Miss Lucas Page 11

  “I am certain, Miss Lucas,” said he, “that I have not properly expressed to you my sense of kindness in your coming with my cousins to visit me. The favor of your company has been much felt, I assure you, for I am certain that my dear cousins would have been most wearied without the comfort and support of your aid. I know how little there is to tempt anyone to my humble abode. My plain manner of living, my small rooms and few domestics, and the little I see of the world must make Hunsford extremely dull to young ladies such as the Bennet sisters, but you are of a disposition where you can enjoy even these small and simple things. After this time together Charlotte, where I have seen the stalwartness of your character and the humility of your behavior, I am even more convinced that you and I are of the same way of thinking. There is such a most remarkable resemblance of character and ideas between us that I cannot help but consider you the most amiable of women.”

  With that, and only that, Mr. Collins extended his hand to Charlotte, opened the carriage door and guided her in. Charlotte was so stunned by his declaration that she did not object. The door was on the point of being closed when Mr. Collins suddenly reminded them with some consternation that they had hitherto forgotten to leave any message for the ladies at Rosings.

  “But,” he added, “you will, of course, wish to have your humble respects delivered to them, with your grateful thanks for their kindness to you while you have been here.” He took their silence for consent. The door was then allowed to be shut, and the carriage drove off.

  “Did he?” Elizabeth demanded.

  “No.”

  Even Mary was appalled. “How did he not?”

  Charlotte repeated Mr. Collins’ words to her nearly to the letter.

  “But why would he say those things and not propose?”

  “I honestly don’t know what his purpose was. I’ve been in his company for three weeks and received no such attentions. He can’t have thought I would forget the way he has treated me if he simply spoke kind words on my way out the door.”

  “Perhaps Lady Catherine has finally granted him permission to marry you and he wants to begin again? After all, it would be disrespectful of him to simply propose after all this time has passed.” Mary observed.

  “But why wouldn’t he just tell Charlotte that instead of making implications?”

  “I don’t wish to discuss this any further.” Charlotte interrupted them both. “We are going home and either Mr. Collins will suddenly appear with permission to propose, or he won’t. My concerns on the subject won’t change that.”

  Mary praised Charlotte for her level-headedness on a subject that so often drove women to distraction and the carriage lapsed into silence. Charlotte did not need to discuss what may or may not have incited Mr. Collins to return to such behavior after weeks of ostracism. Had he said such words even yesterday morning, Charlotte would have spent the entire carriage ride in analysis over his motivations and what she might do to secure him. As it was, she could not find it in herself to care. Oh, there would be a letter of gratitude to Lady Catherine and to Mr. Collins when she reached home, but at this moment it was all Charlotte could do not to hate the whole county.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Henry Fitzwilliam liked to believe that he was not the sort of man to arise early and watch out of windows as Mr. Collins guided Miss Lucas into a carriage, but it seemed he was. He wasn’t quite sure whether he or Fitzwilliam were handling the situation worse considering that while Henry was here watching, Fitzwilliam had stationed himself in a nook at the back of the house as far away from the departing carriage as possible.

  There was nothing Henry could do about the woman currently riding away from Rosings Park, or about the smug little man strolling back down the lane towards his home. But there was something he could do about the melancholy cousin ignoring his breakfast. “Are you going to tell me what kept you up last night?” Darcy denied any such problem. “Really, because i look as though if we were children you’d be one heartbeat away from throwing a tantrum.”

  “We’re not children anymore, Henry.”

  “Which is why I’m not asking you if someone has stolen your toy.” Darcy rose from his seat and began pacing. “Ah, or has someone?”

  “She’s not a toy!”

  “But someone has gotten there first and you can’t bring yourself to take her back?”

  “Nothing quite so tawdry.” Henry rather wished that that wasn’t a rather perfect description of his own circumstances.

  “Then tell me what happened, William.”

