Prologue
“Lady Catherine, family, friends, I have the honour to announce my engagement to Miss Bennet.”
In the complete stillness that followed, Lady Catherine sighed most alarmingly and carried her hand to her heart, while all the others present, in greater or lesser degree, were unable to conceal their astonishment, their dismay, or even their indignation, as in the case of Mr Collins. Colonel Fitzwilliam alone smiled, ready to offer his congratulations.
Elizabeth drove away the waking dream that had overtaken her upon entering the dining parlour at Rosings. It was but a dream, since no later than that very morning she had refused, in the most decided terms, Mr Darcy’s offer of marriage. She did not regret the refusal itself; still, a faint unease remained. Her spirited temper was known in every society in which she moved. Perhaps only her father knew that, though she did not shrink from a contest, she disliked exceedingly being uncivil or unkind. That morning, to her regret, she had been both. She would have wished to leave behind an impression of composure and command, if only for her own sake. Unfortunately, the woman in the parlour at the Parsonage hadpossessed neither. She had cried to him that he was the last man in the world whom she could ever be prevailed upon to marry. And it had been true.
Still, she could not help but imagine that impertinent smile erased from Lady Catherine’s countenance by Darcy’s declaration—by her own appearance at his side, his acknowledged betrothed, her future relation. That was her whole fancy, a small indulgence after so many affronts endured at Rosings.
“Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam are gone,” announced Lady Catherine, as though the intelligence required her authority, and she must, on every occasion, direct the discourse.
Elizabeth raised her eyes, having made her curtsey. She met her ladyship’s gaze, and, unbidden, a faint smile arose at the image which only she could see, yet which afforded her some quiet satisfaction: herself upon Mr Darcy’s arm, entering that house as his intended. What a disturbance it would have occasioned at Rosings, what indignation. The strictures upon her parents, and upon her sisters, would have been repeated with greater force that very evening—too late, however, since she would already have secured the right to be named as his future wife. A single “yes” might have altered everything.
But as she took her seat at table, awaiting dinner, another thought intruded. She saw her father as he had accompanied her on the morning of her departure for Kent, his spectacles raised upon his brow, his expression so altered that even now, after two months, her heart contracted at the recollection. There had been in his manner something worn, particularly since she and her sisters were grown. With Longbourn entailed, and Mr Collins to succeed as its sole master should he be taken from his family, their situation could not be otherwise than desperate. In all those years, he had not been able to improve their fortune in any degree, nor secure another home for them when they must oneday quit Longbourn. She could not deny it…a marriage with Mr Darcy would have removed those anxieties which weighed upon him: the future of his wife and daughters.
Their father’s encouragement to seek husbands for themselves might well have appeared madness in the case of five portionless girls who, by every prudent calculation, ought to have accepted the first offer that presented itself. He had never spoken of love as the sole condition of marriage; that had been their own conclusion, or at least hers and Jane’s. His advice had always been that they should examine and reflect upon an eventual proposal, which, in truth, meant understanding the man they married rather than only loving him. A simple “yes,” spoken that morning, would have secured far more than a moment’s satisfaction against Lady Catherine, and it would have restored tranquillity to her father’s countenance.
She made an effort to dismiss the thought, to return to her former fancy, but it would not be recalled. Beneath the burden of her hostess’s interminable tirades, she forced her attention to the meal, but all at once she was no longer certain what was the true source of her regret.
Chapter 1
Elizabeth took her seat with real pleasure in her aunt’s small private parlour—only the two of them, their cups of tea, and the comfort of being alone.
“I feel quite guilty to slip away here and not call for Jane,” said Elizabeth.
“Only this evening,” her aunt assured her. “From what you wrote, very briefly,” she added, with a faintly reproving smile, “there are matters better kept from Jane for the present. The composure she shows is far from the truth. In her heart, she is as grieved as ever, and the conduct of Mr Bingley’s sisters has revealed in others what she was always inclined to overlook. She believed ill-nature and pride might be met with smiles and gentle words.”
“Alas,” murmured Elizabeth. The sisters loved one another deeply, but they were entirely different. Never before had Elizabeth failed to tell Jane all that concerned her, nor had she kept anything from her by design, but throughout the journey from Hunsford to London, she had turned over all that had passed and resolved to speak first with her aunt and only afterwards with her sister.
With some hesitation, and more than one return to her subject, she gave Mrs Gardiner an account of all that had occurred in Kent, from the dinners at Rosings to that morning at Hunsford, when Mr Darcy, quite unexpectedly, had offered her marriage.
“And you had no suspicion that he admired you?”
It was a question Elizabeth herself had considered in the days before she left Kent. How had it been possible that nothing had prepared her for Mr Darcy’s partiality?
“On the contrary. If there were moments in Hertfordshire, or even at the beginning in Kent, when I thought I discerned some admiration in his manner, within a few days of his arrival at Rosings, his former hauteur gave way to a certain plainness.”
“Plainness?” exclaimed Mrs Gardiner, laughing, delighted by the conversation and by the way her niece related events, giving them a turn in which irony was never absent.
“Exactly so. We spoke of nothing but the weather and of distances between towns. How was I to suppose he admired me so much as to wish to marry me? His cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, made several attempts to draw him away from such discourse, but all in vain. He was determined, quite determined in fact, to be dull.”
Aunt and niece laughed together over their tea, which Mrs Gardiner alone knew how to prepare to perfection. At Longbourn, where everything was done in haste and for many, tea was more often a warm draught than a pleasure.
“When you wrote that Mr Darcy had proposed to you, I could scarcely command myself before Jane, so great was my surprise. But it was not news I could yet share with her.”
Elizabeth nodded, relieved to have Mrs Gardiner to whom she might confide everything, and from whom she mightalso receive advice. After all, she had spent more than three months observing Jane’s sorrow.
“Do you think I ought to have accepted?” Elizabeth asked in a low voice, half question, half reflection. She wished to know her aunt’s opinion, and found, at the same time, that she knew nothing of the circumstances in which Mrs Gardiner had accepted her uncle’s offer. She perceived, too, a slight hesitation in the delay of her answer.
“It is strange,” said her aunt at last, “that no more than twelve years have passed since I married, and yet it seems almost another age. In this newer world, some of the settled habits in which we were brought up appear already less fixed—”
“You mean marriage.”
“Yes, particularly marriage. In my day, if I may say so, no young lady would have refused an offer. Though perhaps that is not entirely true because generally, the offer was made first to the parents.”
“Was it so in your case?”
The silence that followed alarmed Elizabeth, and she immediately added, “Forgive me, I did not mean to be indiscreet.”
