Chapter 7
A vast deal may be done by those who dare to act.
— MRS ELTON, EMMA
They did not talk on the way back to the house; neither did they speak as they ascended the path to the garden nor when they entered the house. They had barely entered the drawing room before Mrs Bennet was upon them, fussing over the marchpane and inviting Darcy to stay for supper. Under different circumstances, he would have accepted her invitation gladly, but she had extended an invitation to Drummond as well. After purging his heart and speaking of his falling-out with Bingley, he did not think he could bear to sit at the supper table with a houseful of cheerful people and pretend to a gladness he did not presently feel.
Elizabeth had been everything kind and considerate, clasping his hand for a long time as they stood on the beach. Even when they began to walk back, she had held tightly to his hand. Neither of them had brought their gloves, and the warmth and the softness of her skin, coupled with the heady fragrance she wore, had begun to fill his head with thoughts of other parts of her—parts that were softer, and rounder, and sweeter. He had hoped that she would say something about her feelings at some point after he had confessed his own, but she did not say one way or the other how she felt. It was well. Darcy would wait. He would wait forever if necessary—so long as there was reason to hope.
Now, he was nearly home. He could see the glow of candles through the windows. Like the house on White Street, it had plumes of smoke curling from the chimney-pieces and into the sky. The sun had yet to sink beyond the horizon, but it would soon. No doubt his aunt would have much to say to him regarding his absence.
The moment he entered the foyer, he spied Emerson’s lean form propped against the far wall. Ignoring him, he handed his greatcoat and hat to the butler.
“You look terrible.”
Running his hands through his hair, Darcy muttered, “Not now, Emerson, I beg you.”
“I should tell you that the old bat is in a bit of a frenzy.”
Darcy rolled his eyes. “That goes without saying.” He headed towards the staircase, taking the stairs two at a time.
Emerson followed on his heels. “Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“It is half seven.”
“Have you been carousing?”
“Sod off.”
“Have you been to see the lovely Miss Bennet, then?”
Darcy quickened his pace.
“Aha!” he cried. “So you have. Why are you not smiling like a lovesick idiot? I would have thought that her fine eyes would have put a spring in your step, not a frown upon your face.”
Darcy made no reply.
“Did something happen?”
“Nothing happened.”
“I see. Well, you did say she is a gentlewoman, although I have known a few who could be quite?—”
“Enough,” Darcy told him, angry and annoyed and sick and tired of hearing his cousin spout a perpetual stream of innuendos. “I do not want to hear another word from you tonight about Miss Bennet. Do not speak her name. Do not ask me about her. I am in no mood to play your games.” And with that, he sprinted up to the first-floor landing, strode down the hall, and went into his chambers.
He awokein the dead of night to the sound of his aunt’s shouting. The thought of a fire or a thief in the house made Darcy’s heart pound within his breast as he tossed the counterpane aside and leapt from his bed. He threw on the pair of breeches he had worn the day before and was in the midst of shoving his feet into his slippers when his bedchamber door was unceremoniously thrown open and his cousin Anne burst into the room.
Although the only light in the room was from the fire, Darcy saw she was dressed in her nightclothes, which she had paired with a fur-lined pelisse, a wool cap, and a scarf. Her expression, as she looked every which way but at Darcy, was frenetic.
“What in God’s name has happened?” he asked. “Is there a fire?”
Anne shook her head.
“A thief?”
“No.”
“Is your mother suffering some sort of a fit?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“I will see to her,” he said assuredly.
He made to leave, but Anne grabbed his arm. For a small person who barely picked at her food, she had a surprisingly strong grasp. “Forgive me,” she said, and released him, rubbing her hand vigorously upon the front of her pelisse. “My mother is well. She is…speaking with Emerson.”
Darcy stared at her, incredulous, and more than a little perturbed for having been awakened in the first place. “Of what are they speaking?”
Anne paced to the window, then to the tufted leather chair beside the hearth. Other than driving her phaeton around the park, it was the most exercise he had ever seen her take. “Of you,” she informed him, gripping the back of the chair. “Is it true? Is it true that you are in love with Miss Bennet?”
An oath rolled off of his tongue and out of his mouth before he even knew what he was about.
Far from appearing scandalised, or even upset, Anne appeared uncharacteristically cheerful. “You are, then,” she gasped, and the corners of her mouth, which Darcy could only ever recall being downturned, turned upwards in a smile. “Oh! I am so relieved.”
“Are you?” he asked cautiously.
“Of course,” she said in a tone that implied he was a simpleton. “You did not honestly think that I wanted to marry you, did you?”
“I had no idea what to think,” he told her. “Your mother was insistent. And you were precisely as you always are whenever we are in company together—mute.”
Anne rolled her eyes. “I did not talk to you because I did not want you to get any ideas. You are not awful, Darcy. I simply do not like you enough to spend the rest of my life pandering to you.”
Anne’s words and her manner, so particular and direct, made him start. Not because Anne herself had uttered such words, but because the sentiment behind them was so painfully similar to what Elizabeth’s had been in April that he felt a pang in his chest.
“As for Mama,” Anne remarked, “her intentions are good, but it vexes me to no end that she could not care less about what I want to do. She just assumed that I would accept you without a peep. In truth, I want nothing to do with any man now or ever. I have my fortune to live on, I have Rosings, and I have my phaeton and ponies.”
From somewhere on the ground floor, there was a crash, and Lady Catherine’s raised voice grew louder, as did the sound of footfalls ascending the stairs.
Darcy uttered another oath as he hastened to don his coat. It was bad enough that his aunt would find Anne within his bedchamber in the dead of night; it would be far worse should he appear before her half-dressed.