  Darcy kept all his attention out the window and his back to the Colonel. “I proposed to Miss Bennet and she declared me unfit. Her precise words were that I was the last man she could ever be prevailed upon to marry.”

  “Oh, William.” Henry didn’t know why he was surprised that Miss Bennet had it in her to offer up something so vicious. “I didn’t think you’d gone that far.” He went to the sideboard and poured them both a glass, setting one before Darcy on the windowsill without making his cousin look him in the eye.

  “It’s the first thing in the morning.” Darcy scoffed.

  “I won’t tell my father if you won’t.” That at least got him a grimace of a smile. “For the sake of honesty, I need to tell you that I think I may have made things worse for you. I spoke with Miss Bennet a few days ago and to exemplify what a good friend you are I told her how you saved Mr. Bingley from an imprudent match. She did not seem as touched by the story as I would have hoped.”

  “The match was with her sister.”

  “No.” The Colonel straightened in horror. “No, you said there were objections to the lady.”

  “There were. I am still confident about that. However, Miss Elizabeth is rather convinced I ruined the happiness of her most beloved sister.”

  “Oh, Darcy. I am sorry. I tried to improve your chances and instead set you up for failure.”

  “Miss Bennet is clever enough to have guessed for herself that I had damaged her sister’s prospects with Bingley. She shouted at me that I was quite mistaken in my belief that her sister didn’t feel as strongly about Bingley as he did about her. I told her that I made the best decision I could with the information available to me at the time, and I didn’t regret it. I still don’t.”

  “If you could so easily convince Bingley that she wasn’t in love with him, then she obviously hadn’t made her feelings very clear.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Still, I apologize. Having my story in her head so shortly before your proposal can’t have made the matter any easier.”

  “Accepted.” Darcy clinked their glasses together. “I might be more upset if interfering in her sister’s happiness had actually been my unpardonable sin, but it was not. I told you that I had seen Wickham part of the Hertfordshire militia?”

  “You had. Oh, don’t tell me that he’s been spreading falsehoods again about the ‘terrible treatment’ he received at the hands of our family?”

  “Precisely, though from me in particular this time. According to Miss Bennet, Wickham has made the whole of Meryton believe that I denied him the living he had been promised because I was jealous over my father’s fondness for him.”

  The thought of such a thing being taken as truth offended the Colonel to his marrow. “Did you tell her otherwise?”

  “Not in the moment. I confess, I was too furious and affronted that anyone who had met me could consider me capable of such a thing, but I wrote her a letter and delivered it to her on the grounds yesterday.”

  “The likely cause of her embarrassment at dinner.”

  “Or the agony of sitting across the table from a man who pledges his love for you and you are not able to stand him.”

  At some later date Henry would ask Darcy just precisely how he had proposed, because while Darcy wasn’t the sort of fellow to use the word love lightly, he was also not the sort to couch his declarations in the flowery terms that young ladies seemed to prefer. Today was not the day for that convers
ation, however. Darcy was hurt, and worse still, he was offended. Today was the day to keep him from proposing to Anne or Miss Bingley in a self-defeating snit just to soothe his temper.

  “I suppose I ought to congratulate you for having the courage to actually propose.” Fitzwilliam sat on the windowsill beside his cousin, who was still focused on the park as though if he stared hard enough it might turn into the road Miss Bennet had disappeared down.

  “The courage to damage my pride and make a fool of myself, you mean?”

  “No, for having the courage to say the words. You’re the only man in this house who dared.”

  Fitzwilliam finally turned to look at him. “Henry, what are you talking about?”

  “We both know that Mr. Collins availed himself of our aunt’s hospitality so he could have the chance to propose, and yet never made himself do it.”

  “The man can’t seem to make himself move without Aunt’s full blessing and lacks the sense to realize she’s never going to give it for the sake of keeping anything in her little corner of the world from changing. He also lacks the spine to go ahead and propose to the best woman he will ever be able to achieve.”

