Author's Note (DNA): Well, here it is -- the penultimate chapter. Just a closing chapter after this, which I'll probably post right after. Thank you all for coming along on the ride. It's been an absolute joy to know I've provided a little amusement. Thank you also to LizzyS for her proofreading and prodding. I promise not to take seven years before I finish my next story.

Chapter 15

Undaunted by such an entrance as had just been enacted in his study, Mr. Bennet leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach. The silence stretched for a moment as a slow smirk stole across his lips. "I am glad to hear you know who I am," he said. "Under the circumstances, I daresay that at least one of us should."

Two spots of color appeared on the lady's cheeks, and she spluttered furiously. Mr. Bennet took the opportunity of her incoherence to wave off his butler with a flick of his fingers. Mr. Hill hesitated, conflicted, glancing at the open door, and then bowed to his master and melted out of sight. The as-yet-unidentified woman still stood like a statue, every line of her posture radiating her anger. Abruptly she drew her shoulders back and looked down her nose at her nonchalant opponent. "I am not accustomed to such behavior as this! A gentleman rises in the presence of a lady."

"And a lady does not speak to a gentleman to whom she has not been introduced," he retorted.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Do you not know who I am?"

"I have my suspicions, but it has been many years since our first encounter, and time has its way with memories. I recall you being much more genteel."

Her mouth gaped open unattractively for a moment, before she closed it with an audible snap. "How dare you!"

"No, how dare you, Lady Catherine," Mr. Bennet said, the amusement in his voice replaced by steel as he leaned forward in his chair and tapped a finger on his desk. "No one barges her way into a gentleman's residence in such a fashion with impunity, whether they be the widow of a baron, the daughter of an earl, or the private emissary of the king! You shall be civil, or I shall escort you from the grounds of this estate, myself."

The adversaries glared at each other for a long, tense moment, until at last the lady's eyes shifted away, her posture easing slightly as she ceded the battle. But she was not long from the fight, for as she glanced about the room, her attention alit on its other occupant. "I suppose this is one of your daughters," she said.

Mr. Bennet's eye lit with a mischievous spark as he met his daughter's gaze. "Indeed," he said, his mercurial attitude switching abruptly to mirth. "May I present to you my daughter Elizabeth, eldest but one. Elizabeth, this is Lady Catherine de Bourgh, mistress of Rosings Park, Kent."

His daughter, who unlike her father had risen at the elder lady's entrance, properly assayed a graceful curtsey, and was rewarded with a tight nod. "I have heard of you," Lady Catherine said, her lips pursing slightly. "It was you, I believe, that led my parson to his untimely death."

Even with the prior evidence before her, Elizabeth was taken aback at such effrontery. However, she quickly rose to the challenge. "On the contrary, my lady, I had no influence whatsoever on your parson. Mr. Collins had the singular ability to disregard anything he did not wish to hear. If you found him differently, I daresay it was only you who had the power to lead him anywhere."

Lady Catherine frowned severely. "Mr. Collins had a very compliant nature, and respected those above him in consequence. No doubt, as a gentleman's daughter, you found it very easy to draw him in with your arts and allurements. But he was not worthy of the treatment you afforded him."

"Assuredly," Mr. Bennet murmured. "She was much too polite."

"He courted you properly, granting you an opportunity to raise yourself through marriage, and you toyed with him! I think it a vulgar practice of young ladies, to reject the men they secretly mean to accept in order to increase their love by suspense."

"Upon my honor!" Elizabeth said with a laugh. "I should like to meet these young ladies -- and Mr. Collins assured me of it being a practice among elegant ladies -- who find it amusing to trifle with a young man's affections. I regret to tell you, Lady Catherine, that when I reject a man's proposal, I secretly mean exactly what I say aloud. I have no pretensions to either such elegance or vulgarity, whichever it might be."

