As Good as a Lord, page 1
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“My dearest child,” she cried, “I can think of nothing else! Ten thousand a year, and very likely more! ‘Tis as good as a Lord! And a special license. You must and shall be married by a special license.”
Jane Austen
Chapter 1 ~ Secrets
Fitzwilliam Darcy rubbed both hands over his face. Will I learn to love again? Is there another woman for me, one who is better suited than Miss Elizabeth Bennet is? Can I open my heart to her and if not my entire heart then enough to marry her and carry her off to Pemberley to share with me the rest of my days?
A proud man accustomed to having his way, Darcy sat opposite his cousin, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, as the stately carriage pulled away from the changing station in Bromley. After putting off his plans to return to London several times, the events of the prior day had rendered further delay pointless.
How could I have been so mistaken about her feelings for me? I went to her and offered my hand in marriage with every expectation of a favorable reply, only to have my offer spurned with undue malice and unmitigated contempt.
Learning the heart of her animosity towards him was rooted in falsehoods leveled against him by the likes of George Wickham—a childhood friend whom he now abhorred—and knowing she held that scandal in such high esteem was cause for him to realize he never really knew her at all. He brushed a hand across his face once again, wishing to rid himself of the unpleasant memory.
He likened his fate to having dodged a bullet, but that did not make it any less painful. The truth was, despite his objectionable, ill-worded, and poorly conceived proposal, he cared deeply for Elizabeth. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
The colonel, who had been observing his cousin in silent wonderment, said, “Come now, old fellow. Surely you are not lamenting the unpleasant scene with our aunt this morning. Soon enough she will accustom herself to the truth and learn to accept it.”
“I should have told Lady Catherine years ago that I had no intention of honoring her favorite wish that Anne and I would marry.” Not that she would have listened. His aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh had an uncanny knack for hearing only that which conformed to her own view of things. “However,” Darcy continued, “if I am to be honest I would have to say that my present attitude has nothing at all to do with our aunt’s wounded expectations.”
The colonel sat up straight, his interest piqued. “Pray would it have anything to do with the lovely Miss Elizabeth Bennet?”
His cousin knew him very well. They were, after all, the closest of friends. However, Darcy had gone out of his way not to give a hint of his preference for Miss Elizabeth to anyone—not until he had entirely made up his mind to offer his hand to her. Apparently, I hid my feelings a little too well as far as Miss Elizabeth is concerned and not well enough so far as my cousin is. Perhaps Richard knows nothing and is merely baiting me, as he is wont to do.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet?” Darcy said, his eyes questioning. “Why would you suggest my mood has anything to do with her?”
“Don’t think I did not notice your hasty departure from Rosings last night when you realized she would not be joining our party. I could only assume you went to see her.” The colonel arched his brow. “Or am I mistaken?”
“I would rather not say where I went or what I did last evening.”
“As that is not a denial of my assertion, I shall then assume I am correct in thinking you went to see the lady.”
“What you do or do not think is none of my concern, just as where I went and what I did is none of yours.”
“You are rather testy, Cousin. Well, you shall keep your secrets.”
“Thank you for respecting my privacy.”
“You will not mind if I ask of your plans when we arrive in town, I pray? It is the height of the Season, after all, and with that comes a fresh wave of young debutantes in want of husbands. Are you prepared for the onslaught, or do you mean to eschew those gaieties at which you might find yourself on display?”
“On the contrary. I intend to throw myself into the London scene upon my return—to smile at every simpering debutante and dance with them to their hearts’ content.”
Surely one of the young women will attract my fancy now that I am resolved to fill the empty space in my life that can only be occupied by a wife.
A feeling of resignation mixed with regret washed over him. I begin to consider that the greatest part of me will always love Elizabeth. However, she does not love me, and thus I must start anew. It is time I choose a wife.
Thus resolved, Darcy closed his eyes as if wishing to block out the world, but his innermost concerns would not be repressed. I may not love her at first. I dare say it will be impossible as my heart belongs to another. However, if I choose prudently, as I indeed intend to, then surely love will follow.
Some weeks later, Hertfordshire
Each night that passed found Elizabeth more restless than the one before. Troubling thoughts of what had unfolded in Kent haunted her days and invaded her dreams at night. Making matters worse, she and her dearest sister, Jane, had been reunited for weeks. Still, she had not breathed a word to her about what actually happened in Kent. Would Jane even believe her? Elizabeth could hardly believe it herself.
Mr. Darcy offered his hand in marriage—to me!
Besides the obvious reason of no one believing her, Elizabeth had kept her silence on the matter for other, more compelling, reasons as well. For one, her mother, Mrs. Francis Bennet, would be livid if she were to learn that Elizabeth, the second eldest of five daughters whose marital prospects were wanting, had spurned yet another marriage proposal. Mrs. Bennet’s ensuing vexation would throw the entire household into utter turmoil for weeks, if not months.
