Chapter 16

“Come in Miss Elizabeth, it is good to see you again.”

“Thank you, Lady Maria. It was generous of you to invite me to visit today.”

“Nonsense. I am glad you were able to accept the invitation, especially for the whole day.”

Elizabeth had written to Lady Maria Leonard informing her she was now permanently residing in London. Their exact relationship was unclear, at least to Elizabeth. She thought of Lady Maria as a friend, although she would not presume to call her that, unless the Lady acknowledged it so herself. Rather than a mother figure, Lady Maria was someone that she could talk to, someone who listened and let Elizabeth ramble on at times, and who offered words of wisdom. Upon receipt of Elizabeth’s letter, she had replied the next day and invited Elizabeth to visit. She expected her to stay for the day, luncheon was specifically mentioned in the response. It was two weeks since the announcement of her uncle’s baronetcy and the investiture was scheduled for the following week.

“I would like you to be candid today Miss Elizabeth. That you are back in London, and permanently, speaks to your return to Hertfordshire not going as planned. I was going to say that I do not wish to pry, but in truth I do wish to pry. This is a significant change to your situation, even more than that of ’07.”

Elizabeth sipped her tea while thinking about the blunt request.

“If I may speak with equal candour, I do not wish my private affairs to be bandied about the town.”

“I will not share anything of what we speak today without your permission.”

So Elizabeth started, right from the carriage ride out to Meryton and the first meeting of a portion of the Netherfield Park party. She paused momentarily when describing the first afternoon at Longbourn but decided to share Claire’s observations about her youngest sister and mother. It was not until she started describing the Assembly that Lady Maria interrupted for the first time.

“You speak warmly of Mr. Bingley. His behaviour was so markedly different to the other four?”

She nodded.

“Yes, it was exactly what you would expect of a gentleman in his position. He was friendly, cheerful, open, he danced every set, and was generally a welcome addition to the Assembly. On his actions alone, everyone was inclined to think well of him. It was the other members of his party that dragged him down. One gentleman was a sot, his wife and her sister, sisters by blood to Mr. Bingley, were dismissive, snobbish and thought themselves above their company, and his ‘friend’ acted like someone had just shot his prize stallion. He was the one that proceeded to insult my sister.”

“Insult your sister?”

“He called her tolerable, and said to Bingley that he would not give her consequence since she was sitting out the set. He made no effort to lower his voice and although she was not eavesdropping she still clearly heard the insult.”

Elizabeth moved passed the Assembly and turned the tale to her interactions with her oldest sister and former close friend. Lady Maria listened as Elizabeth recounted their mild jealousy of her ‘freedom’ and independence.

“The first month was fine, everything had settled down after the first evening and my mother and I had got to the point where we could co-exist. Then Jane went on horseback to Netherfield Park, got wet and caught a bad chill. She fought a stubbornly high fever for three days before it broke.”

“Your tone suggests there is more to the story.”

“I later found out that it was a deliberate ploy of my mother, for Jane to go on horseback rather than in the carriage. She did not want Jane to get sick but the weather was overcast and promising rain. Her hope was that the rain would force Jane to remain at Netherfield Park and spend time with Mr. Bingley.”

Elizabeth sipped her tea, mentally bracing herself for the start of the awkward parts of her monologue.

“I walked to Netherfield Park to check on Jane the next morning, stayed with her all day and, given that her fever was still worryingly high, received permission from Mr. Bingley to stay overnight. Which ended up being four nights. That first night I joined the others for dinner but during the separation of the sexes went back upstairs to check on Jane. I made the mistake of rejoining the company in the drawing room.”

“The mistake?”

Elizabeth ruefully smiled.

“I will explain. The unmarried sister is Caroline Bingley.”

Lady Maria failed to hide her grimace of recognition.

“You know her?”

“I know of her. I promise to tell you all but finish your story first.”

“I do not know how she had been acting with Jane the previous day but her tone with me was extremely interrogative. She shortened my name without permission and took my request to call me by my full name with ill grace. She then started to question me about my family. You know of the entail and there being only daughters but she was condescending and full of fake sorrow. All the while wallowing in joy like a pig in the mud.”

“Miss Elizabeth.”

