“The very idea is insupportable! He is engaged to my daughter!”
“Then you have nothing to worry over, do you?” Elizabeth, copying Mrs Gardiner’s disinterested, unaffected air, turned instead to the tea tray. “Might I serve the tea for you, Aunt?”
Lady Catherine glared at this activity, as if they ought to remain awed in frozen silence while in her presence.
“Their engagement is of an informal nature. It was the dying wish of his mother. Are you so lost to delicacy, that you could ignore his family’s claims upon him?”
Elizabeth poured her aunt’s cup, adding a touch of fresh cream. “If I can ignoreyourinsults, I can certainly ignorethat. Here you are, Aunt. Biscuit?”
“Thank you, yes, Elizabeth,” Mrs Gardiner said, taking a sip. “You know just how I like it.”
Her ladyship’s eyes narrowed. “Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connexion with you must disgrace him in the eyes of everybody?”
Mrs Gardiner frowned, opening her mouth to respond, but Elizabeth gave her a little shake of her head. “I certainly do not. You are wasting your time. I am neither standing in the way of his marriage to Miss de Bourgh, nor preventing him from offering for her. If he wishes to do so,he certainly might—and, it seems to me, could have already.”
It was as if she had not spoken. “You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew?”
“It is duetohis honour and credit that he has refused to give you the promise you demand.”
“Nonsense! Mr Collins has told me of a disgusting scene—at a public inn, no less—in which you made a sordid spectacle of yourself, but I have sworn him to silence! Believe me when I say that he shall not ever mention it again—he will never dare eventhinkof it! You are to understand, Miss Bennet, that I came here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose. You have no fortune, I am told. Providentially, I am a most generous woman. You will be happy to learn that I have decided to take your impoverishment under consideration, in examining your previous conduct. Promise that you will not marry my nephew, and a thousand pounds will be yours now—the same amount, I understand, you will receive upon your mother’s death. I have not been used to submit to the whims of any such a person as you. You will accept my liberality, and our association will be at an end. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment.”
That blabbermouth Mr Collins obviously gossiped, and this shrew believes me to be a grasping, conniving, deceiver!Had Elizabeth not been determined to counter the old lady’s coarseness with an opposite behaviour, she might have sunk to her level with a few sarcastic rejoinders.
“I am certain you believe yourself to be offeringprotection to your nephew, but you betray your daughter’s private concerns to a disinterested party. I will never speak of what occurred on the road to London. It is all to be forgot. You waste your time and mine mentioning it. It is to him that you must give your assurances, and fifty times that amount would not buy me.”
“Assurances! He requires more than that, obstinate, headstrong girl! He swears he will wed you before the year is out whether Collins speaks or not! He has been confounded by your arts and allurements, and in a moment of selfish infatuation, has forgot his obligations.”
“You have said more than enough,” Mrs Gardiner said, standing. “I shall see you out. Perhaps you are satisfied with such unbecoming conduct as you have demonstrated in word and action this morning—but my niece is accustomed to a much higher standard of behaviour. We are finished here.”
Lady Catherine’s voice rose to the level of a shriek. “I am shocked and astonished. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede. I shall not go away till I have been given the promise I require!”
It looked very much as though, if Mrs Gardiner wished her ladyship gone, she would have to have her removed—perhaps with ropes and oxen, Elizabeth feared. But at that moment, Vincent, Mr Gardiner’s man, entered without knocking. Vincent was quietly dressed and even quieter of manner. However, having been raised on the docks, he had made himself indispensable to Mr Gardiner in a hundredways—one of which was his ability to scent trouble from two floors away.
“Shall I call for the master, Mistress?” he said in his very quiet voice.
There was something about Vincent that warned one not to cross him, and even Lady Catherine was not proof against it.
She stood, sniffed, and stalked out, Vincent stepping back to permit her exit—and probably to ensure she actually departed. But at the door, she stopped. “You do not deserve my attention. Do not suppose this matter is finished. Iwillcarry my point.”
Vincent closed the door behind her; Elizabeth and Mrs Gardiner stared at each other.
“Well,” said her aunt. “That was something.”
Elizabeth grinned, and then, because she could not help herself, laughed aloud.
Mrs Gardiner raised a brow, although she smiled back. “She was absurd, was she not? I did not mind her silly opinions of my home, but her accusations against you were insupportable. I cannot find amusement in it yet, but give me an hour or so. I am certain by the time I relay the tale to your uncle, we shall all be chuckling.”
“There is little to respect about her,” Elizabeth agreed, reining in her laughter. Nonetheless, she could not help the happiness bubbling through her.
Mr Darcy was a man perfectly capable of speaking his mind—and was also a man of strong opinions. It was possible that his aunt had goaded him into saying it, butthe very fact of his refusal to affirm that a marriage was not imminent—never mind promising her that itwas—told Elizabeth that his feelings remained unchanged. It was not, perhaps, the message Lady Catherine had intended to deliver, but itwasthe one received.
Hewantedto marry her, still. She did not understand why he stayed away, but hope, like the resilient phoenix, rose up again from the ashes of her disappointment.
Exactly two weeks after Darcy and Elizabeth’s adventure on the road to London, he presented himself upon the Gardiners’ doorstep. He wore his finest coat, a green wool tailored by Weston, his boots polished to a nearly blinding gleam; his man—obviously sensing romance in the air—had fussed over his cravat endlessly. He felt like a dashed fop, even clutching a posy in the hopes of catching the eye of his lady-love while sporting an over-elaborate, dandified neckcloth.
Those nerves faded the moment he set eyes upon Elizabeth. She was dressed charmingly in yellow, her dark eyes shining, her perfect, pretty mouth smiling. For a moment he was utterly dumbfounded as feelings of adoration rushed through him, urging him to his knee right there in the parlour while her aunt looked on. He only just managed to contain them.
“Mr Darcy,” Elizabeth murmured, in response to hisbowed greeting. “How lovely to see you again.” She glanced at the flowers. “Are those for me?”
