Into Kent (16 page)

“I thank you,” the Colonel replied briefly, looking at the parson curiously.

“No, Sir, it is I who must thank you; for, to be in the presence of a man who has devoted his life to the service of the King, and, indeed, to all of us fortunate enough to be English, I can only compare to being before one of the knights of old: for surely your calling falls in a direct line from theirs!”

At this, Lady Catherine smiled approvingly; but Colonel Fitzwilliam found his self-possession temporarily suspended: for a moment he could do no more than stare. Darcy, too, was taken aback, not so much by the folly of the speech, but by his instant conviction of its having been carefully rehearsed.

But Colonel Fitzwilliam, recovering quickly, was up to the challenge of meeting this extraordinary compliment: “But what of your own calling, my dear Sir? From Whom does
it
fall in a direct line? Doubtless He is the only One who must out-rank the King?”

As Mr. Collins thought his way through to the meaning of this, he fairly blushed and simpered like a schoolgirl. “Colonel Fitzwilliam,” said he, stammering, “Sir, I can hardly…you are too kind, really…I…well.” Darcy could scarcely believe it: the parson, rendered speechless: well done, Fitzwilliam! he thought.

“How do the ladies today, Mr. Collins?” asked Lady Catherine. “I trust Mrs. Collins took my advice about yesterday’s dinner: that bird had not been hung long enough: it would not have been healthful to eat for at least another three days.”

“They are well, indeed, Your Ladyship,” Mr. Collins answered, “My wife had the lamb prepared, instead, and very wholesome it was.”

“Well…” Lady Catherine said, as if trying to find aught to object to; but apparently the lamb passed her approval. She then enquired: “And has Mrs. Collins finished sewing up the rent in her work-bag? I have mentioned it to her twice, now.”

“She has, Your Ladyship,” the parson replied with a slight bow. “I regret that she did not attend to it sooner: I know she fully intended to do so as soon as she could find a moment; but what with our guest, and the Spring Festival to prepare for, she has been hard pressed to keep up, I’m sure.”

“Very well: I understand—you may tell her I said so,” Lady Catherine sniffed.

“Your Ladyship is all kindness and condescension,” Collins said with another, and possibly even deeper bow. Darcy and the Colonel shared a knowing look off to one side of this scene; it always amazed them that Lady Catherine’s dependents tolerated such liberties of manner, but, while this newest member of her little ensemble seemed to enter into it more whole-heartedly than some, it was no more than they had been accustomed to seeing in the past.

At this point there was a general pause, and Mr. Collins began to apologize for his intrusion; he was working himself up to taking his leave when Darcy heard himself say: “Is Mrs. Collins at home? And do I understand that Miss Elizabeth Bennet is staying with you?”

“Indeed, Sir, the ladies are all at the Parsonage at this moment.”

“Fitzwilliam, perhaps we should go pay our compliments,” suggested Darcy. “Lady Catherine, you would not mind?”

“Of course not Darcy; you two run along. It is time for Anne’s outing, in any event: you will find her back home in an hour’s time.”

Darcy’s cousin was looking at him in alarm and wonder, but Darcy made him a subtle calming gesture, at which his cousin shrugged: it was, at least, an escape from Rosings, if only for an hour. Mr. Collins, however, was beside himself: “Mr. Darcy!
Such
an honour! I hardly know…but I hope you will pardon my humble circumstances. Lady Catherine has, of course, generously supported me in every effort to make it all that is charming, but I fear gentlemen such as yourselves might find it very humble, indeed.”

Cutting short his effusions, Lady Catherine said with some sharpness of manner, “Mr. Collins, if
I
may visit without loss of dignity, surely my nephews might, also.”

“Yes, of
course
, Lady Catherine; I do apologize,
most
sincerely. I hope you know I meant no disrespect, and I beg you will forgive the implication…”

Darcy caught his cousin’s arm and took him away to find their coats. “Lord knows how long this might last if we were to give it free rein,” he cautioned quietly.

“Why are we going to the Parsonage, Darcy?” Colonel Fitzwilliam whispered.

“Because I have met the ladies there, and I assure you they make for far better company than the two here.”

“This Miss Bennet: what sort of looking girl is she?”

“I shall leave it to yourself to determine,” Darcy said; he was unwilling to be so disrespectful of her as to discuss her looks with his cousin.

