Page 43

AN ARISTOCRATIC AMBUSH

N ot long after Elizabeth arrived in Kent, a summons was received for their party to dine at Rosings Park.

Mr Collins’s raptures at the opportunity of displaying the grandeur of his patroness were unabating, but Elizabeth could not overcome her anxiety, nor hide it from her friend, who insisted that she confess what troubled her.

“I cannot help but think it would be an unpardonable affront to Mr Darcy to visit his aunt when he has made it abundantly clear he does not wish me to be a part of his sphere.”

“I thought you said he had shown you great kindness.”

“He has, and I dearly hope that means he does not bear me any ill will—but he consistently refuted every rumour linking us together. It is difficult to interpret it in any other way than that he does not want to marry me. How, then, could he not be angered by my intruding into his family circle?”

Charlotte shrugged. “He is a sensible man. He knows that Mr Collins is your cousin and that Lady Catherine is his benefactress. It would be unreasonable of him to expect you to refuse the wishes of either. And refusing her ladyship’s invitation would surely only offer a different form of affront.”

Elizabeth hoped her friend was right. She still could not settle on how sincere Darcy had been when he said he did not despise her, but if a promise of his good opinion was the best she could hope for, she would not like to throw it away.

Rosings, when they arrived, fulfilled Mr Collins’s every prophecy.

The proportions of all the rooms were formidable, seemingly designed to make visitors feel as small as possible.

The antiquated furniture was uselessly ostentatious in form, lacking in any real splendour because it was all so dark, dominated by wood panelling and aged tapestries.

Miss Anne de Bourgh was all but indistinguishable from the faded portraits that adorned the walls.

She was so pale and drawn, and sat so disconcertingly still, that she wanted only for a gilded frame to complete the impression.

Her companion, Mrs Jenkinson, was dressed all in brown, wore a permanent expression of worry, and never spoke above a whisper.

Both ladies seemed to be at an advanced stage of ossification.

Lady Catherine herself was almost a relief.

Her stentorian voice ricocheted off the walls, bringing life to an otherwise dead space.

She was large, and tall, and prying, in the way Elizabeth had once expected Lady Rothersea to be.

Throughout dinner, she asked a ream of impertinent questions about whom Elizabeth knew, where she had been, and what she had seen of the world.

Elizabeth’s upbringing and education were minutely examined and every aspect of her family’s situation exposed, from Longbourn’s entailment to her uncles’ employment.

Charlotte sent repeated apologetic glances her way, but Elizabeth did not mind it as much as she might have done, had she not just spent two months being similarly interrogated by strangers.

Lady Catherine’s officious curiosity was nothing compared to the drunken melee at the Four Feathers, and she answered every question with a candour that more than once made her cousin wince.

It was not until later, after the carriage had been ordered to take them home, that she comprehended her naivety. She had just drunk the last of her coffee when her ladyship said, “Tell me, Miss Bennet, what ought I to make of the reports that you are engaged to my nephew Mr Darcy?”

Elizabeth instantly felt herself colour, and her mind emptied of every clever phrase or coherent explanation. It had never occurred to her that the rumours would have reached Kent!

“Come,” her ladyship pressed, “you have not held back in offering your opinion thus far this evening. What have you to say on this matter?”

“There is no truth to it,” she said as firmly as she could.

“Indeed, how could there be?” Mr Collins interceded. “It is well known that Mr Darcy is engaged to his venerable cousin.”

Elizabeth looked at Miss de Bourgh in alarm. She thought Darcy had said they were not engaged, but perhaps she had misunderstood him. The lady showed little emotion, however; if she was distressed by the conversation, she concealed it well.

“I understand that you have stepped out together on multiple occasions,” Lady Catherine continued, disregarding Mr Collins entirely. “Not least riding in his curricle through Hyde Park, attending the theatre together, drinking tea at Gunter’s, and dancing a waltz at St James’s. Is this true?”

“Very little of it is true, ma’am. It has all been embellished and misconstrued.”

“Embellished and misconstrued—but not fabricated? There is foundation for the reports, then?”

“I suppose it depends what one considers reasonable foundation.”

“Repeated clandestine meetings without chaperonage could most certainly be considered as such,” her ladyship retorted.

Mr Collins made a strangled noise; Elizabeth glanced at him, grieved to see both his and Charlotte’s distress.

“None of the meetings were clandestine,” she told Lady Catherine, though she felt herself blush deeper still with the lie.

She and Darcy had met in darkened passages, cowered together in cupboards, and whispered in the corners of drawing rooms—they could not have been much more furtive if they had tried.

“That is by the bye,” her ladyship replied. “The meetings still occurred.”

“Some of them, perhaps, but they were not deliberate. We have not intentionally gone anywhere together.”

“No indeed. By all accounts, you have gone out of your way to go everywhere separately, yet somehow always to the same places and at the same time. If one wished to devise a means of piquing the ton’s interest, I could not think of a better method.

It is certainly not an approach that savours of a wish to remain undiscovered.

It therefore makes no sense that you should be so reluctant to admit to it.

Tell me once and for all, are you engaged to my nephew? ”

“I am not.”

“And will you promise never to enter into such an engagement?” interjected Mr Collins, who was half out of his seat with outrage, only held back by his wife’s hand on his arm.

Lady Catherine scowled at him. “Mr Collins, you will desist, or I shall have you ejected. Miss Bennet, a wish to keep an understanding private from the eyes of Mr Darcy’s friends is one thing—especially in this case.

” She ran her eyes up and down Elizabeth’s person to emphasise her point.

“But I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world. I am therefore at a loss as to why you should try to deny it to me.”

“For no other reason than that it does not exist,” Elizabeth said with feeling.

