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Chapter 1

Posted on 2011-11-06

"In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."

Had Elizabeth not been looking directly at Mr. Darcy, she would have sworn those words could not come from him. The usually stern and impassive man looked a little mad to her, his eyes burning and his color high.

"Sir?" she said, thinking there must be some mistake. In another man she might take it as a joke but in Mr. Darcy? She was seriously concerned for his health. "Are you well?"

"Now that I have finally spoken my heart, I am better than I was," he affirmed. He grasped her hand before she could snatch it back. "Now we can be together. You will not regret it, I assure you. My only regret is that I waited so long to speak. If only I had known!"

In spite of her deeply-rooted dislike, she could not be insensible to the compliment of such a man's affection. She tried, however, to compose herself to answer him with patience. But he had more to say.
He told her of the strength of his attachment. He had found it impossible to conquer and now a chance remark by his aunt has shown him an avenue to happiness.

"Lady Catherine told me your father's estate is entailed upon her parson. She said it is well known that your mother worries what will become of you all when Mr. Bennet dies. Now I understand better why she attempted to force a marriage between Bingley and your eldest sister."

"Well known? Who told Lady Catherine-- " The information could have come from the Lucases. Elizabeth did not think Charlotte or even the feckless Maria would have spoken such things directly to the lady but certainly they might have been overheard discussing the Bennets' situation by Mr. Collins. He would not hesitate to share it with his patroness.

Elizabeth straightened to her tallest height possible and raised her head in pride. "If you think that our circumstances would make me accept you . . ."

"Of course they will," Darcy said with perfect confidence. "You will be my mistress and in return I assure that your family will never be in discomfort. How could you say no to that?"

"Your mistress! Never!"

"Elizabeth, be sensible. Think of what I offer you. You will have a comfortable home and security. Even when I marry, I will always take care of you. I cannot imagine that that I would ever want you less. I do love you so passionately."

"But you would not marry me? I am a gentleman's daughter, sir."

Darcy's eyes widened in surprise. "Yes, you are a gentleman's daughter but you are certainly not in a circle of my rank. That is why I hesitated so long. I knew I could not marry you. Surely, you see that?" He spoke well, eloquently detailing his sense of her inferiority -- of its being a degradation -- of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination. He spoke with a warmth in keeping with the consequence he would wound, should he establish an equal alliance between them.

"As my mistress, you will be respected. There are places in London where we may be together openly. You will love London the way I show it to you. Elizabeth, I will show the world. I will give the world."

While Elizabeth could understand the prudence of his remarks, both in his reluctance to offer her more and his generosity in offering as much as he did, she was not at all persuaded to accept him. She could have told him that she turned down Mr. Collins's offer of marriage that would have made her mistress of Longbourn, but she disdained to explain even that much to him. Instead, she spoke curtly, "Your offer is unacceptable. Please leave my presence."

"Elizabeth, think of what you are rejecting. I offer you much--"

"Not enough."

"I offer you my heart and a generous settlement. The finest clothes and precious jewels will all be yours. You can have your uncle the solicitor inspect the document to assure your security."

She saw with no slight indignation that he thought she would be moved. When her expression did not change, he even looked at her with a smile of affected incredulity. Insufferable man. She recalled her sister's sad face and her most recent letter.

"Even before this insulting offer, I had every reason in the world to think ill of you. How unjustly and ungenerously you acted to separate my sister and Mr. Bingley. You dare not, you cannot deny that you have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing them from each other, of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability, the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind.''

When he said nothing, she insisted, "Can you deny that you have done it?''

He shook his head with assumed tranquility. "I have no wish of denying that I did every thing in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success. Towards him I have been kinder than towards myself. He wanted to marry your sister. I am grateful I made him see reason, sparing him a scene like this or something far worse should he have shackled himself to your family--your mother and those three sisters, not to mention your father who does nothing to check any of them--or himself, for that matter."

"Mr. Wickham was so right about you."

That accusation finally caught him. "You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns,'' said Darcy in a less tranquil tone, and with a heightened colour.

``Who that knows what his misfortunes have been, can help feeling an interest in him?''

``His misfortunes!'' repeated Darcy contemptuously; ``yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed.''

``And of your infliction,'' cried Elizabeth with energy. ``You have reduced him to his present state of poverty, comparative poverty. You have withheld the advantages, which you must know to have been designed for him. You have deprived the best years of his life, of that independence which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this! and yet you can treat the mention of his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule.''

``And this,'' cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, ``is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! This is why you would reject me when I offer you -- when I offer you the world? Are my faults so heavy? Perhaps,'' added he, stopping in his walk, and turning towards her, ``these offences might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. I am not ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? I would never seek such relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own. But I offer you my wealth and love. Instead of gratitude, you respond with bitter and baseless accusations! I am disappointed in you, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she tried to the utmost to speak with composure when she said, "You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner.''

She saw him start at this, but he said nothing, and she continued, "Even had you asked me to marry, I would have said no. I certainly say no to being your mistress.''

Again his astonishment was obvious; and he looked at her with an expression of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went on.

"From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that ground-work of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immoveable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry. Now I can add to that you are the last man in the world whom I would ever consort with in any way.''

"You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness.''

And with these words he hastily left the room, and Elizabeth heard him the next moment open the front door and quit the house. She could think of no circumstances under which she would ever want to see or hear from him again.

Chapter 2

Posted on 2011-11-13

Mr. and Mrs. Collins's evening at Rosings was cut short when Anne fell into an especially violent fit of coughing. With the attention of Lady Catherine and Mrs. Jenkinson upon her, the Collins and Maria slipped from the room barely noticed. The ever gentlemanlike Colonel Fitzwilliam walked with the departing guests to see them out.

Mr. Collins would have commiserated to excessive lengths had the colonel not civilly but effectively cut him off. With a sympathetic look at Mrs. Collins, the colonel assured he would stop by on the morrow to report on Anne's welfare, which, he was certain "…would be fine. It's the change in the air. She is exceptionally susceptible but this is hardly unusual. Nothing to worry about."

As the Collins party approached the parsonage, they were shocked to see Mr. Darcy leaving. Witnessing him stalk away in some haste was one of those rare moments when Mr. and Mrs. Collins had the same thought. Mr. Collins exclaimed, "What can be the meaning of this!''

Charlotte recalled another instance when the gentleman had visited her unmarried friend alone but thought it best not to share that with her husband. Instead, she replied, "No doubt a brief civil call at his aunt's request to see how dear Eliza is after complaining of the headache."

"But this is hardly proper, for him to call in such a familiar way," the parson sputtered indignantly.
"I am sure he did so at his aunt's request," Charlotte repeated mildly but slightly more emphatically. "Let us not leap to conclusions without evidence, my dear husband."

"My cousin is under my protection while she visits us and I expect her to act with the decorum befitting my position as a representative of Lady Catherine. It would be most impertinent for my cousin to forget her place and to attempt to use the allures of the feminine sex on the nephew of my patroness. I would be humiliated."

"My dear husband, I think you suppose far too much from seeing Mr. Darcy make a brief visit. Perhaps it would have been different had it been the colonel. I think we have all witnessed that he is fond of Elizabeth. But Mr. Darcy does not seem to care for her all. There can be nothing untoward in his calling upon her."

Mr. Collins was thus distracted. He turned his attention to making a trip to the pantry in order to forage for a snack. The evening at Rosings had ended before refreshments were served, and he was peckish.

While her husband was busy in the kitchen, Charlotte seized the moment to question Elizabeth about Darcy's unusual appearance.

"There must be something to this," Charlotte fairly trilled with excitement at the prospect of Darcy's interest in her friend. "I know that we have always said he and the colonel only came to visit so often because there is so little else to do at Rosings, but for Mr. Darcy to seek another private meeting with you is surely a sign of interest."

"He asked me to be his mistress."

That was a stroke Charlotte did not expect. "Oh, no. Oh, my dear Eliza."

"It was so humiliating, Charlotte." Eyes flashing, she continued, "He said in return he would support my family when my father passes away. Perhaps viewed in that light, it is a good offer?"

"No, no, Eliza!"

But Elizabeth had not meant her question seriously. Not for a moment did Mr. Darcy's offer make her think well of him or consider his offer good. She was outraged, and her upset state made her more speak freely than she probably would otherwise. Mr. Darcy's proposal had made her question certain assumptions. She and her sisters had led a comfortable existence and, while she knew that marriage might be a challenge for all but Jane, she now began to see as she never had before the dangers of a world without her father's protection.

In her confusion, the words slipped from her mouth before she realized what she was asking. "Was I foolish to reject Mr. Collins, Charlotte?"

Charlotte's sharply drawn breath was the only sound in the room. Fluttering her eyes and hardly knowing where to look, Charlotte could not immediately find her voice. "Do you regret it, Eliza? I was certain you would never accept him. That is why I did."

"You wanted a home and security. And now you have it. That is what Mr. Darcy offered me -- as his mistress."

"You are still quite young, Eliza, and you are pretty. You will have other offers --honorable offers. Do not let this depress your spirits. It was wrong, very wrong, of Mr. Darcy to suggest such a thing."

"He said he did so because he loved me. But it would not be prudent for one such as he to marry a woman such as I -- almost portionless and with no good connections. I would offer him nothing. While he offered me everything."

A look of indignation distorted Charlotte's usually placid features. "How dare he say such a thing! Of all the arrogant and unkind --"

"He did not put it in exactly those words, but that was his meaning. Oh, Charlotte, what if he is right?"

"Elizabeth, how can you think that? It is not like you to be so dispirited by fools. And he is a fool if he could not see your value." Charlotte took her young friend by her shoulders.

"I have always thought that one of my sisters would have to marry well, and I thought it would be Jane. But she now suffers because a man she loved left her -- at Mr. Darcy's instigation, it turns out. He admitted it."

Charlotte now regretted that she had once or twice suggested to Elizabeth the possibility of Mr. Darcy being partial to her. While Charlotte had been careful not to press the subject, from the danger of raising expectations which might only end in disappointment; she had never expected so great a disappointment as this.

"Did he offer any explanation for such a mean act? Eliza, might Mr. Darcy have separated his friend from Jane in order to make your position more desperate?"

Elizabeth's face showed that the thought had not occurred to her. "You mean, he thought to force me to accept him? I think he would deny it. The excuse he gave was that he wished to protect his friend from a family unworthy of him."

"I cannot believe it. I know that he can seem proud sometimes, and perhaps given his advantages, he has a right to be. But these words, this proposal are not those of a gentleman -- favorite nephew of Lady Catherine notwithstanding. I never expected he could hurt a gentlewoman like Jane and compound it by insulting you."

"Yes, but gentlemen do not deem it wrong to keep mistresses, do they? It does not lessen their status as gentlemen one whit. As he was eager to tell me, how long will I retain the rank of a gentlewoman when my father is dead?"

Charlotte winced. In her kind schemes she also sometimes planned Elizabeth marrying Colonel Fitzwilliam. He was beyond comparison the pleasantest man; he certainly admired her, and his situation in life was most eligible; Charlotte's greater favor of Mr. Darcy for her friend rested upon his considerable patronage in the church, but that advantage now vanished. "I wonder what his cousin the colonel would say if he knew of such a shocking offer?"

"The colonel was quite explicit just this afternoon on the subject of marrying poorly dowered young gentlewomen. He would never do so."

Seeing her friend's frown, Elizabeth explained further, "The colonel was at great pains to disabuse me of any notion that he might have designs upon me. He said habits of expense make it necessary for him to marry a woman of fortune. Being the son of an earl and all."

"Oh."

"Oh, indeed. Well, now I know what both Mr. Darcy and his cousin think of me. They have given me an understanding of the minds of men that I did not quite grasp before. I have received an education from them, and although it was not one I requested, I shall find a way to put it to use."

"What is this understanding that you speak of?"

"I have learned my own insignificance, and the low place that love and respect must take in the way of the world. Rank and position must stand atop while the feelings of the heart and merits of the person can best be only trifling in comparison. What matters goodness or merit if one's connections are poor and one's pockets filled with lint?"

"You sound so bitter, dear Eliza. I have never heard you sound so."

"Until this minute, I never felt it. It was not merely that he asked me to be his mistress but that he felt I should consider the offer a compliment and a prize."

"Eliza, when I asked you earlier if you regret Mr. Collins, you did not answer. Perhaps it is useless to speak of now, but . . ."

"No, Charlotte, please do worry that I harbor any resentment on that account. How could I? He and I were not suited -- indeed, the only man less suited to me is Mr. Darcy. Mr. Collins does take on a greater luster compared to Mr. Darcy, but I would not wish myself married to either. I intend you no offense in speaking frankly."