Mrs. Bennet’s scathing protests when Elizabeth rejected her cousin, Mr. William Collins, last autumn would be nothing compared to how she would bear the news that her daughter had refused the hand of a gentleman with ten thousand pounds a year.
Elizabeth’s second reason really had to do with protecting her sister Jane from being hurt. If she were to tell Jane that one of the principal reasons she refused Mr. Darcy’s hand was because of the part he had played in separating her from Mr. Bingley, it would only give rise to hurt feelings, the likes of which Jane had spent the past weeks endeavoring to overcome.
She would never forget how heartbroken Jane was when Charles Bingley left Netherfield, a neighboring estate. Jane had gone to London shortly after that with the hope of seeing the young man, but his sisters and Mr. Darcy himself had thwarted her efforts.
“I have no wish to deny that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success.”
Such was Mr. Darcy’s adamant avowal when Elizabeth confronted him with the truth she had gleaned from an earlier conversation with Colonel Fitzwilliam, Mr. Darcy’s cousin. The colonel’s account alone had been enough to bolster Elizabeth’s dislike of the proud Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. Nothing he had said since arriving at the parsonage that fateful evening served to sway her in that regard. His confession of admiring her most ardently gave her pause, yet his admission of liking her against his will put an end to that.
“Towards him I have been kinder than towards myself.”
Those nine words might undoubtedly have cemented her heart against him were it not for the letter he’d handed her that next day. Despite the impropriety in such a gesture, he had sought to address the two harshest accusations she had leveled against him in refusing his hand. The weightier of her accusations against him regarded his supposed misdeeds towards a Lieutenant George Wickham and the other appertained to his part in separating her sister Jane and his friend Charles Bingley. By the former, he painted a more telling portrait of the man whom she’d once believed to be everything that was good. In truth, Wickham was everything but good. He had persuaded her and anyone else who would listen that he was a victim of Mr. Darcy’s cold, cruel nature when it was Wickham himself who was no more than a lying, mean hearted opportunist and one who blamed others for his misfortunes.
By the other, Mr. Darcy had persuaded her that his intentions had been pure. He had acted in service to a friend whom he had no wish to witness surrender himself to a disadvantageous alliance. He said he had seen no evidence that Jane’s heart had been touched by his friend. How could Elizabeth fault him in that?
Jane rarely shows her true feelings to anyone. Anyone who does not indeed know her as I do must certainly share a similar opinion to Mr. Darcy’s.
Elizabeth was nearly one and twenty and Jane older than that. Then there were the three younger sisters: Mary, Kitty, and Lydia. Five daughters who were not eight years apart. Five daughters who were all out. Things could not go on that way, especially not for the two eldest—living a carefree existence in their father’s home. The estate was entailed to the male line of the family. A distant cousin, Mr. Collins, whose hand Elizabeth had spurned last autumn, stood to inherit everything. He might very well turn all of them out as soon as Mr. Bennet passed, and then where would they be?
Elizabeth was a sensible woman. She knew she must marry. It would be reckless of her to assume otherwise. Having rejected two gentlemen’s proposals in less than six months, she might well be obliged to accept the next offer of marriage.
Is a third proposal even a possibility? How likely am I to meet another gentleman whose acquaintance I have not made and whose presence I can tolerate? Another part of her whispered, “How likely is this supposed gentleman to be comparable to Mr. Darcy?”
This notion that she was somehow second-guessing her actions in Kent did not sit well with Elizabeth. She bolted up in bed, pounded her pillow once or twice, and then settled back down.
“Lizzy,” her sister Jane said, “I rather supposed you were asleep.”
“No—I am not.”
“Pray you do not mind my saying so, but I can’t help noticing that you’ve been particularly distracted since your return from Kent.”
“It is nothing to concern yourself with, I assure you, dearest Jane. Pray go back to sleep.”
Unwilling to be dissuaded as easily as that, Jane sat up in defiance. “Not until you tell me what is the matter. What is it that has you so distracted of late? Pray you are not still fretting over Papa’s decision to allow Lydia to go to Brighton with the Forsters. I am just as concerned as you are that Lydia’s wild spirits might be hard to contain, but we must trust the colonel will not allow her to meet with any harm.”
“It is not so much that I do not trust the colonel, but more his officers. The colonel has more important things to attend than a girl who is not yet sixteen. You and I both know how overjoyed Lydia was in describing to us how Mr. Wickham was safe from Miss King upon our return from town.”
“You’re worried about what Mr. Darcy said about the gentleman’s character, are you not?”
“With good reason,” Elizabeth said with energy.
She recalled her not having told Jane the entire story about Wickham’s past, but she had told her enough for Jane to question why Mr. Darcy would have told her anything. Why would someone of Mr. Darcy’s temperament divulge such intimate details of his personal life to someone so wholly unconnected with him, Jane had asked.
“Is there more … something more that you are not telling me about your time in Kent?”