“I am sorry to confess that it gets much worse. She contrasted the Bingley good fortune of having a son to the Bennet misfortune of only having daughters. She had annoyed me sufficiently that I quietly asked her what estate she had grown up on. There have been Bennets at Longbourn since the 1550s. But she would not leave it alone. She turned her attack to my uncles, especially Uncle Gardiner here in London. What she did not know was that I had met her uncle when he came to my own uncle’s place of business. I did not answer her directly but instead talked to her brother about their uncle who now runs the family carriage business.”

“That must have caused quite a scene.”

“I had had enough by that point. I retired for the evening. For the next two days I ate all my meals in my room, other than breakfast where I knew she would not have arisen. On the third afternoon Jane’s fever broke but I did not inform my host until near the end of the evening. Other than a few moments with Bingley’s friend in the morning I did not see any of the residents until dinner on the fourth evening. My maid Claire had informed me that Miss Bingley was canvassing all the information she could about me. It was clear that she still wanted to lord it over me for some reason.”

“Could you discern the reason?”

“As far as I can tell there are two reasons. The first is the key one, we just instinctively dislike each other. There is nothing that can be done. Now my preferred response to this situation is to ignore her, try and stay away from her company. Sadly, hers was a need to continue to needle me. For what purpose is my conjecture for the second reason. I did not cower before her, bow down to her airs and pretentions. She was rude, my retorts were sharp.”

Elizabeth knew that last comment was dissembling of the worst kind.

“On the fourth evening, we survived dinner and the separation. She was waiting for an audience I presume. When the gentlemen had joined us she started immediately. Her first petty salvo was to once again call me Eliza rather than Elizabeth. That was tiresome so I admit to having some fun at her expense. To shorten her name would be easy, Miss Caro, but that seemed too easy. So instead I dropped the first two letters and the last two letters and was left with Miss Roli.”

Elizabeth watched as a society matron in her 50s, the sister of a Duke, burst out laughing.

“You did not!”

A rueful nod.

“I did. As you can imagine her composure was lost for a moment or two.”

“Now that is a masterful understatement. How did she respond?”

“She resorted to appealing to her brother, ‘how can you let her speak to me like that?’. Words to that effect.”

“What did he do?”

“Muttered and spluttered without really saying anything. I saved him struggling for the words and apologised for making the party uncomfortable.”

Lady Maria called for fresh tea and the ladies took a chance to refresh themselves at the same time. Once the hot tea had been served the conversation resumed.

“Surely she must have stopped at this point, retreated to lick her wounds?”

“There was a break but it was just a respite. She turned her attention to Mr. Darcy and spent the next 20 minutes bothering him.”

“Mr. Darcy, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy?”

Elizabeth thought back to their introduction, finally achieved during the dinner at the Long estate.

“I do not believe I was told his first name when introduced. I think it was just Mr. Darcy. He was not addressed as anything other than Mr. Darcy except for Mr. Hurst and Mr. Bingley who just addressed him as Darcy. Why?”

“There is a lot to talk of there, so may we lay him aside until the end of your tale rather than get hopelessly distracted in the middle of it?”

“If that is your wish. So Miss Bingley spent 20 minutes lauding everything she could think of relating to Mr. Darcy and events they had attended. It was a sadly obvious attempt to demonstrate that she moved in higher circles than me. As far as I could tell all she did was annoy him with the endless interruptions. But after 20 minutes of that she must have gotten bored and she returned to attacking me.”

Elizabeth looked at Lady Maria.

“I responded extremely harshly to her attacks. As expected she started inquiring about my absence for so many years here in London. I refused to indulge her intrusive questions about how long I had been here. She bluntly asked if I was keeping secrets to which I responded it was a family matter. But she just would not stop.”

Another deep fortifying breath.

“She blatantly phrased her question so that there was a disgusting implication. She asked me if I missed. Here she paused deliberately. Living with him. Followed by another pause.”

Lady Maria gasped in astonishment.

“She never did.”

“Yes, I am afraid she did.”

“Surely her brother must have said something, apologised to you, just as you had apologised to him.”

“No he did not. Let me recount this last part and then we can return to Mr. Bingley. I lost my temper and my composure.”

“Please tell me you did not strike her?”

“No, despite the temptation. Instead I stood and performed a deep court curtsey, announcing my surprise that the Hapsburgs were in Britain. I followed that by asking if she was Catholic, sad that the self-styled Henri IX had died recently, and finally whether she was an agent of a foreign power.”

