Chapter Twenty
When the ladies withdrew to the parlor, Elizabeth and her sister sat whispering together with Charlotte and Emma; the latter was treated to another delicious secret as the twins confided their scheme to play matchmaker for Mr. Bennet and Miss Bates.
Jane shared Elizabeth’s instinct to conceal the whole truth of their parentage, but it was enough that Miss Bates and Mr. Bennet were the two acknowledged guardians of the twins.
Emma required little persuading to agree that they must be designed for one another.
“I have a mind for matchmaking,” Emma said with glee.
“Years ago, I gave my sister and John a little nudge when he returned from Cambridge. And I am already resolved that Mr. Weston must wed my dear Miss Taylor – I am sure he had purchased Randalls for no other purpose than to make a proper home for her, and it is just what she deserves!”
Jane looked at Elizabeth with something satirical in her eyes, but she kept her voice tranquil as she observed, “They seem well inclined already.”
“They may like each other, and I am sure they do, but they have both been set in their habits for many years, and might never act without a little encouragement to help them on. But I suppose Mr. Bennet and Miss Bates might profit more by my aid.”
“Your aid?” Charlotte’s eyebrows shot up, and she grinned at this additional bit of mischief.
“Absolutely, I must do my share – you have been a dear friend to me, Jane – erhm, Elizabeth….”
“Lizzy.”
“Lizzy, I am entirely at your disposal.”
Elizabeth grinned, and she caught her head turning to seek out Mr. Darcy, but the gentlemen were still at their brandy and cigars.
Emma gave a little bounce in her seat. “What fun! Highbury has not been this entertaining in… well, all my life.”
“Meryton was never so lively, either,” Charlotte said, sharing a look with Elizabeth.
Jane held up her hands and laughed. “I may have traveled, but my friend Miss Campbell did not get a beau until six months ago. I have often been just as dull as you.”
Emma took Jane warmly by the hand. “I hope we are quite done with dull .”
Elizabeth could see that Jane appreciated this offer of friendship after years of indifference, and yet it was just as evident that Jane was all too aware of Emma’s behavior toward Frank Churchill at dinner.
Jane looked down and winced for a moment before looking up and offering Emma a smile.
“I hope we shall be very merry together.”
Emma gave them all a wicked smirk before glancing across the room to where Miss Bingley and her sister held court with the other ladies.
“I could hardly pass up an opportunity to disoblige her; she is a fawning, artful creature, and I do not like the look in her eye.
She seems to think us all beneath her – a tradesman's daughter.”
Charlotte coughed. “Not all of us put on such airs.”
Emma screwed up her face. “Oh. Sorry. Well, surely you would never behave in such a way. Lizzy, Jane, you no more deserve her for a step… guardian? – well, no more than I deserve her for a sister. But it has occurred to me that there is sure to be so much talk of the lovely secret twins that perhaps the gossip that my engagement was meant to stave off might not be a bother.”
Elizabeth saw a chance to keep her word to Mr. Darcy. “Can you not like Mr. Bingley? He is kind and energetic, and charming in that sort of way.”
“Perhaps, but so is Mr. Churchill, who has long held a fascination for me. He has a very pleasing sense of impudence about him – and no vexing sister,” Emma said with a grin, oblivious to the mounting discomfort of her companions.
“And do you not notice, Jane, how frustrated Mr. Bingley was when Mr. Churchill and I conversed together at dinner? If I keep it up, which must be perfectly natural between two gregarious companions, perhaps Mr. Bingley will give up our engagement all together, for I have always meant never to marry.”
Jane looked too stricken to speak, but Charlotte came to her rescue. “That is hardly fair to Mr. Churchill. You are handsome, clever, and rich, and may break more than one man’s heart.”
“You are too good for us all, Miss Lucas,” Emma said, fanning herself dramatically.
Elizabeth watched her sister, wishing Jane would simply tell Emma the truth of her relationship.
The Emma she had befriended would surely repent her behavior, but this was not the same Emma that Jane had known all her life, and she appeared resolved to bear her agitation with brave silence and a forced smile.
