Chapter Thirty
The next morning, the banns were read again for Miss Bingley and Sir Walter, but nobody from Richmond Cove attended church besides Lady Dorothea and her unhappy prisoner.
Miss Bingley’s exclusion from the party only improved it, and the rest of the young people looked forward to another day of making merry together.
Somehow the countess had discovered Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth’s betrothal swiftly enough to announce it at breakfast, when Anne and the colonel made a similar declaration.
Mr. Darcy promised Elizabeth that he had said nothing, for he could not be outdone by Captain Wentworth, and wished to obtain her father’s permission on the morrow before making their engagement known.
Lady Rebecca was looking very smug, and Mr. Bingley could not meet their eyes; Elizabeth began to suspect he had not been asleep at all, in the billiard room.
She enlisted Mr. Darcy and his sister to help her tease Mr. Bingley about it, when the party finished their repast and spilled out onto the lawn to bask in the remarkably fine weather.
Georgiana was elated at the news, but feared she would be a feeble accomplice in giving Mr. Bingley the business.
She was willing, and Mr. Darcy declared that he was prodigiously glad his sister would so readily agree to any scheme of Elizabeth’s – though his future bride hardly required any assistance in being deliciously wicked.
They found Mr. Bingley and Lady Rebecca sitting with the countess, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and Lady Blanche, in the same little gazebo where Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy had rehearsed their Shakespeare scene. Lady Matlock cried out with delight at the sight of them.
“Ah, here come the rest of my young people! Excellent, for we must begin planning your wedding directly. I understand your mother will be here tomorrow, dear Lizzy, and I daresay she will have as much to say on the matter as I do. And you would do well to learn from us, Georgiana, for a woman can never do too much when planning a grand event. I am marvelously talented, when it comes to these kinds of things.”
“And marvelously well-informed,” Elizabeth said, giving Mr. Bingley an arch look.
He shrugged, smiling unabashedly at her. Mr. Darcy shook his head with feigned irritation. “You were not asleep, then, after our game of billiards?”
“I wish I had been, Darcy, truly.” Mr. Bingley made a few exaggerated kissing sounds, then screwed up his face.
“We shall pay you back, sir, when your time comes,” Elizabeth chided him.
“Threatening Bingley with mischief is like revenging oneself on a drunk by passing them a bottle. He lives for antics and shenanigans, else he would not suffer my sister,” Richard drawled.
“Better he suffer me than my mother,” Lady Rebecca said, grinning broadly at the countess. “I am sure he only told her in order to get on Mamma’s good side.”
“Then he knows what he is about! You must carry on as you have begun, my future son, for nothing pleases me better than to be the first to know something.” Lady Matlock waggled her brows, and beckoned Elizabeth to sit beside her.
“Now, Lizzy, if I am to properly welcome you into our family, I must tell you candidly that I think you could really be pricklier, if you applied yourself. I am instructing Georgiana in the art of it, and you are always welcome to attend these lessons.”
Mr. Darcy sputtered. “You are giving her lessons?”
“After a fashion, my nephew. Opportunity seems always to be presenting itself, especially in the circle which we move. High society is full of the most absurd people; you will do well, Lizzy. May I call you Lizzy? Everybody does, and it is positively charming. Now, you have done well in berating these two miscreants into a courtship, but I should like to be celebrating another engagement forthwith.”
Lady Rebecca affected tremendous indignation. “I am sure it is Richard’s turn to be badgered, Mamma. It is high time you begin to make him squirm.”
“I second that,” Mr. Darcy agreed, inciting a giggle from his sister.
Lady Rebecca sat up straighter, looking devilishly delighted as she stared the colonel down. She looked as if she had been preparing for this moment. Her eyes flicked to Lady Blanche. “You are like a sister to me – surely you must have something against him. I should love to hear it.”
Lady Blanche actually blushed, and Elizabeth exchanged a quizzical glance with Mr. Darcy, who was himself looking a little pink.
The countess was like a bloodhound. “Ooh, there is something in the air, all of the sudden. Interesting.”
Lady Rebecca’s brow rose higher and she cocked her head to one side as she stared expectantly at Lady Blanche, whose lips twisted into a smirk at the challenge.
The countess demanded to know their secrets, and Lady Rebecca leaned over to whisper something in her mother’s ear that had Lady Matlock’s eyes wide and twinkling.
The colonel gave his sister a playful shove, affecting nonchalance.
