Page 13 of Friendship and Forgiveness (Mr. Underwood’s Elizabeth & Darcy Stories #7)

After this scene Elizabeth could not return to the ball and pretend to be happy, or at least not to be miserable. But she also could not do as she had decided, and go to Caroline to comfort her in her disappointment.

A disappointment whose totality had now been proven.

Mr. Darcy had fallen in love with her?

He had gone so far in his admiration that he had determined to marry her?

Elizabeth had not expected such.

She retreated from everyone, going through the familiar hallways to find the library.

But then as she was about to open that door, two things stopped her.

The first was the memory of Darcy’s intense eyes as they talked in that room about how he had been harmed and learned to not trust those who harmed him — she desperately hoped that he did not come to despise her for refusing him.

The second consideration was an awareness that there might be some other person in the library, an awful creature who might even try to speak with her if she entered it.

No.

She did not wish to risk that.

Elizabeth hid herself in a little closet that the baronet who'd built Netherfield had put in place, in accord with the latest fashion so that servants could easily hide themselves away if one of the quality came through while they were cleaning the corridor. The entrance was hidden by a portrait, and there was a little eyehole hidden by a thin fabric that allowed the servant to watch to ensure that nobody was there.

She sat on the little seat inside the closet and wrapped her arms around her legs.

She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t.

Did she love Darcy?

Especially now that she knew, beyond any doubt, that those serious dark eyes showed admiration when they gazed at her.

Perhaps it was simply gratitude that made her feel this rising twisting thing in her chest that begged her to go back, find him again, wrap her arms around him and kiss him.

At the very least she could easily come to love him.

It was impossible for her to ever know if she could have married him. She never could because of Caroline’s foolish, foolish infatuation — did Caroline not realize that Darcy was a man who might choose for himself?

Yet… heart sick as Elizabeth was, she could not betray Caroline.

There was a noise, and Elizabeth saw Mr. Darcy come up the hallway, holding a note that he frowned at. He entered the library, leaving the door open behind him.

He’d looked… sad.

Elizabeth felt again that she could love him easily — that she already loved him.

Why? Why, Caroline?

It was just — Elizabeth knew her friend too well. She would be too angry to ever forgive her.

Not even if…

Caroline!

Caroline came up the corridor.

When she reached the open door to the library she stared at it.

Took two deep breaths.

There was a fixed expression on Caroline’s face, lips pressed together, pale shadows. Determination, like when she’d prepared at school for a particularly difficult task. The glittering candle caught her eyes. Elizabeth thought there was something in them that she’d never seen in her friend.

And then she stepped through the library door, went into the room, where Darcy still was, and she closed the door.

Elizabeth heard nothing, not the sound of voices, nothing.

She opened the servant’s door, and closing it stood next to the library door, filled with indecision and an eerie, anxious sense that something was wrong.

Maybe there was someone else already in the room, but it was quite improper for the two of them to be hidden in the library together during a ball. It could hurt their reputations if discovered.

Elizabeth decided she would join them.

But her hand paused on the cold brass door handle.

What if they had met here on purpose?

Maybe Darcy, full of grief and anger over her refusal, would make an offer to Caroline, out of some sort of odd spite for himself and her.

Elizabeth’s blood ran cold.

Several people were jovially coming up the corridor, talking to each other.

With a flash of worry in her stomach, Elizabeth pulled her hand away from the handle, as though it burned. She did not want anyone to see Darcy and Caroline closeted together in the same room.

She hated the idea of people thinking that he might marry Caroline.

A properly large group — Charlie and Jane, Mama and Papa, Sir William and Lady Lucas.

Caroline’s maid Aliette was with them, and she banged her hand against the wall as she went along in front of the group. Colonel Fitzwilliam trailed behind, watching the maid each time she slapped her hand on the wall with a quizzical, thinking expression.

“Whatever is going on?” Elizabeth asked.

Charlie shrugged, “Apparently Caroline wished to interrupt the ball to discuss something significant.”

“But—” Elizabeth was confused. Had she also asked Mr. Darcy to come to the room to discuss whatever?

He put his hand on the brass knob of the library door, and opened it before Elizabeth could do anything.

Everyone gasped at the scene.

Elizabeth closed her eyes in pain.

Oh Caroline, you fool.

Somehow… somehow despite appearances Elizabeth was certain about what was happening.

Caroline stood near the door, her hair wild and part of her dress undone, her arms around Mr. Darcy, holding him in place.

He glared back at Caroline with the most fierce, brutally angry expression that Elizabeth had ever seen on a human face.

All paused; all silent.

Then Caroline shouted to Charlie, “Brother, see — see! You must make him marry me!”

Charlie swung his head back and forth, looking between them like a struck mule.

Jane’s eyes were wide and she glanced between everyone. Darcy stood tall. His piercing eyes studied the group. He briefly nodded to Colonel Fitzwilliam, who looked at Caroline with the same sadness that was in Elizabeth’s heart. Darcy’s eyes landed on her. His expression was as fierce as that of a deadly lion. And Elizabeth knew Caroline’s attempt would fail.

“He lured me in here with a note,” she added, “and then he kissed me!”

Darcy’s sneer was a magnificent thing.

“What, what!” Charlie exclaimed. “Darcy, is that true — even though my sister is infatuated, you can’t…”

Charlie’s words stumbled and stopped under Darcy’s glare.

