Mr. Darcy Came to Dinner (17 page)

* * *

Charlotte was good upon her time, and after sharing an affectionate greeting, the two walked about the fading gardens of Longbourn.

“I have news of Meryton,” Charlotte said almost at once. “It is the talk of the village that Mr. Wickham has been arrested. It is said there are debts and claims of honor against his name and that Colonel Forster has turned him over to the magistrate.”

Elizabeth was shocked indeed at such news although less than she would have been prior to Colonel Fitzwilliam’s visit. Still, she could not help but be concerned. “Taken up for debt! This is a serious business indeed! Is there no way Mr. Wickham can settle his accounts?”

“There is no firm estimate as to the amount,” said Charlotte, “but the gossip has it that it is more than his pay could possibly support. I am afraid it is debtor’s prison for him.”

“I will admit that my opinion of the gentleman is not as high as it once was,” Lizzy allowed, “but it pains me that one of my acquaintances should have to suffer gaol. It is a terrible place. And what of the merchants! Mr. Wickham shall be punished, but how will they recover their losses?”

Charlotte looked at her friend with a strange expression. “Do you not know?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why Eliza, all of Mr. Wickham’s debts with the merchants of Meryton were bought up by Mr. Bingley, Colonel Fitzwilliam — and your father.”

“My father!” Lizzy cried.

“Indeed. He was seen in the company of the other two gentlemen going into all the establishments in the village on Saturday. My brother says that Colonel Fitzwilliam was the one who spoke with Colonel Forster.”

“I knew nothing of the sort,” Elizabeth said most urgently. “But this means my father holds Mr. Wickham’s debts. He must be the one to bring charges against him!”

“Along with the colonel and Mr. Bingley, yes. I must say that the three of them are very popular with the shopkeepers.”

Elizabeth said nothing as she considered this surprising intelligence. The Bennets, while comfortable, were certainly not rich. Even if the debt was split three ways, her father’s portion would be felt by them all. Was that why he said he planned to practice economy? Why would he involve himself in such matters? Mr. Bennet cared little for what happened in Meryton. Why this sudden interest? Why would he turn his attention to a man who had lied about and cheated Mr. Darcy?

Remembering Miss Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam’s unease upon learning that Mr. Wickham was residing close to Longbourn and Netherfield, Lizzy began to think that somehow Mr. Darcy colluded in this. Did he demand that Mr. Bennet act to remove a perceived threat against his sister? Mrs. Bennet had said that Mr. Darcy could bring suit against Longbourn for his injuries. Did the man use that to intimidate her father into spending his money so that Wickham would be arrested?

Her silence during this contemplation caught Charlotte’s notice. “Eliza, are you well?”

“I am very well,” was her instant reply, silently promising herself that she needed to speak to her father. “I am all attention.”

“Then, I must thank you for your warnings about Mr. Collins. He came to Sunday dinner yesterday, and I am afraid he had no very kind compliments for your family.”

“I am sorry to hear that, but I understand his anger.”

“Lizzy, you said yesterday that you had news of Mr. Collins. Can you not share it with me now? I must say that his attentions towards me became marked during his visit, and my mother now has the idea that she would like very much to see me as the future mistress of Longbourn.”

Elizabeth grasped her friend’s hands. “You must resist him! He is not the man he seems!”

“Elizabeth, you are frightening me!” Charlotte cried.

The two continued their stroll through the gardens, Elizabeth sharing the events of the last week in a low voice. Charlotte was, of course, surprised and concerned, particularly over Mr. Collins’s very improper threat against the Bennet ladies.

“Goodness! Your warnings are timely indeed! It sounds as though Mr. Collins has not taken his vocation seriously to say such things to you!” The two walked on in meditation on how the character of men often did not match their profession.

Charlotte came to a sudden stop. “Mr. Darcy was very gallant!” she blurted. “He must admire you!”

Elizabeth almost stumbled over a tree root. “What? What did you say?”

