I would like to know who told you about Georgiana and what you are planning to do with the information.”
His eyes became even steelier than before.
“Or perhaps I should have you committed to Bedlam for trying to take advantage of people when they are vulnerable. It would kill two birds with a stone!”
“That’s enough, Richard!”
Elizabeth gasped.
Mr. Darcy stepped around her, coming to a halt beside them. She stared at him.
There was a ringing in her ears. Seeming silence surrounded her. Blood thumped through her veins. Her heart raced.
“Am I to believe that Darcy is with us at the moment?”
Elizabeth blinked. Sensations rushed back to her.
She glanced at Colonel Fitzwilliam who was staring at her with faint mockery in his eyes. Then she looked back at Mr. Darcy. He was glaring at his cousin.
“Yes,” she said, voice hoarse all of a sudden.
She turned back when Colonel Fitzwilliam started laughing. “How fortunate!”
Her face flamed.
“Richard…”
Elizabeth looked at Mr. Darcy. Grim anger was etched on his features. But also a nascent helplessness. Their eyes met.
She straightened herself to her full height—not that there was much of it to begin with. She could not be bothered with Colonel Fitzwilliam any longer.
“You said you could not see anyone else but me,” she asked Mr. Darcy. A strange frisson was growing within her.
Mr. Darcy nodded. A flash of guilt crossed his face before it settled back to grimness. “I started seeing others again… the day you and Mrs. Collins were having tea in the parsonage sitting room.”
Elizabeth frowned.
“Six days ago.”
It only took her a moment to remember. It was all in his eyes. Elizabeth’s heart squeezed painfully.
It was the day she had told Charlotte that she did not hold him in any esteem.
Because of Mr. Wickham.
Was that why he had asked her to change the letter to his cousin? Shared what he had about his sister and the blackguard?
Elizabeth’s eyes blurred with unshed tears.
Colonel Fitzwilliam startled next to her. But she ignored him.
“Are you dying, Mr. Darcy?” she croaked past the lump in her throat.
“I am sorry, Miss Bennet,” he said, the grimness dissolving into sadness, and even more helplessness. “...I believe so.”
Was that why he kept disappearing when they tried to compose the letter for Miss Darcy?
The tears spilled over. Twin tracks on Elizabeth's cheeks.
“Miss Bennet?”
Elizabeth looked at Colonel Fitzwilliam. Then at Maria and the Collinses gaining on them. She quickly swiped at her tears.
“Is Mr. Darcy dying, sir?” she asked.
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s silence, and the guarded cast to his jaws, told her everything she needed to know. She tried to compose herself.
“I am sorry, sir, I am in no condition to continue our walk,” she said. “I shall have the Miss Darcy's letter ready as soon as I can. If… if you would care to collect it.”