"I find your assertions difficult to believe, Miss Bennet. You could not be so ignorant or selfish as to reject an offer so beneficial to you and your family. An offer which, given your lack of other inducements to matrimony, was likely to be the best you could hope for." She narrowed her eyes. "Or perhaps you were hoping to extract an offer from the officer with whom Mr. Collins said you were frequently in flirtation, in an attempt to make him jealous. What was his name? Withers? Whitham?" She drew a letter from her reticule and studied it. "Here it is -- Wickham!" she said, stabbing it with her finger. "I ought to have remembered it -- my sister's husband had a steward of the same name at Pemberley. This officer, however, was not even such a respectable specimen of the lower orders, but in fact an utter wastrel, of debauched tongue and manners, and it was in his quest to show you this error that Mr. Collins was set upon and killed. In this very letter he said he was going out that afternoon to meet with this Wickham, and as I understand it, it was on the road from your little village that he was murdered!"

Mr. Bennet sat forward, his attention arrested, and held out his hand. "May I see that letter?"

Lady Catherine hesitated before handing over her correspondence. Mr. Bennet read it through, his lips twitching at several of the passages within, and then set it down on his desk with a satisfied smile. "This is, indeed, very helpful and will serve admirably to demonstrate motive for Mr. Collins' murder, as well as witness to Wickham's presence at Netherfield, should we need it during the trial. Mr. Fletcher will be quite envious of my good fortune in wrapping up a murder so neatly. I understand you are a woman who enjoys being of great use to others, Lady Catherine, and I applaud you on another successful achievement."

That lady, though visibly confused, acknowledged his compliment with a regal nod.

"Now, is that all?" Mr Bennet continued, taking off his spectacles and setting them down beside the letter. "I greatly appreciate your information, but I believe it is quite a distance from here to Kent, and I shouldn't wish you to travel after dark. Unless you are staying the night with your nephews?"

The question seemed to rouse Lady Catherine, and she lifted her chin. "That is not all," she said stiffly, sitting down on the edge of the chair in front of the desk. Elizabeth settled again into her own chair and exchanged a look with her father, expressive of her wonderment.

"As my footman was inquiring at the paltry little inn in that insignificant market town for the directions to your estate, he heard something very extraordinary, that I can only hope he misunderstood. Indeed! I could not believe it to be anything but a scurrilous rumor, and as the man of law in this little hamlet I pray that you are able to root out its purveyors and punish them for their impudence."

"I am afraid, Lady Catherine, that I am unaware of what rumor it is you might have heard, but I daresay that my seeking to quash whatever it is among the community might cause more harm than good and assay more to its truth than the reverse."

Lady Catherine's lips compressed tightly, and she tilted up her chin. "I was told, and it cannot possibly be true, that my nephew, Fitzwilliam Darcy, was arrested for murder."

Mr. Bennet nodded his head. "That is true."

"What!" the lady cried, exploding out of her chair, her face purpling. "How dare you have my nephew arrested? Is this yet another mark of your ineptitude, that you should even think such a thing of a gentleman of his stature, much less have the effrontery to lay hands upon him? It is just as I told my husband all those years ago, when you had allowed a murderer to go free and hanged an innocent man in his place -- it is impossible that you should have kept your appointment with the level of incompetence you display."

Mr. Bennet, who had by habit risen when she had, now leaned over the desk, his hands resting against its surface, his eyes twinkling. "Do you doubt the king's wisdom? That sounds like sedition, which I am obliged to report."

Lady Catherine looked as though she had sucked on a lemon.

"I should like to know, however," he said, standing straight again and crossing his arms, "how it is that you are aware of the case Sir Lewis and I spoke of on the day I visited Rosings. He assured me that he had not spoken to anyone about it, and that he would keep the matter confidential."

Her ladyship found a small chip in her otherwise perfectly groomed nails.

"Now that I think on it," he mused, "I recall it being a warm day, and the window had been open. I do not suppose you had been on the way outside to take a walk in the shrubbery, when we passed each other in the foyer?"

She raised her chin and looked down her nose at him. "A lady may stroll in her own garden. I often recommend a daily constitutional for my daughter, Anne, though her health does not admit a very long period out of doors."

"Assuredly. It is a lady's prerogative. And should her aimless perambulation happen to take her beneath windows where her husband and guest were discussing business which did not include her, well…" He waved a hand airily. Lady Catherine refused to answer, seemingly satisfied with glaring mightily, instead.

When the silence stretched for several minutes, Mr. Bennet sighed. "What is this about, Lady Catherine? You could not have known of your nephew's arrest when you set out from Kent. I cannot believe it has yet made it to the papers. What drove you to seek me out?"