  “I confess cousin, I lacked the spine as well.” Darcy glowered at him rather than asking another question. “I considered not proposing to Miss Lucas to be a bit of sense, but really, it was cowardice. I asked her what she would say if I were to propose, and she quite unabashedly declared that she would tell me no.”

  “Why on earth would Miss Lucas reject you?”

  “As she put it, we would have made one another unhappy.”

  “What a foolish reason to reject a marriage. And it sounds miserably unlike her.”

  “Apparently for all Mr. Collins’ flaws, she and he want the same thing: a quiet life, a serviceable income, and a place to raise their children.”

  “I know your income is not great—”

  “But with my father’s help, it would be enough, I know. But she knows me well enough to know that I would rather not rely upon my father’s kindness and that I don’t trust my brother’s. As fortunate as I would count myself to be if I were in love with my wife, there must be some practicality in my decision. I’m agreeable enough, and my family name should open up any doors that my choice of profession might keep closed, but if I am to live independently I must marry for money. And independently in the way to which I am accustomed would require a great deal of money.”

  “What would you have done if she said yes?”

  “Likely what she predicted would happen: married her and then regretted it within a month. Which is a fate I imagine would only be slightly crueler than asking her how she would feel about a marriage to me and then all but forcing her to be the one to tell me why it was a terrible idea.”

  Darcy gripped his shoulder. “I don’t believe she was right. Perhaps you would’ve regretted London with the easy money and friends you have now, but you aren’t the sort of man who wouldn’t make the best of things.”

  “Should I have to make the best of my marriage?”

  “You were just telling me that you intend to make the best of it with a woman for the sake of money, is it not the same to make the best of it for the sake of love?”

  “You forget sometimes that the rest of us don’t have your means of making the world as we like it. I imagine there is still a part of you that believes if you turn up at the Bennet’s home with enough money that Miss Elizabeth will forgive you for whatever slights you might have given and convince her to marry you simply for the financial sake of it.”

  “I could yes, but I wouldn’t want to marry in such a way. I have enough women who pay me and my sullen disposition attention merely for the sake of all that might come with being Mrs. Darcy. It would be a lifetime of torture to have such a circumstance with the woman I love.”

  “I apologize, William. You didn’t deserve that, not today of all days.”

  “And I apologize for needling you on the subject.”

  “It seems the both of us are a bit sensitive about matters at present.”

  “With right to be, I suppose.”

  “Plenty of right to be. It’s not every day a man gets rejected by the woman he loves.”

  “And it happened to our family twice.” Henry gave a sarcastic cheers and downed the entire drink in one shot, making Darcy smile for the first time in days.

  “I’m sorry she didn’t have the sense to think better of you, Fitzwilliam.”

  “And I’m sorry she wasn’t brave enough to try for you, Henry. Truly I am. You were yourself with her. I so rarely get to see you be yourself around other people that it was a bit of a relief to look across the sitting room and see you and not the Earl of ----’s second son.”

  “You’d see me more often if you spent any time at all with my regiment.”

  “It seems like far less trouble to simply have you come and visit more often. And I know Georgiana would appreciate the company. I am quite convinced that you’re more her favorite than I.”

  “I am well thought of when taken in small doses. Were I to move to Pemberley and keep her company all the time then she would tire of me within a week.” The melancholy was a bit too close to the truth that lurked in the Colonel’s heart: that perhaps Miss Lucas had offered her plausible justifications out of kindness and if she was going to tie herself for the rest of her life to a man who displeased her, she ought to have one with a decent income at least. “Should we claim illness and spend the rest of the day drinking our way through Uncle’s port, do you think?”

  “I’d rather not have our drinking habits reported back to your father and then closely monitored on family occasions for the rest of our lives.”

  “A long ride instead, then?”

