Page 5 of Reckless, Headstrong Girl (Pride and Prejudice Variations #5)

LAMBTON

E lizabeth Bennet, unaware of the disaster that had befallen her family, nevertheless suffered a restlessness of spirit from the moment her uncle Gardiner’s coach crossed into the county of Derbyshire.

Derbyshire was the home county of Pemberley, Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy’s estate.

And Mr Darcy had completely overturned Elizabeth’s life.

He began as an antagonist, arriving in Meryton with his friend Charles Bingley, determined to despise everything and everyone he saw.

He was a wealthy man, and he acted accordingly.

He brooded in the corner, spoke in dismissive bursts meant to depress the pretensions of anyone who approached him, and affected a kind of sneering perseverance during social calls.

He had hardened Elizabeth’s opinion into an immoveable dislike when, within her hearing, he bluntly told his friend she was not handsome enough to dance with him and that he had no desire to lend her his consequence.

As no other man had complimented her with an invitation to stand up with him, why should he, Mr Darcy, stoop to do so?

As if he had sensed in Elizabeth someone who despised Mr Darcy, Lieutenant George Wickham of the —shire militia, recently arrived in Hertfordshire, had poured salt on the wound.

As the son of Pemberley’s land steward, he had grown up with Darcy.

A favourite of old Mr Darcy, Mr Wickham had been sent to school with Darcy and had been promised a lucrative living in the church.

Instead of honouring his father’s wishes, however, the proud and arrogant young Mr Darcy had denied poor, young George the living and had sent him off to fend for himself.

While Mr Darcy had stayed at Netherfield Park, an estate close to Longbourn that was leased by his amiable young friend, that same friend, Charles Bingley, reputed to have five thousand pounds a year, had begun to actively court Elizabeth’s sister Jane.

Every expectation of the future happiness of her beloved sister had arisen in Elizabeth.

These expectations had arisen in everyone else as well.

The entire neighbourhood had looked upon the match with benign good will.

Netherfield Park would be the home of a most agreeable young gentle man, and one of Meryton’s most beloved young ladies would be well settled there.

Not only would the good society thereabouts improve, but there would be employment and commerce aplenty in consequence.

These expectations, however, had not pleased everybody.

Mr Bingley’s snobbish sisters had deplored the match and done so quite obviously.

They had not been alone. More than once did Elizabeth notice Mr Darcy bending his gimlet eye upon Jane and Bingley as they stood in blushing conversation.

And then, the very day after a ball at Netherfield, in which everyone had observed Mr Bingley to be clearly in love with Jane Bennet, the young gentleman and his party abruptly left.

The general dismay was nothing to the crushing pain that poor Jane felt or the simmering outrage that troubled Elizabeth day and night.

She blamed the horrible sisters, of course, but she also blamed Mr Darcy for his generally discouraging view of the matter.

Thus, some months later, when she visited her friend Charlotte Collins in Kent and discovered Mr Darcy visiting his aunt at the adjacent estate of Rosings, Elizabeth was necessarily unimpressed.

Her dislike of the man turned to downright enmity, however, when she learnt quite casually that Mr Darcy had actively intervened to separate his friend from her sister.

She still was simmering with rage from having realised his perfidy when he burst in upon her at the parsonage in Hunsford where she visited.

He paced and spoke in a lecturing tone. He stated, with a visible degree of affront, that he loved her in spite of her station in life, her family members, and her lack of title and fortune.

He then ended his rant by suggesting he would have her as his wife against his better judgment, and he clearly expected her to be grateful for his monumental offer.

His shock at being sent to the rightabout can only be guessed at, but sent he was.

He would not have Elizabeth Bennet as wife.

She would never marry the man who had ruined her favourite sister’s chance at happiness, destroyed the prospects of his childhood friend, and looked down his nose at everybody!

The final wrinkle in this awful passage in Elizabeth’s life had been a letter—written by Mr Darcy in the extremis of his rejection—that set her straight on the matter of his childhood companion at least. George Wickham was a perfidious lout, and she had believed him!

