Page 31 of Mr Darcy’s Inconvenient Wife

Chapter Fifteen

Elizabeth

“Mama, what were you thinking of?”

Elizabeth did not wait for an answer on the stair. She picked up her skirts, climbed the last three steps and came out on to the grass. The frost still lay white in the shadow of the house, and the cold went straight through her thin slippers. After the dark of the cellar the sun was so bright that the crowd round the door was nothing but a blur of bonnets and blue coats.

Her mother was the first thing she saw clearly. Mrs Bennet had not moved from the doorway. She had one hand pressed flat to her chest, and her mouth was still open. Elizabeth had seen her mother in raptures and in hysterics and in every mood in between. She had never seen her with nothing to say.

“Lizzy?” Mrs Bennet looked at her, and then down the dark steps, and then back at her. “But how did you... you cannot have... it was not supposed to be you.”

“Then who was it supposed to be?”

Her mother did not answer. She was looking past Elizabeth's shoulder, across the kitchen garden.

Elizabeth turned. At the far end of the path, by the orchard gate, stood Charlotte Lucas. She was not looking at the crowd. She was looking at Elizabeth, and her eyes were very wide.

Then Elizabeth understood. Mr Collins was to have gone down the steps to look for a child who did not exist. Charlotte was to have gone down after him. How her mother was going to arrange that, Elizabeth did not yet know, but she was sure her mother had some Banbury tale or another at the ready to accomplish it. The door would have been shut on them both, and half the neighbourhood brought round the side of the house to open it again. Her mother had not only been saving her daughters from Mr Collins. She had been finding him a wife.

Behind her, a heavier step sounded on the stone. Mr Darcy came up out of the cellar, ducking under the lintel, and straightened up in the full light of day. There was a cobweb on his shoulder. He did not seem to know it was there.

Mrs Long found her voice first.

“Mr Darcy! Well, I never did. And Miss Elizabeth Bennet with him, down there in the dark!”

She did not say it very loudly. She did not need to. The whisper went from her elbow round the whole garden faster than Elizabeth could follow it, and she only caught bits of it as it went past. How long were they down there? On her own sister's wedding day, too. I always thought there was more to it than she let on. One gentleman said, not quite under his breath, that no young lady went into a cellar with a man by accident.

Then Aunt Phillips laughed. It was the big laugh she kept for the card table, and it carried all the way to the orchard wall.

“Well, sister! I hope they have not eaten all the bride-cake, for it looks as though we shall want another. There will have to be a second wedding now, and no mistake!”

A few of the guests laughed with her. Most of them did not. They only watched, with the bright, eager faces of people who would be making a great many morning calls that week.

Elizabeth did not look at any of them. She looked at Mr Darcy.

He had not laughed at her aunt's joke. He stood with his hat in his hand, very grave, and he looked back at her just as he had in the cellar, the moment before the door slammed. I care for you a great deal. He had said it in the same steady voice in which he had owned to plotting against Jane. She could not make the two things fit together in one man.

She turned her back on him and walked away across the grass.

She heard her family come after her. Her mother came first, calling her name. Kitty and Lydia followed with their arms linked, and Mary came a little way behind. Her father came last and did not hurry. Nobody else followed. Jane, thank goodness, was still in the dining room at Mr Bingley's side, and had seen none of it.

***

“I never heard of such a thing in all my life!”

“It was not Lizzy's fault, Lydia.”

“I did not say it was her fault. I said I never heard of it. Kitty, you are standing on my flounce.”

“Did you see Mrs Long's face? I thought she was going to faint.”

“Mrs Long has never fainted in her life,” said Mr Bennet. “She could not bear to miss what came next.”

“It is a judgement,” said Mary. “Levity at a wedding breakfast is always punished.”

Elizabeth stood in the middle of the drawing room and let them talk until she could not stand it any longer. Then she turned to her mother.

“Mama. Was this your doing?”