Chapter 42

“You have been warned, then,” Elizabeth said, sighing. “It started, I suppose, when Jane was but fifteen years old. There was an older man who wrote her some flattering poetry. My mother made much of it, although my father, privately, told him to go away. He thought Jane much too young for the man, as indeed she was.”

“Fifteen is very young. No good could come of such a thing.” His words were spoken harshly.

Too late, she remembered Georgiana’s age, and her recent troubles.

“Yes,” she quickly agreed. “The trouble was, my mother would not let it go, bringing up Jane’s ‘conquest’ any time she could brag of it. To receive poetry penned by an unmarried, eligible male, in Mama’s eyes, is the very pinnacle of feminine achievement. Of course, the other young ladies in the neighbourhood teased Jane mercilessly. In time, however, it was all forgot—or mostly forgot.”

“Your sister is a lovely young woman. I am sure any teasing was inspired by jealousy.”

“In that, we agree. Had you ever spent much time in our neighbourhood, you would see that the proportion of eligible young men to eligible young ladies is severely skewed towards the female sex. There was great competition, in some quarters, for the few gentlemen hopefuls available.”

Mr Darcy did not comment, only looked at her intently, showing that he listened carefully. He indicated a stone bench, placed to capture both shade and views; Elizabeth seated herself upon it, and he settled down beside her.

“Then Peter Harrington returned from Eton, oh, two years ago now. He is younger than Jane, closer to my own age, but instead of going to university he stayed at home due to his father’s health. Not a month had passed before I noticed his interest in Jane.”

“He began calling on her?”

“Not exactly. He is shy, and my mother is…noisy, and I think he was intimidated by the idea of a formal approach, at least until he had determined whether his feelings were returned. But he began asking her for two sets at each assembly, including the first set, and hinting, subtly, in other ways. Jane liked him well, I knew she did. She was very careful not to act like a besotted female, not wishing to draw attention to her feelings, because of the other young ladies. As you know, we have no fortune. I am certain his parents were advising him away from her. In this way, they stumbled along, nothing really coming of the romance because he was too shy, his parents too stern, and Jane, too reserved.”

She glanced over at her companion—he did not yet appear bored with her convoluted story, and so she continued.

“As for myself, I had long considered Mr Harrington in a very different manner—in fact, I have a difficult time thinking of him as ‘Mr Harrington’, which puts me in mind of his father. To me, he was simply ‘Peter’. I’d had many opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments with youths our own age, which Jane could not have. Believe me, when you have once seen a lad snort milk out his nose, you can never afterwards view him as an object of romance.”

He smiled, the sight of which did strange things to her heartbeat. She looked away, lest she forget what she was talking of altogether.

“I was…impatient. Jane was anxious. Mama was sure to make a hash of everything—it was a miracle she had not yet noticed, probably only because of Mr Harrington’s youth. So one evening, when we happened to be speaking after a supper dance, I asked him if he was serious in his pursuit of my sister.”

Mr Darcy raised a brow at this impertinence, and she hurried to explain, as best she could.

“I know how it sounds. At the time, I only thought to encourage him, as a-a sister might. I did not realise he was only hoping for a confidant, someone to whom he could pour out the overwrought feelings of his soul. Not only was I subjected to a most flowery description of Jane’s delicate profile, her sculpted brow, et cetera, et cetera, but he confessed a terrible thing—or so it seemed to me at the time. He had written her several ardent verses of poetry, and was now only working up the courage to declaim them. He sought my opinion on his idea of standing at her chamber window upon the next full moon to treat her to a recitation. I will do you a very great favour, and not repeat any of the verses.”

Mr Darcy did not try to disguise his amusement. “Treat her, your parents, your sisters, your servants, and thus, the whole village to his lovemaking? A terrible thing indeed. I hope you rescued him—and your sister—from such a fate. I daresay they would have been the object of teasing for the rest of their natural lives.”

She nodded. “I did not think Jane would ever recover from the mortification, should he try it. But at the time he made these confessions, our position was far too public—at an assembly where the entire neighbourhood was in attendance and practically surrounding us. In his enthusiasm over his literary efforts, his voice grew very, er, forceful. I was terrified lest someone overhear him. I begged him to meet me in a more private place before he enacted any of his own ideas.”

Mr Darcy sobered instantly.

“You need not say it. It was foolish,” Elizabeth put in, before he could express his obvious disapproval. “To me, he was just a childhood friend I had always known and could never imagine as anything but a boy. I was amazed, even, that Jane could see him differently.”

“Did he—did he importune?” Mr Darcy’s scowl had grown fearsome.

