Page 3 of Epiphany (A Little Bit More Darcy and Elizabeth #2)

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I t was not Sir William who imposed his esteemed houseguest upon the Bennets but the lady herself. Miss de Bourgh arrived long before the hour for morning calls, one of two ladies sitting up front in a gig being driven apace towards the house and identifiable as belonging to Sir William only by dint of his future son clinging frantically to the luggage shelf at the back.

“What does Mr Collins mean, bringing her here at this time of day?” Mrs Bennet cried, attempting to shoo her children about the room until they, or at least the furniture, appeared to best advantage.

“I am not sure we can lay the blame for this at his door,” Elizabeth replied. “It looks rather more as though she has brought him .”

Mr Bennet, peering from the window with her, smiled at this. “And only just at that, for she does not look as though she would have stopped to scoop him up if he had fallen off.”

“Who is that driving them?” Mary enquired from her spot at the next window along.

Lydia left her seat at the table to look, drawing an exasperated cry from her mother, who had only moments before finished arranging her into it. “That is Miss de Bourgh.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am sure,” Lydia retorted petulantly.

“Do you not recall?” Kitty said, standing up from the sofa and drawing more strident objections from Mrs Bennet. “Mr Collins told us that Miss de Bourgh drives a little phaeton and ponies all the time around Rosings Park. A gig with one horse cannot present much bother.”

“She is evidently quite the horsewoman,” Jane remarked from the spot where her mother had positioned her and where she dutifully remained.

“There you are, Lizzy,” said her father, nudging Elizabeth with his elbow. “We have already found a way in which her talents surpass yours, and she has not yet set foot in the house.”

“Thank you, Papa,” she replied sardonically. She did not argue, however, for she could claim no extraordinary skill with horses.

Mrs Bennet abandoned her object of titivating her children to come to the window and see for herself, whereupon she tutted indignantly. “It is all well and good for those who can afford the extravagance of a phaeton and ponies. Some of us must make do with walking.”

Elizabeth glanced sidelong at her mother, surprised to hear something that sounded so much as though it was in her defence. She was more used to being scolded for her frequent sorties out of doors, Mrs Bennet’s favourite lament being that the maids could spend their time in better ways than scrubbing her petticoat and boots clean.

“I imagine she is too frail to walk such a distance. Wait until you can see her closely. She looks as though she would snap in a sharp breeze,” Lydia opined.

“Would, then, that she had stayed at home out of the wind,” said Mrs Bennet, turning away from the window to sit defiantly in her chair.

All speculation was brought to a halt when the visitors reached the house. Mr Collins led his companions into the parlour and presented them with a preposterous degree of ceremony. The lady who had been passenger in the gig was introduced as Mrs Jenkinson, Miss de Bourgh’s companion.

Miss de Bourgh herself was hale enough to walk into the parlour unaided but was wrapped in so many shawls as made it difficult to determine much more about her constitution. It was not immediately clear whether she was tall or short, broad or slight, graceful or ungainly. All that could be said of her was that she was frightfully pale, and she had a pinched, troubled look about her, as though she had lost something and was looking for it. She bore absolutely no resemblance to Mr Darcy that Elizabeth could perceive. She supposed it fortunate, since it would be exceedingly strange for anybody to be married to the mirror image of themselves.

“These are my daughters,” Mrs Bennet said once she and her husband had been introduced. She did not trouble herself to point out who was who as she rattled off their names.

Miss de Bourgh nodded but said nothing. There was an awkward silence as she sat down and waited impassively for Mrs Jenkinson to arrange each of her many layers, presumably to plug all gaps where a draft might find ingress. Tea was poured and handed around, and Mrs Jenkinson tested the temperature of hers before nodding to her charge that it was acceptable. Even after that, Miss de Bourgh did not speak. She only gazed slowly around the faces in the room, fixing finally and silently on Jane.

