Chapter Thirty-Four
Lady Matlock had wanted to leave at first light.
Henry had a meeting he could not reschedule, and she had spent the morning in a state of compressed impatience that she managed with considerably less grace than usual.
They had barely cleared the town before she spoke.
“We should have known,” she said. “It was all there.”
Henry did not argue. Since reading the will the previous afternoon and seeing Elizabeth Bennet’s name in Stephen’s careful hand at last, he had spent nearly every waking hour revisiting the missed signs of the last twenty years.
“The letters,” Lady Matlock said. “He wrote every year. I wish I could have seen her first steps. I wish I could have watched her learn to read. I thought it was grief. I thought he was imagining what the baby might have done if she had lived. It never occurred to me he was writing about Elizabeth herself. That someone was sending him news of her progress, and he was sharing it with us because she was all he had left of Margaret.”
“No, it did not occur to me either. When Stephen later wrote asking for help overturning the guardianship, I could have sworn he spoke only of a ward. Never granddaughter. Never Elizabeth herself. I thought he meant some distant relation he had taken responsibility for in his old age.”
“You were distracted at the time. Anne had just written that Edmund was ill. You asked Alfred to help because you could not leave Matlock. Then everything happened at once.”
“That is not an excuse.”
“No, but it is the truth. First Edmund, then Georgiana, then Anne, and before we had even understood your sister was gone, Catherine arrived with Anne de Bourgh half-dead beside her and grief enough for ten people. We were surviving, Henry. Nothing more.”
The carriage rolled on in silence.
“And while we were surviving,” he said at last, “Alfred was lying to us.”
“I loved my brother,” she said at last. “But before Sophia, he was often proud, selfish, and impossible to admire for very long. She softened him. Improved him. Through her I came to love him properly. And when Sophia and the baby died, the better part of Alfred died with them. We should have seen it sooner than we did.”
“Perhaps it was wrong of me to send Stephen to him. Stephen remembered only the man Sophia made of him.”
Lady Matlockleaned forward.
“And Alfred knew everything. He helped overturn Bennet’s guardianship. He knew about the new will. He knew you were named alongside him.”
“Yes.”
“Then Stephen dies, and instead of informing us about Elizabeth, he lies. Why?”
“I cannot know with certainty. But after Sophia’s death he began living recklessly.
I heard rumours of debts, failed investments, expensive habits.
The last time I saw him he spoke of some investment with absurd confidence.
Later I heard it had collapsed. But he told me he had no cause for concern. Stephen had left him Trevelyan.”
“Are you telling me my brother abandoned my goddaughter for money?”
“He likely convinced himself she was adequately cared for. Stephen’s expectations for a child’s upbringing were never Alfred’s own.”
“No, Alfred never cared much for what he could not see directly before him. Not after Sophia died. Not even his own children.”
The carriage rolled on through the deepening evening.
“If he had not been so selfish, I would have gone to Longbourn the moment I knew and brought her home. I always wanted a little girl. Elizabeth had Margaret, Sophia had Amelia. I could have had my goddaughter. I could have given her everything she deserved.
“And seeing Darcy and Elizabeth together now, so perfectly suited, I cannot help thinking they would have found each other sooner. He might have healed sooner. And she never would have needed healing at all.”
“Deborah—”
“Madeline has told Amelia and me about Elizabeth’s life at Longbourn. The neglect. The cruelty. Stephen saw it coming. He tried to prevent it, and we failed him.”
“You did not fail her.”
“Because it feels very much as though I failed both my sister and my goddaughter.”
“You would have loved her fiercely. That much I know.”
“It is a very fortunate thing my brother is already dead,” Lady Matlocksaid at last, “because at present I find myself capable of alarming violence.”
Despite everything, Henry almost smiled.
“A terrifying prospect.”
“And Ambrose is scarcely better. How could he write letter after letter and never once plainly explain who Elizabeth was? Ward. The girl. As though she were a misplaced parcel rather than a human being.”
“Stephen named her plainly enough,” Henry said. “We were simply too blind to understand what we were reading.”
“And Alfred finished the rest by turning her into a ward, an obligation, a convenient fiction. Between them we managed to lose a child for twenty years.”
“I am only grateful I sent that express withdrawing my permission before Ambrose could act upon it. His last letter said he could not leave Ashcombe for another fortnight.”
“And meanwhile he described Elizabeth as a countrified miss who could be brought up to snuff. I read the letter, Henry. He meant to marry her for the estate, keep her in the country, produce an heir, and continue keeping mistresses in town exactly as his father did.”
“Alfred’s habits appear to have survived him.”
“I once hoped Ambrose would someday find his Sophia,” Lady Matlocksaid. “But he is older now than Alfred was when he married, and infinitely worse.”
“I thought marriage might steady him. A sensible girl, grateful for the elevation, might have done for him what Sophia once did for Alfred.” He shook his head. “But had I known it was Elizabeth, had I known it was someone Darcy loved, I never would have encouraged it.”
“No. You would not.”
The last light had begun to fade.
“I believe we are nearly there.”
Miss Bingley had spent the greater part of the afternoon at the window. Mr. Darcy remained shut up in his rooms under the pretence of urgent correspondence, though the number of messengers dispatched since breakfast suggested concerns considerably more serious than ordinary letters.
Earlier that morning Miss Grantley, whose acquaintance with Lady Ashford occasionally produced intelligence worth having, had hinted that Mr. Darcy had formed an attachment.
