Elizabeth froze as he stepped into the room. Mr. Darcy appeared as he always had. Nothing had changed in that. Elizabeth felt changed, but Mr. Darcy was the same: Head scraping the door frame, wide shouldered, intense eyes, well cut hair, clothes made with the finest fabrics. Tall boots and green coat.
Darcy’s eyes hunted around the room until they found hers. Her stomach jumped. His eyes widened as he looked at her, and he remained still and mute.
Two gentlemen entered behind him, followed by Mr. Collins.
Elizabeth barely noticed either of them upon their entry, but one, a gentleman with a little similarity of appearance to Mr. Darcy, though he was shorter and not so handsome, begged Darcy to make introductions.
The charm was broken. Both Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy were free to move once more.
In his grave and solemn manner, Mr. Darcy introduced Elizabeth and Mary to the Honourable Colonel Fitzwilliam, his cousin, and to Viscount Hartley, the heir of the Earl of Rochester.
The sons of two different earls.
Elizabeth had thought herself too much like Mr. Bennet in opinions and in tendency to be affected by the silliness of rank and title. But in fact, she was a little impressed, interested, and curious.
Lord Hartley was an object of particular interest, as Elizabeth recalled Mr. Wickham’s story about how Darcy was on intimate terms with the son of a gentleman believed to have murdered his wife or mother.
There was nothing in the friendly and curious eyes of the viscount to suggest any consciousness of transitive guilt. Elizabeth flushed to see him studying her. She would have been most struck by the introduction for the first time in her life, to Lord Anything.
The gentleman was shorter even than Darcy’s cousin and he had dark coloring and hair that was the same shade as Elizabeth’s own. He smiled with an odd expression; something almost felt familiar to her about him.
Lord Hartley felt the same, for he asked, “Have we ever met? Perhaps in London? At theatre? In some park?”
“I have never been in London, except to change horses and road three days ago when I came to Kent.”
“No then,” Lord Hartley said. “For I have never been in Hertfordshire except to change my own horses. Delighted to make your acquaintance. Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley have both given you an excellent character, though of a somewhat different nature. At present, I think Bingley’s description to be inferior to Mr. Darcy’s. You are in fact quite pretty.”
This led Elizabeth to blush, feel confused, and glance towards Mr. Darcy.
She was reasonably confident that she had never in the whole of her life been called particularly pretty by anyone who was not Mary.
No, Mr. Bennet had said so much once when expressing concern about how she must be cautious around young gentlemen. The purpose of the communication in such a case robbed it of much of its charm.
It took Elizabeth half a minute before she realized that Lord Hartley’s speech implied that Mr. Darcy had proclaimed her to be particularly pretty. He had thought about her often enough that she had come up in conversation with his friends.
“A fine little cottage,” Lord Hartley said pleasantly, as Elizabeth blushed and did not reply, “Are you really certain we have never met?”
“I also feel slightly as though I recognize you.” Elizabeth frowned.
“No doubt one of those cases of animal magnetism—novels are full of them,” the viscount said grandly.
That Elizabeth blushed once more and looked towards Mr. Darcy, who still stood near where he had entered the room, looking at her and Viscount Hartley with a decided frown.
Being prompted by real curiosity, Elizabeth said, “You are then acquainted with Mr. Bingley. I have heard him mention a viscount with whom he is on particularly good terms with. Might that be you?”
“We were the closest of friends in school—Darcy the leader and Bingley and I his younger followers. That has not changed much.”
Elizabeth’s eyes turned back to Darcy.
At present Mr. Collins occupied him, being full of extravagant praise for Lady Catherine’s favorite nephew. Darcy chiefly looked in her direction with a solemn frown that made her wish to make him smile. It was quite like how he had looked when he first entered the environs of Meryton.
That thought made it impossible for Elizabeth to not smile.
“Frightful tall fellow,” Lord Hartley said, glancing towards his friend as well and then smiling once more at Elizabeth. “He’s always been that way. Tall. But the stoutest friend a man can ask for.”
“Bingley always says the same.”
“It’s a very pretty wife that Mr. Bingley has, we all met just last night. She also spoke well of you. I think there is a conspiracy afoot to make everyone think that your virtues are great.”
“If there is,” Elizabeth replied hesitatingly, blushing again in confusion at receiving such gallantry from a gentleman, “I know nothing about it.”