Caroline repeated the accusation, like a demented mantra, “He kissed me! He kissed me! Look at my loosened hair. He kissed me.”

Sir William had an odd combination on his face of disgust and delight, glee and gravity. He rubbed his hands together, while Papa and Mama looked shocked.

“Darcy, I say, upon my honor,” Charlie drew himself up as tall as he could, “if you kissed Caroline, you’d best do good by her.”

“I did not. I will not. If you feel that you must defend your honor, I will be at your disposal tomorrow at dawn. Have your second make the arrangements with Colonel Fitzwilliam.”

Gasps.

“No call for that,” Sir William said, suddenly sobered. “No, let's not talk of duels. We never have duels in Meryton.”

“Of course not,” Charlie said. “No need for that sort of talk. But Darcy, you need to… everyone has seen this scene. Surely you see that something must be done.”

Darcy made no reply.

His jaw tightened a little more.

“I can’t just let you kiss my sister, without saying or doing anything. It just isn’t done. You know that.”

No reply.

“Just isn’t done, Darcy, you have to… make this right.”

Caroline desperately looked between Darcy and her brother, and Elizabeth had a terrible fear. A terrible fear of what she might say next in her desperation, now that her scheme had accomplished nothing but to tarnish the reputation of all involved. Surely Charlie would not challenge Mr. Darcy to a duel.

“Charles, you must make him marry me. He kissed me, he knows what his duty is and that he has—”

“Liar!”

It shocked Elizabeth almost as much as everyone else to hear her own voice roar out.

“You lie! Caroline, liar — you said he lured you here with a note. I sat in the servant’s closet, and I saw him enter the room, frowning at a note. Then a moment later you came here, and you entered the room after him. That is what happened. You lured him here for this scheme.”

Like how the flood swept away a dam after the top was overflowed, and the water rushed in to drown everyone — so it happened to Caroline’s flimsy story.

Sir William looked at Caroline with a vicious smile. For all his politeness, he had never liked her supercilious manners. More of the guests had gathered around the entrance to the library, to see what had occurred. When they heard Elizabeth they all pointed and whispered to each other.

Mama and Papa looked at Caroline with disappointment, Louisa stared at her sister with what Elizabeth thought was feigned shock.

Charlie looked at Caroline with real shock, his mouth falling open.

The only two in the room who seemed to have no sensation of surprise at Elizabeth’s speech were Mr. Darcy, who looked at her with an intense, passionate, and deeply unsettling gaze that she felt in her soul, and Colonel Fitzwilliam whose disappointed gaze at Caroline had not changed at all.

“Damn you, Caro! You — you… want to force my friend to marry you!” Charlie shouted at her. “Force him? Is it true?”

“No! No! Eliza, tell them — you are my friend. Tell them you didn’t mean it that way… it — Eliza, why did you say that? You are my friend. You shouldn’t betray me. Is it because you want him for yourself? Is it! Well Eliza! Answer me!”

Elizabeth could barely see through her falling tears. “I cannot help you do wrong.”

“Matters are now clear to everyone,” Darcy said. “However, Bingley, if you still insist on a duel, I am still available — No? Send my belongings to the inn at Meryton, the people there will send it on. Our connection is at an end. Goodbye.”

“No, wait, wait! Darcy, let’s speak further about this! Wait! — Caroline how could you! — Darcy, not so quick, we are still friends, and—”

“We are not.” He turned around and said to Colonel Fitzwilliam, “Richard. Come. We are leaving.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam ended his frowning perusal of Caroline Bingley, and he flapped his hand dismissively. “Go along, Darcy. I am in no mood at present to decamp in the middle of the night.”

“Richard.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed without humor. “You must go on without me, else you will ruin your dramatic exit.”

The two cousins stared at each other, and then bowing at his waist, first to his cousin, then to the assembled crowd, and finally to Elizabeth, Darcy took his advice and left.

Charlie went after him. “Darcy, Darcy — no. No… I didn't mean to… I care greatly for your friendship, and—”

“You have lost it.”

“Darcy, but Darcy — I shouldn’t have believed Caro, but Darcy, she is my sister. Darcy, be reasonable, don’t leave so suddenly.”

The music in the ballroom had stopped, and amongst the giant crowd of faces staring at the white-faced Caroline from the hallway was the harelipped violinist.

“Why did you do it?” Papa asked Caroline.

She was shaking. She stared at her hands. “No, no, no.”

“Well!”

“I don’t know!” Her eyes were painfully white, her face blank and helpless. “I don’t know — no, no, no.”

The way Caroline wrung her hands recalled Lady Macbeth: Out damned spot! Out I say!

Elizabeth wanted to embrace her friend, even though she had attempted evil.

Papa however said to Caroline, “God. By God. By—” He could not speak, choking on his anger for a minute. “Jove. If your father, if poor Thomas had seen such a thing — seen what you had become. I have only one consolation, and it is that my dear friend is already dead and cannot know what sort of deceitful, deluded, damned creature his daughter became — Lizzy, let us leave. Good day, Miss Bingley. Good day.”

He then grabbed Elizabeth’s arm, and she did not resist her father as he dragged her out, but she looked back at Caroline.

Caroline paid no attention to the crowd that wildly chattered at her, shouting insults, accusations, laughing, despising, scorning.

Caroline stared at her hands, confused, shocked, opening and closing her fingers.

Out, damned spot! out, I say!

Yet who would have thought the old man

to have had so much blood in him.