Chapter 2 To Capture Mr. Darcy

“Er, about that . . . I inquired gently from her sister about Miss Elizabeth’s thoughts on you. As you requested . . .”

“The two of them likely planned this, from the start! Beware Charles, I’m beginning to observe these Bennet girls are much flirtation and little substance.” Darcy scowled and stomped in frustration.

The doors to the breakfast parlor opened again even as the hour now neared noon. With no sign of the sun, the day appeared held captive in time by the rain. Louisa Hurst and Caroline Bingley entered the room giggling and carrying on their own conversation. When Miss Bingley spied Mr. Darcy, she stopped her inappropriate laughter and stood up a tad straighter. Instantly, she transformed from a genial sister to putting on the unaffected airs she thought a lady of high society should display.

“Mr. Darcy, how lovely to break our fasts together! With you retiring so early last night, it’s a wonder you too would rise so late.”

“I’ve already enjoyed my morning meal, madam.” Darcy bowed and quit the room, leaving Bingley to deal with his sisters. His pique over the expression on Elizabeth’s face when he voiced a future of them together, raised his blood pressure even higher. The pure disdain and repulsion he read in her features pushed him over the edge as his mind began to torment him.

He had ended up in the library, his room of last resort, mostly on habit. But the physical location only served to mock him further. With a great visceral growl, his eyes fell to the chess game standing just as it was left, with his checkmated king. His hand scattered the pieces to the floor, and he leaned forward against the window, his forehead pressed against the cool glass. Huffing rapidly until a great fog obscured his view entirely, Fitzwilliam Darcy accepted the fact he stood as a rejected man and the pain felt far worse that what could be called a passing fancy.

At Longbourn, the ancestral home of Elizabeth and Jane Bennet, Mrs. Bennet breached her husband’s study with a broad smile on her face.

“Mr. Bennet, Mr. Bennet! Have you seen the weather? We are saved I tell you.”

Mr. Bennet, a man in his late forties and father of five daughters but no sons, did not look up at his wife as he continued to scratch the letter on his desk. He disliked the task of correspondence very much and felt cross that his Lizzie temporarily resided miles away at Netherfield Park, even if it was in the service of caring for her elder sister. For years, his second eldest daughter had shown great wit and interest in the affairs of the estate and become somewhat of a secretary for him. As his arthritis stung with each carefully crafted word, his irritation grew that Elizabeth was not present to fulfill this duty for him.

“However do you reason that, my dear?” he asked tersely, not wishing to humor his wife, but also knowing the woman would not leave until satisfied.

Mrs. Bennet happily hurried over to the window wiping her hands on her apron. “It is raining buckets outside, even if it should stop raining tomorrow; there is no hope of the carriage making it through the mud and muck for at least two days.”

“I still fail to see how a little fall of rain and muddy roads plays into your logic.”

Mrs. Bennet squinted her eyes at her husband and pursed her lips in consternation that the man could be so dense. “This means our sweet Jane will spend even longer at Netherfield Park and I  am certain Mr. Bingley will fall madly in love withherif he is not already!”

Mr. Bennet put down his quill and leaned back in his chair. A bubbling sense of mirth flooded his senses, but he stifled his laughs. “Your means of marrying off our daughters baffle me to no end. But, despite the poor weather, I am expecting a visitor to arrive in two days’ time.”

“A visitor? In this weather?”

Mr. Bennet shuffled papers around on his desk to retrieve a letter from the bottom of the pile. He held it up and pretended to read over it for a refreshing of the salient details, but it was not necessary. His feud with his cousin Collins stretched back decades, and now that his cousin had died of natural causes, being older than Mr. Bennet himself, his son and heir apparent of Longbourn intended to stay a fortnight.

As Mr. Bennet related these details to his wife, he was not spared her normal theatrics of nerves and palpitations over his unavoidable demise and therefore loss of the estate due to an entail that followed only the male line.

“I still see not why he should visit here. Shall I also allow him to inspect the silver and count the plates?”

“I do not believe we owe Mr. Collins an inventory of the home quite yet as I am both hearty and hale. However, my most intriguing cousin does come with the intention of marrying one of our daughters I suspect, and I leave that matter in your capable hands, madam.”