Retrospect was all that was left to Elizabeth, and upon recollection of their multiple conversations, she could clearly see how well Mr Wickham had insinuated himself into the comfortable pocket of her prejudicial feelings against Mr Darcy.

He had, with a clinical sort of precision, manipulated her feelings to align themselves with his specious tale of woe.

Mr Darcy went further in his letter. He crisply explained his decision to remove Mr Bingley from Meryton by suggesting that Jane, in attaching him, was being pushed to perform her duty.

Mr Darcy perceived no particular affection in Jane’s manners, but he could hardly escape noticing Mrs Bennet’s marital aspirations for her eldest daughter.

With a tinge of resentment, he explained bluntly that the behaviour of Elizabeth’s mother, her three youngest sisters, and even her father, had besmirched his opinion of her general suitability.

This opinion, though a formidable obstacle, had somehow been overcome by his feelings for her.

Reflection upon this bitter observation could only force Elizabeth to concede that he had a point with regards to her family. Jane’s future happiness had been blighted to be sure, but the blame for this must honestly be shared with the faulty manners of the Bennets of Longbourn.

Outright enmity against Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy was necessarily tempered with embarrassment, chagrin, and a litany of regrets.

He must hate her thoroughly and unreservedly, Elizabeth mused, and she did not like it at all.

Mr Darcy had proven that he was not quite as awful as she thought he was, and Elizabeth was too fair-minded not to be ashamed of the most unreasonable of her assertions against him.

She travelled into his home county not disposed to like him—he had separated Bingley from Jane without apology, after all—but there was something else.

She wished for his good opinion and dreaded an unexpected encounter in which he would show her the depth of his resentment.

These thoughts took up Elizabeth’s attention during the monotonous miles to Lambton.

Once comfortably settled at the best inn in the middle of the village, however, she relaxed into the belief that she had a better chance of being struck by lightning than coming face to face with Mr Darcy.

Besides, her favourite aunt and uncle were excellent company, and they did not deserve her sulks.

Her aunt Gardiner was eager to be in her home village after many years in London.

Her enthusiasm for the visit was infectious, and Elizabeth soon entered willingly into all her plans.

They went out for three days together to visit Mrs Gardiner’s friends and relations, to take tea here and there, to browse the quaint shops that lined the principal street of Lambton, and to drive off to see ruins, churches, and great, beautiful hills.

Thus, Elizabeth was lulled into a state of complacency, only to be brought up short when Uncle Gardiner, on the fourth day, suggested they tour Pemberley.

He said it was only five miles away! Elizabeth gasped.

The blood ran from her face only to return in a full flush half a second later.

She looked up to see her aunt and uncle looking at her in bewildered concern.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Well…I do not…that is to say, it would not do for us to appear so encroaching, do you think, Aunt?”

“Encroaching?” her uncle exclaimed. “But Pemberley is a great estate. They are used to visitors there any day of the week in summer, and we would hardly stand out. It would be much like our visit to Chatsworth. You did not object then.”

Elizabeth took a breath and tried to compose herself.

“I know you are right, Uncle, only I am acquainted with the owner. I, um, very lately met Mr Darcy again in Kent and was several times in his company. How would it look were I to be following him around the country as if trying to be noticed by him? He is a very rich man of marriageable age. I myself saw Miss Bingley turn herself inside out to catch him, and I also saw how her machinations disgusted him. How many young ladies of his acquaintance must resort to similar antics to ensnare him? I do not want to be seen as that sort of lady.”

Aunt and Uncle Gardiner exchanged a glance, and Elizabeth had great hope the subject would die. But as fate would have it, the innkeeper’s daughter came into the room to clear away the breakfast dishes, and so Elizabeth’s uncle asked her whether the family was currently in residence at Pemberley.

“Oh no, sir. The family is in London, so I am told.”

“Does the estate welcome visitors, Susan?”

“Constantly, sir, and no wonder. Beautiful as Windsor Castle, I hear.”

“Come, Lizzy,” Mrs Gardiner said in a cajoling spirit, “let us go. I have been there several times, and I would be very sad not to see it again.”

With great reluctance, Elizabeth acquiesced and resigned herself to a visit to Mr Darcy’s estate.