Chapter 1 #2
Recovering her self-possession, she apologised to Lady Catherine, saying, “I was so overcome by the details, I failed to first acknowledge the great honour you have shown me.” Elizabeth then forced herself to thank Lady Catherine in language that, whilst approaching Mr Collins’s methods, was still on the side of maintaining her self-respect.
Lady Catherine smiled. “You must make the most of the opportunity I have given you. You are a genteel, pretty kind of girl, and I will be glad to see you well situated. You may thank me when you visit Mrs Collins next year with your husband. If you do not find a suitable match at Epsom, then you will at least make a wider acquaintance that will help your prospects.”
Lady Catherine then announced the topic was at an end, and they played cards for the remainder of the evening.
She kept Elizabeth by her, and Elizabeth had no opportunity to take Lady Metcalfe aside and tell her she need not take her to Epsom if she did not wish it.
At the close of the evening, Lady Metcalfe spoke to her as they were all entering their carriages.
“My daughter and I will collect you on Monday the eleventh at an early hour,” she said, sounding as though she resented the whole thing.
“Mrs Tessier wrote there is an assembly in Epsom that evening and we must be there in plenty of time. My daughter will find a husband during race week.” Without waiting for a reply, she climbed in and left.
Not trusting her temper, Elizabeth parted silently from the company at Rosings and did not speak on the ride home. When they were back at the parsonage, as Elizabeth unpacked and Maria frantically repacked her trunks on Lady Catherine’s advice, Charlotte tried to assuage her.
“It is a gracious gesture, Eliza, and you always enjoy meeting new people.”
“It is high-handed. I do not even know how to ride a horse; why would I watch them race?”
“I think Lady Catherine hopes you will take more interest in the men.”
“And the men are more interested in the horses, I promise you,” Elizabeth answered, tugging a gown from her trunk and throwing it back in her closet. “It will be a great waste of time, and a great inconvenience to a great many people. Lady Catherine never thinks of anyone else.”
“I think her heart is in the right place, even if her manner is…”
“Officious? Overbearing?”
Charlotte shook her head. “You are distressed that you were manoeuvred. Once you are reconciled to the scheme, you will realise what a grand opportunity this could be.”
“To tag with a stranger who wishes to see her own daughter married, to throw us both amongst a group of men gathering to watch horses run, to be pitied when I return still single? Yes, I am blessed.”
“You might actually meet someone, you know.”
“Then shall we place a wager?” Elizabeth asked, closing the lid to her empty trunk with a thud. “That would be in the spirit of racing and betting. I wager a crown I am not engaged before the last race on Saturday.”
Charlotte gave her a tired smile and laughed. “And I will bet that you are engaged before the Derby Stakes.”
They shook hands. At the least, Elizabeth would be richer when she returned from Epsom.
Fitzwilliam Darcy’s anger had taken several courses since he left Kent. Sorrow and confusion mingled with anger clouded every activity from the moment he proposed until the day he and his cousin returned to town. It had never entered his mind that Elizabeth Bennet would refuse his addresses.
Then his anger shifted from Elizabeth toward Wickham, and what Wickham’s misdeeds had cost him. That man, with a nature incapable of overcoming his own faults, had been a source of pain and disgust for years. Fury at Wickham occupied Darcy’s every thought and breath for about another week.
But finally anger at Wickham moved, deservingly, toward himself.
He was not a little cross at the unjust prejudice Elizabeth had taken against him, but she never deserved his anger, even if he only expressed it in his own mind.
Disappointment and heartache did not make one wise.
Darcy had done nothing to earn her good opinion and everything to expose himself to her contempt.
Elizabeth thought him selfish and ungentlemanly, and over the past fortnight in town he had realised she was right. Her accusations were formed on mistaken premises, but his behaviour merited the severest reproof. He had acted inexcusably, both to her and every person outside his circle.
He was thoroughly disgusted with himself. He might have lost Elizabeth forever, but he could at least lessen her hatred of him.
On his return to London, he had confessed to Bingley every way he had wronged him, which had, for a time, and not unjustly, offended his friend.
Miss Bennet had been in town last winter, Darcy had known it, and he purposefully kept it from him.
Even assuring Bingley that Elizabeth’s good information hinted her sister’s feelings matched his own had not completely removed Bingley’s anger.
