“Lydia, stop!” Elizabeth cried just as Mr Darcy, in very sedate accents, said, “Do not be dismayed, Miss Lydia.”
“Not dismayed? You have ruined everything!” A sob choked Lydia’s last words, and Elizabeth observed tears in her sister’s eyes when she turned towards her. “Mr Darcy thinks that since he is such a dullard, he ought to prevent others from having fun too! My entire summer is ruined!”
This is about Brighton,Elizabeth recognised with relief.Not the fact that she saw me kissing Mr Darcy.She took her sister’s arm and tried to pull her away. “Lydia, dearest, come with me.”
Lydia wrenched her arm out of Elizabeth’s grasp. “Horrible, odious man!” She made a motion as though she intended to shove Mr Darcy with both hands; fortunately, she was too far away from him to make contact. It only frustrated her more, and she stamped her foot. “He told Papa that he should not let me go to Brighton!”
“There are dangers, real dangers, that a young lady of gentle birth might meet with in such a place,” Mr Darcy said to her. “It is difficult, I know, to be of an age where?—”
“Yes, a real danger of someone having a laugh or two instead of being stuck in this dreadful town where nothing ever happens to anyone! Mrs Forster is going to watch over me!” Lydia shouted.
“I have lately learnt that Mrs Forster is with child,” Mr Darcy continued in that same calm, steady tone. “She will have enough to occupy her without going round to balls and parties all the time.”
Alas, it held too much reason for Lydia. She uttered a wordless growl of frustration, and then resorted to her long-cherished response to anything that vexed her. “I hate you! You are the most vile man I ever knew!”
“Lydia!” Elizabeth said immediately. She shot Mr Darcy a contrite look, then turned to her sister and said, “Apologise to Mr Darcynowfor this behaviour.”
“Why should I? And why should you want me to? You hate him as much as anyone, Lizzy, and you would hate him even more if you knew what he was about!”
What he was about?Fortunately, Elizabeth did not need to wait long for Lydia to explain. Her sister raised her chin, eyes glittering meanly at Mr Darcy while she announced, “’Tis all abet. All these grand gentlemen in London have made bets on you, to see whether you will marry him or his cousin.” With a little sniff, she looked over her shoulder in the general direction of the party. “Obviously take the colonel. At least he knows what it is to smile and have a laugh now and then.”
Elizabeth looked to Mr Darcy, standing just where she had kissed him only minutes earlier. He dropped his eyes to the pebbled path, saying nothing as she begged him silently to laugh or declare it all nonsense. But he did not.
“That is not true, Lydia,” she said, hearing her uncertainty revealed in the tone of her voice. “It cannot be.”
Mr Darcy said nothing.
“Yes, itistrue. All sorts of bets, from what dear Wickham has told me,” Lydia announced. “Thousands of pounds, Lizzy.Thousands.”
“Sir?” Elizabeth said, unable to look at the silent form of the man she had only just begun to love. “Is this true?”
He swallowed visibly and said what were, to Elizabeth’s mind, the worst words that he could possibly say. “I can explain.”
Amid bewildered distress,Elizabeth found herself bolting into the maze, abandoning Mr Darcy to Lydia. She no longer cared whether her sister insulted him or called him names; if Lydia kicked him square in the shins, it would be no less than he deserved. Hot tears blinded her and obscured her progress.
I can explain.No one could explain such an insult as this. He had made her ridiculous, and that she could not abide. Was that what all this was about? Some wager? Some sort of revengeagainst her, to humiliate her before everyone in both London and Meryton?
You need explain nothing, she had hissed in reply.You are just as I ever thought you were—arrogant, disdainful of the feelings of others—and now I may add that you are heinously manipulative as well. I was a fool to imagine you could be amiable, or good—but you are an excellent actor, I shall grant you that.
She careered about, twisting, turning, and weeping.I am an object of scorn and derision and wagers and silliness, an object, not a lady of worth. She was a fool to imagine Mr Darcy had changed.Shehad changed, yes, she had softened towards him, believed that he might be someone she could truly admire, but it turned out she was a fool.A leopard cannot change its spots, and neither can a Darcy, apparently.
And the colonel! He had behaved so oddly throughout, he must have served some purpose to the scheme, some sort of challenge or a test to her. She could not work out his exact purpose, but she had known something nefarious was afoot in his attentions.
At length she came to the centre of the maze and paused, swiping away the tears on her cheeks and in her eyes. She took several deep breaths and looked about her. She had not intended to come so far; Netherfield’s maze was known throughout the county for being large and complex, built to emulate that in Hampton Court Palace, though Elizabeth knew not how near to the mark it came. To add to that, it was overgrown and thus to extricate herself from it would require more effort than she had wished to expend.
“And I have somehow lost my bonnet,” she said ruefully, hoping rather than believing she might be able to retrace her steps and find it.
She trudged through the maze for quite some time, the twists and turns seeming alternately familiar and not. At last, feeling chilled and tired, she chose to shove through the hedge to escape, no longer caring about her appearance or her dignity. Why should she when Mr Darcy had made her a laughingstock? Might as well sink into the figure of ridicule he had made her.
The party had mostly broken up when at last she approached the clearing where it had been set up. The little orchestra was gone, and the servants were bustling about folding blankets, carrying the uneaten food back to the kitchen, and helping the remaining few guests finish their merriment. She saw none of her family and wondered, briefly, if they had simply decamped, sparing her no thought. Another tear leaked out at that self-pitying thought, and it almost made her laugh at herself.
A figure had approached her from one side but she paid him no mind until he said, “Miss Bennet. Well. This is a sight.”
At least it is not Mr Darcy or the colonel,she thought with relief.Only Lord Saye.“Excuse me, my lord.”
“What have you been doing?” he asked, his handsome face looking horrified. “There aresticksin your hair.”
She raised one hand, feeling the leaves and small branches entwined in among her curls. “Yes, well, I…um, I got a bit turned about in the maze and decided to go through rather than find my way out.”
