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“You must take him into the library,” her father advised, settling back against the squabs. “Engage him in conversation about the classics. Demonstrate your wit, your learning, your facility with Greek and Latin. A man of Darcy’s education will appreciate a woman who can hold her own in intellectual discourse.”
“Nonsense!” Mrs. Bennet waved this suggestion away with the contempt it apparently deserved. “No man ever married a woman for her Greek, Mr. Bennet. Lizzy must use her beauty, her vivaciousness, her feminine charms. That is how I caught you, if you will recall.”
“I recall being somewhat alarmed by the noise accompanying your vivaciousness, my dear.”
“You were captivated! You told me so yourself!”
“I told you that you were the most energetic woman I had ever met. You chose to interpret that as a compliment.”
Mrs. Bennet turned to Elizabeth with an expression of maternal despair. “If only you looked more like Jane. Jane has such a sweet countenance, such gentle manners. Mr. Darcy would have proposed to Jane on the spot.”
“If Mr. Darcy wanted Jane, he would have proposed to Jane,” Elizabeth observed. “But Uncle Henry did not leave the fortune to Jane.”
“More’s the pity.” Her mother sighed heavily. “Though I suppose if Jane were to marry Mr. Bingley, that would help matters somewhat—”
“Five thousand a year,” Mr. Bennet said. “Hardly enough to save us from the hedgerows.”
“Which is precisely why Lizzy must secure Mr. Darcy! Ten thousand a year and eighty thousand pounds to add! We should never want for anything again!”
“Lizzy shall never want for anything, my dear,” Mr. Bennet said. “Henry has tied up every farthing for her alone, from her wedding day, beyond the reach of any husband.” He settled deeper into the squabs. “Or any mother.”
Elizabeth pressed her forehead to the carriage window and watched the hedgerows slip by. They looked almost inviting—soft, green, and blissfully distant from her family’s commotion. She could leap out, vanish into the shrubbery, and leave her parents to explain to Mr. Darcy why their daughter preferred foliage to matrimony.
The gates of Netherfield appeared, and the carriage turned up the drive. Elizabeth’s stomach executed a maneuver worthy of a circus acrobat, clearly wishing itself elsewhere.
“Mamma, what do I say to Mr. Darcy? You have not given me the script.”
“Tell him you are willing to make a go of it. Tell him you will be a good wife. Tell him whatever he needs to hear to make him say yes.”
“And if he says no?”
“Then tell him again. And again. And keep telling him until Lady Day arrives or he surrenders, whichever comes first.”
The carriage rolled to a stop. The coachman let down the step, but Elizabeth did not move.
Huffing and groaning, her father got down and handed her out with great courtesy, as though they had arrived at a ball, then climbed back in. The coachman went round to the boot and returned with the bundle Hill had carried out in a cloth. It was not a pie. It was her own valise, the old one with the broken clasp, strapped shut with one of her father’s belts, and he set it on the gravel at her feet.
“Your nightgown,” said her mother through the window, “and the sprigged muslin, and your good stockings, and a clean collar. Hill packed it. Do not come home without his answer, Lizzy. After that you may live at opposite ends of Derbyshire for all I care. Eighty thousand pounds buys a great deal of distance.”
“Mamma! Papa!” Elizabeth seized the window frame. “You cannot mean to leave me here. This is highly improper!”
“About as improper as when you stayed to nurse Jane,” Mrs. Bennet countered. “Mr. Bingley’s sisters are in residence. You will be adequately chaperoned. Go into that house, speak to Mr. Darcy, and obtain his consent to this marriage. You will not return to Longbourn until you have done so.”
“Papa!” Elizabeth turned to the more reasonable member of the pair. “Do something! Say something! Where shall I sleep—on the doorstep?”
Her father’s face, which had maintained its customary sardonic detachment throughout this ordeal, softened into something approaching genuine regret. “I am truly sorry, Lizzy, but your mother is right. We have run out of alternatives.” He reached out and touched her cheek—a gesture so uncharacteristic that Elizabeth nearly wept. “You are clever, my girl. You have always been clever. Find a way to make him see what you are worth.”
He rapped his cane on the carriage roof. “Drive.”
The horses lurched forward, and the carriage pulled away. Elizabeth stood on the gravel, her battered valise at her feet, as the great house of Netherfield rose before her and the carriage retreated down the drive.
“I will not sleep in the hedgerows.” Elizabeth stamped both feet on the gravel. “I swear, if it is the last thing I do—I. Will. Not. Sleep. In. A. Hedgerow.”
A footstep crunched behind her in the gravel. “Then don’t.”
CHAPTER SIX
INTIMATE GARMENTS
