Page 26 of Till Death Us Do Part: Book 2
Elizabeth gasped, and Molly continued, “Lady Matlock did not seem impressed, but she got the message and retreated.”
Elizabeth chuckled. “I like Mrs Reynolds better and better every day.”
“Will you join them for dinner?”
Elizabeth thought about it for a while, and finally asked, “What do you think?”
Molly pondered for a bit, not really believing she had any cleverer thoughts than Mrs Darcy, but willing to try.
“All I know is that if I let one of my brothers pick on me without a response, they all joined in and kept going until one of them ended up with a black eye, or something truly unpleasant in his dinner or laundry.”
“Perhaps you can tell me about these unpleasant foods,” Elizabeth laughed. “It might come in handy when my husband returns.”
She thought about it right up until the time dinner began and stuck with her original decision. She spent a quiet evening reading with Molly, ate the fancier meal prepared for the Matlocks in her sitting room without the ceremony, and otherwise spent the evening second guessing the day’s actions.
She eventually fell asleep, well past midnight, still uncertain of the day’s actions, but unable to bring herself to do any different.
Her last thought before succumbing to sleep was a bit of a plea for wisdom to appear with the light of the new day.
11.Reading Material
Much to Elizabeth’s disappointment, the morning light brought little in the way of clarity, but much in the way of a headache and sore jaw—a sure sign she ground her teeth during the night. Jane had often complained that she sounded like a woodcutter when she had one of her frequent arguments with her mother.
She briefly considered a bit of laudanum, but stopped just before taking the dropper because she did not want to let her noble relatives win. Instead, she put on her dress that lacked dog slobber (so far), and descended through the hidden stairs, not willing to risk running into the Matlocks accidentally.
It was a good plan and might have worked, had she not gone by the hidden door to Lady Matlock’s chambers. Mrs Reynolds, in a fit of either good sense or a subtle put-down, had placed the lady in the room with the horrid furniture removed from the mistress’ chambers. It was the most ornate room in the house, and likely in Derbyshire. Elizabeth had no idea whether the lady considered it her just due, or her eyes were screaming in pain as Elizabeth’s had.
Lady Matlock was in the sitting room speaking with her husband, and while Elizabeth did not stop to eavesdrop, she might not have passed the door with her usual alacrity, when she overheard a bit of their conversation.
“Have you learned where she went yesterday? I swear, the little hoyden disappeared like a ghost. Who knows what she could be up to? I hope you plan to write Darcy about this debacle,” said Lady Matlock, without any hint of subtlety.
Abandoning any pretence of decorum, Elizabeth stopped to hear what the lord had to say.
“I have no idea. I asked around, but the servants either did not know, or they closed ranks around her. If the latter, that would be in her favour. The former, very much against her.”
“Well, I for one think she acted despicably, and I will be certain to let Darcy know if you do not.”
“You think refusing to entertain uninvited guests, against her husband’s explicit instructions, qualifies as despicable?” the lord asked, in a tone Elizabeth could not make out through the door.
‘Yes. We came here to help her and look how she acted. She has no idea what she is about to face.”
Elizabeth waited in breathless anticipation of what the earl would say. It sounded as if he might partially admire her actions, or at least not entirely disapprove. The next sentence would be telling.
“You must admire her spunk. She has some backbone—I will give her that. However, she seems to lack sense. She could make friends in the family with little effort, but she seems to think herself better than us.Sheis the interloper here, not us, and it is up to her to make a better place for herself, not the other way around.”
Lady Matlock seemed content to scoff loud enough for Elizabeth to clearly hear it through the door. Lord Matlock was not finished, though.
“We will stay a few days and try to learn what we can, but at the moment I am inclined to tell Darcy he made a bad choice, and he should escape it. That would be expensive, but I do not see how he can save himself.”
With that, Elizabeth lost all hope of ever repairing things with the Matlocks—not that she ever had much in the first place. If they were ready to abandon all efforts after one exchange, and they were unwilling to hear, let alone acknowledge, her side of the story, then—then—then—well, she feared the family was irredeemable. She had briefly hoped Lord Matlock had a bit ofsense, and for a moment things had looked promising, but in the end it all came to naught.
That did not necessarily mean her husband was irredeemable or her marriage beyond saving. She could well imagine someone abandoning her over her own family. In fact, she did not even have to imagine it. Mr Bingley might well have made an offer for Jane absent Mrs Bennet’s intervention at the Netherfield ball. Not only that, but Elizabeth also strongly suspected Mr Darcy would have dissuaded him from making the connexion anyway, and to be honest, after the experiences from Michaelmas to the ball, Elizabeth could not really blame him. Therefore, having some disagreeable relatives did nothing to raise or lower her husband in her esteem. She tried to keep reasonable limits on hypocrisy. For all she knew, her husband did not like his aunt and uncle, and they were just playing their own games. That would certainly comply with the behaviour Mr Collins blathered on endlessly about Lady Catherine, who was apparently the earl’s sister.
As she left the Matlocks to their scheming, she wondered where that left her. The rest of the stairs to the hidden exit door, and the walk to the stables, convinced her that the basic situation was unchanged. She would either get along with her husband, or she would not. He would listen to his relatives, or he would not. The two were related, because if he took their word over hers, and did not even give her a chance, the game would be up before it started.
In fact, she thought the whole ordeal might prove useful in one way. It was a convenient and easily administered test of her husband’s character. If he condemned her based on his relatives’ testimony without listening to her side of the story, she would know everything about his character that she ever would. If he instead acted fairly, tried to learn the truth and act accordingly,as a gentleman should, then that would conversely speak well of him.
All in all, Elizabeth felt some satisfaction in the assertion that within a week of her husband’s eventual return she would know how to judge him fairly and correctly.She would then know how to act.