Elizabeth exchanged an amused glance with her father, who shrugged, indicating his equal bemusement. “It is a shame Charlotte could not join you, Mr Collins,” she said. “I hope she is not indisposed.”

He answered somewhat haltingly that she was not. “Indeed, she would most certainly have joined us had she known we would call here.”

“You did not tell her you were coming?”

“Sneaking out already, sir?” enquired Mr Bennet. “That does not bode well for your connubial felicity.”

Mr Collins laughed in a way that did not mask how ill he liked the remark. “We did not—I would not—that is to say, it was not our intention to call at Longbourn.”

Mrs Bennet made a noise of affront and stiffened her spine.

“Of course,” Mr Collins continued hastily, “we meant to call on your good selves eventually, but today, the object was merely to show Miss de Bourgh a little of the neighbourhood. Only, when we happened to drive along the lane that leads to Longbourn, she expressed a wish to see it, no doubt aware that it is entailed upon me.”

“No doubt,” muttered Mr Bennet.

“Once the house was within sight, she quite reasonably pointed out that it would make sense to call and make the acquaintance of my relations while we were here, rather than come back again later. Miss de Bourgh is just like her esteemed mother in that respect,” he added with a sycophantic smile in her direction. “Always making sensible suggestions that will save others bother.”

Miss de Bourgh inclined her head at the compliment, apparently unaware that the only person she had saved from bother was herself.

“And is the neighbourhood to your liking?” Elizabeth enquired.

Miss de Bourgh glanced in her direction, her top lip puckered in a way that suggested it was not, and said, “It is very quaint.” She then swivelled her head back to continue peering at Jane.

“We understand from Mr Collins that Rosings Park is very grand,” Jane said. “It must be very different here from what you are used to at home.”

“It is.”

“Yes, well,” said Mrs Bennet peevishly, “a man of Sir William’s preponderance will always make a house feel smaller than it is. If only, Mr Collins, you had held to your previous arrangement and stayed at Longbourn, Miss de Bourgh would certainly have felt more at home.”

“Madam, please! One cannot begin to compare Longbourn to Rosings Park!” Mr Collins blustered, looking with alarm at Miss de Bourgh as though the momentary lapse of veneration might cause her physical harm.

“It will do well enough for you when Mr Bennet dies, I should wager,” Mrs Bennet murmured.

“Mr Collins, have you and Charlotte set a date for the wedding yet?” Elizabeth enquired.

“No, not as yet, although we hope it will be early in the New Ye?—”

“Have you been presented at court?”

Everybody paused to look at Miss de Bourgh, who had thrown out this interjection with no preamble and was still staring with uncommon penetration at Jane.

“No, madam, I have not,” Jane answered.

“None of my girls has been presented at court, and none of them is worse off for it,” said Mrs Bennet.

“I wish you had told me this was your real opinion sooner, my dear,” said her husband. “I should have wasted far less of my time concocting excuses not to go to London.”

“And do you play?” Miss de Bourgh enquired, ignoring them both and continuing to look only at Jane.

“I used to play the pianoforte, but it is many years since I conceded that my ambition did not match my ability. I prefer to listen to my sisters play.”

“Oh yes,” said Mrs Bennet. “Mary is particularly talented. Mary, open the instrument and play us that pretty little air you were practising this morning.”

Mary did as she was asked, though she might as well have walked the mile to Meryton and played the tune on her Aunt Philips’s pianoforte for all the notice Miss de Bourgh paid her, persevering instead with her questions to Jane.

“Do you draw?”

“Not with any degree of proficiency,” Jane answered with a sweet, unassuming laugh.

“But you dance, I am told.”

“Indeed—and take great pleasure in it.”

Elizabeth wondered at the sincerity of Jane’s smile. She herself was bristling at such an insolent inquisition by a lady whose ill health had, according to Mr Collins, prevented her from making progress in any accomplishments of note.

“Do you have much opportunity to dance at Rosings?” Elizabeth asked in an attempt to draw the conversation away from her sister.