“Eliza, did you injure yourself?” Charlotte saw that Elizabeth was very red, even in the November cool. “You should sit down.”

Elizabeth’s flush had nothing to do with her misstep, but she kept that to herself. “There is a bench just down the path near the rose garden.”

Charlotte insisted they go there without delay, and soon the ladies reached their destination. They sat with their backs to the rose bush, looking out towards the field beyond. By now, Elizabeth had recovered enough to answer her friend.

“I must tell you that you are as wrong about Mr. Darcy as you could be. I am but the daughter of the man in whose house he is forced to take up residence. I can mean nothing to him.”

“I think you are wrong,” said the other. “Consider his defense of you. Can there be any reason for his interference but that of the deepest love?”

“No, no, no! That cannot be! Mr. Darcy loves no one but himself!”

“Eliza!” Charlotte cried in disapproval.

But Elizabeth heard nothing. Charlotte’s conjectures were too close by half to Elizabeth’s own internal struggle with the mystery of Fitzwilliam Darcy. She had not the time to work out the meaning of the gentleman’s seemingly conflicting actions, and she wished with all her heart that, until she could come to some resolution about Mr. Darcy, Charlotte would keep her romantic musings to herself. As was her wont when agitated, Elizabeth expressed opinions that were not necessarily her own.

“It is true! Since coming to the neighborhood, Mr. Darcy has been aloof and standoffish. He has spoken to no one outside his own party. And he has been worse since his injury. He has all but taken over Longbourn. The servants are at his beck and call, and he treats them as if they were his own.”

“Elizabeth, surely you exaggerate. Mr. Darcy is a gentleman. Besides, he is in his sick bed. Should not the servants attend him?”

“Of course, they should, and they do,” Elizabeth conceded, “but Mr. Darcy asks no one’s pardon when he gives his orders. He has diminished my father at every turn. My father is master of Longbourn, but Mr. Darcy treats him no better than a servant!

“And the rest of my family! Mr. Darcy has that manservant of his tell my mother and sisters to comport themselves in silence, else they will disturb Mr. Darcy’s precious rest! He has made changes to our dinner menu without so much as a by-your-leave. A servant ordering my family about — it is unsupportable!”

Charlotte attempted to calm her friend. “You know your younger sisters and mother are very boisterous; you have said so yourself many a time. Is it not right to ask for peace and quiet for a bedridden man? And certainly your mother cannot object to providing meals her guests would enjoy?”

“You take an eager interest in Mr. Darcy’s welfare! I wonder whether you do not admire him yourself.”

“Eliza! I will not berate you when you are so impassioned. I will say that, of course, I admire Mr. Darcy as I would any worthy gentleman. His place in the world has earned him some deference.”

Unknowingly, Charlotte had touched upon the very subject that had troubled Elizabeth the past week — the gulf between her family and his.

“This is insensible,” Charlotte continued. “You know it to be insensible.” She smiled. “What was it the Bard said?
‘The lady doth protest too much?’
I believe there is some admiration in your denials.”

Elizabeth was not best pleased that her own conscience and Charlotte voiced the same conjecture about Lizzy’s antipathy for Mr. Darcy. She shot back in defense, “How unfortunate for me that you quote Shakespeare! In my turn, I will say,
‘Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.’
Remember I was the lady he said was not tempting enough to dance with at the assembly. No, you and I must disagree on this. He thinks as little of me as I do of him. Mr. Darcy has done nothing but impress me with his conceit and selfish disdain for the feelings of others. I assure you that I think very meanly of any gentleman who comes from Derbyshire, whether he wears a blue coat or red!”

“Yes, Mr. Darcy is very handsome in his blue coat,” Charlotte teased.

“Charlotte!”

“Very well, I know there is no turning you when you are so fixed.” Charlotte sighed. “I would only advise you to keep your opinions of the gentleman to yourself. It would not do to insult that man.”

