Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Darcy had been thirteen years old the first time he was thrown from a horse, but he still recalled the suddenness of it, the way his mind had struggled to comprehend the jarring thud, and to understand why he was suddenly on his back staring at the sky. Pain had been suspended for such a time as to make him think he had escaped it—until he realised that no, he had not, as it came roaring up to find him.

It was the same sensation to be left in the company of Lydia Bennet, the taste of Elizabeth's kiss still on his lips and her angry words ringing in his ears. The disappointment was almost too much to be borne.

"I shall never forgive you," Miss Lydia said, her petulance unabated.

"I would never forgive myself if something happened to you ," he retorted. Disappointment made him wish to lash out at the silly girl. "You may think that at fifteen?—"

"I am sixteen next week!"

He managed to not roll his eyes but spoke with all the impatience that was warranted. "Miss Lydia, I am going to be perfectly frank with you. A girl of your age who has been properly protected by her family has no idea of the baser instincts of men—particularly men ensconced in the company of other men for an extended time. By the time you understood it, you would have been too much damaged by it to ever recover the life you ought to have had."

"I only want to have some fun!" She looked like she wanted to stamp her foot again but did not. "Nothing would have happened to me!"

"Do you think any lady who finds herself ruined or injured set out planning for it?" Darcy shook his head. "Believe me when I say I have known young ladies, your very age, who have gone out on a lark and come back forever changed. I would much rather have you hate me than suffer a similar fate. No, we can never know what might have happened, but I can only urge you this: do not be in such a hurry to grow up. Enjoy your girlhood."

She sighed, frustrated and pouty. "You simply have no idea, Mr Darcy, how it is to live in such a place as this! How would you like it if a once-a-month assembly was the only thing you ever had to look forward to?"

"I would not like it at all," he said. He thought a moment, then added, "How is this? I hope to persuade your sister to marry me, and if I can, you may come and stay with us in London for as long as you wish."

"That sounds like a grand plan," Miss Lydia replied with no little sarcasm, "save for the fact that Lizzy is as likely to marry you as she is to sprout wings and fly."

With that she flounced off.

At least it does not seem that she saw us kissing, Darcy thought grimly . Surely she would have said something about that.

He walked a short way into the maze. Netherfield's maze was famed for being uniquely vast and complex—almost a labyrinth. It also had innumerable twists and turns and four points of exit, so he knew, reasonably, that he had little chance of finding Elizabeth if she did not wish to be found. It was nearly a ten-minute walk to the centre, and he did that, finding her bonnet but otherwise no evidence of her.

What to do, what to do? he thought as he slowly walked back towards the house. What I shall not do is take this one on the chin. This does not end here, not at the hands of Lydia Bennet. Tomorrow, he decided. I shall find her tomorrow at the ball, when emotions have subsided, explain it all as best as I can, and then hope for the best.

If he was not engaged by tomorrow evening, he decided, then he would die trying.

When Lord Saye left her, Elizabeth continued towards the clearing. She looked about in the vain hope that she might see Mr Darcy, but she saw no one save her father, standing and chatting with the elder Mr Goulding under a tree. I suppose they did not abandon me after all . Just another thing she had been wrong about.

She walked towards the pair slowly, wishing with every step that she might catch a glimpse of Mr Darcy, or hear him call out her name. Her wishes went unanswered. When she arrived, her father informed her that he had sent her mother and sisters on without her, and that Mr Goulding would return them to Longbourn in his carriage.

The night was long while Elizabeth considered what she had, again , done. No matter how she twisted and turned it in her head, she could not find any way to absolve herself. The errors of my ways , she thought grimly, are evidently unshakeable . The worst of it was that she would be required to see Mr Darcy on several more occasions, most notably the wedding itself. She knew not how she would survive any of it; how to look at the man she had just kissed, the man with whom she had been falling in love, and be met with anger. No, worse than anger—coldness. He came here in hopes of winning my hand, and I have treated him abominably.

The morning came too soon. Elizabeth was yet lying abed when she heard her mother exclaiming in the rooms beneath. She wondered what was happening as she heard a great deal of activity, followed by the sound of someone rushing up the stairs. Moments later, Jane burst into their shared bedchamber.

"It is here," she said, her face aglow. "Finally, my wedding gown is here! My mother is hard on my heels with it."

