Darcy's Voyage: A Tale of Uncharted Love on the Open Seas (32 page)

Darcy then redirected the conversation back to the theft. “Whoever broke in stole some items of minimal value. Nothing that cannot be replaced. But there was something in the room that I had not thought to look for. I am not sure if he found it, but if he did, I cannot even grasp what he is doing with it.”

“What is it?” asked Georgiana.

“Elizabeth’s and my wedding certificate.”

***

At Longbourn the following day, two events of great import took place.

The first occurred when Bingley came for a visit for the third day in a row. Elizabeth readily noticed the nervousness with which Jane greeted him this day and wondered if she was anticipating that this would be day he might make her an offer.

As they sat and visited in the sitting room, nervous expectation seemed to quell everyone’s ability to converse in a rational manner except for Mrs. Bennet, who seemed to be propelled into mindless chatter by the quiet that overtook the others.

Elizabeth finally suggested that they venture out for a walk, and then tarried to give Jane and Bingley some privacy.

They were soon out of her sight, and Elizabeth paused just a little longer. She thought Mr. Bingley better be making good use of this time alone or she might do something impulsive to propel him along.

She began walking again, and at length, she caught up with the couple. Jane greeted Elizabeth with such an abundance of joy that Elizabeth could only assume he had asked for her hand and she had accepted. She hugged her sister warmly.

“Oh, I am so happy, Lizzy! Charles and I are to be married!”

Elizabeth pulled away from Jane and looked at Bingley. “I am so happy for you both!”

“Thank you, Miss Elizabeth. I believe we are quite happy as well.”

As they walked back toward the house, they talked of their wedding. Jane had such a look of contentment on her face that Elizabeth was quite confident they would be happy all their lives. She was also grateful that this announcement would finally draw her mother’s negative attention from herself and transfer it to Jane in a most positive way.

As was to be expected, Mrs. Bennet wailed with glee. The sisters were all in support of this, and Mr. Bennet, although not visibly exhibiting much emotion, met the occasion with great pleasure, knowing that his family should now be well taken care of.

While one marital announcement was taking place, another offer was being made. Mr. Collins made an offer to Charlotte, who readily accepted. When it was announced to the Bennets, Mrs. Bennet reminded Elizabeth that this announcement might have been hers and that now the Lucases must be already viewing Longbourn as belonging to them. However, her distress was diffused greatly in light of the joy and elation she experienced in Jane’s engagement.

The Bennet daughters were all completely in shock at Charlotte’s acceptance, particularly Elizabeth, who felt that her friend was making a very foolish mistake. And with a sarcastic chuckle, Mr. Bennet was convinced that Mr. Lucas would, without a doubt, proudly boast of his fine new son-in-law.

***

After the excitement of the previous day, Elizabeth found herself alone late in the morning. Everyone had errands to run or visits to pay. Mr. Collins was making final arrangements with the Lucases before he left for Hunsford. Jane was paying a visit to Bingley and his sisters at Netherfield to talk of their wedding plans. Her parents, along with Mary and Kitty, had set out to Meryton on errands and to visit the Phillipses, and Lydia had been invited to spend the day with Colonel Forster’s wife. She was grateful for the solitude, as a letter from her aunt arrived after everyone had left.

She eagerly retreated to her room, closing the door behind her, and carefully opened the sealed missive. Flinging herself onto her bed, she began reading.

My Dear Niece,

I know you have been expecting this letter, and I hope it finds you well. I must say that I began writing three other times and resorted to tearing up each letter, as I was not satisfied with any. So I shall devote this whole morning to formulating a letter that, hopefully, expresses your uncle’s and my sentiments. You know that Edmund and I hold you in the highest esteem and I treasure our familial relationship as well as our close friendship.

You might suspect, dearest Elizabeth, that Mr. Darcy’s appearance at our doorstep when he was in London was quite unexpected and astounding. But what he went on to tell us, dear one, could not have taken us more by surprise. That you and he are married! Oh, how confused we were to hear that!

As he went on to explain how this came to be, I thought back to our visit to Derbyshire and Pemberley, and suddenly, I understood your extreme nervousness in viewing Pemberley and wishing to visit only with the certainty that Mr. Darcy, who we thought had merely been a fellow passenger on the ship, was not at home. I thought back to the little sampler he had on his mantel, remembering the verse that you so often quote. Did you, indeed, do the stitchery yourself? And then there was, of course, your melancholy countenance upon arriving in America.