Charlotte’s calm warning did much to soothe Elizabeth’s ruffled feelings. “And I will not refuse such good counsel even though I had already come to the same conclusion. As far as Mr. Darcy is concerned, he shall receive every courtesy no matter how little he shows in return.”

“Very wise,” returned her friend, but Charlotte’s knowing glance told Elizabeth that her companion had not changed her opinion. “I understand from Maria that there is a new calf?”

Thankful for the change of subject, Elizabeth smiled. “Yes, and if you would like to see it, we can go to the barn directly by the path here.”

“Then, by all means, lead on.”

* * *

The gardener was hard at his labors when he was interrupted by a nasally superior voice.

“Here, now!” cried Bartholomew. “I was told you were to attend to Mr. Darcy! Where is he?”

The man remained kneeling, only turning halfway to eye the intruder. “An’ ain’t th’ man himself not twenty yards away by them rose bushes there?” He gestured with a trowel. “Look there — there’s that contraption, an’ him sittin’ in it. I might be gettin’ on in years, but there’s ain’t nothin’ wrong with my ears!”

Bartholomew glared at the gardener, but he was unsuccessful in intimidating the man, who by then had returned to his weeding. With a theatrical humph, the valet walked quickly over to his employer.

“I am sorry the servants here have been so lackadaisical in carrying out their — Oh sir, how pale you are! You must be chilled! You must come inside at once!” Bartholomew pulled the blanket on Mr. Darcy’s lap up around his shoulders. “I will have you warm in no time, Mr. Darcy!” The agitated valet swiftly moved to push the Bath chair to the front of the estate.

A few fallen leaves were on the grass, and the wheels of the chair made a crunching sound as they rolled, which accounted for Bartholomew’s failure to hear a painful sigh from within the vehicle.

Chapter 10

D
ARCY MADE NOT A
sound as Bartholomew and Hill assisted him from the Bath chair and into the house. No grunt of discomfort escaped his lips as he was maneuvered into the wheel-chair. The servants might have thought to congratulate themselves on their care, but they would be wrong. Darcy was uncomfortable; the manhandling caused him pain, and a headache was descending upon him. Another man at least would have whimpered.

Fitzwilliam Darcy was not like other men. For a Darcy to complain was ungentlemanly; such had been his lesson from a young age. Besides, his mind was exceedingly — and distressingly — preoccupied.

“Sir,” asked Bartholomew, “shall we return to your bedroom?”

“No,” said Darcy at once. “I need a change of scenery. Pray take me somewhere else.”

Bartholomew pushed Darcy into the sitting room, and the manservant was happy to see a fire in the grate. Positioning his master in an armchair and footstool close to the fireplace and told by the same that he wanted nothing but peace, the valet returned to the parlor sickroom and his duties there.

Darcy stared at the coals, continuing his contemplation of the conversation he inadvertently had heard in the garden. The two ladies may have spoken in low tones, but the slight breeze carried every word to Darcy’s increasingly distraught ears.

Miss Elizabeth hated him! It was inconceivable, but it was true. He had heard the lady’s denouncement of him from her own lips! She found him proud, aloof, and overbearing — his manners bad, his actions painful, and his attentions to
her
ignored. How could this have come to pass?

Darcy saw at once the seeds of his disappointment — his own unthinking words to Bingley at that blasted assembly! Darcy disliked public gatherings generally and crowded dances particularly, both in Town and in the country. He was always uncomfortable with strangers and distant acquaintances. He never knew what to say; he had no ear for conversation like Bingley or Fitz. He had borne this cross all his life.

The Meryton event was untimely as well. It had been mere weeks since Ramsgate, certainly less than two months. He only said what he did to Bingley to have his friend leave off. He would have said the same about a princess of the realm. Darcy did not intend that the lady would hear his words, but he had no idea that she would have taken them so seriously. Why had he spoken so loudly?

Was it any wonder Miss Elizabeth gave no credence to his attentions? She had taken his words to heart. She had disliked him from the very beginning. His joke about his “tolerable leg” had fallen as flat as he had from his horse.