Miss de Bourgh looked rather alarmed to have been thus addressed, but Mrs Jenkinson soon leapt to her defence.

“Miss de Bourgh’s health does not permit her to engage in rigorous activity. We generally pursue gentler diversions.”

“Such as playing and drawing?” Elizabeth asked.

Miss de Bourgh looked at her with a mixture of alarm and annoyance for a second or two and then she coughed—a breathy, extravagant exhalation that sent her companion into a frenzy of cushion plumping, shawl tightening, and brow soothing.

Mr Collins looked on in dismay. “Have a care, Cousin Elizabeth. Miss de Bourgh is of a delicate constitution.”

Miss de Bourgh’s head whipped around, her eyes narrowed, and her cough clean forgot. “ You are Miss Elizabeth?”

“I am.”

“Then who is that?” she demanded, pointing at Jane but never taking her eyes off Elizabeth.

“That is Jane, my eldest,” Mrs Bennet answered.

“I see,” Miss de Bourgh replied. “I had assumed—but never mind that.” She looked Elizabeth up and down, then broke into a small but self-satisfied smile. “I see I was mistaken.”

Elizabeth had time to do no more than frown in bewilderment before the door was opened, and Charlotte Lucas was announced.

“Mr Collins!” cried she upon entering the room. “What are you doing here?”

Mr Collins paled and tripped over a largely incoherent explanation. “Uh, oh, ah, good day, dear. You look lovely.”

Mr Bennet snorted with mirth. Elizabeth took pity on her friend. “Miss de Bourgh expressed a wish to meet us.”

“I see,” Charlotte replied. After a momentary hesitation, she threw a belated and somewhat panicky curtsey at the lady in question.

“And why are you here?” asked Mrs Bennet rudely, clarifying for anybody who was unsure that she had not yet forgiven Charlotte for inveigling her way into position as Longbourn’s mistress-in-waiting.

“I came to—” Charlotte glanced awkwardly at Miss de Bourgh. “To offer my?—”

Seeing her friend visibly flounder, Elizabeth asked her, “Have you come to look at the brooch I told you about?” To Mr Collins she added, “For the wedding. Something borrowed.”

Charlotte gave her a look of intense gratitude. “Yes, if it is not too inconvenient. Thank you.”

Miss de Bourgh seemed excessively put out by this. It did not escape Elizabeth’s notice that she gave her a piercing look before turning to her companion to complain that she was cold and wished to leave. Mrs Jenkinson began explaining that her charge suffered terribly in cold weather, and as Elizabeth led Charlotte into the hall, Mr Collins started eulogising over the very great number of fireplaces that were always kept ablaze at Rosings.

“I am sorry,” Charlotte whispered as they hastened away from the parlour.

“It is hardly your fault.”

“No, but what must your mother think? I do not blame her for being angry. I came with the specific purpose of apologising for the slight in Mr Collins’s change of plans. I cannot fathom why Miss de Bourgh should demand that he give them up, only to insist that he bring her here at the very first opportunity.”

Elizabeth was increasingly certain she knew the reason. Miss de Bourgh had evidently discovered Charlotte was not Mr Collins’s first choice of wife and had come to inspect the woman who had refused him. Her mistaken assumption that it must have been Jane, the undisputed beauty of the family, confirmed it in her mind.

Unable to guess what Charlotte’s feelings on the matter might be, she chose not to mention it, saying instead, “She is a strange woman—frail yet still overbearing. The latter must be a family trait, but her fragility makes for a curious addition.”

“Indeed it does. One moment she, or at least her companion, is complaining that she feels, or looks, or might become unwell. The next, she is demanding conversation or entertainment or?—”

“Or the use of your father’s gig.”

“Precisely! My mother is exhausting herself attempting to satisfy her every whim—of which she has an astonishing number. Maria is terrified of her. John has taken to teasing Mr Collins for being hobbled to too many women, which is making him ill-tempered.”