"I understand and, further, I actually find it a relief to hear you speak so. I would prefer you find no occasion for recrimination in my marriage to Mr. Collins. You are a dear friend to me, Elizabeth, and I would not willingly hurt you. When Mr. Bennet dies and Longbourn falls to my husband, I promise -- "

But Elizabeth shook her head fiercely and refused to allow her friend to continue. As the wife of Mr. Collins, Charlotte might be able to manage her husband effectively in simple things, but he was the titular head with the ultimate power to direct his family's fate. There could be no promises of how he might be persuaded to behave in the future regarding matters of great import, especially the outcome of relatives who would become more distant as Longbourn became more near. Elizabeth had no expectations of her cousin once she rejected him. She would live with the consequences of her decisions, both as pertained to Mr. Collins and Mr. Darcy.

Thus the conversation ended and the two friends retired for the night, both to experience less than comforting dreams. Elizabeth rose early to walk before breakfast. Her mind approached a more peaceful state as she communed with nature, but her peace was sharply broken when she heard a male voice calling her name loudly.

Turning, she saw the parsonage's head manservant, Barclay. "I was sent to tell you the news, ma'am." He paused to catch his breath. "Mrs. Collins asks that you return immediately to accompany her and Mr. Collins to Rosings."

"Why? What has happened?"

"It's Miss de Bourgh. She died during the night. Lady Catherine is said to be in a dreadful state, and Mrs. Collins will go to attend her. She asks for your assistance."

Her mind in turmoil, Elizabeth followed the servant.

Chapter 3

Posted on 2011-11-28

Charlotte and Elizabeth found that the woman draped across her dead child's body bore only physical resemblance to the haughty Lady Catherine. While it is to be expected that a mother would grieve, they were surprised at the transformation. The essence of the overbearing lady's essence seemed to have escaped. They feared for her sanity as they pulled her from the corpse and settled her into the chair at the bedside.

All the while she did not take her eyes from the body. Anne was even frailer in death, impossible as that would have seemed. Her paltry bones and sparse flesh looked as if they had never for a moment sustained the spark of life.

Elizabeth swallowed, painfully recalling that her first impression of this small, cross-looking creature was "she would make Darcy a proper wife." While she did not for a moment regret wishing ill for Darcy, she felt guilt looking at Anne's corpse. She was heartily ashamed of ever having harbored such an unkind sentiment for this poor creature.

Charlotte's voice, breaking into Elizabeth's painful reverie, implored, "Lady Catherine, will you not speak? Please, ma'am, let us serve you. You have only to tell us--to instruct us--what to do." The woman of infinite opinions offered nothing.

Elizabeth stepped closer to Lady Catherine to take her hand. The grieving mother glanced up sharply. Elizabeth startled anticipating that Lady Catherine would reproach her for presumption. Instead a look of softness overspread the woman's large hawkish features. She observed to Elizabeth, "You are weeping."

"Yes, milady, we both are. We are so sorry for your loss."

"She deserves to be mourned. The world has lost a treasure."

Both women readily agreed.

"She was a good girl, you know. Such a good girl, so bright, so talented. She said little but I knew she was always thinking something very intelligent. Her taste was of the highest quality. She could have been a great proficient at anything she put her hand to - if only she had been able."

The words induced not the slightest inclination toward laughter although only a doting mother could have seen Anne as bright or talented.

Elizabeth barely looked up at Darcy when he and the colonel came with stricken faces to commiserate with their aunt. Anne's death seemed to have taken her cousins by no less surprise than it had her mother. She and Charlotte gave them privacy.

Funerals are by definition sad events but this one was particularly grueling for mourners. They all nervously watched Lady Catherine, who seemed near catatonic. The unpleasant prospect that she would shatter emotionally any minute made everyone especially eager for the service to end. The funeral attendants were mostly indifferent acquaintances connected to Rosings by business obligations. Anne had no friends, and the suddenness of her passing had left no time for family at a distance to make it to Kent.

Mr. Collins's words were well-chosen as he preached the eulogy. Elizabeth suspected that Charlotte had a hand in composing it. As soon as he was done, Charlotte gave him a look that said they should leave rather than offer any further expression privately. Her husband obediently followed. He had had occasion to be on the receiving end of his patroness's bad tempers, and he had no wish to inspire one on this of all days. Elizabeth overtook the couple with quick steps.

Even as she walked after the couple, she noticed how Lady Catherine did not move. Before Elizabeth could discreetly suggest to Charlotte that they go back to Lady Catherine and offer assistance, Darcy stepped forward.

He spoke in too low a voice for Elizabeth to hear, but Lady Catherine's reaction was heard by everyone. The woman snapped to life, her voice loud and full of rancor. "No, you traitor, you may not."

Her nephew's face tightened. The expression reminded Elizabeth of how he had looked when she refused his offer to be his mistress. She noted that unlike the haughty tones he had unleashed upon her during their argument, he spoke mildly to his aunt. "I understand that you are overwrought. This has been difficult for all of us. But let us return to the house now."

"You mean the house you covet, you traitor, as you covet everything else I own? You think it will all be yours now that Anne has died?"

Colonel Fitzwilliam came up to the other side of Lady Catherine and put his hand on her arm. Unlike Darcy, he made no effort to lower his voice and he seemed quite obviously irritated. "Please calm yourself, Aunt. You can certainly not wish to make a display here in front of a crowd. Let us return to the house to talk."

The elderly woman looked angrily from one nephew to the other. The mourners averted their eyes from the spectacle in their effort to escape quickly.

Darcy said, "Aunt, I want you to come home with me to Pemberley. I want to take care of you because I do not think you--that is, I think it would be best." After a pause, he continued, "Mother would have wanted it. She would have wanted me to take care of you."

"If you had done what my dear departed sister wanted, my daughter would still be alive instead of going to join her namesake! You killed my Anne."

The colonel clucked in disgust and said, "I know you are grief-stricken, Aunt, but so are we. We mourn Anne, too. This is no time to make baseless and idiotic charges."

"No, do not rebuke her, Cousin. She is grieving and perhaps it will help her to express it in this way. We know she does not mean it and her words are forgiven."

"Oh, but I know exactly what I am saying. Do not try to be saintly and noble now. I know it, I know it all! I know what you did, what you said to her. I blame you, Darcy. . ." Lady Catherine's voice broke as her words trailed off in a ragged sobs.

Some of the mourners looked over their shoulders but then quickly looked away, continuing their progress away from the cemetery. Elizabeth hesitated slightly at the woman's loud weeping and thought of going back. She quickly decided that comforting Lady Catherine was best left to her family.

But when the lady screamed her next words, few could resist fully stopping and turning in shock at her bitter charge. "You would like to think me ready for Bedlam, and I have no doubt you wish to steal my property and send me there. You would like to bury me there as you have buried Anne in the ground, you murderer! But I retain a firm grasp on my faculties, and I will not be displaced. Don't think you will spirit me to Pemberley and make me sign everything over to you."

"Aunt Catherine, for pity's sake, please," Darcy pleaded. "I never wanted to hurt Anne. Now I am offering to take care of you, not to take anything from you. That is why I would have you come to Pemberley. You have had a shock and should not be alone."

"I will not come to Pemberley with you. This time you will not have it your way. You cannot bend me to your will as you did my dear Anne. You hurt her and grievously so. If you had married her instead of dawdling and putting it off year after year, she would be alive, with children and a reason to go on. My dear girl gave up because she thought you would never have her. She died of a broken heart. You killed her!"

Chapter 4

Posted on 2011-12-02

Lady Catherine shook off the lethargy of sorrow that had covered her like a shroud during the funeral. She replaced it with anger that she wielded like a shield against her nephews. She strode away from them and approached the Collins's small gig. When she commanded, "Miss Bennet, may I ask you to favour me with your company," Elizabeth did not think refusal was an option.

From the expressions worn by Charlotte and Mr. Collins, they agreed. The noblewoman's tall figure was even more imposing than usual in mourning clothes. Rather than the pitiful object she had appeared earlier, she now brought to more than one mind among the funeral attendees the image of some grim reaper ready to gather a harvest.

On other occasions Elizabeth might have objected to being ordered or at the very least have offered some bit of impertinence. Today her sympathy for the grieving mother made her forgive the high-handedness. She obediently followed Lady Catherine to her carriage. The lady nodded at the Collins as she turned away from them, her gesture meant less as civil acknowledgement than to clarify that they were not being summoned.

The driver helped both women into the carriage. Her nephews stood at a distance with the air of chastened boys rather than the tall and vigorously built men they were. Elizabeth, unlike Lady Catherine who did not give the men a backward glance, looked out at them as the carriage drove off.

"Lady Catherine, may I take the liberty of observing that your kinsmen are obviously very concerned for you?"

"They think I am not in my right mind. Do you agree with them, Miss Bennet?"

"I do not at all mean to imply that. But you have suffered a great loss. It would be a shame if bitterness deprived you of your best sources of support at this time when you need them most."

"Do not be deceived by my nephews. I hope this does not pain you too much to hear, Miss Bennet, should you have cordial feelings for either of them. They cannot be trusted." When Elizabeth was silent, Lady Catherine continued, "Especially Darcy -- though perhaps you already know that? To think once I loved him as a son. How he betrayed me."

Elizabeth blinked in curiosity but said nothing. She found herself deeply regret trapping herself in a fast-moving carriage with the angry woman who continued, "I heard Darcy tell my daughter that he loved you, Miss Bennet. I am certain the moment she heard him say that she gave up any desire to live."

Lady Catherine either did not notice or willfully ignored Elizabeth's distressed reaction and continued, "He was cruel and thoughtless. If I had not heard with my own ears, I would not have thought it possible from him. I went to her as soon as he left, and only then did she allow herself to cry. I would not have thought it possible for so many tears to pour from her. Even though she held back while he was there, he must have seen some pain on her face before he walked away. But he did not care. It was the culmination of all the times he left her. How could he do that to my dear girl, Miss Bennet? How?"

"I cannot answer your question, Lady Catherine. Nor do I care to speak in any way for Mr. Darcy. But, I can tell you that I did nothing to invite his attentions to myself. I am grieved that anything he said to your daughter regarding me hurt her."

"Thank you, my dear. I was pleased to hear that not only did you refuse his offer to be his mistress but you responded with admirable firmness."

"Who told you about our argument?" Elizabeth asked with surprise. She could not believe Darcy disclosed it, but whom else? "Only Darcy and I were present."

"Darcy would be mortified to admit his failure. No, I learned this from the servant I assigned to keep watch on him during his visit this year. Even before his declaration to Anne, I suspected he had interest in you and I wished to know how he would act upon it."

While one might have expected the lady to show embarrassment at revealing the act, instead she clearly felt she was justified in spying upon her nephew. "His words mortally injured Anne. Now you are my only hope of justice, Miss Bennet."

"I would think I am the last person, well, second to the last person whom you could stand to be around at a time like this. Although it was not my doing, I am sorry for you. But I cannot imagine what you mean by seeing me as your hope?"

"I do not blame you, and I pray you will help me once you know it all. You are the only one who can. To understand Darcy's crime, you must know the nature of the promise between his mother and me. My nephew behaved deviously in ignoring it. He led us on, both my daughter and I.

"He knew -- he always knew that since he and his cousin were in their cradles, his mother and hers planned their marriage. She was much smaller and weaker even then. It was clearly divine design in their being born only days apart, his birth following hers. God in his infinite wisdom and mercy had sent her cousin to be her protector. His mother and I, close as sisters could be, believed it. We had a strong bond between us that started with our knowledge that as girls, we were of little consequence to our father. Our mother died giving birth to my sister; my sister and I were left with only each other. I loved her more than anyone else, and I believe she loved me similarly.

"It hurt so greatly when my sister died in childbirth with her second child that I almost wished to follow her. I was saved from my depression the day I heard my nephew comfort my daughter because she was afraid I would die, too. He told Anne he loved her and would always take care of her as his mother would have wanted. He said those words. Knowing that Anne and her cousin Darcy would be each other's futures gave me hope to go on. I wanted to be alive to see their children.

"But he changed as he grew older. He took a tour of the continent. I am certain he indulged in the flesh of women as men do. I could overlook that as well as his missing his visit to Rosings because he was traveling Europe. Finally, I wrote that Anne's health had begun to fail. She had always been frail and now she spent long hours sitting at the window, watching for her cousin ands desperately hoping he might surprise her with a visit.

"When he returned, it was he who was surprised to see how her health had weakened. But she rallied for him. They took walks together and she improved. She smiled for him and was happy. That is when he should have married her, when they were both twenty-two. She was stronger then. He left Rosings, eager for who knows what pleasures. He should have done his duty instead of putting off the marriage. She pined for him. Many days she was too weak to leave her bed."

The carriage arrived at Rosings. But Lady Catherine did not disembark and instead brushed off the driver when he came to offer them assistance. He stood by at a polite distance waiting as she continued speaking with Elizabeth at a level meant for only the two women to hear.

"When Darcy returned the next year, he brought with him my arrogant brother's second son. It was obvious Darcy meant him to be a buffer between him and my daughter. Colonel Fitzwilliam, who makes it his business to be charming, came only at Darcy's bidding and he looked greedily at Rosings -- what a prize for a second son. But he was no consolation for my daughter. My dear sister and I would not have wanted to align ourselves with any of our brother's spawn."

