Chapter Five Impatience formed no great part of Miss Bennet’s - or rather, Miss Darcy’s - character. Nevertheless, she and Elizabeth spent the evening in a state of such restless anxiety that even Lydia remarked upon it during supper. Darcy, not far away, sent a sharp glance at them, his acute, unembarrassed gaze gentling at the sight of Jane’s flushed cheeks and bright eyes. “Mr Collins, I hope you left my aunt in good health,” he said, as if he had not already heard more than enough on the subject. “Why, yes, sir, I - ” “Well, Jane, if you cannot enjoy dancing,” Lydia went on, ignoring both gentlemen, “you might as well leave the offi - ” “- and my cousin, Miss de Bourgh? how is she?” said Darcy, the obstinate cast to his features indistinguishable from the one Jane habitually wore. The resemblance between them, already striking, was for a moment so pronounced that Elizabeth thought the truth must be discovered then and there. Instead, Darcy’s determined, if minute, enquiries after his relations, Mr Collins’ parishioners, the village of Hunsford, and everybody else within five miles of Rosings, so astonished the assorted guests (and their hosts, too) that nobody looked beyond it. Lydia fell into a sulky silence, and Jane’s stiff posture relaxed. Elizabeth, for her part, felt a rush of sensations she could not begin to disentangle, but foremost amongst which was relief. It was impossible to misunderstand his concern when she felt it so often herself: not a disinterested compassion for others, but loyalty to Jane. A loyalty, she thought, which had only manifested when he recognised her for his sister - and therefore she, Elizabeth, had not misjudged him so unfairly as all that. Oh, he had little of the positive ill-nature she had thought she perceived in his every word and deed. She had refused to see anything amiable in him before his sudden, awkward kindness that day at Longbourn - but it was not a kindness bestowed upon humanity in general, or even upon genteel young ladies, but upon his uncle’s daughter. Indeed, she had often heard him speak so affectionately of his sister - his younger sister - as to show him capable of all the benevolence and sensibility in the world, where his own flesh and blood were concerned. She should have seen that - but, still, it was a comfort to her vanity that she had not been entirely mistaken, that he had been kind to Elizabeth Fitzwilliam and not Elizabeth Bennet. Somehow, in that moment, it became real. The remainder of the ball passed in a blur. Sir William prattled at her, something about marriage, and later she vaguely remembered Lydia, Kitty, and Mrs Bennet committing a stream of improprieties which should have brought a blush to her cheek, but did not. Only when Mr Collins announced his deference to Lady Catherine and all connected to her did she suffer any kind of clarity. Jane remained oblivious, but Elizabeth and Darcy hid identical smiles in their wine, dark blue eyes crinkling at the corners. When it was all over and they had returned to Longbourn, Elizabeth could not retire quickly enough. She sent the maid to assist Lydia and Kitty and waited eagerly for Jane. Her sister - cousin? - Jane entered, several minutes later, with little more than an attempt at her usual serenity. “Lizzy,” she whispered, “I have scarcely thought of anything or anyone else the entire night. Is that very wrong of me?” “I think it might be excused in the circumstances,” said Elizabeth. “Well - yes, perhaps so. Oh, I am so glad that we are family in every way. It is all strange, and bewildering, but that at least need not change.” Jane paused, thoughtful; then her eyes brightened. “Yet my brother is no longer lost to me, either. Fitzwilliam is alive, and well, and - ” “ - and Mr Darcy!” Elizabeth exclaimed, laughing. “I can hardly believe it. Even when I remembered them both, it never entered my head that they might be the same person. Can you imagine Mr Darcy ever pulling anybody’s hair?” Elizabeth, after soberly considering this, confessed that she could not. “Fitzwilliam did! He told me stories and fussed over me, but when we were well, we got into scrapes, and he teased me, and - and - ” the cheerful nostalgia faded from Jane’s face - “and until this month, I did not remember any of it. I did not even remember him.” Elizabeth opened her mouth, then shut it again. Some situations, she thought, demanded neither wit nor quickness, nor even words. She could only embrace her, pretending not to notice Jane’s damp cheeks and red eyes. “You are too good to me,” Jane said into her shoulder, sniffling. “I do not deserve - ” “You deserve everything good the world has to offer,” said Elizabeth. “My dearest Jane, you cannot think - ” she paused, her voice catching, then continued, “you cannot think your brother blames you. Besides, you may not have thought about all those things that happened, and the people you knew, but neither did you truly forget them. You required only something to remind you.” “It was the dancing-slippers.” “I beg your pardon?” “Kitty took Lydia’s dancing-slippers tonight - do you remember?” “Why, yes, of course, but - ” Jane straightened, withdrawing just far enough to grasp