“Enough monopolizing the only single young lady.” Darcy’s cousin stepped to them bringing Mary with him. “Miss Elizabeth, I am also most glad to meet you. One does not often encounter pretty girls near Rosings, and here are two just across the walk.”
At least this time Mary blushed half as deep as Elizabeth. Colonel Fitzwilliam spoke easily to them both.
The whole time he spoke in a mix of flirtation, real questions, and well-informed opinions. Elizabeth hardly knew what to say. The whole situation was too novel to be comfortable. Her exposure to Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy ought to have made her feel comfortable when meeting the great, but Mr. Darcy was simply Mr. Darcy for her. And besides, he never flirted with her and never said more than he thought or felt.
In Hertfordshire, she had always been firmly in her position as Mr. Bennet’s unfortunate ward, and Mrs. Bennet’s favorite person to send to collect things.
These two gentlemen treated her with the attention due to the chief unmarried female of a house, and what was more, they acted with authentic appreciation for her looks and manners. Elizabeth had never been treated in such a way.
Only...Mr. Darcy did not speak often. She would like to hear his voice more. He made no effort to flirt. He did frown much.
After fifteen minutes of this conversation the viscount said, “Business calls! I must posthaste return to my father. His annoyance at my merely having delayed an extra night in London shall be a grand thing to see.” He bowed deeply to Elizabeth and Mary, and said, “Miss Elizabeth, Mrs. Collins, I am very happy to have met you both. Miss Elizabeth, I still swear that we met somewhere. Further, I hope that we shall meet again before you have left the neighborhood.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam likewise made his bow. “ I am more blessed, for I am certain to see you both again, as I shall make sure to ask Lady Catherine that you all be invited to dinner frequently.”
At last Darcy spoke once more. He gravely offered letters to Mary and Elizabeth that Mrs. Bingley had franked via Darcy’s carriage. He then bowed, solemnly told Elizabeth in a tight voice she looked very well and in good health. He made a like, equally solemn bow to Mary, and then departed with the other two.
“I must thank you for this compliment,” Mary said as Mr. Collins accompanied the gentlemen out to the gate, and then on to the lane. “Mr. Darcy and his companions would not have come so quickly to see me .”
“If he came to see me, why did he barely speak?” Elizabeth replied.
The raised eyebrows with which Mary replied made Elizabeth laugh. Teasing, teasing man. And she could have no interest in him in any case.
“I do hope,” Mary said, “for your sake, that they prevail upon Lady Catherine to invite us to dine with them.”
The next day when Miss de Bourgh drove about on her ordinary course around the park in her phaeton, and stopped by the gate, Mary returned with the news that if they could prepare themselves in such a short time, they were invited to dine with them this afternoon.
There was, of course, no question: They could dress themselves in the course of several hours.
While Mr. Collins made an effort to relieve any anxiety Elizabeth might feel on the introduction, by informing her that Lady Catherine by no means expected those who were of a station beneath her in the world to dress to the standards of finery that she herself always maintained—Lady Catherine’s appearance was always all that was proper, all that was elegant, all that was worthy of a woman of her station and consequence— she had no desire for her guests to make a pretense of equality in their female toilettes.
This speech did nothing to change Elizabeth’s anxiety, neither for good nor for ill. It was not on Lady Catherine’s account that she eagerly studied the red lips, dark eyes, and beribboned hair in the mirror. It was not for Lady Catherine’s sake that she made slight changes to the fit her dress so it would appear as fetching as she could make it.
Elizabeth could not stop herself.
However, the chief interest that Elizabeth could acknowledge to herself was to observe how he behaved with Miss de Bourgh. Elizabeth was yet to be introduced to that young lady, yet her appearance was familiar from the daily stops by the rectory’s gate. Furthermore, Elizabeth had once been in the garden when she came by, and the great heiress had noticed her and in reply Elizabeth had made a curtsey, as she believed Mr. Collins would expect her to do.
Mr. Bennet would think the whole ridiculous.
It seemed to Elizabeth that it could not be an affection for that lady’s person which had drawn Mr. Darcy to accept the engagement with her.
But he was a great man!
A man not inclined to simply judge matters at the surface level. There was no mystery then that he would choose for himself a wife who had all of the virtues of heart and soul, and none of those of beauty and freshness.
Yet, from all that she had heard and seen of Miss de Bourgh’s behavior , Elizabeth could not help but also suspect that it was not in fact her virtues, her high character, or her enlightened mind in which the charm lay.
