Page 31 of A Selfish Disdain

Lydia went on to explain, “And, during the party, what do you think had passed around with such pleasure? Why the latest news of none other than you and Mr. Darcy. For, Mrs. Long stopped me at once…”

"My dear Miss Lydia!" Mrs. Long bore down upon her before she had properly removed her wraps, a lady of considerable size and considerably greater appetite for intelligence, her countenance arranged into an expression of sympathetic concern that did nothing whatsoever to disguise the eagerness beneath it. "We have heard the most extraordinary account of your sister! It has been said that highwaymen had attacked her, and her carriage overturned, and Mr. Darcy carried half-dead into some country inn! I do not know when I have heard anything so exactly like a novel. You must tell me everything, my dear, every particular, for I am sure the version that has reached us cannot possibly be accurate in all its details!"

"I am afraid there is very little I can add, ma'am," said Lydia, “But, I can tell you that Mr. Darcy certainly accompanied Elizabeth to Netherfield Park, and I can also say that his coachman was shot, for I heard it from Mrs. Hill who spoke with the livery there!”

"Good gracious! Shot? My, how awful,” Mrs. Long began. “Though I confess I had heard it was four whole days that she and Mr. Darcy were together, with nothing but a farmer's family and a wounded coachman for company, before proper help arrived at all." Mrs. Long's voice was lowered, but her eyes, bright with the particular relish of a woman scenting scandal, added,"Four days is a very great while, is it not, however innocent the occasion?"

"Indeed, I do not think anybody of good sense could imagine otherwise, Mrs. Long,” said Lydia, reflecting about the ordeal through quite a new lens of reasoning, thanks to the older matron’s prodding.

"I am sure nobody imagines anything of the kind," said Mrs. Long, in a tone that suggested she imagined a great deal, "though I do think that a gentleman in Mr. Darcy's situation must feel himself under some particular obligation, given the circumstances, though I am sure that is none of my business, and I only mention it because I know how these things are generally settled among people of quality, and I should not like to see dear Miss Eliza's reputation suffer for want of the gentleman doing what is proper."

Lydia, listening with all the composure of a fifteen-year-old who had never in her life felt the smallest obligation to conceal what she thought, could not help but gasp aloud, and then dissolve into giggles at the thought of how thoroughly vexed her sister must be to find herself obliged to marry so dull and dreary a man as Mr. Darcy.

"Now, what do you say to that, Lizzy? For you must marry Mr. Darcy now, you know, there is no getting out of it, even if you should like to, for I am sure he has said as much to Mama already, and Mama never lets go of a match once she has got her teeth into it! La, what a joke! I declare I have never heard anything so diverting in the whole course of my life." She laughed on, quite delighted with the picture she had made for herself, and privately congratulated her own good fortune in never being required to marry so stern and tedious a man, whatever fortune he might have to recommend him. "Though I suppose someone must have him, and I am glad enough it is you and not me, for I should be asleep within the week, married to a man who never laughs at anything."

Elizabeth felt the colour rise hot to her face, and was obliged to look very fixedly at some point upon the carpet until she could trust her countenance not to betray more than she wished it to. It was one thing to have her own heart in so precarious and unsettled a state upon the subject; it was quite another to have it flung about the breakfast room by her youngest sister as a piece of gossip fit for nothing better than Lydia's amusement.

Just then, Mrs. Bennet walked into the room, and added fuel to the fire. "He said as much before the whole family, Lizzy. That he did not intend it to remain a matter of words alone. I heard him say it myself, and so did your father, and Mr. Bingley besides, the whole family assembled to hear it. And I do think, a fortnight having now very nearly passed since your return with no proper offer forthcoming, that the gentleman might see fit to make good upon so public a declaration before the whole neighbourhood begins to wonder why he has not."

"Mama, he is scarcely a week recovered from a fever that very nearly killed him. I do not think we ought to press him upon the subject of proposals before he can walk the length of Netherfield's drive without tiring."

