Page 68 of A Most Unwelcome Acquaintance

Mary closed her book. “Did Mr. Wickham hear the conversation?”

Kitty frowned. “He did not say.”

“Then he cannot know what Mr. Darcy meant.”

“He knows him.”

“That does not give him knowledge of words he did not hear.”

Kitty looked wounded. “He was not inventing it.”

Elizabeth wished she could agree without reservation. Wickham had not invented the broken gate or Darcy’s objection. He had only made Darcy’s judgment sound more contemptuous than it was.

“No,” she said. “But I did not tell him.”

Mrs. Bennet returned to her toast. “I see nothing strange in it. Mr. Darcy thinks himself above everyone, and now he has found fault with Longbourn. I expected no better from the man.”

Jane said nothing, and her concern made the story harder for Elizabeth to dismiss.

By noon, the story had reached Meryton. Elizabeth learned this when she entered her aunt’s sitting room and found Mrs. Phillips discussing it with two neighbors.

“My dear Lizzy,” Mrs. Phillips said, “you never told me Mr. Darcy found you tending sheep.”

“I was not tending sheep.”

Mrs. Long leaned forward. “Kitty said half the flock escaped.”

“Six sheep passed through a broken gate.”

“And Mr. Darcy objected to your being there?”

“He objected to the condition of the gate.”

Mrs. Phillips exchanged a glance with Mrs. Long. “Mr. Wickham understood that he objected to more than the gate.”

Elizabeth removed her gloves. “Mr. Wickham was not present.”

“No, but he has known Mr. Darcy since childhood.”

The answer came with such confidence that Elizabeth almost laughed. Their lack of knowledge was a license to supply every missing fact.

Mrs. Long lowered her voice. “Mr. Darcy could not comprehend a gentleman allowing his daughter to perform a laborer’s task.”

“He said no such thing.”

“Not in those words, perhaps.”

“In no words.”

A pause followed. Mrs. Phillips looked disappointed, though she tried to hide it behind concern.

“My dear, no one blames you.”

“That is fortunate, since I did nothing wrong.”

“Of course not. The blame belongs elsewhere.”

Elizabeth knew where her aunt meant to place it: on Darcy for his arrogance, on her father for neglect, or on Longbourn for failing to resemble Pemberley. Wickham’s story had room for every conclusion except the truth.