Mrs. Bennet’s eyes widened in fear. “Oh no, not Jane! She is practically engaged to Mr. Bingley.”

“Yes, and we shall not trade a prospective man of wealth like Mr. Bingley for a cousin of known inheritance, for that would not be prudent.” Mr. Bennet said in his normal sardonic tone, completely missed by his wife of more than one score.

“Certainly not! He is what, a parson? What if you outlive him? See? What then? Shall one of our daughters be a lowly parson’s wife while some other obscure male relation inherits this home and all the contents?”

Mr. Bennet rubbed his temples as his wife spun more and more hypotheticals. When she reached fever pitch about being thrown into the hedgerows, he held his hand up to signal he had endured enough.

“We shall see which one of the other girls he shows interest towards and meanwhile,” Mrs. Bennet snatched the letter from her husband’s desk to review it herself for any information of Mr. Collins’ tastes and preferences. “I shall direct Hill to prepare the guest room.”

Mr. Bennet waved his hand and returned to his odious task of correspondence while his wife fluttered out of the room. He stared at the torrential downpour falling nearly in solid sheets outside the window. A fleeting thought of sympathy for his poor cousin to travel in such a gale crossed his mind. Then he remembered the bombastic tone and gross assumptions the man had made in his letter about the Bennet family and Mr. Bennet returned to his usual nature of finding amusement in the most ridiculous of persons, until he remembered he must continue writing letters, and then he cursed the rain under his breath.

The gloomy afternoon in the drawing room at Netherfield Park dampened the spirits of most of the inhabitants. Elizabeth Bennet sat in one chair, doing her best to concentrate on the novel in her hands, but she, unfortunately, held no interest in it. Still, she suffered through the prose as it was the book she hastily retrieved earlier. Her sister, Jane, rested comfortably snuggled in blankets near the fire, with the undivided attention of Mr. Bingley bringing forth her soft tinkling laughter at regular intervals. Elizabeth was not close enough to overhear their conversation. She tried to muster happiness for her sister. Instead, her attitude remained flat observing Mr. Darcy standing stoically at the window out of the corner of her eye.

“My Louisa, is not this weather simply unbearable? And so inconvenient, why you and I planned to call on the Longs this afternoon.”

Elizabeth wondered if Caroline Bingley ever exhausted her energy in actively ignoring the Bennet sisters. She had never encountered such brashly rude behavior in a woman to regularly exclude the company around her in conversation. Miss Bingley had completed finishing school according to her boasts, but the opinion of Elizabeth Bennet asserted she must have ended her tenure before the education completed.

“Such horrible weather makes one feel as if they might go absolutely mad.” Louisa Hurst looked up with an air superiority from her knitting. “And being cramped in one’s quarters can make even the most pleasing company grating.”

Elizabeth slammed her book shut startling both of the sisters and attracting the attention of Mr. Darcy. With the three of them looking expectantly at her, she offered a plastered smile. “Forgive me, I find this book not to my liking. I shall find another.“ She rose from her chair and walked confidently to the door with her shoulders back. The waiting footman hastily attended and Elizabeth offered the young man a nod in gratitude.

Tension between her temples eased as her fingers traced the spines along one line of volumes. Considering Don Quixote, a title she reasoned would allow her to read Cervantes’ ridiculous parables and replace the names with her present company, or an older Gothic romance, she felt in no hurry to abandon her solitude. When Elizabeth turned and realized the room was entirely empty save the warm fire in the grate, she placed the Gothic romance back on the shelf. She and the Cervantes hastened over to the most comfortable chair she could find. As a guest in the home, surely no one would have a problem with her reading in a room such as the library. After all, were not these comforts specifically here for persons interested in reading?

Within half an hour the library door admitted one other, but Elizabeth sat so engrossed for the errant knight’s ridiculous quest, she did not disrupt her reading. Mr. Darcy selected a title from the sparse shelves and took the seat across from Elizabeth, on the other side of the fireplace. This movement so close to her person did finally interrupt her concentration but still cross with the man for reasons even she was not entirely sure of, Elizabeth said not a word.