Concluding, Lady Catherine fastened her hand upon Elizabeth's arm. "Can you see now why this is not to be borne?"

"It is true I have reasons to find Mr. Darcy most disagreeable. But, ma'am, if I may speak frankly, your story suggests that your nephew's behaviour over a period of years showed reluctance to marry your daughter. Although his mother and you may have conceived the idea of a marriage, it was up to Miss de Bourgh and Mr. Darcy to carry it out -- and both would have to agree."

"Well, that is hardly of moment now, is it, since Darcy has taken away Anne's ability to agree to anything. He led her on year after year. But you can help me, and I you. I think you would want to insure your family's future? I know about the unfortunate entail on your father's estate. The family of Sir Lewis de Bourgh saw no need to entail estates away from the female line. I can make Rosings yours."

Stunned, Elizabeth was silent. Lady Catherine went on, "If you will agree to allow me adopt you, I will make you the heir to Rosings. I assure you, my husband's family will not dispute it. You will have to change your name from Bennet to de Bourgh, but I think that is a small thing in return for a fortune?"

"Lady Catherine, I cannot replace your daughter. You are too close to your grief to know what you are saying."

"Are you telling me you do not wish the wealth of Rosings? You would refuse me?"

"Yes, because every feeling of propriety and delicacy counsels that I forget you ever raised this proposition. I am not Anne and could never be to you what she was. I think you will regret your offer when you find yourself in a better frame of mind."

"I am not trying to replace Anne with you. Indeed, no one could ever replace my dear girl. But you will help me avenge her murder -- and Darcy did murder her with his callous indifference, as surely as if he raised his hand to her."

"I agree he should not have spoken to her of loving me. Why would he tell her such a thing? But I do not see how my taking Rosings will. . ." Elizabeth stopped. She shook her head in sudden understanding of Lady Catherine's intent. "He would be your heir now that she has died, and you mean to deprive him of it."

"The same lack of proper feeling which led Darcy to ask you to be his mistress allowed him to speak with thoughtless cruelty to Anne. He also told her he would marry her but only if she would accept you as his mistress."

"Oh, the poor woman … what a thing to hear."

"Honestly, I do not think he intended his words to have the effect they did. But I believe he approves the result; for all his show of grief. He will have the dowry without the bride. Imagine his feelings when he learns Rosings is to be yours."

Elizabeth could not deny the appealing prospect of dismay upon the proud man's face to find the prize had been snatched from him -- by her! She thought of how her elevation as a member of Lady Catherine's family might make it possible to put Jane in the path of Bingley and his sisters again. Even if Jane no longer wanted Bingley, Elizabeth would be able assure her a better future. Instead of the dreading the day when the Bennets would lose their home, she could share with her birth family the benefits of one of the richest properties in the country. For losing her name, she could greatly improve the prospects of those who retained it.

"Lady Catherine, your offer is tempting. But, in part because of my parents, particularly my father, I do not think I can consider this."

"You should consult them. I think your parents would see the sense of it. Perhaps especially your mother?"

Elizabeth wondered what Lady Catherine had heard -- no doubt more speculation courtesy of the Lucas-Collins clan, and no doubt much of it closer to the truth than the second Bennet daughter might have wished -- but rather than show her irritation at being the topic of gossip, she attempted to speak with calm and disinterested rationality. "I think I should not be moved by greed nor should you by grief. Would my inheriting Rosings be so very devastating to your nephew as you believe? He is a very wealthy man without it. He might quickly cease to repine the loss of Rosings while your regret for taking me as your daughter would be of longer standing."

"I thank you for your concern. It does you credit and makes me that much more certain of your rightness for this. It is not the loss of Rosings that Darcy will repine. Indeed, eventually, he may have it."

"But how?"

"He will marry you in order to obtain it."

Elizabeth was stunned into silence even more decidedly than before. When she found her voice, she sputtered, "Not if I have anything to say about it."

"Think of it, Miss Bennet. Think of his begging you to marry him. The man who proposed to you what one might to a common trollop would have to humble himself. Is the sight of him on his knees not a pretty picture?"

"You assume a great deal in thinking he would ever want to marry me -- or that I would care. I do not. While your adopting me may change other minds, I do not think it will change his. He does not believe me his equal. It is true that both you and he move in different circles from my family, but I am a gentleman's daughter. Even if I were not, how dare he assume I would be of such low morals as to commit a sin with him?"

"My sentiments exactly, my dear. He did not show you the proper regard as gentleman's daughter." Despite her best effort, just the merest patronizing stain colored Lady Catherine's voice.

"I do not care what your nephew thinks of me -- or, for that matter, you, too, in assuming I would let you make me your pawn in ill-considered revenge. As I told your nephew, he is the last man in the world I would marry, as well as have anything else to do with him."

Instead of being affronted, Lady Catherine raised her chin in a show of patience laced with determination. "My price for giving you Rosings is your agreement that you will spend the first five years of your marriage disobliging him. That should not be hard since you already dislike him? You are an intelligent girl and I think you would know what to do. I will also counsel you. Once you are married, he will struggle for your affection and esteem. You will demean him at every turn, never obviously, but in subtle ways. Instead of the dagger to the heart he inflicted upon my Anne, you will stab him with a dozen small cuts each day that make him doubt himself and despair of ever completely having your love."

"That is monstrous."

"How might he have treated you if you agreed to be his mistress? You would have been at his mercy. But I propose to put him at your mercy, assuring you the rights of a wife and a generous marriage settlement. Rosings would be promised to you but it would not immediately becomes his in a marriage between you. We will see to it with my solicitors and with yours. I understand your uncle is in the profession? Even if Darcy should despair before five years of winning your affection and wish for separation within the marriage -- or, perhaps even beg for annulment, you will be financially secure. In return, all you need do is to treat Darcy as your natural feelings would lead you. You find him very disagreeable and I daresay you despise him?"

"How can you think I would marry him, bear his children, under these circumstances? How could you imagine I would visit misery upon offspring by disregarding their father?"

For the first time, Lady Catherine showed hesitation. "I do not suggest that there would be children from the marriage, at least, not within the first five years."

"Lady Catherine, I hardly think that any husband of Mr. Darcy's rank in life would want a wife who refuses to give him an heir. It is to be expected he would demand the privileges marriage gives him a right to."

"You mean the privileges he meant to secure by making you his mistress? But a wife is not a mistress. A wife may refuse where a mistress dare not. There is never a guarantee in marriage that there will be children. Pemberley, like Rosings, is not entailed to the male line. Darcy could always look to his sister to marry and provide heirs -- and that is the choice he would have to accept once he is married to you."

"To marry him knowing I have no intention to be a true wife and partner?" Elizabeth spoke as if trying to fathom the possibility.

"You would create a cold union with my nephew, but many marriages are similar. This would be an alliance like many others except that all the advantage would be on your side because you would enter with purpose. If after five years, you decide you wish to make it a real marriage, your obligation to me would be done. However, even then you might wish to continue the marriage as you had begun it -- or you might seek an annulment. I think at that point even if Darcy had not already requested it, he would be willing to grant it."

"Lady Catherine, surely you must see that what you suggest is monstrous. In essence, you wish me to marry him in order to torture him."

Lady Catherine smiled. "I think you are being somewhat dramatic, my dear, ant that is the second time you have used the word monstrous. It is nothing of the sort! Darcy thinks little of your worth and would use you for his own selfish pleasure, destroying your respectability and making you a pariah. That is monstrous. How could you as his mistress ever again have faced your family and the society in which you grew up? He thought you would be desperate enough to accept. Do you owe any goodness to a man who would ask you this?"

"Whether he deserves poor treatment, I will not discuss. But, I do not believe Mr. Darcy or any man would allow his wife to refuse his attentions in marriage. You would have me place myself in a position that would eventually be untenable."

"If you are wise -- and I think you are, you would know how to manage, ah, the situation. My nephew would not raise his hand to you, I feel certain of that. You would spend a great deal of time with your family and relatives. For those times when you are in each other's presence, I will secretly install my own employee among his staff to insure your physical safety. But I do not think it would ever come to your needing to be protected from Darcy. You would say no, and he would be frustrated at your refusal but he would accept it. You would always hold out the possibility of being more open to him if he is patient. Of course, you would be leading him on with no intention of ever surrendering -- in much the manner as he led my daughter on."

When Elizabeth was about to demur further, Lady Catherine interrupted. With deceptive casualness, she offered what was probably her strongest argument. "I believe I also understood from the servant who told me of Darcy's infamous proposal to you that my nephew boasted of hurting your sister as well. Is it true that he expressed no shame at all regarding his behavior there? Miss Bennet, are you going to walk away from an opportunity to avenge a wrong against your sister, nay, your entire family? I give you the means to seek redress. I do not even ask that you treat Darcy with cruelty. Merely ignore him and show him no kindness."

Elizabeth pursed his lips. "It was wrong of him, but I doubt that my sister would want -- my sister is very good. She would tell me to forgive this, I know. Besides, how can you be certain that Darcy would want to marry me?"

Lady Catherine smiled and her sigh unconsciously mimicked the purr of a contented feline. With Elizabeth's question, the lady felt she had won her point. "Once you have Rosings, marriage to you will be quite attractive to Darcy, I am sure."

"But if he does not behave as you think he will?"

"You will still have Rosings."

Chapter 5

Posted on 2011-12-19

When Elizabeth said no to becoming heiress to Rosings Park, Lady Catherine responded with as surprised and irritated an expression as Elizabeth had ever seen. That was saying something, indeed, for a girl who had grown up with Mrs. Bennet's motherly displays.

The grand lady's reaction made Elizabeth even more certain of her decision. She would not want constant acquaintance with that unhappy face. Being an occasional guest for tea or dinner at Rosings Park was uncomfortable enough but to be this woman's daughter? No doubt, endless opportunities for displeasure would spring from Elizabeth's penchants for speaking her mind, spending much time in walks outdoors, and neglecting to practice to attain proficiency in any number of ways.

Saying no did not stop her from thinking about the pretty rewards of being rich, however. Had Rosings Park not come with attachments, there was no question she would have accepted. As she stood before a mirror fixing her hair before dinner, she drifted into a fantasy of dressing for a fashionable London ball with the help of a French maid. She rolled her eyes at herself for momentary weakness.

As she ate the meal in the parsonage's dining room with Charlotte and Mr. Collins -- he following his usual pattern of displaying more of the food in his mouth than one would ever wish to see -- the scene shifted in Elizabeth's mind to an elegant saloon buzzing with lively conversation. To be the heiress to Rosings Park would put her in an elevated new sphere of vastly varied company. She could only imagine how this world of new possibilities would compare to the narrow confines of the neighborhood in which she had grown up.

She tried to remove the sting of regret by reminding herself the prize would come at too high a price. The pull and push of wanting and yet, not wanting, roiled her. Especially the first night after the funeral, she dreaded going to bed in fear that images of Lady Catherine offering overly ornate gowns and elaborate jewelry would haunt her sleep. As it turned out, she could recall only a single nightmare that night and the nights that followed.

She sat alone waiting in a beautifully furnished ethereal blue bedroom. The view from the large windows revealed rolling, verdant countryside. She had a strong dream sense that this time and place should have been idyllic. Instead, panic, despair and an overwhelming emptiness assaulted her. She wanted desperately to awaken but could not. Her disturbance heightened when she heard a knock upon her bedroom door. She attempted to ignore it, but it continued until finally she screamed, "What?" Darcy came in.

She had always recognized him as a strikingly handsome man. But in light of a personality that tended to look upon everything and everyone about him with disdain, she was not impressed. His dream face struck her as compellingly attractive and dreadfully ugly, and she wondered how his face could be both at the same time. He wore an emerald robe that made her long to ask how dare he appear in such intimate attire here in her bedroom. Those words, much as she struggled to say them, would not come out. He kept moving toward her, almost floating, and she found, to her dismay, that she was holding out her hand to him even as she wished to scream for him to go away.

Elizabeth startled from dozing. Thank goodness, instead of being in a beautiful bedroom in some unknown place, she was at Hunsford Parsonage. With a shake of her head to snap herself more awake, she recalled that the service for Anne de Bourgh had been three days ago. Elizabeth sat with Charlotte in companionable silence, as they worked on their sewing in the parlor reserved for the personal use of the mistress of Hunsford.

This inconveniently located room at the back of the house had been chosen by Charlotte to discourage her husband from bothering her much during the day. Elizabeth now glanced gratefully around at its unimposing homeliness, a comforting contrast to the splendor of her nightmare. She was herself, not a woman reduced to waiting for Darcy to come have his way with her.

Precisely at the moment she had that thought, the door of Charlotte's sitting room opened. Elizabeth's breath caught in her throat as she waited to see who would come in. She almost felt relief when the tall figure of Mr. Collins appeared.

He was perspiring profusely, and Elizabeth thought he must have just come from his garden. He spent time daily tilling his vegetables and other plants, and as a result was thinner and healthier in color than when she met him the previous autumn. But his face was still sour and pinched, and his look heavy. He seemed rather older than Charlotte although he was a few years younger than his wife who was now twenty-eight. Elizabeth could never see him without being glad she had rejected his marriage proposal.

