Page 48 of Sweet on Mr Darcy

“Oh.” Elizabeth fell quiet.

“It would have been intolerably disagreeable if you were seriously harmed, or worse, Lizzy-girl.” Lady Barry’s expression was nearly mutinous.

“Lady Barry, that was nearly affectionate.” Elizabeth was touched.

“Nonsense.” Lady Barry thumped her cane. “What would become of young Darcy and his sister if aught happened to you? They are much improved by your company. I should hate to see them if you were somehow lost to us all.”

“I am very fond of the Darcy family,” Elizabeth felt her cheeks redden.

“Fond indeed. Keep telling yourself that.”

Elizabeth turned the subject. “I still cannot believe that you escorted Lady Catherine to Hunsford yourself.”

“No one else possesses sufficient fortitude. It was worth it to see her face when she was installed at the dower house.”

“How was the journey?” Elizabeth asked curiously.

Lady Barry relaxed deeper into her chair. “Loud. Entirely intolerable. What ought to have been a few hours seemed to take years.”

“I can imagine.” Elizabeth grinned.

“No, you cannot. At one point, she ranted for two hours that the kingdom is in decline because young women have forgotten submission and obedience to their betters.”

“I am sorry that you had to suffer it,” Elizabeth apologised.

Lady Barry gave her a look of mischief. “No need. I quite enjoyed chiding her all the way to Hunsford.”

Elizabeth poured her a fresh cup of tea. The lady accepted it and continued her account.

“She is still obsessed with your brother,” Lady Barry informed her.

“Lucas? Lady Catherine never even met my family before all of this.” Elizabeth was confused. “Mr Collins has been sent away, and is no longer to be a clergyman. Mr Darcy plans to write to his bishop, and if the man somehow manages to return from the continent at all, he will be defrocked. What on earth is her interest in the matter?”

“She remains convinced that God's will and nature have been quite manipulated, and that it is her duty to see your brother set aside.” Lady Barry shook her head. “Were she my relation, I should be quite humiliated by her ideas.”

Elizabeth was nearly speechless. “I cannot understand it.”

“The woman has moved on from mathematical unlikelihood to ethical machination.” Lady Barry sighed. “I have written to her brother, Reginald. It is quite obvious that his sister is insane. An earl’s daughter could not be placed in Bedlam, but the man must do something about her.”

“Reginald is Priscilla’s father? Lord Matlock?” Elizabeth asked. “Will he heed you?”

“He had better, for his family name is at stake if she gets out into society with behaviour like this. Cathy has always been known to be difficult and unpleasant, but this goes quite beyond mere impudence.”

“I hear his sons are at Rosings,” Elizabeth observed.

“They will manage her, for now. They are tolerable, I suppose,” Lady Barry said. “Nearly the quality of Anne’s boy. Reliable, but far too amiable.”

Elizabeth giggled. “But you say that Mr Darcy is too serious.”

“And so he is. Let that be a lesson that perfect men do not exist. Now…enough of this stuff and nonsense. Did you bring the novel? Well, what are you waiting for? I must find out what happens after we left off.”

Elizabeth had been reading for nearly an hour, and Lady Barry had entered that rare state in which she was both attentive and only intermittently disparaging.

Their afternoon had settled pleasantly; tea and cakes, a light rain against the window, and one of the author’s impossibly silly heroines fleeing ruin in humorously dramatic difficulty. Elizabeth was reading an especially improbable scene when the butler appeared with the expression of a man bringing unwelcome information.

“Sir Rupert Barry and Miss Barry, madam.”

Lady Barry’s expression betrayed more than displeasure. “No.”