Page 51
Elizabeth dared to glance up, only to find that his eyes were on her still. He had spoken slowly, with a weight that had nothing to do with Jane or Mr Bingley, and Elizabeth, meeting his gaze across the stream of her mother’s chattering delight, felt the whole crowded, chaotic room narrow briefly to just the two of them.
It was then that the study door opened, thoroughly wrecking any chance of a private moment.
Mr Bennet came in first, his expression unreadable. He was followed by Mr Wickham, whose usual urbane smiles had taken on a distinctly flustered edge. He stopped dead in the doorway, his practiced ease vanishing at once at the sight of Mr Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam standing in the middle of the drawing room.
The tension in the room increased markedly in an instant. Mr Wickham’s eyes moved from Darcy to Fitzwilliam and back again. For once, he seemed to have nothing to say. “Darcy,” he said finally, with an attempt at his usual charm that did not quite ring true. “What an unexpected pleasure.”
“Wickham,” Mr Darcy replied, and nothing more. Yet his glacial tone heightened the already tense atmosphere considerably.
It was into this silence, taut as a drawn bowstring, that the sound of carriage wheels and raised voices reached them from the drive outside. Elizabeth went to the window and felt her stomach drop.
“Mama,” she managed rather faintly. “I believe we are to have many more visitors.”
“More?” Mrs Bennet cried excitedly, hurrying to join her at the window and peering out with delight to see who else had come to receive her triumphant news. Her face changed rapidly as she took in the elegant, imposing carriage and its occupants, freshly descended onto the drive. A tall, formidable older woman, a younger woman who resembled her but looked much more weary and delicate, and Caroline Bingley, wearing so smugly satisfied a smile that it put Elizabeth in mind of nothing so much as a cat who has swallowed the canary.
“Lady Catherine has come to Longbourn,” Elizabeth said, her voice carefully even. “And as Miss Bingley is with her, I believe she must have sought her nephews at Netherfield Park first.”
Behind her, Mr Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam made the same sound, one that an impolite person might describe as frustrated despair. Mr Collins bounced up from his chair, his face showing delight but no surprise, and hurried out to meet the new arrivals, as though he meant to beat the housekeeper to the task.
There was no time to prepare. The drawing room door opened again, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh swept in as though the room belonged to her. Miss Bingley trailed immediately behind her with the barely contained delight of a woman who anticipated a scene, with Mr Collins directly on her heels. Anne de Bourgh entered a moment later, seeming a bit out of breath. Colonel Fitzwilliam went to her and offered his arm, leading her to the comfortable chair Mr Collins had vacated.
Lady Catherine’s imperious gaze moved over the entire chaotic tableau — Mrs Bennet, red-faced with the surprise of such august company arriving unannounced, Lydia smirking, Mr Bingley close beside Jane, Mr Wickham still pale and pressed against the wall, Kitty and Mary wide-eyed with apprehension, Colonel Fitzwilliam having taken on his strictest military posture, Mr Darcy with his lips pressed tight together, and Elizabeth not quite able to conceal her own dismay — and something in her face suggested that she found the disruption thoroughly gratifying.
“Lady Catherine!” said Mrs Bennet, bustling forward in greeting, determined that the daughter of an earl would not be able to tell anyone that she had not been properly received in Longbourn’s drawing room. “What an honour, I am sure. Will you not sit? May I offer you tea? You must be done in after your journey. The state of the roads has become quite shocking, I am afraid, as I was just saying to Mr Bennet the other day, someone ought to —”
“I have not come for tea,” Lady Catherine interrupted, “nor for conversations about the roads. I have come for answers, and I intend to have them before I leave this room.” She looked about, and Mr Collins hurried forward and led her to a chair, shooing Kitty out of it before helping Lady Catherine sit.
Mrs Bennet’s mouth opened and closed, and Elizabeth saw Mr Darcy go still.
“I have had it from a most reliable source,” Lady Catherine continued, her eyes fixing on Elizabeth coldly, “that my nephew, Mr Darcy of Pemberley,” she continued, her eyes darting briefly to Darcy, then back to Elizabeth, “has proposed marriage to you, Miss Elizabeth Bennet. You! A woman who was, at the time, engaged to another man, and who would in any case be entirely unsuitable as a bride for a man of Mr Darcy’s situation, connections, and expectations. I wish to know whether this report is true.”
The room went utterly silent. Elizabeth felt paralyzed as her parents and younger sisters looked at her in astonishment.
“Darcy is right here, my dear aunt,” Fitzwilliam said from beside the chair where he had settled his cousin Anne. “I have no doubt he will be able to answer your questions, just as easily as he would have had you sent him a letter of inquiry, as would certainly have been a more suitable way to —”
“I am not speaking to you, Fitzwilliam,” Lady Catherine interrupted furiously. “Nor to Darcy. I am asking that girl if —”
“Would anyone,” Mrs Bennet interrupted in a desperate attempt to salvage the situation, “care for a biscuit? I am certain that Hill has some fresh —”
“I am waiting, Miss Elizabeth,” Lady Catherine interrupted coldly, sparing not so much as a glance at Mrs Bennet.
Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, despite having no idea whatsoever what she could possibly say. But as Lady Catherine was much more interested in continuing her diatribe than in listening, she was thankfully spared the necessity of speaking.
“I am aware of the circumstances of your original engagement; do not think that you can conceal them from me,” Lady Catherine continued venomously, without waiting for a response. “The scandal, the haste, the whole disgraceful business of a young woman compromised, alone with a man in a private room at a ball. And now that engagement and the bare respectability it offered you have been abandoned, and Mr Bingley is to marry your elder sister instead? And my nephew has been drawn into the other, even more disgraceful, business of your family?” Her scornful gaze moved to Lydia, who, for once, seemed subdued, and to Wickham, who met her eyes with a charming smile. “It becomes difficult, Miss Bennet, not to conclude that you have made something of a habit of drawing to you whichever gentleman offers the greatest advantage, and discarding him the moment a superior one presents himself.”
“That is precisely what it looks like from where I stand,” Caroline Bingley agreed, with a sweetness so sharp it might have drawn blood. Mr Bingley stepped forward, but was held back by Jane’s hand on his arm.
“That is not —” Elizabeth began, but she was drowned out by Mr Darcy.
“That will be quite enough, Aunt Catherine,” he said coldly.
“You have shown a remarkable lack of judgement in this affair, Darcy,” Lady Catherine said coldly. “I do not require your objections, or Miss Elizabeth’s assurances, or even Miss Bingley’s agreement to recognise a baggage who is no better than she should be when I see one.”
A cry of objection came from several throats, and she smiled unpleasantly, raising her hand. “I have one last question for you, Miss Bennet, and I am most curious to hear how you propose to answer it. If you are so without guile, as both my nephews seem to think,” she added, glaring at Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam, “what, precisely, were you doing in a private library, unchaperoned, in a house that was not your own, with Mr Bingley, on the night this entire unfortunate history began? You left a ballroom full of people to go alone to a closed room where you had no earthly business being. I should like to hear you explain that, if you are able.”
Lady Catherine had spoken with the malicious, satisfied certainty of a woman who was quite confident that no explanation existed. Elizabeth felt the attention of the whole room settle on her so heavily it seemed likely to crush her. She opened her mouth to answer and found that nothing at all came out.
Chapter 26
