Two days later Mary returned from her usual standing outside for five minutes in the wind while Anne de Bourgh spoke to her from the carriage with surprising information.
Even though it was by no means the usual night, and even though they only had a little hurried notice, they were to dine with Lady Catherine that night. From how Mary described the invitation, it was an order rather than a request.
Elizabeth immediately wondered at Mr. Darcy’s influence, but if he had planned to have Lady Catherine invite her to dine, she thought that he would have mentioned such when they met both days previous and walked about in the park.
However, she was by no means averse to dining with Lady Catherine, even though she only had two dresses that she considered suitable for such an occasion, and thus she would on a third occasion be required to repeat. That could be made a little less noticeable by the clever use of shawls, ribbons, and bracelets to make her appearance as different as could be managed without the expedient of buying an additional dress.
While Elizabeth did not think that she could hide from the knowing eyes of Lady Catherine, nor the appreciating ones of Mr. Darcy, that she was wearing the same dress again, she did hope that she could convince them that she was cognizant of the shamefulness of that fact.
With that thought giving her a smile, Elizabeth dressed shortly after for a walk and she went into the grove of the park where she had now twice met Mr. Darcy. She had even gone so far as to specify to him that it was a favorite of hers, and at what hours she was particularly likely to appear in it.
As soon as she meandered into the fine grove of oaks, Elizabeth was blessed with the view of a tall man wearing a fine silk top hat that made him even taller.
Elizabeth knew she loved him. It was impossible for her to pretend any other sentiment. The sense of relief that she had felt upon hearing that he was not engaged to Miss de Bourgh was such as to make it impossible for her to lie to herself.
As for the gentleman?
He liked her. He wished her well. He wished to often see her. Elizabeth liked to think that had their situations been of such equality as to permit him thinking of her, he would have.
This must be enough, for she could have nothing else.
The delight with which she rushed to see him with every opportunity showed incautiousness on her own part. Sobbing would one day be the result. That was a grief for a different day.
“I hear,” Elizabeth said approaching him, “that I am to have the honor of seeing you again at dinner in only a few hours.”
“Yes, which I imagine shall be my chief pleasure in the event,” Darcy replied, with a grimace. “Lord Rochester and his son are to dine with us as well. I like Hartley a great deal, but I can never see Lord Rochester without a sense of my skin crawling, and the remembrance of a tale Hartley told Bingley and I when we were all schoolboys...” Darcy shook his head. “It was a tale told in confidence. He would not wish it repeated. But I have a very unfavorable opinion of Lord Rochester.”
“Do you think he murdered the wife and daughter?” Elizabeth asked instantly. But then she blushed. “I perhaps should not be so forward as to ask, but...”
“You should be,” Darcy said seriously meeting her eyes, “exactly as you are.”
So, you see, the happy part of Elizabeth’s heart said, this is why it is impossible to try to keep ourselves from forming an attachment .
With high color Elizabeth repeated the query, in a politer and more roundabout way. “But in either case, I hardly know that I am prepared to meet an earl, one of the peers of the realm, with calmness.”
“They are much like other men. Except titled men are rather sillier, and with less sense than men in general.”
Elizabeth laughed. “But your uncle is one. You cannot expect everyone else to judge as you do.”
“Be at ease. You have now met several of children of earls, and you are the particular friend of the grandson of one—”
“You refer to yourself?”
“Do you challenge my claim that we are particular friends?”
“Not at all,” Elizabeth replied with that fluttering smile. “I wished to confirm that you were the grandson of an earl who you were thinking of. I know so many, you see.”
After they shared a smile, Darcy said, “You will see what Lord Rochester is like tonight. Beyond any doubt of mine, he has the temperament to kill his wife and a child who he believed was not his. The eyes...they are cold. My mother could barely stand to be in the same room as him—this was before Lady Rochester disappeared, when there was no exceptional wrong known or believed about him. Lady Rochester never should have strayed from her vows, but the way he looked at her... as a child I already perceived something amiss. But Sir Lewis loved his half-brother dearly, and Lady Catherine has always been most fond of Lord Rochester.”
“You think he killed them?”
“No. I do not know. I...” Darcy hesitated. “My father read the whole report of the inquest intently. I was twelve at the time, and followed the case with him, both from the papers and what Papa would say. My father thought it was proven beyond doubt that Lord Rochester was innocent of her murder, and that Lady Rochester had fled with Lady Elizabeth, likely to Scotland. There was no sign of them on any road to London. Yet if they are alive, why has she never been seen anywhere?”
