An End to Estrangement - A Pride and Prejudice Variation

Part 20

"What a day for visitors this is!" Mrs Bennet declared as the door opened to admit Mr Bingley, Miss Bingley and Mr Darcy.

"Oh! Have you company already?" Mr Bingley beamed around the room, his eyes settling good-naturedly on the stranger. When nobody spoke for a moment, the responsibility for making introductions fell to Mr Bennet.

"My cousin, Mr Collins." He turned to their guest. "William, these are our neighbours, newly arrived at Netherfield Park. Mr Bingley, Miss Bingley and Mr Darcy."

Lizzy had dropped her gaze but not quickly enough that she avoided seeing the way Mr Collins straightened almost imperceptibly at the mention of Mr Darcy.

"Darcy?" he asked, glancing at him for confirmation. "Not the same Mr Darcy who hails from Pemberley in Derbyshire?"

A peculiar look passed between Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley and after a moment of awkward silence, the former cleared his throat and said, gruffly, "That is correct."

"What a wonderful coincidence!" Mr Collins exclaimed, with a laugh. "Then you are acquainted with my patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh?"

Darcy's eyebrows drew into a frown as if these were the very last words he had been expecting Mr Collins to utter. Mr Collins, undaunted, sought to make the matter clearer.

"She is your aunt, I believe?" He repeated the name slowly, enunciating every syllable for the benefit of Mr Darcy who had not seemed to recognise her immediately. "Lady Catherine de Bourgh."

"Oh!" Darcy nodded. "Indeed, yes. My aunt. Then you are curate at..." he trailed off.

"Hunsford." Mr Collins supplied, beaming. "Indeed! What Providence that our paths should cross here, for I am quite sure she was unaware that you would be in Hertfordshire at the very same time I should choose to visit."

The party lapsed into silence once more, until Lizzy, desperate for some occupation, leapt to her feet.

"Perhaps we should order some more tea, Mama..." She had reached the door almost before anyone had time to respond.

"Yes, yes, and we needn't stand on ceremony!" Mrs Bingley exclaimed. "Sit down, all of you...!"

Lizzy lingered as long as she could over the tea things, earning a curious look from the servants unwilling to relinquish their tasks to her and so earn for themselves a reprimand. At last, she could delay no longer and returned to the room, a little amused to see the way Mr Bingley had selected a chair as close as was polite to Jane, and persisted in gazing adoringly at her while she answered a question from Caroline, who was rather less enthused by this situation. Lizzy's heart lifted. She had dared to hope that Mr Bingley's affection for her sister would last longer than the duration of the assembly. Here, perhaps, was proof that it would; that he cared for her and, if the slight pink tinge that coloured Jane's cheeks was any indication, that his feelings were not unrequited.

"Where have you been?" Lydia hissed, making no real attempt to speak quietly.

"Nowhere," Elizabeth said, feeling another pair of eyes on her and fearing her absence had been noticed by more than her nosy youngest sister. She took a step further into the room, awkwardly the only one standing, and spotted an empty seat beside her father. She was scarcely halfway to it when a voice interrupted her, delaying her journey.

"Miss Elizabeth! Here is a seat you may claim!"

The voice belonged to Mr Collins, and whilst Lizzy would prefer to have been next to her father and better able to observe than be observed by the rest of her family, she could not deny her interest in getting to know her cousin a little better. He had been but a few hours under their roof and other than some short description of his life in Hunsford, and a rather effusive allusion to his patroness she knew very little of him as a person. If he is to inherit Longbourn one day, perhaps I ought to know him better.

She smiled, slipping into her seat quickly and bumping elbows with the neighbour on her other side so ferociously that she turned to apologise, the smile freezing on her lips when she recognised him. Mr Darcy was not sitting with his friend, as she had presumed, but was here, leaving her trapped between himself and Mr Collins, with no other option than to speak to them both.

"You are a little acquainted with Mr Darcy, I think," Mr Collins whispered, oblivious to the speed with which Darcy and Elizabeth looked away from one another. "What providence that the two halves of my life should meet so unexpectedly in Hertfordshire! Tell me, Mr Darcy, how do you find my cousin Elizabeth? Before today she was but a name to me, so I am eager to have my impression formed by those who know her better."

Lizzy fixed her eyes on a spot on the floor, fearing that to intervene would be to make matters worse. She could not help nursing a private curiosity to know precisely what Mr Darcy's opinion of her was. She thought she had known it, once, but so many years had passed since those summer days that surely it was greatly altered now.

"I do not believe I am the best qualified to answer such a question," Mr Darcy replied, his chair legs grating against the floor as he moved to stand. "I am but a little acquainted with her myself. I'm sure I could not begin to understand her preferences, and would not incriminate myself with conjecture. Mr Bennet! I see you have been reading Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson. I wonder if I might trouble you for your opinion of it..."

In three long strides, he had crossed the room, effectively terminating the conversation with Mr Collins and dismissing Elizabeth without even a backward glance.

"Well!" Mr Collins chuckled under his breath. "I do apologise, Miss Elizabeth. I seem to have said the wrong thing and made quite the misstep with our friend Mr Darcy."

Lizzy turned back, surprised to hear the ringing honesty in Mr Collins's voice and seeing his features tinged pink with embarrassment. She longed to reassure him that if either of them had been in the wrong, it had been her. Surely it was her presence Darcy sought to remove himself from. Mr Collins merely had the misfortune to pre-empt his escape with a question.

"You need not apologise to me, Mr Collins. Mr Darcy is responsible for his own actions." She smiled, leaning a little closer to him in order to share a joke. "But I fear his escape will backfire on him: that is not Papa's Boswell at all, but mine. I wonder if he will care to hear my thoughts on it, or not?"