Mr. Darcy's Refuge (18 page)

Mr. Bennet stopped a few feet from the edge of the flood waters where an old man in rough homespun manned a rowboat. “When you are of age, I cannot stop you from marrying whomever you please, but until then, you cannot marry anyone without my permission. I do not give my permission. That is the end of the matter.”

Darcy’s face paled. “Do you plan, then, to place a retraction in the newspapers?”

Mr. Bennet’s lips thinned. “No, that would simply draw more attention to the matter.”

“Thank you, sir.” It was clear the words cost Darcy a great deal. “Then we can wait, if necessary, until Elizabeth is of age. When will that be?”

Elizabeth cast a despairing look at her father. “Not until December. Boxing Day – I was a Christmas baby.”

“I will call on you at Longbourn in a few days, and we can discuss this further then.”

Mr. Bennet’s face turned even more red. “You will do nothing of the sort, Mr. Darcy. You do not have my permission to call on Lizzy. If you set foot on Longbourn property, I will have you brought before the magistrate for trespassing. You will not write to Lizzy or attempt to contact her in any way.”

“Sir, I do not question your authority to set whatever rules you choose, but that will simply cause more talk and more harm to your daughter!”

Elizabeth shook her head at Darcy. Surely her father would eventually come to his senses again, and arguing with him now seemed only to make matters worse. “We do not need to decide everything now. There will be plenty of time discuss this later.” She hoped he understood her message that rational argument would not sway her father at the moment.

Mr. Bennet put a hand on Elizabeth’s back and propelled her into the rowboat, apparently uncaring that this required her to step into water nearly a foot deep. She gasped as icy water rushed into her low half-boots, soaking through her stockings in a matter of seconds. She clambered into the boat, which rocked precariously until she sat down on one of the rude boards. It tipped once more as Mr. Bennet stepped over the gunwale.

Darcy visibly fought to calm himself. “I will hope for a better resolution than seems possible at the moment.” Then emotion seemed overcome him. “My heart is yours, Elizabeth, and nothing can change that. I can be patient until December if I must. Wait for me, I beg of you, no matter what may come.”

Hot tears welled in her eyes as the boatman used his oar to push off from the water’s edge. She tried to form the words to tell him she would wait, but her voice had deserted her.

His eyes still fixed on Elizabeth, Darcy said to the boatman, “Return here after you have taken them across.”

The man spat in the water by way of response and pulled on the oars.

Elizabeth turned to look at Darcy over her shoulder as the boatman fought his way through the still choppy waters laden with loose branches and debris, pushing away obstacles with his oar. It took only few minutes to reach the other side.

Darcy watched Elizabeth and Mr. Bennet until they disappeared from sight on the lane to Rosings Park. He rubbed a tired hand across his face, hardly able to believe what had just occurred – the joy of Elizabeth accepting him willingly, then having her torn from him, perhaps for months. He would need to find some way to communicate with her, but that would have to wait until he had dealt with his family. Wearily he turned away from the river and trudged back up the hill to the parsonage.

***

To think that only an hour ago, Elizabeth had been worried about how she would gently and politely refuse the colonel’s offer of marriage! A day ago she would have been relieved to be taken away from Darcy. So much had changed since then. Her father had become a virtual stranger to her. She risked a glance at him, but his face was still stony, with no sign of his usual amusement.

The walk to Rosings seemed to take longer than usual, and not just because her feet squelched in her half-boots with each step. She had not even the hope of dry stockings when they reached Rosings; all her clothing apart from what was on her back was still at the parsonage. Would she have to travel all the way to Longbourn with wet feet? What was it that Darcy had said once – ‘what is fifty miles of good road? I call it a very easy distance.’ Half a day’s journey would not seem easy with cold, wet stockings.

Looking back on that conversation, she wondered how she had ever missed his references to a possible match between them. She had been blind. Now, when she could finally see clearly, it was too late.

Mr. Bennet led her straight to the stables where an open carriage sat ready outside. “Hitch up the horses. We will leave directly,” he announced to the groom.

The groom mumbled his assent and shuffled into the stables. Elizabeth tried to curl and uncurl her toes in hopes some of the water would run out her boots, but it did not help.

The groom had just gone for the second horse when Charlotte came hurrying toward them. “Lizzy, I am so happy to see you! Are you well? Is it true that Mr. Darcy was with you? Did Colonel Fitzwilliam reach you?”

Elizabeth essayed a wan smile. “Both gentlemen are safe at the parsonage.” If they could be called safe while the earl and Lady Catherine remained in towering rages.

“You are not leaving already?”

Mr. Bennet snorted. “Do you think I would remain here one minute longer than necessary? Were it not ten miles to the posting house, I would not even have paused here.”

