Darcy & Elizabeth (17 page)

Bingley's Betrayal

The near-tornadic chaos that embraced the Darcy family in the year '15 excited that of the Bingleys with similar vehemence. There was no travail that Elizabeth had weathered that was not suffered with all due excruciation by her sister Jane. Indeed, was it within her power, Jane would have happily appropriated all of Elizabeth's worriment for herself.

Elizabeth knew that Jane's nature was one of boundless compassion and limitless consolation and she fervently desired to keep her own counsel when it came to her most terrifying fears. But in light of Georgiana's disappearance, Darcy's pursuit of her, Fitzwilliam's battle wounds, their young friend John Christie's death, the typhus epidemic that kept their party abroad, and her own ill-timed and precarious pregnancy, she had been able to shield very little from her sister. Had there not been enough grief to share, those perilous months saw Jane endure an unprecedented imbroglio—but certainly not one of her own making. Although she did not initially apprise Elizabeth of it, for it was of a particularly delicate nature. Elizabeth had learnt of it through rather odd circumstances. Indeed, it had been an odd and humiliating business for all parties concerned.

When later she recalled how scrupulously she crept about the surrounding countryside searching out the woman with whom she believed
her
husband philandered, she was mortified beyond words. So humiliated was she, even uncovering that the actual culprit was not Darcy at all, but rather Bingley, she could not allow herself to be relieved.

She was enraged beyond words that her sweet sister would be injured should she learn of it. And she knew it was entirely possible she might. The evidence was irrefutable. The baby was named Charles after the man who fathered him. But Jane had astonished Elizabeth (to a staggering degree) when she brought the incident to light herself. As the baby's mother was deathly ill with consumption, Jane wished to take the baby home with her to Kirkland Hall, but she was loath for Bingley to know that his indiscretion was no longer private.

Elizabeth was inclined to abuse Bingley's backside with a carriage whip, but she had acquiesced to Jane's wishes to secret the baby away at Pemberley. They had only just fetched the baby when Bingley happened upon them. He recognised the infant in a trice. Elizabeth found herself silently smug, happy for Bingley to have to pay the proverbial piper. Yet, as it was not hers to cast stones, she left them to sort it out alone.

“He who hath sown the wind shall reap the whirlwind,” she had whispered as she listened behind the door for retribution to be paid.

Bingley was compleatly chastened, utterly remorseful, unconditionally penitent, and wholly self-condemnatory. Such was his wretchedness that it very nearly provoked Elizabeth's pity—but not quite. (To Bingley's good fortune the granting of forgiveness fell to his loving wife, not his infuriated sister-in-law.)

So quickly did other events unfold after that revelation, Elizabeth had small opportunity to talk to Jane about it or what came to pass in its aftermath. Knowing her dear sister's compassionate nature, there was little doubt that she had forgiven Bingley with all the generosity of her exceedingly kind heart. It was a private matter, yet as it was Jane who had brought the issue to the forefront and asked for her assistance, Elizabeth believed enlightenment on the repercussions was obligatory. Jane, however, was not of the same mind. Thither went the Bingleys with the baby to Kirkland Hall and introduced him to one and all as “their son.” Upon that occasion and thence, if anyone dared so much as raise an eyebrow, it was met with benign silence by Jane.

As they were not only sisters, but dear friends and closest confidantes, Elizabeth had been anxious to the point of agitation to know what exactly had come to pass between the Bingleys. That Jane was so unforthcoming about it all—especially with her—was highly vexing. Even the supposition that Jane's silence was out of respect for her husband's privacy did little to mitigate Elizabeth's unrelenting curiosity. Curiosity about whether Bingley's betrayal had damaged the fibre of their marriage was unflinching whilst Elizabeth waited both for her parturition and in unmitigated terror for Darcy to come home to her from across the water. Little did she want to admit that her sister's marital difficulties served her as a distraction, yet that was the only other subject that she could ponder with if not calm, at least relative composure. Once her own husband was home and she had two babies to dote on, Jane and Bingley's marriage had slipped from the first tier of her concerns. Hence, it was several months before Elizabeth had either the time or the wherewithal for that particular query to resurface.