Elizabeth’s hands in hers. “When Lydia mentioned them, I remembered that my brother once told me a story about a princess with cursed dancing-slippers. If not for that, I - I would not have even realised that I had a brother.” “Nonsense,” Elizabeth said stoutly. “Your memories may be confused and incoherent, but they have never been gone. Something else would have reminded you; why, we discovered that much within a few hours.” She possessed little of tenderness by nature; nevertheless, she still managed to soften her voice to a tone approximating Jane’s own. “You may not remember what it was to be Miss Darcy. Perhaps you never shall - but, Jane, you have shown over and over again, that you do remember what it was to be Mr Darcy’s sister.” “That is true,” said Jane, smiling again, and looked at her admiringly. “You are so sensible, Lizzy.” Elizabeth laughed outright. “If only I had your heart to go with my sense, Jane, I might be half the picture of perfection that you think I am. I only wish - ” “You wish what, Lizzy?” “I wish I could remember, but I - I know nothing except what facts we have from Papa and Mr Darcy.” She still could not bring herself to use any other name for him - certainly not one which belonged to her. “I know my father’s name, his brother’s title, and nothing of myself.” A new thought entered her head and she glanced swiftly at Jane. “Do you recall anything of me, from before? I will understand if you cannot.” Jane shut her eyes, not merely allowing those snippets of before to invade the present, but actively searching for and amongst them. Voices murmured all around her, making Jane’s head hurt even more. Then they went away, and after awhile, Mama came to sit by her side. “My poor darling,” she murmured. The silk of her sleeves was cool and soothing against Jane’s hot skin. “Shall I sing you a lullaby?” “Yes, please,” said Jane, and Mama began to sing, her long hair falling down, down, like a shifting, shining black veil. She shook her head, trying to clear the memory away. She had clung to it through the years, when she forgot - didn’t think of - anything else, but it was no help to her now. “Papa, Papa!” Jane ran through the hall, sliding on the smooth floor until a tall gentleman, his hair as fair as her own, swung her into the air, then around and around. A brown-eyed boy followed, a little more sedately, his merry laughter ringing out. “Mr Darcy, Mr Darcy! Did you see what I did?” “Fitzwilliam helped,” said Jane, and looked at George with a hint of reproach. “No,” Jane said aloud, frowning. “Oh! Well, never mind,” said Elizabeth. “Before long, I shall undoubtedly know all that I wish and more.” “No, I did not mean - I felt convinced there was something.” Jane shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. Lady Milton, drowsing on her chair, glanced at her dog and sat upright. “Lizzy! Lizzy, stop teasing Pugsy!” Lizzy tossed her black curls, giggling. “Pug-see!” she said cheerfully. On a chair beside the viscountess, another girl watched with a conspiratorial grin. “Stop that this instant! For heavens’ sake, Cecily, can you not mind her for five min - Cecily?” Lady Milton turned her head this way and that, her amiable features perplexed. “Oh! ’tis you, Jenny. Where has Cecily got herself to now? I declare, that child will be the death of me! How could she leave Lizzy with my poor Pugsy - ” “Cecily is five, Mama,” interrupted the other girl, snapping her book closed. “I shall manage Lizzy. Come with me, Lizzy, and if you are very good, I will tell Cook to make an entire trifle just for you.” Jane’s eyes flew open. “You teased Lady Milton’s pug,” she said triumphantly, unable to keep from smiling. Elizabeth burst out laughing. She might have asked more, or explained certain implications of the evening’s discoveries, or speculated as to their future, but before she could do any or all of these things, they heard a furore from the hallway - pounding footsteps, servants shouting at one another, somebody crying. Jane and Elizabeth sprang up, the latter flinging the door open. “Why, Sally,” cried Elizabeth, “whatever has happened?” “Oh, Miss Lizzy, ’tis the master; he’s taken a dreadful turn. Mrs Hill sent Jack Anderson for Mr Jones, for all the good it will do - oh, begging your pardon, ma’am!” Before the end of the second sentence, Elizabeth was half-running, half-stumbling to her father’s bedroom, Jane a few steps behind her. She pushed open the door. “What shall we do now?” Mrs Bennet was demanding of nobody in particular. Elizabeth felt as if she were watching a play, watching somebody else woodenly, ineptly, perform the role of Miss Elizabeth Bennet. She walked forward, towards the man in the bed (not her father, and not Mr Bennet). The servants seemed to melt out of her path. Blindly, she reached out and felt for a pulse, expecting and finding none. “He is dead,” she said, her voice loud and unnatural. Jane stifled a sob. Elizabeth glimpsed his face, not contorted in pain, as she had braced herself for, nor smooth and peaceful. He smiled - smirked - in death as he had in life, appearing for all the world as if he were enjoying a grand joke. This, too, was real. “Mark my words,” Mrs