But now, this first week in May, Bingley was in Hertfordshire, and his recent letter said he was dining at Longbourn tonight.
Darcy expected his friend would be engaged within a fortnight.
The second thing he had done was less about reducing Elizabeth’s hatred of him and more about doing what was right.
Elizabeth had believed Wickham was a trustworthy man because Darcy had allowed it.
His own sister and father had been duped by Wickham—how many other unsuspecting women of character might be tricked?
It was his fault Elizabeth had thought of Wickham as her friend, his mistaken pride that had prevented him from telling everyone in Meryton what Wickham really was.
It was therefore his duty to write to Mr Bennet and endeavour to remedy an evil that had been brought on by himself.
He entreated Elizabeth’s father to do what Darcy had not and caution the neighbourhood against Wickham.
He did not mention Georgiana specifically, but mentioned how Wickham had forsaken the living intended for him and squandered the money paid in lieu of it, and that gambling debts, cheated tradesmen, and ruined women were left behind wherever he went.
“You look morose.”
Darcy lifted his head to see his cousin slide into the chair across from him in Brooks’s Small Drawing Room. Was it half eight already? He was supposed to meet Colonel Fitzwilliam and their friends in the Card Room. “No, just absence of mind,” he lied.
“You have been tiresome company since we left Kent,” Fitzwilliam said with a sharp look. “Promise me it is not because you left your love behind.”
“What!” He had taken such pains to prevent Fitzwilliam from having any notion he was in love with Elizabeth and had been dismissed. She was right to reject him, of course, but it was not a pain he was ready to share.
“You are not pining for Anne, are you?” his cousin teased. “Just propose and make your tacit engagement a formal one.”
Darcy let out a slow breath. Fitzwilliam was only goading him. “I promise you, proposing to Anne has never once crossed my mind. I have told Lady Catherine her hopes and wishes were misplaced, but…”
“But when does she hear any opinion contrary to her own?” Fitzwilliam finished with a grin. “Come on, let us spend some of that extraordinary income of yours on hazard.”
He grudgingly rose. The tone at Brooks’s shifted in the evening with more gambling and drinking by those younger men unencumbered by families, or scruples. But he had little spirit for anything lately. No one would force him to talk more than the game required.
“Darcy?” a man called before he had taken a few steps.
He turned to see Lewis Tessier moving toward the door. Tessier held out a hand and asked him how he did. Darcy took it and noted the black ribbon around his arm, recalling his friend’s father had died last autumn.
“Did Miss Darcy like the pendant you chose for her birthday?” Tessier asked after Darcy greeted him and introduced his cousin.
“How kind of you to remember,” Darcy said. He had bought it last summer when Georgiana turned fifteen. “You were correct. The sapphire was better suited for her eyes.”
“You are a merchant, with a jewellery shop?” Fitzwilliam asked.
His cousin said it politely, even with an interested smile, but Darcy felt the censure. Fitzwilliam was surprised he was friends with a merchant, or that such a man was a member of Brooks’s.
“I merely gave Darcy advice. My father was a jeweller,” Tessier said.
“Although he sold the business before he died.” If Tessier noticed any slight, he was accustomed enough to it to ignore it.
“We come from Huguenots, and initially the family had no connexion to the silver and jewellery trade, but we became involved by helping wealthy French refugees dispose of their jewellery.”
“Their fine establishment probably made your father’s coronet,” Darcy said to Fitzwilliam. “My friend and his father have supported French refugees since the revolution and are liberal to the poor besides that.” The point was made, and Fitzwilliam would say nothing more about it.
His mind briefly went to Elizabeth, and he wondered if she thought him too proud to be friends with such a person. He had not shown her otherwise with his manner or with his general disdain of those outside his circle.
“I am sorry for your loss,” Darcy said with a gesture to the mourning band. “I know what that hurt is, and when it is sudden, the loss is even more painful.” Tessier cleared his throat, and Darcy quickly changed the subject. “Is your mother now with you?”
“Mother has the house in Surrey—she has a life interest. Besides, my wife does not have the heart to move her out, even if we could take it now. My brother Henry is eighteen, and I am more worried about him.”
“Eighteen, no father, and too much allowance to spend?” Fitzwilliam asked.