Chapter 9

August 1811

Elizabeth watched for the first appearance of Pemberley Woods with some anticipation; when at length they turned in at the lodge, her spirits were high. The park was very large, containing a great variety of ground—all exquisite, the entirety of it having but one theme: majesty. They descended the hill, crossed the bridge, and drove to its entrance; while examining the nearer aspect of the house, she was conscious of her own sense of jubilation.

She and Jane had been in the Circulating Library, partially hidden by rows of shelving, spying upon Uncle Gardiner’s meeting with Miss Bentley—having purposely selected the busiest time of day, when seemingly a third of the young ladies in London met to gossip and socialise. Recognising Miss Bentley immediately and with some surprise, she sought to interpret her uncle’s expressions—and realised the moment when every nuance of appearance told her he was shutting the door to providing any assistance from Pennywithers. Much to Jane’s chagrin, she rapidly marched across the room, leaving her sister little choice but to follow.

Pretending surprise, she had artfully given Miss Bentley—Sarah—the opportunity she sought to continue the conversation. At tea the following day, Sarah’s explanation of Miss Darcy’s concerns had seemed nothing except sensible. Why would not a sister be upset by such rumours? To Sarah, she feigned ignorance of her uncle’s connexions to an unnamed reporter, but there was no question in her mind that Pennywithers would dearly love to put any gossiping papers to shame; those who skulked behind rumours and baseless gossip deserved nothing more. She believed Sarah’s protestations of Mr Darcy’s innocence, simply because Sarah would not have given them unless she was certain of the Darcy character. Elizabeth might, truly, have penned Pennywithers’s rebuke immediately except for one reason.

“I want to go to that party, Uncle,” she had explained. “I want to see a new part of England. I wish to meet new friends.” She almost mentioned the import of an introduction to the earl of Matlock for her goals—how interesting might it be for the future of Mr Pennywithers, the possibility of making such a connexion as Lady Matlock?—but stopped herself; not only did Mr Gardiner have no great love for aristocratic politicians, but he had no great love of her ideas for the future.

“I know they live a life that is beyond our touch—but I want Jane to touch it. Jane deserves this chance. Pennywithers will always be on the outside looking in—but for a few weeks, Jane can be in.”

“Not really,” he had replied, although very gently. “I can raise her settlement, even double it—and yet, it will not be enough for any of them to think her in.”

But she had laughed. “Jane would never go ‘a husband-hunting’! Think of it as visiting a life she might once have had, at least to a much smaller degree, and expanding her opportunities in the future. She has been sad for too long. Travelling to the Peak District will be just the thing.”

She knew when she had scored a point. “She and I will be ladies of the manor, enjoying teas and picnics and conversation. Sarah is a dear, and Miss Darcy, as I recall, is as diffident a creature as has ever lived. In the meanwhile, I shall sketch Pennywithers’s own opinions as to the character of Mr Darcy. If he is repugnant, I need only refuse to write a word about him. I am not spying upon him.”

Except she was, she supposed, in the strictest sense of the word, and the idea did not sit quite right with her. She shook it off. Gazing at the immense country house before her as she exited the carriage, she could only do her best not to gawp. Netherfield Park, the largest home near Meryton, looked like a cottage in comparison.

Darcy stoodupon the portico beside Bingley and Georgiana, awaiting the arrival of the last carriage—the one containing her particular friend, Miss Bentley, and two other young ladies. He felt positively surrounded by females, and not in a good way. Every muscle in his body was tensed, as if prepared for attack.

He was not stupid. His simple idea for a house party, a moment’s impulse to distract his sister from her awful, failed romance, had blossomed into an all-out assault upon his bachelorhood.

And have you not been trying to accustom yourself to the idea of marriage?

Yes, but he had not reached the point of acceptance, and all the self-lectures in the world had done little to improve his lack of enthusiasm.