“Oh dear! How long does she plan to stay? Surely, she cannot intend to impose on you for very long. ’Tis Christmas next week.”

“Until Saturday.”

“Well, that is not too bad.”

“It is four days, Eliza.” They reached Elizabeth’s bedchamber, and Charlotte turned to her with an exasperated expression. “What am I to do with her for four days?”

“She might improve on closer acquaintance,” Elizabeth replied, laughing as she began searching through the drawers of her dressing table. “You never know, you might become friends.”

Charlotte scoffed. “People of Miss de Bourgh’s sphere do not make friends with women like me. Her uncle is an earl!”

Elizabeth was put in mind of Mr Darcy and his disdain for Meryton society and agreed that her friend was probably correct. “In which case,” she added, “you had better use this time to learn to tolerate her, for friendly or not, she will soon be your closest neighbour. Here.” She held out her favourite brooch. “What do you think?”

Charlotte angled it towards the window and smiled when the sunlight amplified its opalescence. “I think it is beautiful. You know you do not actually have to lend it to me, do you not?”

“I should dearly love you to wear it,” Elizabeth insisted and meant it. For though she could not respect Charlotte’s decision to marry Mr Collins, they had nevertheless been friends for a very long time.

Charlotte thanked her sincerely. “Will you come to Lucas Lodge tomorrow to help me keep Miss de Bourgh occupied?”

“I shall certainly come, if you would like me to, though it is you she desires to know, not me.”

Charlotte insisted that she would like it, and thus it was agreed. The ladies returned downstairs, where they found Mr Collins in a state of some distress.

“I humbly beg your pardon, madam,” he was saying in an anxious tone, “but I do not know that Lady Lucas has issued an invitation.” Upon noticing Charlotte had returned, he pounced to her side and grabbed her arm. “My dear, do you know whether your mother means to invite the Bennets for dinner tomorrow?”

“She will when you inform her that I wish it,” Miss de Bourgh replied before Charlotte was able to speak. “Come, Miss Lucas. We are leaving. You may ride with me.”

Mr Collins made a noise and held up a finger as though he wished to object but did not dare say the words aloud. He was promptly informed that he should walk back.

With one last, prolonged glare at Elizabeth, Miss de Bourgh left the room, her slow, shuffling gait completely at odds with her vastly superior air.

“I can see why you are so charmed by the de Bourghs, sir,” said Mr Bennet to Mr Collins. “What splendid neighbours they must be. An endless source of sport, I imagine.”

Mr Collins looked at him blankly for a moment, then shook his head and excused himself to scuttle home after his future wife.

“Well,” exclaimed Mrs Bennet expressively, “all I can say is, thank goodness she is not staying under my roof! Have you ever met such a peevish, complaining woman?”

Nobody replied, though everybody looked at her, which Mrs Bennet took as invitation to elaborate.

“If she grumbled less, I might be disposed to show more sympathy, but if you ask me, anybody whose every other utterance is a complaint deserves no such attention, for if they are well enough to complain, then they are well enough, and that is all there is to it. I should know. I daresay I have endured more aches and chills in the last week than she has in a lifetime with all those fires burning at Rosings Park. She does not know what it is to suffer. Not as I do.”

With an angry growl, she twisted to face Elizabeth. “If you had only done your duty and agreed to marry Mr Collins, you could have insisted he not bring her here. Charlotte Lucas has none of your impertinence. She will never tell him no, and so we must continue to suffer both him and his tiresome connexions. Oh!” She pressed her palm to her forehead. “All this distraction has unsettled my poor nerves. I must lie down.” She paused in her sweep from the room to say to her husband, “If an invitation comes from Lucas Lodge, be sure to send word that we shall all be in attendance. I shall not sit back and allow Lady Lucas to take the credit for introducing Miss de Bourgh to the neighbourhood. She is, after all, our cousin’s connexion.” She gave another groan and stumbled heroically to the door.