Entering the room, he burst out without preamble, "Cousin, you cannot be considering this. Please tell me you would not turn a mother's loss into an opportunity for to grasp undeserved advantage. It is unthinkable!"

Charlotte asked, "Husband, what are saying? What on earth could you possibly mean?"

"You have not told her," the parson said to Elizabeth, his words an accusation.

Deeply aggravated by his manner, she wondered if the reason for his sweaty face was that he had run all the way from Rosings to carry tales. "I have not the pleasure of understanding you, sir."

Her iciness made him take a deep breath and attempt to express himself more deliberately. "I have just heard the alarming news. My honorable patroness told me of her offer to you and wants me to lend my persuasion. But you must not do this! It would be unseemly for you to take advantage of Lady Catherine when she cannot know what she is asking. She is not being herself."

Elizabeth bit down a smirk at how clear and direct he was compared to his customary convolution. Apparently, he had been scared into straight speaking by the very idea of her owning Rosings. "I am surprised to find you disagree with her on any matter. I take it then that you advise me to reject your patroness's offer?"

"Certainly I do on this! You know it would be wrong to put yourself in such a place, that is --You would -- I mean, this is not -- uh --"

"What exactly did Lady Catherine tell you?" Elizabeth asked, one eyebrow rising quizzically about the other.

"She says she wishes to make you her heir, to have you of all people to preside over Rosings Park when she passes. What a slight to her nephews and the rest of her noble relatives. It must not be, it shall not be! Such a breach of position and propriety could not be endured."

"So, all she told you is that she wishes me to become her heir?"

"And, to live with her in the meantime as her daughter! To take the de Bourgh name. If you were sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in which you have been brought up. Certainly, you would not be accepted by her family and her connections. They would no doubt see this as polluting the shades of Rosings. There would be no happiness for you in this!"

"You think the reaction would be that much against me, Cousin? Thank you. Your counsel is most welcome."

He eyed her suspiciously as if he thought she might be indulging in sarcasm. But, Elizabeth looked back at him with seeming innocuousness. Warily, Mr. Collins muttered, "Well, good. I am glad to hear it."

Elizabeth nodded politely and said, "Of course."

Again, he eyed her closely as if wondering what she really meant but her face gave nothing away. Looking even unhappier than when he entered, he bowed and left the women to themselves.

Charlotte, her eyes wide with curiosity, started to speak. Elizabeth raised a finger for silence and rose. She went to the door and opened it slowly. They heard the unmistakable sound of feet as someone decamped. Elizabeth peeked out before closing the door.

She stood with her ear against it listening in case someone might return. At the same time, she quickly explained in a low hushed voice the real point of Lady Catherine's offer, namely, an inducement to have Darcy marry her so that Elizabeth could make then him unhappy in their union. Charlotte's mouth fell open and her eyes widened even further.

"Scandalous that she would ask such a thing of you," she said. Then, she added as if it was the only choice, "But you must accept."

Elizabeth blinked. She opened the door once again to make sure the hallway was empty before crossing the room back to her seat and teasing, "Charlotte, do you realize what you are saying? I am sure that if your husband knew the whole truth, he would call the agreement his esteemed patroness seeks a devil's bargain. With me as the devil, of course. I am sure he would advise me not to endanger the lady's soul."

"Eliza, be serious."

Elizabeth knew she and Charlotte tended to think differently on some matters, but her friend's calm assurance on this point was a surprise. "My dear Charlotte, tempting as it is, I believe accepting would bring me, as well as others, more misery than joy -- really, I am not jesting when I say that. Although I do not usually agree with your husband -- forgive me, I mean no offense --"

Charlotte waved her hand dismissively and Elizabeth continued, "I think he does have the right of it regarding this situation. Lady Catherine would regret what she is offering . . ."

"You know my husband does not mean well when he insists you refuse. He is thinking of himself and how he might fare with you in power over him as heir to Rosings."

"Then, you would have me marry Mr. Darcy as Lady Catherine wishes?"

Charlotte rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Lady Catherine knows that all she can offer is Rosings Park, and all that you can do is to accept it. Neither of you can command how Mr. Darcy will behave. No court could enforce any request she might make of you in regards to marrying him. I daresay, even she would never be bold enough to put into writing a demand that you purposely ignore your marriage duties."

"Charlotte, Lady Catherine wants her nephew to be miserable. How could I ever promise her satisfaction on such a point?"

"Of course, you cannot. That is my point. No one could guarantee that and there is no way under the law that she could enforce the demand. Perhaps Lady Catherine would be vexed if your marriage to Mr. Darcy does not become exactly what she wants, but what can she do about it then? My advice to you is to draw up the agreement for Rosings Park tightly as possible -- your uncle the solicitor can no doubt prove helpful in this."

"I think whether written explicitly or not, Lady Catherine would insist that I marry Darcy. I would live under a constant threat that she would disinherit me unless I did what she wanted."

"That is why I say write in safeguards to make it as hard as possible for her to renege once she has made you her heir. With thought and foresight, it can be done, I am certain! Certainly, you should try." The usually mild and circumspect Charlotte was enthusiastic in her argument. She urged, "For her benefit, you could make a good show of trying of trying to win him. As long as she believed there was a chance you would marry Darcy, she would not be eager to change the agreement."

Charlotte chose to ignore the shocked expression on her friend's face and continued further, "And, what if you were to marry Mr. Darcy? Would even that be so bad? An intelligent woman can find room to manage things. Although a wife is legally the property of her husband, a woman who uses her wits is never defenseless. You understand my meaning?"

Rather than observing that Mr. Darcy would likely prove more difficult to manage than Mr. Collins, Elizabeth contented herself with a short reply that she hoped would end the conversation. "Mr. Darcy has already let me know he does not want me for a wife."

"I believe Lady Catherine has the right of it that if you were the heiress of Rosings Park, you could persuade him otherwise."

Elizabeth's lips involuntarily twitched upward slightly in a lop-sided smile. "I feel it is almost certain I could make Mr. Darcy unhappy." She dwelled for a minute on the prospect, imagining what she might do, and not do, to a man she did not like all.

Then she added more seriously, "Even if I were willing to play Lady Catherine's hideous game, I do not believe his pride would ever allow him to offer marriage to a woman he thought to make his mistress. Indeed, he thought that one as lowly as I should have seen being his mistress as a great honor!"

"Then do not marry him but do take Rosings! Forgive me for speaking bluntly, Eliza. But I recall you saying with great bitterness and sadness that Mr. Darcy's insulting proposal had given you an education. Have you truly learned anything, my dear friend? Imagine, if the worst should happen when Mr. Bennet is no longer with us. At whose mercy might you find yourself? Think of the men who might become your employers. Would they be so different, so much better than Mr. Darcy?" Charlotte paused to give her words time to sink in.

"I do not say that you and your sisters will have to work because in truth I do believe other recourse more befitting gentlewomen will present itself -- but, merely for the sake of argument, let us say no better choices arise. If you were forced to work, perhaps as a governess or a companion, do you think you would not then regret being too proud to accept Lady Catherine's offer?"

"I do not refuse out of pride."

"Ah, so then you refuse her out of prejudice? You would rather not associate with one such as she? I know she can be unpleasant. But, Eliza, your rejecting Mr. Collins was different from this because you felt, and I think rightly, that you still had time for a better offer. This is too good an offer to reject, even for a woman as young and pretty as you. I beg you, as your friend, take this! It is Providence to be given such an extraordinary opportunity."

A knock provided a fortunate interruption to the sharp disagreement. Charlotte bid entry to a maid who announced Colonel Fitzwilliam. He greeted the ladies in a most civil manner but could not hide that he was distracted and impatient. He refused an offer of refreshments and remained standing. "Miss Elizabeth, I realize this is rather irregular but my aunt has requested that you come to speak with her. She charged me to fetch you personally you rather than send a servant. May I trouble you to accompany me, please? I have a carriage outside."

Elizabeth's eyebrows rose in unison. The thought occurred that Lady Catherine meant to renew her offer with a different nephew attached to it. Although the lady had declared in anger that she trusted neither of the men, her real dispute was with Darcy. She might have decided the best revenge of all against him would be not merely to lose both Rosings and the woman he would have had made his mistress, but to lose both to one of his family.

As she walked out with the colonel, Elizabeth sought to gain insight from him regarding his aunt's intentions. In a light bantering tone that they had used with each other before, she said, "We once talked about the price of an earl's son. Habits of expense being what they are, I wonder if Rosings Park would be enough to satisfy."

She was taken somewhat aback by the colonel's look of consternation. "Do you offer me something, madam?"
Flustered at his abruptness, Elizabeth replied quickly and honestly, "No, I meant nothing of weight or substance. I do find it curious that after I have rejected your aunt's offer, she now sends you to bring me to her -- is there some particular reason why I am so favored? I have not changed my mind."
"And yet my aunt does seem intent on your becoming her heir."

"Her grief leads her to think less clearly, I must assume. I have known Lady Catherine but a short time but it seems to me she has not been herself since her daughter's tragic and sudden passing."

They had just reached the carriage, but he did not hold out his hand to help her up. His face set rather grimly, he said, "It is true she has been behaving outlandishly even given the dire situation of Anne's unexpected death. Darcy and I are most concerned. We have determined we will protect her despite her protests that she does not need our assistance. You should keep that in mind, Miss Bennet, that she is neither friendless nor alone."

"I am glad to hear it, sir." She had heard something that sounded like a challenge in his words, but she chose to ignore it, thinking he spoke hastily and did not mean it as it sounded.

But he continued, "And I am well aware that engaging manners can cover vicious propensities, though my aunt in her conceit may be blinder in such matters."

This time she could not ignore the insult. She gasped.

His good manners almost reasserting themselves, he said grudgingly, "I apologize for speaking roughly. My years spent training for battle and on the battlefields themselves sometimes take precedent over my training in the gentler phrasings of drawing rooms. But, then again, perhaps this is a time when clarity is a greater virtue: I do question whether it is a coincidence that my aunt has fastened upon you with such intensity.

"An aging and lonely woman who feels she has lost what matters most to her might be more susceptible to certain wiles and flattery than she would usually be. Fortunately for her, there are those about her who will protect her even if she does not know she needs to be protected. She should not be considered easy prey."

"Colonel, I mean no harm to your aunt and I have not sought her notice. How can you think me a danger to her?"

He grinned with an unpleasantly wolfish quality she had never seen in him before. "Let us just say that I was exceedingly disturbed that you chose to bring up the question of the price of an earl's son."

Elizabeth felt her cheeks flush hotly. "You remember we had the discussion once, in jest, of course. But it was you at the time who brought up the subject."

He harrumphed. "Be that as it might, I believe it would surprise and disappoint Darcy that you choose now to revisit your curiosity about such a thing."

She felt an end to any friendship she had once seen in the colonel. He stared at her as coldly as Darcy ever had, and she thought the ability to freeze hot tea with a glance must run in the family. His scornful glare raised her ire almost as much as Darcy's arrogant proposal had.

She said resentfully, "I mean to reject the offer from your aunt. I was most certainly not making an offer of any kind to you. However, am I correct that you think I should feel some sense of obligation for the proposal your cousin made?"

"Indeed, madam, I do."

"I should feel grateful for an insulting offer that I become his mistress?"

The colonel hesitated for the slightest instant. "My cousin can speak for himself, but I hardly believe any offer he made could have been intended as an insult. I am sure he meant to be fair to you."

"I assure you, sir, it was not an offer I was happy to receive or was flattered by." Realizing her voice had risen, she made an effort to speak more calmly. "This is a fine day, sir. Thank you for your offer of a ride in your carriage, but I will walk to Rosings to see your aunt."

He hawed dismissively as if she could not be serious about walking. Far more calmly than she felt, Elizabeth said, "The less I have to do with you and your cousin, the better. That is what I shall tell your aunt to finish this business."

"So you will tell her no to taking Rosings Park?" He looked as if he did not believe her.

"I have already turned her down and I will again! Her tempting offer comes with far too much grief."

"So you say but the offer does tempt you? Please understand this should you think to strike some deal with my aunt: My price as an earl's second son would always be too high for some no matter what inducement they might offer. Do not think I would ever betray my cousin for you or that you can set us against each other. Engaging though your manners are, lovely though your face, I fear ugliness lies beneath. I shall also make sure to acquaint Darcy with my concerns."

Many angry retorts rose to her lips, in fact so many that none could force its way out. She reminded herself that as well as general decency in responding to a grieving mother, she needed to pay her respects to Lady Catherine for Charlotte's sake. Elizabeth did not want to give the grande dame reason to take anger out on the ridiculous parson and his worthy wife.

After this final conversation, Elizabeth thought to leave for Longbourn as soon as possible. She would hope to never see the lady or any other members of this wretched family for the rest of her days. As she made her plans, walking with her head held rigid and her chin up, the colonel passed her in the carriage.

