Page 41 of The Last House in Lambton (Pride and Prejudice Variations #6)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

A s the se’nnight approached marking the date I had dispatched Elizabeth’s letter to Mr Gardiner, we—she and I, at least—became increasingly conscious that he would, sooner than later, come to fetch her.

Concomitant to this awareness was the lady’s increasing introspection.

Upon occasion, I caught an expression on her face of perfect sorrow, and twice I saw an unmistakable longing cloud those unforgettable eyes.

I had heretofore intruded upon her notice out of mischief—a boy will find any opportunity to annoy a girl irresistible.

But these haunted looks wrung me dry of mischief, and I began to make myself available to her for the purpose of perhaps lifting her spirits or, if I were lucky, inducing her to confide in me.

She did not want to go home. That seemed clear to me, but she had not been so unhappy at Longbourn when I met her there. The disproportionate nature of her despondency to the penalty she would incur for not having written to Mr Gardiner weeks ago, led me to entertain a rather dangerous conclusion.

I still clung to the last ray of hope I could escape whole—arms, legs and wits intact—that the experience of love would make me a better man, much like the completion of a formidable expedition to Egypt would forever expand one’s perspective.

Even in my father’s generation, brushes with romantic attachment were forgiven, so long as they did not disrupt one’s duty to marry where one should.

But if Elizabeth returned my affection? The notion of escape was impossible.

If she wanted something, I would give it to her, and this applied to my life, my name.

Strange indeed to have lived my entire life with the assumption that I was always wanted, only to discover—shockingly—that one person, at least, had begun so indifferently to me that if she changed her mind, I would consider myself fortunate.

My father’s voice harrumphed and grumbled, barking that if I were to go to London and offer for anyone in the haut ton as yet unmarried, I would be accepted with amazed, grateful humility.

I went in search of Elizabeth then, for I wished to test out my suspicion and to know her feelings with certainty. Did she remain indifferent, or had she developed an inclination for my company? Either way, I was torn into ragged halves.

She was in the gallery again, and I went up the flight of steps with a settled intention to at least know my fate.

“There you are,” I said briskly.

She broke from her pensive contemplation of the lake and turned to me in surprise. “Have you been looking for me, sir?”

“Everywhere. I see you have found the judge.”

She effortlessly engaged my sense of humour with regard to that portrait, and I took her down the receiving line and introduced her to my forebears. She sometimes looked with interest upon various portraits, refraining from comment, and she sometimes felt compelled to laugh.

“The poor man,” she said with a chuckle, staring up at one of the D’Arcy notables from long ago. “He must have been bald. Only a bald man would wear such a monument to hair upon his head. What must a wig of that immensity weigh, I wonder?”

“Yes, but consider the size of our necks in consequence.”

“Oh? Is that a feature deserving of pride? I suppose it must be, since such enormous heads must be supported somehow .”

What choice did I have but to laugh aloud at that? It was so pointedly true and, at the same time, ridiculous that we thought so much of ourselves.

When we came to a different kind of painting—a small and casual portrait in the modern style of two young women dandling infants in their laps—she looked up at me in curious enquiry.

“My mother, Anne, and her sister, Catherine,” I explained.

“My word, Mr Darcy. Is that you? What were they feeding you?”

“Far too much, apparently.”

“And that is your cousin? I wonder if you were stealing all her portions. She was rather small, was she not?”

“That is Anne de Bourgh. She was born sickly and has always been so.”

“A pity. I am sorry for her.”

“Are you? Perhaps you should be. She was intended to be my wife.”

“What? Are you in earnest?”

“Well, it was a wish of my aunt’s when we were infants. And in fact, it still is.”

She laughed at me.

“There is nothing funny about it,” I objected. “I am harassed with great regularity to attach myself to a cousin who does not really like me, who is an invalid besides and thrust upon me as a duty by my aunt.”

“Ah, but she is suitable in fortune and class,” she said sweetly .

“There is a great deal more to it than that as well you know, and I will thank you not to tease me.”

“Do you mean to shock me with the suggestion that marriage is not as simple a matter as breeding horses?” she asked with eyes widened in specious wonder.

