If it then seemed in the ensuing weeks that his friend was at times more pensive and reflective than was his habit, Darcy did not allow that to concern him.

There was one short alarm, when Miss Bingley told Darcy that she had had a formal call from Miss Jane Bennet. It appeared that she had travelled to London to stay for some weeks with those same relations in Cheapside of which so much sport had been made in Miss Bingley’s conversation in Hertfordshire.

However, although the call was eventually returned, the news of the visitor from Longbourn being in town was kept from Charles Bingley. Darcy could therefore contemplate with some satisfaction the way that his friend’s temporary affliction of the heart had been dealt with.

* * *

What did surprise Darcy was the obstinate difficulty he himself had in removing from his own mind the image of Miss Elizabeth Bennet during the next few weeks in town.

Darcy in his youth had spent the festive season at Pemberley, and it had been his happiest time of year in the company of his parents. Since their demise, Darcy had avoided Derbyshire until the weather at the end of the winter made the roads more fit to travel, after the January snows.

But he could not recall when he had suffered such an uneasy mind. The more he sought, as the New Year began, to eliminate Miss Elizabeth Bennet from his thoughts and interest, the less he seemed to succeed. Making more effort than usual to encounter other company in town had no countervailing effect. The society of ladies of his own consequence only seemed to provoke memories of lively conversation and pleasant and more informed wit from that other source.

Indeed, his failure to thus control his thoughts made him more abrupt than was in any case his habit. He found himself particularly short of temper in company with Miss Caroline Bingley. Her wit, which he had once found pleasantly astringent and barbed, now seemed particularly affected and tiresome. His sister’s joining him in London for once offered only some assistance in this situation.

However, to keep himself occupied, he took Georgiana to seek some new furniture for her sitting room, and had some pleasure in her delight at the opportunity. By such minor pursuits, Darcy passed the next few weeks. The prospect of any relief from the tedium of the season in town was small, and the most exciting excursion that the future promised was his annual visit for about ten days after Easter with Colonel Fitzwilliam to his aunt, Lady Catherine, in Kent.

This was not something to which Darcy normally looked forward. Fitzwilliam’s company could be had elsewhere with greater pleasure, his cousin Anne had little to recommend her, and Lady Catherine made such forceful discourse, with her own replies, as to make it even less necessary than usual for Darcy to persuade himself to make polite conversation.

The prospect of the tiresome new rector, Mr. Collins, being added to the company from time to time was no additional inducement on its own.

However, a communication from his aunt brought the surprising news that Mr. Collins had returned from his most recent visit to Hertfordshire after the Christmas festival with a bride—none other than Charlotte, the eldest daughter of Sir William Lucas.

Darcy had regarded Miss Lucas as one of the more sensible and serious young ladies he had met while at Nether-field. More significant was that she was a close friend of Miss Elizabeth Bennet. As March began, and the time of his visit drew nearer, he was aware that he would welcome the opportunity to hear some news from the new Mrs. Collins of a young lady from another county.

Then a second letter came from his aunt. Together with the usual advice to himself about Georgiana, it informed him that none other than Miss Elizabeth Bennet herself was at the parsonage at Hunsford, accompanying Miss Maria Lucas on a visit to her sister. However, their stay of some six weeks would end just before Darcy and Fitzwilliam were due to arrive in Kent.

Almost before he knew what he had done, Darcy had written a swift note to his cousin Fitzwilliam, who was in the north for a few weeks before travelling to town.

His cousin’s reply came by return on Friday.


“Dear Darcy

Your enthusiasm for travelling to Kent to see our aunt is most commendable. I shall, as you ask, arrange to be in town three weeks earlier than we agreed, so that we can be at Rosings in time for Easter. Forgive this short note— written in haste.

James Fitzwilliam.”


Darcy wrote to his aunt to say that he planned to arrive for his visit to Kent in the week before the festival, and received a letter within a few days welcoming the idea.

His cousin reached London in time for them to leave for Kent some eight days before Easter. On the journey from town, Fitzwilliam asked Darcy how he had been passing his time since they last met. Darcy, without naming his friend, recounted his success in separating Bingley from an unfortunate alliance that could have damaged his situation for life. He took pains to emphasise that his motives had been allied with the knowledge that the affections of neither of the parties had been fully engaged, and so that the whole affair had been for the best.

Fitzwilliam commended Darcy for his foresight and rapid action, saying that, as the younger son of an Earl, he would need to have regard to fortune and position himself when he married. His cousin added that, now that he had attained his thirtieth year, marriage was a matter to which Fitzwilliam might need to give some more serious attention.

13

Thus it was that Darcy and his cousin arrived in Kent at the beginning of April, with Easter only a few days away.

He had apprised Fitzwilliam that there might be more enjoyable company than usual awaiting them at Rosings. On the day after their arrival, the rector Mr. Collins arrived to pay his respects. Darcy found him in every way as curious and pompous as he had at Netherfield the previous autumn.