Oh, Elizabeth, suddenly everything made sense and how I wished that you had felt secure enough in our love to tell us! But do not be mistaken, I do understand. Mr. Darcy acquainted us with all the circumstances surrounding your decision to marry, how it was to be annulled, and how, upon your meeting back in Hertfordshire, you both very strongly desired to keep your marriage intact.

Elizabeth, may I say that Mr. Darcy loves you a great deal? I know that this secret marriage will be difficult for your father to understand. His love for you is most protective, and we have advised Mr. Darcy to take some time getting to know him before he tells him of your marriage.

I know this means that the two of you will have to continue in secrecy, but we think it will be best. We do hope that when you do inform your family and friends (and we are quite sure your mother will be thrilled and can only hope that she learns to appreciate the man and not just his wealth) that everyone will understand.

Edmund and I will make every effort to come to Longbourn should you feel the need for some additional support! I would take this opportunity to say how much we like and approve of him. His behaviour was, in every respect, very pleasing and honourable. Edmund and I can certainly put in some very good words for Mr. Darcy to your father, if need be.

Have peace, Elizabeth, in all this.

Yours, very sincerely,

Madlyn Gardiner

Elizabeth, may I discreetly tell you how greatly I look forward to visiting Pemberley again when you are settled in as its Mistress?

Elizabeth read and reread the letter several times and was stirred from her reverie as she heard the sound of a carriage come up the drive to the front of the house. She pulled herself up out of her bed and walked over to the window and gasped at the sight of the opulent carriage that stopped. She watched as an older woman was helped out of the carriage and brought to the door. She had never seen the woman before in her life.

Assuming it was someone paying a visit to her mother, Elizabeth stayed in her room. She was quite surprised, then, when there was a knock on her door and Hill walked in nervously.

“There is a Lady Catherine de Bourgh here to see you, miss.”

Lady Catherine de Bourgh? To see me?”

“Yes, miss.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows in surprise. She imagined the only grounds for her visit would be due to her somehow hearing of Mr. Collins’s proposal… or Elizabeth’s refusal of it. Her chest tightened as she considered that any misapprehension would surely make it more difficult to receive Lady Catherine’s approbation when Darcy later informed her of their marriage.

Elizabeth looked in the mirror and straightened her dress, tucking a few wayward strands of hair back in place before walking downstairs. She desired to be presentable in appearance as well as in manners to her husband’s esteemed aunt.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she observed a very well-dressed lady, standing erect and bearing a most decidedly stern look across her face. Her clothes, which were quite opulent in design and fabric, reinforced her decidedly haughty expression. Elizabeth walked up and waited for the woman to address her.

Instead, the woman eyed her up and down, with a most dissatisfied look upon her face.

Elizabeth took it upon herself to introduce herself. “Good morning, Lady Catherine. I am Miss Elizabeth Bennet…”

“I am well aware who you are.” The sarcastic tone in Lady Catherine’s voice was unmistakable. “I noticed a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I request your presence in joining me there.”

“Yes, come this way, please,” offered Elizabeth, already discomfited by this lady’s insolent manners.

Before they had even entered the copse to which Elizabeth brought her, Lady Catherine turned and began to release a diatribe against her.

“You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I have come.”

Elizabeth looked at her with complete astonishment at her brash greeting, but steeled herself to remain calm and polite. “Indeed, madam. I am not at all able to account for the honour of your visit. I have heard much about you from…”

“Miss Bennet,” she replied in an angry tone, “a report of a most alarming and grievous nature reached me two days ago.” Lady Catherine’s face became quite red with anger as she narrowed her eyes upon Elizabeth.

“Lady Catherine, I believe there is no need for you to be upset. You see, although I did turn down…”

“I will not be interrupted!” She pounded her cane into the ground. “Have you no respect for your elders?”

Elizabeth’s ire began to rise as she struggled to maintain a measure of composure, believing this woman had no right to treat her thusly for refusing her clergyman’s proposal. She took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself. “I do, madam, when I am, in turn, treated with respect.”

“You expect
me
to treat
you
with respect?”

“I would certainly ask for and expect nothing less.”

“How dare you, when I have been told that you, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, have covertly formed an alliance with my nephew, Fitzwilliam Darcy; that you have, much to my shock and dismay, secretly married him!”

She stopped and watched the expression on Elizabeth’s face betray the truth. Elizabeth paled and felt as though the world was spinning around her.

She continued, “I had every hope that it was a scandalous falsehood when I was informed of this grave situation. I instantly resolved on ascertaining for myself its fabrication.”

