Page 36 of Mr. Darcy’s Victorious Bride

Jane's needle had stopped halfway through a stitch. Her hands were shaking. The man she loved would fight for her. "Lizzy." Barely a whisper.

"I know."

"He said⁠—"

"I heard."

Jane set her sewing aside and pressed her hands to her mouth. Her eyes were full, but she did not cry. Elizabeth reached across and took her hand.

Then Jane took a breath, smoothed her hair and rang for tea. She went to the parlor door herself. "Mr. Bingley, we are about to have tea. Will you join us?"

Bingley's voice came back warm. "Gladly! Thank you, Miss Bennet."

Elizabeth pressed her hand over her mouth and smiled behind it.

Mr. Collins arrived at two o'clock.

He had come up from Hunsford to wait upon his patroness, and was lodging with Charlotte's parents at Lucas Lodge. He called it a pastoral visit. Everyone else recognized an opportunity to stand near a crisis without being useful in it. Elizabeth had been warned by note that morning.

Mr. Collins called at Longbourn yesterday, as the heir must, and I have sent him on to you. I hope his conversation will be so tedious you will forget your troubles. If nothing else, he will give you someone to manage who is not me. I am in the library. I have been in the library for two days. I am aware of what that looks like. I am not yet ready to look at it directly.

The most honest thing her father had ever written, and a retreat all the same. She would deal with it. Not today.

Today she had Collins. Heavens! He stood perspiring in his best coat, which was not a good coat. He bowed three times in the front hall. One of the bows was to the house. "My dear Cousin Elizabeth! Mrs. Darcy! I come to offer what small comfort a humble clergyman may provide in these trying times. Lady Lucas has told me of the terrible business, the dreadful fever, the uncertainty⁠—"

"The fever has passed, Mr. Collins. Lydia is recovering."

She steered him into the drawing room. He settled uninvited into the largest chair, arranged his coat-tails, and talked. The weather. The lane from Lucas Lodge, which he found uneven. Lady Catherine's noble constitution, whose recovery he attributed to breeding rather than physic. The new kneelers.

Elizabeth poured tea and let him run down, somewhere between the kneelers and an extended account of Mrs. Collins's preserves.

Then he cleared his throat. "I have been thinking, Cousin, of one of her ladyship's visitors. Lord Braithwaite."

Elizabeth's hand stopped on the teapot. She poured with a steadiness that cost her something, and set it down. "What about Lord Braithwaite?"

"I recall the gentleman. He called upon Lady Catherine at Rosings some months before the... unpleasantness. I remember it distinctly, for he arrived in a russet cloak of unusual quality, and Lady Catherine received him in the morning room, which she reserved for visitors of consequence. They spoke privately for the better part of an hour. I noted the date in my parish diary, as I note all visitors of consequence. Lady Catherine herself encouraged it. She said" — he drew himself up, quoting the great authority — "'A parish without records is a parish without memory, Mr. Collins.'"

Elizabeth looked at him. Collins looked back with bland satisfaction. He had no notion of what he had just told her.

Braithwaite at Rosings, in private conference with the woman who hired him. A date, written in ink on the day it happened, by a clergyman with no reason on earth to lie. A barrister would call it corroboration.

She needed that diary! "Mr. Collins," she said, pleasant and steady and giving away nothing, "what a remarkable memory you have. I wonder, would you be willing to bring your parish diary to London? There may be a proceeding touching Lord Braithwaite's actions, and your observations could be of great value."

Collins swelled. "My dear Cousin! If my humble records can serve the cause of justice, I am entirely at your disposal. I shall send to Charlotte for the diary at once. It is in the study, third shelf, between the household accounts and the register of parish births. I am" — a pause, overcome — "honored to contribute."

"You need not trouble yourself to write," Elizabeth said, before the impulse could reach paper. "I am writing to Charlotte this very afternoon on another matter. I shall ask her to see to it, and spare you the postage." And spare the mails a letter in which Mr. Collins named a peer awaiting trial, in his round eager hand, for anyone to read.

Collins bowed from his chair. "Such condescension. Such attention to economy. Lady Catherine herself could not have proposed a more elegant arrangement."

"You are very good, Mr. Collins."

"I endeavor to be of use."

He beamed. Elizabeth looked at Mr. Collins in his bad coat, with his diary full of accidental gold. For the first time in their entire acquaintance, she felt gratitude. Who would have believed it?

He stayed another forty minutes. He offered to pray with Lydia, which Elizabeth deflected with long practice. He asked whether Lady Catherine might receive him. Elizabeth said she would inquire, which was no wearing its Sunday clothes.

When he had flapped away down the drive, Elizabeth sat in the study and wrote two letters.