Page 52 of Knowing Mr. Darcy
“No I wouldnot.” She was horrified. “How can youaccuseme—”
“I cannot do this with you, Elizabeth,” he said. “I have been trying, trying very hard, but I simply cannot. Mysincere apologies. You are likely the most fascinating woman I have ever met and you are beautiful in a way that beggars beauty. I wish like anything that I could. You don’t know what it is to give up on this. It hurts me. I am very, very sorry.”
She stopped walking, stunned, hearing the finality in his tone.
He stopped walking, also, taking both of her hands in his. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was going to happen like this. I was still trying to talk myself into trying with you. I really was. Are you all right?”
“Perfectly fine,” she managed.
“Let me get you home,” he said. “It’s frightfully cold out here. You’ll hate me for all this, I imagine, and I cannot blame you for that.”
“I don’t hate you, sir,” she said. “But it is frightfully cold out here.”
They were both silent on the drive home, entirely silent. Caroline Bingley seemed to sense that things had gone wrong, and Elizabeth expected her to protest loudly, but she only seemed resigned to it. She was silent, too.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ELIZABETH TOLD HERaunt of it that evening, her tone halting. Her aunt tried to speak about Mr. Darcy, but Elizabeth only lashed out sharply that it was nonsense, utter nonsense.
And then, Elizabeth didn’t speak of it again.
She wanted to go home, in fact. There was no reason to be in town anymore, and she likelywouldhave gone home if it weren’t for the fact that two letters came. One was from Charlotte Collins, who wrote of the empty guest rooms in the parsonage and of how many guests she could entertain and of how she was enjoying so very much being the mistress of her own household.You see, he is easily led, my husband. I don’t mean to say that I am manipulative, Lizzy, only that I believe men in love enjoy pleasing their women.
Elizabeth thought this was true. She remembered Mr. Bingley’s offers of books and attempts to change himself.
What was wrong with her?
Why didn’t she enjoy it when men attempted to please her? Why did she find Mr. Darcy’s offhand comments about how she was not a goddess somehow more truthful, more reassuring, morereal?
The second letter was from Jane, who recounted matter-of-factly that Mr. Wickham was engaged to be married to a Miss King, an heiress who’d recently come into ten thousand pounds. Jane professed to be happy for him and to havenever had any especial connection to Mr. Wickham in the first place, but Elizabeth wasn’t quite sure if her sister was being honest with herself. Perhaps she simply wanted someone else to be devastated with her.
At any rate, she found herself writing letters to both Charlotte and Jane, dropping various hints with both of them, and before long, it was all settled.
Jane would travel with Sir William and Maria Lucas to London, and they would all spend one night here, at Gracechurch Street. On the following day, they would travel to Kent. Sir William would leave on his own after a short time, but they would stay for an extended visit, possibly six or eight weeks.
By the end of that time, both she and her sister would have forgotten any slight that any stupid man had paid them. If they had broken hearts, they would be mended.
If she remembered that Lady Catherine de Bourgh was Mr. Collin’s patroness, and that he spoke of her excessively, she did not pay that any mind. If she also remembered that Mr. Darcy was Lady Catherine’s nephew, she certainly didn’t take that into account during her scheming.
She definitely did not think that Mr. Darcy wouldbethere.
INDEED, AT FIRST, he was not.
Mr. Darcy did not appear in Kent right away, but he did appear remarkably quickly. They had been there less than four days before he arrived, and she did wonder if he’d come after her. She could not but wonder at that.
But before Mr. Darcy’s appearance, she gave him little thought. In fact, she wished not to think of him if she could help it.
That first night at Gracechurch Street, she and Jane spent as much time as they could, whenever they could get away from other listening ears, explaining to each othereverything that had happened to them since they had last been in each other’s company. They talked in the corner of the sitting room and they talked when the party went to the theater. She went down the hallway in the midst of the night with only a candle and the two sat up on Jane’s bed and talked into the wee hours.
At the theater, they saw Mr. Bingley, also, which was horrifying.
Elizabeth pretended not to see him and walked on, but Jane was not good at this sort of thing, so she stopped and spoke to him, and she said he was very polite and complimented her gown and asked after her family’s health and seemed disappointed to discover Jane would not be in town but was leaving immediately for Kent.
Was it Mr. Bingley who carried the tale of their destination to Mr. Darcy?
Elizabeth would never know.
Perhaps it was a coincidence that Mr. Darcy came to visit his aunt.
