Elizabeth paled suddenly with a fear that Mr. Darcy’s belief that the colonel admired her was correct.
As much as she liked and respected him, she was certain that she did not love him. But she also would be quite surprised if he made her a sudden offer, since he admired Caroline, at least a little.
When they went out together into the windswept little wilderness adjacent to Longbourn, Elizabeth shivered. The gravel crackled as they walked over it.
They did not speak for more than a minute, and Elizabeth felt a tension grow in her stomach with each step.
At last Colonel Fitzwilliam shrugged. “Youhaven’t had any further communication with Miss Bingley?”
“No.” Elizabeth shook her head sadly — though she felt a little relief when he opened the private conversation with reference to Caroline, since it probably meant that she would not be forced to refuse a second Fitzwilliam in three days.
“I thought not.” He looked up at the bare branches of one of the trees. “Your friend has now displayed what is inside of her — I was right. She is unusual for a girl of her age. The fact did not prove to her credit.”
“Caroline is not wholly bad!” Elizabeth replied hotly. “She only… made a mistake.”
“A serious one.” Colonel Fitzwilliam shook his head and waved his hands as though he wished to greet and farewell all the world at once. “I do not say she is wholly bad. Have I made such a suggestion? No, I think I did not.”
“How then do you consider her?”
Colonel Fitzwilliam sighed. “Poor creature — I’ve seen men with similar stunned looks. On a battlefield after they killed a man in close combat — a sort of looking at the hands,thus have I performed.”
“I thought of Lady Macbeth.”
“Yes, yes, precisely that — ‘ah but he looked so much like my father.’”
“She was sincerely attached to Mr. Darcy.”
“Poor Darcy — and this follows upon the other struggles he has faced this year. He depended very much upon your soon to be brother. I have never seen him so down as he was the next morning in the yard of the inn. Gloomy, stiff, hand in coat. Another holding the hat down. Gloomy, gloomy, gloomy — I confess that even after the events of the night I was shocked to see him in such a state. But he was a dear friend to Bingley.”
“Oh, if only they might reconcile!”
Colonel Fitzwilliam shook his head and grimaced greatly. “I know my cousin. I know he’ll not forgive this. He is resentful of those who he thinks have wronged him.”
“None of this was Bingley’s fault.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam shrugged.
“I do not approve of that tendency in him,” Elizabeth said with some asperity.
“I am certain that he shall modify his usual habits of mind if only he knows of your disapproval.”
Elizabeth wondered if he would.
But unfortunately she would never be able to make a trial of the question.
The two continued in their paces around the Longbourn bushes, hedges, and trees. A calico cat who lived in the stables ran across the cold ground in front of them to hide in a new hedge.
“And Mr. Bingley is to marry your sister. They always appeared on the verge of such a declaration.”
With a laugh, Elizabeth said, “I always thought of Mr. Bingley as my brother — my judgement of likelihood wholly failed inthiscase. I was convinced that nothing could be further from possibility than them forming an attachment. I had great difficulty imagining that Jane could think of him in a different manner than I do.”
“Even though you grew up so close together? He is a fine gentleman, a worthy partner for any woman — despite some weaknesses.”
Elizabeth shrugged. “We grew up too close together. Maybe that is the difference: Charlie has been there since my very early childhood, while Jane and he were a few years of age when we moved to the North.”
The two walked around quietly again. Elizabeth somehow knew from his expression that Colonel Fitzwilliam was thinking about Caroline again.
At last he grimaced and said, “Unfortunate, but there is nothing to be done about it. She made her choices, and they placed her in such a place. Poor girl! Poor, poor girl!”
