Mr. Darcy Goes Overboard (9 page)

The following day, Sir William, confident that his daughter was in good hands and happily married, returned to his own abode. Lizzy now spent her time swimming from the private bay, snorkelling and fishing off the rocks at Little Rosings on the Rocks. Mr Collins spent his time dashing up to Rosings on the Rocks whenever he was summoned, and Lottie spent her time between the two. Another great excitement was in store for Mr Collins. He had been told by Lady Catherine that Mr Darcy was expected at the main house, and sure enough, that afternoon the good ship
Pemberley
could be seen gliding into the harbour, and minutes later, its tender, a fine wooden rowing boat with twelve horsepower engine, came into view, bringing with it two gentlemen. The first to disembark on the private jetty was Colin Fitzwilliam, a cousin of Darcy's--not a handsome man but so well fitted out in a fabulously British Jack Wills blazer and so amiable, that he was clearly a gentleman. Darcy, equally well dressed, was as reserved as ever. As the group gathered on the jetty, he said nothing until, for the sake of civility, he enquired after Lizzy's family.

'Are your family as barmy as ever, madam?' he enquired, all politeness.

'Yes. Quite as barmy,' Lizzy replied, 'apart from Jane, of course. She has been in London. Did you not happen to see her?'

Darcy blanched and nearly lost his footing on the lichen-covered jetty. Moments later, the gentlemen departed for the main house.

After luncheon, Mr Collins received an invitation to join his patroness at the Sandcastle Competition. The invitation was by text:

Collywobbles. The Sandcastle Competition takes place this afternoon at South Sands. My artistic superiority would be missed if I did not take part. Join us. LCdB.

'Oh my! Oh my! The annual Sandcastle Competition. Oh, Lord. What shall I do? You must all think of a subject. We must not disgrace ourselves in front of Lady Catherine. Oh my! Oh my! She is coming! We must hurry!'

Mr Collins raced round, gathering buckets, spades, and his favourite little rake for making marks on the sand, and was stopped in his hunt for any other vital equipment only by the appearance of Lady Catherine herself in the doorway.

'You all know the rules, I presume?' said Lady Catherine and, without waiting for any response, continued, 'We may work in small groups to portray either a traditional sandcastle or a humourous sandcastle. The best wins. You can make sandcastles to a high standard, I presume, Miss Elizabeth Bennet?'

'To a moderate standard.'

'Then you will learn from me. Come along, Darcy!'

With that, she swept away and started the walk to South Sands, her arm linked firmly with Darcy's, whose other arm was struggling to hold all the buckets and spades that Lady Catherine had insisted he carry.

Lizzy found herself in the fortunate position of falling into step with Colin, who made the most amiable of conversation. Their laughter caused not only Lady Catherine to turn round from time to time to enquire what was so funny and that she must be alerted to it, for there was no doubt she would find whatever was so funny funnier than anyone, as she had a very fine sense of humour and found anything funny, very funny indeed, but also caused Darcy to turn round and look at the couple with curiosity.

After trawling up Cliff Road, down to North Sands, and up again, over the pine-clad cliffs, the party made the final descent to South Sands. Through the trees they could already see a hundred or so families and little groups preparing their area on the beach, ready for the start of the competition.

'Hurry!' commanded Lady Catherine, and the little party hurried down onto the beach. On arrival, Darcy managed to identify a good patch of sand not yet claimed.

'I will create a magnificent traditional sandcastle here with Miss de Brrr,' announced Lady Catherine. 'You, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, will enter the humourous category, since you find life so amusing. You may dig there.'

With her pink spade, she pointed to a shingly patch.

'The rest of you may join whichever group you prefer, although I dare say you will learn somewhat more from watching my sandcastle skills.'

Mr Collins advised Lottie that they would be best to take advantage of Lady Catherine's condescending offer and went to join her. To Lizzy's delight, Colin came to join her, and to her surprise--and Lady Catherine's irritation--so did Darcy.

'Mr Darcy! I am surprised,' Lizzy owned honestly. 'I did not think humour was something you would seek out.'

'Rarely, it is true. But I can enjoy a joke from time to time. Did you hear the one about the...?'

At that moment, the hooter went for the competition to start. All around, groups fell into immediate action, like lots of rabbits, scooping out, burrowing down, sending sand flying, building sand up, hunting for pebbles and seaweed for decoration.

To Mr Collins's surprise, Lady Catherine produced a deck chair from nowhere, sat down, told him to take off his shoes, roll up his trousers, and get to work. With the help of Lottie, he was soon digging a deep hole and piling up the sand in an effort to create a great mound, which was required before any skilful artistry could be employed.