The storm continued its fury outdoors; a stalemated silence raged inside. The clock on the mantel provided a metronome cadence that Elizabeth found echoed in her mind as she read each word but failed to register its meaning. Instead, her mind raced with every odd thought she had ever held about the mysterious man from Derbyshire who appeared not to care for the sensibilities of others around him so long as it pleased his wishes. Even at this very moment, he displayed his disdain for others by entering the room without even so much as greeting her! Between his insults, flatteries, and proud behavior on other evenings she observed, she could not find herself agreeing with Jane. Where her sister saw only the good in people, Elizabeth Bennet was less inclined to hold such optimism. Mr. Bingley’s friend was haughty and snobbish and no matter how much it might please Mr. Bingley and Jane, Elizabeth Bennet held no interest in even remaining acquaintances with the man.

No sooner had she made such a profound internal decision that she looked up from her book at the same time as the man in question and their eyes met. Still no words passed, but the he displayed a depth of feeling Elizabeth Bennet had never witnessed before. Captivated by his expression, her heart ached for he truly seemed to be in pain, yet she knew not why. As guilt washed over her earlier imprudent behavior, a small sigh escaped her lips. No matter how ugly or rude Mr. Darcy or Miss Bingley behaved, it was no excuse for her behavior. She would be the one to offer the olive branch.

“I wish to apologize for storming out of the library earlier. If you intended your words to pay a compliment, I was ungrateful in the extreme. And if you meant to insult me, it still leaves me no credit to return such sentiments with an insult of my own.”

Darcy blinked. Then his eyebrows began to knit together. He wanted nothing more than to clean his ears with his fingers because surely he could not have heard her correctly. How on earth could his rash confession of affection for her be interpreted as an insult? His mind failed in working out the logic of such a situation so he came to the conclusion that this must be yet another game of arts and allurement by Miss Elizabeth. He was rather tired of playing games.

“I fail to see how my words may have insulted –”

“I assure you, sir, your insinuation was clear. A woman of my status, as you so emphatically pointed out at breakfast, could never hope for an honorable proposal from a man of your means. And I know of the fashions and fad of the London set. I may be a penniless gentleman’s daughter, but I am still a gentleman’s daughter.” Elizabeth could not stop the passions of her anger returning to her heart and mind, and she closed her book and stood. She hugged the thick tome to her chest as if it might provide some magical defense against the agony of emotions she endured whenever she was near this stranger.

When Mr. Darcy could offer no apology in kind, or explanation, Elizabeth nodded and pursed her lips. She turned on her heel and made for the door. The only safe place for her was her bedroom until dinner.

Darcy gaped at the fiery passion in Elizabeth’s face as she defended her position. Had she honestly thought he intended to offer her a position other than his wife? And how had a woman of her background come to know of such things? His mind reeled with the possibilities until she took her leave.

“Elizabeth, please do not go.” He called softly, saddened that calling her by her Christian name only caused her to flinch as she continued to walk away.

Fitzwilliam Darcy grew despondent once more at her rejection. If one owned an instrument to suck all joy out of the air, it was Elizabeth Bennet when she was cross with him. Darcy noticed the chess board was once more restored. Surprised at himself, his shaky hand moved black’s pawn two rows forward to begin another game. And as he planned to spend the rest of the afternoon in the library’s solitary comforts, his heart dared hope the chess board might beckon her downstairs once more.

Another evening of uncomfortable dining partners set Elizabeth’s nerves on edge. Between the slings and arrows tossed her way by the stares of Caroline Bingley and Mr. Darcy, all punctuated by booms and crashes of thunder outside, Elizabeth’s neck and shoulders ached from a permanently tightened position. The abundant roses resided in complete wilt making the candlelight appear sour. There remained little to interest her in the event.

The rain beat against the windows accompanied by the feral cry of the wind. The room felt chilled, though a roaring fire was just behind Elizabeth’s chair. She shivered and continued to attempt an appetite by eating her cold meat one small bite at a time.

“Miss Bingley,” Darcy interrupted the shrew to his left who had assumed her normal custom of a one-sided conversation with the man of Derbyshire, “while I am sure your experiences at the ____ Ball last spring were most rapturous, I beg your pardon.” Darcy did not take his eyes off the diminutive form of Elizabeth seated across from him. “Miss Elizabeth, are you quite alright? I noticed appeared chilled just now.”