Lady Maria Leonard was not so much stunned as clubbed into silence. Eventually she found her voice.

“That might be the most brutal putdown I have ever heard, or ever heard of. She deserved it after that disgusting attack but still.”

“Like I said a few minutes ago, there is a deep instinctive antipathy. I will not go looking for a fight but respond if provoked. I retired immediately and left before breakfast the next morning.”

“And your sister?”

Lady Maria was no fool.

“She acknowledged the implication made by Miss Bingley but tried to excuse it, whereas she accused me of being extremely rude. When I talked it through the next day it was clear that she took the side of the Bingley family. I do not actually think she took Miss Bingley’s but rather was concerned about the impact to her friendship with Mr. Bingley.”

“You talked with her?”

“No, most of my discussions are with Claire, often Robert is there too. But it was an instructive moment when she took the side of someone she hopes to be her family over someone who had been a member of her family all her life.”

“Did you have any subsequent conversations with Miss Bingley.”

“Not one. We even managed to miss each other during the receiving line for Bingley’s Ball. That evening was the last time I saw her but we did not speak. We avoided each other’s company. I was fine with the arrangement.”

“I have so many questions. I presume we will come to the ball shortly. What are your impressions of Mr. Bingley after spending four days at Netherfield Park?”

“My views on Mr. Bingley are fundamentally unchanged from the first evening at the Assembly. He is a gentleman in his manners and the way he conducts himself with others. But he has one huge flaw. He cannot control his sister. It was embarrassing the way she behaved as his hostess to their guests. He was just so ineffectual. Let me think.

“Maybe the best way I can describe it as using an example you will have seen yourself. It is time for spring cleaning at the house. The entrance carpet has soaked up a lot of rain and snow and mud over the winter. It is now going to be hung out in the yard and all the months of accumulated dirt is going to be beaten out. The five year old son of one of your servants is also given a carpet beater and everyone is happy for him to pretend to help. He follows what everyone else is doing but it is pointless. He is too small and his efforts are meaningless. When it comes to his sister, Mr. Bingley is that child with the carpet beater. He knows what he has to do but is incapable.”

“That is quite the analogy.”

“At first I was dismissing him as a puppy, he needed to grow up. But it is just this one aspect, his younger sister, a harridan of the first order. With everyone else, with the servants, to the people throughout the neighbourhood be they gentlemen or tradesmen, he presents well. He was a much-valued dinner guest within weeks of taking the lease.”

“Is your sister now being courted by him?”

“No she is not. He had business in London after his ball and it was widely known in the neighbourhood. He announced that he would return in three or four days. Instead the day after he left his sister closed up Netherfield Park and the remainder of the party returned to London. No one had returned before my own departure. Miss Bingley sent a letter to Jane but she did not share the contents with me. She did blame me for the Bingleys leaving; my rude behaviour supposedly drove them away.”

“I see. From your face I can tell there is more.”

Elizabeth spent the next hour regaling Lady Maria with the arrival and antics of the Rev William Collins.

“Did you take an instinctive dislike to him, as Miss Bingley did with you?”

“So much has happened that I cannot be sure, but I would like to say no. Although as I think about your question there may be some truth to it. All I can fall back on is that I have several reasons to dislike Mr. Collins whereas I am in the dark as to why Miss Bingley acts as she does with me.”

“His verbosity?”

“That is by far the worst of it. There is just not peace when he is around. This is hindsight talking, but once he decided I was to be his wife he got worse. The worst of it was the unrelenting nature of his voice. But he also was endless in his praise of his patroness. If I never hear the name Lady Catherine de Bourgh again it will be too soon.”

“Lady Catherine de Bourgh?”

Elizabeth nodded.

“Do you know her?”

“I know of her rather than know her personally. She is close to a decade older than me and was already married when I came out. But her personality was still spoken about. She had a reputation of being as an uninformed windbag. She spoke of things she knew nothing about, not that it stopped her.”

“I have never met her but I can see why she appointed Mr. Collins to the living in her gift.”

“What else of Mr. Collins?”

Elizabeth sighed.

“He was not a good example of a man of the cloth. Even before his proposal Mary and I had noted his failings. He displayed five of the deadly sins and parts of the sixth. The only one he never exhibited was wrath.”

“And the partial one?”

Elizabeth flushed.

“Lust. His looks bordered on leers when he thought he was unobserved.”

