Chapter 4
Elizabeth was on her feet in a second, and Darcy said, “Great-aunt Gregson, may I please introduce you to Miss Elizabeth Bennet? Miss Bennet, my Great-aunt, Mrs. Gregson.”
Elizabeth curtsied deeply and was thankful when Mrs. Gregson said promptly, “Pray sit down, my dear, and I will join you for some scones and tea. You poor dear. If there is one thing I despise, it is men trying to force ladies into marrying outside of their own desire. Darcy, I appreciate your willingness to escort Miss Bennet here, but it is time for the ladies to talk. Begone with you.”
Elizabeth looked with startled eyes on the gentleman and was surprised to see a broad smile on his face.
“As you wish,” he said and walked over to lift his aunt’s hand to kiss it. He turned toward Elizabeth and said, “I am confident you will be happy and safe here, Miss Bennet. If you need to communicate with me, you should do so through Mrs. Gregson.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Darcy,” she said.
The gentleman bowed, poceeded out of the door, and closed it behind him. Elizabeth turned back to her hostess and felt her chest ease at the friendliness on that face.
“My dear,” the lady said as she took a sip of tea, “I am certain you feel rather awkward about being here, but I beg you not to worry about it. My nephew Darcy has told me enough about you that I am confident we will deal very well together, and I confess to looking forward to having an intelligent guest in residence.”
Elizabeth managed a smile and said, “You are very kind, Mrs. Gregson. I do feel awkward about being pitchforked into your life in such a fashion, but I will admit that I was very nervous about staying in a boarding house by myself.”
“I can well understand that,” Mrs. Gregson said as she took a dainty bite of scone.
When she had chewed and swallowed, she continued, “Allow me to explain my own history, Miss Bennet. Darcy’s father’s father was my older brother, and he, along with my own father, was insistent that I marry a baronet whose estate was some thirty miles from our family’s estate of Pemberley.
I, however, had fallen in love with my dear Eric, a clergyman whom I met at one of the dances in Lambton.
My mother was, thankfully, on my side, and we managed to convince my father that my younger sister, Claire, would be a better match for the baronet.
She was far more ambitious than I, and prettier, so it all worked out very well. ”
“I assume that you lost Mr. Gregson at some point?” Elizabeth asked sympathetically.
“Yes, five years ago, from an apoplexy,” the older woman said with a soft sigh. “But we had a very happy marriage, and God blessed us with three sons and seven grandchildren, so I am not inclined to complain.”
“Does the rest of your family live nearby?” Elizabeth asked with some worry and was reassured when Mrs. Gregson explained, “No, my elder son entered the Navy and is stationed in Brighton, while my younger boys are both serving as clergymen, as their father did. It is unlikely that I will see any of them for Christmas, but even if they were able to make their way here, I promise you need not worry about them. None of them knew anyone in Hertfordshire in general or in Meryton in particular.”
This was, Elizabeth thought, reasonable enough. The Bennets were country folk, and Mrs. Gregson, for all that she had insisted on marrying a clergyman, was a member of the Darcy family, with its grand wealth and relations in the nobility.
She yawned, suddenly and unexpectedly, and then flushed with embarrassment.
She was grateful when Mrs. Gregson stood up, with surprising grace, and said, “I am confident you are very tired indeed after leaving your home early in the morning. Let me show you your bedchamber, and you can enjoy a nap. We will speak later of our plans for keeping you safe from your father.”
***
Study
Darcy House
Two Hours Later
The study at Darcy House had been furnished under the direction of Fitzwilliam Darcy's grandfather and father.
When Darcy inherited, he felt no particular need to redecorate, for the room matched his own tastes very well.
Solid oak desk and solid oak chairs and leather upholstery in brown and navy suited Darcy's needs as if he had selected the furnishings himself.
Presently, he was slumped in one such chair, a wingback drawn up close beside the fire, gazing into the heart of the leaping flames.
He saw neither the log falling into coals and ash, nor the fire consuming it, as his thoughts were in Half Moon Street, a few miles distant.
Even now, with Miss Elizabeth Bennet safely entrusted to the tender care of his great-aunt, the thought of the young lady's flight made a tremor quake him to his very soul.
He did not fault her for fleeing such an unequal match.
On the contrary, he was horrified to think of that lady, so bright, so alive, so clever, so glorious, chained in matrimony to that dull-witted oaf, Collins!
The man could never keep up with her; much book learning could do but little to add to an intelligence not naturally large.
Collins was Miss Elizabeth's intellectual inferior, that much was plain to anyone, but the man would never admit it, and she would chafe under his rule as his wife.
Even worse than Mr. Collins, though, was his patroness.
Darcy was under no illusions about his aunt.
Lady Catherine, although not deficient in understanding, allowed rampant pride to hinder her judgment, which made her insufferable to most people around her.
She could never admit to a fault, could never confess that anyone but herself might be correct, unless their opinion agreed with her own in all points.
She would not tolerate Elizabeth, not for more than a few weeks at the most. Her pride, her belief in the superiority of her own intellect, her steadfast refusal to brook any disagreement, would all be outraged by Miss Elizabeth's arch wit and fearless manners and overt cleverness.
She would set herself to suppressing and subsuming every mannerism that made Miss Elizabeth so magnetically vibrant.
Miss Elizabeth would be miserable in such a marriage, absolutely miserable!
She was safe now, to Darcy's profound relief, but he was keenly aware of the hand of Providence in that circumstance.
