But her voice faltered before Darcy’s smile.
“My dear aunt, I am long past the age when any person may impose a command upon me. Besides, with all respect, I am a Darcy, not a Matlock. Perhaps my father might have forbidden me something...yet it was not in his nature to do so.”
“I shall contrive that neither you nor she shall be received in the best circles of London. You must break this engagement at once!”
Darcy laughed outright. “That would indeed be immediate—a proposal refused, another accepted, and then a broken engagement, all in one day. Nothing would remain but to make a third offer.”
He laid down his cutlery, took a slice of bread, spread it deliberately with butter, and rose.
“You have forgotten to ask with whom I am engaged.”
“With whom?” demanded the colonel, fearing the worst; for, judging from Darcy’s smile, he was certain it could not be Miss Bennet, and dreaded that he had indeed asked for Anne’s hand directly of herself.
“With Lady Elizabeth Ashcombe,” said Darcy, and that name fell like a thunderbolt upon both his hearers.
“I shall prevent it!” screamed Lady Catherine, flinging her napkin upon the table as she rose in fury. “I shall go this very instant to Ashmore, to tell them that their daughter was asked only after Miss Bennet—a disgrace no father could bear!”
“Be seated, I entreat you,” said the colonel; and it was not clear to whom he spoke, yet both Lady Catherine and Darcy resumed their places.
“There is nothing to be done now,” he added, not without regret, but the situation was beyond recall. No gentleman like Darcy would ever withdraw from such a declaration. Miss Bennet would have suited him ideally, yet Lady Elizabeth was also a proper wife for his cousin. Only Anne would have been disastrous.
More tranquil, the colonel applied himself to restoring peace, and in great measure succeeded. Lady Catherine had no wish to offend Lord Ashmore; they had known each other all their lives, and in their narrow society, poor in diversions, his family were their nearest and most constant neighbours.
Without knowing why, the colonel smiled later that night, alone in his chamber, gazing upon the gardens of Rosingsbathed in the light of a splendid moon. At least his cousin would never make a blunder with his new fiancée...if, following his heart, he were to call her Elizabeth.
One thing only he could not comprehend: why, on the following day, before their departure, they stopped at the Parsonage, that Darcy might deliver a letter to Elizabeth...Bennet.
Yet by then all had returned to order, and no further confidence was possible.
Chapter 11
That same evening, Elizabeth wrote a long and explicit letter, addressed to both her sister and Mrs Gardiner. It was needless to compose two separate ones, for her resolution was already taken, and she wished her family to know all that had occurred in Kent. With a shadow of humour, she requested from the first lines that the ladies would not banish her uncle from the room when they read it, for she knew that Mr Gardiner, unlike her father, who avoided the ladies’ tales, took pleasure in them; besides, she suspected that Mrs Gardiner, before retiring for the night, was accustomed to acquainting him with every occurrence of the day.
Excepting the passage relating to Mr Gardiner, the letter overflowed with indignation and resentment, recounting all that had passed, word by word, for she had no reason to conceal the truth about the gentleman who had brought them nothing but harm.
When she entered her aunt’s parlour, the two ladies received her with open arms, and for a while they remainedclosely embraced. Only Mr Gardiner’s entrance parted them, and, in his usual cheerful way, he soon enlivened the atmosphere.
“Two refusals within four months, my dear niece…I believe you are about to set a record.”
“Mr Gardiner!” cried his wife, scandalised.
Elizabeth laughed, and that sound restored ease to the room. On the previous night, the ladies had spoken until midnight, fearing they might find her not only angry but secretly afflicted by the rejection she had pronounced in a moment of temper.
“To suffer?” she repeated when Jane told her of their anxiety. “Why should I suffer?”
“From your former letters, I imagined that you had felt some regard for him,” said Mrs Gardiner, somewhat hesitantly. Yet the astonishment on Elizabeth’s countenance was perfectly genuine.
“How could you imagine such a thing? Did you believe that I liked him?”
“Something of the kind,” admitted Jane softly.
“Why? How? I wrote only that I appreciated his civility towards me, so different from the man I had met in October, whose pride was boundless. But that is all. He is a man of intelligence with whom one may converse; he does not regard women as mere housekeepers. Yet from there to loving him…it is a very long road. Be easy; I entertain no feeling for him, and the slight admiration I once had has wholly vanished before his horrid opinion of our family, which he did not scruple to express in words that truly burned me.”
Only then did she draw forth his letter, of which they knew nothing, for she had written no mention of it, knowing she should soon be with them.
“A letter that he delivered himself,” she explained.
“A letter?” exclaimed Mr Gardiner. “That is somewhat beyond decorum.”
