CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The carriage arrived at Longbourn without warning on a warm afternoon, grander than anything the neighborhood usually produced, and Elizabeth knew, from the crest alone, exactly whom she was about to face before the footman had even lowered the step.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh entered the small sitting room with the particular ungracious authority of a woman who had never once in her life doubted her own right to occupy any space she chose to enter, and declined every offer of refreshment with a curtness that left Mrs. Bennet flustered and Elizabeth entirely unsurprised.
"Miss Bennet." Her ladyship's eyes fixed on Elizabeth alone, the rest of the family dismissed with a single sweeping glance. "I would speak with you privately. The garden, I think, will serve."
Elizabeth rose, aware of her mother's baffled excitement and her own cold, settling dread, and followed Lady Catherine out through the small side door into the shrubbery, where the older woman turned on her the moment they were out of earshot with an abruptness that carried no pretense of civility left in it.
"I have come, Miss Bennet, on a matter of the utmost delicacy, and I will not waste breath disguising my purpose.
" Lady Catherine's chin lifted. "A rumor has reached me, from a source I have every reason to trust, that you are in possession of a written document recording certain private words once spoken to you by my nephew.
A list, I am told, of grievances he was foolish enough to voice aloud, and foolisher still to have you write down afterward. "
Elizabeth's blood ran cold, though she kept her face composed. "I do not know what source has told your ladyship such a thing."
"Do not trouble yourself denying it. I have not traveled from Kent to be lied to by a girl of your situation.
" Lady Catherine's voice sharpened. "I am told this document, should it ever become known, would prove ruinous to my nephew's reputation, exposing him as a man who speaks cruelly of families beneath his notice even while courting them.
I am also told, from the same source, that you have kept this document for some two months now, deliberately, as though holding it in reserve against some future use. "
"I kept it," Elizabeth said, her own voice hardening, "because a woman is entitled to remember accurately what is said to her, particularly when what is said wounds her deeply enough that she fears, in time, memory alone might soften it past recognition.
I did not keep it as a weapon, your ladyship, whatever your source has led you to believe. "
"Whether you intended it as a weapon or not is immaterial.
It has become one, in Mr. Wickham's hands if nowhere else, and I will not stand idle while my family's name is held hostage by a scrap of paper in the possession of a woman with no connections, no fortune, and evidently no discretion sufficient to have destroyed it the moment it was written.
" Lady Catherine's voice had risen, and two spots of color burned high on her cheeks.
"I have come to demand you surrender it to me directly, that I might see it destroyed properly, and put an end to this danger before it costs my nephew everything his family has spent generations building. "
Elizabeth felt something steady in her chest, some resolve arriving fully formed where a fortnight ago there had been only confusion. "No."
"I beg your pardon."
"I said no, your ladyship. The document is mine.
I wrote it, in my own hand, recording words spoken to me, and I will not be told by a stranger, however grand her connections, that I have no right to its keeping.
" Elizabeth held the older woman's furious gaze without flinching.
"If your nephew wishes to ask me for it himself, he is welcome to do so, and I will consider his request as I would consider it from any other person entitled to make one.
You, madam, are not entitled. You are not the injured party.
You are not even the author of the injury.
You are simply a woman who fears what an accurate record might reveal, and I will not hand over the only honest account I possess of a wrong done to me simply because it frightens you to know it exists. "
Lady Catherine's face had gone nearly white with fury. "You forget yourself entirely."
"I remember myself perfectly, your ladyship.
I remember every word your nephew said to me at Hunsford, in order, because I wrote it down that same night rather than trust it to fade kindly with time.
I will not be shamed into surrendering the only proof I have that I did not imagine the wound, simply because its existence has become inconvenient to someone else's reputation. "
"Then you are as headstrong and as unsuitable a match for my nephew as I always believed you to be, and I shall tell him so directly, and I shall tell him, further, that any connection between your families can never take place while I have breath left to oppose it."
"You are welcome to tell him whatever you wish," Elizabeth said. "I have already told you what I intend to do with what is mine, and nothing your ladyship says will alter it."
Lady Catherine stood a long moment, visibly searching for some further weapon and finding none that would land, and then turned on her heel and swept back toward the house without another word, her carriage already being readied before she had even reached the door, and Elizabeth stood alone in the shrubbery, her heart pounding, understanding only now, with the threat finally spoken aloud and finally refused, exactly how much courage the refusal had cost her, and how little she regretted spending it.