  “So long as we don’t venture near the Parsonage, I believe that might do us some good.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The journey home was conducted in almost complete silence. Charlotte and Elizabeth both had matters to discuss, but Mary’s presence stymied their conversation. This led to no small amount of tension at the Gardiners’ house since there were several secrets to divulge but no privacy necessary to do it properly. The weight of silence dampened their spirits, and though Charlotte was far more practiced at feigning more enjoyment than she was feeling in truth, Elizabeth struggled to appear tolerably cheerful.

  It was early in May before the four young ladies left Gracechurch-street for home, and were it not for the presence of Mary in their carriage they would not have stopped speaking the entire trip. As it was, their journey was filled with mundane discussions about had filled their uneventful days in both Kent and London.

  As they drew near to the appointed inn where Mr. Bennet’s carriage was to meet them, they quickly perceived both Kitty and Lydia looking out of a dining room upstairs. The two girls had been above an hour in the place, happily employed in visiting an opposite milliner, watching the sentinel on guard, and dressing a salad and cucumber. Charlotte could not recall a time when she had been less pleased to see them.

  After welcoming their sisters and Charlotte, the two girls triumphantly displayed a table set out with such cold meat as an inn larder usually affords, exclaiming, “Is not this nice? Is not this an agreeable surprise?” The meal itself was perfectly serviceable and no one ever needed to strain themselves to speak when Lydia and Kitty were in the same room, which was relief despite a large portion of the conversation being devoted to the ugliness of Lydia’s newly-purchased hat.

  “Besides,” she finally justified, “it will not much signify what one wears this summer, after the ——shire have left Meryton, and they are going in a fortnight.”

  “Are they indeed!” cried Elizabeth, with so great a satisfaction that Charlotte and Jane looked to her in surprise.

  “They are going to be encamped near Brighton and I do so want Papa to take us all there for the summer! It would be such a delicious scheme, and I dare say would hardly cost anything at all. Mamma would like to go too, of all thi
ngs! Only think what a miserable summer else we shall have!”

  All four of the elder girls flinched at the notion of the family in such circumstances, but Lydia was far too occupied with her news to notice it. Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, and the waiter was told he need not stay. Lydia laughed. “Aye, that is just like you. You thought the waiter must not hear, as if he cared! I dare say he often hears worse things said than I am going to say. But he is an ugly fellow! I am glad he is gone. I never saw such a long chin in my life. Well, but now for my news: it is about dear Wickham. Too good for the waiter, is it not? There is no danger of Wickham’s marrying Mary King. There’s for you! She is gone down to her uncle at Liverpool, gone to stay. Wickham is safe.”

  “She is a great fool for going away, if she liked him,” Kitty said.

  “But I hope there is no strong attachment on either side,” said Jane.

  “I am sure there is not on his. I will answer for it, he never cared three straws about her – who could about such a nasty little freckled thing?”

  Elizabeth blushed, though it was unclear if it was at the coarseness of her sister’s language or the truth that she had harbored her own negative opinion about Miss King. As to why her blushes had not come earlier at the notion that her favorite was now available to pay his attentions to her once again, Charlotte could only guess. As soon as all had ate, and the elder ones paid, the carriage was ordered. After some contrivance, the whole party, with all their boxes, work bags, parcels, and the unwelcome addition of Kitty’s and Lydia’s purchases, were seated in it.

  “How nicely we are all crammed in,” cried Lydia. “I am glad I bought my bonnet, if it is only for the fun of having another bandbox! Well, now let us be quite comfortable and snug, and talk and laugh all the way home. And in the first place, let us hear what has happened to you all since you went away. Have you seen any pleasant men? Have you had any flirting? I was in great hopes that at least you would have got a husband before you came back, Charlotte. Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost three-and-twenty! Lord, how ashamed I should be of not being married before three-and-twenty! I can’t imagine how you stand it, Charlotte. My aunt Phillips wants you so to get husbands, you can’t think. She says Lizzy had better have taken Mr. Collins, but I do not think there would have been any fun in it. Lord! How I should like to be married before any of you and then I would chaperon you about to all the balls. Wouldn’t that be such a lark, telling Charlotte who she could and could not stand up with?