What was left was family duty towards his cousin, the heiress of a great fortune.
But Elizabeth still had every, or at least a few, hopes that the evening would prove Anne de Bourgh to be a superior creature, fully deserving of a man such as Mr. Darcy, and prettier and livelier by far when viewed within a drawing room than she was when bundled in her coats against a warm spring morn.
Elizabeth’s dress was the pale blue silk dress that Mary had insisted on seeing her wear when she’d first arrived at Hunsford. The waistline was trimmed with delicate lace, the fabric glimmered in candlelight, cut in what Jane had solemnly informed them was the latest London fashion, and adorned with small pearl buttons along the back.
On an odd impulse, Elizabeth made her hair to look the way her mother wore her hair in the locket miniature. Pulled loosely back and tied at the neck, with a thick silk ribbon around the front of her hair. Elizabeth permitted herself to lightly dash cherry juice on her cheeks. Around her neck she wore the locket with the image of her mother inside.
Elizabeth stared for a while at the mirror. Her face mixed the familiar with something that she did not quite recognize herself in. Though her coloring was much darker, Elizabeth thought she could easily look like the sister of her mother’s appearance in the miniature.
Perhaps, given the sins she knew her mother to have committed, she should not like this similarity of appearance with a woman who she could barely remember. Elizabeth, however, was happy about it.
Mr. Collins said again, “Do not worry over your appearance. Lady Catherine does not expect you to be anything exceptional. You cannot disappoint her. She will be happy enough to know you no matter how poorly you look.”
With that sentiment bringing an irrepressible smile to Elizabeth’s face, they went out.
Even after only a few days of walking around the park, the great manor house was a familiar object to Elizabeth. They approached closer to the structure, with its giant line of windows, high portico, fine marble columns, and impressive gravel carriageway.
It had never been her privilege to enter a house greater than Netherfield, and while Elizabeth hoped that she was not one of those persons who attributed greater importance to wealth and position than she ought to, she had a natural curiosity.
The door was large and heavy. Two liveried footmen who made a finely matched pair as they were twins, or at least brothers with great similarity of appearance, opened their way. The visiting party was directed to the drawing room by a solemn bald butler whose fine gloves and sober coat made the very image of a respectable and high servant of a great house.
A checkerboard marble floor, high ceiling, massive staircase, a big portrait of a gentleman on a horse. Next to the staircase had been placed a wooden elephant that was a bit taller than Elizabeth.
Oddly though, Elizabeth felt a strange sense of deja vu. She could swear that she remembered a wooden elephant just like that. But that elephant in her memory had been much bigger.
Besides that strange sensation, however, Elizabeth was not deeply impressed. The house was much like Netherfield, only on a larger scale.
Elizabeth supposed that she would need to visit an earl’s seat to see anything truly impressive. But just as Rosings was only on a slightly larger scale than Netherfield, and Netherfield not more than two or three times the size of Longbourn, Elizabeth would likewise be disappointed by the seat of an earl whose place would only be a little bigger than Rosings.
If only she had never seen anything but a tiny cottage! Then she could be filled with wonder and a proper sense of her own insignificance.
The drawing room was delightful, a large piano, dark wooden paneling, shelves full of books, a globe that was almost as big as the wooden elephant, tables, couches, everything.
And Mr. Darcy.
He had a solemn expression, but he looked at Elizabeth in a way that she found reassuring, with a hint of a smile. He seemed to be saying to her, “Do not worry, Lady Catherine will do nothing to you, and even if she tries, I will protect you.”
Elizabeth found herself entirely at ease when she was introduced to Mr. Darcy’s aunt.
Lady Catherine stood in grand state, and she was very much the gentlewoman, her hair worked into a style that made her larger, an erect bearing, clear eyes, and a tendency to talk constantly that reminded Elizabeth distinctly of Mr. Collins.
She of course lacked every hint of his submissiveness.
Upon the introduction Lady Catherine stared at Elizabeth for a surprisingly long time. “Well, well. You are the young lady whose visit Mrs. Collins was eager for. Hmmmm.”
Lady Catherine shook her head again, frowned and looked peculiarly at Elizabeth again.
Then she asked Mary which room that Elizabeth had been placed in and offered suggestions upon which types of coals or wood it was best to use in the stove.