Bennet said, her voice shrill and querulous, “that wretched man will leave us to starve in the hedgerows!” Elizabeth slowly turned her head to look at her. She didn’t see Jane’s eyes dart from Mrs Bennet’s tear-splotched cheeks to Elizabeth’s dry ones, then widen in alarmed comprehension, any more than she felt Jane’s fingers pulling urgently at her arm. “Mama, your husband is dead.” “And just like him, too!” said Mrs Bennet indignantly. Jane gave a great shuddering gasp. “Lizzy, come away. Please.” “Yes, of course.” Elizabeth glanced from her father’s body to the woman she would never again call her mother, pressing her lips against Mr Bennet’s warm hand. “Goodbye, ma’am,” she said, and followed Jane out of the room. ***** The next day, Mr Collins all but ordered his new position proclaimed from the rooftops. Even Mary eyed him with considerable distaste, which only increased upon his request to speak with Elizabeth privately. Elizabeth herself could not escape a sense that the events of the last twelve hours had happened to another woman - a woman she knew and admired, yes, but nevertheless somebody else. Only when she saw Jane and the servants catering to the now bedridden Mrs Bennet’s fits of hysteria, did she feel any kind of personal involvement. Fury, however, seemed little more appropriate than indifference, so she almost welcomed the opportunity for amusement. “My dear Miss Elizabeth,” began Mr Collins, overflowing with solemn vacuity, “you can hardly doubt the purpose of my discourse - my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken, and recent events render a certain promptitude desirable . . .” Two minutes later, Elizabeth had decided that of some diversions, a very little would suffice. Certainly the litany of fatuous, condescending insults, thinly cloaked in a proposal of marriage, continued long past the time when it ceased to amuse. “- your wit and vivacity, I think, must be acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence and respect which her rank will inevitably excite.” Elizabeth opened her mouth, then shut it again. Between Mr Collins’ and, surprisingly, Mr Wickham’s accounts, she had received a reasonably good idea of her aunt’s overbearing, dictatorial temper and general arrogance. She very much doubted that Lady Catherine would tolerate the slightest insubordination in her parson’s wife, of all people. I, however, am not the parson’s wife, but her own niece! Elizabeth almost laughed aloud, imagining how Mr Collins would look - what he would say - when the truth became generally known. “On that head, therefore, I shall be uniformly silent: and you may assure yourself that no ungenerous reproach shall ever pass my lips when we are married.” “You are too hasty, sir; you forget that I have made no answer. Let me do it without further loss of time. Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me. I am very sensible of the honour of your proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than decline them.” She glanced up at him and added, her lips twitching, “I am perfectly persuaded that your friend, Lady Catherine, would find me in every respect ill-qualified for the situation.” Mr Collins dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “I am not now to learn that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second or even a third time. I am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long.” Before Elizabeth could respond, the door flew open, revealing a woman of about fifty years. Her face still bore the traces of youthful beauty, but rather more impressive was the tower of dark hair piled atop her head. If not for her extraordinary height and force of personality, it might have overwhelmed her entirely. Instead - aided by a fortune in silks and jewels - she gave the decided impression of an empress surveying an unsatisfactory province. “Mr Collins,” said the lady, her blue eyes snapping, “what is the meaning of this?” His jaw dropped nearly out of his mouth. “L-Lady C-Cath-Catherine! I - ” “How dare you presume to raise your eyes to my niece - my own niece! Heaven and earth! of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Rosings to be so polluted? Consider me, Mr Collins, most seriously displeased.” “Y-your niece, madam?” he gasped. “Why, I . . . I would never have dreamt of - there must be some mista - ” She gave him a look which had undoubtedly terrified stronger men into submission. “F-forgive me. I . . . I did not understand, your ladyship.” “What you do not understand, Mr Collins,” said she, witheringly, “would undoubtedly fill all of Rosings. Now, pray remove yourself from my presence, and meditate upon the dignity of rank and what is owed to one’s benefactors.” He winced with each word, and after deep, repeated bows to both women, shrank out of the room. Elizabeth stored the memory away for a time when she could properly appreciate it. Lady Catherine sniffed. “Young men these days! They think only of themselves. Well, come here, child. Let me see you.” Suiting actions to words, she tilted Elizabeth’s face up to the light, studying it with a familiar pair of fierce dark eyes. In fact, the familiarity did not end there - the black hair and pale skin, pointed chin and sharp cheekbones, were all easily recognisable from her own reflection. The dignity of Lady Catherine’s features might be unmarred by Elizabeth’s turned-up nose and dimpled smile, but the resemblance was unmistakable. Lady Catherine smiled and nodded. “I knew you would have the Fitzwilliam countenance,” she declared. “Well, Elizabeth, come along. Our affairs will not arrange themselves! Is Jenny the tall, fair-haired girl? - the one with a grain of sense?” “Oh, yes,” said Elizabeth. She followed Lady Catherine into the sitting-room, but before anybody could speak, they all heard Mrs Bennet’s voice, rising shrilly as it drew near. “Lizzy! Lizzy, you selfish girl, how can you think of refusing Mr Collins? We shall all be left to starve! How can you - ” She stopped in the doorway, gaping at Lady Catherine. “Who is that?” A thousand slights and public humiliations, instead of the memories she ought to have had, rushed into Elizabeth’s mind. “This, madam,” she said, dark eyes cold, “is my aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.” “You are the person who dared lay your hands on my nieces?” Lady Catherine swelled up ominously. Lydia’s and Kitty’s jaws dropped in tandem. Mary stared. Mr Collins hunched his shoulders. The spectre of the hedgerows seemed to have fled entirely. Mrs Bennet turned white, then almost purple, whirling to face Elizabeth. “Why, you ungrateful little piece,” she said furiously. “As for you, Jane - ” “You have said quite enough,” thundered Lady Catherine. “Do you know who I am? I am not to be trifled with! Jenny, collect your things.” “They are wearing their things,” Mrs Bennet said. Lady Catherine did not hesitate a moment. “Mr Collins, fetch my nieces’ belongings.” She pointed an imperious finger and he scuttled away. “I - there must,” Jane said, “there must be some dreadful mistake.” Even she did not seem to believe it, and Elizabeth, struck by her expression of acute misery, tried vainly to think of some way to stop the approaching disaster. Kitty, almost as terrified as Mr Collins, mumbled something barely audible. Then, when Lydia jabbed her in the ribs, she glared and said, “Mama, think of your nerves. You must not make yourself ill.” “Quite so,” said Mary, nodding in approval while Lydia sulked; “prudence must govern our thoughts unceasingly. In our unfortunate circumstances - ” “Should you be downstairs, ma’am? You look quite unwell. Perhaps I should fetch your smelling salts.” “It may be too much for her salts,” Mary added helpfully. “I think she has a putrid fever!” Lydia yawned. “My . . . nerves? Oh! yes, of course - I am really feeling quite faint . . .” Elizabeth had never thought she would be so grateful to see Mr Collins. “Your ladyship,” he said, preening a little, “my servants have taken Miss Bennet’s and Miss Eliz - that is, er, the trunks to your most excellent carriage.” Lady Catherine favoured Mrs Bennet with a stare of something between contempt and hatred. “Madam, do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede. Mr Collins, happy as this occasion must be for you, do not forget your obligations to Hunsford. I will expect a proper curate by Sunday. Jenny, Elizabeth, come along.” “Goodbye,” said Jane, helplessly, and after embracing the girls they had called their sisters, they left Longbourn - for, Elizabeth supposed, the rest of their lives. She felt a frisson of anxiety, no more. Lady Catherine fell asleep almost as soon as they left Meryton. “What a fine carriage,” said Jane, white-faced and wide-eyed; she reached out to clutch Elizabeth’s cold hands. “Lizzy, what is this? What has happened?” “Somebody must have told Lady Catherine about us, probably last night or this morning. I suppose she came to storm the castle and rescue the damsels in distress. I thought she might take us to Netherfield, but perhaps she does not know that her nephew is there; - or perhaps he is not.” “You mean Fitzwilliam?” Jane blinked, colour slowly leeching back into her cheeks. “Of course he is there. We saw him only last night.” “He could have left for London, or even Kent, early today.” Jane only nodded, and drifted away not long afterwards. Elizabeth, though she had never been so exhausted in her life, did not. She sat, silent and grave, in Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s splendid barouche-landau, watching the countryside transform into town, until they reached a long line of grand houses. Wimpole Street, Elizabeth thought, and, apparently of their own volition, the muscles in her cheeks pulled upwards. Lady Catherine awoke as soon as the carriage stopped. “This was your grandfather’s house,” she said proudly, “and is now my brother’s. It is a noble heritage.” “Yes, ma’am,” said Jane, blinking in the pale sunlight. Lady Catherine swept inside, barking out orders to the butler, and they followed in her wake, trying to ignore the surreptitious glances of the servants. Finally, however, the butler’s exasperatingly slow tread came to a halt, and he bowed to someone Elizabeth could not quite see. “Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Miss Darcy, and Miss Fitzwilliam to see you, my lord.” |