Miss Bingley had rejected the suggestion immediately.
Any attachment formed without her knowledge was almost certainly a mistake.
The events of the previous evening had unfortunately done little to support this conclusion.
Mr. Darcy had danced with Elizabeth Bennet and with nobody else.
He had followed her from the room, and when the carriages were called had not yet returned.
Miss Bingley had since employed several hours attempting to account for such behaviour in ways more satisfactory than probable.
Thus, when the Matlock carriage appeared unexpectedly at the gate, she straightened at once.
“Uncle. Aunt. I did not expect you in Hertfordshire.”
“Darcy,” Lady Matlock said, “we must speak with you privately.”
He glanced once toward Lord Matlock before turning to Bingley.
“Might we make use of your study?”
“Certainly, certainly,” cried Bingley at once. “Anything in the house.”
Miss Bingley immediately declared that the drawing room or library were entirely at their disposal if they would prefer greater comfort, but Darcy was already escorting the Matlocks from the room, and Bingley, with his usual easy good nature, saw no difficulty in the arrangement.
Lady Matlock thanked him warmly as they passed into the corridor.
Miss Bingley remained in the drawing room only long enough to resent this thoroughly before following at a more dignified pace, neglecting even to order tea in her irritation. She soon discovered, however, that thick study doors were singularly resistant to investigation.
Inside, Henry wasted no time.
“You will recall I mentioned being named guardian to the person who inherited the Trevelyan estate, and that I was waiting on the will. It arrived yesterday. When I read the name, we came directly.”
Darcy looked at him. “Who is it?”
“Elizabeth Bennet,” Lord Matlock said. “My goddaughter. She lived. She has been alive all this time, and I never knew. We all thought—”
Darcy went perfectly still.
“What.”
“Do you remember the evening before you left for Brinmouth,” Lord Matlock asked, “when I spoke of my sister and her daughter?”
“Margaret,” Darcy said slowly. “Her husband was Philip. Elizabeth told me this morning that she had learned she was not Mr. Bennet’s daughter. Her parents were named Philip and Margaret Bennet.” He stopped abruptly. “God.”
“Yes,” Lord Matlock said quietly. “We believed they all died in the carriage accident.”
Henry explained the rest; Stephen’s letters, the altered guardianship, Alfred’s deception, and the will itself. When he had finished, he regarded Darcy steadily.
“This means, my boy, that you do not require Mr. Bennet’s permission. You require mine.”
Darcy looked at him a long moment.
“Then we must go to her.”
“Now?” Henry glanced toward the darkening window. “Darcy, it is nearly dinner. We may leave first thing in the morning. I know you are anxious, but—”
“We cannot wait until morning. We intended to elope tonight.”
Henry stared at him outright.
“Elope. You were going to elope.” He shook his head once in disbelief. “Fitzwilliam Darcy, I never expected to hear such words from you in my life.”
“Mr. Bennet has attempted to bind her to his heir. A sanctimonious little toad of a man who speaks of her as though she were already his possession. She believed herself trapped there with no protection except secrecy and flight, and every moment she remains in that house I am afraid for her.”
Lord Matlock rose immediately.
"Then we are going at once. If Elizabeth believed flight her only protection, we cannot delay."
Henry looked from his wife to Darcy, and whatever argument remained left him altogether.
Darcy rang for a servant and ordered his carriage prepared at once, observing that his uncle’s horses must naturally be exhausted after such a journey.
As the servant withdrew, they found Miss Bingley still lingering in the hall with an appearance of perfect indifference that deceived nobody.
Lady Matlock addressed her at once.
“Miss Bingley, we are greatly obliged to you for permitting us to speak privately with my nephew, but I fear we must trespass upon your hospitality a little further.”
“Of course, Lady Matlock. Whatever you require.”
“It is too late for us to return to London tonight.”
“I have already ordered your room prepared.”
“You are very good. But another chamber will be needed as well.”
Miss Bingley blinked.
“Another?”
“Yes. We are going to fetch my goddaughter.”
“At this hour?” said Miss Bingley. “I did not know you had family in Hertfordshire.”
“Nor did we,” Lady Matlock said quietly.
Before Miss Bingley could pursue this alarming statement further, the footman returned to announce that the carriage was ready.
The three miles to Longbourn passed with very little conversation. The sight of the Ashcombe carriage standing before Longbourn brought Henry up short.
Then voices carried clearly from the garden.
“You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse the claims of duty, honour, gratitude, and family expectation.”
“Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude have any claim upon me in the present instance. Contracts made without my knowledge by guardians I have never met shall not determine the rest of my life.”
“Then,” said Ambrose, “I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet. You deserve no such civility.”
Lord Matlock did not wait for the step to be properly lowered. Darcy was out immediately behind her. Henry descended rather more slowly, with the measured pace of a man very much hoping that, if Ambrose spoke, Darcy would possess the sense to let him handle it.
Ambrose turned and found his uncle standing at the garden gate. He had barely opened his mouth to address him when his aunt swept past without so much as a glance in his direction and crossed the garden to Elizabeth with the purposeful speed of a woman who has somewhere far more important to be.
Elizabeth was still standing where Ambrose had left her, the garden quiet around her, her mind already turning to ten o'clock and whether any of it was still possible, when arms came around her without warning.
"Oh, if I had only known. It has been twenty years since I held you."