“If you believe it to be a falsehood,” said Elizabeth, colouring with astonishment and rising disdain, “I am sorry you took the time to come so far to verify it. I will say nothing to your allegation.”

“Impertinent girl! As much as I wished it to be untrue, what I was given proves otherwise!” Lady Catherine pulled out a piece of paper and waved it in front of her. When Elizabeth was able to look at it more closely, she could see that it was a marriage certificate.
Their
marriage certificate!

“How did you come by that?” she asked, her voice cracking and her whole body beginning to tense up.

“It is not important who placed it in my hands. I need only say that a concerned, longtime friend of the family came upon it and knew that it would be in my family’s best interest to be aware of the infamous scheme in which you have placed my nephew.”

Elizabeth was rendered mute by the sight of the marriage certificate in Lady Catherine’s possession and the accusation against her.

Lady Catherine continued. “I demand to know how you have drawn him in!”

“If I had been the one to draw him in, I would be the last one to confess it.”

“Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.”

“Then to him you must apply!”

Lady Catherine hesitated for a moment, and then replied, “Unfortunately, he has left for Pemberley.”

Her voice became more deliberate and harsh. “Let me be rightly understood. This match to which you had the presumption to aspire is impossible! I want you to assure me that this is a falsehood! That this certificate is some sort of fabrication!”

Elizabeth looked at her, anger and confusion hindering her ability to comprehend all she was hearing. “I am sorry you took the trouble to come here and accuse me, your ladyship. It is not a falsehood. I did marry your nephew. I humbly suggest and fervently hope that you will accept it.”

Lady Catherine glared at Elizabeth, pointing to the certificate. “Accept it? You ask me to accept a marriage between my nephew and someone like you? Never! And who is this Captain Wendell?” she asked as he pointed to the certificate.

“He was the captain of the ship on which we were sailing, madam. He performed the marriage.”

The angry woman lifted one eyebrow in disdain and pounded her cane into the ground again for emphasis. “This is not to be borne! You stand there and tell me that my nephew has not only entered into a marital relationship with someone so decidedly beneath his notice, with little or no connections, but he did not even have the decency to marry in a church? Heaven forbid! What have you done to him? Have you no scruples, girl? How is it that you came to be married to him?”

Elizabeth fought the strongest impulse to retort back harshly to the woman, remembering she was now family. She closed her eyes, vainly wishing her husband was here.

“Answer my question! How is it that you came to be married to him on this ship?”

Elizabeth paled and calmed herself before she answered. “He made an offer and I accepted it. It is as simple as that.”

Lady Catherine’s eyes darkened. “I understand it was a marriage of a peculiar nature.”

Elizabeth started. “I am sorry, I do not know to what you are referring.”

“Do you not?” Taking in a deep breath, she began, “I understand that you were married with the intention that it would later be annulled.”

Elizabeth felt a tremor course through her. “Where did you hear that?”

“That does not matter. What matters is that I insist on knowing whether it is true!”

Elizabeth could not look upon her, wondering how she came to have this information.

“With all due respect, Lady Catherine, this is not something I wish to discuss.”

Lady Catherine persisted, ignoring her response. “On what basis was it to be annulled?”

Elizabeth straightened her shoulders. “Lady Catherine, I have answered all the questions I wish to answer. If you will excuse me!”

“I will have you know,” she countered, as she stepped in Elizabeth’s path, “that my nephew has been promised to my daughter since their birth. It was his mother’s design as well as mine! And now you expect me to simply ignore the fact that you and he were married, that you degraded him? Do you really believe that I can overlook your marriage to him when he marries my Anne, knowing he has been in an annulled marriage? You have no idea what this will do to my daughter! And what about Mr. Collins? Does he know that the woman he plans to marry has had a marriage annulled?”

“Mr. Collins?” Elizabeth could not believe she was bringing him into their conversation and realized that Lady Catherine assumed their marriage would be annulled if it had not already been.

“The disgrace of it all! First I receive a letter from my clergyman informing me that he is planning to ask for your hand in marriage. Naturally I was pleased that he had found someone to marry. Then, to my horror, this is placed in my hand, and I find that not only is the object of his intention already married, but she is married to my nephew!”

“Please, Lady Catherine, you must understand. I never intended to marry Mr. Collins. In fact, I refused his proposal.”

