Page 23 of Mr Darcy’s Inconvenient Wife

“Walked where?”

“Oh, nowhere worth mentioning.”

Charlotte waited. They had been friends since they were girls, and she always knew when Elizabeth was keeping something back. Elizabeth only smiled. Jane's trouble was not hers to give away, not even to Charlotte.

“Well, if you will not tell me your own secrets, you might at least tell me Mr Collins's,” Charlotte said at last. “The whole neighbourhood says he means to make you an offer before he goes back to Kent.”

“He has made it already. He is only waiting for my answer, which he seems to think a mere formality.”

Elizabeth had expected her friend to laugh. Instead, Charlotte's face lit up, and she took Elizabeth's hands in both of hers.

“Oh, Eliza. I am so glad for you.”

“Glad?” Elizabeth drew back a little. “Charlotte, you have met him.”

“I have. He is a respectable man, with a good living and a noble patroness. He has a comfortable house in Kent, and one day he will have Longbourn too.” Charlotte squeezed her fingers. “Think what it would mean for your mother. Your sisters need never leave their home.”

“I have thought of it. I have thought of very little else all week. And I would rather be an old maid, and teach Lydia's children their letters, than be Mrs Collins.”

Charlotte's smile faded. She let go of Elizabeth's hands and pulled her shawl tighter.

“Then you are ungrateful,” she said. “And a little foolish, if you will forgive me for saying so.”

“Charlotte.”

“No, you must hear me. You are one-and-twenty and very pretty, and you think there will always be another offer. So did I, at twenty. I am nearly eight-and-twenty now, and no one has ever asked me for anything but a dance. If you wait too long for a man you can love, you will end up just where I am. Only you will have no husband at all, and you will have turned one away.”

Elizabeth was hurt, and a little ashamed, and she could think of no answer that would not hurt Charlotte in return. So she said nothing. From inside the house, someone called Charlotte's name.

“I must go in.” Charlotte turned for the gate, then looked back. “If such an offer were ever made to me, Eliza, I should not keep the gentleman waiting until Sunday.”

The door of Lucas Lodge closed behind her. Elizabeth stood in the lane a moment longer. Then she walked on towards home, faster than before.

***

Jane had not lit her candle. She was sitting by the window in the last of the grey light, still in her sprigged muslin, and she did not turn round when the door opened.

“Is that you, Lizzy?”

“It is.” Elizabeth crossed the room and knelt by her chair. “I have been gone far longer than a few hours, and I am sorry for it. But you must listen to me now, because I have so much to tell you.”

She began with her walk across the fields and ended with the woman sitting on her stone at the edge of Meryton. She told Jane how the story had fallen apart, piece by piece, under Mr Darcy's questions. In the end the woman had owned the truth. She was an actress from a London theatre. Miss Bingley had sent for her by express, and Miss Bingley had paid her.

When Elizabeth began, Jane's hands had been folded in her lap. By the end she had twisted a fold of her skirt into a hard little knot.

“Caroline,” she said. “It was Caroline.”

“It was. If the Hursts knew what she was doing at that inn, I do not know. She only mentioned they dined there.”

Jane did not seem to hear her. “But she has been so kind to me. She sent me a length of lace only last week. Are you sure?” Jane shook her head.

Elizabeth untangled her sister's fingers from the muslin and held them. “It was Mr Darcy who saw the woman with Miss Bingley this morning. It was Mr Darcy who knew where Mr Bingley had been every hour of every day, and made her admit she was lying.”

Jane was quiet for a long time.

“Mr Darcy,” she said at last.

“Yes.”