Page 13 of An Offer of Marriage (Engaged to Mr Darcy #7)

PROVOKED TO RETALIATE

F ollowing her failed attempts to punish her wilful cousin, Anne de Bourgh took to her bed for three days altogether.

For the first two days complete, her isolation was indulged.

On the third day, the Sabbath, Mrs Jenkinson tried to persuade her to bestir, to go to church with her mother.

When met with violent resistance, she quickly retreated.

It was an ill-considered stratagem, for it provoked her mother to come to her.

“Anne, this is enough now. Get up. You will be seen at church.”

“Seen at church?” Anne raised her head from her pillow. “I am ruined, Mama, and I shall never show my face anywhere again.”

“That is it, then? You will allow him to do this to you?”

“What choice have I?” Anne wailed. “It will be you and I, alone, growing old together forever!”

“Just because he is engaged does not mean all is lost.” Anne felt her bed shift as her mother took a seat upon it. “She has bewildered him with her arts and allurements. There is still time for him to be made to see reason.”

Anne sat up. She knew she must look a fright, and likely smelt a fright too if her mother’s wrinkled nose was any indication. “How?” she demanded. “How is such a man to be worked upon?”

Lady Catherine shook her head, her lips pressed together thoughtfully. “My brother will no doubt censure him severely when he arrives in town.”

“Darcy will care nothing for that,” Anne said, falling back into her pillows to demonstrate how dispirited she was. “If anything, it may fix him more strongly in his position.”

“The viscount is excessively mindful of rank, and maintaining the noble family lines.”

“Yes, but you know how Saye is. He is just as likely to take her on as his project, to force people to accept her as one of their own.” Anne sighed heavily. “It is hopeless!”

“It is not hopeless, dear girl! We only need to think! What about the colonel?”

“That useless gubbins would have her himself if he could.”

“Oh! Yes, indeed…” Lady Catherine said, drawing out the words. “Yes, he certainly would.”

Anne sat up again, looking at her mother who appeared deep in thought. “Why do you sound that way, Mama?”

Lady Catherine smiled. “The colonel and Miss Bennet. Did you detect anything betwixt them? Any symptoms of regard? Because if Darcy believed she had merely settled on him for his wealth…”

“Oh yes. He could never abide that,” Anne agreed. She chewed on her chapped lips a moment before offering, “I believe they walked together quite often. Just the two of them.”

“He was always turning pages for her.” Lady Catherine nodded slowly. “Yes, there was likely something there, and if there was not, I am sure we could make it seem as if there was.”

There was a brief silence. Anne was searching her mind for any evidence of an affair de c?ur between Miss Bennet and her cousin Fitzwilliam, and she imagined her mother was doing the same.

“We must speak with Mrs Collins,” Lady Catherine decided at length. “ You must, for she has always shown a great interest in making you her intimate friend.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I know so! You are one of the greatest young ladies in all the land! And she, merely a shopkeeper’s daughter, to be your friend?” Lady Catherine gave her daughter a proud smirk. “I daresay she never might have imagined boasting of such a friend as Miss Anne de Bourgh, heiress of Rosings Park.”

“That is true,” Anne acknowledged proudly. “And there are likely a great many men who would wish to marry me.”

“Yes, but we want none of them,” Lady Catherine said sharply.

“Keep your eyes fixed on the mark, Daughter. First, Mrs Collins. Bring her into your confidence, make her believe that you and she are intimates, and see what she will tell you of her friend. With good fortune, we might be able to see the end of Miss Bennet yet this week.”

Her mother rose and twitched the coverlets in a manner Anne found particularly irritating. “Now get yourself out of bed. I shall send your maid in directly with a hot bath.”

“No,” said Anne. “This conversation has made my head ache. I will go to Mrs Collins tomorrow.”

The next day proved a trial for Anne. Firstly she had to bathe, and the water was not nearly warm enough to prevent her from taking a chill.

Then she learnt that one of her favourite petticoats, a fine French linen trimmed in blonde lace, had been ruined in the laundry.

And lastly, her toast was burnt. It vexed her greatly, and she made certain that those responsible knew all about it.

When at last she entered the parsonage, she found that the Collinses were not present. “Well, where are they?” she demanded of the useless girl who had answered the door.

“Visiting the sick,” said the girl, visibly trembling.

“What sick? No one is sick!”

“Yes, Miss de Bourgh, beg your pardon but the Smithson boy took a fever and his mother is only just recovering from?—”

“I have been unwell, too,” Anne interrupted. What did she care about the illnesses of the farmers? “Mr and Mrs Collins did not come to see me!”

Now the poor girl was really shaking. “I-I do not know anything about that, I am just here to clean and cook.”

Anne gave a little stamp of her foot. Excessively vexatious, all of this nonsense. “Take me to Mrs Collins’s parlour, then,” she said. “And bring me some toast and tea.”

The terrified girl led her to the back parlour and then scurried off to get the toast and tea.

Anne sat in what appeared to be the most comfortable seat and wished she had brought Mrs Jenkinson with her.

The woman had been so very irritating that morning, fussing over her, that she could not bear to be a moment more in her presence.

But now she would have to sit here in Mrs Collins’s parlour with nothing to do and no one to talk to.

The toast and tea were brought to her, and they were admittedly very good.

If the little maid had been the one to toast the bread, she had done a fine job of it, and the tea was the same blend they had at Rosings.

Her mother was good like that; she must have given some to the Collinses, and the little maid recognised it was a right thing to serve it to Anne.

It restored her spirits a bit to see that some things happened as they ought to. Some people still understood what was owed to Miss de Bourgh of Rosings Park.

She waited a little while longer but still the Collinses did not appear. Her overture of friendship could wait for another day, Anne decided. She could not linger about the parsonage indefinitely, but she would leave Mrs Collins a note, to let her know that she had called.

The escritoire where Mrs Collins no doubt wrote her letters was in the corner. Anne went to it, opening the drawer seeking paper…and finding much more.

A half-finished missive in Mrs Collins’s hand was in the drawer addressed to some person called dearest Jane. Anne had no notion of who dearest Jane was, nor did she much care. It was the phrase ‘Mr Darcy has proposed’ that drew her eye, but as she read on, she learnt it was a vast deal more.

The words Mrs Collins had written filled her with delight and hope, and at length, she went so far as to giggle. “Oh my, Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” she said to the empty room. “You have fashioned your own guillotine.”

She wondered if Mrs Collins would realise the letter was missing if she took it.

The letter was dated from the tenth of April and had not been continued.

Likely it was a draft of the one already sent.

In any case, she would likely assume she had misplaced it, or thrown it away; she would never imagine that Anne had taken it.

“And so what if she does? Miss Elizabeth Bennet deserves to be exposed for what she is, and if it is the hand of her friend that does it? So be it.”

So elated was she, Anne almost had a skip in her step as she left the parsonage, the letter crinkling merrily from within her reticule.