Led by a servant down a long hallway in Rosings, Elizabeth heard the colonel in loud and heated conversation with Lady Catherine.

"Aunt, you cannot be serious," he was saying. "You cannot put your legacy in this -- this woman's hands. What can you mean by it? You will make yourself an outcast in the family with this rash, senseless act."

"The family, you say? I will have you know that Rosings Park does not belong to either the Fitzwilliams or the Darcys. It is mine to do with as I wish! Even the de Bourghs do not challenge me on that point so what right have you, nephew? Family, indeed! Where were you when I sought the family's help in making Darcy do his duty?"

"No one could have foreseen that Anne. . . But Darcy and I are trying to take care of you now! We have only your best interests at heart--especially since you seem intent upon putting the future of your estate into the hands of some mercenary chit!" the colonel responded hotly.

Almost simultaneously, the voices of Lady Catherine and Darcy rose thunderously in protest against the colonel: "Rude and uncalled for…" "Do not speak of her. . ." Elizabeth stopped involuntarily and was on the verge of turning around to run away.

But Darcy's head appeared looking around the corner of the door. He seemed disturbed -- could that be an apologetic expression on his face? -- no, Elizabeth decided it was more likely chagrin that an outsider was privy to the family argument.

"Miss Bennet, we are happy that you are joining us," he said formally. He waved away the servant who was guiding her.

"I seem to have come at an inconvenient time, sir."

"No, not at all. Please," he said, his deep voice gentle with a noticeable effort to please. She concluded that the prospect of her being an heiress had warmed his demeanor toward her. Now who was being mercenary?

Lady Catherine joined him at the door. Elizabeth noticed that the lady looked speculatively from her nephew to her. "Miss Bennet, my thanks for accepting my invitation."

Elizabeth curtseyed and followed the two into the room. The colonel stood inside smoldering resentfully.

"Miss Bennet, you can be at no loss as to why I have called you here," Lady Catherine intoned. "I shall send my nephews away so that we can speak privately and settle this."

"They may stay, as far I am concerned. This will not take long. I have already said no and do not intend . . ."

Imperiously, the lady interrupted, "Please do not go on in that fashion. Of course, you will accept. I saw when I made my offer that you wished to accept right then, and I have waited only to give you time to bow to what you must know is your duty, not to mention your best interests. Let us cease this needless delay, Miss Bennet -- or shall I speak to you as I would my daughter, and call you Elizabeth?"

"I hardly think it is my duty, ma'am. I admit your offer is attractive. But I believe you will change your mind once you have come to better terms with your grief. I cannot believe that making me your heir is what you truly want."

Even as she spoke, Elizabeth worried that her words might be too soft. She feared giving the impression that she could be swayed or that she was merely bargaining, planning to give in eventually. She wished that she could share the truth with Lady Catherine's nephews in order to gain their support in checking their kinswoman. If their aunt were truly looking for a daughter to fill an empty spot in her life, they would be justified in wanting to protect her. But if they knew their aunt's purpose was to fashion a weapon, would they see that perhaps others needed to be protected from Lady Catherine?

Darcy's voice intruded upon Elizabeth's thoughts. "You should accept my aunt's offer," he said. "And mine." With that, he dropped to his knees. Before Elizabeth could even think the words, "What is the meaning of this?" he grasped her hand.

"Miss Bennet, please forgive my impropriety in speaking of such a private matter in front of others. But my aunt and cousin will understand, I believe, because they know my wishes. I hope they will soon be your relatives, too. I can repress my feelings no longer."

"Sir!" she exclaimed and tried to detach her hand from his but he held on tightly.

His face was calm with no heightening of his color. He spoke as a man determined rather than, as he had been during his infamous proposal that she be his mistress, a man impassioned. She thought his deliberateness an odd contrast to the extremeness of his behavior.

"I put myself and my fortune at your service. It is my hope you will marry me when the appropriate mourning period for my cousin has passed."

Elizabeth looked in disbelief from his face to the others in the room. Lady Catherine's expression was satisfied and expectant while the colonel's shake of his head registered disapproval and resignation.

Chapter 6, Part 1

Posted on 2011-12-28

Lady Catherine, Darcy and the colonel waited for Elizabeth's reply to Darcy's marriage proposal. When she was silent, Lady Catherine showed delicacy. "You should be alone. What woman wants an audience when she accepts a man's proposal?"

She lifted her brows meaningfully. "Miss Bennet -- Elizabeth -- I am as delighted with my nephew's offer as I know you are. Soon you will be not just my niece but my daughter. This was always meant to be. I know you will do your duty."

The dowager rather forcibly took the arm of her other nephew. Being led away, the colonel cautioned his cousin, "Darcy, be sure you know what you're doing."

As soon as the door closed, Darcy rose abruptly from his knees. Startled, Elizabeth took a step backwards. Unlike the intense stare of disapproval he often fixed upon her, he now regarded her with a distant and slightly irritated expression. Despite not wanting his proposals, she was stung by the total absence of wooing. Arrogant man!

He asked, "May I assume that you are not going to accept this offer from me either?"

She replied with cold detachment befitting the offer. "Indeed, sir, you are correct. I will not be your wife." Saying those words gave her such satisfaction that she added, "Never."

She saw with pleasure that he momentarily closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.

"Yes, well, I am truly sorry to impose upon you a second time in so few days. You may be assured I will never ask again."

While her best instincts told her to leave it at that, to turn and go without another word, his manner roused fresh resentment. One would think he had been put upon. She asked archly, "Which should I expect, sir: that you will never favor me with another proposal to be your mistress or to be your wife?"

First he looked even more irritated, and then a complex play of thoughts flitted quickly across his face. In the end, only sadness -- or weariness -- remained. As so often with him, she could not be sure what he felt.

"Miss Bennet, when I proposed to you a formal relationship as my mistress, you laid several offenses to my charge. I do not expect to ever be acquitted of them. You expressed it well that I never had your good opinion. I apologize for offending you. More fool I, for supposing admiration and even slight affection where there was not a bit." In an apparent effort to conclude their meeting, he said, "There is no point in dwelling on wishes that for the happiness of both of us cannot be too soon forgot."

Incensed further by what seemed the poorest of apologies -- if, indeed, it was meant to be an apology -- she struggled to maintain her composure and reply calmly. "You speak as if I have somehow wounded you, sir? May I remind you that you insulted me, a gentleman's daughter, by asking me to be your mistress."

"I did not think that offering you my love and devotion would be an insult." He bowed his head in a gesture that she could not tell was ironic or sincere. "I meant no disrespect. You may recall that I promised you a generous settlement. Indeed, you could have had anything that was within my power to give. Now I understand that nothing I have would have been enough. Had I known you despised me, I would never have imposed upon your time."

"At the same time you asked me to be your mistress--" She laid special emphasis on the last word -- "you also meant to arrange for a wife. Do you not realize, sir, that this was an insult to both your cousin and to me?"

Seeing how his eyes widened at her allusion to Anne, Elizabeth surmised he did not know she had heard about the marriage proposal.

He replied with obvious unhappiness, "I suppose I should have expected that my aunt would have disclosed that to you. I would have --" He shook his head. "Yes, I did ask my cousin to marry me. Yes, you would have been my mistress had you agreed while she would have been my wife. In hindsight, it was a bad idea, and I deeply regret it. Again, I apologize to you."

"Unfortunately, there are acts for which there can be no apology."

"Of course, you would not accept my apology." He raised his hand to halt her reply. "It is no matter."

She insisted upon speaking anyway. "I suppose I should thank you for the compliment of your offer to be your mistress. After all, you meant to kindly supply me with all manner of worldly goods. But I must say, I find it is a strange definition of love that would make a woman your partner in sin. While I could not, or rather, would not accept that honor, I cannot help but wonder, what persuades you now in elevating your offer to me further, to wife: Did my poor connections and badly behaved family suddenly change because I would come with Rosings Park around my neck -- or, better yet, in my hand, to give to you as I and it become your property in marriage?"

There! There was the set-down she had wished to deliver. Even her father at his vinegar-tongued best could not have done better.

Amazingly to her, Darcy merely smiled as if she had missed something. He waited a moment and then spoke as if declaring the obvious, "Miss Bennet, if I had wanted Rosings Park, I could have taken it years ago by marrying my cousin."

She riposted, "Yes, but you had waited too long. When you made up your mind, it was too late."

That made him cringe. "You cannot seriously believe I am moved by a desire for money or property. I cared deeply for my cousin, and I did not expect. . . no one could have expected . . . " He paused and for the first time seemed showed real feeling as he continued, "With my cousin dead, it is useless to speak of certain things."

The man who had once said disguise of every sort was his abhorrence seemed to wrestle with himself. "I will tell you this: my aunt for years sought to have me marry Anne. How shocked I was, with my cousin's funeral barely over, to hear my aunt insisting that I marry you." He seemed to choke on the words as if he could still not believe it.

Elizabeth, momentarily taken aback, would not let him lay the blame for his behaviour at this aunt's feet. "I agree, shocking on her part. But I am more shocked that you would do your aunt's bidding in this. It is just as I said. You want Rosings and it does not matter which heiress is attached to it. Truly, sir, for shame!"

He shook his head incredulously. "I really do not deserve your censure. I believe you of all people should understand this. I did my aunt's bidding as you call it only because I knew exactly why she pressed so eagerly for me to marry you. I believe you know, too?" He stared down at her. "She is angry, bent upon revenge. Can you deny it, although you have obviously refused to go along with her plan?"

It was Elizabeth's turn to be given pause. Biting her lip, she said, "What are you saying? What did your aunt tell you?"

"She did not have to tell me. Colonel Fitzwilliam and I suspected what she might do when she stormed away from Anne's funeral with you. It became a certainty when she told us she wished to make you heir to Rosings. That very evening, she told me she wanted me to marry you, in order to accomplish the union that she and my mother had always wanted. I knew it was not some innocently sentimental notion."

As he continued, Darcy's face took on the cynically wolfish squint she had seen just earlier in the colonel. "My cousin and I discussed what her intent might be, and we agreed it unlikely that she had replaced Anne in her heart with you. We thought she had a darker goal, namely to exact a penalty of me for my failure to marry Anne. Now tell me if it is true: Did my aunt instruct you to be the most disobliging wife one could possibly be -- in effect, to be a stand-in for my aunt? If propriety would allow, she would marry me herself, in order to make me the unhappiest man in England. If not all of Europe and beyond."

Elizabeth looked downward, refusing to confirm his suspicions. Darcy pressed, "Am I correct? Are you not to be the executioner of my hopes, my gaoler in a miserable marriage?"

Finally she nodded reluctantly. "But if you know that, why did you ask me to marry you? Do you want Rosings so dearly you would be willing to enter marriage with a woman whose goal would be to make you unhappy?"

"By proposing marriage to you, I have done all I can to give my aunt what she wants. As the colonel so colorfully puts it, I have made myself the sacrificial lamb and offered you my throat to cut. I did not think you would -- marry me, that is. Not after the way you refused my first proposal. But my aunt has now seen me ask and she can stop importuning me to do so."

Elizabeth, speechless, did not know which was worse, that Lady Catherine would conceive her twisted plan or that her nephew would be so cool in dissecting it. "You are tricking your aunt? That proposal was for her benefit."

"I prefer to think of it as protecting myself." He turned and walked toward a painting on the wall, which happened to be a foxhunt showing eager hounds in pursuit of their object.

"You may think me cruel for pretending to play into her hands, but I know how she can be. She is a woman of many virtues, but her grief leads her astray in this. My cousin's untimely death has brought out the worst in her. No one can be more single-minded or painfully tenacious than my aunt. I am sorry to put you in the middle, making you the recipient of her entreaties that you accept my proposal--and believe me, she will insist that you do."

Feeling suddenly light-headed, Elizabeth could not immediately reply. She recalled wishing Lady Catherine's nephews would surmise their aunt's true goal. It seemed they had. She sought a chair.

He turned from the painting and back to her. "I assure you, I would not have tried to direct her attention to you away from me if I thought for even a moment you would be in any danger from her. It is I she wishes to hurt, not you -- although her anger probably does blind her to the consideration that an unhappy marriage would be no picnic for you either. I suppose there are women who could make such an arrangement work. Forgive me if I presume too much when I say I do not think you are such a woman."

She wondered if he meant to suggest she was inadequate in some way but decided not to ponder his meaning. She asked, "Why this charade? Why not just tell your aunt you know what she is trying to do?"

"She would only try something else, almost surely even more desperate than this. This scheme both allows her the pleasure of imagining my marital agony and gives her a way to bring it about. The worst she will do to anyone in this scheme is to shower you with gifts. She is obviously willing to stop at nothing to persuade you. We understood that the moment she said she would make you heir to Rosings. If I trusted your integrity less, and I trust you completely, I would be afraid of your taking her offer."

Seeing that she was somewhat shaken, he brought her a glass of wine. She took it and explained that she had exerted herself more than she realized in walking from the parsonage to Rosings. She did not want him to think she was at all affected by learning his marriage proposal was merely a sop for Lady Catherine.

