Chapter 18 A Test of Fire

Emotionally exhausted, stepping one foot over the threshold of her father’s home, Elizabeth could sense something was terribly wrong.

“There you are!”

Elizabeth winced as her mother thundered down the stairs with great haste before she could escape down the hall to her father’s library. Still, the speed of her mother’s movements didn’t prevent her from gazing forlornly in the direction of her usual sanctuary. Her mother caught on immediately to her daughter’s aims.

“Oho, do not go looking for your father, he cannot save you,” Mrs. Bennet stated, grasping her daughter’s elbow to pull her away from the hallway. “Truly, Lizzy, I will never understand you. I did everything I could on your behalf for your cousin, Mr. Collins, to take you on.”

“But Mama,” Elizabeth said, wrestling her elbow free with little effort. “I did not love him.”

Mrs. Bennet stopped and turned to her daughter, staring at her with a look of utter incredulity. “You would have had this house! You would have stayed with your father and me! Of course, you did not love him! Who said anything about loving him? But in marrying him you would have had a comfortable home and a husband of good character.”

“But I would not have been happy,” Elizabeth tried to argue, unsure why her mother was suddenly arguing with her again about Mr. Collins more than a month after his failed proposal.

Mrs. Bennet continued to usher her daughter towards the closed parlor doors. “None of us are assured happiness, child. It’s a matter of chance in a marriage,” she said, off-handed before taking a deep breath and then opening the parlor door. “My daughter has returned your Ladyship,” she began, entering the room and offering a curtsy. 

Pure curiosity attracted Elizabeth to stand next to her mother and curtsy to the finely dressed woman sitting on the sofa that she had not been given an introduction to.

“You are Elizabeth Bennet?” the woman asked, sharp in her tone.

Dumbly, Elizabeth nodded, her eyes falling to the woman’s bejeweled hand laboring to hold the ornate orb of a walking stick. Her eyes widened as she watched the woman twist and turn the stick in agitation, recalling how she imagined herself using such a tool. Thankfully, she hadn’t needed the aid of a stick in over a week to keep her balance upon her feet.

“You may leave us, I should like to speak to your daughter alone,” the stranger demanded. 

Mrs. Bennet began to take her leave, but Elizabeth put aside her manners for her own protection. She had no earthly idea who this woman was, and the last thing she wanted was to be left alone with her. Frantically, her mind raced for an explanation, and processing her mother’s chastisement in the foyer, she suddenly worried that she was being handed over as a lady’s companion to this perfect stranger! 

“Mama, please, I should like for you to stay. Mrs… ” Elizabeth trailed off as she emphasized her lack of knowledge as to the visitor’s name.

“Lady Catherine de Bourgh!” the woman practically shouted, banging her walking stick into the rug.

The name sent a jolt of fear down Elizabeth’s spine and she whipped her head to face the threatening woman. Lines from Mr. Darcy’s letter describing the woman as suffering delusions brought on a touch of fear. She no longer worried about being made a lady’s companion, but that the woman might try to force her parents to make her marry Mr. Collins!

“Please, sit with me and Lady Catherine de Bourgh for our visit,” Elizabeth said, not taking her eyes off the grand lady, and stepping sideways to loop her arm into her mother’s. Directing Mrs. Bennet to the sofa to sit next to her ladyship, a stroke to her ego she could not resist, Elizabeth retreated to the chair in the corner, nearest the door. Without asking permission, she took a seat.

“I would prefer to speak to you alone, Miss Bennet,” Lady Catherine again stated. Willfully misunderstanding the woman, Elizabeth offered to fetch her sister Jane, only irritating the woman further. Finding she now understood more her father’s habits of poking and taunting others in social situations, as her father’s daughter, Elizabeth remained stubborn in her desires.

“Forgive me, your Ladyship, but as we are not yet well-acquainted, you must agree that a young woman such as myself would rely upon my mother in circumstances such as these,” she reasoned.

Mrs. Bennet cooed over her daughter, joining in the convincing of Lady Catherine to satisfy all of their curiosities as to why she visited Longbourn in the first place. “How is our cousin, Mr. Collins? Well, I hope since he has returned to you?” she asked.