“Oh, no. We met a few times to walk about empty lanes near Longbourn. My idea was to help him rehearse some sensible conversation, and to encourage him to wait until after marriage to bestow any sort of poetic nonsense upon anybody. A wife, I told him, appreciates that sort of thing, whereas a maiden can only be embarrassed by it. We practised speaking to each other as…as people, and not as a sycophant worshipping at the altar of a goddess. However…by the end of the third meeting, Mr Harrington’s affections, he told me, had drastically changed.”

“He was too young, plainly, to court anyone at all.”

“Oh, yes,” she agreed, realising as she did so that Mr Bingley was probably of an age with Peter. Mr Darcy’s concerns for his friend’s maturity were certainly valid ones. “As much as I wanted Jane to be settled in life, he was stupid, young, and fickle. Unfortunately, he settled his feelings upon me, instead.”

For a moment, there was only silence between them. Then he did something startling—he reached out and took her hand in his.

“He was young, but not stupid,” he said.

Inexplicably, tears came to her eyes, although she could not permit them to fall, and could only acknowledge his kindness with a shrug.

“I was shocked. Shocked and astonished and even shamed. Inadvertently, I had stolen my sister’s suitor. I realised, in that moment, that I never should have met with him alone, especially more than once. What is worse, I had been encouraging Jane towards him, hoping that she would feel more comfortable in allowing him to see her feelings. I had managed the worst kind of interference—raising the hopes of one while shifting the inclinations of the other.”

“It was most unconsciously done.”

“That does not change the outcome though, does it? In my mortification of the moment, I failed to confront him. I did not make clear that I had no feelings for him and never would. Like a ninny, I mumbled something about it all being a mistake, and scurried back to Longbourn.”

“That was not the end of it, then?”

She sighed. “No. He began a sort of…a sort of pursuit, I suppose one might call it. Pursuing me.”

Darcy kepthis hold upon her hand. She had neglected to wear any gloves; how he wished his own hands were similarly unclad! He could not blame the foolish lad who had never realised the treasure right beneath his nose—until he did. Miss Bennet’s beauty was obvious, but Elizabeth had something more—wit, kindness, humour, strength, courage. He was not surprised that she had watched a fumbling romance and tried to fix it. He was not surprised the lad had transferred his affections from a beauty he had not truly known at all to the warm, intelligent, lovely woman who had taken time to know and understand him. She would probably always underestimate the quality of her attention.

“A pursuit?” he asked, prodding her to go on.

“He began calling. At first, everyone supposed he was calling upon Jane. I made myself scarce whenever he came near—again, failing to confront him myself. It soon became clear, however, that it was me he had set his sights upon. Jane was terribly hurt. I made the mistake of trying to apologise to her, of confessing what I had done to intervene—as if she could grant me absolution. It made everything worse, as she assumed that she could never hold a man’s interest. She did not blame me outwardly, but there grew this great sort of barrier between us. A wall I could not broach.”

“None of it was your fault,” he repeated. But he could see she blamed herself. “Did he propose marriage?”

“Thankfully, no. As soon as his parents realised what he was about, they packed him off to an uncle. I was not suitable—his parents felt he could do better, which undoubtedly, he could. But he wrote letters—addressed to my father, of course, but which were pointedly asking after my health and welfare to the exclusion of my sisters, along with pretty and quite embarrassing compliments. There were statements implying that upon his twenty-fifth birthday, he would be returning. Papa found the letters hilarious, and delighted in reading them to the entire family, complete with his own mocking commentary.”

He saw the faint blush upon her cheeks, and inwardly cursed her insensitive father. “That must have been very hurtful for Miss Bennet. I suppose you could not entreat him to stop?”

She shook her head. “No. In retrospect, I think Papa believed the match very unlikely and his teasing was a way to prepare me that nothing would come of it. He did not ever know of Jane’s feelings. The girl I am now would have defied propriety and written a letter to Mr Harrington directly, advising him of the hopelessness of it all, in words plain enough that he could not misunderstand. But then, I simply dithered, begging Papa to write the letter in my stead.”

“That would have been very proper.”

“Except that I knew he never would. In his mind, however improbable, the match might have someday been a possibility—and it was a good enough one that it would be foolish to discount it utterly. Besides, Papa was a lackadaisical correspondent at best. Something like the letter I wished for, requiring delicacy, firmness, compassion, and a good deal of forethought? Much as I loved my father, it is best, really, that he did not attempt it.”

He nodded his understanding. “What did you finally do to resolve the matter? Or could you do nothing?”

She looked at their joined hands, and then over at him. Letting go, she instead folded her arms in what appeared to be a self-protective gesture.

“I accepted a marriage proposal from someone else,” she said with a sigh.