The gowns that Elizabeth, Jane, and Mrs Bennet had commissioned in London had been unforgivably delayed. Mrs Gardiner had gone herself to the shop and impressed upon the lady how very unlikely it was that she would receive more orders from the newly married and wealthy Mrs Bingley if the very gown she was to marry in was not delivered on time. But it seemed they were, at last, at Longbourn, even if it was with barely two days to spare.

"Thank goodness," Elizabeth said, getting herself out of bed.

"Oh, if this dressmaker even knew what she has done to my nerves!" Mrs Bennet exclaimed as she entered the room, Hill and Sarah behind her bearing the parcels. Hill set hers down and bustled off but Sarah stayed to help them dress.

"There, there, Mama," Elizabeth said. "I am sure they are done to perfection."

Alas, relief was short lived. The gown removed from its packing was rather unlike that which Jane had commissioned. What her sister had wished for was a satin gown in palest blush pink, with light trim on the skirt, with fuller sleeves tucked up to allow rosettes made of the same pink satin to peek through. Mrs Bennet had protested, violently, at the lack of lace on the gown, but Jane had held firm and had at last prevailed—or so she had believed. Evidently Mrs Bennet had gone back to the dressmaker, and the dressmaker had complied with a full lace overdress as well as even more lace coming down from the sleeves to cover the elbows. Tears welled up in Jane's eyes the moment she saw it, but she blinked them back, saying nothing.

Mrs Bennet was delighted by it, too much so to even notice Jane's quiet. "You see! I told you it needed just a touch of lace! You will be the very picture of elegance, my darling girl! Bingley will be too astonished to speak!"

Jane said not a syllable as she was dressed in the gown—which, Elizabeth noted, seemed to have also become significantly more low cut in the bodice—and remained silent and still in front of the cheval mirror as her mother and Sarah tugged at the lace and exclaimed over her beauty.

"I do not think you have ever been more beautiful," Mrs Bennet enthused. "Is she not beautiful? Lizzy, say something to your sister."

That Jane was deeply distressed was perfectly obvious to Elizabeth, but she dutifully told her how beautiful she looked. Jane offered a wan smile and submitted meekly to the removal of the garment, which was hung on the door of their closet. After one last sigh of happy satisfaction, Mrs Bennet and the maid left the two sisters alone, with instructions that Elizabeth should try hers on as well.

Jane immediately turned to her sister, her blue eyes brimming with tears.

"It is a beautiful gown," Elizabeth said immediately and desperately. "You look so lovely in it."

"I hate it!" Jane said with a little choked sob, and then the tears began in earnest. She sank onto her bed, one hand covering her face as she wept.

Elizabeth hastened to sit beside her, putting a hand on her back and feeling her sister's shoulders shake with her sobs.

"It is so ugly. It is nothing at all like I wished it to be! What did she do, buy every bolt of lace in London? And ecru lace no less? Ugly! It looks like one of her handkerchiefs!"

Elizabeth rubbed her sister's back in small circles. "She likely believed it was less elegant without lace."

"Well, I think it is less elegant with the lace, and very matronly," Jane replied, then gave a hiccoughing little sob. "You must think me dreadfully ungrateful. It must have been such an expense to her but…but…"

"But an expense you never asked for, nor wished for," Elizabeth consoled. "No one could have real gratitude for such an imposition. This was your wedding gown, not hers."

"I cannot believe it. It is so ugly, so very unlike what I wanted to look like on my wedding day." Jane sighed, wiping the tears from her eyes. "I cannot bear imagining it. My only consolation is that I cannot look at myself."

That made Elizabeth chuckle a little. "Jane, it takes more than mere lace to overwhelm your beauty. Bingley will be so busy staring into your eyes, he will not give the gown a second look."

"You can be certain Caroline and Louisa will have much to say about it, and none of it good."

Elizabeth, alas, could not disagree with that.

"How does yours look?" Jane asked. "Did she put lace on that too?"

"I confess, I have not even looked at it yet." The other dress box had been brought to their bedchamber as well but rested unopened on Elizabeth's bed. She opened it now, revealing the very gown that she had expected to see. The sleeves resembled Jane's with the small cascade of puffs but had neither the rosettes nor the terrible lace. "Only the bride was treated to such an overabundance, it seems."