While Elizabeth always supposed that her sister Jane rarely shared her true feelings with anyone, in truth, Elizabeth was hiding her feelings. Already she was gradually questioning herself, re-examining her sentiments, and showing some regret over having rejected Mr. Darcy’s proposal.
She supposed it was possible to confide in Jane some portion of what had happened and why she had acted as she did without mentioning others. There was the matter of the gentleman’s ill-treatment of Lieutenant George Wickham, which despite Elizabeth knowing better now, at the time, had been a strong inducement in her staunch refusal of Mr. Darcy’s hand.
Elizabeth sat up in bed. “Jane, you will not believe what happened to me while I was in Kent.”
“Does this have anything to do with Mr. Darcy?”
Puzzled, Elizabeth asked, “Why would you think that?”
“From my knowing he was there also. It is no secret that the two of you do not always get along, despite his having confided in you regarding Mr. Wickham’s true character.”
“Oh, dearest Jane, that is precisely the reason I find all this so troubling.”
“What happened? Did the two of you get into some sort of altercation?”
“In a manner of speaking that is exactly what occurred. That is to say, immediately after he offered me his hand in marriage.”
Jane gasped. “Are you—are you secretly engaged?”
“I most certainly am not!” Elizabeth stiffened. She thought she heard a thump from the other side of the door. “Did you hear that?”
Jane could not say that she did.
Elizabeth shrugged. “I suppose it is merely my imagination. Who would be afoot at this hour?” Having reasoned away the sound to her satisfaction, she resumed telling Jane all those things she could about the proposal.
“Why did you not tell me any of this before?”
“You cannot know how much I wanted to tell you, but I did not want to put you in the uncomfortable position of keeping secrets from Mama. Oh, Jane, you and I know only too well how impossible my life would be were our mother to learn that I spurned such an advantageous alliance.”
~*~
The moon was high in the midnight sky, and the lady of the house was quite restless. This must certainly account for Mrs. Bennet’s being out of bed at that hour when the house was otherwise still. That and a healthy dose of fate, for what she heard while passing by the slightly ajar door of her eldest daughters’ room might very well be the means of changing the rest of her life. Why, she was certain it would. She only needed to devise the means of using this newly discovered information to her best advantage. The first half hour after her startling discovery she spent pacing the floor.
“What a sly creature Lizzy is,” she cried to herself for she was the only one in the room. “Everyone in Meryton is aware that Mr. Darcy was in Kent at Easter. Sir William saw to that bit of information—he and his daughter Maria Lucas. Lizzy said nothing of his being there. Of course, no one expected her to. Everyone knows how much she has always hated the man. Nevertheless, is that any excuse to refuse such a man as Mr. Darcy? Oh, what on Earth was she thinking?”
Mrs. Bennet drifted to the window and stared out into the darkness. Fretting while watching the moon slip behind the clouds, she said, “Obstinate, headstrong girl! She has been the means of frustrating my hopes not once but twice. Who does she think she is always rejecting proposals of marriage from decent, respectable men?”
The aggrieved matriarch was half-tempted to march into her husband’s room, awaken him from his sleep, and consult him on the matter. Indeed, she made it to the door before the memory of what had happened last autumn halted her footsteps. Alas, recollections of the nasty business with Mr. Collins flooded her mind.
“I will not marry the odious man! You cannot force me to, either!”
Mrs. Bennet winched. It was months ago and yet her daughter’s defiance distressed her still and gave her cause to wonder what she had done to deserve such a disloyal child. She had thought that surely her husband would be an ally in forcing Elizabeth to be reasonable, even though he always considered their second born his favorite. His flippant reply had been the means of placating the latter and wounding the former.
“An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day, you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.”
Mrs. Bennet, who had persuaded herself that her husband regarded the affair as she wished, was excessively disappointed. Her own husband had been a party to ruining her fondest wish that the next mistress of Longbourn would be one of her daughters owing to that ridiculous entail on the estate to the male line.
“I shall have no help at all in getting Mr. Bennet to force Lizzy to marry where she will not this time either.”
Such a marriage would be the means of saving us all, she silently lamented. “Why, even I would not have been so foolish as to refuse such a man as Mr. Darcy, even if he is haughty and above his company. The man has ten thousand pounds a year. How rich and how great she might have been! What pin money, what jewels, what carriages she might have had!
“If only I’d had the slightest hint of Mr. Darcy’s regard for Lizzy, I might have better spent my time encouraging a match in that quarter. Instead, I wasted my time on his inconstant friend, Mr. Bingley, and my Jane. Mr. Bingley is nothing to Mr. Darcy—nothing at all.
“Lizzy might have had a house in town! Everything that is charming! Ten thousand a year, and very likely more! ‘Tis as good as a Lord!”
A fierce motherly impulse infused Mrs. Bennet’s resolve. “I cannot stand idly by and allow such an opportunity as this to escape. Mr. Darcy proposed to my Lizzy once. Surely he can be worked on and thereby persuaded to do so again. I shall take matters into my own hands to see that he does.”
