Page 16 of Done for the Best (Engaged to Mr Darcy #5)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

HEARTLESS

T he maid was rapidly retrieved from where she had gone to have tea below stairs and joined Elizabeth in the carriage which had, thankfully, remained in front of the house. It was a vast relief that Elizabeth did not have to sit there battling the temptation to go back in to Darcy. Her body was fatigued but more so were her spirits. I am too distressed even to cry. After weeks of weeping at anything and everything, in this, my eyes remain dry.

She arrived at Gracechurch Street to find her aunt and mother sitting amid scraps of fabric in the parlour. “Lizzy! You are returned earlier than we expected,” Mrs Gardiner said with a smile.

“And a relief it is too because I do not know how I am expected to choose everything she needs! Mr Darcy is a great man!” Mrs Bennet cried out. “You need a trousseau equal to your new station, and I surely cannot be the only one who cares?—”

“You may rest your mind on that account, ma’am. There shall be no trousseau, no wedding, no marriage,” Elizabeth informed them. “I am not going to marry Mr Darcy. Mama, let us make plans to return to Longbourn…tomorrow perhaps?”

Both her mother and her aunt stared at her briefly before Mrs Bennet began to fret. “Is it because he fears you have lost your wits? Oh, I knew we ought to tell you more, enough to make you pass muster! No man wants a witless wife!”

“In fact, I daresay Mr Darcy was depending upon me to remain witless,” Elizabeth said, feeling the warmth of her ire returning to her. “It suited his purpose quite well, in fact!”

“It seems we need some tea,” Mrs Gardiner said with authority. “Allow me to ring for some, and then we will have a good talk.”

When Elizabeth had gone, Darcy retired to his study to consider what next to do. He knew he ought to have explained everything to her! Accursed physician who persuaded him against what he knew to be right!

No, he could not wholly lay it at Dr Hughes’s door. It was his own fault; the temptation to court Elizabeth, to bask in the glow of her approbation, her love, had been too much from which to walk away. He was weak, too weak to do it, and now the worst had happened: she had discovered the truth for herself.

Her distress, her anger, were both natural and just. But could he obtain her forgiveness? And how was it to be done?

I shall be required to go to Gracechurch Street.

He grimaced. He had no wish to present himself before Elizabeth’s uncle. Mrs Gardiner had seemed pleasant enough, but Mr Gardiner was Mrs Bennet’s and Mrs Philips’s brother. He was probably as vulgar, crass, and irrational as his sisters were. Nevertheless, the man was his only hope.

“To Gracechurch Street, then,” he announced grimly to the empty room.

He was relieved to find that he was not turned away from the door once he arrived at the commodious house on Gracechurch Street. There was some part of his mind admiring the fine furnishings and the butler who was well-trained and pleasant, even as he rehearsed in his mind what to say to a man like Mr Gardiner.

He need not have worried about that, for if he had been surprised by the genteel appearance of Mrs Gardiner, then it was an utter shock to see Mr Gardiner. Had he passed him on the street, he certainly would have believed Gardiner a man of fashion, and one not significantly older than himself. His accent was well-modulated and bespoke an educated man, and his study boasted nearly as many books as Darcy’s own did. He was, in fact, so very agreeable and elegant that Darcy felt stupid for having ever thought otherwise of him.

Mr Gardiner welcomed him into his study, sent for coffee, and saw to it that he was seated in a comfortable chair. Then he took his own seat, and his own coffee, and stared at Darcy expectantly. Darcy found himself tongue-tied.

“Perhaps I ought not to have come here,” he said at length. “Maybe once tempers were cooler?—”

At that most inauspicious of moments, from elsewhere in the house, Darcy heard the muted sound of female distress. He stopped speaking, listening as Mrs Bennet berated her daughter. It seemed that she would never forgive Elizabeth for jilting him and for having no care for her mother’s nerves. Darcy swallowed hard.

Mr Gardiner decided to take the lead. “Mr Darcy, I have only just returned from my business, so I am at a loss to know what is happening. You and Elizabeth, it seems, have had some sort of disagreement?”

Darcy licked his lips. “’Tis more than a disagreement, if I am being perfectly frank.” Speaking quickly, he related to Mr Gardiner how the deception of his niece had come about and why he had not corrected her misapprehensions. Mr Gardiner listened intently but did not interrupt with any reply, although Darcy could easily discern concern and genuine feeling in his eyes. They were the male version of Elizabeth’s eyes, he recognised.

Mr Gardiner sighed heavily at the end of the recitation. “So, on the ninth of April, you proposed to her, Elizabeth refused you in no uncertain terms, you quarrelled and parted ways. You then wrote a letter, meaning to give it to her the next morning, the tenth of April, except that before you did, she had her accident and woke up with no memory of any of it.”

“And someone—not I—had said something to make her think herself engaged to me. With no memory of the prejudices of our past together, we were able to get to know one another anew,” Darcy said. “She permitted me to court her as I ought to have done last autumn.”

“And you say Dr Hughes advised you not to tell her the truth?”

“Each time I consulted him on the matter, he assured me that no good would come from shocking her with the truth of our past contentions.”

“Alas, now she has learnt of it all herself, which is undoubtedly the most shocking way she could have.”

Darcy nodded miserably.

“I suppose one can only hope it does not have deleterious effects on her health.” So saying, he rose and went to ring the bell. The housekeeper appeared moments later, and Mr Gardiner asked her to send his niece in to him.

Elizabeth appeared in her uncle’s study looking positively dreadful. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, and her countenance bore clear tracks of tears. From the scent of her, Darcy deduced some foul liniment had been applied to her, likely for a headache. She was plagued by headaches in times of high emotion, he had noticed. She refused to look his way.