The time had long passed for the subject to be broached in conversation with any kind of nonchalance. Hence, she sought to ascertain the level of and direction Jane's forgiveness had taken from visual clues. That study was to prove profitable. For she eventually persuaded herself that all was well in the Bingley house by a means once almost forgotten. Although discourse upon the subject was forbidden, she resorted to what had been, for all intents and purposes, a special language known between themselves as children. A look, a glance, a nod bespoke volumes. Hence, when at last Elizabeth's attention was not so compromised as to overlook a further nuance upon Jane's countenance, she could at last observe that to which she had heretofore been blind. When she did, she was all but taken aback.

For overspreading Jane's aspect was the barest hint of a smile. It sprang from neither amusement nor disguise. It was a smile of a very particular kind. Elizabeth would not have reckoned from whence it sprang had she not seen its exact replica each morning in her looking-glass when she had arisen from her own husband's bed.

The Hapless History of Lady Anne

Lady Anne de Bourgh was not only a bit bird-boned and very plain featured, she was unobtrusive to the point of insipidity. Good society would not have suffered the tedium of her company if not for her illustrious birth. Still, poor Anne was hardly the first young gentlewoman whose only charms rested in the vaults of her banker.

Beyond her lack of bloom, her insignificant features and soft voice suggested her a bit dull witted. This was not so. Her predisposition for sniffles and chills kept her away from most engagements, hence society had little chance to exhibit its tolerance or understand it misplaced. The poor girl, it seemed, was always either in fear of coming down with a cold or in the throes of one. Frail health demanded that she keep mostly to her room. Hence, if she was uncompanionable, it fell to her lack of opportunity to practise being otherwise. It was within this void that the oft-observed practise of one who is denied diversion supplied by others was put into place. When deficient in outside amusement, invariably one produces one's own.

This truism was allotted further credence in the draped recesses of Rosings Park Manor and at the hands of its young mistress. However, this came to pass in no such manner as to excite the concern of her companion, Mrs. Jenkinson. Indeed, it was what one might expect from a girl of middling sensibility and not high spirits. For, already predisposed to introversion, Anne de Bourgh sought further obscuration between the covers of the nearest book. Regrettably, both her mother and her companion were quite unaware that those nearest happened not to be the most scholarly of choices.

Most correct in her public conduct, Lady Anne de Bourgh was a little less circumspect when under the guidance of her own free choice. When out from under spying eyes, her mind was quite curious. That in and of itself was scandalous, for any well brought up young woman was taught first and foremost that curiosity not only killed the cat, had she been a female feline, she had it coming. Curiosity was a masculine trait—any female exhibiting such comportment was to be branded in compleat want of gentility.

Excused from dance lessons and possessing no ear for music, little was provided but needlework to engage the mind of a girl whose governess was disinclined to tempt her intellect with tutorials. Although she had little taste for wit, Anne's feelings were not insignificant. What her family and acquaintances did not understand was that Lady Anne's dolorous countenance reflected general indisposition rather than a sombre spirit.

Hence it would have been a compleat astonishment to them all that her taste in books did not favour treatises or biographies. Indeed, the waters of her mind may not have coursed deep, but it was not for lack of stimulation. Lady Anne had become an unadulterated devotee of England's most shameless novellas of romance.

To her great misfortune, her dubious taste in literature could not begin to be satisfied by the grand library at Rosings. The tomes that sat so ponderously upon those shelves may have been important, but so were they ancient. Any literature containing the most innocent allusion to the excitation of the senses had been carefully excised. The barrenness of emotion upon those shelves led Anne to believe that romance was only lately discovered. Hence, she craved contemporary works. And although she enjoyed poetry, it was novels of forbidden love, mystery, and intrigue that most piqued her fancy.

There was but one place she could quench her thirst for self-discovery without unwanted scrutiny. Her bedchamber itself would not do (too many maids about). However, she was left to her own devices beneath her bedcovers. There she could escape both her mother's unsparing surveillance and the more easily evaded watch of Mrs. Jenkinson. But then only in the dark of night. She carefully (very, very carefully) took a candle beneath her counterpane and thrust off the shackles of inhibition at last to allow sheer pleasure to envelop her. Emboldened with every passing night she lay undiscovered, she betook herself a little farther, delved a little deeper. So furtive was this employment, no one was wise of it at all.

