Chapter 17
Mr Collins departed in high dudgeon at dawn, or so reported Mrs Hill.
Elizabeth was awake and heard the commotion of his departure but wisely kept to her room.
Over breakfast, she discovered that her mother was now pretending she did not exist which, while hurtful, was also rather a relief after the endless complaints of the previous day.
Her offended silence persisted through the day and into the next; even the joy of entering Netherfield to tour it as her daughter’s future home, expressed with many exclamations, was not sufficient to induce her to direct so much as a single word towards Elizabeth.
Miss Bingley affected not to notice the tension between Jane’s mother and sister as she led the three of them through the house, starting with the public rooms and proceeding to the family wing.
While Jane and Mrs Bennet inspected the mistress’s chamber, Miss Bingley and Elizabeth remained in the corridor, out of the way.
Under cover of Mrs Bennet’s cries of delight over the fineness of the appointments and the pleasure of the garden view from the bedchamber window, Miss Bingley said softly, “Forgive me if I speak out of turn, but I have sensed an alteration in your friendship with Mr Darcy.”
Elizabeth could not contain her happiness and smiled broadly. “We are coming to know each other better with the intention of discovering whether we suit. Nothing is settled, mind you, but…oh, my friend, I am quite hopeful.”
Though Miss Bingley nodded, she frowned, and looked off into the distance. She seemed to be wrestling with some weighty thought, and Elizabeth felt the beginnings of dread as she awaited a reply.
At last, with a great sigh, Miss Bingley said, “There is something I feel I must confess, and you may rightly hate me for it.” She explained that the gentleman she had mentioned when describing her humiliation in London, whom she had pursued in hopes of elevating herself and her family through a fortunate marriage, was none other than Mr Darcy.
That was a surprise indeed. Upon even a moment’s reflection, however, it made sense.
She recalled Miss Bingley had said when relating her mortifying story that she had chosen her quarry for his character as well as his standing.
His friendship with her brother had given her a better opportunity to judge that character than she would have had with other men.
Her friend was waiting anxiously for her reply, so Elizabeth shook off her surprise. “Rather than hate you, I feel I should compliment your taste. I hope this is not causing you pain,” she added cautiously.
Miss Bingley waved a hand dismissively. “Only a prick to my pride, nothing more.”
Elizabeth sensed that the wound to her pride was rather more substantial than she was willing to admit. Condolence from her, however, must be insufferable, so she said only, “Thank you for being open with me, my dear Miss Bingley. I value your friendship very highly.”
“And I, yours,” she replied with a note of sincerity that helped set Elizabeth more at ease. All would be well between them, she believed, and perhaps one day they might laugh about it together.
It was very convenient, Darcy thought, that Bingley should be engaged to one of Miss Elizabeth’s sisters.
It made it possible to see her every day, simply by attaching himself to his friend.
After the ladies toured Netherfield they had stayed for dinner, and the next day Mrs Bennet had invited them to dine at Longbourn after church.
The two eldest Bennet sisters, along with Miss Lucas, had called upon Miss Bingley on Monday, a gathering neither he nor Bingley had any compunction about intruding upon.
He rather dreaded the moment that Mrs Bennet would take note of his attentions to Miss Elizabeth.
At present, she was so determined to ignore her second daughter’s very existence that she seemed entirely unaware, though nearly everyone else around them appeared to have become cognisant of the deepening connexion between them.
He smiled to himself as Bingley’s carriage made the turn onto Longbourn’s drive.
Every day he became more certain that Miss Elizabeth was the lady for him.
She had drawn his notice because unlike so many young ladies, she did not speak and act for his approbation.
Even now, when she knew he was considering making her an offer of marriage, she did not pander to him.
Where she held an opinion that differed from his, she expressed and defended her points.
So many people deferred to him that he had come to think rather too highly of himself until he had been required to reflect and take accountability for his careless speech at the assembly, to look about himself and understand that a natural pride of station could too easily become conceit.
His smile vanished when the carriage pulled up alongside another, stopped before the manor. He knew the escutcheon on its door. “Good God! What is my aunt doing here?”
“Your aunt?” exclaimed both Bingleys.
“My aunt, Lady Catherine. That is her carriage.”
Bingley and Miss Bingley clearly understood the trouble.
Both were aware of his aunt’s ambitions for a marriage between him and her daughter, and of his determination that it would never occur.
“Well,” said Miss Bingley briskly as the footman swung the carriage door open.
“Let us go rescue Miss Elizabeth, shall we?”
