Elizabeth Bennet's Impertinent Letter Read online

  Sitting back in her chair, she considered her future. I hope the new residents of Netherfield will provide my sisters and me with a marriage-worthy bachelor or two. Or at the very least, I hope we are provided with interesting gossip.

  2

  “I have never known a more deceitful, conniving woman.”

  April 25, 1811

  Moving with purpose and confidence, Fitzwilliam Darcy strode down the lane that led from the manor house at Rosings to Hunsford Parsonage. Today—within the hour—he would offer marriage to Miss Elizabeth Bennet, who was a guest there of her cousin, the reverend Mr. Collins.

  Darcy was certain she was expecting his proposal, and he had not the slightest doubt of her acceptance. Will she let me kiss her after she accepts me, or will she think me too forward? Her innate playfulness has enchanted me, but I cannot deny this quality makes her unpredictable.

  When Darcy’s aunt, Lady Catherine De Bourgh, had invited Mr. and Mrs. Collins and their two house guests to come to tea at Rosings today, everyone had expected Elizabeth to attend. Indeed, when Mr. Collins, his wife, Charlotte, and Charlotte’s sister Maria entered the drawing room without Elizabeth, Darcy had to draw upon his legendary reserve not to demand an accounting for the lady’s absence. Happily, Collins got right to the matter, explaining in his pompous yet servile manner that while his cousin Elizabeth sent her sincerest regrets, a headache would keep her from enjoying the most excellent company of Lady Catherine, her incomparable daughter, Miss Anne, and her nephews Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam.

  As Collins continued to talk while failing to provide any actual details, Darcy quietly asked Fitzwilliam, “Did you speak with Miss Elizabeth today?”

  “Yes, we walked for bit and spoke of nothing in particular; by the bye, I did praise the good care you accorded your friends. When I escorted her back to the parsonage, I assumed I would see her at tea this afternoon.”

  “But she was not ill?”

  “No—well, she mentioned a headache, but made it sound as if it were not serious.”

  Rising decisively, Darcy excused himself and left the drawing room before anyone could question him. Not bothering to take his hat and gloves, he walked quickly toward the parsonage. Once he was out of sight of Rosings, he slowed his pace. Although he had decided more than a week ago that he would propose to Elizabeth, he had not yet settled on the wording of his offer. Time was short, for he was committed to returning to London on the day after tomorrow, and he wanted a formal understanding with her before he left. Smiling, he thought, We could easily be married in a month’s time, or two months at the most.

  But how should Darcy tell Elizabeth what was in his heart? He had never made a declaration of this sort to any woman, and he knew he did not perform well to strangers.

  Impatience sparked within him, and he wondered, Do the words truly matter? Elizabeth is not some stranger; she understands me better than anyone! Still I want her to know how dear she is to me. She cannot help but be flattered when she realizes my struggle, my triumph over my perfectly natural reluctance to unite my family with hers, a family so decidedly beneath the Darcys in wealth, consequence, and decorum.

  ≈≈≈

  In the drawing room of Hunsford Parsonage, an exasperated Elizabeth Bennet was re-reading all the letters she had received from her beloved sister Jane. Nearly five months ago, after a Mr. Charles Bingley had abruptly departed their neighborhood in Hertfordshire, the cheerfulness which had characterized Jane’s nature seemed to diminish. Bingley had been very attentive from the moment he met Jane met at the assembly in Meryton, the town closest to both the Bennet’s estate of Longbourn and Bingley’s leased estate of Netherfield.

  For three months, he had clearly preferred Jane to all other ladies, sparking speculation that he would make her an offer of marriage. Yet after holding a ball a Netherfield—during which he and Jane had danced twice and been as inseparable as society permitted—Bingley had returned to his townhouse in London without so much as a farewell. Then, this very morning during a walk with Colonel Fitzwilliam, Elizabeth had learned that Mr. Darcy had strongly encouraged Bingley to abandon Jane.

  Now Elizabeth was making herself miserable by seeking confirmation of Jane’s disappointment in her letters. The sound of the door knocker registered dimly her thoughts, but it was not until the maid admitted Darcy to the drawing room that Elizabeth realized the depth of her anger toward him. As she stared, amazed that he had sought her out, he made a hurried inquiry as to her health; she answered him with cold civility before returning her attention to her sister’s correspondence.

  After a long silence, Darcy approached her in an agitated manner and thus began. “In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you, Miss Elizabeth, how ardently I admire and love you!”

  ≈≈≈

  Tears make no sound. The sound of crying is in the sobbing, the breathlessness that accompanies intense frustration, anger, and sorrow. However, at the parsonage a short while after Darcy’s departure, Elizabeth was finished with sobbing, although tears continued to slide down her cheeks.

  As one of five daughters of a gentleman whose estate would be inherited by her cousin, William Collins, she had but two duties: She must comport herself in a manner befitting her station, and she must inspire a proposal from a suitable man, preferably one whose financial resources would save her mother and sisters from being cast into poverty upon the demise of her father.