Mr Bennet stood up to leave also, though he stopped in front of Elizabeth and shook his head. “I am sorry, my girl. Anybody who is able to induce your mother to admit that complaining is a dreadful habit is a more accomplished person than I have ever met. I am afraid Miss de Bourgh has quite the lead on you at the moment.”

* * *

Darcy forced himself to smile, though he could not hold it for long. He turned to look into the fire to avoid giving offence to Miss Bingley, whom he was finding singularly irritating that evening. Had they been at Bingley’s house, he might have made up an excuse to leave. Alas, Bingley and his sisters were dining with him at Number One, and he could scarcely absent himself from his own soiree.

“What about you, Darcy?” Bingley enquired. “Will you go to Chamberlain’s ball?”

Darcy had no intention of going, for dancing was never high on his list of favoured amusements at the best of times—and this was assuredly not the best of times. Nevertheless, a peevish whim compelled him to say whatever was in contradiction to Miss Bingley, who had spent the last few minutes maligning the man’s new wife.

“I am considering it, if only to congratulate him on his marriage and welcome Mrs Chamberlain to England.”

“There you have it, Caroline. Darcy is not afraid of her,” Bingley replied.

“I never said I was afraid of Mrs Chamberlain,” she retorted. “And I never said I would not go. Indeed, perhaps I shall go and make it known she has one friend, at least, here in London.”

Darcy could see in the periphery of his vision she was watching him, but if she hoped he would offer to accompany her, she would be sorely disappointed.

“I should like to go to another ball,” Mrs Hurst said with a sigh. “I have not been to one since we were at Neth—” She stopped abruptly when her sister delivered a quick elbow to her ribs.

Indelicate though it was, Darcy was not sorry. In this, if in nothing else, Miss Bingley and he were in accord. They had barely managed to dissuade Bingley from returning to Meryton—and Jane Bennet—and it was not such a complete triumph that Darcy had any confidence of his friend’s mind staying resolved. Reminders of his time there were best avoided.

“You are right, Louisa. It was a splendid ball,” Bingley said longingly. “Though that was as much to do with the company as the dancing.”

Too late .

“Charles,” said Miss Bingley, glancing expressively at Darcy’s sister, “you will give Miss Darcy the wrong impression.” Turning to speak directly to Georgiana, she said, “We had a pleasant enough time there, but we much prefer being back in town. The society here is far superior.”

Usually, Darcy thought, reflecting grimly on Miss Bingley’s less than superior company. He was used to her attention, but even by her standards, she was being absurdly obsequious this evening.

“You would have liked it there, I think, Miss Darcy,” Bingley said, apparently indifferent to his sister’s attempt to redirect the conversation. “There were several young ladies of your age.”

“Yes, all wild and ill-bred,” Miss Bingley added.

“No, indeed, not all!” her brother objected.

“Most of them were, you must admit,” Hurst put in. “Never have I witnessed such a raucous gaggle as overran the card room after supper that night.”

“They were lively, to be sure,” Bingley argued, “but who wants a ball without a bit of liveliness? Apart from Darcy, maybe.”

Darcy did not rise to that challenge. He was watching his sister, who was growing observably more uneasy with every passing moment. He did not wonder at it. She was under strict instructions not to mention Meryton—or, more particularly, Anne’s jaunt there—and was no doubt fretting over how she might evade the subject now that it had been broached. He felt somewhat guilty for having overemphasised it so, but Bingley would almost certainly take Anne’s presence there as reason to go back. And since returning and reuniting with Miss Bennet would be seriously detrimental to his friend’s prospects, Darcy meant to do all he could to keep Bingley away.

“On the contrary,” he said. “The only thing worse than an excessively lively ball is an excessively dull one.”

“Oh certainly,” Miss Bingley said. “One ought to be able to have fun at a dance. I should find no pleasure in sitting about, philosophising all evening.”

Darcy stared at her fully sensible, even if she was not, that she had said precisely the opposite at Netherfield when they were planning the wretched ball. Would that she grow a mind of her own!