“But will not Mr. Darcy….”

Elizabeth shook her head at her friend. “Best not to even mention him.”

“You have not fallen out with him, I hope?”

“Not I.” Elizabeth nodded toward her father.

“Well, I for one am very happy for you. I always felt he admired you, but you have been very sly with me.”

“I will write to you, I promise. Please give Mr. Collins my thanks and tell him that I enjoyed my visit greatly and am sorry it is to be cut short.”

“Into the carriage
now
, Lizzy,” said Mr. Bennet.

Charlotte pulled off her gloves. “Here, Lizzy, take these, and my bonnet, too. You cannot travel as you are. I am sorry that the gloves will be large for you, but it is better than nothing.”

Elizabeth had not even given a thought to her disgraceful lack of outdoor attire, not that her father had given her a choice about it. “But will you not need them to return to the parsonage?”

“I can borrow a bonnet from Mrs. Jenkinson, I am sure.” Charlotte untied her bonnet and placed it in Elizabeth’s hand.

“Thank you, Charlotte.” With a regretful glance at her friend, Elizabeth stepped up into the carriage. “Could you send my belongings to Longbourn when the opportunity arises?”

“Of course.”

The road was rutted from all the rains, making the carriage jostle uncomfortably. Elizabeth wished the sides were higher so that she could lean her head against them. If she could close her eyes, she could pretend none of this was real.

After perhaps a quarter of an hour, Mr. Bennet said briskly, “Well, Lizzy, have you nothing to say for yourself?”

His countenance now seemed as calm as ever, which stirred her own anger. How dare he treat her like a misbehaving child, and then expect everything to go back to normal once they left Rosings? No.”

“No?”

Elizabeth enunciated each word slowly and carefully. “No, sir, I do not.”

“It is not like you to sulk,” he chided.

“It is not like
you
to refuse to listen!”

“Lizzy,” he said in a warning tone.

She turned away to hide the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. “You have made up your mind already. You have been judge and jury without stopping to hear the evidence, and I have been hauled off like a criminal to jail. You will have to forgive me if I seem disinclined to chat.”

“Was not the public announcement of your engagement without a word to me reason enough for me to judge?”

“What public announcement? I have no idea how you heard about the engagement, especially as it did not even exist until this very morning!”

“I
heard
about it, if you choose to put it thus, from your mother, who had it from her sister Phillips, who had it from Mrs. Long, who read it in the morning newspaper –
yesterday’s
morning paper, which is very timely indeed for an engagement that did not occur until today!”

She remembered then that Colonel Fitzwilliam had said something about an announcement in the papers at the beginning of that horrible encounter with the earl, and that Darcy himself had said something of the same to her father later.
They
must have known something about it even if she did not. Had Darcy been so certain of himself as to place an announcement before he had actually proposed to her? It made no sense. Everything she knew of his character suggested that he would have wanted to follow the usual procedure and speak to her father, yet somehow the announcement was there, and he had not even told her about it. Was he so certain she would give in to him eventually, or did her opinion simply not matter to him? She could make no sense of it, but her sudden doubts drained her of her righteous indignation. She struggled to recall what Darcy had said about it – something about protecting her reputation.

“I did not know about the announcement.”

“Ha! So that is how your fine Mr. Darcy shows his respect for
you
as well as for me! How could you think to marry a man who would not even consult you on something of that magnitude – and before you were even engaged, by your own report! You are well rid of him, Lizzy.”

“I am
not
rid of him. I am sure he has an explanation.”

“An explanation he could not be bothered to give even to
you
?”

There was nothing she could say to that. Darcy’s behavior in the last few days had been enough to convince her that he did not act on impulse nor without reason, but her father had no cause to believe that. She would not condemn Darcy out of hand without hearing his explanation, not after having made that mistake when Wickham had filled her ears with his lies.

Fortunately, they soon reached the town and pulled up to the post-house. There would be an hour’s wait, but there was no privacy either at the post-house or in the coach itself for further conversation. Elizabeth was grateful for the reprieve. She would prefer to be squeezed between half a dozen passengers than to be alone with her father.

When they arrived in London, to her surprise, Mr. Bennet hired a hackney coach to take them to the Gardiner residence on Gracechurch Street instead of arranging to catch the coach to Meryton. They arrived at her uncle’s house just before dark. From her aunt’s reception of them, it was clear her father had not warned them of this visit in advance.

Jane ran to embrace her, shedding happy tears at the sight of her beloved sister. Mrs. Gardiner offered refreshments, but Elizabeth said that all she required was dry footwear and a place to rest. It was not so much that she desired to lie down as that she wished to be away from her father. She wondered vaguely how he planned to explain their odd arrival to the Gardiners, but could not bring herself to care.