Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

WHEN MARY DENIED Mr. Collins's proposal, it was Elizabeth who their mother was angry with.

Elizabeth supposed that she should have recognized that would happen.

Mary spent all morning telling her mother her mad scheme about becoming a novelist, and her mother still gave Elizabeth the tongue-lashing.

That was Wednesday.

On Wednesday evening, news came that Mr. Collins was engaged to Charlotte Lucas, which horrified Elizabeth, but then she thought of that conversation they'd once had about Mr. Thane, and Elizabeth realized that Charlotte was desperate, and this was, well, better than Mr. Thane.

She'd had time to prepare herself that Mr. Collins would not marry a Bennet sister, and she thought that Charlotte was likely a very good outcome. Charlotte would be charitable to the Bennet family if and when she took over Longbourn.

Of course, Mrs. Bennet, who spoke ill of the Lucases behind their back, was in a tizzy over it, because it rankled her. She had seen herself as above them and now the ever-so-plain Charlotte, heretofore a spinster, would lord over her in her twilight years.

Mrs. Bennet was beside herself.

Elizabeth thought that it all could have been much worse .

Then Thursday dawned.

There was nothing in the sunrise to give a hint to what calamity would fall, but then later, a letter arrived from Caroline Bingley.

It was short. It indicated that the family had been summoned back to London, where they intended to spend the entire winter. It specifically said that Mr. Bingley had made the decision. It said that Miss Bingley was pleased to be going back to London to see old friends but that she was deeply sorry to be leaving "you, Miss Eliza, for whom I have developed a deep and abiding affection. Would that you could contrive to be in London as well, but I despair of that eventuality."

Elizabeth read the letter seven times.

She was shaking.

It didn't make any sense.

She couldn't even cry.

She shook and read it four more times.

Then she went up to her room, shut the door, and lay down on the bed very carefully and stared at the ceiling.

Jane came up sometime later. "We have only Miss Bingley's word that this is true, and she does not see things clearly. She thought that Mr. Darcy was in love with her, after all. And I have heard from Mr. Wickham that Mr. Darcy is actually engaged to be married to his cousin, Miss Anne de Bourgh."

Elizabeth laughed. "Mr. Darcy is related to Lady Catherine de Bourgh? Mr. Collins's Lady Catherine?"

"Oh, you didn't know this? You should have seen Mr. Collins at the ball. He spoke to Mr. Darcy without an introduction."

"Well, he had seen him in Meryton on that one occasion," said Elizabeth. "I suppose that's why he was jostling to speak, then, because he knew the connection between them."

"Anyway, all I am saying is that Caroline Bingley can't know what her brother intends," said Jane.

"No, I destroyed everything," said Elizabeth. "I spoke that gossip about Mr. Darcy to Mr. Bingley, and now he is done with me. He rebuked me for it, and I came back at him with sarcasm. Admittedly, he thought to insult me by calling me a woman!" She scoffed.

"What?" said Jane, lying down next to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth's lower lip trembled. "Before I said it, he was speaking of how quickly he would hurry back to me. He was speaking of bringing back two copies of a book, so that we might read at the same time. He… oh, Lord, Jane, I have ruined us all. You would have married Mr. Collins, but I interfered—"

"It was you who put the idea that Mr. Darcy was interested in me in Mama's head, then? Oh, Lizzy, why would you say such a thing? He is engaged to his cousin ."

At this, Elizabeth burst into tears.

"Apologies," whispered Jane. "I should not have censured you. I can only imagine what you must be feeling now."

"If only you had not—" Elizabeth's voice broke with fresh tears. "Sprained your ankle that night. Mr. Bingley would have danced with you , and all would be well."

Jane didn't say anything.

Elizabeth tried vainly to get her tears under control.

"I don't even like Mr. Bingley," said Jane in a strangled voice. "I'm sure that… that wouldn't have mattered." She pulled Elizabeth into her arms. "No point in trying to rewrite the past, is there? What's done is done."

Elizabeth sobbed into her sister's dress, sobbed until she had cried herself out.

THE FOLLOWING WEEKS were dreary, not least because Mr. Collins—having indicated in his first letter that he would only be staying a week—seemed to have decided to stay indefinitely, such was the violence of his affection for Charlotte.

