Alone with Mr. Darcy: A Pride & Prejudice Variation (19 page)

Elizabeth saw then why the gentlemen were
holding back the horses. Just beyond them lay a man in livery, curled up on the
ground and moaning. She hurried to his side and crouched beside him. The clear
mark of a horse’s hoof showed on his face. “Are you able to move?” she asked
him.

“I cannot,” he whispered. “Oh, dear God,
how it hurts!”

She looked up at Darcy. “He cannot move.”

“Ask him if he has a pistol or a rifle.”

She bent close to his face again and
repeated the question, odd as it might be.

“On… on the bench.”

She relayed the words to Darcy.

He frowned, then said, “I am sorry to ask
this of you, Elizabeth, but I cannot let go of this horse. Could you attempt to
find it for me?”

“Yes.” It was easier to say than do. After
circling around the wildly kicking horses, she had to hold onto a sapling to
climb down the bank, but it was simple from there. The pistol was on the bench,
just as the coachman had said it would be. She reached out for the strap
holding the holster, but stopped when she heard Darcy’s worried voice.

“Be careful, Elizabeth! It is most likely
loaded, and possibly cocked.”

With somewhat greater care, she unbuckled
the strap and gently lifted the pistol, holster and all. She did not want her
fingers anywhere near the trigger.  Holding it in both hands, she carried
it over to Darcy. Only then did it occur to her to wonder why he wanted it.

His eyes shone. “I thank you. And now I
must ask you to stand back and look away.”

Those were instructions she had no
hesitation in following, closing her eyes for good measure.

Darcy said quietly, “I am sorry, Richard.
It would have to be done anyway. His leg is broken.”

“Just do it,” his cousin snapped.

The crack of the pistol echoed in the
crisp air, the smell of burnt gunpowder incongruously reminding Elizabeth of
when she as a child would run to meet her father on his return from a hunting
expedition. But the simple days of childhood were far behind her.

Suddenly she realized she had heard
nothing from Charlotte since she entered the carriage. Keeping her eyes away
from the fallen horse, she hurried past the colonel, who still held the head of
the living horse while Darcy sawed through the entangling reins with a knife.
“Charlotte, do you need assistance?”

“Not now.” Her friend’s voice was oddly
heavy. Then Charlotte’s drawn face appeared through the open door of the coach.
“Lady Catherine is dead.”

In the shocked silence following
Charlotte’s announcement, Elizabeth numbly returned to the injured coachman.
His injuries seemed to be internal apart from scrapes and bruises, so there was
little she could do for him beyond speaking gently and telling him help would
be there soon, but it seemed better than nothing.

Mr. Darcy had approached the overturned
carriage and was speaking urgently but quietly to Charlotte as Colonel
Fitzwilliam attempted to calm the remaining horse. It seemed like an eternity
before two beefy farmers hurried up to the coach.

Darcy said, “No, leave it. Take care of
the coachman first. There is nothing you can do for Lady Catherine now.”

Elizabeth stood back to allow the men to
pick up the coachman and carry him off to a nearby farmhouse. The jolting
movement made him howl with pain.

Then Darcy was by her side. He took her
hand in his, and she did not resist. After this nightmarish scene, she was glad
of the comfort, and he must need it even more than she did. He had lost his
aunt, while Lady Catherine had been nothing to her apart from the object of Mr.
Collins’s fawning. If only she could embrace him! But there were too many
people watching, and he was presuming already by holding her hand and standing
so close to her.

“Would you assist me with something?” he
said in her ear.

“Of course. Anything.” After the words had
already left her mouth, she realized how unwise they might have been.

He chuckled softly. “And just when I
cannot take advantage of it. Do not fret. I am only asking you to spend some
time talking to Richard.”

“Colonel Fitzwilliam?” She tilted her head
to one side. Why would he be asking this as a favor?

“Yes. He needs someone to distract him.
Talk to him about anything – Longbourn, your favorite birds, some place
you visited in London – as long as it has nothing to do with war, guns,
death or horses. Keep talking even if he seems not to be listening. I will
explain later.”  

She recalled the frozen look on the
Colonel’s face after Darcy had shot the horse. “No need to explain. I have met
soldiers before who are still fighting old battles.”

He tightened his grip on her hand. “Thank
you. I must stay here until everything is taken care of, but he should not.
Take him away from here – perhaps to the parsonage? He should not have to
inform Anne of her mother’s death.”

“I will.”

“And Elizabeth?” His voice deepened.

“Yes?”

“When there is time, will you permit me to
call on you?”

She let out a long breath she had not
realized she was holding. “Yes. Yes, I will.”