In response, Lady Catherine reached into her reticule again and pulled out a second letter. At her father's gesture, Elizabeth took the letter from her and opened it while the other two combatants resettled into their chairs. She read it through quickly. "It is from Mr. Fletcher," she said, "seeking confirmation of several of Mr. Darcy's assertions and character, and more information on Mr. Collins."

Mr. Bennet sat back and rolled his eyes. "Of course it would be Mr. Fletcher. I told him I would handle this."

"Which you did not!" Lady Catherine said. "Instead, in your incompetence, you suspected my nephew of a heinous crime which he could not possibly have committed."

Mr. Bennet laughed. "Lady Catherine, if you would only get your facts correct, you might be more assured. I did not, in fact, suspect your nephew of murder."

Elizabeth smiled. "I believe you did, when I first came back and told you that Mr. Wickham had been killed."

Her father graciously accepted the point. "But, truly, I should not have considered that murder. I should instead have deputized him post facto."

Lady Catherine narrowed her eyes. "Then why did you arrest him?"

"I did not," he replied. "That was Colonel Forster, in relation to a set of circumstances over which I had no control."

"But it says in that letter that you had been questioning my nephew in connection with the murder. You dared to suspect my nephew, when anyone of sense should have known that the grandson of an earl, a gentleman of such means and irreproachable character, would have nothing to do with so low an act as that which the lower classes perpetuate upon each other."

"Your reasoning, madam, amazes me. I suppose Thomas More was being fanciful when he alleged King Richard so uncouth as to murder his nephews, then?"

"I have no notion of what you speak, but this More ought to be ashamed of spreading such scurrilous tales. A king would have more sense than to commit deeds of that sort. Those with true nobility have far too high a measure of character than could be understood by the lowest sort."

Mr. Bennet smirked. "I stand corrected. And I suppose that your nephew is one of those men incapable of sin."

Lady Catherine frowned, seemingly to consider whether her response might be blasphemous. She decided on another point of attack. "It is certainly not your place to question your betters, Mr. Bennet."

"As I should say to you, Lady Catherine," he replied imperturbably. "I believe as sheriff, I outrank you, do I not?"

She waved this assertion away. "But who are your people? What are your connections? I know enough of your situation, of your wife's relations, of how your father obtained this estate by a mere trick of primogeniture."

"As I believe is the purpose of an entail," Mr. Bennet noted. "It is what made Mr. Collins eligible to inherit."

"Only after you had stolen the estate from Mr. Collins' father."

Mr. Bennet rolled his eyes. "That old chestnut again? I congratulate you, Lady Catherine. You have as much understanding as my wife of these things. I inherited the estate under the strict settlement despite being younger than my cousin because my late father was older than my cousin's father -- my age and my cousin's age were irrelevant. And Mr. Collins would not have even been Mr. Collins had his father inherited, as he would have retaken the Bennet name. And now it all may be irrelevant: a Bennet of any other name may never inherit if I cannot find another legitimate male heir of my great-great-grandfather's direct line. Or perhaps not -- I could still father a son and when he reaches his majority we could do a common recovery to avoid my having to search out a new eligible heir that would prevent the estate from devolving to the crown, though it would result in my losing my inheritance to my son. Confused yet?"

Lady Catherine had never admitted to confusion in her life. "I have never seen the occasion for entailing estates from the female line. It was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family."

"I congratulate you."

"It was also not thought necessary in the Darcy line, either. That is how it is in the better families."

"You take pride in your relations," Mr. Bennet said patiently, "and your lineage is impeccable, as is Mr. Darcy's, but all that means nothing in a murder investigation."

"Of course it does!" Lady Catherine said. "Mr. Darcy could never be suspected of murder."

"On the contrary, Aunt Catherine, I could, and I was, and rightfully so."

Mr. Bennet turned to spy the very man in question standing in the doorway, his hat and gloves still in his hands, his greatcoat glistening with a sprinkling of melted flakes. As before, Hill hovered behind the intruder, but his master waved him away. "Well met, young man. I see you have been released from your temporary captivity."

"I have heard that I owe you a great deal of thanks, Mr. Bennet, for the efforts you made on my behalf."