“You refused his proposal? Who do you think you are, you unpolished country girl, to aspire to keep my nephew yoked to you? Heaven and earth—of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted? Insolent girl! Tell me, has my nephew annulled this marriage?” Lady Catherine asked in a commanding voice.

“I would beseech you to apply to Mr. Darcy for that answer!” Elizabeth replied, her voice edged with the turmoil building up inside her.

“Do you know to whom you are talking? I insist on you telling me! Tell me, once and for all, has my nephew annulled the marriage?”

Though Elizabeth would not, for the mere purpose of obliging Lady Catherine, have answered this question, she could not but say, after a moment’s deliberation and refusing to be intimidated by this woman, “No, he has not, nor does he intend to. I love him and he loves me!”

Elizabeth watched as Lady Catherine’s face grew red with rage. “Not annulled! Obstinate, headstrong girl! You cannot even know what marriage to my nephew requires!”

“I beg to differ, madam.”

Suddenly, a gleam appeared in Lady Catherine’s eyes and a cruel smile etched her face. She leaned in closely to Elizabeth. “Ah yes. Now I fully understand.” Her bulging eyes narrowed. “He had planned all along to annul the marriage. For whatever reason, you married with the intent that it would be annulled.” She nodded to herself as she let her mind speculate. “It must have been platonic. He must have determined to keep things chaste so he could easily annul it.”

Elizabeth watched a harshness sweep over the woman’s face as she raised her voice. “But you tricked him! In a moment of weakness, you tricked him into succumbing to your enticing wiles… and now he feels he must honour the marriage.”

“I did not trick him, your ladyship. Your assumption is the furthest thing from the truth!” Elizabeth interjected, greatly affronted by the accusations and assumptions of this woman. She held on to the fabric of her dress with tight fists as she struggled to maintain her composure. “I would never do such a thing, and he was always the perfect gentleman.”

“So you are saying this marriage has never been consummated?”

Elizabeth gasped at her question. First she questioned her very morality and now she demanded to know the most intimate details of their marriage. She grasped her hands together tightly and softly answered, as a blush crept across her face, “I beg your pardon, Lady Catherine, but that is something that I refuse to answer.”

Lady Catherine’s eyes narrowed. “By the looks of you, I will assume it has not!” Suddenly, a rather pleased, sardonic smile came across her lips.

Elizabeth watched her as a great pain began building up inside of her.

Lady Catherine stood erect, straightening her bonnet and looking Elizabeth directly in the eye. “It is most apparent that you have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you must disgrace him in the eyes of his family and society?”

“Lady Catherine, it will not disgrace him in the eyes of anyone who is truly a friend. I have nothing more to add. I have said all that I wish to say to you on the matter.”

“It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to ruin him in the opinion of all his friends and make him the contempt of the world!”

“No principle has been violated by my marriage to Mr. Darcy!”

“And this is your final opinion! This is your final resolve! Very well. I shall now know how to act. You need not worry whether my nephew annuls this marriage. I shall do it for him. I will make certain that it is annulled and that there will never be a trace of it having ever existed!” She raised a finger at Elizabeth. “And do not think… or hope… young lady, that you shall ever have any connection with my nephew again! I have influence and power that you could not even dream existed.”

Lady Catherine turned and stormed off, taking no leave of the distraught Elizabeth. She stood motionless: trying to grasp what had just happened, what she had just been told, and wondering what, if anything, she could do. With a wave of distress and unsteadiness threatening to consume her, she walked over to the bench that was nearby and collapsed onto it.

***

After spending the night in a small town, Darcy and Georgiana awoke early and began the half-day journey that would return them to Netherfield. He was eager to see Elizabeth again and for Georgiana to renew their short acquaintance. He only hoped Wickham had not done anything that could not be undone.

When they arrived, Darcy escorted Georgiana in and they were greeted by one of Netherfield’s servants. “It is good to have you back, Mr. Darcy. But I am sorry to say that you missed seeing your aunt, who stopped by earlier.”

“My aunt?” he exclaimed. “My aunt was here? Which aunt?”

“A Lady Catherine de Bourgh, sir.”

“Heavens! What was she doing here?”

“I am afraid I do not know. She inquired as to your whereabouts, and when we informed her you had left for Pemberley for a few days, she then inquired about Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s household and directions to it.”

Darcy’s heart stood still in shock as he heard these words. Very slowly, he asked, “How long ago was that, please?”

“No more than a few hours ago, sir.”

“Have one of Bingley’s horses, a fresh one, readied for me! I shall be down in a moment!” he said to the servant and then turned to Georgiana.