Chapter 6, Part 2

Posted on 2011-12-29

"My aunt can be formidable, even with members of her family. Please believe me, I had already told her several times that you would not agree to marry me. But she refused to accept it. She thought you should be eager because I have so much to offer, according to her way of thinking. So, you see, I had no choice but to propose in front of her."

"I am surprised that she would think I am good enough for her nephew."

"Oh, she doesn't," he said. Elizabeth looked at him sharply. "Honestly, were it not for her plan, I'm sure my aunt would be horrified at the notion that I would marry you."

"Then why is she insisting upon me? I am sure there must be hundreds, thousands of women in the country who your aunt would see as beneath your family. Why not groom one of them to be your partner in your matrimonial misery?"

He hesitated. Looking at a spot just above her head, he replied, "I think she does not want to take the risk of searching for someone else who could tempt me. I think she believes that persuading you is more promising than the likelihood finding a different woman who would, ah, suit." He looked downward.

Of all the pretty women in the world, how hard could it be to find someone he would be just as happy to have as his mistress? It occurred to her he must indeed be fastidious about his diversions if finding a woman to his liking was considered such an impossible chore. The thought sparkled mirthfully in her eyes as she recalled he had once declared her not enough to tempt him.

He commented with obvious discomfort, "You look amused. Did I miss something?" She shook her head, refusing to share.

"As I was saying, my aunt believes you would be the best candidate, and she has been insisting that I ask. This morning I awakened at dawn to see her standing over me, waiting to harangue me further. Most unnerving."

"I would think you would protest, sir," Elizabeth said. "How can you allow her to behave with such rudeness?"

"Habits of childhood, I suppose," he replied. In a softer voice than she was used to hearing from him, he continued, "She is my aunt--and my last tie to my mother. I am exceedingly fond of her despite our current predicament. I have every hope that given time, her better self will emerge, and she will remember that she loves me more than she hates me." Elizabeth was silent as she thought of how often she held her tongue in the face of Mrs. Bennet's more unpleasant breaches of conduct. It was to some extent a matter of breeding and manners, but it went beyond that. No matter the provocation, she also knew there were things she would never say or do to her mother.

He mumbled, "Also, this is a particularly difficult time for her. My cousin Anne." He was silent for a moment as he seemed to fight the descent of a heavier mood. Against her will, Elizabeth again felt sympathy, as she had in recognizing common cause in loving troublesome relatives.

With an effort to speak more briskly, Darcy continued, "Having watched you in conversation with my aunt, I have every confidence you will be able to manage her. My faith on that point is also why I am letting her believe her scheme will work."

Although she was beginning to feel that protest was futile, she said anyway, "I have no desire to manage her or to be showered with bribes to do something I know I will not do. I am no fortune hunter."

"How my aunt wishes to spend her money is her affair. She can be overpowering when she has made up her mind so do not blame yourself if you accept more than you plan," he said with a shrug. "As a man whose offers you have twice rejected, I can affirm that you are no fortune hunter."

"I will continue to tell her that I will not marry you. She will have to give up."

"Good luck with that," he said cheerfully.

"I suppose that by telling me you know what her plan is, you mean to warn me against accepting her offer of Rosings? Colonel Fitzwilliam also warned me. Rather fiercely, in fact."

He shrugged and looked away. "I was never worried about your accepting Rosings. As for my cousin, he is co-guardian with me of my younger sister, and we are both aware of the need to protect her from various dangers. In this case, my cousin may be transferring some of that protectiveness to me -- for all that I am only a few years younger than he."

"You in danger from me!" Elizabeth said with a barely audible harrumph. "With this marriage proposal, you make me into a ball of yarn and give me to her to your aunt play with. Perhaps you mean to be kind but I think it is cruel to your aunt to let her think for a moment that you would marry me."

Darcy looked at her and held her gaze until she conceded, "Though I do admit her plan for you also has elements of cruelty." He responded with a short snort of agreement. But she had more to add. "It is hardly the behaviour for which one would wish from any member your family, especially one so close."

He frowned. "I suppose you mean to suggest that my aunt's offenses to me are worst than the ones I laid at the door of your family."

She did not reply. He broke the silence between them after a minute. "If you wish to leave Rosings as soon as possible, I will lend you my coach. I should warn you that my aunt will probably barrage you with letters, and she may -- she will likely visit you."

He paused. "Now that I have told you everything, there is something else I would like to do, if you will allow it." With a frown, he continued slowly, "May I offer to have you call upon me if you need my help with her? If she becomes too tedious, let me know and I will do whatever I can to be at your service."

He took her surprise for assent and quickly proceeded to write the directions to send mail. She could contact him secretly through his housekeeper Mrs. Reynolds, whom he called the soul of discretion.

Although Elizabeth nodded civilly to his offer, she told herself as she took the slip of paper that she would never use it.

Becoming positively chatty now that he had shared that he knew his aunt's intention, he continued, "I admit to being happy she will now turn her attention away from me and to you. She would probably have set up residence with me until I did as she asked. I would not have minded her staying with me but was not looking forward to hearing the same thing again and again. She never listened when I spent years -- " He cut himself off, and Elizabeth suspected he had been about to make a comment regarding his cousin Anne.

"Anyway, never hesitate to write to me -- really, about anything. It will be our secret, and there will be no danger to your reputation. I feel responsible for pulling you into this. Putting myself at your service is the least I can do."

He seemed to weigh saying more. Finally he disclosed, "Colonel Fitzwilliam thought it would be a tactical error to let you know that we understand our aunt's purpose, but I am glad I did not take his advice. While I do believe you could handle my aunt without knowing what I have told you, I also feel more comfortable being completely open with you."

He smiled. Elizabeth felt herself flushing and thought he might he see it as pleasure at being taken into his confidence. But she knew what she felt was resentment. How could she feel anything but resentment after he had admitted to making her a decoy to elude his aunt? Insufferable man.

She looked down at her hands, off to the side, anywhere to avoid looking directly at him as he continued. He spoke as if having an easy conversation with a friend. "Also, perhaps you should know that Colonel Fitzwilliam fears you will take every opportunity to fleece our aunt, and I think our other relatives may also be concerned when they learn that she has made you her special project. Especially when they hear that she has offered you Rosings. None of them will probably become a problem for you, but if I am wrong, please ask for my help in that case, too."

He paused as if again pondering whether to say more. Wishing to escape him, she rose to leave. But he stopped her, putting his hand upon her forearm. She looked down at it, rolling her eyes but forbearing from the rudeness of pulling away. Thankfully, he realized the impropriety of touching her thus and removed his hand.

His voice showing embarrassment, he said, "I know you would never agree to what my aunt wants. Please do not fear that I plan to misuse your good will. But may I impose upon you to allow me to share just one other thing? You said I am the last man in the world with whom you would ever consort in any way. That statement greatly disturbed me."

She looked up at him for the first time since he had smiled. She was relieved to see that his face was again serious. She preferred the more familiar taciturnity to the amiability he was beginning to exhibit with his smiles and crinkled eyes.

"Miss Bennet, I hesitated to speak to you about this because I did not want to offend you yet again. I needed time to think about how to say it, and I still may not put this diplomatically enough. But I think we have reached some understanding of each other in the past few minutes. Perhaps you will never see me as a friend, but you do trust my character to some extent?"

She again flushed warmly, this time because of the thoughts regarding his unpleasant nature that had only just then been flitting through her mind. But she also realized to her surprise that the answer to his question was yes, she did trust him a little. Perhaps it was the least she could do in return for his trusting in her character enough not to take advantage of his grieving aunt.

Elizabeth nodded, and Darcy, with a penetrating stare, continued, "I do not know what feelings you may have for George Wickham. I was distressed to hear you suggest that you believe I have mistreated him in some way. I will not burden you with the entire history of my dealings with that man, but I will ask you to be careful. You would not be the first sensible person whom he has fooled or the first honorable person he has disappointed. In saying this, am I trampling any tender hopes?"

She dearly wished to ask for particulars about Wickham but did not want Darcy to assume any closer ties than he already had with his insistence that she take the directions for writing to him. She disliked the notion of sharing confidences with him. With a pang she remembered sharing confidences with Wickham. But that was different. Wickham had never offered her any dishonorable proposals.

Hardly feeling that Darcy was someone to whom she owed total frankness, she replied nonchalantly, "The gentleman is an acquaintance. I do feel sympathy for his plight, I admit. He spoke of an inheritance from your father that eventually fell to other hands."

Darcy shook his head in repugnance and muttered something indistinct about Wickham and gentlemen. Raising his voice, he explained that Wickham had been his father's godson, well-liked both because of his own charming personality and the senior Wickham's valuable service to the Darcy family. The senior Mr. Darcy paid for the junior Wickham's education at Cambridge and bequeathed him one thousand pounds.

A valuable family living was also to have been young Wickham's. Elizabeth, trying to be casual, asked, "But he did not receive it?" Here might be evidence of Darcy's duplicity. Wickham had not received his due. Would Darcy admit it or try to somehow excuse himself?

"No, in lieu of the living he requested a sum to study for the law. I agreed because I thought he might be better suited for that than the clergy."

Elizabeth controlled her urge to ask why. She also wondered how little an amount the skinflint junior Darcy had given poor Wickham to minimally meet the senior Darcy's promise.

"I gave him three thousand pounds -- "

Before she could catch herself, Elizabeth gasped. "So much?"

"In return, he signed a paper releasing all claim to the living. I felt it was money well-spent."

"But he did not become a lawyer?"

"No." Elizabeth waited for him to explain.

Darcy sighed heavily and seemed to measure each word carefully, "I cannot be sure what he did with the money, but he did not spend it to become a lawyer. You should know as an indication of his character that he has run up debts in the past which have been acquitted from Pemberley's funds. I believe women find him attractive, but I can only hope that you will be careful." He was looking at her with rather fiercely knitted brows, and she thought he really did look worried. She felt a shudder of the confusion that being in his presence could sometimes engender. She politely thanked him for the information.

"You will remember and take it to heart?"

"I have said I would. Again, thank you, sir."

"Good. Thank you."

For Elizabeth, the day could not come soon enough to quit Kent for London. But before she could seek sanctuary in the unconditional regard of her sister Jane, she faced, in separate attacks, Charlotte and Lady Catherine. Each attempted to acquaint her with her best interests. She listened placidly to both but gave neither much satisfaction.

However, she did find satisfaction for herself in mentioning to Darcy that her aunt and uncle lived in Cheapside. She was sure she saw signs of discomfort at a neighborhood so below his standards and hoped he was concerned about his coach venturing there. She knew it was a perfectly respectable area and, actually, the Gardiners lived near, rather than in, Cheapside. She caught herself thinking that it would serve him right if she accepted his marriage proposal and brought him in touch with all manner of connections he would find disagreeable.

Then she remembered he did not really want to marry her. That was why he could be confident amid all the scheming and plotting by his aunt. Looking out at his fine, proud figure as the carriage moved away, she thought, with some small measure of wistfulness, of Lady Catherine's eventual disappointment.

Chapter 7

Posted on 2012-01-08

Elizabeth sank helplessly into the thickly cushioned seat of Mr. Darcy's well-sprung Barouche-Landau. As she had no wish to find pleasure in anything related to the man, the comfort she felt was most inconvenient. She wished she could like his carriage less but it was assuredly one of the best rides she had ever had. The trip to London was far better than the trip from Hertfordshire to Kent had been. Well, she noted philosophically, there are many nice things money can buy. She was not one of them.

She hardly needed to remind herself but she did, that he was the man who had insulted her beauty at a public ball even before he met her. Once introduced and repeatedly thrown together by circumstance, they argued about everything when they spoke and avoided speaking as much as possible. She particularly remembered a day in the library at Netherfield when the rude and condescending Mr. Darcy ignored her completely for half an hour. The two of them finally left the room with no acknowledgement of each other.

She had not one good memory of him. The relationship hit its nadir with his humiliating and baffling request that she become his mistress! She could only wonder who he thought she was. Or, put another way, who did he think he had been ignoring all those weeks in Hertfordshire and later in Kent? Certainly, he had given her no hint of interest--and, most certainly, not that kind of interest. But she had misunderstood him, too. She would never have expected such an improper proposal from him of all men.

She knew him to be proud and disdainful, a man who felt himself far above the easy country company of Meryton and thereabouts. Wickham's story suggested he could be cruel and petty. But she had seen nothing directly in her dealings with him that showed him to be irreligious or immoral until he asked her to be his mistress. She would have expected something like that only from the most disgusting rake. She would never have dreamed that all the time he had been either arguing with her or ignoring her that he was also looking upon her with lust -- what true gentleman would look upon a gentlewoman in such a way? Yes, even a gentlewoman whom he considered below his station in life.

She agreed to use his vehicle for the trip from Kent to London only because paying to ride post or taking a public coach would have been senseless in light of such superior private accommodation. But now as the carriage sped along, she wondered if perhaps she should have refused, quixotic as it would have seemed. She could not wait for the trip in this luxurious carriage to be over. It was hard to resist pounding the splendid seat in frustration at having been put in a position where she could not say no the carriage, and then liking the carriage so much.