Elizabeth blinked several times. It made her feel queer to learn that the possibly murdered girl’s name had been the same as her own. “You then think him innocent.”
“Certainly not innocent. He beat them both severely before they fled. But I do not think he is a murderer. Hartley always thought that his father had murdered them. He had little to do with his father after he finished university. Instead, Hartley has lived in London upon his mother’s fortune.”
“Lady Rochester was a second wife?” Elizabeth asked seeking to confirm this.
“Yes. She had been proclaimed to be an exceptional beauty. She had been kind to me, and she had a decent but not exceptional fortune. Some ten or fifteen thousand...she always seemed sad. I was told afterwards that she had been in love with a minor country gentleman from one of the counties around London, but that her family had forced her to marry Lord Rochester instead.”
The whole story struck some sort of chord with Elizabeth. As though she knew something about it. As though it meant more to her than it should. She herself had once been horribly beaten, as had her mother, and that her mother had then died raving from a fever in a boarding house.
“Did you know them at all? Did you know the girl?”
“A little. I...” Darcy looked at Elizabeth now with a frown. Then he shook his head. “I recall that she was a loud bouncing thing. She would run and run and like to chatter and play. Clever, but never the proper style of young lady. But one does not expect that in a girl of merely four or five. Only she would be silent and scared staring at her father any time she was in the room with Lord Rochester. I think...” Darcy was quiet.
“What are you thinking?”
“Nothing of import...I think that my recollection of this drove how I disliked your treatment by Mrs. Bennet. The way Lady Elizabeth looked at her father was much the same as how you looked at her .”
That queer feeling in Elizabeth intensified.
She rubbed her hands together, feeling suddenly cold.
“I apologize Miss Elizabeth, for—”
“No, no, no.” Elizabeth clapped her hands together several times. “And you are most right. I shall not let myself be treated in such a way again. And Mr. Bennet will support me. But Lord! I feel rather sick and queer from the whole story. I wish I had not asked, and I wish that I was not seeing Lord Rochester tonight. Even though I liked Lord Hartley very much.”
“Oh?” Darcy asked with a sudden sharp look.
Elizabeth laughed. “Jealous—you need not be. He is not nearly so tall as you.”
“Is that my chief virtue?” Darcy took her arm and showed her his dear and familiar smile.
“You also,” Elizabeth said with that flutter in her stomach that she felt so often around him, “can speak in that haughty and commanding manner.”
“What do you mean?” Darcy asked.
“My dear Aunt Catherine, you have bothered Miss Elizabeth quite enough tonight,” Elizabeth said pulling herself up and deepening her voice. “I am done listening to it—Oh, but Mr. Darcy, I can confirm the relation between you and your aunt. Only someone who had known you as a child could ignore such a speech.”
Darcy had his own queer smile now. “I hope that my interference was not officious.”
“It was, but as it was your aunt towards whom the officiousness was directed, you must not think of apologizing to me .”
Darcy laughed. “This reminds me of something I had been considering. About your future.”
A frisson of something, Elizabeth did not know what, went through her. But she knew that Darcy would never make any sort of proposal that was not fully respectable, and also that he would never make that proposal, which she would most dearly like to hear.
She smiled at him but could not make a joke.
He swallowed as well looking at her, and then he looked aside. “What you said, the previous day, about how you could have made a living easily enough as a man made me think.”
That prompted a laugh from Elizabeth, and that tension through her left. With such a beginning, she did not know where he would end, but it was not likely to be with any sort of offer that was principally about her being a woman .
“It is likely that whatever plan Mr. Bennet has for your maintenance will be one that you like, but if you do not, there is a school for girls in London, it is in fact where both my mother and sister were educated, that has a bluestocking reputation. My family has supported this school for many years, and the headmistress is well known to me. I think, I am confident, at least if I was to provide the proper encouragement to the idea, that she would happily add a teacher of Greek and Latin to the school.”
“ I might be that teacher?” Elizabeth replied with some surprise. “But I was sure, from what your aunt said the previous night, that a lady ought to never know more Greek than was necessary to disclaim all understanding.”
Darcy grinned at her. “Not every parent has the same notion about how their daughter is to be educated. For my part I would quite like a girl who could run around shouting, ‘Sing Muse of the rage of Achilles,’ but in the original.”