He nearly leapt from the carriage, striding to Longbourn’s door.
Before it could open to his knock, he heard the Bingleys’ footsteps on the gravel behind him.
Mrs Hill’s usual welcoming smile was absent when she opened the door.
She looked harried, and from the depths of the house came the sound of Lady Catherine’s strident tones.
“Mr Darcy, Mr Bingley, Miss Bingley,” she said uncertainly. “This may perhaps not be the best time…”
“Lady Catherine de Bourgh is my aunt,” he explained hurriedly. “Please, allow me to deal with her.”
“Yes, sir,” the housekeeper replied with patent relief, stepping aside to admit them. He hastened to the parlour, his friends at his back, and came upon a scene most untoward.
His aunt stood in the middle of the room, glowering imperiously at Miss Elizabeth, who regarded her with an expression of sardonic attention. Miss Bennet stood beside her sister, her usual serenity tinged with strain.
“Your ambition will never be gratified!” Lady Catherine declared. “Whatever arts and allurements you have used upon him—”
“Aunt!” he cried. “What can you mean by this?”
She turned and speared him with a glare.
“Ah-ha! What fortuitous timing, Nephew. I have been informed of this country chit’s plot to ensnare you and have come to put her in her place.
This squire,” she said scornfully, with a wave of the hand in Mr Bennet’s direction, “would not allow me to speak privately with his daughter, so I must conclude that the entire family is complicit in her scheme to entrap you.”
“There is no scheme,” he said wearily. “I had to work to earn Miss Elizabeth’s good opinion, as a matter of fact.”
Lady Catherine harrumphed. “Then she has been more clever than most. Yes, I see how a pretence of disinterest might lure you, who are so sought-after. A devious approach indeed, and I can tell that you have been taken in. You must come away with me now, Nephew. We will call the banns for you and Anne beginning this very Sunday, and when you are married, you will be safe from such fortune hunters.”
He drew an angry breath through his teeth, and felt Bingley step up next to him. Miss Bingley coolly crossed the room and took up a place on Miss Elizabeth’s other side, looking rather as though she were awaiting an excuse to loose the sharp side of her tongue upon his aunt.
Miss Elizabeth met his gaze and raised one eyebrow, the corner of her mouth quirking upwards.
His aunt was still blathering on, directing him to pack his trunks and come to Kent immediately to do her bidding, completely unconscious or at least uncaring of the spectacle she was creating.
Miss Elizabeth’s bright gaze seemed to say, She really is quite ridiculous, is she not?
And truly, she was. He had done his best throughout the years to respect her as his elder, but she had gone quite beyond the pale now, invading the home of a family with whom she had no acquaintance and expecting them to heed her every word as though it issued from on high.
He interrupted her, declaring brusquely, “Aunt, I am not going with you. I am not marrying Cousin Anne, either.”
“You refuse to obey the claims of duty and honour?” she cried. “You repudiate the engagement your mother and I formed for you?”
“There is no engagement,” he stated. “If my mother agreed with the notion, she never said so to me, and my father made no contract for such a union. I have not proposed to my cousin, and I never shall. It is your wish alone, and though I honour you as my mother’s sister, I shall not oblige you in this. ”
“You are making a grave mistake, Nephew. This penniless country girl has drawn you in, but if you give way to this base infatuation, you will find yourself shunned by all the family, ruined in the opinion of all your friends, and tarnished by the contempt of the world. Mark my words, she knows that she will be your downfall, and still she is resolved to have you.”
He shook his head, looking past his aunt to Miss Elizabeth, who was shaking with silent laughter at this portrayal of herself.
He found himself chuckling, which startled his aunt sufficiently to silence her at last. “Is that true, Miss Elizabeth? Are you resolved to have me? I should be quite happy if it were so.”
She fixed those beautiful, sparkling eyes upon him and smiled widely. “Do you know, I rather think I am.”
He moved past his aunt, jerking his arm away as she grasped at it. Taking Elizabeth’s hands in his own, he asked, “Then you will marry me?”
“I will.”
The room erupted in a cacophony of sound: his aunt’s outraged shouts, Mrs Bennet’s delighted shrieks, the giggles of the youngest Bennets, the gasps of the more restrained members of the party.
But he had no thoughts to spare for any of that.
Elizabeth, his Elizabeth, was beaming up at him, and in her smiling face he saw all the many joys of a future filled with love.
He overflowed with a happiness he would not have thought himself capable of before this moment, and his only regret was that he had made his proposals in such a public place as to forestall him from sealing their agreement with a kiss.