Colonel Fitzwilliam, interpreting this instead to mean that his cousin was amusing himself at his expense, said, “Darcy, please—say she is not hideous; I know you would not do that to me, after dragging me out to Kent just so I might deflect Aunt Catherine’s many courtesies.”

Darcy, realising the misunderstanding, reassured his cousin: “Never fear, Fitzwilliam; you may trust your cousin Darcy—the lady will not disappoint.”

Collecting Mr. Collins on the way to the door, they bade their aunt adieu. On the walk to the Parsonage, Darcy kept silent and left his cousin to deal with Mr. Collins. What
had
possessed him to invite himself to see Elizabeth? The answer came too easily to mind: he had had no choice. “Possessed” was the right word, indeed. He had known from the moment he heard her name that he could have no hope of keeping from her. It had been over four months since he had last seen her, yet her smile had been before him the whole of last night; he could no more avoid her than he could avoid food and drink. But, he reminded himself firmly, you must still protect her; you must not permit yourself to give way to your feelings in her presence. That was the one thing he demanded of himself; he might lack the resolve to stay away, but he was honour-bound not to injure her happiness. Nor did he neglect to remind himself that he could hardly deserve her attentions, after having been so completely taken in by Miss Chesterton.

Chapter Nineteen

The Parsonage was a neat, well-designed little house: set cosily amidst a well-pruned garden, with a laurel hedge and a bordered walk to the door, it had struck Darcy so whenever he came to Kent, although he had never had reason to visit before. As they approached the house, he felt some misgivings at being face-to-face with
Elizabeth again; not wishing to be first through the door, to encounter her without sufficient preparation, he dallied behind and let his cousin enter before he did, that he might more slowly accustom himself to being in her presence again. As his cousin was being introduced to Mrs. Collins, her sister Maria, and Elizabeth, he stood to the rear and fixed his eyes on the woman he could never have; she was lovelier even than memory had made her, and her smile even more captivating. When he was called on to greet the other two ladies, he forced his attention away from Elizabeth long enough to bow and say, “It is a pleasure to see you both again; and Mrs. Collins, please accept my congratulations on your marriage.”

“I thank you, Sir; and also for being so good as to call so soon after your arrival.”

“Not at all; we were delighted to come.” Holding himself in very carefully, he then gave his greetings to Elizabeth; his emotions were too high for him even to know what he said: some perfectly tame formula, doubtless. She simply curtseyed in return without speaking, but he did not care: being in her company was difficult enough, without calling on his resources for conversation. Then, his obligations fulfilled for the time being, he gave himself over to the exquisite misery of being in her presence again.

Colonel Fitzwilliam was his usual, charming self, and Darcy could see he was not unaffected by
Elizabeth’s beauty. Like Bingley, Fitzwilliam never seemed to be out of his element, and was capable of engaging any one in polite discourse; Darcy was persuaded that if the Colonel should ever find himself about to go under the hangman’s noose, he would engage his executioner in pleasantries right up until the floor dropped, and bid him a good day at the end. Of course, talking to Forever was no hardship, and Darcy could have envied his cousin were it not for the emotions he was attempting to govern. Whenever he looked at Forever he had a great tendency to lowness. Every word, every gesture of hers, made him feel how much he was being denied, how much happiness might have been his. To take his thoughts away from her, he turned to his hostess and offered the uninspired remark: “I have always admired this house, and its lovely garden.”

She thanked him briefly, and Darcy was again silent. Oppressed by his feelings, he sat quietly for quite some time, merely listening to what was passing without trying to take part; when he felt he could no longer sit without speaking, he made what effort he could: “I trust, Miss Bennet, your family are well?” Another empty formula—but it was safe, and came readily to his tongue.

“Yes, Sir, I thank you.” She hesitated a moment, then added: “My eldest sister has been in Town these three months. Have you never happened to see her there?”

This, of course, brought forth a host of memories, and none of them comfortable. To her question he could but answer truthfully: “No, I was never so fortunate as to meet Miss Bennet.” His consciousness, both her having been in Town and of his rôle in Bingley’s unhappiness, stopped up his tongue; he could say no more. Fortunately, his cousin shortly thereafter decided that they had stayed long enough for an unannounced visit, and the two gentlemen took their leave.