Books often cost as much as a guinea and even the lending library was far beyond the reach of common folk. For a young woman of title, one would have thought them as available as any trinket for which she might hanker. Surprisingly, Anne was in no better access to ready cash than the next person. Where a young lady of modest means would have had a few coins hid away and tied with a knot in the toe of a stocking, Anne was not so fortunate. She may have lived in a grand house and dressed in finery, but she had neither the coins nor the wherewithal to purchase her own books. Still, she was not without resources. The proffering of a gold eardrop influenced a maid-servant that she was quite happy to dig into her own pocket and take a trip to the circulating library on her mistress's behalf. Anne was not of a deceitful nature, but she reasoned (much like most in want of rationale for a deceit) that if she neither denied nor admitted to squirreling away literature of questionable taste, her honesty was not compromised.

All this hole-and-corner activity was demanded due to her mother's denunciation of any and all modern authors (by her wholesale extirpation of any and all works of sensibility in her library, it was apparent that she was not all that keen on certain authors past, either). Anne knew that such writing was shameful because her mother dictated that opinion to all within her ken.

Indeed, Lady Catherine despised all things
au courant
. Not unlike other aristocrats of a certain age, she was disposed to believe any alteration beyond that with which she was familiar in her own youth was of no good to anyone. Her ladyship powdered her hair with Gowland's no less prodigiously than her face (until it was not freckles she was endeavouring to hide, but age spots). Moreover, she continued to have her dresses cut to the same patterns she had used for her wedding trousseau. She laughed in the face of (or refused to acknowledge) the latest fashion with the abandon that only the very richest could without societal condemnation. The use of a quizzing-glass necessary to peruse their tiny type somehow lent newspapers some credibility, hence they were occasionally tolerated. (Invariably, reading of some Whig outrage would cause her to toss it into the fire, and was she in the vicinity the resultant smoke would cost Anne a coughing fit.) However, Lady Catherine abhorred romanticism in any form. Was not Byron an incestuous Lothario? And that upstart Shelley—expelled from Oxford, his wife a suicide! Blatherings from such men as these were not fit for decent society!

Anne had not dared broach the subject with her mother directly, but she had overheard quite enough as Lady Catherine lectured Mrs. Jenkinson to keep a watchful eye out for such dross lest her daughter be introduced to frivolity and immorality.

Lady Catherine's daughter did not consider herself of a rebellious spirit. In her pursuit of new works, she understood herself merely in want of innocent diversion.
The Castle of Wolenbach
and
The Midnight Bell
were uniformly abhorred by all good society (by her mother's account), hence Anne held them in the greatest esteem. Yet her favourite by far was
The Mysteries of Udolpho
. (The chapter that told of the murderous spectacle behind the black curtain was read with particular relish—the telling of strange and ferocious rumblings sent her into the most tremulous state no matter how many times she read of them.)

Although her mother looked with an equally evil eye upon ladies' magazines, Lady Anne occasionally purloined a copy of
Bon Ton
from Mrs. Jenkinson's knitting basket (Anne was happy to know she was not the only morally compromised soul in the household). Had Lady Catherine actually taken up the magazine, however, she would have been mollified to know that the writers of
Bon Ton
warned their readers that if “women of little experience” read romantic nonsense they would be evermore disposed to “mistake the urgency of bodily wants with the violence of delicate passion.” Once Anne read that denouncement, no reasoning could have withstood her determination to read more.

Anne kept these vessels of romanticism deep in the corner of her garderobe and sat in eye-batting, slack-jawed innocence (her skirt-folds not betraying what they hid) whenever Mrs. Jenkinson happened to gain her room unexpectedly. Had she understood that many well-bred young women read such novels without compunction she would have been most disappointed.

Although this sentimental inclination was only gratified in her most recent memory, it had lain inert for some time, only needing a face on which to hang such longings. The face that came to personify romantic love to Anne was one that she had known the entirety of her life.