“I would be terrified if my child shouted that at me.” Elizabeth giggled. “ Meenin has such an extra tone of horrors to be imposed upon feckless parents. The English rage simply cannot compare.”
“You agree then as to the goodness of the suggestion,” Darcy said with a smile. “And as a learned master at a school, you would deserve a better salary by far than a governess. It would be at least a hundred pounds a year for a learned man, and as you are a woman, you could board in the school and provide additional services that way. I think the amount would be substantially higher.”
“What nonsense. That would be far too much.”
“I am serious. There is great variance in such matters, but such would not at all be odd for a professor or tutor who fluently spoke both Greek and Latin.”
“Yes, but—” Elizabeth paused. Studied Darcy. Studied his face. “You mean the offer. You mean to get me such a position if I ask for it.” Elizabeth felt that thing in her stomach again, that fluttering, and that warmth. She looked at him with a glow in her heart.
“I do.”
“But...such a wage is too much.”
“An ordinary rate. I assure you that Mrs. Castle would not think it an odd salary.”
“And if she did you would offer the difference.” Elizabeth sighed.
“I would not need to. I could convince people enough of the goodness of the idea. I assure you, Mr. Bennet is not the only gentleman in England who likes the idea of a daughter who speaks Greek.”
Elizabeth touched her face. “He did not teach that to his own daughters.”
“Did any of them have the same interest? Would Mrs. Bennet have permitted him without a struggle?”
“Mr. Darcy, I—” She suddenly started crying. She could imagine herself doing such a thing. Perhaps it would be a half made up thing, only existing because Darcy wished to find something for her, but it would also be partly real, and use her real knowledge to gain independence, or at least an independent sort of dependency.
“Just promise me that if you ask Mr. Bennet about what he means for you to do, and you do not like what he suggests, you shall remember that I will find you such a place. Perhaps even if he gives you a small fortune like his daughters, you would still like to do it.”
She shook her head. “I could not. I am so grateful. It is so kind—I wish I could tell you that I would happily do so. But the matter is impossible. I cannot.”
“Elizabeth—Miss Elizabeth, tell me what is the matter.” He took her hand. “What makes you draw back?”
Tears fell thickly. She felt this sickness in her, about the secrecy. About how she had always known she must hide . She was tired. Tired of hiding herself.
“I beg you,” Darcy asked again, squeezing her hand more tightly. “Tell me. Whatever it is, I promise I will help you to face it.”
“I am a bastard. I am illegitimate. A natural child. A sinful branch. A...bastard.”
She is a bastard . Pain in her side. Sound of fist hitting flesh.
She looked up at Darcy to see how he would treat her now that he knew.
His face was still, but he had not immediately drawn back from her. She could see that he was thinking, considering. He still held her hand.
His thumb softly stroked her knuckles.
She waited.
The waiting became terrible. She tried to pull her hand away from him. “So, you see. You see now. You must see. Now you can see.”
He kept that thoughtful frown.
She finally pulled her hand away from him. She gripped her hands together and then wrapped her arms around herself. “You see.”
“I do not see.” When Mr. Darcy spoke, it was with steady solidity and friendliness of his manner. “I do not doubt what you said. It offers an explanation to much of the mystery around your birth—though not all. Why does my aunt seem to have some awareness of your past? I asked her last night, and she made a pretense of knowing nothing, but it was clear that she thinks she knows something. But as for the rest, no I do not see at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why would this...” He paused. He took her hand and kissed it. “Poor, poor Lizzy. This has been a terrible burden. A thing you have borne alone—Does Mr. Bennet know that you know?”
“I told him once that I knew. But only recently, in the last six months.” She shook her head. “But we’ve never spoken of it since. No, no. But it’s always, always...”
“You always told yourself,” Darcy said, “that you must be grateful to Mrs. Bennet. Because you were a natural child, and you could expect nothing else. But that is not right. The sin of the father and mother does not pass down to the child.”
“Is that all—” Elizabeth’s throat caught. “You do not say anything else about it?”
“Elizabeth, I know you. I know your character. Your character is what matters to me. And your character is such that no one who knows it could ever rightly despise you.”
It was like this knot that had been tight in her chest for as long as she could remember, at least since she was seven or eight and had asked Mrs. Bennet what a “bastard” was, was releasing. It was still there. It was still tight. It could not disappear completely ever.
But she had told one person who was dear to her.
And he did not turn from her with disgust.
Another deep breath.
“This is why I’ve always known I could never marry,” Elizabeth said.
