Page 19 of Mr Darcy’s Inconvenient Wife

Elizabeth

Elizabeth had put on her half-boots, her oldest pelisse and the first bonnet that came to hand. She had not stopped to tell anyone where she was going. If Mama asked, Hill would say Miss Lizzy had gone for a walk, and Mama would say it was just like her, the day before a wedding, and think no more about it.

The frost had not lifted from the low field. The ruts in the cart track were iced over, and they cracked under her heels as she went. She did not slow down for them. She did not slow down for the stile either, and caught her hem on the top bar, and had to stop and tug it loose with cold fingers. It tore a little. She found she did not care.

The handkerchief was in her pocket. She could feel the stiff corner of the embroidery every time she took a step.

Mr Bingley loved Jane. Elizabeth had been as sure of that as she was of anything in the world. She had watched him look at Jane across a drawing room as though nobody else had ever been in it. And yet a stranger had sat in their parlour this morning and told his secrets as easily as if she were reading them off a list. Either the woman was lying, or Mr Bingley was. Elizabeth meant to find out which before the sun went down.

The chimneys of Netherfield came into view over the bare elms, and then the whole grey front of the house. Elizabeth slowed at last.

It was one thing to be angry in an empty field. It was quite another to walk up to a gentleman's front door, alone and uninvited, with mud on her hem and her cheeks red with cold, and demand to see him in private.

A young lady's reputation was a delicate thing. Elizabeth had been told so all her life, usually by her mother, usually while her mother was doing something to endanger it.

She thought of Jane, sitting on the edge of the bed with her face in her hands. Then she lifted her chin and walked on.

She had just reached the sweep when the front door opened, and Mr Darcy came out onto the step.

He saw her at once. For a moment he stood quite still. Then he came down the steps and across the gravel towards her, fast enough that his coat blew open. Elizabeth had never seen Mr Darcy hurry. She had supposed he thought it beneath him.

“Miss Elizabeth.” He stopped a few paces from her. “Is something wrong? Is anyone at Longbourn hurt?”

“No one is hurt.” She stepped to one side to go round him. “And I have not come to see you, Mr Darcy. I have come to see Mr Bingley.”

He turned and kept pace with her. It cost him no trouble, for his legs were a great deal longer than hers.

“What has happened?”

“That is between Mr Bingley and me.”

“Bingley is not at home. He rode out early to meet the vicar with Mr Hurst.”

“Then I shall wait for him.”

She kept walking. So did he. Last night, at his friend's table, she had all but called him a villain in front of her mother and her aunt. She had rather hoped he would not wish to speak to her again for some time. It seemed she had been wrong about that, too.

“Miss Elizabeth.” He did not raise his voice. “Does this have anything to do with a young woman with fair hair?”

Elizabeth stopped so suddenly that he went a step past her and had to turn back.

“What do you know about her?”

“Not a great deal. She called here this morning, a little before you came. Miss Bingley took her into the morning room and shut the door, and they were a quarter of an hour together. When she came out, she had a good deal more in her reticule than she brought in with her.” He paused. “Miss Bingley has made no secret, to me at least, that she wishes this marriage stopped. When she came back through the hall, she told me it was all taken care of. I do not think I need a great deal of calculation to add up the rest.”

Elizabeth stared at him.

She had come here ready for anything. She had been ready for Mr Bingley's shame, or his excuses, or his tears. She had not been ready for Mr Darcy to stand in front of her in the cold and set out her own suspicions more neatly than she could have done herself. There was something very strange in hearing him speak of a plot against Jane's happiness, when he had been involved in one himself not all that long ago.

“That is exactly why I have come,” she said at last.

“Will you tell me what she said?”

Elizabeth hesitated. It was Jane's grief, and he was the very last person she would have chosen to share it with. But he had seen the woman here, and she had not.

“She called at Longbourn this morning and asked for Jane.” Elizabeth took a deep breath. Then, she made a full report of what had transpired that morning, leaving out nothing. Mr Darcy listened and when she presented the handkerchief, he took it in his hand and stared at it, while she finished her accounting.

Mr Darcy looked at the little square of cloth for a long moment after she concluded her tale