“That is what Lady Oakham also said.”
“And we are right. What we see is a fight between Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. No one else is on the battlefield. Make peace and win him back!”
∞∞∞
“What about Jane?” asked Elizabeth later when her sister had left the room.
“What about Jane?” Mrs Gardiner echoed, though she understood precisely what Elizabeth meant. “Mr Darcy has asked for your hand in marriage. This is not some fanciful scheme of your mother’s but reality. If you did not love him, we would have long since ended this conversation. But this love you have discovered within your heart for a man who is utterly worth fighting for is, at this moment, our sole concern.”
“We could ask Lady Oakham to arrange a meeting between Jane and—”
“No,” Mrs Gardiner interrupted with firm resolve. “Diana has taken these steps in your case because she cares for Mr Darcy and cannot bear to see him unhappy or to let him act foolishly at a time when his distress clouds his judgment. But that is all.”
“I did not ask her to do this.”
“No, and she does not do it for you. As for Jane, I believe she received her answer when she visited Mr Bingley’s house and the gentleman in question did not trouble himself to see her.”
Chapter 22
“You do not need to come every day. I am not on my deathbed,” Darcy said one afternoon as the colonel entered the library—not in his usual stormy manner but almost on tiptoe, like a man stepping into a house recently struck by tragedy. “It is enough that I see you at the club, at dinner, or in the park—I have begun to feel as though you are following me.”
“I am following you,” the colonel replied, choosing to answer in the same vaguely sarcastic tone, hoping that in such an atmosphere, Darcy might feel able to speak freely, to tell him what was truly happening.
“Well, since you are here, sit down and let me pour you a glass of brandy to calm your nerves.”
“Drink does not calm me,” the colonel said, watching his cousin closely. He looked thinner—though he had never been stout—but something was altered in his appearance, and the colonel wondered whether a deeper, inner change had begun to appear outwardly.
“Do not look at me like that,” Darcy said.
“Where else should I look?” asked the colonel, and both of them began to laugh, a little more at ease. In truth, though he would never say so aloud, Darcy felt at ease only in the presence of his cousin and Georgiana.
The arrival of Lady Catherine had unsettled him. For the past few days, he had done everything in his power to avoid her. But his aunt was unrelenting and always managed to find him, repeating the same refrain concerning his supposed engagement to her daughter.
“Lady Catherine is convinced that I shall marry Anne,” he said.
“And you?”
“I remain undecided.” And though the colonel searched for a trace of irony in his voice, the words sounded painfully sincere—Darcy had truly begun to consider the possibility of marrying his cousin.
“Family marriages are no longer well regarded—unless one is of royal blood. And even there, the results have not always been…favourable.”
“Well,” Darcy muttered, clearly uninterested, “perhaps not Anne.”
“Lady Olivia?” asked the colonel after a brief hesitation. He sensed that he must not let the subject drop, that he must lead it, somehow, towards Miss Elizabeth, even if he had to name other ladies.
“With Lady Olivia, the matter is more complicated,” Darcy replied just as seriously.
“What do you mean?”
The colonel felt that it was a good moment to find out what had happened between his cousin and that lady, as it was an event that brought an embarrassed expression to his face every time she was mentioned.
Darcy exhaled audibly, a sound that betrayed the unrest of his mind.
“I experienced a most peculiar incident with her. Just before I left for Pemberley, her father, Lord Grantley, invited me to dinner, and we had scarcely finished the first course when he excused himself.”
“You were left alone with Lady Olivia?” the colonel asked, astonished, suddenly feeling a chill in the well-heated room, for such a situation was nearly inconceivable. It bore the mark of a scheme in which Lady Olivia had even involved her father. But he shook off the thought—such tales belonged to fiction. And yet, in Darcy’s hesitation to continue, there was something undeniably strange.
“Yes, but what is most surprising is that I was not shocked…not then, at least. I am now, but at the time, it seemed quite natural. I had consumed a brandy or two, and I believed that sense of ease was due to the warmth of the room and Lady Olivia’s liveliness—”