“I must have known you could not resist the urge to tease me. Even if we were horses, it would not be an advisable pairing, since the salient point is to produce foals and fillies for profit.”

We had suddenly gone too far into the forbidden subject of breeding, and she covered her embarrassment beneath a breezy reply.

“Oh well. If you are not inclined to do as you are told, you must laugh at it. That is my strategy, and it often works, sir.”

After that slightly treacherous exchange, Elizabeth lapsed into longer silences, and if she did speak, she offered only benign murmurs.

I felt as though I had contributed mysteriously to this cloud of melancholy, but I still had no clear conclusion to my principal question.

Did she love me? She certainly did not seem to, when at the very end of the gallery, she put an end to our meeting with an air of hasty relief.

While I wondered what the lady’s feelings might be, my sister’s were increasingly clear. She was smitten. Elizabeth had been elevated to the position of mentor, accomplice, instructor, and of course, she was so inherently kind, still sainted in Georgiana’s eyes.

It was lowering to conclude that I had provided for my sister and ward in every way except for what must be essential to her happiness—supportive, enriching friendships.

By the excitement and pleasure she now evinced upon waking in the morning, she may as well have grown up in a luxurious desert.

I no longer wondered that George Wickham could so easily befriend her, for she had been deprived of meaningful companionship, and he was a master at sniffing out such weaknesses .

I did not often think of Wickham, but his ghost had been resurrected by such reflections, and then, unbelievably, he presented himself forcefully to my notice.

The day after I had toured the gallery with Elizabeth, Sir Hugh and Lady Pembridge paid us a morning call.

They did so from time to time, and we received them with cordial reservation.

Sir Hugh was a powerful ally in the neighbourhood, but he was also an overwhelming one.

Members of the squirearchy are sometimes full of bluster and gruff goodwill, and my sister met him as though on trial, forcing herself not to jump when he spoke or cower under his attempts to rally her from her reserve.

Lady Pembridge was no less forceful, but she had done Elizabeth a service at my behest, and I welcomed her accordingly.

Georgiana came down with Mrs Annesley to act as bulwark, and to my surprise, she brought Elizabeth as well.

I do not precisely know why I was surprised.

She was our guest and known to Lady Pembridge.

Perhaps I wished she would not present herself so obviously to the squire’s notice.

This was the first inkling I had that perhaps Elizabeth’s objections had been justified—that a stay at Pemberley would indeed be fuel for local speculation.

There was nothing for it, however, and the visit proceeded predictably. Sir Hugh, rather bluntly examined my guest from under the shaggy cliffs of his eyebrows.

“So, this is Miss Elizabeth Bennet of whom I have heard so much,” he remarked.

She was the very opposite of unnerved and openly chuckled at his effrontery.

It was a dangerous moment for both parties.

The squire’s eyebrows visibly lifted, and Lady Pembridge’s expression began to hint at a suspicious dislike of such boldness, as though she were the only woman in the room qualified to be blunt.

I very quickly intervened by shifting the squire’s attention away from our guest and towards my kennel, and since I had bought Fee from Sir Hugh, he was easily distracted, expressing a desire to see how the hound had developed.

I called for Wood to bring my dog and was in the midst of congratulating myself for averting a crisis, when the squire remembered Mr Arneson and his report of gangs coming down from Yorkshire.

It was not a subject I wished to be brought into a room in which Elizabeth sat.

I tried to deflect this with the affectation of disinterest to no avail, for the subject suddenly reminded Sir Hugh of something else he wished to know, and the visit then reached a shocking apex.

“Oh, I say, Darcy, I have been meaning to ask you. What do you hear of Wickham these days?” Sir Hugh demanded in the tone of local magistrate.

Lady Pembridge condemned the rascal in no uncertain terms, my sister sat in mute paralysis, and while Sir Hugh expounded on the man’s perfidy, even Mrs Annesley found herself at a stand.

Thus, the question hung in the air, and it was left to me to answer the man.

I replied evasively that he was rumoured to be in the militia.

Rather than satisfy, this inflamed Sir Hugh’s notions of justice, and he demanded to be told just where the miscreant could be found.

Before I could jump into the breach and rescue us all with another evasive answer, Elizabeth calmly gave up Wickham’s location and the name of his commanding officer.