"I am not asking you to press him, Lizzy, only to observe that a gentleman's health does not generally prevent him from writing a letter, or paying a call, or doing any of the ordinary things a man in his situation does when he means to make his intentions known. Mr. Bingley proposed to your sister within a month of their acquaintance, and nobody thought it indecently hasty, everybody being so pleased with the match that speed was accounted a virtue rather than a fault. I do not see why the same generosity should not be extended to your own situation, particularly when the whole neighbourhood already expects it, and particularly," here Mrs. Bennet's voice dropped, though not so far as to lose any of its habitual carrying quality, "when I have heard, from more than one quarter, that Lady Catherine de Bourgh herself has taken an interest in the business, which I confess alarms me rather more than Mrs. Long's gossip, that lady's opinion being rather more consequential than anything Meryton can produce!"

Elizabeth felt something cold settle in her stomach at this, though she kept her countenance carefully composed. "How could you possibly have heard anything of Lady Catherine's opinion, Mama? We have had no communication with her at all."

"Mr. Collins writes to your father, Lizzy! As you very well know, and Mr. Collins is not a man capable of keeping any intelligence to himself above a fortnight. I am sure he has had it from Mrs. Long in a letter to Charlotte. Now, I do not know the particulars, only that your father had a letter from him not two days past, full of the most alarming hints about her ladyship's displeasure, and I confess I have not been easy in my mind since reading it."

***

It was into this atmosphere of mounting expectation that a letter arrived at Netherfield the following day, addressed to Mr. Darcy in a hand Bingley recognised immediately, and with an audible groan, as belonging to his friend's aunt, Lady Catherine.

"She will have heard it from Collins," Bingley predicted, watching Darcy break the seal with an expression that suggested he had reached the identical conclusion before the letter was even properly opened. "The man corresponds with half the county on her ladyship's behalf, and Mrs. Collins's own connections in Hertfordshire will have furnished him the whole story within a week of its happening, embellishments and all. I am only astonished it has taken her ladyship this long to weigh in upon the matter."

Elizabeth, who had arrived at Netherfield that same afternoon, for what had become her own daily visit, watched Darcy's countenance change as he read.

Having read the letter in full, he exhaled irritatedly. "You had better read it yourself," passing the letter to her without further comment. “She is wrong, of course, but I shall not shield you from the nature of her correspondence, but I will shield you for her.”

Elizabeth took the letter from him, feeling some trepidation at its contents. She did not know Darcy’s aunt, but felt that the lady could not be well pleased with his situation, given the words he just spoke to her. Although Elizabeth, being the curious sort, was far too eager to learn about what this aunt from Rosings had written, and so, rather than return the letter back to Darcy, she read it.

Nephew,

I write to you on account of your recent conduct that I confess has occasioned me the most serious alarm. I am informed that you travelled, entirely unchaperoned save for a common coachman, above four days together with a young woman of no particular family or fortune, one Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Hertfordshire, and that this scandalous exposure has already become the subject of general gossip throughout the neighbourhood in which her family resides.

I need not remind you, Darcy, of what is owed to the name you carry, nor of the connections that name has always been understood, by every member of your family, to demand. Whatever imprudent attachment this extraordinary and regrettable circumstance may have produced in your own mind must be abandoned immediately and entirely.

The young lady's family, as I understand the matter, possesses neither fortune nor consequence to recommend any further association, and the scandal already attached to your having travelled together unchaperoned can only be compounded, not remedied, by any public acknowledgment of attachment on your part. I trust you will see the wisdom of extinguishing the connection at once, quietly, and without further exposure of either party to the kind of talk that presently, I am given to understand, occupies every drawing-room in Hertfordshire.

I remain, as I have always been, entirely devoted to your true interest, whatever present feeling may protest to the contrary.

Catherine de Bourgh

Elizabeth read the letter through once, and then, unable to help herself, a second time, and felt, by the conclusion of the second reading, a colour born less of any injury done to herself than of a temper roused on another's behalf, which she generally found provoked her a good deal more thoroughly than any offence levelled at her own person ever could.

"Your aunt certainly writes plainly; whatever else may be said of her," Elizabeth managed, folding the letter with hands that were somewhat shaking, after its contents.

"She writes as she has always written," said Darcy, taking the letter back from her with considerable restraint, "believing herself entitled to direct the whole of my life according to a design she settled upon before I had reached my majority, and finding, whenever that design is challenged, no better recourse than to threaten and to insult in the same breath. I confess myself, upon this particular occasion, a good deal more thoroughly angered than I have generally permitted myself to be by her interference."

Elizabeth could sense the anger in Darcy, but she held her chin in the air, aiming to hold her wits about her. "I see your aunt calls me a woman of no particular family or fortune."