Lizzy's team were, it has to be said, caught out by the hooter.

'Let us start to dig, at least, while we try to think of an idea,' suggested Colin.

Darcy grabbed a small red spade and set to with a vengeance. The sun was up, and his vigorous activity meant he soon felt the heat. He had some time ago removed socks and shoes, and now removed his shirt, revealing a muscular torso and leaving him only in his shorts. Still he worked on.

Lizzy had let her hair loose and had stripped down to her bikini top, although, for modesty's sake, had kept her shorts on. She looked, in Darcy's opinion, just like a mermaid--and he made the error of murmuring his thoughts aloud.

'A mermaid?' repeated Colin loudly. 'A mermaid is a good idea, Darcy,' he continued, mistaking Darcy's train of thought, 'but hardly humorous.'

'Unless,' Lizzy chipped in with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, 'unless the mermaid were a man! You enjoy a joke, Mr Darcy. You said so yourself but a minute ago. Why don't you lie down, and we can cover you to the waist in all this sand and shape it into a tail, then make a bikini top for you out of shells, and you would look divine with long seaweed hair.'

'I don't think--'

'Stop protesting, Darcy! Lizzy's idea is a splendid one. Come on! Lie down!' insisted Colin, delighted.

Before he knew it, Darcy was lying down on the sand and, despite his initial misgivings, began to enjoy unexpected benefits.

'I fear my fingers do not move in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do,' said Elizabeth as she piled up and patted sand over Darcy's taut lower stomach and down his firm thighs towards his toes in an attempt to make a mermaid tail. 'They have not the same force or rapidity and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault--because I would not take the trouble of practising.'

Darcy, who was finding the experience alarmingly satisfying, smiled and said, 'You are perfectly right. You have employed your time much better. Although,' he added, 'I feel you have a natural ability and sensitivity in such matters, which may belie your lack of experience.'

They were interrupted by Lady Catherine calling out to see what they were talking of. Lizzy immediately got to work collecting shells for the mermaid's top to avoid further conversation, while Colin busied himself searching for long trails of seaweed to make lovely waves of floating hair. The shells and seaweed found, Darcy lay in perfect contentment as Colin spent time at the tail end, making fishlike indentations, and Lizzy busied herself arranging the shells on his chest and the seaweed around his face until he looked as delightful as he felt.

During this time, Lady Catherine had been giving artistic direction to Mr Collins and Lottie as they endeavoured to build a sandcastle in the shape of Rosings, which Lady Catherine knew would win the hearts of the judges. It was a challenging task, as Rosings lacked the turrets which generally so clearly identify a traditional sandcastle. Miss de Brrr was forced to sit through it all, looking white and pale under the shade of an umbrella, feeling too ill to contribute, which had she been able to--as Lady Catherine later commented--would have been a great help, as Miss de Brrr would probably be one of the finest traditional sandcastle makers in the country if she had ever had the chance to learn. As it was, when the final hooter went, Mr Collins's efforts looked merely like a pile of sand rather than a castle, and the judges passed their effort without awarding any prizes. Lady Catherine was frozen in fury. It took her five minutes to recover her good humour, whereupon she enquired, 'Where is Darcy?'

Her good humour was to disappear again for several hours on finding Darcy.

'Over here!' came the voice of her nephew, and there to her horror she saw him. Darcy was lying on the sand, a beautiful mermaid's tail covering him from the waist down, his fine chest adorned in a skimpy shell top, and long, flowing seaweed hair surrounding his handsome face. Worse still, he was smiling and looking quite content. Even worse, he was gazing adoringly at Miss Elizabeth Bennet. And to cap it all, gently placed above his ear in a most becoming manner was a red rosette. First Prize. It was all too much. Lady Catherine stormed off, leaving Mr Collins to carry her buckets, spades, deck chairs, umbrellas, and Miss de Brrr, who would have walked herself so beautifully if she ever had been in the habit of walking for herself.

The following day, Mr Collins, Lottie, and Maria had set off by boat to Kingsbridge to purchase some items, so Lizzy took the chance to pop down to the small ribbon of sand below Little Rosings on the Rocks to read her latest blockbuster and to text Jane. She had just started her novel, which made her blush, even though alone, by the racy contents of its opening chapter, when she was startled to see a figure jump down the rocks onto the beach, making no use of the steps, and was more startled to see that that figure was Mr Darcy. He seemed, too, astonished at finding her alone and, although he apologised for disturbing her, did not leave. Instead, he spread out his multicoloured beach towel beside her and sat down, staring at the sea.