If Elizabeth had not been in such a state of self-reproach, she might have had more to say to her friend about the match, for she felt sure that Charlotte would be miserable with that man, but she was too dulled by her own inner recriminations to say much other than that she hoped Charlotte would be happy in her choices.

Charlotte said only once, "I hope you are not feeling as though I have stolen something from you, Lizzy."

Elizabeth only let out a long, bitter laugh at that. "Oh, Charlotte," she said, "you and I shall never quarrel over a man. Never. Let us put that entire idea to rest."

Eventually, in mid-December, Mr. Collins finally left, and Elizabeth was quite relieved not to have to listen to the man's droning voice. The household was easier without the added pressure of a guest all of the time.

Jane had seemed in easier spirits as soon as Mr. Bingley was gone, and she was always trying to cheer Elizabeth, who was not in the mood to be cheered, though everyone seemed to think she was making too much of the matter. Her father declared jocularly that it was high time Lizzy had been jilted by somebody or other. "One must weather having one's heart broken. Builds character!" he crowed.

When Elizabeth rejoined that she was single-handedly responsible for having destroyed the family's future, he responded that that responsibility was his, for he had not managed to get a boy-child on Mrs. Bennet. He winked at their mother and said slyly, "Not for lack of trying."

Elizabeth found this entirely disgusting. As much as she disliked her parents arguing, which there was much of, it was even worse when her father said things like that .

The only bright spot anything at all was the news that her aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, were planning to come for Christmas, along with their children. Elizabeth and Jane were quite close with their aunt, having often been allowed to stay with them when the younger sisters were kept at home.

Indeed, upon arriving, her aunt spent some time alone with Elizabeth, having heard all about what had transpired, and she offered an immediate solution .

"You must come with us when we go, and spend some time in London," said Mrs. Gardiner. "A change of scene is exactly what you need, I think."

Elizabeth was cheered immediately by this idea.

"Now, of course, you mustn't think that you will have any chance of interacting with Mr. Bingley. We live such in a different part of town and we have such different connections. I don't offer this as some scheme to get back into his affections."

"No, no," agreed Elizabeth. "Besides, I think the Bingleys would rather be caught dead than set foot on Gracechurch Street, such is their opinion of it."

"Oh my," said her aunt. "Perhaps you have been spared, then. What sort of prejudice is all that!"

"It is the influence of Mr. Darcy, undoubtedly."

Mrs. Gardiner had grown up in Lambton, and she had seen Pemberley. She knew of the elder Mr. Darcy by reputation and had conversed with the elder Mr. Wickham, the steward, on at least a few occasions. Of the younger boys, she knew little, though she said that it was hardly a surprise that the younger Darcy was a proud and ill-behaved lad and that she thought it not out of the bounds of reason for a man like that to deny advancement to Mr. Wickham.

Jane had spoken with Mr. Wickham on a number of other occasions since the Bingleys had departed the area, and she seemed even more convinced of the rightness of Mr. Wickham's position and the wrongness of Mr. Darcy's.

Jane dwelt often on the incident when Mr. Darcy had proclaimed loudly that he had no intention of ever marrying Miss Bingley, and when Elizabeth recounted the things Mr. Darcy had said about her, the things that were not entirely complimentary, these were all added together, and Jane decided that they must heap the blame for it all on Mr. Darcy.

He had likely schemed to get Mr. Bingley to quit Netherfield for good, and he had turned Mr. Bingley against Elizabeth. Likely, Elizabeth's accusations had made Mr. Darcy angry and he had thought to keep all of the Bingleys away from Mr. Wickham.

Elizabeth listened to everything that Jane said. She tried to school herself never to think any hopeful sorts of thoughts regarding the entire situation. Elizabeth tried to assure herself that it would be just as her aunt had said.

She would not see any of the Bingleys in town.

She would not rekindle any romance with Mr. Bingley.

She would simply go away and have some time to distract herself from the entire affair.

But she could not help but have some hope of a different outcome, no matter how she tried to smother the thought. It was possible that she could reunite with Mr. Bingley. It was possible he might still feel things for her. It was possible that they might stand close again, with his fingers brushing against hers now and again and sending little thrills all through her.