Page 7 of A Maid of No Consequence (Pride and Prejudice Variation)

THE PLEASURE OF UNDERSTANDING

“ W ell, I thought I recognised my favourite cousin!” A ruddy-cheeked gentleman approached, giving them both a start.

Elizabeth recognised it was Mr Darcy’s cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, whom she remembered from those long-ago days in Kent.

She wondered whether he would recognise her, and if he did, whether he would speak to her.

Mr Darcy rose to his feet quickly. “Fitzwilliam! What brings you to the park today? You must remember Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn?”

“Yes, Miss Bennet! Well met! What a surprise.” The colonel stared briefly at Elizabeth and then turned back to grin broadly at his cousin.

“Colonel Fitzwilliam.” Elizabeth rose to curtsey. “How very nice to see you again.”

“It has been a number of years, has it not? ”

“Indeed, it has.” She could see he was surprised and curious but clearly too well-bred to enquire.

“I hope you have been well,” he said. “You must be married now, probably with children too, yes?”

“No,” Elizabeth said, looking down at her feet. “No, I am not married.”

“Ah, of course not,” the colonel replied awkwardly. “My cousin introduced you as Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”

An uncomfortable silence followed and after a few seconds too long, Colonel Fitzwilliam looked at his watch. “Well, I have just realised that I have lingered too long.” He tipped his hat and smiled widely. “A pleasure to see you, Miss Bennet. Darcy, we will meet later, I am sure.”

Once the colonel had left, Elizabeth faced Mr Darcy.

“I really must go. I should not have come. I know it, you know it,” she looked briefly to where Colonel Fitzwilliam was quickly retreating, and back again at Mr Darcy.

“Your cousin will certainly know it once he learns of my altered station in life.”

Mr Darcy looked pained at her assertion. “Please, just a few moments more. I have forgotten to ask after your sisters. If I am being too bold, you need not answer me.” Mr Darcy gestured to the bench once again, and she reluctantly took a seat.

“My sisters are all as well as can be expected. After we lost our parents, Longbourn’s heir, my cousin Mr Collins, took quick possession of our home.

It was made clear he did not intend to have charity on us, that our futures were in our own hands.

” Elizabeth took a breath, the pain still raw as she recalled her friend Charlotte’s reluctance to intervene with her awful husband’s decisions.

“We each set about doing what we could do to survive. My youngest sister, Lydia, is well, although I am unsure where she is at the moment. She married an officer—Mr Denny. Kitty is still in Meryton; she watches over my aunt Philips, who has been stricken with an illness which makes her unable to walk or speak as easily as before. Kitty has grown very fond of her, and I believe will stay as long as she is needed. Through her, I am able to know all of the Meryton news, although it does not hold my interest as it once did.”

“That is understandable.” He looked so kind as he looked into her eyes; there was empathy there, something she never thought she would see in a man she had known as haughty and conscious of his station above her. “And your sister who played the pianoforte?”

Elizabeth gave a small laugh. “Mary is doing what she does best, giving charitably of her time and patience. She works for room and board at an orphanage for young girls, in Lancashire. She writes more often than my other sisters, mostly of the bustling town with textile mills. She misses the fresh air of Hertfordshire, as do I. But I believe she feels content with her lot in life. As do I.”

It may not have been the whole truth, but Elizabeth preferred to remain optimistic. “I am grateful to have a roof over my head and food in my stomach. I do, however, wish very much that my sisters lived closer to one another.”

“We would all wish to keep the ones we hold dear, close to us.”

Mr Darcy’s eyes felt quite piercing but Elizabeth knew he could not be thinking of her.

Five years after a rejected proposal, she could not imagine she was counted as someone Mr Darcy held dear.

And yet, as she stole a quick look to his face, his eyes conveyed something quite different.

She felt her face flush. It was strange to feel seen and acknowledged as the person she really was, really had been, by someone who had known her before her change in circumstances.

“And your eldest sister?”

She smiled. “Jane is well. She lives not far from Pemberley, in fact. She married one of my aunt’s distant relations, a cobbler from Lambton who was widowed with three children.”

“McHenry?”

"Do you know him?”

“Indeed I do. He makes all the boots for the tenants and farmers, and indeed most of the servants at Pemberley can owe their stability to the shoes made by the McHenrys. He is a craftsman and a very good man.”

Her face warmed with her pleasure in learning of that small connexion between her family and Mr Darcy, but she knew she should leave soon.

She looked around her, fearing someone else may see them together.

Satisfied there was no one near, she continued.

“Jane does not write to me as often as I would like, but as mother to three children, you can imagine her days are very full.”