“Relating the health of Mr. Collins is not why I have come,” she retorted to Mrs. Bennet, then returned her focus to Elizabeth. “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 come.”

“Indeed, you are mistaken, Madam. I have not been at all able to account for the honor of seeing you here,” Elizabeth replied, keeping her tone respectful, though she began to suspect that the very cousin they inquired about had told tales to his patroness regarding herself and Mr. Darcy.

“Miss Bennet,” replied her ladyship, in an angry tone, “you ought to know,  I am not to be trifled with. But however insincere you may choose to be, you shall not find me so. My character has ever been celebrated for its sincerity and frankness, and in a cause of such moment as this, I shall certainly not depart from it. A report of a most alarming nature reached me two days ago. I was told that not only your sister was on the point of being most advantageously married, but that you,  Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would, in all likelihood, be soon afterwards united to my nephew, my own nephew, Mr. Darcy. Though I know it must be a scandalous falsehood, though I would not injure him so much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved on setting off for this place, that I might make my sentiments known to you.”

Mrs. Bennet gasped. “Lizzy! Why did you not tell me  you are engaged to Mr. Darcy?” she squealed.

Elizabeth made the smallest shake of her head to still her mother’s jubilation but to no avail. She decided to try distraction. “Yes, my sister is on the point of being most advantageously married to Mr. Bingley, isn’t she Mama?”

The question was all of the encouragement her mother needed. She began to expound about Mr. Darcy’s friend, Mr. Bingley, and how her sweet Jane and the gentleman in question were to wed the following week.

“After the Christmas holidays, of course, as my brother in Town is to visit with his family. My husband has not placed the announcement in the London papers, you see, but the second of January is to be Jane’s day.”

“Madam, I am not here to discuss your daughter Jane. There,” Lady Catherine turned her attention back to her perceived adversary. “Your mother has outed your scheme and confirmed you are engaged to my nephew! This is not to be borne. Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?”

Elizabeth was about to argue with the grand woman that her mother was mistaken, she was not presently engaged to Mr. Darcy. But she was not so quick as Franny Bennet in protecting her young.

“I must have misunderstood you, your Ladyship. Surely you have come here to congratulate my daughter on her engagement to your nephew.”

“Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. Mr. Darcy is engaged to my daughter.”

Mrs. Bennet scoffed in shock. She met the grand lady eye-to-eye, challenging her to back up her claim. “If he is so, Mr. Darcy could never have made an offer to my daughter. The man I met was the very depiction of honor and integrity. Did you know he saved Lizzy from a fire?”

Lady Catherine de Bourgh held her breath in anger, allowing her cheeks to appear scorched in color before blowing out a breath. “The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the favorite wish of his mother, as well as mine. While in their cradles, we planned the union: and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would be accomplished in their marriage, to be prevented by a young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family!” Lady Catherine blustered on, and spying no reaction from Elizabeth that resembled fear, she attempted to scare her mother. “As a mother, do you wish for your daughter to be ostracized and rejected in her marriage? Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his tacit engagement with Miss De Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say that from his earliest hours he was destined for his cousin?”

Mrs. Bennet nodded her head, appearing to agree with Lady Catherine. But her words said otherwise. “Having just lost my sister, I can sympathize in the pain of being unable to fulfill her dying wish. My sister died childless, you see. However, if Mr. Darcy is neither by honor nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is he not to make another choice? And if my daughter is that choice, why may she not accept him?”

The words of her mother cut Elizabeth’s heart to ribbons. She listened with mortification as the two older women argued over the most ironic of circumstances. She was not engaged to Mr. Darcy. While she had not rejected him, as she had not received a full offer of his hand, she knew her mother’s question to be so close to the truth that it might as well have been so. She had not accepted him, foolishly, obstinately, and in such a head-strong manner, he might have second thoughts about ever returning to Meryton if he thought carefully about it.