“At Mr. Bingley’s ball he asked you for the first set?”

“He asked me several days before the date of the ball. I had no way of refusing him without Mrs. Bennet screeching to the high heavens. I was resigned to the spectacle but he sabotaged his own plans with his incompetence at the basic social virtues. He stood on my foot seven minutes into the first dance. I had to limp off the floor and was unable to dance for the rest of the ball.”

“And yet he proposed the next day?”

“I am sorry to say I lost my temper again. It was if he was channeling every conceivable way to annoy me with his proposal. He ignored my first two refusals of his proposal and after the second he calmly informed me that he was going to marry me after it was sanctioned by my parents.”

Elizabeth lowered her head.

“I excoriated him.”

Lady Maria knew that Elizabeth was careful in her choice of words. She knew this was going to be worse than the fight with Miss Bingley.

“I accused him of breaching both the 1 st and 10 th Commandments and told him to his face that he displayed five of the deadly sins.”

“You accused an ordained minister of breaching two Commandments?”

There was silence.

“I can see why you would think that, it is just.”

She stopped when she had a thought.

“In both fights did you consider turning the other cheek?”

“Let me ask you a question in response to your own. Is there a limit to how many times you are supposed to not react negatively? I am aware of my temper, and I do not go seeking conflict. I do not wish to get into an argument about semantics, but I feel I did not react several times in both fights. What would you suggest I do?”

And that was the issue. No one would dare speak to the sister of the Duke of Richwood in such a manner. Miss Bingley would be an obsequious toady worse than Mr. Collins if she ever met her.

“I see your point. I suppose I am just taken aback at the ferocity of your responses. I have been witness to several verbal jousts here in town but the responses are not so extreme.”

“When I first came to town back in ’07 I think I was calmer. I am sad to say it is a result of my keeping house for my uncle. Between the sneers of gentlemen at those in trade, their constant jabs about the ‘stench of trade’, and then compounded by the disdain of all men, regardless of their background, at the thought of an intelligent woman, I am less circumspect than in years past.”

“Let us break here for luncheon. I would like to return to some of the issues from this morning but we have not even finished the story yet. We need to talk of Mr. Darcy, Miss Bingley, Lady Catherine, are there any other people or issues raised from your discourse?”

Elizabeth wondered if she would still be there at supper. Luncheon was light and cheerful, focusing on Lady Maria’s Christmas.

“As you know I am one of four siblings, but two of them were out of the country over Christmas. My next youngest sister is in Bermuda with her husband who is the Admiral there and my brother is the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. It is a quirk of the family that my grandfather, the second Duke, had seven children that survived to adulthood, yet his oldest son, the third Duke, had no legitimate issue. His sisters, my aunts, had 22 children that reached their majority and 15 of them are still alive. When we are all at Chichester even the family home struggles to accommodate us. It was wonderful to see everyone, but I was also ready for some peace and quiet.”

Luncheon was simple meal, the food and service excellent. Eventually they settled back in Lady Maria’s parlour.

“Is there much left to tell?”

Elizabeth explained the switch of Mr. Collins’ affections from her to Charlotte Lucas.

“Explain the timeline again please, so that it is clear in my mind.”

“The ball was on Tuesday the 19 th of November. Mr. Collins proposed to me the following morning. He and Miss Lucas announced their engagement on the Friday, the 22 nd .”

Lady Maria sat quietly for many seconds.

“I imagine that you were remonstrated with for not accepting Mr. Collins, given his swift engagement to this Miss Lucas.”

“I was. My mother was not silent on the matter and harangued me daily. It was on December 28 th that my father told me that I should return to London, three months and one day since my arrival.”

“Given everything I have heard about Mr. Collins, I presume you were never tempted to accept his offer?”

“That is where it gets very complicated. Mr. Collins was easy to dismiss, other than his inheriting Longbourn he had no redeeming qualities. My sister Mary did confess to me that she would have accepted him if he had made an offer to her, hoping to change him from within the marriage. But that situation never arose. The remaining reasons are all around my relationship with my parents and I do not wish to speak ill of them.”

“The four years of sacrifice here in London and then this issue so soon after your return?”

Elizabeth merely nodded, she spoke no answer.