Following this, Lady Catherine spent five minutes making “suggestions” and critiques to Mr. Collins upon his sermon—this included her saying in a very kindly way to Mary that she thought that the raw material of Mr. Collins’s sermons had improved greatly since he had married, and that the allusions were often more learned and that she could always perceive those parts that were built upon a suggestion of Mrs. Collins.
After this the whole time before dinner was called was occupied with Lady Catherine advising Mrs. Collins on the proper management of servants, the best ways to manage the general cleaning that came about due to the spring, and how best to see to it that Easter was properly solemnized by the wife of a clergyman.
Elizabeth liked Lady Catherine more than Mrs. Bennet.
Poor Mary to be subject to this woman.
Mrs. Bennet had seldom put her own daughters under strict scrutiny. But Mary seemed happy enough at present, and she was always perfectly friendly and patient in listening to this advice, even when it sometimes seemed quite silly to someone with Elizabeth’s greater knowledge of the doings of servants and the details of housework.
“Oh, I wish,” Mary exclaimed, “that I had brought ink and quill with me so that I might write down the chief points of your advice, to make certain that they will stick with me.”
Lady Catherine was all graciousness, all kindness, and at that thought being made she rang the bell and summoned a footman to collect such writing implements, for the use of Mrs. Collins.
It so transpired that, as Elizabeth had suspected would be the case, the large lady’s desk in the corner of the drawing room contained all the necessary implements, including a portable surface to write upon.
Mary eagerly set up her station on one of the chairs, the tilted writing surface on her lap, and turned her face up to show every readiness to hear that wisdom dispensed by Lady Catherine.
Mary found advantages in a feature of her marriage that Elizabeth would have considered as being a most serious disadvantage .
Elizabeth’s eyes drifted to Darcy’s, and he smiled at her as though to say that he too thought the same as she did.
This was the key to Mary’s present happiness. She was in fact a little silly. But that was no cause for shame. Better to be silly and happy than wise—or merely clever—and unhappy.
The writing implements acquired, Lady Catherine began to speak again, and Mary hurriedly scribbled down what she said. Elizabeth’s eye caught Mr. Darcy’s again and he had a sardonic curl to his lip that suggested he thought little of the sensibility of his own aunt.
Silly creatures all, but Elizabeth felt quite prepared at present to love all silly creatures.
As for Miss de Bourgh—a small mousy thing.
Elizabeth detected neither beauty, nor spirit, nor cleverness.
If, as widely believed, the purpose of a young woman is to be beautiful and captivating, Miss de Bourgh was as much of a failure in that task as Elizabeth herself had ever contrived to be.
Up close, in the drawing room, she lost significance rather than gaining it.
Miss de Bourgh querulously demanded to be covered with a blanket. She fretted about whether the screens were placed too close or too far from the already unseasonable fire, and Mrs. Jenkinson attended on her most closely. There seemed to be no connection between her and Mr. Darcy. He seldom looked towards Miss de Bourgh, and then chiefly only if his aunt called his attention to her. In fact, had Elizabeth not been told by both Mr. Wickham and Mr. Collins that they were to be married, she would think Mr. Darcy to be utterly indifferent to his fair cousin.
The servant soon arrived to announce dinner, and they proceeded into the dining room, interrupting Lady Catherine’s dominating conversation.
During the course of the dinner, Elizabeth found that she drew Lady Catherine’s attention often. There was that same frown on the great lady’s face each time.
This surprised Elizabeth because she did not think that there was anything at present amiss with her appearance. The image she had seen in the mirror was one of a mostly ordinary gentlewoman. Perhaps it was that the style of her hair that she adopted from her mother’s portrait had become outmoded over the past fifteen years.
Maybe Lady Catherine had the same sort of maternal feeling that Mrs. Bennet did, and she hated to see anyone outshine her daughter.
Yet the way Lady Catherine insisted that Miss de Bourgh’s birth made her automatically the equal, nay the better, of any maiden in the kingdom made Elizabeth suspect that this was not in fact one of her Ladyship’s vices.
Nay virtues, for Elizabeth was obliged always by gratitude to think Mrs. Bennet virtuous.
Miss de Bourgh and Mr. Darcy had been seated together, but despite that they barely spoke. However, Mr. Darcy looked frequently in Elizabeth’s own direction.
Even though they were too separated to easily converse, Elizabeth felt a warm sense that the gentleman had not forgotten their friendship. While they had barely spoken so far this evening, he seemed less awkward than he had the previous day when he called at Hunsford Parsonage.