“Have you heard Lord Liverpool’s latest idea?” he said to Hurst, deliberately taking the conversation where he hoped Miss Bingley would not follow.

“No politics, Darcy, I beg you!” cried Bingley before Hurst had a chance to swallow his mouthful of wine.

“Come, Charles, can we not discuss anything more serious than dancing? I think it admirable that Mr Darcy keeps abreast of such matters,” Miss Bingley simpered.

Darcy took a gulp of his own wine to prevent snarling with vexation. Was there nothing he could say that she would not advocate? “There is a new turnpike road being built at Evesham. They plan to set the toll for a chaise-and-four at a shilling.”

Bingley raised an eyebrow. “You are a veritable spark in a powder keg this evening, Darcy. First, politics, now roads. What will it be next—taxes?”

“Politics and roads are both matters of great importance to landowners,” Miss Bingley told him. “You really ought not to ridicule that which you do not understand.”

Darcy reviled the ingratiating look she tossed his way. “It could be considered a worse evil to ridicule a want of understanding,” he said stonily.

Miss Bingley gave a nervous laugh. “I beg your pardon?”

“You accused Bingley of ridiculing me to disguise his ignorance, but a disinclination to discuss something does not equate to mockery.”

“Well no, but I think we all know he was implying that you were being dull.”

“I was being dull.”

“No sir!” she cried, leaping to his defence, where she was clearly most comfortable. “You were only making conversation, and that shows good manners.” She turned to address her sister, but Darcy, unsatisfied, pressed on.

“But if I chose to discuss something of which, as you say, my companions were ignorant, does that not make me ill -mannered?”

She exchanged an uneasy look with Mrs Hurst before answering hesitantly. “I suppose, if it was your purpose to expose Charles’s ignorance, then yes, but you will not convince me there was any such intention in what you did.”

“But if that had been my design?”

Her brow furrowed, and she gave a tight smile. “You will not make me accuse you of meanness, Mr Darcy.”

“ Did you do it on purpose?” Bingley enquired.

“That is irrelevant. I am merely trying to establish whether it is discourteous to initiate a conversation without giving due consideration to the preferences and abilities of one’s company.”

“Much as you are now?”

“What?”

Bingley shook his head. “What has got into you this evening, man? ’Tis midweek—you have no excuse for your usual Sunday evening doldrums. Why are you trying so hard to start an argument?”

“I am not.”

He was. He had wanted Miss Bingley to respond with wit, intelligence, a glint of challenge in her eye. To hell with it, he wanted her to argue with him like Elizabeth would have! The realisation amplified his ill-humour tenfold.

“What would you have us talk about, Bingley?”

The infuriating devil smirked at him. “I wished to talk about balls.”

“You wished to talk about Netherfield, and I have told you there is no point. We have discussed this. There is no advantage in going back. You had much better stay away.”

Bingley sighed and sank further into his chair. “Yes, yes, I know. There is no need to repeat the entire sermon. I remember it all perfectly. Nevertheless, I cannot help but think it is the height of poor manners to have left without word. I promised Mrs Bennet I would dine with them on my return.” He looked at Georgiana. “Do you not agree, Miss Darcy? Would you not be offended if I said I would dine with you and then I disappeared without a word?”

Georgiana’s eyes widened, and she swallowed so hard Darcy saw it from across the room.

“Bingley,” he said through gritted teeth, “we are not returning to Hertfordshire.”

“Do not concern yourself, Charles,” Miss Bingley said, with a reassuring glance at Darcy that he absolutely did not deserve. “I shall write to Jane again to confirm that we mean to winter in town. That will certainly suffice, for we have no particular connexion to them that would lead them to expect more. Indeed, I should think Mrs Bennet will be relieved at not having to entertain another family so close to Christmas.”

Bingley nodded disconsolately, and the room fell into a gloomy silence, all topics of conversation having been established as either too tedious or too incendiary for an ordinary Tuesday evening in December.