Chapter Two #2
“At any rate, it cannot be the same… that is, he was so young. He could not have told anybody his name, being an infant at the time. Wherever he is, he must be called something else entirely,” Lady Catherine said to her panicked sister, her cryptic tone confounding Elizabeth.
“Apparently his connections are French,” the dowager countess added. “All I know is that he was brought up in Surrey and has a small estate there.”
Lady Anne’s shoulders slumped as she nodded sadly. Lady Catherine narrowed her eyes. “How small?”
The dowager countess laughed. “He has four or five thousand a year, but I know your aspirations are grander where your girls are concerned, Cathy.”
“They certainly are, and you shall not make me ashamed of it,” Lady Catherine sniffed. She glanced over at her sister, who appeared uncommonly pensive. “At any rate, I never heard of any Darcys who are not connected….”
“Please!” Lady Anne sat her teacup down forcefully on the table. “Let us speak of anything else.
Elizabeth felt a dozen questions on the tip of her tongue, though she dared not voice any of them.
She knew her aunt had lost her firstborn son.
Naturally, she had always supposed this to mean that the babe had died, but now she began to wonder if he had been lost in a more literal sense.
The notion only intensified the sense of tragedy and mystery that Lady Anne had ever exuded, though Elizabeth was sorry that her aunt should be tormented by the prospect of meeting with a gentleman who bore so similar a name to her lost son.
Perhaps it was for the best, after all, that she was to take up residence in a different household while they stayed in London.
Lady Anne did not remain with them much longer.
After a quarter hour of listening distractedly to their conversation, she took Georgiana off to Lady Findlay’s, and begged her nieces to visit her in a day or two.
The rest of the ladies continued on more easily after she had gone; Lady Anne’s distress was put from their minds entirely by the prospect of so many diversions to amuse them in town.
Lady Catherine repeated several times that she thought her nephew Richard’s friends to be not worthy of her daughters’ notice.
At each depiction of her structures, Lady Rebecca privately doubled down on her speculation as to which of them would be best suited to each of her cousins.
But Elizabeth had already come to her own conclusions on that score.
Surely neither she nor Jane could form an attachment to Mr. Bingley, whose origins came from trade, without giving Lady Catherine a fit of apoplexy.
This was just as well, for Lady Rebecca described him as fair-haired and livelier in body than mind.
Elizabeth had enough distant memories of her cousin Richard to think him better suited to Jane than the affable but addle-pated Mr. Bingley.
As for herself, Elizabeth was already giddy with anticipation, for it had long been her dearest secret wish to love a man of the name Darcy.
***
“Will, my old friend, a toast to your genius!” Richard Fitzwilliam sauntered into the billiard room at Matlock House, where William and Bingley were playing an idle game as they awaited the hour at which they would be summoned down to the parlor to meet the ladies before dinner.
Richard poured them each a dram of whiskey and raised his glass in salute before downing his drink. Bingley did the same without question, but William gave his friend a skeptical look. “I shall not deny your wisdom in recognizing my own – but whatever do you mean?”
“Why, did you not lament that we must be obliged to meet my fair cousins under the beady and watchful eyes of my aunts? Well, Lady Anne and young Georgiana have gone to stay with relations elsewhere, and unfortunately my aunt Lady Catherine was not tempted to do likewise, however, she has come to the conclusion that she is far too tired from her journey to town to dine with us this evening. I took tea with her a little while ago, and might have added a very special ingredient to her cup when she was not looking.”
“A sleeping draught? Brilliant,” Bingley cried.
William gave his friends a look of chagrin; he had hardly intended for Richard to drug the old harridan, however disagreeable she was.
And yet, he could not deny that the prospect of dining with the family was a little less daunting with the formidable Lady Catherine, of whom he had heard so much – and none of it pleasant – summarily removed from the experience.
The dowager countess seemed a little drowsy as well, as she presided over the table at dinner.
She had expected four other guests – Lady Catherine, Lady Anne and her daughter, and the young earl – in their absence, she bid her guests sit where they liked.