However, having had a few hours in the company of Lady Catherine and their cousin Anne the previous evening, Fitzwilliam needed little persuading to walk back with Darcy to the parsonage in Hunsford with Mr. Collins, to pay their respects to the rector’s new wife and her visitors. Their approach having been announced by the door-bell, Darcy and his cousin found the former Miss Charlotte Lucas a pleasant contrast to her husband’s verbosity. Her younger sister, Maria, and Miss Elizabeth Bennet curtseyed to the visitors, but said nothing on the introduction to Darcy himself.

Darcy ventured a compliment to Mrs. Collins on the house and garden, but was more interested to listen to the conversation between his cousin and her friend. The latter seemed to Darcy to be much as he remembered her, as his cousin’s ease of address and ready manner led Miss Bennet into conversation with him. Her lively manner and sense of humour were soon displayed, and he found himself engrossed in their discussion.

At length, however, Darcy enquired of Miss Bennet about the health of her family. She answered him in the usual way, and then added “My eldest sister has been in town these three months. Have you never happened to see her there?”

Darcy was uneasily aware of his own embarrassment as he answered that he had never been so fortunate as to meet Miss Bennet. The subject was pursued no further, and Darcy soon made his excuses and went away with Fitzwilliam.

Over the next few days, his cousin called at the parsonage several times, but Darcy refused to join him, jealous that Fitzwilliam’s more easy manners would show his own at a disadvantage. As a consequence, he was only able to glimpse Miss Bennet at church.

However, no sooner had Darcy been pleased to find that his aunt did not intend to see much of Mr. and Mrs. Collins whilst her nephews were staying, than he found himself wishing the opposite, so that he could encounter one of their visitors.

However, it took several carefully placed suggestions to bring it about that, by Easter-day, almost a week after his arrival, an invitation was issued for the party from Hunsford to spend the evening at Rosings after leaving church.

Mr. and Mrs. Collins with their guests joined Lady Catherine’s party in the drawing room. Her ladyship, however, gave them little attention, speaking to her nephews and especially to Darcy, much more than to any other person in the room.

However, Fitzwilliam seemed really glad to see them; since anything was a welcome relief to him at Rosings; and Mrs. Collins’s pretty friend, Miss Bennet, seemed to have caught his fancy. Thus he sat by her, talking agreeably of Kent and Hertfordshire, of travelling and staying at home, of new books and music, so that Miss Bennet gave Darcy the appearance of having never been half so well entertained in that room before. He himself was full of feelings that, if they had been more familiar, would have been recognised as jealousy.

She and his cousin conversed with so much spirit and flow, as to draw the attention of Lady Catherine herself, as well as that of Darcy. Lady Catherine was more visibly put out at not being the centre of attention as she was used to, and she called out to his cousin.

“What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking of? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is.”

“We are speaking of music, Madam,” said he, making a resigned face to Darcy, when no longer able to avoid a reply.

“Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I must have my share in the conversation, if you are speaking of music. There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully.”

Then turning to Darcy, she continued, “How does Georgiana get on?”

“She is most competent for her age, Madam, and practices as often as she can.”

“I am very glad to hear such a good account of her,” said Lady Catherine; “and pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel, if she does not practise a great deal.”

“I assure you, Madam,” he replied, “that she does not need such advice. She practises very constantly.”

“So much the better. It cannot be done too much; and when I next write to her, I shall charge her not to neglect it on any account. I often tell young ladies, that no excellence in music is to be acquired, without constant practise.”

“I have told Miss Bennet several times, that she will never play really well, unless she practises more; and though Mrs. Collins has no instrument, she is very welcome, as I have often told her, to come to Rosings every day, and play on the piano-forte in Mrs. Jenkinson’s room. She would be in nobody’s way, you know, in that part of the house.”

Darcy did not answer, since even a man of his consequence could recognise the incivility of this remark.

When coffee was over, Fitzwilliam reminded Miss Bennet of having promised to play to him. As she sat down directly to the instrument, he drew a chair near her. Darcy would have joined them, but was detained by his aunt for many minutes. Eventually, she was distracted by a conversation with Mr. Collins, and Darcy was able to move away and join his cousin so as to observe Miss Bennet at the pianoforte.

At the first convenient pause, she turned to him with a smile, and said,

“You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me? But I will not be alarmed though your sister does play so well. There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.”

Darcy was cheered by this reversion to the playful manner in which she had sometimes addressed him in Hertfordshire.

“I shall not say that you are mistaken,” he replied, “because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know, that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not your own.”

Miss Bennet laughed at this picture of herself, and said to Fitzwilliam, “Your cousin will give you a very pretty notion of me, and teach you not to believe a word I say. I am particularly unlucky in meeting with a person so well able to expose my real character, in a part of the world, where I had hoped to pass myself off with some degree of credit.”