“Sit down, Lizzy,” Mr Gardiner said gently. “Would you like something to drink?”

Elizabeth sat, turning her head away from Darcy’s direction and shaking it slightly in reply to her uncle’s question.

“Where is your mother now? Things have grown quiet out there.”

“My aunt is with her and gave her something for her nerves,” Elizabeth replied.

“Good, good,” said Mr Gardiner in that same soft voice. “I understand, from Mr Darcy, that there was a misunderstanding?—”

“A grievous misunderstanding,” Elizabeth replied warmly. “A deception, to phrase it more accurately. I was deceived into thinking I was engaged when in fact I had refused him.”

“Refused him based on your former acquaintance, I believe?”

“Yes, of course. Evidently, we hated one another,” she replied.

“I did not hate you,” Darcy protested. “We argued, but never did I?—”

She rounded on him immediately. “Oh, so it was only my family you despised, then? The people I love most in the world? Did you tell my uncle how every moment you have to sit here, in a tradesman’s home, disgusts you?” Her eyes flashed with anger as she spoke, and he was reminded of that night in Hunsford Parsonage.

“Lizzy,” Mr Gardiner inserted. “How Mr Darcy might feel about mixing with other circles of Society is not material at this moment.”

“He ruined Jane’s chances with Mr Bingley, you know,” she said heatedly. “Had it not been for his interference, Jane might be married even now!”

“I made a mistake,” Darcy said, wondering why on earth he had decided to come to Gracechurch Street. Had he imagined that Mr Gardiner could somehow help him?

“Jane has been in devastation for above six months and he”—Elizabeth thrust a pointed finger towards him without looking at him—“was the architect of her downfall. Do you think I am tempted in any way whatsoever to marry someone who has ruined Jane’s happiness so heartlessly?”

It was uncanny, how near those words were to the ones she had uttered at Hunsford that night.

“What sort of sister,” she continued, “would marry a man who termed their beloved sister a certain evil ? Who would align themselves with a person who was so disgusted by everyone she was connected to? No one in her right mind, and so it was. I refused Mr Darcy’s proposal, unequivocally, and yet, once I was enfeebled, I was persuaded to believe I had accepted him.”

The weight of her charges was sinking him. For whatever guilt he had felt before, it visited itself upon him now tenfold. Nay, one hundred! He did not deserve her mercy and he knew that, but neither was he above begging for it.

“Dr Hughes persuaded me that it was for the best,” he said, his voice sounding very meek. “I never intended to cause you harm, Elizabeth. I only wished for that which would aid in your recovery. Once I realised that you believed us engaged, I did think, often, of disclosing the truth to you. But we were happy…you were happy.”

“I was not happy, I was insensible,” she said with another glare.

“You were happy,” he insisted quietly. “What I did cannot be undone. I was a party to your deception, and I cannot deny my guilt. I can only say that it was done for the best, with your best interests at heart, and I wish more than anything that I had told you the truth before you discovered it. The reproofs you uttered that night at the parsonage have been tended to. I have changed?—”

“No, you have not,” she retorted. “Not a whit. You behave even now as if the plague might come upon you. You did not even wish me to come to your home in my aunt’s carriage, which by the bye is quite as fine as your own. You disdain them, these people who are very dear to me, such that my aunt felt it certain you would not wish me to associate with them once we had married.”

“I would not do that,” Darcy said, knowing full well that in fact he might have. He might have discouraged the Bennets from coming to Pemberley. He might have discouraged an association with the Gardiners and Philipses. He would not have forbidden her outright, but was that any better? He lowered his head, particularly ashamed to feel the calm gaze of her uncle upon him.

“Lizzy,” Mr Gardiner interjected. “I understand very well what you feel. Your anger is not…misplaced. But the question now becomes, what is to be done about your engagement?”

“I have never been engaged, nor would I agree to one now,” Elizabeth said firmly. “I will not marry Mr Darcy under any circumstances. I simply cannot bind myself inextricably to a man who has done this to me.”

Her words were like a knife to Darcy’s chest but still worse were the tears that rolled down her cheeks as she spoke. “How could I ever trust such a person to act in my best interests? What if I had another spell of memory loss and woke for him to tell me, no, we were not married, I was merely some hired prostitute or?—”

Darcy gasped, then protested, “Elizabeth, I would never?—”

“I think you are capable of anything,” she hissed, dashing the tears away with her knuckles. “You gave a grand performance, I admit that much. Fitzwilliam Darcy in his acting debut as The Doting Betrothed! Also starring Elizabeth Bennet as The Hapless Half-Wit. Uncle, may I please go now? My head is aching fiercely again.”

She stood as if to leave, and a surge of panic enveloped him. He reached for her hands, sliding from the chair to kneel in front of her. Part of him was amazed that he cared not for how he looked; he was well prepared to beg and plead and kiss her feet if only she would marry him.

“Elizabeth, please. Please marry me. I will make this up to you, all of this and more.”

She stared down at him and in her eyes he saw it, a small glimmer of love, a softening towards him.

“I love you. Please do not throw me over. I will make this up to you. I will amend all the dreadful things I have said of your family and give them, all of them, all due respect.”

Her feelings warred within her; he could see it played out in her eyes, the smallest bit of thaw in her icy anger towards him. It was his only hope, and he pressed into it.

“I beg you to forgive me and marry me.”

She yanked her hands from his. “No,” she said. “I promise you that I will never, ever consent to be your wife.” She then turned round and strode from the room.

Darcy stood and briefly could only stare at the door that she had closed behind her. He turned then to Mr Gardiner whose countenance was not encouraging.

On seeing Darcy’s observation, he offered a nod, then said, “It seems the lady has made her choice, sir.”