“Oh, but there are surely other ways you might repel him, if you wished to,” Elizabeth blurted out before recalling that she had promised Mr. Darcy to encourage the engagement. “Mr. Elton, for instance, seems a very willing alternative. What say you to his sister?”
Emma snorted with laughter and swatted at Elizabeth, who nudged her to glance across the room.
Miss Bingley was watching their antics with a steely glare, no doubt furious at the four young ladies who had paid her not the slightest attention since leaving the dinner table, and hardly any before that.
“They make unholy alliance, do they not? Miss Bingley and Miss Elton, I have no doubt they could pass many vapid hours together, practicing their preening. Wretched Miss Elton is the cause of all my troubles – and I have heard Miss Bingley encouraging her to write to all her friends of it, and spread the word so that I will be forced to marry her brother!”
Emma recovered from her distemper and narrowed her eyes at Elizabeth. “He visited your aunt’s cottage nearly every day last week, Lizzy, when he thought you were Jane.”
“I believe that was a compliment to you; he congratulated you daily on taking me under your wing,” Elizabeth chided her friend.
“What do you say to that, Jane? Should you like Mr. Elton to call again at the cottage?”
“He should sooner call upon Lizzy, I daresay, when he discovers that my sister has twenty thousand pounds.”
Emma gasped. “Jane! You think him as mercenary as his sister? He is perfectly amiable. At any rate, I may not be able to resist the temptation, when we complete our other missions, to make a match for one of you, at least.”
“Perhaps Lizzy,” Charlotte said with a playful wink. “She spoke to Mr. Darcy a great deal at supper – he was very often staring at your lips, Lizzy.”
Jane brightened. “You were very evasive when I asked you about him yesterday at the lake.”
“And you whispered together all evening after supper last night,” Charlotte added. “And then today, making so many mad purchases.”
Emma gave them a look of exaggerated horror. “This is impossible; I know she despises him as much as I do! He insulted us both, and he has been boorish and brooding ever since he came to Highbury. He would sooner suit Miss Bingley, I should think.”
Elizabeth felt herself internally wince.
“Surely we need not loathe him for all eternity. We must still make a plan for painting to amaze him with our accomplishments, Emma – and you, too, Jane – but I should rather get along with him now that we are staying in the same house, where I already have one mortal enemy.”
Again Emma narrowed her eyes at Elizabeth. “Tell me, what did you purchase today? If you have ordered a ball gown, you may be a hopeless case.”
Elizabeth sputtered with laughter. “No, indeed. I bought dancing slippers, a bonnet, some gloves, a fan, a shawl…”
Jane interjected with a wry smile. “But I ordered a few gowns for Elizabeth in London, and she did the same for me when she arrived in Highbury, so she does have a new ball gone – or she will by Monday – and so she may not be entirely out of danger.”
Jane looked at Elizabeth so imploringly, that of course she would bear this teasing if it distracted from her sister’s secret predicament.
She shocked them all by revealing that Mr. Darcy had pledged to aid them in uniting Mr. Bennet and Miss Bates, and she allowed her friend and sister to speculate wildly about what this might portend, until the gentlemen at last joined the ladies.
Mr. Bingley wasted no time in declaring that he wished to dance, and he called upon Mrs. Hurst to play for them.
Though Mr. Churchill was standing very near to Jane, he seemed intent on reaching Emma before Mr. Bingley could claim her.
Emma gave Lizzy a gleeful look as the latter was approached by Mr. Elton, who began to pay her all the compliments he reserved especially for heiresses.
Miss Elton swiftly attached herself to Mr. Bingley, seeming ready to ply him with the same unimaginative flattery that her brother employed.
Elizabeth scarcely heard a word Mr. Elton said to her as she looked about with panic at her poor sister, who was left without a partner.
She caught Mr. Darcy’s eye and he observed her dismay.
He gave a subtle nod and began to move toward Jane, but Mr. Knightley was unaware of his approach, and he offered Jane his hand.
Jane lit up at the sight of him standing so gallantly before her, and Elizabeth also smiled.
