Page 54 of The Last House in Lambton (Pride and Prejudice Variations #6)
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
W e arrived in Brighton at perhaps an auspicious time for a courtship.
The predominance of fashionable Londoners was already taken up with their social ambitions in the metropolis and the weather was typical of April—chilly, wet, and often windy.
This would have disappointed most visitors in pursuit of a holiday, but it meant for us that the streets were almost deserted.
Queenie had no taste for wet paws and stepped out but briefly and only upon necessity.
But Elizabeth, impervious to these deterrents, was eager to go walking, and we struck out from my rented townhouse on an elegant side street and circled around the King’s Circus to the park or anywhere else our feet took us.
In truth, the place was of little consequence, for we were in our private world, often in deep conversation or immersed in a pleasurable silence that did not need to be broken.
This was a proper courtship, I realised, and far superior to snatching whispers between the sets at a ball or the agony of sitting in a parlour unable to speak together without an audience.
I was perversely happy we were undistracted by a beautiful view or sunlit gardens.
Instead, we were pressed close beneath my umbrella for shelter with nothing to rob our attention from one another.
“I have written to my cousin Richard of our engagement,” I said on our first such outing, “and I have asked him to stand up with me.”
“And what was his reply to your shocking news that you have selected a bride without reference to your noble relations?”
“He was shocked,” I said with a chuckle, “and is on his way from Kent to look you over and perhaps to rescue me from an impending disaster by offering you a large sum of money to break our contract.”
“Tempting…” she mused. “How large of a sum, do you think?”
We were in the midst of laughing when the rain began to pelt down in sheets, forcing us to run to the nearest shuttered shop and shelter in the doorway. I brought my umbrella down far enough to shield us from view and kissed her at my leisure.
“I believe your cousin will need a very, very large sum,” she said dreamily when I paused for breath. We were both weak from passion and pressed against the bricks of the building. And then she spoke in a different tone. “Do you think he will like me?”
“Richard?” I asked. “He will fall directly in love with you, and I shall have to ask him to leave, for he is a handsome, personable man and may steal you from me.”
“Do not suddenly become a flatterer, sir,” she chided. “I would rather hear the truth.”
“That is the truth,” I said, and then I paused perhaps overlong, for she perceived my hesitation.
“What are you not saying, Mr Darcy? ”
“I do not want to ruin our happiness at this moment by speaking of it. Will there not be time enough for the world to intrude?”
“I would be happiest if I could rely upon you always to speak your mind and more comfortable if I knew what obstacles I shall face. What better time or place, standing under an eave as we are with no one to pass judgment on what we say to one another? Does your family’s opinion daunt you so?”
“They will not like the match and may well snub you.”
“Is that all?” she asked lightly. “I would be greatly relieved if they would not come to Hertfordshire to witness our vows, Mr Darcy, for Mama can be counted on to fawn over a titled person, and Lydia is likely to be in the sulks.”
“And if they come for the sake of being perverse and to look down their noses at you? What then, my darling? I do not want to be enraged on my wedding day.”
“Nor will you be, for I shall not be the least bit offended. Let them be entertained by their disapproval. You know, persons who have been married for a long time need something to say to one another, and since they will have hours and hours of disparaging remarks to share in consequence, we will have done them a service.”
“You are brave as always. Very well, we shall mark the Earl and Countess of Matlock off the list of our concerns. But Lady Catherine will be much harder to manage. You will have stolen me from her daughter, Anne.”
“Oh yes. I recall, the cousin to whom you were betrothed at the age of two in the style of our medieval forebears. I suppose Lady Catherine will call me Usurper? But how elevating for my consequence, for then I shall have something in common with King Henry.”
Her ease, her natural humour and resistance to the opinions of others, allowed me to release a great sigh and divest myself of the totality of my misgivings.
“Lord, Elizabeth, if it were only that simple. Lady Catherine, you understand, is just the sort of person who would travel to Meryton and arrive at church to publicly protest the union, and I suspect your mother is just the sort of person who would knock her to the ground if she dared to do so. Forgive me, my love, for I dread a spectacle more than anything, and I am not yet at your father’s capacity for the enjoyment of the ridiculous.
