“Darcy has been in love with Miss Elizabeth since the winter, from the time he was in Hertfordshire.”
“And why do we know nothing of this?” demanded Lady Redmond, perfectly in accord with her mother-in-law.
“Because that is Darcy’s way—secretive where his own life is concerned.”
“What is Miss Elizabeth like?” asked Lady Matlock.
“Admirable,” answered Richard and Georgiana together, and they smiled at one another.
“Admirable? Then how came he to be betrothed to Lady Elizabeth?” demanded Lady Matlock.
“Yes, that is what I too should like to know, Colonel Fitzwilliam,” said Lady Elizabeth, whose face, still flushed, now betrayed anger.
“I am sorry, Elizabeth,” murmured the colonel, quite undone.
“Elizabeth?” cried Lady Matlock. Outwardly, she appeared incensed, yet inwardly her mind was perfectly calm—for calmness was always the state from which her plans emerged triumphant. Lady Elizabeth had been one such plan, designed for Richard, her favoured and ill-used son. That was why she had welcomed the young lady into her house, hoping that affection might grow between them. She was precisely the woman he required—wealthy, first of all, yet also modest, lively, and affectionate—qualities rare in London.
“Richard!” she thundered again, and he approached her at once, sat beside her on the sofa, and took her hand.
“Miss Elizabeth refused his proposal of marriage,” came Richard’s answer to their unspoken questions.
“When?” asked Lady Elizabeth eagerly.
“In March,” he replied with obvious pain—and the words struck the poor young lady like a blow.
“How could such a thing be possible?” Lady Matlock uttered the thought upon every lip. She had never believed that any woman could refuse her nephew, nor that he could, within so short a time, offer marriage to two ladies.
“It is possible,” Richard said gravely, “when a man conducts himself abominably. Instead of declaring his love, Darcy told Miss Elizabeth how much he despised her family.”
“Heavens!” cried Lady Matlock, though she was less astonished than she wished to appear. She had long observed in Darcy a particular inclination towards arrogance which, as his aunt, she could in no way correct.
“Bravo to her!” exclaimed Lady Elizabeth, who remembered Miss Bennet perfectly from the dinners at Rosings, where she had admired her for the self-possession and principle with which she had spoken her mind without the least restraint. Yet even as she spoke, understanding dawned upon her countenance.
“And so Mr Darcy, in his anger, asked the first woman he met to marry him—namely, myself.”
Her expression changed from indignation to grief—wounded, and justly so, by such an absurd circumstance.
“Wait,” murmured the colonel. “Do not judge him too harshly. He was indeed resolved to marry, and you did truly appear before him at that very moment. He asked you because you were a suitable woman—someone with whom he might lead a decent and honourable life.”
“It is kind of you to defend him, as you did all your childhood,” Lady Matlock observed somewhat ironically, “yet he was in error. He might have made his proposal a month or two later, when he had truly come to know Lady Elizabeth—not so.”
“He erred, I admit,” Richard answered, “but you must understand that, however and whenever he offered himself, he was prepared to fulfil that duty with dignity and to make Lady Elizabeth happy. He acted in haste, yet he undoubtedly desired a woman like her—like you.”
“A poor consolation,” murmured Lady Elizabeth.
“And why tell us all this?” asked his mother at last, voicing the natural question. Richard had long concealed the matter, and his loyalty to Darcy was beyond doubt.
“Because matters have changed.”
“How?” cried Lady Elizabeth, forgetting all decorum.
“When Miss Elizabeth refused him, she did not love Darcy.”
“And now she loves him?” asked Georgiana unexpectedly, her cheeks crimson; yet for the first time in her life, she felt herself a sister, not a child. Her question was upon every tongue, most of all upon Lady Elizabeth’s.
“Yes…she loves him,” murmured Richard, but there was no relief in the confession. His heart grew heavier with the burden of his own guilt, and finally Lady Matlock was now wholly persuaded that between her son and Lady Elizabeth existed the same attachment—that they were in love. Inwardly, she triumphed, though outwardly her glance was stern.
“And again—why have you chosen to speak now?”
