Page 17 of Most Truly the Gentleman

“…long been his habit, and his cousin’s, to blacken my name wherever I go. It began, I think, in jealousy of the attentions paid to me by the late Mr Darcy—excellent, generous man that he was!—and grew into an implacable resentment which persists to this day.”

Lydia was regarding the scoundrel with wide-eyed sympathy as Elizabeth reached her side. Seizing upon her younger sister’s arm, she hissed, “Lydia, have you run mad?”

“Please, Miss Elizabeth, do not be angry with Miss Lydia. It was I who approached her,” Mr Wickham cajoled with an expression of such earnest sorrow that had she not known what he was, she felt certain she would have been beguiled by him. It was a revelation that could not sit easily with her.

She wanted very much to give him the sharp edge of her tongue, but she would not do what her father had forbidden. She would instead set the example of saying not a single word to Mr Wickham. She gave him a brief, disdainful look and turned away, hauling Lydia along. With a startled yelp, her youngest sister stumbled after her.

Pulling her into the nearest corner, she scolded in a low voice, “You have gone against Papa’s express instruction, and you may be certain he will be informed! Your next quarter’s pin money is as good as lost, foolish child.”

Lydia glared at her, entirely unrepentant. “Not if you keep your tongue between your teeth, Lizzy.”

Elizabeth scoffed. “You cannot possibly think that I am the only one who saw you speaking with Mr Wickham.”

“Indeed, she was not.” Mr Collins now stood beside her once more, and with him was Mary. “Cousin Mary and I crossed paths as we were making our way to assist Cousin Elizabeth in removing you from his presence. But she was more than equal to the task,” he added with a simpering smile and an abbreviated bow to Elizabeth.

“I only wanted to learn the truth!” Lydia protested.

“To learn that, you need only to wait and see if those debt receipts Mr Darcy is said to hold can be produced or not. What you wanted was the attention of a handsome man,” Elizabeth replied sharply. “Never mind that we have testimony of his poor character from a highly respectable source.”

“The nephew of Lady Catherine de Bourgh!” Mr Collins interjected. “Son to the Earl of Matlock!”

“A colonel of His Majesty’s Army who has seen battle on the Continent,” Elizabeth added. “As wild as you are for a red coat, Lydia, I should think that would carry some weight with you.”

Lydia pouted and said nothing. Elizabeth sighed, knowing her defence of the blackguard was based on nothing more than his fine appearance and flattering manners.

“You have disobeyed your father, Cousin Lydia, and none of us, I think, will be party to concealing that fact from him,” Mr Collins scolded.

“We certainly shall not,” Mary intoned. “Thank you, Mr Collins, for granting my wayward sister the benefit of a gentleman’s counsel and oversight.”

Mr Collins indicated his pleasure in being of assistance to his newly-found family, and while he exhausted the stream of words necessary to sufficiently express these sentiments, Elizabeth leant forwards and, in harsh whispers, informed Lydia that she was not to stray more than a foot from her or Jane for the rest of the evening, and if she did, Mr Bennet would be encouraged to contemplate the fate of Lydia’s pin money for the second quarter of the new year.

“Do not test me on this, Lyddie,” she concluded.

Sulkily, Lydia conceded to these terms. Her demand kept Lydia from the small company of young ladies—Miss Maria Lucas, Miss Harrington, Miss Amelia Long, and Miss Veronica Goulding—who devotedly attended the officers and giggled far too loudly throughout the evening. She thought that Mr Wickham’s presence was the only thing which prevented Kitty from adding to their number.

Lydia, for her part, got some measure of revenge by acting as Elizabeth’s pouting shadow for the rest of the evening, dampening the enjoyment of everyone in her vicinity except, it seemed, her cousin. Mr Collins remained close to hand throughout, chattering to Elizabeth about whatever thought entered his head. Later, she would laugh at the image of herself, flanked on one side by Lydia’s long face, sighs, and air of ill-usage, and on the other by the cheerful ridiculousness of Mr Collins.

By mid-morning the following day, Elizabeth was entirely out of patience with them both. Lydia had greeted the inevitable issuance of her father’s punishment with a screaming fit that had devolved into endless complaints of disloyal sisters and horrid papas. Meanwhile, Mr Collins remained Elizabeth’s devoted companion and so, therefore, did his bountiful conversation. She seized upon a moment of distraction on his part when Mary called upon him to answer a doctrinal question which had been troubling her and slipped away, turning her steps towards Lucas Lodge and the company of her dear friend.

Miss Lucas was happy to abandon her needlework for a walk among the browning shrubbery of the Lodge’s garden, and to condole with her on the impossibility of driving sense into the thick skull of a much-younger sister.

“It seems to me you will have the opportunity to leave Lydia and her crotchets behind ere long,” she commented.

“Why, what can you mean?”

“Mr Collins, of course! He courts you so assiduously, I presume he will make you an offer, perhaps even before he returns to Kent. Have you not yet ascertained that this is whither his interest tends?”

She had not, but Charlotte’s words illuminated everything in an instant. The hints in his letter, his conversations with her mother which left Mrs Bennet smiling like a cat that has been in the cream, his persistence in seeking out her company.

“Oh, no. What am I to do?” She meant, of course, to solicit advice on how she might escape such a mortifying scene as a proposal she must refuse, but her friend took the question in a different light.

“I think you must seriously consider accepting him,” Charlotte suggested. “It could be the salvation of your family when your father is gone.”

“Salvation at what cost? Is it not for my father to make provision for us?”

“Will it comfort you to know that it was not truly your responsibility, should you find yourself dwelling with your mother and sisters in genteel poverty?” her friend countered.

“Perhaps not, but I cannot do it. He is a better man than I first thought, and there is a scrap or two of sense in his head, but he is too ridiculous, and his meddlesome patroness would drive me mad. I should be miserable every day of my life.”