Jane looked utterly defeated, her mouth downturned and her shoulders bent as she reached out one hand to lightly touch her sister's gown. She gave a little sniff. "It is very elegant. You will look beautiful in it."

"Or perhaps you will."

Her sister gave a little laugh, clearly not understanding.

Elizabeth sat down next to her. "Would you prefer to wear this gown?"

Jane paused in caressing the gown and looked at her.

"We could take the rosettes off yours and put them in the sleeves, and it would be very near the gown you wished for, just ivory instead of pink."

"Can one marry in ivory?"

"Why not?"

Jane gently fingered the gauze overdress, which had been delicately ornamented with little seed pearls. "I am taller than you," she said finally, a weak protest.

"Barely," Elizabeth replied. "And in any case, I was wearing a small heel when I had it fitted. I venture it will be just right for you."

"The bodice, though?"

"Could be easily let out."

"But then what would you wear?" Both sisters' gazes turned to the lace monstrosity hanging on the door. Understanding dawned on Jane immediately. "No, I could not ask you to do that. You dislike such an abundance of lace as much as I do, and the ecru?—"

"Makes us both look pallid. But it is not my wedding day," Elizabeth replied. "And you have not asked anything of me. I am offering it. Come, let us try them on and see how it would look."

Not so many minutes later, the two sisters stood attired in the opposite gowns they were meant to have. Elizabeth knew immediately she had done well; Jane's eyes finally looked happy as she beheld herself in the ivory gown—which did not yet fasten at the back but would be easily altered. For herself, the pink concoction was too much adorned to really suit her, but for one morning, a morning of such importance to Jane, it would do.

But Mr Darcy will see you in this gown. Elizabeth quashed that thought immediately. Once again, she had misunderstood him and been cruel to him; once again, he had been driven away by her tongue. It seemed that they had no talent for being in accord; a few days in company was bound to end in some misunderstanding or another. An excess of lace was nothing to the excess of cruelty she routinely gave him.

"But who can do all of this letting out and hemming in?" Jane asked. "The entire house is upside down getting ready for this breakfast, our sisters' gowns are yet being finished by Sarah, our mother is not going to want?—"

"Me." Elizabeth put a hand on her arm. "I can do it. I shall do it."

Although she did not like to admit it, Elizabeth was far more skilled with a needle than anyone ever thought she could be. She attributed it to one winter of illness when she had been set abed with dreadful colds four times complete. Much as she enjoyed reading, too many days of doing nothing else would have sent her mad, and so she had honed her sewing skills.

"When?" Jane asked. "The ball is tonight, then tomorrow is the dinner, and we shall scarcely have a moment to rest. Mama will not hear of you remaining home for any of it."

Elizabeth knew she was correct. Much as she would have loved to miss the ball, it was not possible. But it was possible to be at Netherfield and not at the ball.

"We shall send it over to Netherfield," she told Jane. "Then, once I have had a dance or two, I shall slip below stairs and work down there. You know Mrs Nicholls will allow me to sit in a corner somewhere."

"Oh no, I could not ask you to do that."

Elizabeth removed her arms from the pink gown and began to slide it off down her body. "It will be a relief to be able to absent myself from the dancing."

"Why?" Jane eyed her curiously. "The colonel has seemed very friendly with you."

Elizabeth had not confided in her sister about the wagers, or her reaction to learning of them, thinking there was no cause to put a damper on her sister's felicity. Now, she kept her attention ostensibly on the gown, picking it up off the floor, shaking it, laying it carefully on the bed.

"Mr Darcy has as well."

"Let us hope Mama has not noticed, else she will be determined that I should marry one, or both of them," Elizabeth said, gesturing to Jane to turn so that she could help her remove her gown.

"But surely you wish to?—"

"What I wish is for my sister to be happy on her wedding day." She set to work undoing what buttons had been fastened on the ivory gown. "It is all decided! Nothing more to be said, or done, save for trusting me to make the changes."

"Will not our mother be very angry about this?"

"If she is," Elizabeth said, sliding the gown away from Jane's body, "then we shall remind her that no one wished for all this lace! You are three-and-twenty, Jane, she cannot dress you up as if you were a child and had no say in the matter."

Turning, Jane threw her arms around her sister. She kissed her on the cheek, and said, "You are the dearest sister in the world."