William and Bingley exchanged a look of private amusement as Richard nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to claim a seat beside the beautiful Jane Bennet – it was rather a lark that the young lady Richard had been avoiding for nearly the entirety of their seven years of friendship should prove such a vision of loveliness, and exceedingly gentle and obliging besides.
The dowager countess, in contradiction to her edict that they sit where they wished, fairly shoved Bingley toward a seat between her two daughters; he may be a tradesman, but the young earl’s lavish spending had rather depleted the Fitzwilliam family’s funds, and this Bingley was met with bright smiles by the dowager countess and young Lady Rose.
Bingley was still a little half-sprung from their afternoon at the club, but he smiled sheepishly at Lady Rose, as Lady Rebecca on his other side looked ready to eat the poor man alive.
This left William with Miss Elizabeth Bennet as a dinner companion, and she looked very well pleased with their situation at the end of the table.
Despite enjoying a day of mirth and debauchery with his friends, sampling all the pleasures that made it such great fun to visit London under his long-standing alias, William suddenly found himself reverting to his natural reticence.
Miss Elizabeth stared at him, ready to be diverted, and he despaired of disappointing her.
She was incredibly pretty, in an uncommon, exceptional way.
Her figure was light and pleasing; her lovely countenance was not entirely symmetrical, and yet her dark eyes conveyed hidden wit and intelligence, and her attitude was eager to please and be pleased.
She was just the sort of beauty he had ever wished – and ultimately failed – to pay court to, both in town and at home in Surrey.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said with a breathy laugh, drawing out his name as if she liked the taste of it on her rosy lips. “What brings you to London, sir?”
He could hardly own the truth, that his presence was meant to deter her own, and that of her relations.
Neither could he tell her that he came to London three or four times a year to divert himself under a false name, as a means of escaping the tedium of his responsibilities at home, and the unsavory memories there of the years following his benefactor’s death and Lady Grey’s cruelty.
And yet, the notion of informing her that he had come to town as a lark put a smile on his face as he imagined that it might do the same for her.
“I come to London every year at this time, once the spring planting at Wildewood has been seen to – it is something of a reward for myself, I suppose.”
“Wildewood,” she mused aloud, again speaking as though tasting the syllables with relish. “The name sounds strangely familiar to me.”
“It is not an especially notable estate; it is nothing to Matlock or Pemberley, as your cousin would likely inform you. Have you ever been to Surrey?”
“No. I have seldom left Kent since coming into Lady Catherine’s custody.
” Miss Elizabeth pursed her lips for a moment, some deeper feeling shading her gaze before she swiftly recovered.
“I have a half-sister who was brought up in Surrey from the time of her infancy, though I have never visited her there. Lady Catherine was not on good terms with my half-sister’s late father. ”
“And is Lady Catherine an agreeable guardian?” William could not resist a glance in Richard’s direction as he asked this question; his old friend made a droll face at him before returning his gaze to Miss Bennet.
The man was practically drooling as he stared at the flaxen-haired goddess with a lopsided smile.
“I have little memory of my mother, who died when I was four years old. Lady Catherine has been an excellent guardian since that time, and I believe she doted excessively on Mrs. Bennet before she died. She has certainly been generous and indulgent with us, even when I have been rather wicked.”
William found himself leaning closer to the beguiling Miss Elizabeth, and he nearly asked her a very saucy question about her wickedness. His natural reserve took hold of him once again, however, and he merely said, “I suppose you have been most fortunate.”
“I am quite sensible of my own good fortune,” Miss Elizabeth replied.
“I understand the Bennets did not have the very best of connections – Lady Catherine quarreled with my aunt and uncles, whom I scarcely remember at all, but for her account of them, and I can tell you candidly that she paints quite a picture of those she does not like. Those connections were severed entirely many years ago, but Lady Catherine’s relations have all welcomed Jane and me thoroughly into their family.
Her sister, Lady Anne, has always held a particular fascination for me, for she is so kind and gentle, and has such an air of romance about her. ”