Lizzy was perplexed. She tried to continue to read but found it impossible with him sitting so close, and besides, the contents of her book were making her uncomfortable. She must speak.

'How suddenly you left Salcombe earlier, Mr Darcy! I trust Bingley is enjoying himself still in London?'

'Yes.'

'And does he have any plans to return to Netherpollock?'

'It is unlikely.'

At that moment, the Kingsbridge party returned, and Lottie and Maria made their way to the beach. They were much surprised to see Lizzy and Darcy there alone, and Darcy made haste to leave.

'Lizzy! What is the meaning of this?' cried Charlotte as soon as he was gone.

'He loves ya! He loves ya!' chanted Maria, who stopped only when Lizzy, laughing and denying any such thing, picked up the screaming Maria and dumped her in the sea.

It seemed strange to Lizzy that in her ramblings over the next few days Darcy always seemed to pop up by some remarkable coincidence: while she was drinking Pinot Grigio with Lottie in the secret garden of the Victoria Inn, Darcy was sitting at the next table, nursing a Bells; as she walked over to Bolt Head, he appeared in a gorse bush; on a cliff-side walk to the Pigs Nose Inn at East Prawle, Lizzy was followed not only by Parsnip, the inn's friendly little dog, but also by Darcy; as she watched the boats sail by from the sun-kissed terrace of the Dick and Wills waterside bar and brasserie, he could be spotted, also out on the terrace, hidden behind Yachting World; during her fishing trip off the coast of Hope Cove, he happened to swim by. Even whilst Lizzy scrambled over the rocks at Mill Bay, Darcy seemed busy with his net in the very next rock pool.

On one occasion, however, it was Colin that Lizzy happened upon when skimming out at The Bar, the stretch of sand at the mouth of the estuary, only exposed at low tide, at which time it becomes a great favourite with those who like to skim along the wet surface on their surfboards. Lizzy, looking most athletic in her wetsuit, happened to pass Colin as he whizzed in the opposite direction. They stopped for a chat, which soon turned to the topic of Mr Darcy and his sister Georgiana. Lizzy did not wish the opportunity to pass without gleaning a little more information on behalf of Jane.

'I have heard only good things of Georgiana. She is a favourite of Caroline Bingley, I understand.'

'Yes. Her brother is good mates with Darcy.'

'Oh yes! Darcy is good mates with Bingley and takes great care of him.'

'You are right there. I do believe Darcy does take care of Bingley. Why, I have heard that Darcy managed to save Bingley from a most disastrous marriage! Apparently he nearly married into a ghastly family. The girl had the most hideous mother and outrageous sisters. Near escape, so they say. Cheers.' And with that, Colin skimmed away, unwittingly leaving Lizzy in a state of great anxiety, her heart bursting in fury against the detestable Darcy.

Moments later, another figure in black skimmed towards her. To her horror, it was the detestable Darcy himself. He skidded to a halt before her, his taut, muscular body trapped within a black, rubbery wetsuit, and with a strange, manic look in his eye, stared at her for a full two minutes before speaking, whereupon he blurted out,

'It's no good, Lizzy. I love you deeply and desperately.'

Now it was Lizzy's turn to stare back with a strange, manic look in
her
eye. He went on.

'I realise your family is odious, your mother quite hideous, and your sisters outrageous, but for some nonsensical reason, I can't help loving you deeply and desperately. What do you have to say?'

Lizzy's astonishment was beyond expression. Despite her dislike of Darcy, she could not help to be a little flattered by such attentions. But then her anger rose.

He had made it quite clear that he liked her against his better judgement. Was this a compliment or an insult, she challenged.

'But even if my feelings had been favourable to you,' she continued, growing in fury, 'do you think I could be tempted by the man who has ruined the happiness of a beloved sister, perhaps forever? And what is more, you have reduced another, Mr Wickham, to comparative poverty, withheld advantages designed for him, and deprived him of independence which was his due.'

Darcy grew pale.

'And this is your opinion of me?'

'I have no qualms in expressing my opinion. You have saved me the concern I might have felt in refusing you, if you had behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.'

Lizzy saw Darcy start at this and, feeling there was little more to be said, took the only course available to her and slapped him across the face. The force of her action caught Darcy off guard and he fell backwards into the water. Lizzy, not knowing what to do next, skimmed away as fast as she possibly could.