” I fervently took both her hands and added, “Do you see? On the one hand, my family threatens to ruin your wedding by their objections, and on the other, they will blight the day by their refusal to notice you. Either way, I do not like it.”
She became very quiet for half a minute before asking in a small voice, “Will they always refuse to notice me?”
“Do not entertain any misgivings that your marriage will be akin to a banishment, my love. They are none of them capable of thinking of anyone save themselves for longer than a month, and in half a year, they will have forgotten about us altogether. A year from now, they will begin to take credit for my happiness and claim to all their acquaintance that they selected you for your charm alone.”
The rain had slowed to a light mist, and we began to walk again, this time, retracing our steps and heading towards the warmth of a blazing hearth and a strong pot of tea.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I sounded like a wilting petunia just now, did I not? I cannot abide someone who begs for reassurance. I should have remembered what Aurelius once said—‘how soon will time cover all things, and how many it has covered already’. ”
“I have known you to have more courage,” I said with a wink.
“But what shall we do about Lady Catherine? Must we submit ourselves to her tyranny or might we outwit her? ”
“I have thought long and hard and have come up with a few solutions, none of which are agreeable to me.”
“Oh?”
“We could misdate the invitation so that she arrives on her mission of outrage one day too late.”
She laughed. “That is an entertaining solution, but it will not serve. You forget, she is patroness to my cousin Collins, and he will also be invited as will my friend Charlotte. I cannot in good conscience play such a trick on her .”
“I abhor those tactics in any case.”
“What else?”
“I could place Sam at the entrance to the church to bar her from entering.”
“Oh, by all means. No one would notice a scuffle in the vestry. No doubt she would also be screeching.”
“No doubt.”
“Perhaps you should write to personally invite her, urging her to come and share in your joy.”
“What?”
“Well, you might draw inspiration from Mrs Edmonton’s first introduction to my uncle by describing the suitability of Meryton’s inn for exclusive guests.
Complaints with regard to mice chewing in the walls, you must strongly reassure her, are utterly unfounded.
And you might offer further enticements by adding that the public room on the night in question is unlikely to be as loud as it typically is. ”
“Interesting but risky. She may insist upon Sir William Lucas’s hospitality and be aided in her imposition by her dominion over his son-in-law, Mr Collins.”
“Poor Sir William.”
“Do you know, Elizabeth? This conversation has been most curative. I see clearly what I must do.”
“And what is that? ”
“I must act the part of the man you would like me to be, visit Lady Catherine in Kent, and pay a call on my uncle in town. I shall, on both occasions, model myself after someone I admire greatly and arrive in a fully confident state, brisk with the expectation they will be overjoyed by my news, and then I shall overwhelm them with—well, I do not know what to call your method.”
“Do you mean a scattershot of questions, comments, observations, and miscellany? My father calls it friendly grapeshot.”
“Ah yes. And if that fails, I shall make known my expectations?—”
“Will you be standing at your full height and scowling as you do so terribly well?”
“I shall, and they will be told you must be made welcome and given the respect my wife is due.”
“What, no threats of a family rupture?”
“There will be no need for that, but I intend to station Sam at the church door,” I said on a chuckle, “just in case.”
The following day brought Bingley in a fluster of anxious anticipation. He, too, must have been shocked by my letter of explanation—that I had become reacquainted with Elizabeth Bennet and offered for her. She and her eldest sister were guests of Georgiana in Brighton, and would he care to join us?
He did care, and by all appearances, he cared a great deal.
I had never seen him so unable to refrain from colliding with walls or stammering through his speeches.
Miss Bennet had been amenable to the visit, but she held herself ever so slightly aloof, which caused his admiration to flare into appalling proportions.
Upon this mortifying display, Georgiana applied her newly sharpened perception of people, and she once caught my eye with a look of bemused alarm as Bingley raved over Miss Bennet’s embroidery.
We shared a secret grin, and she then took it upon herself to manage two sets of lovers—one declared and the other still in question.
Mrs Annesley, who was no less astute, also made herself useful by creating circumstances for us to at least be close to one another, such as pairing us together for cards.