“Those who are illegitimate marry every day. There is no legal barrier barring a natural child from any position in England. I do not see what bearing it has on that.”
“No, no. Not that. It is...I am presented to everyone as legitimate. I do not blame Mr. Bennet for this, please understand. It is merely—I could never marry someone while they were under such a misapprehension of my ancestry.”
“No that would be a form of disguise.” Mr. Darcy was smiling at her fondly.
“I hate it. I hate this. I hate that Mary does not know. That no one knows but Mr. Bennet. And this is why I could never accept such an offer as you suggested. Were the parents to know that a teacher at the school was a bastard—illegitimate, they would rightly be unhappy.”
“I do not think it is a matter of such moment as you think.” Darcy said that almost offhandedly. He had a thoughtful frown again.
“Never, unless it was known by everyone what I was. I cannot, I will not enter into any advantageous position if it is not known .”
“And I say again that you deserve everything.” Darcy smiled at her. “But there is something odd in the whole thing. A part of the mystery that does not make sense. But Mr. Bennet confirmed the matter? It is not just a deduction—but a settled fact.”
“I have this memory; it is one of my earliest ones. A man beating me, shouting ‘bastard, the child is a bastard’ again and again as he struck me.”
Cold quiet. Wind blowing. Birds silent.
Darcy looked startled at what she said. He frowned at her. But then he shook his head. He took a deep breath. “Oh, poor Elizabeth. And that is how you knew? You remembered that?”
“Mrs. Bennet slapped me when I asked her what the word meant. I think I was seven or eight. Mr. Bennet was so angry at her afterwards.”
“I am glad to hear that—besides beating a child for an honest question could never sit well with me.”
“You would like anyone who was angry at Mrs. Bennet. I had not known for sure though. Mr. Bennet never told me. But then he once...warned me about, well...handsome gentlemen and girls who they perceive to be insufficiently protected. And I asked him if he made this warning due to my mother’s sin, and he said that he did.”
“But perhaps...” Darcy frowned and studied her again. He took her hand and kissed it once more. “I cannot believe that you ever showed anything in your behavior to give him just cause to doubt your integrity and virtue. Was this warning due to Mr. Wickham?”
Elizabeth laughed.
It was a teary laugh, but a real one.
Mr. Darcy’s serious and worried expression was so delightful. “He worried about you . I do not know why , but he had this notion that you admired me and felt a need to warn me to be on my guard before I went to Netherfield—do not look so offended, we hardly knew you yet. But it is fair to say that there are two of us who had never given cause for this whose integrity and virtue were maligned.”
Darcy opened and closed his mouth several times. At last, he said, “Will you give me leave to remain a little offended, so long as it is not mortally?”
She giggled. “ I told him there was no need to worry.”
“Because,” Darcy asked, “you trusted my integrity or my indifference?”
“Beyond any doubt your indifference,” Elizabeth replied impishly. She caught his eyes as she spoke.
Darcy flushed and looked down.
He then looked at her in an odd way, looking her up and down. Then he shook his head again. “Does Mr. Bennet ever mean to ever tell you the details of your birth?”
Elizabeth imitated Mr. Bennet’s voice: “My dear, dear girl. When you are twenty and one, when you have come of age, then your wisdom will be such as to manage these truths. But until then, let me pat your head, there, that is a good child.”
“He does not wish you to know until you are of age?”
Elizabeth spread her hands out and shrugged. “That is his often stated plan. Mr. Darcy, I—I cannot express with my limited words how grateful I am to you.”
“I still hold to the plan I suggested. We can announce to the school, or to the parents your situation. I’ll wager students enough could still be found. Or perhaps private tutoring. I salute you for your determination to be honest about such a matter. Yet, perhaps, is it in fact anyone’s business? At least if you are only to teach their child a matter of language. You are a remarkable woman. There are those who will happily employ someone with your accomplishments, no matter what your birth was.”
“I still mean to learn the piano,” Elizabeth said. “Mary started to teach me yesterday. And yes, we only thought of it due to Lady Catherine’s suggestion.”
This made Darcy laugh, and though Elizabeth would have happily remained near him forever, as her heart still glowed, the simple fact was that she must go soon if she was to be fully dressed and coiffed in good time for dining with Lady Catherine and meeting an earl— and better yet, a possibly murderous one.
They parted when their turn about the park brought them to the gate of the parsonage, and Elizabeth hurried in with a fluttering and lightness in her heart.