“Before we talk of your future let us deal with our outstanding issues, of which two are easy. Lady Catherine has not been in regular society in London for more than 30 years. She was the older daughter of the previous Earl of Matlock and is therefore the sister of the current Earl. She resides at her estate in Kent and if she does come to London she stays with her brother. The de Bourgh townhouse has been closed up for at least 20 years.”

“She does not rent it out?”

“No. Apparently she wants to be able to open it if necessary, despite the fact she has never done so since being widowed. Like I mentioned earlier she had a reputation of pontificating about things she knew nothing of. And I do not mean the conduct of the war or anything like that. She would make comments about someone’s playing of the piano even although she could not play herself. She can best be described as a loud nuisance.”

Elizabeth wondered if she was leading Lady Maria astray, blunt candour was unusual for her.

“Miss Bingley is even easier to deal with. I have never met her, and if we have been at the same events I have never been introduced. But I have heard an occasional mocking comment from acquaintances. She spends lots of money at the modiste yet her taste is not the best. She has a penchant for feathers, and in loud colours. She is becoming the personification of a nouveau riche social climber. Enough of her. Describe to me Mr. Darcy so that I can be sure we are talking of the same man.”

“He is lean and trim, carrying no excess weight, around 6’ tall with black curly hair.”

“Is he handsome?”

Elizabeth flushed at the question and then sighed.

“Yes, he is handsome.”

“Do you remember anything else from the introduction.”

“He is from Derbyshire but I do not remember the name of the estate.”

“Pemberley?”

“That might be it but I cannot be sure. No, hang on. He did talk about it at the ball. He was looking forward to returning there with his sister.”

“We are talking about the same man. Tell me all.”

Elizabeth started at the Assembly, glossed over her snub at Lucas Lodge before recounting her introduction to the man.

“I hardly had any interaction with the man before I attended Jane at Netherfield Park. He said nothing the first evening and I spoke briefly to him the next two mornings.”

“So Mr. Darcy is Mr. Bingley’s friend that you met at breakfast?”

“Yes.

“Was there any conversation?”

“Not until the third morning. Jane’s fever had broken and the weather was too poor to ride, so he arrived in the dining room earlier than the previous days. He asked why I read the paper so avidly, wondering if I had a relative in service with General Wellington.”

Elizabeth explained her discussion about provisions and the retreat of the French without a fight.

“During the fight on the final evening I was aware that he was staring intently at Mr. Bingley hoping he would intervene with his sister. I did not speak to him again until the evening of the ball. He asked me to dance and we had agreed the second set, which never came to pass due to the clumsy feet of Mr. Collins. I did take the opportunity to goad him into asking my sister Mary to dance. He took the hint and during their set he apologised to her for the insult two months earlier.”

“It took him two months to apologise?”

“Yes. I do not know if he realised he had been heard but when I used one of the words back at him he stepped up. Mary told me it was a handsome apology, if only he had done it sooner. But after they had completed the first set I had to let him know that I was no longer able to dance. Instead he sat with me during that set and we talked about, let me think.

“We talked of music, although that might have been before the ball. He mentioned the pleasure in receiving a letter from his sister. What else? We talked of books we had read. It was fortunate that I had recently read for the second time a Scott poem. My normal reading is of the newspapers and magazines, with occasional journals as well. But we were able to talk through the set, and again over supper. I found him to be charming and well read. Other than the night of the Assembly he had been perfectly pleasant. He is a quiet man but after Mr. Collins I have come to appreciate that more!

“Now that I have satisfied your curiosity you must return the favour. Why were you so agitated about him?”

Lady Maria smiled at Elizabeth’s characterisation.

“He is a well-known gentleman about town. I mentioned the current Earl of Matlock and his sister Lady Catherine. Darcy’s mother was the third sibling, Lady Anne. So he is the nephew of the Earl. His estate in Derbyshire is substantial as is the manorial house, Pemberley. He is one of the more eligible bachelors in society, not yet 30 and master of his estate.”

Elizabeth contemplated this intelligence.

“I can see why he thought he had consequence. He tends to stand at the edge of events, rather than be in the thick of it.”

“A defensive mechanism. He has been pursued for seven, eight years. His father passed away five years ago and when he returned to society after his mourning the pursuit was even worse.”

More of Mr. Darcy’s behaviour made sense to Elizabeth. Then Lady Maria stunned her.

“You admitted he was handsome Miss Elizabeth, did you not find him attractive?”