No,Icould not be prevailed upon to repeat that travesty of a marriage proposal for anything on earth.
I would not be asking Elizabeth Bennet to marry me again. Definitely not.
On the other hand, perhaps I should ask Mrs. Collins’s sister to marry me, Miss Maria Lucas. She would definitely say yes. That might be amusing. I would try that tomorrow. Well, today. It would be today again tomorrow. It always was.
CHAPTER TWO
elizabeth
The day after Mr. Darcy asked me to marry him, I awoke thinking that I must tell Charlotte what had happened. Charlotte was Mrs. Collins, my friend. I had come to stay here precisely because she had asked me to come. I should not have been here otherwise. I could not say that the visit had been an unpleasant one, overall, of course, but it had certainly been rather bewildering.
Mr. Darcy!
Asking for my hand in marriage!
None of that made any sense.
But when I got out to breakfast, Charlotte wasn’t there, and neither was Maria, her younger sister. Mr. Collins was there, and he informed me, “Mrs. Collins and her sister have gone into town this morning to do some shopping for ribbons for their bonnets.”
“That’s odd,” I said. “That is exactly what they did yesterday.”
“I don’t think so,” said Mr. Collins into his tea cup. “You must be mistaken. Anyway, they wished to go quite early so thatMrs. Collins could be back in time to accompany me on my outing to visit a few sickly members of the church.”
“Really?” I sat down at the breakfast table. “But that’s what you did yesterday as well.”
“No, no,” said Mr. Collins, looking up at me. “We have been planning this for Thursday all week.”
“But today is Friday,” I said. “Yesterday was Thursday.”
Mr. Collins tutted at me, amused. “Oh my, Miss Bennet. Youareconfused.”
The rest of the morning was eerie. It was Thursday. Again. I don’t see how it could have been Thursday, but it was. It became quite clear to me when I went on my morning walk.
I usually would walk alone, but sometimes, Mr. Darcy would join me, which always confused me, because I knew he didn’t like me, and he knew that I didn’t like him, and yet, even after I told him that this was my favorite walkway and that I thought I might be here every morning, he kept showing up and walking along with me.
He wasn’t there that morning, though, and he hadn’t been there yesterday.
No, yesterday, it had been Colonel Fitzwilliam who was there when I was walking, and he was there again, in exactly the same spot, wearing exactly what he had worn yesterday.
I knew that it was Thursday, again, but some part of me could not quite accept this. It was madness. So, I said, “You are making quite a habit of walking this way, it seems.”
The colonel gave me an odd look. “I am, in fact, making a tour of the park, and this is where I end up today. I have not walked this way before, not in a year. I do it the same way each year, you see.”
Yes, this was what he had said to me yesterday.
I grimaced and started walking off, shaking my head, unsure of what to say or do.
He fell into step with me. “You would not mind if I accompanied you?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I would not. But I must say, colonel, given what you told me when we walked together yesterday, I cannot keep it off my mind now, and I think I had better come out with it. You said it would be unpleasant if word of what Mr. Darcy did would get round to the lady’s family, but that ismyfamily. It is my sister who was connected to Mr. Bingley—”
“Wait a moment,” said the colonel, stopping his movement. “What are you speaking of, Miss Bennet? We did not walk together yesterday, and I remember no such conversation, but it is true that Mr. Bingley was considering marrying a lady for whom there were strong objections. Only you did not hear anything about Mr. Darcy preventing the union from me.” He gave me a helpless smile. The colonel was not handsome, not exactly, but I found his countenance pleasant when he smiled, and I had to admit I had developed something of a fancy for him.
I had sort of hoped, yesterday, that it would be Colonel Fitzwilliam coming to see me whilst everyone else was at tea, not Mr. Darcy. But it had been the odious Mr. Darcy, and if this Thursday were happening again, it would mean that I would have to live through that awful proposal again.
The thought of that went through me like a gust of strong wind. I looked over my shoulder, back the way I had come. I suddenly had very little energy for walking. “Colonel Fitzwilliam, I’m afraid I must excuse myself. I find I am not feeling well.”
“Oh, that’s unfortunate,” he said to me. “May I escort you back to the parsonage? Please, allow me to do so. If you are feeling poorly, you should not be walking alone.”