How easily she could have been lost to the seedy underbelly of London!
If he had not chanced to be on the road right then, if he had not for some reason chosen to look into the stagecoach when he had, well, the very thought made him shudder.
While many members of the lower classes would be happy to render service to a young, gently bred lady, there were, within the bowels of London, individuals whose scruples were not nearly so nice.
Darcy could only thank God, silently and fervently, that he had happened to see Miss Elizabeth in time.
The door opened, and Darcy looked up and leaped to his feet at the sight of Charles Bingley, whose face was strangely pale and whose brow jutted out in obvious distress.
“Mr. Bingley, sir,” his butler said and withdrew.
“Bingley, come in, come in,” Darcy said, gesturing toward the extra chair by the fireplace. “Let me pour you some brandy.”
He made rather a point of carefully pouring the golden liquid into the shining crystal glasses, even as he thought furiously about what to say to his friend.
He had left Netherfield determined to separate Bingley from Jane Bennet, but after the events of the day, he was no longer certain of that path.
“Thank you,” Bingley said, and took a sip of brandy as Darcy lowered himself into his own chair.
“You know why I am here?” Bingley asked quietly.
Darcy glanced at the clock on the mantel. It had been many hours since Miss Bingley and her sister had reached London, and doubtless they had hunted Bingley down in his hotel room as soon as possible in order to keep him from returning to Netherfield Hall.
“Yes,” Darcy said simply.
The younger man ran his left hand over his face, poured the rest of the brandy down his throat, set the cup on the table at his right, and leaned forward, his expression haggard. “Do you agree with them, Darcy? Do you believe that Miss Bennet does not truly care for me, but only my money?”
It was on the tip of Darcy’s tongue to say yes, he did agree, but the events of the day had been sufficiently remarkable that his certainty on that topic had given way to doubt.
“Well?” Bingley asked, more sharply.
Darcy took a sip of brandy and then lifted his eyes to his friend’s face.
“This morning, when we left Netherfield Hall, I did so because I genuinely believed that Miss Bennet, while she is everything that a lady ought to be in terms of manners and character, would wed you only because of the entail on Longbourn. But now, after further reflection, I am not so sure.”
Bingley’s grim expression lightened, and he said eagerly, “You think she does love me?”
“I do not know,” Darcy said simply, emptied his glass, and rose smoothly to his feet. “Another drink?”
Bingley handed the glass over obediently and wordlessly, and Darcy walked over to refill both glasses, thinking hard.
When he had delivered the brandy to his friend, he remained standing.
“I realized today that I have no idea what Miss Bennet thinks,” he said. “She is a serene lady, and given the somewhat tempestuous atmosphere at Longbourn, it seems possible that she has chosen to be quiet because…”
He trailed off and Bingley, who was now wearing a thoughtful look, continued, “Because in a very loud house, it is easier to be quiet. I am an outgoing man, but even I have chosen to hold my tongue when my sisters are being particularly noisy.”
“Noisy and insulting,” Darcy said as a stab of guilt pierced him to the core. “I should have said something long ago, really. When I think of how rude they were about the Bennets…”
Bingley frowned. “I thought you despised the Bennets, Darcy, all except the eldest.”
“I admire Miss Elizabeth very much as well,” Darcy said simply.
Bingley lifted an eyebrow. “Even though you loudly refused to dance with her at the assembly?”
Remembering his words, the guilt was more of a gut punch than a stab. “Do you think many people heard my insult?”
“You were not being quiet, Darcy. Yes, I daresay everyone nearby heard it, and of course it spread from there. Gossip tends to move quickly in small towns.”
“Not just small towns,” Darcy said and took another sip of brandy. He was profoundly ashamed.
“True enough,” Bingley agreed. “So you think Miss Bennet might love me?”
“Yes, or she might be seeking financial security.”
“But she might not be,” Bingley said, and Darcy, when he turned to look at his friend, saw the hope in those brown eyes.
He blew out a breath and said, “Bingley, I think that I need to remove myself from this entire situation. I admire the two eldest Misses Bennet very much. I believe Mrs. Bennet is vulgar, and her younger daughters are out of control, and Mr. Bennet does not oversee his family as he should. I would not marry into a family like that, but you are not me.”
Bingley’s head was tilted, his expression perplexed, and he said, “If one is in love with a lady, does it really matter if her mother and sisters are rather foolish?”
Darcy’s mind, to his surprise, shifted to Mr. Bennet. He had disapproved of that gentleman’s laziness with regard to his family, but now it was his actions that infuriated the master of Pemberley. To force his own daughter to marry stupid Mr. Collins was horrific.
“Is something wrong, Darcy? You look quite fierce.”
He could not, of course, tell Bingley what had happened to Miss Elizabeth, because that would mean he would have to admit he had seen her today.
“No, nothing is wrong, except that I am sadly aware of my own hubris. I ought not to assume anything about Miss Bennet and her feelings toward you.”
Bingley nodded, leaned back in his chair, and cogitated for a full minute before rising smoothly to his feet. “I will return to Netherfield.”
“I think that is wise.”
“Will you come with me?”
Darcy shook his head immediately. “No, my friend. I enjoyed my time at Netherfield with you, but it is time for me to spend time with Georgiana here in London.”
And with Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
“I understand,” Bingley said. “I have no intention of inviting my sisters either.”
“That is also wise.”
The younger man grinned now and reached out a hand toward Darcy. “Until we meet again then.”
“Until then,” Darcy agreed.