Page 40 of Mr Darcy Bets on Love

Lady Theodosia came the next morning at eleven, and found Elizabeth in the green room, still in her wrapper, writing to Jane.

She had not been at Lady Pembury's. She had been obliged to dine with an aunt in Kensington, she said, and had only heard this morning, from her maid, who had it from Lady Pembury's maid. She came in with her hands already held out, and her lovely face full of distress, and sat down on the sofa and drew Elizabeth down beside her.

"My poor dear," she said. "My poor, poor dear. I have heard it all. The stairs. Mrs Drummond-Burrell. That odious Sir Charles Hanley and his fifty guineas. It is too cruel. I could weep for you. I did weep, a little, in the carriage."

"It was not so very bad," said Elizabeth. "The admiral was kind. And my husband—"

"Oh, yes. Your husband." Lady Theodosia sighed. "He refused Lady Pembury's niece, I hear. In front of everybody. And danced twice with you, one straight after the other, as though he were one-and-twenty and at a country assembly." She shook her head with a sad fond smile. "He meant it so well. He always does. But you know, my dear, it will not have helped."

Elizabeth, who had lain awake half the night going over and over those two dances with her heart too full to sleep, felt something cold touch the back of her neck.

"Will it not?"

"Oh, dearest." Lady Theodosia took her hand. "You do not know London yet. How could you? In the country, when a man shows his feelings, people think it charming. Here, they think it foolish. They are saying this morning that Mr Darcy is so besotted he no longer knows how to behave. That he insulted Lady Pembury in her own house. That he has quite lost his head." She lowered her voice. "Some of them are saying that is what you meant to happen. That it proves the story."

"That is absurd."

"Of course it is. I know it is. But it is what they are saying." Lady Theodosia's grey eyes were soft with sympathy. "He has worked so hard for his name, you know. All his life. It is the thing he minds most in the world. I used to watch him at my godmother's parties, so proud, so careful, never putting a foot wrong. And now to see him laughed at, in White's, in Lady Pembury's ballroom..." She broke off, and pressed Elizabeth's hand. "Forgive me. I should not say it. It is only that I care for you both."

Elizabeth sat very still.

She thought of her husband's face on the stairs, rigid with fury. She thought of the baronet backing away into the crowd. She thought of Darcy at the breakfast table, white as chalk, saying only do not look at me as though you are wondering. Everything Lady Theodosia said was true. He did mind. He had minded all his life. And it was because of her.

"What would you advise?" she heard herself say.

"Only a little patience. A little discretion." Lady Theodosia smiled gently. "Perhaps you might go out a little less, for a while. Let people forget. Let him go to his club alone, and be seen to be himself again, without you on his arm to remind them. And perhaps, after Easter, Pemberley? It is so lovely in the spring, I am told, and so very far away. By the autumn, it will all be forgotten, and you can come back, and nobody will remember a thing."

It was sensible advice. It was kind advice. It was the advice any friend might give.

And Elizabeth, sitting in her green room with her hand held in Lady Theodosia's soft white fingers, found that every instinct she possessed had risen up in her like the hackles of a dog.

Let him go to his club alone. Without you on his arm. Go to Pemberley. Go away. Leave London to whoever had drawn the black box round that paragraph, and the neat hand that had written won in the margin of the book. Leave Georgiana to face the Drawing Room without her. Leave Darcy to face White's alone, and let everybody say that his country wife had crept away in shame because the story was true.

No, she thought. We face this together. I promised.

"You are very good," she said aloud, and smiled, and drew her hand gently away. "I will think about it. Truly. But I think I had rather stay."

Something flickered in the grey eyes. It was gone at once.

"Of course," said Lady Theodosia warmly. "Of course you must do as you think best. I only wanted you to know that I will be here, whatever you decide." She rose, and kissed Elizabeth's cheek, and drew on her gloves. At the door she paused. "Oh, and my dear. You looked beautiful last night, in the white and silver, with the sapphire. Everybody says so. Even the ones who were unkind."

She went out. Elizabeth sat on the sofa and listened to her carriage draw away, and thought about white and silver, and a sapphire, and a lady who had been dining with an aunt in Kensington.

Then she shook herself, and called herself suspicious and ungrateful and a hundred other things, and went back to her letter to Jane. Lady Theodosia's maid had it from Lady Pembury's maid. It was the simplest thing in the world.

But when Darcy came in at noon, she did not tell him what Lady Theodosia had advised. She told him only that she had called, and been kind. And she did not know, herself, why she had kept the rest back, except that she did not want to see his face when he heard that somebody thought he would be better off without her.

Chapter 12: The Obvious Suspect

Darcy House. Tuesday, 24th March 1812

Jane came up to town on the Tuesday, and Elizabeth, who had been brave for a week, took one look at her sister's face in the hall and burst into tears.

They sat together on the sofa in the green room for an hour, holding hands like children, while Bingley and Darcy retreated to the study with the decanter and Georgiana tactfully discovered an urgent need to practise her scales. Jane had heard it all. Of course she had. Caroline had written to Netherfield by every post.

"She sent me the paper," Jane said, very low. "The Tattler's Glass. She said she thought I ought to know what was being said, so that I could be a comfort to you." Jane's gentle face was troubled. "I am sure she meant it kindly, Lizzy."

"I am sure she did," said Elizabeth, who was not sure at all.