Chapter Eight
“So you’ve been here,” said Bingley, looking up at the dilapidated house. “Well, I didn’t even know this was on the grounds.”
“Why?” said Elizabeth. “Where did you think we were?”
Bingley looked her over. She was still seated on the ground, but she’d moved her leg. It was stretched out in front of her, now, and it looked less mangled. However, I wasn’t sure that she should have moved it.
“Mr. Bingley?” said Elizabeth. “Why didn’t anyone come looking for us?”
Bingley heaved a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Oh, Miss Bennet, you’re not going to like this. Let us talk about it after we have you back safe and sound at Netherfield, shall we?”
“No,” she said. “I want to know now.” She pushed up to her feet.
We all cried out, telling her not to try to stand.
And she let out a moan of pain and sank right back down. She cringed. “I don’t know if it’s broken, but it’s worse than I thought. Oh, it’s quite worse than I thought.” She tucked her chin down to her chest.
So, we did not speak of it, not until after men from the stable, and myself, and Bingley had all worked together to carefully lift Elizabeth onto the cart (which we’d had to fight to get through the woods) and then to transport her back to Netherfield.
She was entirely quiet the entire time, but I noticed her wincing with every small bump of the cart.
I apologized once and she glared up and me, silent, and shook her head firmly, and I was quiet after that.
The surgeon, whose name was Mr. Leavitt, chuckled as he examined her on a couch in the sitting room in Netherfield. “Well, then, what did the two of you get into to have this happen, something acrobatic?”
“I fell out of a window!” snapped Elizabeth. “Someone had better tell me where you all thought we were.”
“Wait, where were you?” said Mr. Leavitt, looking up at me.
“Is everyone talking about us?” I said softly. “It’s spread to you, sir? For heaven’s sake, we were barely gone seventeen hours.”
“It’s only that it seemed to make quite a lot of sense,” said Bingley. “Caroline wouldn’t believe it, but then, that seemed only to make it more likely to be true, especially with the way she’s been behaving recently.”
“What?” said Elizabeth. “Tell me.”
“Miss Bennet, perhaps you should focus on me,” said Mr. Leavitt. “And why don’t you tell me exactly where you’ve been, if you were not off with this gentleman, bound for Scotland.”
My stomach turned over.
Elizabeth let out a horrified noise.
I rounded on Bingley. “I would never elope! Do you even know me?”
“W-well,” said Bingley, “it’s only that Louisa remembered, rather word for word, something you were saying about a room called ‘The Elizabeth Room,’ with a number of portraits of her, the most beautiful creature in the—”
“Stop,” I said, feeling ill, truly ill, like I might vomit.
“It was a jest,” said Elizabeth. “He didn’t mean it.”
I rubbed my jaw, because maybe I had meant it. How many times did I have to discuss doing a thing, namely marrying Elizabeth Bennet, before it was obvious that I indeed did wish to marry her?
“So, how did you end up in that house?” said Bingley. “Why didn’t you leave?”
“The stairs broke,” I said.
“He pursued me in there. I was quite angry with him and I told him to leave me be,” said Elizabeth. “He would not—”
“Only for your safety, Miss Bennet,” I cut in.
“Yes, you’ve done quite a capital job at keeping me safe and whole,” she muttered, glaring down at her leg.
I winced. “Apologies.”
“Anyway, he charged up the steps, great oaf that he is, and they broke under his weight and crashed down, and then we were trapped on the upper level, and he kept trying to jump down, but it was too far, and then we eventually found the trellis, and maybe that was my fault, because maybe I would have let him explore more if I hadn’t been so very angry with him for much of the time, so I don’t know. ”
“I see,” said Bingley, making a face.
“That’s unfortunate,” said Mr. Leavitt. “You two don’t even like each other, do you?”
Elizabeth and I exchanged a glance. She looked away first.
It was quiet.
“So, everyone thinks we eloped?” said Elizabeth.
“How does that make sense?” I muttered. “Whose carriage did we take?”
“The thought was you hired one somewhere,” said Bingley. “That you were both overtaken with…” He cleared his throat.
I felt my face heat up. “I don’t need to elope with this woman. What? Her family would object?”
“Well…” Bingley turned his hands over.
“I bet her mother was overjoyed,” I said darkly.
“Oh, Mr. Darcy, just when I think I shall stop hating you, you go and make it impossible not to,” said Elizabeth, nostrils flaring.