The other man shrugged. "It was less on your behalf than on that of Justice. She has always proven a demanding mistress."

"Nevertheless," Mr. Darcy replied soberly, "I offer my gratitude."

He looked down and passed his gloves back and forth between his hands, clearly gathering his thoughts. Lady Catherine stepped forward slightly and made to speak, but her nephew held up a hand to forestall her. Taking a breath, Mr. Darcy looked squarely at Mr. Bennet and said, "I also wish to offer an apology for the last time we spoke in this very room, sir. I was intemperate in my speech and had, indeed, trusted too much in my position and reputation alone to shield me from suspicion. It was right of you to doubt me, and my assumption of inviolability due to my stature was presumptuous. I have been a selfish being all my life -- in practice, if not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. As an only son, and for many years an only child, I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle and to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish, at least, to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own.

"When I came to Hertfordshire, I was predisposed to be displeased with everything I encountered, and perforce I was displeased. It was your family, in particular, Mr. Bennet, which drew my notice for various reasons, and therefore my criticism and contempt. I could not explain to myself my fascination, reviled my susceptibility, and so rejected and repudiated those feelings, and in so doing I rejected and repudiated you. I considered my own status and behavior as superior, and when I then discovered that your precedence was, in fact, beyond my own, I reacted poorly. When I further learned of your opinion of me, it struck my pride in such a way that I lashed out at you in a desperate attempt to stave off the reckoning of my hubris. It was only in the cold, empty cell in which I was forced to spend the night that I was able to reflect on the hypocrisy of my conduct." He closed his eyes, then gazed at Mr Bennet with a look of sorrow. "I was reproved," he said, shaking his head. "What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled."

Mr. Darcy fell silent and looked earnestly at Mr. Bennet, who though frowning, nodded. "I understand your reasoning, but you owe me nothing, Mr. Darcy; your gratitude is misplaced," he said at last. "We, all of us, tend to shrink from the arguments that cut both ways, for fear of being hurt, but Truth is always a double-edged sword … and I, too, have felt its blade. I have acted with as much pride and surety in the invincibility of my position and superior intellect as did you. If you will thank anyone, you may thank my daughter. She taught me something of the same lesson."

Elizabeth felt a flush rise to her cheeks and tears to her eyes as she gazed at her father, who offered her a gentle smile and a nod of apology. She then looked to Mr. Darcy, who had a warmth to his expression that she had seen before but only now recognized for what it was: approval, interest, gratitude, and perhaps -- if she could be so bold as to put a name to it -- something she hoped she could learn to discover if she might feel the same for him.

"I do thank you, Miss Elizabeth," he said with utter sincerity. "And what is more, I ask humbly that you might be willing to forgive the manner of our prior acquaintance and agree to begin again. From the moment I met you, you have attracted my interest and approval, and over the past few months I have only grown in admiration for you. I know I have not reflected the best of myself in my appearance here, and I understand that I may not have shown you a person who you might admire in return, but I should like, with your permission, to court you as I believe you deserve, as a woman worthy of being pleased, in the hopes that you might eventually return my regard."

Elizabeth gasped in surprise and a stirring of delight in her heart, but her reaction was by far overpowered by the other woman in the room, who with a keening cry of "No!" stepped between them.

"Impossible!" Lady Catherine cried when she had taken a breath. "You could not so far forget yourself, Nephew, as to consider offering for this young woman!"

Mr. Darcy's expression hardened. "I can, and I will, and can only pray that I should prove myself to be worthy of her hand," he replied.

"You, worthy of her hand! Is such a thing to be borne! She is nothing to you -- the spawn of a farmer and a merchant's daughter. Do you not know who her mother is, who her uncles are? She has nothing to your heritage, the respectability of your father and mother. You cannot be thinking of polluting the shades of Pemberley with such a mistress."

"I am a gentleman, madam, and she is a gentleman's daughter, and as such we are equal," he said firmly. "And if I do not object to her connections, they can be as nothing to you. Should she indeed agree to marry me, she would bring so much more to her role of mistress of Pemberley, of my people, of my life, of my heart, than the most exalted woman in this nation. She would be my wife, and I would dare anyone to look upon her as anything less than the honorable and estimable woman that she is."