“Oh, Lord,” said Anne as her eyes widened in alarm. “She is coming. She cannot find me here.” She was halfway to the servants’ entrance across the room when her mother appeared in the doorway.
“Anne!” she cried in disbelief, before turning the full measure of her fury upon Darcy. “You,” she said to him, pitching her voice low. “Look at you! No waistcoat. No cravat around your neck, and your coat half undone… I never would have thought it of you, Darcy! Your poor mother must be rolling in her grave! I am of a mind to take you outside to the carriage shed and thrash you to within an inch of your life. Whether you want Anne or not, you have little choice in the matter now. You must marry her, and quickly.”
“No.”
It was not Darcy who said it, but Anne.
“We have done nothing so unforgiveable as to warrant a marriage between us. I merely wanted to know whether Emerson was telling the truth about Darcy being in love with Miss Bennet, so I came here and asked him myself.”
“How you came to be here is inconsequential. The fact of the matter is that you are. There is no other course for you both. You must marry.”
“Why?” Anne whined. She looked so petulant that Darcy expected her to stomp her foot upon the carpet.
Her mother looked nearly apoplectic. “Because you have been ruined, you foolish girl!”
“I would never,” said Anne, appearing truly appalled and angered by the mere suggestion of being ruined. “Nor would Darcy willingly put himself in such a position, most especially with me. I assure you he could not have been more shocked had I been the Prince Regent.”
“But you must marry,” her mother insisted, striking the foot of her cane upon the floor not once but twice.
Anne pursed her lips. “Why?”
“Because it is your mother’s dearest wish, and Darcy’s.”
“It is by no means my dearest wish,” he said in frustration.
“Not yours,” said her ladyship, exasperatedly, “your mother’s.”
“I find it difficult to credit that my mother, who encouraged my happiness as a child, would expect me to enter into a union that would do nothing but make me miserable. And Anne as well,” he added, glancing at her apologetically. “Forgive me.”
“It is quite alright,” Anne said with a haughty little sniff. “I would hate being married to you, in any case. You like to read and think and talk, and it is all so…exhausting.”
“Well, that is the order of things,” said her mother crossly. “A lady does her utmost to make an advantageous match with an eligible gentleman, regardless of how she feels about it. For the sake of her family, she gives over her own interests for his. She keeps his house, visits his tenants, and scolds them into harmony, all the while bearing his attentions until she presents him with an heir. After that, she may do as she pleases.”
Anne appeared horrified. “I do not want to do any of that, especially the part where I am expected to bear a man’s attentions. You cannot make me.”
“I am your mother. Your better. You will do as I say.”
“I will do none of what you say. It sounds awful and bleak. I will never marry. Not Darcy, nor any man.” And with that, she stomped her foot upon the ground and promptly quit the room.
“This is your fault,” Lady Catherine told him in a low, angry voice. “If you had done your duty and married Anne when she had come of age, she would not have such ideas in her head. I want grandchildren.”
“While I cannot and will not give you grandchildren, your ladyship, I very much hope to someday present you with a grandnephew or a grandniece. That will have to suffice.”
“And such a child will have been birthed by whom?” she said, narrowing her eyes.
Elizabeth’s name was on the tip of his tongue, but he knew better than to utter it. He may have told her precisely how he felt about her, but she had said nothing to him about her own feelings. Until she did, he would say nothing to anyone. Most especially to his aunt.
“So, it is to be that impertinent girl who Emerson claims has bewitched you to such an extent that your sense has been replaced with such idiocy that you have become nearly unrecognisable? I think not.”
“Your opinion is noted,” said Darcy, making a valiant effort to keep his temper in check, “but it is of little consequence to me. Emerson has overstepped his place. He is not my confidante, nor have I granted him permission to speak on my behalf of any matter, never mind a matter so wholly unconnected to him.
“As for Miss Bennet, she does not deserve the blame you have placed upon her shoulders. She has done nothing to you. Nothing to Anne. She is not some siren who has worked her wiles upon me. She is an intelligent, compassionate, captivating woman who would never stoop to employ those arts and allurements that countless others of our sphere have done. She has ever only been herself. And if she will consent to have me, madam, I will consider myself the most fortunate man in the world.”
Lady Catherine stared at him, dumbfounded and mute.
Darcy seized the opportunity to take her by the arm and escort her across the room and into the corridor. “Good night, your ladyship,” he said with finality, and closed the door in her face.
“I was only tryingto help you,” said Emerson around a mouthful of bacon.
“I have had enough of your help to last a lifetime,” Darcy told him, setting his coffee cup upon the breakfast table with more force than he intended. “I would thank you not to do so again.”
“There is a silver lining, you know.”
“Which is what?” Darcy asked in annoyance.
Emerson shrugged. “You know without a doubt that Anne has no interest in marrying you, whereas before you thought she was merely indifferent. Also, the servants would not now be running themselves ragged packing her ladyship’s trunks in preparation for her departure. And Anne’s as well, the little spitfire. There is no need to thank me, however. I was glad to be of service.”
Darcy shut his eyes and counted to ten, then opened them again.
“What in the world are you doing?” Emerson asked, seemingly perplexed.
“I was hoping that by the time I counted to ten and opened my eyes, you would have returned upstairs to begin packing your trunks as well.”
“Very amusing,” said his cousin, and turned his attention to his breakfast. “Will you see Miss Bennet today?”
Darcy snorted as he spread jam upon his toast. “You cannot possibly expect me to tell you anything pertaining to Miss Bennet after you worked Lady Catherine into a lather last night.”
“Never mind, then,” Emerson muttered, adding more cream to his coffee. “I wish you good fortune. Should you happen to propose, pray make sure I receive an invitation to the wedding. I would pay a considerable sum to see how her younger sisters behave themselves in the church.”