***

Although she was in his company at least twice a year, Fitzwilliam Darcy was wholly unaware of the esteem that Anne had come to hold for him. Women far more handsome and accomplished than she vied for his attention with indecorous tenacity. He was not only the most eligible, he was the most handsome man she had ever beheld. Beyond this admiration of his person, Anne felt a kinship of sorts. For much like herself, he was not a person in whom happiness overflowed in mirth. Indeed, all the stars were in position for a positive engagement to be formed: He had understanding and uprightness in figure and form, and his station was equal to her own. In her deepest ruminations, Anne may have questioned just why she should be so very fortunate to win the love of such an admirable man. But having been born into untold luxury, she could only believe it fell to God's infinite wisdom—reciprocity for poor health and suffering from an underabundance of mother-love. Proof, perchance, that she was not so insignificant in His eyes as her mother declared. It did not occur to her that marital love would not be part of the bargain that would be struck.

Anne was well aware of her personal limitations, but so long and so relentlessly had her mother enforced the notion of the unification of the houses of Darcy and de Bourgh through marriage, she eventually accepted it as less a probability than a certainty. Other than general cowardice, the only reason she had never once disagreed with her mother's dictatorial declarations was that her mother had arranged for
him
to be hers. If her mother willed it, it would come to pass. This, above all else, Anne knew to be true. Lady Catherine de Bourgh was never opposed. Time would come when she and Mr. Darcy would be together, forever. Happily ever after—just as in her favourite novels.

Until that time, however, she worshipped him well, but from afar.

Despite the fact of their presumed engagement, she had sat across the room in a mortified stupor upon each occasion she was in his company. She had dared not to speak lest she be sent into some indecorous fit by her respiratory system. Such had been her fate upon the very first time she gathered the fortitude to issue a comment to him. It was a simple inquiry—she had practised it for days waiting for just the right occasion to approach him.

Voice tremulous, but resolute, she inquired with what she supposed was a note of coquetry, “Do you find the cooler weather to your liking?”

It was not a particularly weighty query, but it was the best she could manage. He gave every intention of answering in the affirmative, but as he began to form a reply he stopt and looked at her with an expression of what could only be described as puzzled revulsion. For she had no more than looked up at him whilst awaiting his response, than an intemperate tickle began in her left nostril. She did her best to alleviate it by what she hoped was an inconspicuous twitch of her nose, but that only enkindled the itch. By that time he had quite forgotten what was under discussion and was staring quite openly at her spasmodic nose. In the absence of a comment from Mr. Darcy upon her astute observation upon the temperateness of the day, she endeavoured to renew the direction of the conversation.

“Is it not…not…naahchooo!”

It had not been a sweet little kittenish sniff—rather, it was the trumpustuous snark of a bewhiskered old man, so forceful that it nearly blew the ends of Mr. Darcy's neck-cloth over his shoulders.

He had issued only a mild “Pray, bless you,” but took out his pocket-square and brushed the resultant droplets of her nasal lubricant from his frockcoat with considerable deliberation before extending it, with all due politeness, to her. She fled in mortification and never ventured a word with him again.

Her yearning, however, could not be stilled. In each novel she read, she saw herself as the heroine, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the hero. And never once as the heroine did she sneeze in his face.

When it came to pass that Mr. Darcy chose another, Anne spoke of it not. Deep within her tattered heart, she had feared that it had been indeed a notion far too fanciful actually to come to pass. Her mother, however, was inconsolable. Unused as her mother was to interference in the consummation of any of her directives, this was not unexpected. But this time her rage was more severe and unrelenting. As her mother railed and fumed, Anne had little time to find pity for herself. So aggrieved was Lady Catherine, Anne became uneasy. It was as if she, not Anne, were the injured party. During the many of her interminable rampages, Anne had fair time to ponder it all.

Her rumination incited further disquiet as she recalled how her mother had always been most attentive to Mr. Darcy. Very attentive. Almost coquettish. Anne then recalled numerous instances when she had caught sight of her mother's gaze sweeping the length of his figure that, in retrospect, was most unseemly in manner. Instinctively, she wondered just who had been meant for whom.

Anne had ridden in the coach the day her mother confronted Miss Elizabeth Bennet. She was not unaware of the reason for their trip. Initially, she had been hopeful that it was all a misunderstanding—that there was no engagement in place between Miss Bennet and Mr. Darcy. There was not, but that there was nothing official was inconsequential.