He closed his eyes for a brief moment,
then opened them. “Thank you.” With apparent reluctance he released her hand.
It was just as well; she did not need her reputation ruined in Kent as well as
Hertfordshire.

How could everything have changed so
quickly?

Colonel Fitzwilliam stood beside the
tethered horse, one booted foot scuffing the ground. He looked up at
Elizabeth’s approach, but his smile did not reach his eyes.

“Colonel, might I impose upon you to
escort me back to the parsonage? I am feeling quite faint, and I prefer not to
attempt to make my way there alone.” Looking as if she was on the verge of
swooning was not among Elizabeth’s talents, but she did her best.

His shoulders straightened and he offered
her his arm. “It would be my pleasure, Miss Bennet.”

On the short walk she managed to ask a
number of questions about the immediate area and his previous visits to Kent.
Once they reached the parsonage, she realized the problem with using faintness
as her excuse when he suggested she rest for a while.

Thinking quickly, she said, “I would
rather not. It would only make my mind turn to what happened. If you do not
object, conversation about other things distracts me better than anything else.
Mr. Darcy has told me of his cousins with whom he lived for a time as a child.
Were you part of that family?”

“Yes, that was my family. He lived with
us, then I lived with him and his father for a time.”

“Then you must be the cousin who learnt to
light fires in a cave.”

He bowed his head in acknowledgment.
“Indeed I was. I hope Darcy did not tell you how long it took us to figure out
the obvious.”

“I believe he skipped that part and
focused more on your successes than your failures.”

“How very generous of him! Tell me, how do
you come to know Darcy?”

“We met when he visited Hertfordshire, and
stayed not far from my own home.”

“And you conversed enough to discuss our
old cave haunt, did you? You must know him rather well, then.”

Elizabeth’s throat constricted. “Not well,
but we conversed on several occasions. During one of them he told me about his
family – his stepmother, his adventures living with you, his sister. That
sort of thing.”

The colonel’s smile seemed to freeze in
place. “Darcy told you about his stepmother?”

“I am sorry; should I not have mentioned
her?”

“Not at all. It is simply that Darcy never
speaks of her if he can avoid it, so I was rather surprised.”

She needed to take care before she
revealed just how much she and Darcy had shared. “Only in passing, as part of
his explanation of how your father came to take him in for his safety. He said
very little about her.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam tugged at his cravat.
“He told you about what she did?” he asked disbelievingly.

“Just a mention of it. It was quite
insignificant.”

“If Darcy so much as alluded to it, it was
far from insignificant. I have never known him to speak of that, even to me.”

Was it true? “I must have caught him at an
unusually loquacious moment, then. I am sure it signifies nothing. I only
recall it because of my surprise when he said he had liked his stepmother. She
did not sound at all likeable to me.”

The colonel was looking at her oddly. “I
barely knew her, but Darcy loved her. At least until he came to live with us.
You say you met Darcy in Hertfordshire?”

This at least was safer ground. “His
friend, Mr. Bingley, had just taken a lease on a house a few miles from my own,
and Mr. Darcy was his guest there.”

“That would be the same time he first met
Mrs. Collins, then.”

“Yes, she was another neighbor. Mr. Darcy and
I both attended gatherings at her father’s house, Lucas Lodge.” That was good
– putting Charlotte in the center of the story distracted from her own
role in it. “She met Mr. Collins, my cousin, around the same time. I was very
sorry to lose her from the neighborhood.”

“How fortunate you can visit her here,
then.” He watched her carefully.

The sound of the front door closing
precluded any need to answer. Mr. Collins’s sturdy form appeared in the
doorway, his hat in his hand.

“What is all this nonsense? People running
back and forth, no maid at the door. And where is my wife?” Then his tone
changed suddenly from annoyance to servility. “I beg your pardon, Colonel
Fitzwilliam; I did not see you there. Pray permit me to welcome you to my
humble abode. I hope my cousin Elizabeth has been seeing to your comfort.
Cousin, surely you have not been alone with the colonel all this time?”

So the news had not reached him yet.
Colonel Fitzwilliam had gone pale again.  To spare him the pain of
delivering the ill tidings, Elizabeth said, “I fear we have tragic and shocking
news to impart. There has been a terrible accident. Lady Catherine’s carriage
overturned just up the road. The coachman was gravely injured; and I am very
sorry to report Lady Catherine did not survive.”

Mr. Collins, apparently unable to
comprehend her words, said, “Lady Catherine? Oh, no, Cousin Elizabeth. You must
have misunderstood. Nothing of the sort could possibly befall her.”

