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He nodded slightly. Lowering his voice so that only she would hear him, Darcy said, “Please agree to meet me in the morning at the temple.”
Elizabeth smiled in acquiescence. With that, Darcy bowed. “Good day, Miss Elizabeth.”
She curtsied, satisfied that, come what may, mere hours stood between the two of them and their next meeting.
CHAPTER 15
HIS PURPOSES
Darcy, having grown anxiously impatient waiting for Elizabeth to meet him at the temple, decided to go to the parsonage. If he was lucky, he supposed he might meet her on the path. Either way, he would let nothing deter him from his purposes.
Today is the day I ask Elizabeth to accept my hand in marriage and, in so doing, make me the happiest man in all of England.
He could not deny that lingering reservations did not accompany him. Her station in life was so decidedly beneath his own. It does not matter. Elizabeth is one of the most intelligent women I know. Wherever she goes, she will be respected and valued. What does it matter that her family has no wealth and is in want of connections? None of those things can mean anything to the future Mrs. Darcy.
When the servant showed him into the room, Elizabeth’s pale face and her rash manner startled Darcy.
“Mr. Darcy!” she exclaimed, clutching a letter and tucking it behind her back with one hand and wiping tears from her cheek with the other.
“My word, Miss Elizabeth! Pray what is the matter?”
Her knees trembling, Elizabeth attempted to put words to her emotions but she found herself helpless to utter a single word. After taking a few calming breaths, she sat down. Darcy chose a chair across from her and eased it closer to where she sat. His eyes fell to the letter, which by now she held firmly in both hands. His eyes then traced her face that, no doubt, evidenced the tracks of her tears.
He took out his crisp, white handkerchief and gently dabbed her cheek. “You have been crying, Miss Elizabeth. Has it anything to do with your letter? Has something happened to your family?”
Still shaking, she nodded. “I am afraid so. I have just received the most alarming news from my eldest sister, Jane.” Elizabeth burst into tears and could not utter another word for a moment or two.
Darcy, in wretched suspense, wanted only to take her in his arms and encourage her to give over all of her burdens to him. He could not.
Accepting his proffered handkerchief, Elizabeth commenced wiping away her newly shed tears. At length, she began to speak once more. “I have just had a letter from Jane with such dreadful news. Concealing it from anyone is impossible. My younger sister, Lydia, has left all her friends—she has eloped. She has thrown herself into the power of … of Mr. Wickham. They are gone off together from Brighton. My sister has no money and no connections. She has nothing that can tempt him to marry her. I fear she is lost forever.”
Setting aside the bounds of decorum for that instant, he leaned closer and bestowed a soft kiss atop Elizabeth’s head. “I am sorry,” he said. “I am grieved on your behalf. Grieved and shocked.” Then, taking up his former attitude, he asked, “Is the news your eldest sister conveyed absolutely certain?”
“Oh, yes! The two of them left Brighton together on Sunday night. Jane mentioned that Lydia wrote to my sister Kitty informing her of their plans to go to Gretna Green to be married. She and Mr. Wickham were traced almost to London, but not beyond. They are certainly not gone to Scotland.”
“And did your sister say what has been done to recover her?”
“My father traveled to London to aid my uncle Gardiner in the search for my sister. But I know very well that nothing can be done. How are they to be discovered if they do not wish to be found? If what I suspect is true—that they have not married—how is Wickham now to be worked on? What might possibly induce him to marry my sister now? I have not the smallest hope.”
Darcy shook his head in silent acquiescence. He knew Wickham too well to mount a sufficient argument against Elizabeth’s dire prognosis—to give her a measure of hope that would comfort her when some modicum of reassurance was what she needed most.
His ensuing silence was deafening. Elizabeth immediately felt the loss when he stood and commenced walking up and down the room in earnest meditation. His contracted brow, his gloomy air, Elizabeth saw and instinctively understood what it all meant. Such evidence of her family’s weakness and the assurance of imminent disgrace must certainly diminish his esteem for her.
The thought of what this revelation must mean to her cousin dawned on her and struck a chord of panic that spiraled throughout her body. Mr. Collins would certainly want her away from his home immediately, before the shame of what her sister had done had tainted him and, more importantly, his noble patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
Lady Catherine. How the proud woman would triumphantly laud the Bennet family’s frailties over Elizabeth. How she would chastise Elizabeth for not heeding all her admonishments about Mr. Wickham.
Mr. Darcy warned me as well. I refused to hear a false word spoken against Mr. Wickham, and now this is to be my reward. Betrayed by a man whom she long believed she could trust and likely pitied by a man whom, for the first time, she knew she could love.
Indeed, love, honor and respect when all such felicitous sentimentalities are now in vain.
By now, Elizabeth was lost to almost everything other than her silent lamentations and dire speculations on what life at Longbourn must certainly look like upon her return. Undoubtedly her mother would be prostrate with grief over the misfortune that had befallen her youngest and by far her favorite daughter whom, no doubt, she lamented as being an innocent victim in the evil Wickham’s schemes when all Lydia meant to do was land herself a handsome husband in a red coat.
No doubt, her sister Jane and her sister Mary, who was next to Elizabeth in age, were doing all they could in seeing to their mother’s comfort. Most likely, Kitty would either be wailing at the injustice that Lydia should be married before her or the fact that she had kept Lydia’s secret plans to herself for so long as she did. Elizabeth, as much as she missed her eldest sister and longed for her comforting embrace, did not relish the idea of returning to such chaos.
Her companion’s soothing voice recalled Elizabeth to her present situation. “I would do anything to relieve you of your current distress. Anything in the world—you need only speak the words.”
“Sir, you are very kind, but in light of our circumstances I do not feel I have a right to prevail upon your generosity. What can my family’s dire predicament have to do with you?”
