Page 87 of Compromise & Consequence
Darcy drained his drink and set the empty glass on the desk. He stood and said, “I am ready.”
***
Elizabeth burned with curiosity. A very grim-faced Richard and a distraught Jane had accompanied Mr. Collins to where she and Charlotte awaited them on the path. She had just finished telling her friend all she could about the finances of Longbourn when the others came alongside.
Alarmed at the visible nervousness of her betrothed, Charlotte bade them all good day, saying she would see them on the morrow at the church. Elizabeth looked to Richard and Jane, asking after her husband, but they stayed as quiet as the Sphinx and she could not winkle out one bit of information from them. Not even Jane, who had never before withheld secrets from her.
She could only deduce one thing. Given the nervousness of Mr. Collins, the determined levity of the colonel and the quiet despair of Jane along with the absence of her husband led her to believe that something had occurred concerning Lady Catherine. She was the only common denominator within this eclectic group of people and Elizabeth wondered what the woman had done now.
They arrived back at Longbourn and retired to the parlor where the colonel excused himself and hastened toward her uncle’s study. Jane quickly became involved with pouring tea and asking Kitty to show her some drawings of a gown she wished to sew. Jane was so intent on not speaking with Elizabeth that her mother thought they had a falling out during their walk.
“Whatever happened? Did that dreadful colonel do something to upset you both? I see he did not return with you. Is he hiding his face?” Mrs. Bennet huffed and smoothed out her skirts. “I hope he has left and returned to London. I do not knowwhy he came here in the first place.”
“Mamma,” Jane implored. “The colonel has not done anything wrong, and he is speaking with Papa and Mr. Darcy.”
All attempts Elizabeth made to speak with Jane were thwarted. If she weren’t so piqued by the whole affair, she would have delighted in the way her cousin neatly diverted all conversations without anyone in the room aware of her deviousness.
“Mr. Collins looked quite nervous. Do you not agree, Jane?”
“I am sure by tomorrow, once Miss Lucas is his wife, all his nerves and fears will be laid aside.”
First point to Jane.
“The colonel was very quiet on our walk home. Did you find he did not have much to say, Jane?”
“I am sure he was ruminating on the beautiful countryside. Hertfordshire is a delightful county.”
A second point to Jane.
“Why did Mr. Darcy leave so abruptly? We did not get a chance to walk to Oakham Mount and I was so desirous of showing him the view.”
“I believe the heel on his boot had come loose. He did say he wished for us to continue our walk, but I knew you would much rather return home and be with family. We can always walk to Oakham Mount another day.”
This was getting her nowhere. She would have to be less subtle, it seemed.
“I never thought you would all become so discombobulated over Lady Catherine,” she said as her husband and uncle entered the room.
Jane gasped, “How…?”
Mr. Darcy immediately came to her side, and taking her hand in his, sat down beside her.
“How much do you know?”
She watched Uncle Thomas almost fall into the chair beside Aunt Frances, his face so pale she thought he was deathly ill.
“Elizabeth!” Darcy brought her attention back to him. “How much do you know?”
“Nothing, it was an educated guess.”
“Thank God!” Uncle declared.
“What is going on, Mr. Bennet?” Aunt Frances demanded. “Who is Lady Catherine?”
“She is my aunt, Mrs. Bennet, and the lone dissenting voice in my family over my marriage to Elizabeth.”
“Is this the same woman Mr. Collins always blathers on about?”
Although the tension was ripe in the room, Mr. Darcy could not help the glimmer of a smile to make an appearance at his mother-in-law’s description of Mr. Collins’s effusive praises of a woman who did not deserve one syllable of them.