Lady Catherine peered at her for a long time, her brows drawn together in a way that brought forth an unnerving resemblance to her nephew. At length, she demanded imperiously, “Why not?”

“I…I beg your pardon?”

“It is a simple question. Why are you not engaged to Mr Darcy?”

It might have been simple, but it discomposed Elizabeth completely. Was she to think that her ladyship wished them to be engaged? It seemed entirely improbable, but it made little difference either way. “I cannot force him to propose.”

With an expressive glance at her daughter, Lady Catherine clicked her tongue in agreement. “That much, I can believe. But you do wish to marry him?”

Elizabeth had no idea how she was to answer such a question with Miss de Bourgh sitting not five yards away from her.

“Miss Bennet, you ought to know that I am not to be trifled with,” Lady Catherine said. “I know not what is preventing you from answering, but I trust you will not choose to be insincere. I would know why my nephew has not made you an offer of marriage.”

Elizabeth could almost have laughed at how wretched this question made her feel. The catalogue of reasons was so long, she had no idea which Darcy objected to most—though she could guess.

“He has not expounded on the matter to me personally. I imagine it is for all the reasons your ladyship has unearthed this evening—I am a woman of no importance in the world, without family, connexions, or fortune.”

“Yes, that is all exceedingly regrettable, but you are a gentleman’s daughter. He cannot object to that.” Lady Catherine stared expectantly at her until Elizabeth felt compelled to answer.

“Perhaps it is my aunts and uncles to whom he objects.”

Lady Catherine shook her head. “It cannot be that. As repugnant as their condition is, Darcy is almost as sensible as I am and therefore equally capable of seeing that the situation calls for dispensations to be made.”

“Dispensations?” Mr Collins repeated in an awed voice. “A thousand apologies if I have misunderstood. I did not comprehend that your ladyship desired that Mr Darcy marry my cousin.”

“What I desire is to understand why my nephew is bent on withstanding the expectations of all his friends—for do not believe that he will be noticed by any of them if he is considered to have broken an engagement of this prominence. However distasteful the union would be, it has attracted more attention than a royal wedding. In such cases, honour would usually demand that an offer be made. What possible reason could my nephew have for not doing so?”

“Truly, I could not say,” Elizabeth replied desperately. “Perhaps it is because he is engaged to your daughter and has been since they were both in their cradles.”

“That could explain it,” Lady Catherine replied thoughtfully. “He is exceedingly loyal.”

It broke Elizabeth’s heart to hear it confirmed. What little hope she had allowed herself to hold onto evaporated.

“Why have you come here? Your coming to Rosings to see his family will be rather a confirmation of an engagement, if, indeed, one exists.”

Elizabeth looked in surprise at Miss de Bourgh, for she had barely uttered a word all evening. “I came to visit Mr and Mrs Collins. It was a longstanding arrangement. I only came a little earlier than planned to allow these reports to be forgotten.”

“It has only inflamed the situation,” Lady Catherine said with a brusque shake of her head.

“I receive new reports daily. Rumours such as these do not die quickly. They mark a person, sometimes for life. My nephew knows that, and so ought you to understand it. There must be a reason that you are both avoiding an alliance. Have you something to hide, Miss Bennet?”

Elizabeth tried not to think of her mother as she lied, “No, madam.”

“Then what exactly is your objection to marrying him?”

Elizabeth could not help but give a small, despairing laugh. “I have no objection—I love him! I would marry him tomorrow if he would have me, but since he clearly does not want me, perhaps your ladyship could apply to him for an explanation. I am afraid I cannot answer for it!”

The room fell silent but for Miss de Bourgh’s loud gasp and subsequent paroxysms of coughing.

Lady Catherine remained perfectly still, holding Elizabeth’s gaze with narrowed eyes and an inscrutable expression.

She still had not spoken when the butler arrived to announce that the carriage was ready.

Elizabeth half expected the loan of it to be rescinded, but her ladyship only waved them away and turned her attention to her daughter.

“Forgive me, Charlotte!” Elizabeth whispered as they walked across the hall to the front door. “I do not know what came over me.”

“Do not blame yourself,” she whispered back. “You were rather ambushed.”

Leaving Mr Collins to continue apologising to the butler, the footmen, and possibly the horses, they climbed into the carriage.

“I hope I have not angered her too greatly,” Elizabeth said as they seated themselves.

“I am not convinced that you have angered her at all. I thought, earlier, that she had rather taken to you. And with her questions just now, she seemed to be rather advocating marriage to Mr Darcy than condemning it.”

“Advocating it?” Mr Collins squawked as he climbed into the carriage and wedged himself into the insufficient space beside his wife. After calling for the coachman to drive on, he continued, “I trust you heard her ladyship deny any such design, Mrs Collins.”

“I heard her ask Eliza why a match with Mr Darcy has not taken place,” Charlotte replied calmly.

“Yes, so that she might discern whether that impediment, whatever it may be, is indeed a worse fate than the scorn Mr Darcy is attracting for disappointing the ton’s hopes.

She will be seriously displeased whatever the outcome, for Mr Darcy’s reputation will be ruined whether he marries Cousin Elizabeth or not. ”

Charlotte did her best to placate her husband for the rest of the short journey back to the parsonage, and assured Elizabeth as she retired to her room for the night that, despite what Mr Collins said, she was not expected to leave Hunsford on the morrow.

Elizabeth was grateful for her assurances, but it did not make her feel any better.

Darcy had tried to tell her that Lady Catherine would like her.

She was in agonies just thinking about how disappointed he would be to discover that she had shouted at his aunt, mortified his cousin, and worsened all the rumours about them with her impetuous flight from London.

She was not generally prone to tears, but she shed a few into her pillow that night, all the while wishing that she could be back in the safety of his arms.