"But Anne!" Lady Catherine said. "Would you cast aside your engagement to Anne for this opportunist, this adventuress!"

"You will watch your tongue, Lady Catherine," Mr Bennet warned in a low voice, and she snapped her mouth closed, though her chin jutted out in defiance. Elizabeth had a momentary thought that she'd never seen even her spoiled youngest sister carry off the expression so well. Lydia had been usurped.

Mr. Darcy cleared his throat and met Elizabeth's eyes as he said firmly, "There is not now and has never been any engagement between myself and my cousin, Aunt Catherine."

"Of course there is!" Lady Catherine cried, then hedged, "Though I grant you it is a peculiar sort of arrangement. It was the greatest wish of your mother and I. We spoke of it while you were yet in your cradles. There could be no greater union than yours, of wedding the two great estates of Rosings and Pemberley. You were formed for each other, and it shall not be prevented by the upstart pretensions of a young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family!"

"Young people these days," Mr. Bennet said now, shaking his head, "have no proper respect for the arrangements made by their elders."

Lady Catherine looked with favor on this statement. "Indeed, they do not."

"I affianced all of my daughters in just such a fashion," he continued. "In fact, I traded my firstborn for a try at my schoolmate Harry's new cricket bat during fifth form." He winked at his daughter and pulled a face. "Oh, dear. Mr. Bingley will be disappointed."

"Regardless," Mr. Darcy said dryly over the sound of Lady Catherine's spluttering, "you did what you could, Aunt, but it was for others to complete any such arrangement. My cousin and I do not suit, and we are both in agreement on that. I believe that, given the opportunity to come to know each other better, Miss Elizabeth and I could together found a marriage based on true respect."

Lady Catherine objected again, most strenuously, and with an ill concealed sigh, Darcy turned to Mr. Bennet and said, "I beg your pardon for this disturbance and ask your leave to call again in the morning, alone. I should take my aunt to Netherfield, where she can remonstrate with me to her heart's content and not disturb your family any longer."

Mr. Bennet smiled. "Your visit shall be most welcome, young man." He cocked an eyebrow at his daughter, who nodded, blushing slightly. "We anticipate your call with pleasure."

And with a firm hand on her elbow, Darcy turned his aunt towards the door and began to maneuver her out of the room. She protested her way down the hall, shouting, "I take no leave of you! I offer no compliments! You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased!"

As the front door closed behind nephew and aunt, Mr. Bennet looked expressively at his daughter and raised his eyebrows. Whatever he was to say, however, was forestalled when his wife appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron and glancing down the hall.

"Well, Mr. Bennet!" she said to her husband, setting her fists on her hips. "The people that visit you, on account of this little hobby you have. Murderers, criminals and madwomen! We could hear her shouting all the way from the stillroom." She shook her head and fixed her husband with a stern look. "You ought to take more care to ensure the respectability of your visitors. At the very least, can they not be directed around the back? I shudder to think what my sister Phillips might have thought should she have encountered that woman at the front door."

"I cannot even imagine such a scene," her husband agreed.

"I daresay it was a good thing Mr. Darcy was here to help remove that poor lunatic from our house. You know my thoughts on him -- hateful man -- but one must be grateful for such assistance."

Mr. Bennet nodded. "Indeed. I shall be sure to thank him when he calls on your daughter Elizabeth here tomorrow."

Mrs. Bennet nodded, satisfied, and opened her mouth to speak again, then froze as his words registered in her mind. Her mental cogitations were displayed perfectly on her face as she rapidly came to the conclusion her husband intended. Elizabeth shot him a look of reprimand, but he merely smirked, unrepentant.

"Come, Mama," she said, taking her mother by the elbow and turning her towards the hall as Mrs. Bennet began blessing herself and exclaiming about Mr. Darcy's wealth and respectability and how she had always liked him. "Let us go into the parlor, where I can tell you all about it, while Papa finishes his business."

And with an expressive look to remind him of his duties, she closed the door behind them, and the sounds of Mrs. Bennet crowing over the idea of three daughters to be married and asking after Mr. Darcy's favorite dishes faded down the hall.

Mr. Bennet sat down behind his desk and leaned back, his hands linked behind his head, satisfied entirely with his day.