“Leave Hunsford?” Elizabeth said in astonishment. “I assure your ladyship, I shall leave it soon enough. My return is to take place in two weeks.”
“It will take place today,” Lady Catherine told her. “You will leave now.”
This proposal was so absurd that Elizabeth could not immediately think of an answer. “I cannotimagine that you are serious,” she said at last. “I cannot at all comprehend your meaning.”
“It is not necessary that you should comprehend it,” Lady Catherine replied. “It is sufficient that I require it.”
“I am a guest in this house,” Elizabeth protested. “I cannot suppose that I am to be dismissed from it without the consent of its master.”
She turned toward Mr Collins as she spoke, but he only appeared more distressed. “My dear Cousin Elizabeth,” he said, “the wishes of Lady Catherine must always be paramount. It would be highly improper, highly unbecoming, to oppose them in any particular.”
Elizabeth regarded him with astonishment. “Do you mean to say,” she said, “that I am to leave your house at a moment’s notice, merely because Lady Catherine commands it? Is there nothing improper in sending a member of your own family, an injured young woman, on a journey which must prove both uncomfortable and likely to provoke comment?”
“My situation,” he replied, with an air of painful importance, “is one of peculiar obligation. I cannot, in conscience, refuse her ladyship anything which she may be pleased to require.”
“You have protested quite enough,” Lady Catherine said with smug satisfaction. “I believe younow see that the matter is settled. There is no occasion for further debate.”
Elizabeth sat down abruptly, equally overcome by the pain in her ankle from standing so long and by the shock of such insults. “I had intended,” she said, after a moment, “to remain only a short time longer. I shall therefore make my preparations to leave as soon as I am able.”
“That will not be necessary,” Lady Catherine returned. “You will leave at once.”
“At once?” Elizabeth repeated faintly.
“My carriage is at the door now. You will return to your family in it. Your trunk may follow when it has been properly secured. Mrs Collins shall pack it for you.”
For a moment, Elizabeth could not think how to answer her.
That Lady Catherine should order hers to leave a house of which she was not the master, and that Mr Collins would not exert his rights in so humiliating a case, was extraordinary in its own right. That she would be expected to do so immediately, without so much as packing her things, was almost beyond belief. Yet the manner in which it was urged left little room for argument, and she was too well aware of Mr Collins’s disposition to suppose that any further appeal to him would be of use.
“I should wish,” she said at last, “to write to my family before I set out. To arrive when they do not expect me for another fortnight would be shocking.”
“Your family shall learn of your journey by the fact of your arrival,” Lady Catherine returned. “There is no advantage in postponing your departure.”
Elizabeth did not immediately speak again.
To escape the arrangements Lady Catherine proposed would not be easy. She could not remain at the parsonage if denied it by its master. Any attempt to seek shelter elsewhere would cause considerable comment, and walking any considerable distance remained impossible.
She had no choice but to allow Lady Catherine to send her home like a parcel, or perhaps like a naughty child. But all the indignity of the journey was nothing compared to leaving before she had seen Darcy.
Hemustknow what was being done to her. She must tell him she did not wish to leave him without a word. But even as Elizabeth thought desperately of how she might arrange to send word, she realised it was impossible. It was precisely to prevent her from doing any such thing that Lady Catherine was sending her without time to so much as pack her trunk.
She must go without speaking to him. The conclusion brought pain, but composure with it as well. As there was nothing else for her to do, Elizabeth would keep her dignity.
“I am ready,” she said.
Mr Collins nodded in satisfaction, looking more than a little relieved that there would not be a scene. “My dear Miss Elizabeth,” he began, “permit me to assure you that no personal inconvenience, no temporary discomfort, can outweigh the satisfaction of complying with the wishes of Lady Catherine, whose judgment in all matters must ever be regarded with the highest respect.”
Elizabeth did not trust herself to answer him.
Lady Catherine rose. “You will follow me at once.”
Elizabeth inclined her head, and, with as much steadiness as she could command, followed her from the room.
The passage to the door was soon made. A servant had already brought her shawl. She would once have thought it extraordinary to quit a house under such circumstances without even the formality of a farewell. She now found that the omission was of little consequence compared with the necessity of preserving her composure.
Two carriages stood before the house: thelarge and elegant carriage which Elizabeth had seen Lady Catherine use before, and another, which had once been a fine vehicle, but was now a little worn and faded, obviously much the older of the two. Lady Catherine gestured imperiously for Elizabeth to enter the latter, and Elizabeth, after a moment’s pause which served only to confirm what was already resolved, did so. The coachman closed the door behind her.
The carriage moved forward without delay, the sound of the wheels on the gravel giving way to the more even motion of the road beyond. From the window, Elizabeth could see Lady Catherine’s carriage turning away from them, returning to Rosings.
