My uncle poured himself a generous measure of brandy and, to my surprise, set a modest dram before me. A sip of the fiery spirit paradoxically helped to somewhat cool the rage that burned hot inside me. I now understood why gentlemen were so quick to reach for the stuff when unsettled.
“Your aunt and sister were too shocked by Sir John’s offences to notice, I think, but I clearly heard you refer to ‘such insulting offers’, Lizzy,” he said gravely. “I will have the name of any other man who has importuned you in even the slightest way, and I will have it now.”
I felt my cheeks heat. I had hoped to keep the humiliating secret that the man I had thought to be courting me had not been the only one to think to use me so, but my uncle was too quick and canny. As briefly as possible, I described the other two incidents, and watched as he grimly drained his glass and filled it once again before he was able to meet my eyes.
“I wish, more than anything, that there was something I could do to address these insults,” he said angrily. “But against such men, I am powerless. None of them have sought to invest with me, and anything else I might seek to do would likely get me hanged.”
“I do not wish that you should harm yourself or your business on my account,” I replied with alarm, “though I appreciate your desire to avenge my honour. I want only to return home and try to forget that any of this occurred.”
He rubbed a hand across his face and regarded me with regret. “I cannot send you home, not yet. Your father wrote to instruct me—after I informed him of your difficulties in society—that no matter how bad it got I was to keep you here until after the first of December. You see, Longbourn has a visitor—Mr Collins, your father’s cousin and heir. It seems he came with the idea of mending the breach in the family by marrying one of the daughters of the house he will inherit, and he was not pleased to find only your younger sisters in residence. Kitty and Lydia are too young and silly to marry, and he has been disappointed by Mary’s lack of beauty. If you were to return to Longbourn, your father fears that he would instantly fix upon you, and distressing scenes would arise when you refused to marry such a pompous, stupid man as he describes.”
I listened to all of this with astonishment, and it was some moments before I felt sufficiently in command of myself to reply sensibly. “I do not wish to go about in society any longer, Uncle. If I may not return home, tell me that I may stay quietly here.”
He was quick to agree and soon, my head swimming with all that had occurred, and perhaps a bit with brandy, I retired for the night and was, for once, happy to see that Jane had preceded me into slumber.
I woke, late and alone, to a grey day with fat snowflakes meandering lazily downwards amid the raindrops. It fit my mood perfectly. The rage of the night before had cooled to a hard lump of grief in the centre of my chest, and it felt as though all the long years of my future stretched out before me, as cold and bleak as the view from my window. I lay abed pondering my few options for a considerable time before there was a soft knock upon the door, and my aunt peeked inside.
“Ah, you are awake,” she said with a gentle smile, and entered carrying a tray with a pot of tea, a little dish of eggs, and one of the orange scones she knew I favoured. This she set upon the bedside table, saying, “I thought you might like the treat of breakfast in bed.”
“I am not hungry,” I replied, though I sat up and accepted the cup she prepared for me.
“Have a bite of the scone, at least.”
Unwillingly, I obliged her, and my capitulation seemed to loosen her tongue. She fixed me with a kindly look and said, “Lizzy, my dear, you have had a great disappointment, far worse than the usual sort which befalls a young lady. I expect that you are feeling very silly for being so deceived in him, but you must recall that we all liked that man, we all believed he was on the verge of an honourable offer. Your uncle and I are astounded that he would court you so openly, to such a purpose.”
I looked down at my hands, surprised to find that half the scone was gone. I placed the rest upon the tray. “If I had accepted his offer,” I reasoned as I spoke, “and gone off with him, my family would have to put it about that I was ill, and in time that I had died, to save my sisters’ reputations. There would be little that Father or Uncle could do against him. If anyone asked Sir John about me, he would need only say that our flirtation had ended. Those who share his proclivities would know the truth, but they maintain their own reputations by concealing such activities. There was no reason not to lure me with what seemed a respectable courtship. It was the only thing which could have drawn me in.”
My aunt shook her head wearily. “Such wickedness. One does not like to think it possible, but I can readily bring to mind the names of a dozen young ladies who appeared in my own circles over the years, only to vanish due to illness or the needs of an elderly aunt in some far-flung place. In some cases, I am sure that was the truth, and of course, some simply found themselves with child through their own foolishness, but now I must wonder how many were enticed into such a life as you were offered.”
“Aunt, I am so ashamed,” I confessed miserably, “for I can understand why a girl might accept such an offer. He raised not only my affections, but...other sensations.”
“Oh my dear girl.” She clasped my hands. “It is natural, entirely natural, to feel an attraction of the body. Wrong to act upon it outside of marriage, of course, but such feelings are ever so much more common than love. It is romantic to think that only the man we love could stir such feelings within us, but that is hardly ever the case.”
Her words were a comfort to me, though it would be many months before I could recall without a shiver of disgust how I had once longed for the moments when his hand would brush mine, or his shoulder touch my own as he murmured in my ear.
“Has my uncle told you why he will not return me to Longbourn?”
“Yes, and I have seen your father’s letter on the subject. Mr Collins sounds like a great buffoon, slavishly devoted to his patroness and neglectful of his duties to the rest of his flock. Your mother is desperately attempting to convince him to wed Mary, but he is reluctant, having seen your youngest sisters’ beauty and hearing of yours and Jane’s.”
“I wonder...” I bit my lip, then nerved myself to continue. “Perhaps I should go home. If he likes me, Longbourn would remain in the family, and Mama and my sisters would be assured of a home.” Love and happiness I felt beyond my reach, but the satisfaction of a duty done was not, and I was not unwilling to grasp at it.
“No, Lizzy,” my aunt snapped, as vehemently as I had ever heard her speak. “You shall not throw yourself away for Longbourn. I had rather anything than see you make yourself unhappy to do what your father, by rights, ought to have done—see to the futures of his wife and daughters.”
“I understand that the marriage itself might not be congenial, but would I not find fulfilment in aiding my family, and happiness in my children?”
“The happiness of motherhood and that of a good marriage are very different, yet they are intertwined!” she declared. “You need look only to your own mother to see how difficult it may be to find joy in children when there is none in the marriage. But Lizzy, I feel that you are giving up on the idea of love simply because your first attempt has ended badly. It is not like you.”
“I have never thought it very likely that I should find the love I wished for,” I admitted. “Look at Jane. For all her goodness and beauty, she has not had a true suitor until now. What hope have I?”
“Every hope in the world,” my aunt insisted. “You are every bit as lovable and deserving as your sister, though I concede that it may be a little more difficult to find a man who will appreciate your intelligence rather than be threatened by it. I felt very much as you did before I met your uncle, you know, and I had a disappointment or two of my own before that fortunate day. Do not allow that man to harm you more than he already has. He deserves no such prominence in your thoughts or your actions.”
I was very much struck by the notion that I was allowing Sir John to determine my future, and though I could not share her optimism, I promised that I would think seriously upon her words.
CHAPTER16
FITZWILLIAM DARCY
I did not see my cousin again for a week, not until I visited to congratulate him on the arrival of Lady Helen Fitzwilliam, the first daughter born into the family since my own sister. Though bursting with pride in his little family and relief that Lady Deane had come through the ordeal swimmingly, he did not forget to quiz me on the subject of Miss Elizabeth Bennet. I explained to him what had transpired before his arrival on the terrace that night, and he had a few choice words to say on the subject of Sir John Hatton. He commented that he had seen Sir Edward, his wife, and his eldest niece on two occasions before his wife was brought to bed, but that Miss Elizabeth had been present for neither.