  At twenty, Elizabeth was known to have a demeanor that reflected well on her family, save for her tendency toward impertinence. She was pretty—all the Bennet daughters were—but her wit was what most people considered her defining characteristic. As for her ladylike accomplishments, she was well read, sensible, intelligent, and played the pianoforte with a pleasing, although untutored, technique. And as for offers of marriage? With great frustration, she wondered, How have I managed to “inspire” proposals from two of the most irritating men in England? I scarcely know which of them is worse!

  I cannot regret my refusal of Mr. Collins! Elizabeth shivered with revulsion at the very thought of her cousin, her host, a pretentious, mean-spirited nincompoop who would eventually inherit her family home. Last autumn, a mere two days after she had refused Collins’s offer of marriage, he had proposed to and been accepted by her close friend Charlotte, and they wed last December. Now, some five months later, Elizabeth was a guest at the parsonage that would have been her home; however, it was Charlotte’s repeated entreaties that had enticed her to visit.

  Yet, it was the most recent proposal—condescendingly made less than half an hour ago by the high and mighty Fitzwilliam Darcy—that had provoked Elizabeth’s shock, anger, and tears. As he confidently offered her marriage, she learned that his tendency to stare at her was because he admired her, although since early in their acquaintance, she had been certain his unsmiling gaze was because he was examining her for faults—and finding them. Indeed, his stern countenance had provoked her into entertaining herself by teasing him about his pride and his insufferable belief that he was an exemplary man of his class.

  Had conceit and arrogance been Darcy’s only failings, she could have dismissed him and his proposal with comparatively little effort. Unfortunately, the colonel’s unwitting revelation— that Darcy had boasted of separating Bingley from her eldest sister Jane—now dominated Elizabeth’s thoughts.

  My sketch of Mr. Darcy’s character was painfully accurate. He has proven himself to be as dreadful a man as I suspected. No—he is worse! Poor, sweet Jane! Should I reveal to her Mr. Darcy’s despicable interference with Mr. Bingley? Is that what a loving sister would do? Nor did he deny that through his actions, George Wickham, his childhood friend and the son of his father’s steward, had been reduced to his present state of comparative poverty. It is outrageous that Mr. Darcy denied Mr. Wickham the valuable living of a parsonage at his family’s great estate! So dishonorable!

  ≈≈≈

  Upo
n leaving the parsonage, a stunned Darcy walked inattentively toward the manor. What just happened between Elizabeth and myself? For her to reject me so uncivilly? Indeed, for her to reject my proposal at all! What is her game? How could I have been so wrong about her?

  As the Rosings chimneys came into view, he stopped. No, I cannot go back to my aunt and my cousins; I cannot pretend nothing has changed, that my heart is not touched.

  Turning away, Darcy walked briskly to the stables. Seeing no groom about, he saddled his tall, bay stallion, Pegasus, with an experienced hand. A groom appeared just as he was finishing and asked, “May I assist you, sir?” Darcy shook his head, no, and led the horse out of the stall. “It will be dark before long, sir,” the groom advised. Darcy still said nothing.

  Mounting Pegasus, he rode into the late afternoon, urging the horse away from the road and into the open fields. One bitter declaration from Elizabeth echoed endlessly in his thoughts:

  “I had not known you for a month before I felt

  that you were the last man in the world whom

  I could ever be prevailed upon to marry!”

  In defense against her rejection, he muttered, “I have never known a more deceitful, conniving woman than you, Miss Elizabeth Bennet; you encouraged my attentions and then spurned me in the most abusive manner possible!”

  It required a good half-hour of hard riding before Darcy allowed that, perhaps, he had not understood Elizabeth, for, clearly, she had not understood him. After all, she was unlike any other lady of his acquaintance; her habit of challenging his views and her disinclination to cultivate his good opinion bewitched him. Yet her rejection of him was so irrational! Unless … was it possible that Elizabeth’s teasing banter with him had been, in reality, a mocking criticism of his character?

  “There is nothing wrong with my character!” Darcy growled to the wind. Finding strength in the sound of his declaration, he added, “I am the master of Pemberley—the largest estate in Derbyshire. I have a townhouse in London, properties throughout the kingdom, and a box at the theatre. My uncle is the Earl of Kesteven and my aunt is Lady Catherine De Bourgh of Rosings! My pride is not excessive; it is completely appropriate for man of my station and abilities.”

  The sound of his words fed his anger, and he continued, “Ladies of accomplishment who are celebrated for their discernment wish to be my wife! I could have my pick of any woman in the ton—and so I shall! I will return to London and find a suitable bride far superior to you, Miss Elizabeth! Then you can read about my splendid choice of wife and our happy life together in the newspaper. I leave you to your neighbors in Meryton—a collection of people in whom there is little beauty and no fashion; dull people in whom I have not the slightest interest!”