“Oh, very well – you need not torment her. Lady Blanche, should you like to be her sister? I have little to offer besides an unremarkable property in Derbyshire and a family of unrepentant wickedness and perpetual chaos. But then, I believe you shall enjoy it very well, as we have enjoyed our time together.”
A silent charade played out between Elizabeth and Lady Rebecca, and with arched brows, pursed lips, and a couple roguish winks, they reached an unspoken agreement that Elizabeth would later press her friend relentlessly to reveal what she knew.
Lady Blanche was as composed as ever, for she took everything as a compliment. She smiled willingly at the colonel. “I am forty years old, sir; it has been over a decade since I last received a proposal of marriage, and I cannot be quite sure if that is what I am presently hearing.”
“A dismal attempt, indeed, Richard,” his mother scolded him. She studied Lady Blanche with interest, but Elizabeth was in little doubt that the countess should like such a devious and confident daughter-in-law.
Elizabeth laughed. “My goodness! In all my meddling, I never thought of such a couple, and yet now I only wonder that I was so blind to what seems perfectly natural. I hope you will clarify yourself, colonel, for I hesitate to congratulate you quite yet.”
“Cousin Elizabeth, you quite astonish me,” the colonel said with a flourishing bow. “I had thought you made yourself quite an expert at matchmaking, in your assiduous endeavors to avoid realizing you had fallen in love with the last man in the world you could ever be prevailed upon to marry.”
Elizabeth grinned, open mouthed with delighted affront at his cutting banter. “I shall have to strive to be as well-informed as you are, sir. But I have no doubt of swiftly discerning all of your great follies, having witnessed one so remarkable already.”
Lady Blanche tugged coyly at the colonel’s arm. “I believe we are well and truly caught, sir. What are we to do?”
“Well, if you are resolved to suddenly be missish and demand a proper proposal, I shall hardly manage one with my mother present to critique every word. But will you walk with me?”
“No, stay!” The countess guffawed. “I wish to hear it! Rebecca will help, too.”
The colonel gave them all a long-suffering look, then plucked a flower off a nearby shrub and presented it to Lady Blanche. “You must allow me to woo you properly, and later you may tell them all about it, for my relations do not think me capable.”
The pair were not seen again until supper, when it was surmised by all that the colonel was indeed quite able to persuade Lady Blanche to become his wife.
Lady Rebecca laid her head on her mother’s shoulder, giving her an angelic look. “Well, Mamma, are you quite satisfied?”
“What fun would that be, child? No indeed, it is not at all a condition I recommend. One must always be striving for something.”
Elizabeth grinned at the countess, not yet satisfied in revenging herself on Mr. Bingley.
“I suppose I know just what you mean, your Ladyship, for I begin to feel entirely dissatisfied in only managing a courtship for Lady Rebecca. But I suppose she must always prefer to do something different than what pleases everybody else. So many couples properly betrothed, and she is courting. How revolutionary.”
“She is stubborn as anything,” Lady Matlock agreed.
“We have only been courting for a week,” Lady Rebecca protested. “The sort of rapid progress you seem to favor generally does not bode well for the upper classes.”
“Rapid! My child, you have been courting for years and have remained willfully unaware of it.”
Remembering her friend’s trick of contradicting her into rebellion, Elizabeth gave a little sigh.
“Perhaps we ought not press her. I should be tempted to wish for a double wedding with my dear friend, but then she would only be subjected to my mother’s involvement in the planning of it, and I daresay even Rebecca has her limits in savoring absurdity.
The combined efforts of Mamma and Lady Matlock might be too much for anybody. ”
“So, this is your opinion of me, child! Well, you are probably right.” The countess nodded happily, as if seeing what Elizabeth was about.
Mr. Darcy also understood her tactic, for he gave her a subtle nod. “At any rate, if we were to share our wedding with anybody, dearest Elizabeth, ought it not be your elder sister?”
Lady Rebecca took the bait; she leaned forward and held up her hands, gesturing emphatically.
“Now, just a minute. I do not think you have it quite right, Darcy, for think of this. Jane and Wentworth found one another straight away – and they have both had their hearts broken before – forgive me, Charles. But ought they not have their own wedding day? Their story unfolded naturally, but entirely separately. But the pair of you would not have gotten on at all if not for my meddling, just I might credit Lizzy with the same. Our time here is intrinsically linked.”