She made an effort to turn her attention from her thoughts and to the sad-faced woman who sat across from her. Mrs. Jenkinson was leaving Rosings Park to seek a new position. It had been arranged by Lady Catherine, whose need to be excessively attentive could not be repressed even by grief. Just before Anne's death, Mrs. Rand-Hayes had written to Lady Catherine requesting the name of a sensible widow who might serve as a companion to an aging mother. Packing Mrs. Jenkinson off in the carriage with Elizabeth also served the purpose of providing the appropriate travelling chaperone required by a lady undertaking a trip.

Elizabeth wondered whether the servants at Rosings knew of Lady Catherine's offer to adopt her, and if so, whether the former companion had also heard the news. Mrs. Jenkinson had been rather isolated since the death of her charge. She had always been in something of a social limbo at Rosings, below the parson and his wife but not really a servant. Presently, she had the air of one somewhat stunned as she looked longingly out the windows of the carriage.

Elizabeth assumed it was the shock of Miss de Bourgh's sudden death. "May I offer my condolences for your loss, Mrs. Jenkinson?"

"Yes, I do hate to lose the country. It can't be helped, I understand. I hate the city, but I suppose I will have to stay there now," she said in a whispery, high-pitched voice. She had been so accustomed to speaking in low tones during her service for Anne that even in the spacious carriage with only the two of them, she spoke just barely loudly enough to be heard.

Elizabeth blinked at the woman's surprising reflection and thought that either age or loss of hearing might be the reason for misunderstanding. Rather than restate her sentiment, Elizabeth spoke more loudly as she asked, "If you will pardon my curiosity, may I inquire how long you were with Miss de Bourgh?"

"Since she was twelve. I was brought in to be her governess."

"Ah, and you stayed on to become her companion. How hard this must be for you."

"No, no, it's not hard for me. I knew I would have to leave someday--unless, of course, she had married. Then she might have taken me with her. But, of course, it was very unlikely she would ever marry."

"You must be very sad at her death. Please accept my deepest sympathies," Elizabeth said a little more loudly.

Mrs. Jenkinson frowned in consideration and said after a moment, "It is a mercy that she was finally released. I cannot regret it for myself though it means I lose my place."

Seeing the surprise on Elizabeth's face at the remark, Mrs. Jenkinson explained, "You must understand, she was very unwell. Life was a misery for her. In the last months, her coughing had become more frequent; she brought up blood alarmingly often. Doctor after doctor had been brought in but they could do nothing. Bleeding her did not help. No matter how much she rested, she was always tired and even walking upstairs was an exertion. There were days when she would have to be carried. I would stand by her with laden with handkerchiefs to hide her difficulties when she was in company. She could not control how she would often spit up the most foul-smelling, foul-looking stuff. I think her wish to sit apart in company was sometimes seen as pride, but it was shame. She did not want others to see. And, no matter how often she bathed, she feared that others would catch the scent of her illness, the dear, poor girl. She would never let anyone too close."

"How dreadful. I did not realize how ill she was!"

"Her mission in life was to hide it -- I think she managed to hide the extent of it even from her mother."

"The poor woman. I am sure that only made the illness worst."

"All the governesses before me were let go because she would find fault with them, but the real problem was that learning was such a struggle for her, because of the illness. She simply could not do what others her age could. Also, not everyone has the inclination to, ah, learn. With me, she saw from the first that I was patient and I knew all she wanted was to be quiet. She used to like to have me read novels to her. That was her favorite thing."

Looking embarrassed, she apologized for speaking so freely, explaining, "I am not usually such a chatterbox, but it's been so long since I have really talked to anyone. And you are such a kind young woman. I could see that from the first time you took tea at Rosings and you smiled so sweetly upon Miss Anne. You would not believe the way people sometimes looked at her when they thought her mother was not watching. Or, the things they said about her."

Elizabeth frowned and bit her lip. "You and Miss de Bourgh must have been close friends, after having been together so many years, and it must be hard t lose her. I can tell you cared a great deal about her."

"Oh, no we were not--friends. The distinction of rank, you know. Her condescension never extended to offering friendship. I would not have expected it because of her rank as Lady Catherine's daughter and the granddaughter of an Earl." Mrs. Jenkinson seemed to have momentarily forgotten she was speaking with a gentlewoman who might be offended by an implied comparison, but she remembered herself. "Again, forgive me. I am probably talking so much now because I had so little opportunity over the last nearly twenty years. I am out of practice. Please forgive an old woman if I say something foolish, Miss Bennet."

Smiling sympathetically, Elizabeth assured the woman no offense had been taken. Indeed, Mrs. Jenkinson voiced the same sentiment she had heard more than once from her own cousin, Mr. Collins. Probably both the parson and Mrs. Jenkinson had heard it directly from Lady Catherine. Elizabeth also respected rank and understood the place it held in their society. But an image of Anne de Bourgh and her companion spending hours together, never talking intimately, "preserving the distinction of rank," made her pity both women.

Instead of rebuking the former companion for speaking too freely to one she should see as a superior, Elizabeth drew upon the familiarity created by the conversation to inquire, "Did you know Mr. Darcy had asked Miss de Bourgh to marry him just before she died? I suppose her sudden passing was saddest of all for him?" In her continuing anger at Darcy, Elizabeth longed to hear his character abused. She suspected he had treated Anne poorly and that Mrs. Jenkinson would have tales to tell.

The elderly woman shook her head incredulously. "Really? I never thought he would agree to marry her. How sad that once he agreed, she died." The woman shook her head again.

"You seem to suggest that he had been refusing her for a long time." Mrs. Jenkinson looked away from Elizabeth. "We need not speak of it if makes you uncomfortable. Excuse my curiosity."

"I do not mind speaking of it now as long as you agree not to say anything to Lady Catherine. Even with Miss Anne gone, I would not want to break her confidence and she would not want her mother to know that she agreed years ago not to marry Mr. Darcy."

Elizabeth assured her confidence. Mrs. Jenkinson smiled trustingly as she unburdened herself of the secret she had carried for years. "I overheard them speaking of marriage when they were both barely of age. She reminded him her mother wished it, but he said he did not believe she should be any man's wife until her health was better. I recall how she wept at that! It nearly breaks my heart now even to think of it."

Elizabeth agreed. How like the Darcy to be cold and methodical. She could understand his not wanting to marry an ailing woman, but how bluntly he had put it, to directly refer to the poor health she could not control. How rejected his cousin must have felt.

Mrs. Jenkinson continued, "He made her what I thought was an extraordinary promise. He told her that if ever she felt she could not live at Rosings, he would marry her--if she absolutely demanded it, were his exact words. That is why I am surprised to hear they were to marry. Do you think she knew she was dying and could not bear to wait longer--so she demanded he marry her?"

"Perhaps he pushed her. Perhaps he thought she was dying and should not wait any longer to make her dowry his."

Mrs. Jenkinson's mouth flew open at that possibility. "Do you think that could be? I remember at the time I heard them talk about marriage, I had the impression he cared for her--not romantic love as in a novel but that she was important to him. His heart seemed to be breaking, too, when he refused to marry her. I felt sorry for each of them. He told her he would marry no one, if he did not marry her. It seemed a hard promise for such a strong, healthy young man to make."

Elizabeth raised both eyebrows and privately considered that strong young men have options that sickly women do not. For him to refrain from marrying was perhaps not such a hard promise for him. But she wondered why he had delayed at all in marrying his cousin, if he knew he would someday. "Did he also ask her not to marry elsewhere?"

"She no other suitors. I don't think Lady Catherine would have allowed any other man to call upon her. She had been to London only a few times in her life but never really participated in a Season. She was not -- well few men might have felt she had much to offer -- in courtship."

On the contrary, Elizabeth thought that Anne would have had a mighty advantage in the London marriage mart. "She had Rosings Park. I think that would have given her an allure of which few women could boast."

Mrs. Jenkinson sighed. "I would have hated to see her marry someone who wanted her for her estate. Her illness made her so fragile, so easily hurt."

"For all of her wealth, I think Miss de Bourgh had a very sad life. Mr. Darcy did not make it easier, leaving her dangling. A promise that he would stay unmarried himself was hardly sufficient comfort, I would think."

"That may be why he began bringing his cousin the colonel with him for his annual visit. I thought he wished to give her another choice. But Miss Anne did not care very much for Colonel Fitzwilliam. I don't think he was as patient with her as Mr. Darcy --" the elderly lady modestly cast her glance downward --"and perhaps not as handsome. After all, ladies may sometimes like beauty just as much as gentlemen do. I don't know if that played any part in Miss Anne's opinion, but I think it was always Mr. Darcy she wanted."

They were silent for awhile and, when they spoke again, they did not discuss anything about Anne's never-to-be marriage and too-soon death. Mrs. Jenkinson seemed happy to talk about anything else, including her own short married life before she became an impoverished widow forced to support herself as a governess and companion. The two women also talked of novels, including Anne de Bourgh's favorite, Cecelia. Elizabeth thought that many-volumed tale was as different from Anne's simple and uneventful life as possible, except perhaps in the ambivalent, less than fairy tale ending.

Had Anne lived, would she have enjoyed being Darcy's wife? Elizabeth could not imagine that any woman would enjoy being married to such a cold man, given to taciturn silences and arrogant speeches. Too bad the poor woman had been too ill to explore the world more broadly in search of male companionship. Elizabeth thought Mr. Darcy was the worst of men.

When they arrived at the Gardiners' home, she insisted that Mrs. Jenkinson come inside for refreshments before continuing her journey. The companion hardly knew what to say at being the subject of such truly kind condescension. After what she had been used to, this seemed a breath away from friendship.

(Additional author's note: By the way, in case your mind runs to the gothic, I should declare at this point that Anne was not murdered. She suffered congenital bronchiectasis [also a possibility for canonAnne]. Even untreated, it might not have killed her. It would have contributed to ever worsening quality of life and poor health. But her illness here was complicated by a brain abscess that physicians/surgeons/pharmacists in that period would have no way of treating. At that time her death would seem a complete mystery and would probably be attributed to her ongoing poor health, which generally speaking, was true.)

Chapter 8

Posted on 2012-01-15

Mrs. Jenkinson enjoyed thirty minutes spent in the easy warmth of the Gardiners' comfortable home at least as much as any period of time she had spent during the last twenty years of her life in the elaborately emphatic richness of Rosings Park. This thought created an uncomfortable conflict in the timid aging widow. To her mind, Mrs. Gardiner, a pretty and elegant woman in her thirties, looked every bit the fine lady as any of the gentry and nobility who had ever visited Rosings Park. But she knew how Lady Catherine would harrumph at such an observation.

Lady Catherine would view the Gardiners' obvious material success with contempt. Mr. Gardiner earned his money in export-import. He was of that new race of scramblers, seizing upon the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the nation's increasingly far-flung empire to enrich their pockets and to step beyond their places. Mrs. Jenkinson could not know that a few centuries earlier the de Bourgh fortune had gotten its start in the related although less reputable activity of smuggling and other various pillaging. That family had long since buried its roots in the purchase of several fine estates. They had also made it their business to align with some of England's oldest families who fortunately had particularly less desirable daughters to dispose of.

Mrs. Jenkinson had heard Lady Catherine speak of people like the Gardiners as parvenue. While they were not petty tradesmen living above the shop, they would not have been considered much better in essentials by the lady. Men like Gardiner were springing up alarmingly from factories and commerce, with hands full of cash and roots in the grit and grime of cities. It was the wrong kind of soil to grow gentlemen, although even gentlemen were more often finding it to their advantage to work with such men.

Despite having learned over the many years to think of Lady Catherine as the authority in all things, Mrs. Jenkinson's beliefs had undergone some revolution since Anne's sudden death. When Mrs.Gardiner looked sympathetic and said, "Mrs. Jenkinson, we are indebted to you for providing our niece such pleasant company on this journey. It has been a pleasure to meet you. I know you have relatives in the city, but please know that my home is open to you," she told herself Lady Catherine need never know.

"Thank you, ma'am, so kind of you. If I can come again to your fine home, I certainly will. You are most gracious to extend your notice."

Elizabeth suggested the two ladies correspond. Mrs. Jenkinson decided at that moment that whatever Lady Catherine might think of such people, she thought they were very good and fine.

After Mrs. Jenkinson left, Mrs. Gardiner shooed her two nieces away. Although she was certain of her status as an adored aunt, she also knew there were things the two girls might share more easily together. She was concerned about the somewhat haunted look that dimmed Elizabeth's eyes and hoped it was merely weariness from travel. She knew her niece would come to her in time if she wished.

She would have felt her intuition well justified had she been able to see the look of relief that came over Elizabeth's face once the two sisters were alone. They had retired to the bedroom Jane had been using and that they would now share.

