Chapter Thirty
She did not know how long she remained in his arms. Hearing Mr. Collins claim her before half of Meryton, as though her consent were already settled, had shaken her more than she wished to admit.
She shivered. Darcy felt it and released her, and without ceremony placed his coat around her shoulders.
"I am perfectly warm," she said.
"I know," he said.
He stepped to her side. The lane lay quiet before them, the hedgerows dark against a pale sky, and neither spoke.
"We could go now," she said. "Tonight."
"It is past ten o'clock."
"The roads are passable."
"Your father could have me arrested before we reached the county border," he said. "And would."
She knew he was right. She had known it when she said it.
"Tomorrow, then."
"Tomorrow," he said. "If you will meet me."
"I will meet you."
"At our usual hour."
"Yes." She turned slightly toward him. "And if I am not there?"
"Then I will come to Longbourn," he said, "and I will not particularly concern myself with your father's preference on the subject."
"That would cause a great deal of talk."
"I find I care less about talk than I once did."
They were quiet a moment, the warmth of the assembly muffled behind them, the night air carrying the distant sound of a horse being brought round and the low murmur of departing company.
"Whatever your father has arranged," he said, "it is not lawful without your consent."
"I am not yet one and twenty."
"Even so." His voice was very steady. "He cannot compel you. Not to this."
"No," she said. "But he can make the interval between now and my birthday exceedingly disagreeable."
"He can try." A pause. "If only I had the right to take you away now. I fear your return to that house."
"It will be well enough. They cannot afford a special licence, and as you have pointed out, contract or not, I will not agree to the marriage."
"What if they attempt to confine you?"
She drew his coat a little closer around herself against the night air. "Then we shall find some means of remedy. I would suggest you speak with the Hayes family, if the occasion arises. They have always been loyal to me."
"LIZZY." Lydia's voice arrived from somewhere near the carriage with the full force of a young woman who considers restraint someone else's problem. "MAMA SAYS IF YOU ARE NOT HERE IN FIVE MINUTES SHE IS LEAVING YOU TO WALK HOME."
Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly.
“I should go.”
She lifted the collar of his coat, pressed it lightly to her face, and breathed in the familiar scent of him before slipping it from her shoulders and holding it out.
Darcy took it back without speaking and shrugged into it, though his eyes had not left hers.
“Please be safe,” he said quietly. “I could not bear the thought of anything happening to you.”
He took both her hands. For one reckless moment she thought he might pull her back into his arms, and she knew with perfect certainty that she would let him.
Instead, he lifted her hand, pressed a kiss first to her fingers, then to the inside of her wrist where her pulse beat quick and unsteady beneath his lips.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “I will see you tomorrow.”
“Yes,” she said. “Tomorrow.”
If she stayed another moment, she thought she might not leave at all.
So she turned quickly and moved around the side of the building toward the waiting carriage.
The Bennet vehicle was already drawn up, her sisters visible within, her mother arranging herself with the air of a woman whose patience has been extensively tried.
Mr. Collins stood at the carriage door. He had appointed himself to the task of handing the ladies in, and performed it with a solemnity that made it seem less a civility than a rehearsal.
When Elizabeth reached him he extended his hand and looked at her with an expression of settled ownership that she found considerably more alarming than his public declaration had been.
She took his hand because propriety required it and stepped up without meeting his eyes.
“Well,” said Mrs. Bennet, the moment Elizabeth was seated, “I should very much like to know what that was about.”
Elizabeth said nothing.
“Running out in the middle of an assembly, before half the neighbourhood, with everyone staring, and after all your father and I have arranged for your benefit, and Mr. Collins so particularly attentive. I cannot imagine what people will say. Your father shall hear of it the moment we are home, and do not suppose you may escape to your room before he does. He will require your account of the evening, and so shall I. You are under your father’s roof and your father’s guardianship, and while that is the case, you will conduct yourself accordingly. ”
“Mama,” said Jane quietly.
Mrs. Bennet subsided, though with the expression of a woman reserving both her feelings and her volume for a later occasion.
Mr. Collins, who had been silent only because he preferred to speak last, now leaned forward.
