As MrCollins moved towards Elizabeth, MrDarcy stepped in front of her. “Miss Bennet has not drawn anyone in, and you should not speak to her thus. How dare you attempt to besmirch her character? She is a gentlewoman and deserving of your respect.”
The rebuke fell like a stone dropped in still water, and Elizabeth considered that the waves of it would be far-reaching.
But MrDarcy was not done.
“I came to enquire after Miss Bennet’s health. Neither she nor I have acted improperly. Your cousin does not deserve to be accused of behaving in any way other than with the utmost propriety. I will not permit her character to be questioned.”
Everyone in the front entry stilled at MrDarcy’s defence of Elizabeth.
“But MrDarcy,” her cousin said in his typically obsequious tone, “you are destined for Miss de Bourgh, and she would not be pleased to learn you have visited my cousin this evening.Sheis not worthy of your attention.”
“I will not have you bandying about my private matters. I do not answer to you, someone so wholly unconnected with me,” Darcy said, drawing himself up to his full height and looking at the clergyman with as much haughtiness as only the master of Pemberley could. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet is my equal, for not only is she the daughter of a gentleman, but I believe that she is my superior in intelligence and in manners.”
So startled was Elizabeth that she thought she swooned, but when she woke on the settee, Charlotte’s sitting room was empty. She shook her head as though to clear it. The idea that MrDarcy would defend her to her cousin was almost as astonishing as his words that she was his equal in status and superior in intelligence and manners. She had not expected that, given all she had believed of him only days before.
Was it possible he dreamt of her, too? Was it possible that these odd dreams were something else entirely? Was that why, at times, it felt that one or both of them were reading from a script?
But that could not be, for she and MrDarcy could not be sharing the same dreams or visions or whatever this odd sensation was, could they? No, more likely she was mad.
Go to sleep,Elizabeth.Think of something other than MrDarcy.Maybe once she was rested, she could wake on the morrow able to set the whole matter aside.
She made her way to her room and saw a stack of books on the table next to her bed. Maybe reading might help her to fall asleep. Picking up the book on top,At the Edge of Destinyby Diane Ferguson, she opened to the first page:It is a truth universally acknowledged that no man spurned by a socially inferior woman wants to find himself bested by her in an athletic contest.
“Ha,” she murmured as she read, “perhaps the books are the problem, feeding my imagination and dreams.”
Chapter 15: At the Edge of Destiny
by Diane Ferguson
Meryton, Hertfordshire
Tuesday, the 14thof April, 1812
Elizabeth found herself walking at the outskirts of Meryton, dressed in a light muslin gown and half boots. She carried a bag with her dancing slippers and a sturdy glove that seemed better suited for gardening. Why only one glove? She frowned, wondering why she seemed prepared to dance or perhaps to garden. And, more importantly, how had she conveyed herself to Meryton from Hunsford? These odd disturbances were behaving strangely indeed, as though they could disarrange the very order of the world as well as shift the course of time.
Her most recent memory was of a frank discussion with MrDarcy, during which he had promised to communicate to MrBingley that Jane had liked him. And she had permitted MrDarcy to court her, thus overcoming the disaster of his initial proposal at Hunsford and, hopefully, avoiding poor outcomes that involved compromise, elopement, or a loveless marriage. As far as she knew, the only thing left to resolve was how to protect her family from Wickham.
Elizabeth hesitated, not knowing where in Meryton she was meant to go. Should she go to her aunt Philips’s house? She peeked into her bag again and thought her dancing slippers might be important to her reason for being in town. So she headed for the assembly rooms in Meryton, where she thought she might find the dancing master who had taught her sisters and her. He sometimes gave lessons there. However, the dancing master’s usual place at the assembly rooms now bore a small sign wholly unfamiliar to her: “Monsieur Philippe d’Orval,Maître d’Armes. Fencing Taught Within.” Nothing else seemed odd about the shops and other buildings in the town.
Elizabeth entered the building tentatively, not sure what she might find within. Inside, however, the main room seemed little changed. The polished wooden floor looked the same as the last time she had been there for dancing lessons, before she came out. The main difference seemed to be the equipment hanging from pegs on the walls—she noted several types of swords, padded targets, and two metal cage-like objects roughly the shape of human heads. They looked uncomfortable.
The dancing master was not there. In his place stood a diminutive, elegant-looking man with nearly white hair, who seemed to be giving a lesson to the young Goulding brothers. And sure enough, the master and students were all wearing a single, sturdy-looking glove on their sword hand.
Again, Elizabeth hesitated. The man (she assumed he was Maître d’Orval) said, “Ah, yes, Mademoiselle Bennet. Very good. S’il vous plaît, take a foil and practice for your lesson while I finish with these gentlemen.” Elizabeth was glad to have correctly guessed where she was expected to be, but she wondered how she would fare once the lesson began. She sat on a bench, changed into her slippers, and donned the single glove. The walk from Longbourn made her feel quite ready for further physical demands. How was she to prepare? Out of what must have been habit, she walked to the rack of swords, chose one of the smallest, lightest ones with a grip that fit comfortably in her gloved right hand, and then approached one of the padded targets. She adopted a pose like the one she saw the boys using, with her gloved hand and foil prepared to extend, and her back arm raised overhead, with the hand forming a graceful curve. She attempted a few lunges as she observed the Goulding brothers and found the movement came naturally to her. She even managed to hit the target where she intended to.
Elizabeth noticed a framed placard hanging on the wall, showing various drawings of fencing positions, labelled in French: prime, seconde, tierce, quarte, quinte, sixte, septime,and octave.She studied the drawings and attempted to copy the movements. The fourth and sixth, with the foil parallel to the floor, felt the most innate.
The boys’ lesson ended, and Maître d’Orval called Elizabeth over to him. She silently prayed that her muscles’ memory of the appropriate movements would carry her through despite her lack of remembrance. It was all so disorienting, and she could not glean the purpose.
Maître d’Orval began her lesson, and Elizabeth was relieved that he told her in great detail what he wanted her to do. After correcting her en garde and lunge positions, he delivered a series of rapid instructions to attack him in various lines: “Attack quarte! Bien! Now, attack sixte! Non, c’est pas bon!”He then had her parry, first demonstrating the less familiar movements. He praised her, “Of all my pupils, you are ze best at executing septimeand octave.”
Elizabeth wondered how long she had trained with Maître d’Orval—her body seemed to remember the motions, even if her conscious mind did not.
She had only begun to enjoy the lesson when the door to the salle opened. Elizabeth’s eyes widened as MrDarcy entered, and she hid her blush by curtsying deeply. She had spoken so frankly during their last conversation and had agreed to a courtship. Was their courtship to begin now, or were they to start anew? From previous strange dreams, she felt she knew far more about him than was proper. She must take care not to treat him with undue familiarity.
After MrDarcy bowed, his eyes met Elizabeth’s in a way that suggested he, too, remembered other dream lives. But Elizabeth did not dare to breach the divide between them. She heldher breath, waiting to see how he would speak to her—as his kindred spirit, as his social and intellectual equal, as chattel, as a bothersome country nobody?
MrDarcy did not leave Elizabeth in suspense for long. “Miss Bennet, you are the last person I expected to find here.”