She had seen for herself, when she was pretending to be Jane, that Mr. Knightley was singularly attentive to Jane Fairfax and her relations, and she cherished a little hope that perhaps there was something to it.
She was no less pleased that if Mr. Knightley had not come to Jane’s rescue, Mr. Darcy would have done so.
Mr. Elton was determined to recommend himself to her, and yet he asked a great deal of questions about Emma which gave Elizabeth the decided impression that the vicar could not make his mind up as to which heiress he ought to make love to.
Elizabeth was feeling unrepentantly devious, and she endeavored to hint that her friend might not be entirely satisfied with her present engagement.
It was only the truth, after all, and she wished Emma to acknowledge that she was right about the vicar.
Mrs. Hurst finished one tune and immediately began another, and there was an exchange of partners among the young people.
Miss Bingley had entreated Mr. Bennet to dance the first with her, and when John Knightley offered Miss Bingley his hand for the second dance, Elizabeth had the pleasure of watching her father approach her mother…
who flatly refused to stand up with him.
And yet, as Mr. Bennet stalked away from her, he did so with a smile, and even Miss Bates looked rather pleased.
Elizabeth shook her head and laughed to herself.
Everyone around her was either attached to the wrong person, or playing at some sort of game.
Poor Mr. Bingley was again thwarted in his attempt to woo his lady, for Mr. Elton made directly for her with ready praise of her dancing, and Mr. Bingley was left to partner Jane when Mr. Churchill again snubbed her, this time for Miss Elton.
Elizabeth rather feared he would approach her , but she realized too late that she had been grimacing most severely at Mr. Churchill.
“I believe I can guess what you are thinking,” Mr. Darcy said as he approached her.
“Surely not,” she said with a nervous laugh as she accepted his hand. For an instant she recalled how he had reached up to brush the hair from her face when they argued at the grove. She shivered as she began the first figure of steps.
“You are thinking that you should like nothing better than to shove a certain person into a cannon, and launch him into the next county.” He tipped his head closer and whispered, his breath warm on her skin. “I daresay you are not the only one thinking it.”
“No indeed,” Elizabeth cried, scowling at the sight of Mr. Churchill enjoying himself. “I should rather blast him all the way back to his ghastly aunt.”
“Is she the impediment – the need for secrecy?”
Elizabeth nodded. “She is, though one might also point to his own entire want of a spine.”
“I shall endeavor never to earn your enmity, Miss Bennet. I may not be so fortunate as to enjoy your forgiveness a second time.”
“I am sure I have already been obliged to forgive you at least twice, sir, but perhaps it is best you do not take your chances again, Mr. Darcy. I have a small army of clever young ladies and you have… well, poor Mr. Bingley.”
As she glanced in that gentleman’s direction, she felt a pang of her sister’s misery, and chided herself for enjoying the dance while Jane suffered.
Mr. Darcy’s dancing was superior, but his compassion was what impressed her the most, for near the end of the dance he said, “If there is anything at all I can do….”
Elizabeth swiftly shook her head, fearing she might weep for her sister. “No; thank you. But there is something else….”
“Anything, for a friend.”
“I thought you might say that,” she replied, smiling through her despair.
How could Miss Bingley think this gentleman untrustworthy?
She was dying to know the reason for the enmity between them, and even confident that he would actually tell her, if she asked.
“There is a matter I must bring to your attention – privately. I am going to tell my friends I need some cool air, if you would wait a discreet interval before joining me out on the terrace.”
He nodded to her, and Elizabeth instantly moved out of the dance formation, fanning herself dramatically. She sat beside her mother for a moment, complimented her appearance in the new golden frock, and then used speaking to her grandmother as an excuse to loudly declare that she needed fresh air.
A single sconce was lit, illuminating most of the large terrace, but Elizabeth moved along the periphery, shrouded in the shadows.
At the end of the terrace, a small set of stone steps led down to a narrow path, toward the garden.
She waited there in the moonlight until Mr. Darcy appeared at the top of the steps.