“Indeed I wish it were so, but it is not.
Colonel Fitzwilliam can vouch for my veracity. Charlotte was with Lady
Catherine when she breathed her last, and she remains on the scene to offer
what assistance and comfort she may, as befits a rector’s wife.”

His mouth fell open. “It cannot be! Not
Lady Catherine!” His eyes bulged almost comically. He looked more bereft than
either of Lady Catherine’s nephews had.

“I am very sorry for your loss,” she said.

“Where is she? I must go to her at once!
Lady Catherine would be most displeased if I were not at her side.”

Elizabeth refrained from pointing out Lady
Catherine was beyond being displeased. “The carriage is just beyond the bend in
the road. I imagine she may still be there.”

“She cannot be permitted to remain out in
the open! It is an insult to her dignity. I…”

He was interrupted by Charlotte’s tired
voice coming from behind him. “She is being borne to Rosings as we speak.”

Mr. Collins spun around. “My dear
Charlotte! Why, are you injured? You must take better care.”

Charlotte looked down at her skirts. “The
blood is not mine, but Lady Catherine’s, poor lady.”

“It is most unsuitable for a rector’s wife
to appear so in public!”

“Indeed it is,” said Charlotte soothingly.
“That is why I returned here as soon as I could be spared from her ladyship’s
side. But should you not be at Rosings? I am certain Miss de Bourgh will be in
need of your comfort.”

He clasped his hands together. “Oh, you
are quite correct, my dear! I must go immediately. Pray excuse me, Colonel
Fitzwilliam, Cousin Elizabeth, but duty calls!” He clapped his hat on his head
and rushed off.

The colonel rose to his feet slowly. “I
should return as well, now that Mrs. Collins is here. On my family’s behalf as
well as my own, I thank you both for your timely assistance today.” At least
his color had improved again.

Elizabeth curtsied to him. “I am in your
debt for your kindness in assisting me back.”

“I am always at your service.” He bowed
and took his leave.

Charlotte mopped her forehead with her
sleeve. “What a terrible day!”

Elizabeth took her arm. “Come, you must
change into a clean dress. I will assist you.”

“Thank you. Who knows when the maid will
return?”

Elizabeth followed her friend as she
trudged upstairs. Once in the bedroom, she could feel Charlotte trembling as
she undid the small buttons down the back of her dress. “You must be exhausted.
I cannot imagine what it was like for you to be with Lady Catherine at the
end.”

Charlotte stepped carefully out of the
dress. “It could have been worse. At first she was simply cursing the driver
and Mr. Darcy. I did not realize her injuries were serious until the very end.”

“She said nothing of it?” That was a
surprise; she would have expected Lady Catherine to be vocal about such things.

“Just that her leg hurt; but her legs are
always paining her, so I thought it was just the uncomfortable position. I
helped her raise her feet out of the water, and that was when I saw she was
bleeding. One of the struts had pierced her leg just beneath her hip. It must
have struck the great artery, for as soon as she moved, the blood shot out. What
a terrible sight! She pressed her hand over it, but would not permit me to
attempt to staunch the flow, but there was nothing I could have done for a
wound so wide and deep in any case. She was gone so quickly! The water beneath
her ran red, as if it had turned to blood.” Charlotte shivered.

“I am sorry you had to witness such a
thing.”

Charlotte poured water into a basin and
began scrubbing her hands fiercely. “I have never been susceptible to
nightmares, but I suspect tonight may prove the exception!”

Would her own nightmares be of the
accident or of that terrible moment when she realized she had falsely accused
Mr. Darcy? Silently she handed Charlotte a linen towel to dry her hands.

Her friend hunted through the wardrobe
with shaking hands and pulled out a simple dressing gown. “All I want now is to
sit in front of the fire with a cup of tea, and I daresay you would benefit
from the same.”

“Tea and a fire sound lovely.” But a
chance to talk to Mr. Darcy would be even better. Unfortunately, under the circumstances
it might be some time before she had an opportunity to do so.

***

Richard motioned to Darcy to follow him
down the passageway and into his bedroom. Once they were both inside, Darcy
closed the door and leaned back against it. “That was distinctly odd.”

His cousin was already reaching for the
brandy decanter. “To say the least.” His hand shook slightly as he poured two
glasses.

Darcy accepted one, but unlike Richard,
did not drink it immediately. “I had always been under the impression Anne was quite
fond of her mother.”

“It certainly appeared that way to me,
though I could not understand it myself. Even so, I would not have thought she
would
smile
when we told her of Lady Catherine’s demise.”