The Same Day, London
“You are very dull, Lizzy,” Mrs Gardiner remarked after dinner. “Are you well?”
“Forgive me. I ought to have slept in the carriage as Maria did, then I might have arrived better company.” As it was, anticipation to be reunited with Jane and other, less agreeable anxieties had kept Elizabeth awake for the entire journey.
“Nay, there is nothing wanting in your company,” said her uncle. “You are naturally fatigued from your travels.”
Jane sent her a worried look, which she parried with a smile. Of greater concern was that her sister had not passed any part of the day in a carriage and thus had no reason to look as weary as she did.
“Tell me then, girls,” said Mrs Gardiner, “how do Mr and Mrs Collins do?”
“They make a fine couple, though I wonder how my sister tolerates the way Mr Collins chews his food.”
Maria’s eagerness to satisfy everybody’s curiosity suited Elizabeth very well. She was exhausted from the effort of diverting all talk of Kent away from the specific mention of Mr Darcy, conscious of her propensity to blush at the merest mention of him. To avoid speaking of him was one thing, yet Jane’s unabated melancholy made it impossible not to think of him. Her sister might have been happily engaged to Mr Bingley had Mr Darcy not separated them, a deed for which his letter revealed him to be wholly unrepentant.
She regretted allowing herself to think of his letter, for certain other parts of it soon obtruded on her memory also. In particular, its revelations of Mr Wickham’s true character, which were almost too appalling to allow, given how blithely she had permitted him to court her vanity and colour her opinions.
“Please do not make me go,” she heard Maria say. “His plays are all high Dutch to me.”
“Of course we shall not make you go, my dear,” said Mrs Gardiner.
“I should be happy to stay here and keep you company,” Jane offered. “I have never much cared for Shakespeare either, particularly the tragedies. They are too gloomy for my liking.”
“And you, Lizzy?” Mr Gardiner enquired. “Can we tempt you with a littleRomeo and Juliet?”
“I should be delighted,” she replied, drawn to the prospect of an evening passed in contemplation of anybody’s gloom but her own. How, after all, was she ever to reconcile such an intense dislike of Mr Darcy with such remorse for misjudging him?
“Excellent! It is settled then. Have you any other plans, ladies?”
The failure was assuredly not hers, for Mr Darcy was the most contrary creature she had ever met. On the one hand, he was unrepentantly meddlesome, whilst on the other, unfailingly loyal.
“I promised Mrs Featherstone we would all visit,” Mrs Gardiner said.
He boasted of consequence and duty yet, by his own admission, was motivated by sensibility.
“I should like to go shopping,” said Maria. “Lady Catherine said, if I mentioned her name at the drapers on Bond Street, I would be attended to!”
“Then we absolutely must go,” Jane replied. “I have no plans other than to steal as much of Lizzy’s time as I can.”
Dear Jane! How perverse that Mr Darcy should have treated her so cruelly whilst all gallantry in defence of his sister!
“I cannot imagine you will find any complaint,” Mr Gardiner replied amiably. “Though before you begin, might I persuade you, Lizzy, to play the pianoforte for us?”
Most contrary of all, she thought, was that he had disdained her situation, connections and looks—then declared his passionate admiration and love!
“Go to bed, Lizzy,” her aunt said softly, closer by than she had been a moment ago.
Elizabeth looked up, struggling to disengage herself from her reflections. Her aunt’s frown and, across the room, Jane’s concerned expression came into focus. Elizabeth wrinkled her nose in defeat. “Pardon me. I am a hopeless bore this evening.”
Everybody politely assured her otherwise, though no one objected when she excused herself to bed.
Tuesday 21 April 1812, London
“Let me understand you, Bingley. This cousin of yours has inherited land in Nova Scotia?”
Bingley squinted at his friend Tindale and nodded. The whole room wobbled. He stopped nodding.
“And he has asked you to build him something on it?”