“She was not displeased,” said Bingley. “And I suppose, perhaps, all of that, we… perhaps we did not ask enough questions or think it through too much. But everyone seemed to think it quite good news. Except Caroline. She railed for some time, saying that you would never marry Miss Elizabeth, and then—when no one would listen—got herself into a state and was bundled off to bed and has not gotten out of bed yet today. She’ll be…
glad to see you and to know the truth of it. ”
“This is to say nothing of me, though,” said Elizabeth. “Everyone thought I would do that, would go off with some man, would leave Jane, ill and abed—where is Jane?”
“She went home last night,” said Bingley. “Everyone in your family was here, and we were all talking everything over, and she was up and in the fray of it, and she pronounced herself well enough to go home, so—”
“And my sister did not defend my character, did not say to everyone gathered, ‘Lizzy would never do such a thing!’”
Bingley shook his head.
Elizabeth let out a noise of distress.
“The good news, madam,” said Mr. Leavitt, “is that I think this is just a particularly bad sprain. You twisted it badly in the fall, but you didn’t break anything—”
“I heard it,” I broke in. “I heard a crack, and her foot was bent over—”
“You may have heard something else break, maybe she fell on a branch or something of that nature,” said Mr. Leavitt.
He turned back to Elizabeth. “This will swell, and you ought to have a brace and stay off of it, likely for some weeks, maybe even a month or two, but you’ll be up and about sooner than if it were broken. ”
“That’s good, I suppose,” said Elizabeth. “I do love my walks.”
“No walking,” said Mr. Leavitt. “Not for some time, not until you are healed.”
She nodded, and her face fell.
“Dash everything, Miss Bennet,” I said. “I should not have encouraged you out that window.”
“You should not have chased me into that house, sir!” she rejoined with some heat.
“Oh, yes, I was supposed to run off and leave a young maiden like yourself off in the woods, all alone. That was what I was supposed to do.”
“For heaven’s sake, does he have to be in here?” said Elizabeth, entreating Mr. Leavitt. “And might I have some willow bark for the pain?”
“I have laudanum,” said Leavitt.
“No, that will put me to sleep,” said Elizabeth. “It always does. And then I have the most frightful dreams.”
“I shall leave,” I said, and I quit the room.
Bingley came with me. “So, nothing happened, I assume? You were trapped there, and it was nothing untoward?”
“No, of course not!” I said.
“It is only that everyone thinks—”
“Well, I know that,” I said.
“And by now, the rumor has spread all over Meryton and the surrounding areas,” he said. “Leavitt had heard.”
“Likely Mrs. Bennet went around, door to door, announcing to anyone who would hear,” I muttered.
“Well, I hesitate to say what this might mean for Miss Elizabeth’s reputation.”
I looked up at the ceiling. “God in heaven.”
“No, no, I’m certain, once everyone has heard the truth of it all, then they will realize they were mistaken,” he said.
“Well, there’s nothing I can do about it,” I said. “She wouldn’t marry me now even if I wanted to marry her.” And I do not wish to marry her.
“No, I see that. She really does not like you,” said Bingley.
I wished to accompany Elizabeth when she was taken home, so that I could explain the situation to her parents.
These people thought I had absconded with their daughter.
They had accepted that I would do that, would take away a woman who had not yet reached her majority, overnight, compromise her, force her hand in marriage, so they obviously had no good opinion of my character.
The right thing to do was to go and face them and apologize for my part in all of it.
Perhaps I ought not have charged into the house after Elizabeth.
Perhaps there was some other way that I could have made sure she was safe and also given her some time alone as she wished.
Perhaps my part in all of it was the lion’s share.
However, Elizabeth would not hear it. She insisted that she not be forced to travel with me and that I not be there when she was reunited with her family.
I tried to argue with her about it, which I think had the opposite of the intended effect. She became more entrenched the more that I opposed her.
Anyway, I stayed back at Netherfield and left Bingley to go and explain it all.
I did write a letter to be given to Mr. Bennet, one that stated how unfortunate the entire circumstance was and said that I would be at the family’s disposal should there be a need, if this did not all blow over quickly.
I was worried, I had to admit.
I have not often been personally the subject of gossip, but I well know how it spreads and how it can take on a life of its own.
It is not truth that spreads, but the simpler tale, the more exciting tale, the more salacious tale.
Truth is too complex and, well, boring to be easily repackaged and told over and over.
Gossip takes shape from the sorts of stories that are too appalling to have ever really occurred without a bit of twisting to help the truth along.
So, when Bingley said that once everyone knew the truth, they would cease talking of it, I knew that would not happen.