  Desperate to find some good in this disastrous rejection, Darcy took a small measure of comfort from the fact that he had never told his friend Charles Bingley of his affection for Elizabeth. What would Bingley say if he knew I had attempted to marry into the very family that I convinced him to repudiate after we left Netherfield last autumn? Would Bingley still respect me if he learned of Elizabeth’s rejection? I am more certain than ever that I did my friend a good turn when I told him Jane Bennet was indifferent to him. If I had been as kind to myself as I was to him—if I had listened to my intellect instead of my emotions—I never would have offered for Elizabeth!

  ≈≈≈

  Elizabeth was still in the drawing room when the sound of an approaching carriage pierced her consciousness. Although the manor house was but a short walk away, Lady Catherine enjoyed the effusive compliments with which Collins showered her when she allowed him the use of her carriage following a social gathering. Elizabeth muttered, “If only I had gone to tea with Charlotte and the others, Mr. Darcy would not have sought me out and importuned me with his unwanted proposal! I would have preferred the rudeness of Lady Catherine to the insulting offer from her nephew!”

  As Elizabeth dried her cheeks with her sleeves, for her tear-soaked handkerchief had ceased to be of use awhile ago, she knew that if Charlotte and Maria saw her, they would inquire as to what troubled her. Whereas, if Collins noted her emotional state, “Tone-deaf as he is to the feelings of others,” she muttered, rising from sofa, he would likely assume she was grieving the loss of him as her husband. No, it would not do to be seen by any of them. She hurried upstairs to her room, drew the heavy gray curtain over the small window that overlooked the back of the house, and lay on top of the counterpane.

  A short time later, Charlotte knocked softly on her door. “Lizzy, dear, are you awake?”

  Elizabeth made no reply, instinctively holding her breath until she realized that she was doing so. As if anyone on the other side of that stout door could hear me breathe! Well, I will face my friend tomorrow and hope that I need not face Mr. Darcy, too.

  ≈≈≈

  It was dusk when Darcy brought Pegasus back to the stable. Anger, disappointment, and confusion still roiled within him, but he also felt a sense of resolution. Giving the reins to the groom, he instructed, “Give him an extra measure of whatever treat you have on hand for a good mount.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Darcy bypassed the salon where he could hear Lady Catherine giving overly detailed instructions to some unfortunate servant. Instead, he strode briskly to the billiards room, where the best bottle of brandy at Rosings awaited him. No one in this house of women ventures there. Such foolish creatures! Unable to recognize when a good brandy—or a good man—is before them!

  As he opened the door to the billiards room, Darcy heard the solid “clack” of one ivory ball hitting another. He watched in surprise as Mrs. Leonora Jenkinson, the companion to his cousin, Anne De Bourgh, straightened after having knocked a ball into a side pocket. “Well done, Nora!” Anne said admiringly as she leaned against the far side of the billiards table, cue in hand. Although at twenty-six, Anne was only a few years younger than Mrs. Jenkinson, she had an unpolished girlishness about her that made her seem much younger than her companion.

  “Am I interrupting?” Darcy asked, well aware that what he truly wanted was to tell the ladies to go away and leave this masculine retreat to him.

  “Yes,” Anne said. “And Mama has been inquiring about you ever since you abruptly left during tea. Where did you go?”

  “May we speak privately, Anne? Please excuse us, Mrs. Jenkinson.”

  “Of course, Mr. Darcy.” The companion gave him her customary reserved smile.

  As Mrs. Jenkinson set aside her cue, Anne said in a mocking tone, “Well, that is the polite thing for Nora to say, isn’t it?”

  I am interrupting, Darcy thought. Well, I don’t care.

  When Mrs. Jenkinson saw the fierce look on Darcy’s face, she quickly lowered her gaze so he would not know she had observed his mood. “I shall check on the fire in your room, Miss De Bourgh. Cook predicts an unseasonably cool night.”

  After Mrs. Jenkinson closed the door behind her, Anne gestured at the crystal decanter and glasses on a silver tray atop a corner table. “Would you like a drink, Cousin? The best brandy at the estate is here, but I suppose you and Christopher already know. When you make these annual visits to conduct your ‘state-of-the-estate’ assessments, is this not your favorite room?”

  Darcy filled a cut crystal glass for himself. “There is a boldness in you tonight, Anne. No doubt it is the inspiring effect of this manly domain.”

  “No doubt,” she agreed dryly. “Though some credit must go to the fact that Mama is not here.”

  Darcy nodded toward the table. “I was unaware you played billiards.”

  “Not as well as Nora, but she says I am improving. Now, what is the topic of our private conversation?”

  “It is time to tell your mother that you and I will never marry.”

  “It is past time, but life is pleasanter when Mama believes she is getting her way—not that I’m afraid of her.” When Darcy regarded Anne from under raised eyebrows, she huffed, “Oh, never mind! I suppose yo
u have decided to marry.”

  “Yes, well, it is time—or past time—for that, too.”

  “Are you going to propose to Miss Elizabeth?”