“Well, well, Darcy,” his cousin said with relish on the short walk back to Rosings, “This
is
a delightful surprise! I confess I had been worried, but Miss Bennet is both lovely and charming! I must say, this bodes well for our time here.”

Darcy could not disagree, but he was not sorry to have left: he knew he had been behaving boorishly, as his feelings for her left him tongue-tied in her presence. If that was the best the present situation could offer, he told himself resolutely, then rather than sit by like an unmannered dolt and make a fool of himself, he would do better to avoid her whenever possible.

On returning to his apartments, he wrote to Georgiana to tell her they were safely arrived, but, though it felt disingenuous to hold back the whole truth, he did not inform her of Elizabeth’s presence. It were better, he thought, to avoid the topic altogether, than to open his sister to additional injury. His letter was therefore short; but as his stay away from home was also to be short, an extensive correspondence did not seem particularly called for.

He held to his intention of avoiding
Elizabeth’s presence for nearly the whole week, although it cost him something to have Colonel Fitzwilliam come back to Rosings after a visit to the Parsonage and relate what a marvellous conversation he had had with “the charming Miss Bennet”. His cousin also dropped frequent hints to his aunt that they ought to invite the Parsonage to tea, or to dinner, or to an evening of cards; he upbraided Darcy privately for not supporting him. Mr. and Mrs. Collins came to Rosings nearly every day, but Elizabeth Darcy saw only at services on Good Friday; the family left promptly, however, and did not speak to any one. On Sunday, however, his aunt lingered after church, and with mild alarm he heard her invite the Collinses and their guests to Rosings for the evening.

Darcy spent the afternoon in his rooms, preparing himself for the trial to come. Over the course of the week he had worked hard to gain strength, and, by dint of serious effort, flattered himself that he had got used to the idea of
Elizabeth being in the neighbourhood; he was now persuaded that he could spend three hours in her company without danger. His confidence was high, largely because his strength was untested.

So, when the company from the Parsonage arrived after tea, he felt prepared to meet
Elizabeth with a passable degree of equanimity. Lady Catherine gave them brief greeting: “Mrs. Collins, Mr. Collins…Miss Lucas, Miss Bennet: welcome. You know every one, of course. Do be seated. Darcy, you sit here.” She indicated a seat between herself and his cousin Anne. The company exchanged greetings and compliments, then seated themselves where fancy or convenience led them. Elizabeth found a chair some distance from Lady Catherine, and Colonel Fitzwilliam, rising directly, moved to be nearer to her; he was obviously pleased to see her again, and greeted her with an easy familiarity that Darcy rather envied him. Darcy, who had been standing by the fire so as not to be too close to Elizabeth on her arrival, hesitated before deciding that the chair his aunt had indicated, was as safe as any.

Without regard for their new guests, his aunt picked up a topic she had broached with Darcy earlier: “Darcy, what have you decided about Mr. Turner? I have warned him before that I would take a hand in this myself if he did not settle it properly.”

Each year it fell to Darcy to clear up any local disputes that might be extant during his stay, as Lady Catherine was wont to interject her judgement into just about every thing that went on within the reach of her intelligence. Although she was not, of course, the magistrate for the county, the fact that her decisions and commands had no legal force dissuaded neither her from issuing them, nor her tenants from complying with them. This portion of his visits was one which Darcy felt he was peculiarly better-suited to perform than she. He differed from his father in that the late Mr. Darcy, while all that was benevolent and charitable, had never made himself very accessible to those who worked his lands. The present master of the Pemberley estates took a more active hand. The practice had yielded good results at Pemberley, and he had put the abilities he had learned there to good use at Rosings during his visits; his interests here, however, were aimed less at justice and harmony amongst the estate’s tenants, than towards the more modest goal of keeping the degree of discontentment with his aunt at a level short of armed rebellion; he had no desire to see the enthusiasms of the French Revolution visited upon Kent.

He usually made some attempt to deflect her from her self-appointed magisterial duties, and so he replied, “Frankly, Ma’am, I cannot see why you should wish to concern yourself in the affair.”

“Really, Darcy! Of course it is my concern! The men live on my lands, and that means they are my responsibility; it is my duty to see to it that these matters are attended to.” Darcy had had this discussion with his aunt often enough in years prior, and so forbore to argue further; it was beyond his ability to convince his aunt that she did not live in the sixteenth century.

“Are you certain it is true, then?” he asked.

