“I cannot imagine what,” Elizabeth said grinning widely, “may have prompted her to hesitate when such an eligible match offered.”
“If Darcy wasn’t like to kill me for it, I’d make you marry me, just so I could hurt you,” Mr. Sykes snarled in return. “He was telling tales to the ugly hag. I saw him and Miss Lucas speaking late last evening. I am sure that’s why she refused me. I’d be in my rights to challenge him. I would. Do not doubt it.”
“No, not Lady Catherine’s nephew!” Mr. Collins said.
“Damn Lady Catherine and damn you as well.”
This startled Mr. Collins. He shook. Steadied himself. “Sykes, as a man of the clergy I must remonstrate—”
“I am leaving this damned place. Just came back to collect my horse and my valet. I hate Hertfordshire. I hate you. I hate this damp ugly house. And Miss Elizabeth, I hate you most of all. Ugly hag. Refusingme. She’ll never have a better offer. Refusingme. When she’s ugly? What makes a girl that ugly, and seven and twenty, think she can refuse a man? Her parents ought to whip her.”
Then the gentleman left, and less than a minute later he’d mounted his horse outside and rode off, swaying in the saddle.
Elizabeth left out a deep breath. She’d had half a fear that he was drunk enough to strike someone.
For his part Mr. Collins sat down in almost a stupor. “What a shocking discourse. I have never heard such a stream of words. And to speak so profanely to a clergyman, and in front of two women. I do not think Mr. Sykes is a gentleman worthy of being invited to Lady Catherine’s table when it is necessary to make up a full group at whist. He ought to imbibe less of the spirits of Dionysius.”
Elizabeth resisted laughter at Mr. Collins’s almost ladylike response. She also resisted the urge to ask him if this convinced him that she had been right to refuse Mr. Sykes.
Chapter Nine
Mama spent the whole of the evening retelling the whole tale to their family party again and again. “Poor Lizzy, I cannot stand that Mr. Darcy, but Lizzy would have caught him if she could!”
Again. And again. And again.
Lydia laughed. “La! I never would have married someone so quiet and stern looking as Mr. Darcy.”
“I would have never married a gentleman who already had a child,” Kitty said. “I would not wish to have such competition for my affection.”
“One must bear up under the vicissitudes of life,” was Mary’s contribution. She then offered Elizabeth an extended selection of quotes upon the unimportance of worldly status, and the way that a reputation for calmness in the face of misfortune was worth more than a thousand rubies, a pile of gold, or the golden goose from the tale.
Mr. Collins said every time Mama ventured upon her new favourite subject that “Cousin Elizabeth ought to have never presumed! Speak no more of it. Had Mr. Darcy… but alas, he did not, and I do not wish for Lady Catherine to know anything more of the incident! Speak no more!”
It wore on Elizabeth’s nerves.
She wished to cry again.
Could they not all see that the wound was red, raw, still bleeding. Elizabeth thought it had been a clean wound, and one which would heal given time, but Lord! Could they not give her that time?
Jane suddenly stood, and pressing a hand against her back said with a smile, “My goodness, it is rather unpleasant. Mama, how did you manage to be in the family way so many times?Lizzy, dear, might you help me up to bed? I am always fatigued these days.”
“Let me attend on you, my little rodent.” Mr. Collins rose eagerly.
“No, no.” Jane smiled at them all. “You have had such pleasure in this conversation. Do not let me interrupt you. Lizzy, only you help me.”
The sympathetic look that Elizabeth received from Jane made it clear enough that she was withdrawing chiefly for the sake of giving Elizabeth an escape.
Elizabeth gratefully took it, and supported Jane with her arm, though it was clear enough her sister needed no such support, being a healthy young woman who was not yet extremely advanced.
They went up to the master bedroom, the one that Papa had chiefly used, and Jane sat heavily on the bed. She pulled Elizabeth to sit next to her and put her arm around her sister. “My dear, dear Lizzy. I see you are in such pain.”
Elizabeth nodded. “I have been stupid.”
“No, no. Not that. There is nothing stupid in how you’ve behaved.”
“I wasn’t good enough for him. Not with my family, not without any money. And can’t they let me— I just want to cry.”
“Oh, dear Lizzy, did he say that?”