His reluctance had begun, he knew, with his own parents. Their marriage had been… complicated. His father had loved his mother, and yet—despite his assertions to the contrary to Georgiana—theirs had often been a troubled pairing. His own conjecture was that his father had expected Lady Anne to take after her elder brother when it came to principles and standards. His mother, while more refined in tastes and conversation, was closer in character to her sister, Lady Catherine. The two sisters, although fond of being useful, had unappealing ways—at once both condescending and overwhelming—of achieving their resolutions.

The conflict had begun, in his memory, at a family dinner; he was sixteen, newly home from school, his head full of thoughts of the rowing team and Lord Haden’s older sister and a chess problem Ridley had given him, as well as Richard’s new fowling piece. He had scarcely paid attention to the chatter of his mother, her sister and sister-in-law, heads bent towards each other in animated, wine-fuelled conversation, nor to his father and Lord Matlock—engrossed in a debate regarding legislating penalties for criminal lunatics—nor to Sir Lewis’s head bobbing, as he pretended to listen to them.

Suddenly, his mother had addressed him. “Fitzwilliam, one day you and Anne will be presiding together at this table, as heads of this family! Only think of it!”

Unbidden, he glanced over at his cousin Anne—three years his junior, who stared back at him with her wide, bulging eyes. It was not just that she was overly thin and chinless, with a spotty complexion and an irritating habit of repeatedly and loudly sniffling. She might never be a beauty, but was sure to improve someday—both her parents were handsome. It was that she had nothing to say, ever. He knew not whether she had no opinions or simply never expressed them, but he had never yet heard a sensible word from her mouth. She smiled at him then, and the hair on the back of his neck rose.

“I… I do not th-think—” he stuttered, when his father suddenly, mercifully intervened.

“It is much too early to begin speaking of such matters,” he had admonished his wife, in his gentle and yet forceful way. “When our son reaches his majority, when Anne is old enough, they will decide themselves.”

His mother had been deeply displeased. Ever after, the subject of his marital future had become fraught. When he attempted to make clear that he could never consider his cousin in that fashion, it only led to unbearable dissension between his parents when his excellent father was forced, by his mother’s intractable opinions on the subject, to intercede. On her deathbed seven years ago, his mother had pushed him to consider Anne as his only candidate for wife. Even now, he gave a little shudder at the memories.

Of course, his bachelorhood could have been dissolved instantly, had he been able to think of Miss Bingley in any romantic way. His friend’s outgoing, eager young sister had grown into a great beauty and her settlement was ample. She had made it obvious she would accept an offer of marriage from him, and yet it had not escaped his notice, that, in essence, she was much the same as Anne. While Anne said nothing, Miss Bingley said much—but about nothing. Her interests centred on fashion, spending money, talking about fashion, talking about spending money, critical asides regarding the persons wearing the fashions she despised, and the cost of their apparel. She might yet grow out of the shallowness of youth—was she even twenty yet? If she acquired some depth, could he force his mind to think of her in a non-sisterly fashion?

Until only a few days ago, he had believed they were only hosting family and the Bingleys; when he had finally noticed the number of guest rooms being aired, he had asked Mrs Reynolds for the guest list.

“Georgiana? I see a number of names I do not recognise written here.”

His sister had flushed, then spoken in a great rush. “Yes, well…Lady Ridley wished to bring her younger sister, and then I invited a dear friend from school. I did not think, um, that you would mind, and she put a couple of names before me as wonderful additions to our party, and I could not resist meeting, um, new friends. So only four extra guests, and I invited Mr Baker and his eldest son and Lord Roden and Mr Fletcher to round out the numbers. They will not, I suppose, stay over as they live so close, although they may if they wish. I promise you, I have been working closely with Mrs Reynolds to ensure no detail is overlooked.”

Darcy had seen through her plot immediately; her guilty expression told him all. The gentlemen she had invited to ‘round out the numbers’ were hardly eligible bachelors; he and Bingley were the only ones of marriageable age or inclination. She was matchmaking—probably Lady Matlock had put her up to it.

He had wanted to protest, and resented that he could not. His realisation that he ought to have provided Georgiana with a sister himself, before this point, tied his hands—and his tongue.

So here he stood at Pemberley’s entrance, trying not to grind his teeth, as young ladies spilt out of the carriage.