“Does your sister know of your difficulties?”

Elizabeth stiffened. “Jane knows only what she needs to know. I cannot complain of every slight against me, sir. I am in service after all.”

His face darkened. “And why are you in service? Surely there must have been other choices available to you?”

She felt the need to defend herself, from what, she did not know for certain. Mr Darcy was certainly no threat to her. But still, she needed to justify her independence. She had not wanted to go into service, but there was nothing for it. It was her life now.

“My choices were few. I did not wish to marry any person who would have me, nor did I wish to impose upon my relations. This is the life I chose, in a manner of speaking, no matter how much you might disapprove of it.”

“I do not disapprove,” he said vehemently before adding, more calmly, “No, that is a lie. I disapprove of you being demeaned, or harmed, by anyone who cannot respect you. Is it wrong that I want you, my friend, to have safety and security, and to be given the respect you are due as a gentleman’s daughter? ”

“I am no longer a gentleman’s daughter.”

“Yes, you are.” Mr Darcy looked straight into her eyes. “You were born to a gentleman. You should not be a servant. I can help you if you only would allow it.”

“You cannot.” Elizabeth rose. “I must go, sir. Thank you but I cannot meet you here again. There is nothing to be gained from it.” She walked only a few steps before Mr Darcy was at her side, stopping her.

“I apologise for upsetting you. That was not my intention.” He paused and reached his hand towards her. “Please take this.”

She looked down to see him holding a calling card. She took it from his hand, thanking him. There was so much more Elizabeth wanted to say, and yet, as parting was the wisest course, she reluctantly took her leave.

Darcy walked into his study to see his cousin’s left leg draped inelegantly over the arm of the leather chair, across from his desk, with a glass of claret in his hand.

“Is that my finest claret I see in your hand?”

“There is nothing like waiting for the latest gossip whilst sipping a fine vintage, is that not true?”

“I have no idea of what you speak. This is my study, not a lady’s morning room. If you must have gossip, I am sure my aunt knows where to find it.”

“Not so fast, my dear cousin. I believe you may have the information I need.”

Darcy poured himself some claret and sat heavily at his desk, fingers gliding through and mussing his fastidiously combed hair.

“You know confession lightens the soul.” Fitzwilliam prodded. “You were sitting on a bench with an unmarried young woman who did not even have her maid with her.”

“That is because she is the maid.” Darcy’s hand came down with a little too much force on the top of the desk, making his cousin flinch.

Fitzwilliam, who had stood to get himself another glass of claret, wisely sat down on the nearest chair and let out a whistle. “That sounds like a story.”

“It is.”

“Then you had better start from the beginning.”

Fitzwilliam was right; sharing the brief tale of his reacquaintance with Elizabeth Bennet, from seeing her quite accidently and fortuitously at the Pollards’ stairwell in Grosvenor, to their two meetings at the park, made Darcy feel lighter.

His chest grew less tight, and his head stopped pounding.

Alas, he was no closer to a resolution than when he started.

His cousin’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Truly, I am sorry for what poor Miss Bennet has endured these five years.” He paused briefly. “However, I cannot see how any of this is your fault, or why you feel she is your responsibility. She refused you.”

“Do you think I forgot that?”

“No, of course not, and neither have I. Nor have I forgotten how her refusal affected you.”

Darcy stood now and walked to the window, “But can you not see? She understood, after reading my letter, and she wrote to me! If only I had received it! Who knows what may have happened, and how her life might have been different. How my life might have been different.”

“She still would have lost those dear to her; she still would have lost her home.”

“But we both might have gained…a great deal.” In Darcy’s mind, he could so easily see himself and Elizabeth and their clever and beautiful children filling the halls of Pemberley with their laughter.

“Did she tell you what she had written to you in the letter? And more importantly do you know her feelings for you now?”

“No and no.” Darcy sighed. “I cannot change what happened to her family but I can help her.”

“Have you asked her whether she needs or wants your help?”

“Elizabeth has too much pride to ask for help, or even accept it.” He turned away from the window to sit at the chair nearest his cousin.

“But I ask you this: If she were a woman you loved, who had been reduced in circumstances to become servant to a woman who hates her because of you—and has fading bruises on her face from that woman’s spite—would you sit idly by and say, ‘well, that is it then, it is all in the past’? ”

Fitzwilliam ran his hand over his face. “You still love her?”

“Of course I do.” Darcy closed his eyes, and let his head fall back to the chair. “That has not changed, nor will it ever.”

Darcy heard his cousin chuckle humourlessly. “Very well, then, but what of Anne?”