Page 57 of A Most Favourable Match

While I cannot honourably reveal the reasons for such strong opposition, I ask you to believe that they are not so worldly as you think, but rather matters of strongly held moral principle. I have great respect for Miss Bennet. I hope your sister will find happiness in marriage, but I do not believe this can ever be the case if her husband is Lord Grantchester.

Had she ever met such an infuriating man?

“Lizzy?” questioned her puzzled uncle, and Elizabeth realised she had set her wineglass down hard on the table and was scowling at an imagined Mr Darcy. “Do you not think we should take boiled eggs? The children do like them and they’re easy for the kitchen toprepare.”

Sighing apologetically, Elizabeth took up her spoon to tackle her stewed fruit. “Yes, the eggs are a good idea. I’m sorry, Uncle. I seem to be rather distracted tonight.”

“Was it your letter?” he asked his startled niece in a conversation tone. “Your aunt told me about your friend Charlotte marrying Mr Collins.”

Elizabeth smiled and shook her head, her confusion at her uncle’s uncanny insight resolved. “No, I think I have recovered from that particular astonishment and wrote to wish Charlotte well. It is …another friend this time. One’s friends can say and do the most remarkable, maddening things, can’t they?” she returned with deliberate vagueness. “I don’t know what to make of people sometimes.”

“People can be very difficult to understand,” her uncle sympathised, as Elizabeth found herself bemused by her own choice of words.

Was Fitzwilliam Darcy her friend? Elizabeth was not at all sure that he was, or would want to be. Yet, with the confidences his letter had placed in her, and her frank conversations with him, he somehow felt more of an intimate than many others she might more easily and carelessly accept into her circle. Then, where on earth did his peculiar proposal fit in? It was all such a tangle!

“I should not make such quick judgements about the people I meet,” Elizabeth admitted ruefully, telling as much of the truth as she was willing to discuss. “They turn out to be very complicated, and it comes back to haunt me.”

“We all judge quickly when we are young. Still, I expect everything will be well in the end, both with Charlotte and your other friend, whoever she is,” he added encouragingly. “You will see.”

Elizabeth nodded and said nothing to correct her uncle’s misapprehension.

∞∞∞

The next day, after spending the morning hours with the Gardiner children, Elizabeth took a cab to Hyde Park. It was a little late for the fashionable crowd to be promenading, but there were still a few ladies and gentlemen of her casual acquaintance to be seen, and civil nods exchanged. In the absence of Lord Grantchester and Jane, Elizabeth hardly expected to be acknowledged any more than this.

Before long, however, she realised she was drawing more personal attention than she had anticipated. More than nodding, a few ladies actually stared or exchanged words with their companions upon spotting Elizabeth. Eventually, the half-overheard whispers seemed to confirm what she had already begun to suspect.

“That’s her sister. Don’t look!”

“The engagement is broken…”

“Do you think she found out…?”

So, Mr Darcy had achieved his goal. Jane had indeed done as Lord Grantchester asked and called off the marriage. Impossible, infuriating, self-righteous man! She hoped he was already on his way to Pemberley and would not have the satisfaction of learning of his triumph for at least another week.

For a brief moment, Elizabeth managed to summon her old intensity of anger against Mr Darcy on Jane’s behalf, but it quickly fizzled and died, leaving her saddened more than angry. Since his letter to her, it had become harder and harder to dislike Mr Darcy. He more puzzled Elizabeth now, and somehow intrigued her too. She set him aside as an insoluble problem and focused on Jane instead.

News like this always travelled fast. Evidentially, it had already spread across London. Elizabeth supposed that Lord Grantchester must have informed his friends, and they had passed it on. It was as well that Jane was not here to be exposed to such indelicate gossiping. Still, Elizabeth must write and warn her.

If their mother had not already been informed of her dashed hopes – Mrs Bennet’s as much as Jane’s – now was the time that it must be done. What even greater weeping, wailing, and vapours would result if she learned the news from strangers?

Cheeks burning but head held high, Elizabeth continued her walk.

Chapter 20

“Shall we shoot today?” Darcy asked Charles Bingley at breakfast, looking through the window and seeing not a cloud in the fine August sky. “It seems like excellent weather for some sport.”

The Darcy household had arrived at Netherfield Park only yesterday, but Darcy was conscious that they would not be in Hertfordshire very long. He aimed to be safely in Pemberley by September, if not earlier, and far away from the clutches of Caroline Bingley and the unconscious allurements of Elizabeth Bennet for the rest of the year.

“Yes…yes, why not?” his friend answered, somewhat distractedly. “I promised Mrs Bennet I would change some books at the lending library in Meryton and collect a draught from the apothecary there for Miss Bennet, but I usually run such errands in the afternoon.”

“I think that is very kind and neighbourly of you, Mr Bingley,” Georgiana spoke up approvingly from across the table. “It is sad to hear that Miss Bennet has been unwell.”

Darcy nodded and added no comment, knowing that Bingley’s motivation sprang from something more than mere neighbourliness or his kind nature. While the whole world seemed now to know that Jane Bennet would no longer be marrying Lord Grantchester, he still wondered whether Bingley’s present engagement with the Bennet family was wise.

The object of Bingley’s affections had been ill, and was likely very unhappy. Was this really the proper time for wooing, or would he only end by deepening his own unhappiness? Was there ever a proper time for wooing? Darcy supposed he was not really the man to answer that question.

Not when his only experience of considering marriage was his ill-judged proposal to Elizabeth Bennet at the Suttonfield ball.