The Beginning of Hope

Part 25

The Netherfield parlour was buzzing with conversation when Elizabeth and Mr Darcy returned to it and she was grateful for the opportunity to slip in, unseen, and bury herself in a corner, seizing an empty chair between Mary and Mr Collins. Her father's cousin took little enough notice of her arrival, although he visibly cheered to see Mr Darcy, and angled his chair a little closer to their guest, doubtless hopeful to make mention of Lady Catherine de Bourgh once more, with a more interested audience than any of his cousin's had turned out to be. He was routed, though, as Darcy selected a chair at some little distance from the rest of the party and stared out of the window as if imagining an escape.

"Are you quite well, Lizzy?"

Mary asked this question so quietly and with such subtlety of manner that at first Elizabeth felt certain she had imagined it. The question had surely come from the confines of her own mind, and not her sister, who still smiled and nodded and made every appearance of joining in with the rest of the family. It was only when there was a break in conversation that Mary looked back, her eyebrows lifted in expectation of an answer.

"Quite well," Elizabeth said, trying to smile and failing miserably. She shook her head, dissuading any further enquiry, and focused on the rest of her family. She heard not a word of their conversation, though, for her mind continued to turn over Mr Darcy's words. I wrote a letter, explaining all and I waited, as I said I would. It was you who never cared to meet me.

It could not be true, could it? He had not disappeared without a word, as she had thought.

It changes nothing, she reminded herself. He was still engaged. He is engaged.

But this, too, had been cast into doubt by Darcy's words. I am not now, nor have I ever been, engaged to Miss Anne de Bourgh. It was just the kind of thing a scoundrel might be compelled to say, to excuse himself from guilt. But she did not think Mr Darcy was a scoundrel. She could not believe that.

Then it has all been misunderstanding? This was worse, somehow. To think, but for the loss of a letter, they might still have been together.

Lizzy's eyes flew to Darcy, but his gaze was still fixed on the window and the gardens beyond, his expression unreadable.

"It seems to me that Mr Darcy is only too eager to make haste with the journey to London," Mr Collins remarked, his voice tinged with humour and pitched loud enough for Darcy to hear. When his quarry did not immediately respond, Mr Collins tried again.

"I said, Mr Darcy, that you seem already eager to begin your journey." He chuckled. "Your gaze is so fixed upon the road that I do not doubt that, in imagination, at least, you are already halfway to London!"

Mr Darcy looked up then, glancing at Mr Collins for the briefest moment. Elizabeth ventured to think he was not ignorant of her presence, and it was out of concern to avoid looking at her that his gaze bounced away as quickly as it came, resting instead on the altogether safer subject of his friend.

"I am at Mr Bingley's service," he said, mildly. "It is he that directs our steps."

"But you cannot object to going to London, surely!" It was Kitty who addressed this question to him, seeing more of an opportunity to have her voice heard in this quiet grouping than in the one that contained Mr Bingley, Mrs Bennet and Lydia, none of which paused often for breath, or to let one another finish a thought before offering their own.

"I adore London!" Kitty sighed. "I should much rather be there than here."

"I am pleased to know you are so miserable at home, Catherine," Mr Bennet remarked, his eyes twinkling with humour, for he relished teasing his daughters and parading their nonsense back before them.

"Not miserable, Papa," Kitty replied, pulling a face at him. "But London is so exciting! There are so many adventures to be had there! Here..." She shrugged one thin shoulder as if that one gesture dismissed any promise of excitement that might be found within the boundaries of Meryton.

"Just the other day you were saying you could not wait for Mr Egerton's dinner," Mary reminded her. "And before that you spoke of nothing but Lucas Lodge, and before that..."

"Very well, Mary," Kitty said, crossly. "There are plenty of agreeable times spent amongst friends in Hertfordshire, but London would surely be a multiplication of that. There are more people there, you see, and more opportunities for society!"

"Miss Catherine is so spirited a young lady, I do not suppose we can fault her for desiring...what did you call it? Adventure?" Mr Collins smiled indulgently at his cousin, who rolled her eyes, barely concealing her dislike of the man. Ordinarily, Elizabeth might have shared this opinion, for it irritated her how Mr Collins claimed a deep knowledge and kinship of the cousins he had been acquainted with for but a few weeks, but her attention was sharply held by Mr Darcy, still, who had not yet answered Kitty's question. He seemed cognizant of her attention, then, lifting his gaze directly to meet hers.

"I am not indifferent to London's charms, Miss Catherine," he said, at last, his voice quiet and measured in a way that Elizabeth was certain did not come without effort. "And with Mr Egerton there, too, I will not want for society."

Kitty sniffed as if she did not credit the company of staid gentleman truly what she meant when she thought of London society.

Elizabeth glanced at Mary, who had nursed news of this separation stoically. She reached for Mary's hand and squeezed it, a silent, unseen show of encouragement.

Mr Darcy cleared his throat, so quietly and softly that she almost missed, but when she looked up at him she thought she saw the ghost of a smile on his face, as if he had witnessed her seek to comfort her sister and approved of it.

"I believe, Miss Catherine, you have family in London. Perhaps, if you are so eager to be there, you might pay your aunt and uncle a visit." His eyes lifted to Mary and then Elizabeth, fixing on her for the first time since their return to the parlour. "I have no doubt they would be eager to see you again."

"Oh, Papa!" Kitty squealed, vaulting out of her seat and to Mr Bennet's side. "I think that is a marvellous suggestion! Do say we may go and see Aunt and Uncle Gardiner! I am quite sure they would be delighted to have us -"

"We shall write to them, if you so desire," Mr Bennet said, shrugging out of Kitty's crushing embrace, before turning to Mr Darcy as if an idea had just occurred to him.

"I did not realise you were acquainted with my wife's brother, Mr Darcy. What a small world we inhabit -"

"Oh, small indeed!" Mr Collins put in, forsaking the sour look that he had worn at the suggestion of a relocation to London for an anaemic smile. "I have told you, I suppose, of the identity of my great patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who is, I believe, Mr Darcy's aunt..."