Elizabeth blushed that Mr. Darcy would be so bold as to admit he had been watching her. “I am not at ease, only worried about Jane, you understand.” She parried the personal inquiry.

Caroline Bingley sniffed and pressed her lips in a fine line. “I should dearly hope you are not becoming ill yourself, Miss Eliza, as you’ve been so dutiful in your sister’s care, it would be a wretched manner of repayment.”

“I am quite well, thank you, Miss Bingley.”

“Blast, this weather be the dogs!” Mr. Bingley piped up to the admonishment of his sister. But Charles Bingley offered no apology. “I am only to mean that your poor sister might recover all the much sooner if the weather were of a drier nature.”

“There is no evidence that one becomes more or less ill due to weather,” Darcy said.

“Oh, I forget you are well read on every topic.” Bingley motioned for his wine glass to be refilled as he drained it upon teasing Darcy.

Darcy cleared his throat, looking up from his plate to see Miss Elizabeth giving him her full attention. “I do not profess to be an expert in the medical arts, but all the treatises I have read can find no justification for a person’s illness as a result of the weather since others in the near vicinity are often well.”

“So there you have it, if one is to become ill in bad weather, it is not a defect of Nature, but that of the person’s nature.” Caroline beamed as she tried to impress Mr. Darcy with her logic, only to receive abject gazes of horror from the rest of the table. “What? I do not mean poor Jane has any such defect. No, of course not, she is beyond all that is sweet and good —“

“Yes, my sister IS all that is sweet and good and I think we might look for a change of subject. Mr. Bingley, how long do you plan to let Netherfield Park? Are we to expect you and your family to remain through winter and into spring?” Elizabeth shut Caroline down and forced the conversation to focus on Charles.

“Er . . . That is, I had not fully thought out our plans. I should like to stay very much, but just as swiftly as I took this property, I am just as easily pleased should our plans change,” Charles made eye contact with Caroline as her face stretched and pulled expressions of incredulity. “Caroline wishes us to return to London for Christmas,” he finished flatly.

For her part, Miss Bingley offered Elizabeth a wan smile and fluttered her eyelashes. “Well, nothing is certain yet. What my brother will not tell you of is his fickle nature when it comes to plans of any kind. He is the sort to agree to a picnic only to change his mind the day of to dining indoors and follow it with a horse ride. By the way, Miss Elizabeth, do you ride?”

Elizabeth offered Miss Bingley a wistful smile, relishing the joy bubbling up inside her once more that she would not offer this woman an ounce of satisfaction. “Not in this weather, I’m afraid.”

Mr. Darcy laughed at the verbally sparring woman, the only person to do so, and swiftly covered his guffaw with a cough. “Forgive me, I merely found Miss Elizabeth’s rejoinder rather comical.”

“Humor is no substitute for wit.”

“And neither is vulgarity.” Elizabeth lifted her wine glass, thoroughly enjoying herself now that she might openly be rude to Caroline without her reinforcements of Mr. and Mrs. Hurst, who had elected to eat in their rooms.

“She has you there, Caro.” Bingley loudly slurped the newly arrived soup course.

“I apologize, my tongue ran away with me.” Elizabeth offered her adversary an apology as she did truly feel guilty for stooping so low. A familiar throbbing began in the front of her head and Elizabeth wanted nothing more than to leave dinner and plead a legitimate headache to escape further discussion.

Caroline said nothing and resumed eating. The dinner table descended to a heavy silence until another loud crash of thunder startled most of them at the table. Elizabeth dropped her fork and hastily picked it up to cover her faux pas.

No longer finding herself hungry in the slightest, Elizabeth appealed to Mr. Bingley’s good nature. “I wonder if you might excuse me? I do so wish to check on my sister and find my appetite has left me.”

“Of course, of course, please send our warmest wishes for Miss Bennet’s speedy recovery.”

Elizabeth nodded and awaited a footman’s assistance to leave the table. She made certain to avoid eye contact with Mr. Darcy before she left the depressing dining room in case he rebuked her for the cut direct of Caroline. She had no business being so rude to her hostess, and with a background in trade, of course Miss Bingley would stop at nothing for acceptance.

As Elizabeth climbed the stairs to see to her sister, she never questioned herself for caring so much about the opinion of Mr. Darcy.