“Indeed, your mother is perfectly correct. When a lady is properly settled in marriage, such little defects of temper are commonly corrected by degrees. St. Paul speaks with admirable propriety on the duty of female submission, and I have always considered a husband who permits habitual wilfulness in his wife to betray a deficiency of proper firmness. I should be exceedingly sorry to adopt harsh measures, yet authority in a husband is a sacred obligation. Lady Catherine herself has often observed that indulgence is rarely beneficial to persons of less steady minds.”
Across the carriage, Mary drew in a short breath.
For the first time since Mr. Collins had come to Longbourn, she felt something colder than embarrassment.
She had thought him serious, proper, a man of consequence and religious principle.
She had not understood, until that moment, how easily principle might become cruelty.
When they reached Longbourn, Mrs. Bennet was through the door before the step had been properly lowered.
"Mr. Bennet, Mr. Bennet, you must come and hear what has happened, your daughter has embarrassed us all before the entire neighbourhood, I have never been so mortified in my life, never, not once.
She ran out of the assembly in the middle of the evening, and then she stood up with that man you banned, bold as you please, in front of everyone, and Mr. Collins announced the arrangement before all of Meryton and she behaved as though she had been insulted, and then there was a scene, and Lady Lucas was watching, and Mrs. Long, and I do not know what people will say but it will be nothing good, I can promise you that. "
"My betrothed was behaving in a manner most unbecoming," Mr. Collins added, from immediately behind her, with the gravity of a man delivering a report to a superior officer.
Mr. Bennet appeared in the doorway of his book room. He looked at Collins with the expression of a man who has lent a tool and watched it make a mess.
"Mr. Collins," he said pleasantly, "I believe I was rather explicit that Saturday was to be the appointed occasion. You have done quite enough for one evening. I think it best you take your leave."
Collins drew himself up. "Surely as the gentleman most nearly concerned I have some claim to be present when—"
"No," said Mr. Bennet. "Good night, Mr. Collins."
Collins departed, not without making it plain that he considered himself ill-used.
"And you," Mr. Bennet said, turning to his wife, "have said quite enough in the carriage, I imagine, without adding to it here. I will thank you to go upstairs. All of you."
Mrs. Bennet opened her mouth.
"Mrs. Bennet."
She went, in the manner of a woman who intends to have the conversation later and at greater length. The girls followed, Lydia muttering to Kitty, Mary silent, Jane with one brief look at Elizabeth that said more than was comfortable before she turned and went up.
Mr. Bennet opened the door to his book room and held it.
Elizabeth went in.
“Collins acted without my instruction,” he said, with the restrained annoyance of a man whose orderly plan had been made public in the most vulgar manner possible.
“He will be spoken to. The matter itself, however, stands. I have made arrangements on your behalf. They are sensible arrangements, and they will be honoured. I have been your guardian for twenty years, and I think I know your interests rather better than a gentleman of six weeks’ acquaintance. ”
"He asked for your blessing," Elizabeth said. "He came honourably, and you refused him without explanation."
"I explained perfectly well."
"You told him he meant nothing to you."
A slight pause. "I told him his interference was not welcome. That is a different thing."
"It is not a different thing to him. Nor to me.
" She kept her voice even. "I would also observe that this arrangement of yours was in place long before my journey to Brinmouth.
That journey was permitted. If the acquaintance formed there has proved an inconvenience to your plans, I cannot think that entirely my fault. "
Mr. Bennet looked at her with the look of a man recalculating. "The arrangement preceded any such acquaintance by some years, and I had not anticipated so considerable a complication. I will grant you that much. It changes nothing."
"There is one point," Elizabeth said, "upon which I should like clarification. Mr. Darcy told me that when he came to you, you spoke of my grandfather. Of something my grandfather had attempted and failed. Sir, I had always understood that both my grandfathers died long before I was born."
Mr. Bennet went very still.
"When did you speak with Mr. Darcy?" His voice had altered. "He was forbidden from this house. Did he approach you tonight?"
She would not lie. She did not answer.
"I asked you a question. Did he tell you about your grandfather tonight?"