“Yes; Mr. Collins drove out and confirmed it with his own eyes. The fence was down and Turner was watering his sheep at Tilden’s pond again.”

“Indeed, Mr. Darcy,” Collins took it upon himself to spare Lady Catherine from having to fatigue herself with further explanation, “I myself have represented to the men in question, in the strongest of terms, how discreditable it is that they should fail to resolve their dispute. That they should have the assurance to ignore Her Ladyship’s explicit instructions, and to oblige her to spend even more of her time on the issue, is so inconsiderate as to be unchristian, in my opinion.” To this Lady Catherine nodded her solemn agreement.

The facts of the case were these: Mr. Turner kept a flock of sheep in a particular field; his neighbour, Mr. Tilden, had a pond nearby in an adjoining field. As there was no other source of water nearby, Mr. Turner would take his sheep to the pond on Mr. Tilden’s land. For as far back as any one could remember, the business had presented no difficulties, but on one occasion recently, Turner had slightly damaged Mr. Tilden’s fence, and the practise had become an issue between the two farmers, with bad blood and threats from both sides. “Mr. Tilden makes no objection to Turner’s using the water—it is only the fence?” he enquired.

“Indeed, Mr. Darcy,” Mr. Collins said. “The two men were known to be good friends before this falling-out. While they were previously unknown to me, I took upon myself the commission of seeing them both on Lady Catherine’s behalf; I stressed to each the desirability of displaying proper Christian forgiveness and humility. I fear my efforts were not well received: indeed, I regret to say that Mr. Tilden forgot himself so far as to offer me violence, and warn me off his farm.” Mr. Collins placed a hand ruminatively on his hindquarters, making Darcy smile so broadly that he was forced to turn his face away. This relation seemed to him rather an indication of the farmer’s good sense, and his hope of a resolution improved.

“Yes, yes,” said his aunt with some exasperation. “But the point is that Turner should have mended the fence after he damaged it. It is no less than criminal trespass, compounded by vandalism, and now, assault on a Church official. He is fortunate indeed not to have been taken in charge.” Darcy’s expression might have told his aunt his opinion of this bit of homespun jurisprudence, but just then his attention was drawn off by laughter coming from the direction of Elizabeth and the Colonel. He looked over, and saw the two of them engaged in what appeared to be a most congenial conversation. He watched them a moment until his aunt reclaimed his attention: “Now Mr. Tilden is at daggers-drawn every time he sees Mr. Turner. It must stop, Darcy. I will not have such goings-on amongst my people.”

Darcy drew his attention away from
Elizabeth and the Colonel, saying briefly to his aunt, “I shall attend to it, Lady Catherine.”

“Splendid,” the lady patted his arm in thanks. “I was sure I could count on you: you are just like your dear father; I envied my sister her husband, you know, quite envied her. And you are himself all over again.”

Another burst of laughter drew his eyes back to Elizabeth and the Colonel, who were so thoroughly engaged in what they were saying that they paid hardly any attention to the others in the room. After a moment, Lady Catherine called out, “What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking of? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is.”

“We are speaking of music, Madam,” the Colonel replied, with some reluctance.

“Of music!” said Lady Catherine with a sedate and dignified display of enthusiasm. “Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight.” Darcy saw his cousin make a martyred sigh towards Elizabeth, to which she responded with a smile, although it was tinged with embarrassment. Lady Catherine continued: “I must have my share in the conversation, if you are speaking of music. There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully. How does Georgiana get on, Darcy?”

“She plays so well I admit to feeling some guilt that only I hear her,” Darcy replied.

“I am very glad to hear such a good account of her,” said Lady Catherine, “and pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel, if she does not practise a great deal.”

“I assure you, Madam,” Darcy informed her firmly, “that she does not need such advice. She practises very constantly.” He waged a continual, undeclared war against his aunt’s interference where Georgiana was concerned.

“So much the better. It cannot be done too much; and when I next write to her, I shall charge her not to neglect it on any account. I often tell young ladies, that no excellence in music is to be acquired, without constant practise. I have told Miss Bennet several times, that she will never play really well, unless she practises more; and though Mrs. Collins has no instrument, she is very welcome, as I have often told her, to come to Rosings every day, and play on the pianoforte in Mrs. Jenkinson's room. She would be in nobody's way, you know, in that part of the house.”