Elizabeth busied herself with fussing with her hair in front of the mirror and chattered lightly about how it was good to see her sister again. Jane smiled patiently. "Lizzy, I watched you while we took tea with that poor Mrs. Jenkinson. Something is bothering you. Tell me."

Going to sit upon the bed, Elizabeth continued to delay her announcement by asking, "Do you think Mrs. Jenkinson noticed my agitation?"

"No, that lady is too frightened for her own future to have noticed." Jane tilted her head to one side in sympathy. "How hard it must be to suddenly lose the person to whom you have devoted your life for twenty years and to then find you have also lost your home and position as well. It makes other grief and vexations seem piddling." She tried to smile again but it seemed more a nervous grimace.

Elizabeth knew that Charles Bingley, never far from her sister's thoughts, was likely the piddling vexation to which Jane referred. Still delaying addressing her own concerns, Elizabeth said, "I was afraid Mrs. Jenkinson would burst into tears any minute -- and I think she would have been ashamed to cry in front of strangers."

"Do not avoid the subject, Lizzy. What is troubling you? I can see there is something more on your mind than you concern for Mrs. Jenkinson."

"Jane, I hardly know how to tell you." Elizabeth's feelings of shame and anger at being asked to be a man's mistress made her uncharacteristically solemn. With some time having elapsed since Mr. Darcy's proposal, she had begun to doubt herself.

The not-yet twenty-one Elizabeth was worldly enough to be aware that some men sometimes sought mistresses. She had read about scandalous intimacies and vaguely knew of the ways in which people might sometimes behave behind closed doors. While she was without personal experience of such things, she knew how her own feelings could sometimes rise when she was in proximity to certain young men. She knew well what could be allowed and what could not.

As she recalled Mr. Darcy's ardent declaration of love, she wondered how it had ever come into his mind to think she would agree. Had taken her for wiser and more experienced than she truly was? Perhaps her manner had given him the wrong impression. Her mother was always declaring she should not go on in public in the forthright manner her father indulged at home. She had argued with Mr. Darcy on several occasions about books, politics, poetry -- really, everything. They agreed about nothing.

While she disliked him and thought it showed, it occurred to her that her easy country manners might be markedly different from those expected by a gentleman like Mr. Darcy -- though, when she thought of the way she had see Miss Bingley flirt with him, she could not believe she had done as badly. But she also considered that he had seen the manners of her two younger sisters in company. Particularly at the Netherfield Ball, he had witnessed at how Lydia and Kitty flirted outrageously, unchecked by their mother or father. Might Mr. Darcy have thought this was a family trait and the older sisters were merely refraining in public from the lengths that they might go to in private?

She reminded herself that Jane had been everything modest and circumspect in her dealings with Mr. Bingley, indeed, so much so that Charlotte had complained that Mr. Bingley might question whether she was interested at all. But that made her consider that perhaps it was the very restraint that Jane showed, in comparison to the manners of her younger sisters, that made Darcy suspect Jane could not be sincerely taken with his friend.

Her mind still whirling with possibilities, Elizabeth realized she had been sitting silently while Jane peered at her with increasing concern. Screwing up her courage, Elizabeth blurted Mr. Darcy's remarkable proposal in Hunsford Cottage. Jane's hand went involuntarily to her chest and she exhaled a heavy breath of surprise.

"Are you sure that is what he meant?"

"Yes, dear sister. He left no doubt of his intention." Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and attempted to smile sarcastically. "He told me he wanted to buy me things, take me places. He promised to provide security for all of you should we be in difficulty when
Papa -- that is, he knew we would have to leave Longbourn someday."

Jane reacted coldly to this information, her only movement a slight narrowing of her eyes.

It let Elizabeth wondering what her sister must think of her. "Jane, you must believe me, I did not try to inspire such an offer. Though, I admit that as I think on it, I began to worry whether my manners were at fault in some way? Did I bring this upon myself?"

"He did not try to touch you, did he?"

"Oh, no. Not that."

Jane twisted her body on the bed in order to firmly place her hands upon her sister's shoulders. "No one can blame you for this. It is Mr. Darcy who is at fault. Not you. Never you."

Elizabeth, relieved, nodded. She decided at that moment she would not tell her sister of Darcy's second proposal in which he asked to marry her. Nor would she mention his aunt's offer to adopt her. Elizabeth felt both offers were disrespectful at their core and since she had no intention to accept either, she saw no need to confuse the issue. There was also the matter of her having accepted directions to write to Darcy in an emergency. Elizabeth could not foresee doing such a thing and she did not want to unnecessarily distress her sister.

Jane observed, "I would never have expected such a thing of someone Mr. Bingley so highly esteemed."

Elizabeth turned her face away as she considered whether to acquaint her sister with Mr. Darcy's interference there. "Mr. Bingley seemed to depend upon Mr. Darcy a great deal. I think it is likely Mr. Bingley could be influenced by Mr. Darcy rather than the other way around. Poor Mr. Bingley."

"Yes," Jane agreed softly. "For a good man to be so deceived by a friend is sad, indeed."

Frowning, Elizabeth suggested, "Though, perhaps the first person Mr. Darcy deceived was himself. Perhaps he deluded himself that he would be doing our family a favor to offer to support us. When I spoke with him later, after our argument about this, he seemed to understand that I did not appreciate his offers. He seemed honestly concerned about me."

"You cannot be suggesting that he can in any way be justified?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "No, of course not. It's only that -- that he is a man who has lived in the world -- perhaps his understanding of such things is different from ours?"

She thought of the marriage proposal that she had not disclosed to Jane. She would not accept it, of course, but she said aloud, "I wondered what he would have done had I accepted."

The usually mild Jane was outraged. "You would never accept it. Unless -- Lizzy, do you -- do you have any tender feelings for Mr. Darcy?"

"You know I do not! If you could have seen how angry I was at his proposal." But she could now comfortably play devil's advocate in the warmth of her older sister's certainty and outrage.

She was happy that even the ever understanding Jane had found Darcy's request unequivocally unacceptable. It helped ease the doubts she had given him any reason to believe she would agree. She teased, "I am trying to be more Jane-like. You who can always find some good in anyone."

"I find no good in Mr. Darcy! Even if we were destitute, we would not turn to such measures, and I do not believe we would ever be so desperate."

"But he might think or know of women who would see value in his offer. Perhaps even Mama would regret the loss of his ten thousand a year," Elizabeth said. "Charlotte told me I should try to listen to him with a more open mind."

Shocked, Jane asked, "Charlotte advised you to consider becoming Mr. Darcy's mistress?"

"Uh, no, not precisely." Charlotte had urged her to accept Darcy's second proposal, in which he asked her to marry him. But Elizabeth preferred not to clarify the point because marriage to Mr. Darcy was irrevocably tied to Lady Catherine's offer of Rosings Park. "You need have no concern. I never actually considered accepting for a moment."

Jane said, "I should hope not. As for Mama, you know she wants us to make good marriages, not to become -- well, what Mr. Darcy suggested. How dare he!" Jane repeated. "Elizabeth, let us not jest about this. You know our Uncle Gardiner and Uncle Phillips would always stand by us if we were in need."

Elizabeth nodded and Jane continued, "It seems that you were correct all along, Lizzy. While the entire neighborhood believed Mr. Wickham's accounts of cruelty and misdealing, I defended Mr. Darcy. I thought that he could not be so bad as long as he was Mr. Bingley's friend. Poor Mr. Bingley!"

"Jane, you do not know the half of it." Choosing her words as gently as possible, Elizabeth explained how Mr. Darcy had persuaded Mr. Bingley to quit his pursuit. "Although I am no admirer of Miss Bingley or Mrs. Hurst, I think I must acquit them of the greater crime in this. Mr. Darcy told me that Mr. Bingley wanted to marry you but he persuaded him that our family would be too great an obstacle. It would hamper his rise in society."

"What?" Jane said, stunned.

"Mr. Darcy found our family unacceptable." Jane fell silent as Elizabeth continued, "I know Mama can be, well, somewhat high-strung. And, I know how we have both often wished that both she and Papa would do more to check Lydia and Kitty. With the militia in town, their heads have held nothing but meaningless flirtations. Even Mary, with her insistence upon exhibiting her accomplishments, probably did our family's reputation no good. Mr. Darcy felt his friend needed to be protected from them--and--"

"And nothing," Jane snapped. Elizabeth looked at her in surprise.

Jane asked, "You are telling me that Mr. Bingley cared so little for me that he allowed himself to be turned away by his -- his rake of a friend?"

Jane rose from the bed and stalked the room. Her mouth opened and closed several times as she seemed unable to find the words. "To think of the months I have spent in tender memories of Mr. Bingley. To think that he allowed himself to be turned away from me by Mr. Darcy,'' said she. "I alone suggested there might be more to the story when Mr. Wickham warned us what Mr. Darcy is. Poor Mr. Wickham! dear Lizzy, only consider what he must have suffered at the hands of such a man as Mr. Darcy."

"Well, Jane, not necessarily. Perhaps we should not be too hasty --" Elizabeth's words froze in her throat at the look Jane gave him.

"Elizabeth, surely you are not about to say anything in defense of Mr. Darcy, or for that matter, Mr. Bingley?"

Hesitantly, Elizabeth suggested that Mr. Bingley had been misled by his friend. "Jane, I believed Mr. Bingley sincerely valued you. It was Mr. Darcy's fault -- "

"Do not try to re-establish Mr. Bingley's character. It is hopeless. I was willing to think that perhaps he had not liked me as much as I thought he had. I told myself it was my mistake, not his. But to think that he did care for me and could be persuaded out of it--no, that is not Mr. Darcy's fault, whatever his many faults."

Elizabeth's heart sank at the stricken look upon her sister's face. Jane had suffered deeply from thinking Mr. Bingley failed to return her love, but to be unrequited could not be worst than the pain of betrayal evident in her face. It would have been better for her to have gone on fervently valuing his remembrance, and preferring him to every other man. Elizabeth wished she had left her sister in ignorance.

Elizabeth did not know whether she wished to return to Hertfordshire where the familiarity of home might sooth Jane or where it might remind her even more strongly of Mr. Bingley's defection. Also, there was Mrs. Bennet who still harbored hope that Mr. Bingley would return. Elizabeth hated having to bite her tongue should her mother continue to energetically express such ideas.

A welcome distraction arose with a dinner party held by the Gardiners for a number of his closest business associates and their wives. While not as diverting as a ball filled with young men, it was a comfortable affair with opportunities for pleasant conversation. Elizabeth saw how valiantly Jane tried to smile through it. She in turn leaned over several times and whispered, "Stop worrying, Lizzy. I will be fine."

Three of the men who attended were younger and unattached. One looked younger than Elizabeth while a second was balding prematurely and seemed impatient with the party. The third, who arrived latest, was the strapping Devon Raddeley. He immediately attracted their attention with his bold glances in their direction. He did not look quite the gentleman but his inexpertly tied cravat showed he was making a mighty effort.

Although not yet thirty, Raddeley had already accumulated a tidy sum in partnership with the girls' Uncle Gardiner who thought him an exceedingly clever young man. A self-trained tinkerer, he had created a number of processes and minor inventions that gave Mr. Gardiner and his partners an edge in running their warehouses and shipping enterprises. Since migrating to London from the north at eighteen with his even younger wife, Raddeley had done well for himself. He owned a respectable house nearby and was already planning an education for his three young children that would set them on the path to achieve recognition as proper ladies and gentlemen -- and if not them, then certainly their children.

The only shade across Raddeley's brilliant future was cast by the death of his wife, a sweet and simple girl whose father was a well-to-do shopkeeper from a booming market town along the Yorkshire coast. He had given his only daughter a somewhat better dowry than a girl in her position might usually be able to boast, although he complained bitterly when she married so young. She loved Devon too much to wait and her father loved her too much to deny her. As Raddeley became more successful, it occurred to him she might not fit the role of his partner in the life he was making for himself. But he was honestly bereft when she died attempting to give birth to their fourth child left him bereft. He would never have left her but now he needed to fill the empty spot in his life, for his sake as well as his children's, and perhaps to seek a bride better suited to the man he was becoming. Also for the sake of his children, he would never say those words explicitly even in his own mind or in any way disparage their mother.

He saw the Gardiners' two nieces, daughters of a respectable country gentleman, intelligent, well-read and well-spoken, as the sort of women to whom he might now aspire. Their connection to his mentor Mr. Gardiner made them all the more desirable. He watched them across the room as he mustered his courage to approach them. Yes, they were both lovely, but he knew which one he wanted.

Elizabeth noticed his hot, direct gaze first. It reminded her of another man who had a way with staring. She found she did not mind this man, whose eyes seemed more honestly admiring rather than coldly assessing. She nudged her sister and said happily, "Jane, I believe you have found an admirer." Elizabeth thought this was just the thing to momentarily distract her sister. "Uncle said he was very intelligent, remarkably so. Handsome, is he not?"

Jane cast a discreet glance in Raddeley's direction. Smiling truly for the first time that evening, she replied, "Very handsome. But, Elizabeth, I am sure he is looking at you."