“Stop, please, just stop!” Elizabeth pleaded, as the two women finally looked at her. They had just traded further barbs about Elizabeth being censured and slighted by all and Mrs. Bennet insisting that as a gentleman’s daughter, Elizabeth was of the same social sphere as Mr. Darcy.

Swallowing down her utter distaste for the entire display, Elizabeth put the entire debate to rest. 

“I am not engaged to Mr. Darcy.”

Mrs. Bennet gasped, clutching her handkerchief, suddenly glaring meanly at her disloyal daughter who had allowed her to carry on in such a way with a peer. Lady Catherine de Bourgh grinned like a cat who had captured its supper.

“And will you promise me never to enter into such an engagement?”

“I will make no promise of the kind.”

Lady Catherine wiggled her enormous body further into the sofa as though she were finding a more comfortable position. One that would allow her to remain in the seat she had claimed. “Miss Bennet I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more reasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede. I shall not go away till you have given me the assurance I require.”

Stiffly, Elizabeth rose and upon reaching the door, she opened it. 

“And I certainly never shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable. Your ladyship wants Mr. Darcy to marry your daughter, but would my giving you the wished-for promise make their marriage at all more probable? You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your nephew might approve of your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell; but you have certainly no right to concern yourself in mine.” 

She waved her hand, palm up, to signal the door was open for a reason when Lady Catherine did not budge. “I must beg, therefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject.”

“Not so hasty, if you please.” 

Elizabeth ignored the lady’s plea and remained standing. Never in her life did she wish for one of her more simple sisters to dash down the stairs and interfere in her business. Keeping her anger in check proved more difficult the longer Lady Catherine spoke.

“I am by no means done. To all the objections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of inheritance placed upon this humble estate. Yes, yes, when your father dies, this home shall pass to my lowly parson, a man we can all agree to be no wit. Even should your sister get a son off that Bingley fellow, Mr. Collins has explained the entail is quite specific about lines. Is such a man to be my nephew’s family? Imagine the embarrassment he would feel having to dignify the head of his wife’s family, a man once in service to his aunt!”

While Elizabeth did not disagree with Lady Catherine that the company of Mr. Collins after her father’s death would be undesirable, she believed in her heart that Mr. Darcy could not care about such things. 

“You have insulted me in every possible method. I must beg you to leave.”

Lady Catherine’s frustration finally overset her dwindling patience. The rudeness of being asked to leave by a woman so wholly beneath her inflamed her greatest temper. “You have no regard, then, for the honor and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you must disgrace him in the eyes of all?”

Elizabeth’s mouth twisted into a sly smile to witness her social superior lose her composure. She opted for a small restoration of decorum, just to needle the woman. “Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments.”

Mrs. Bennet startled at her daughter’s words, feeling a new glimmer of hope. In a small voice, she added her question to the fray. “You are then resolved to have him?”

Both women turned to look at Mrs. Bennet, each surprised by the simple truth vetted out in so much unnecessary and rude discourse.

As Lady Catherine accepted defeat and began to walk slowly to the door, she continued her complaints. “And this is your real opinion! This is your final resolve! Very well. I shall now know how to act. Do not imagine, Miss Bennet, that your ambition will ever be gratified. I came to try you. I hoped to find you reasonable; but, depend upon it, I will carry my point.”

Reaching the doorway, where Mr. Bennet stood, as the raised voices had attracted his notice from his sanctuary, he wisely informed her ladyship that her carriage was ready. Quickly they ushered her to the vehicle when suddenly she turned around to have a final word before leaving. “I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.”

“We shall endeavor to labor under the shame of such an outcome as to displease you, your Ladyship,” Mr. Bennet said, sarcastically, before bowing to the carriage. 

When the vehicle rattled off down the drive, Mr. Bennet finally inquired as to what happened. But his daughter was quite finished with concealments and explanations. She had no doubt that Lady Catherine de Bourgh would hurry on to Pemberley to give her nephew a report of what had occurred, and she worried about the outcome. If Mr. Darcy believed his aunt delusional, how would he ever believe that Elizabeth promised to never promise not to marry him? The more she thought about the lady’s threat to carry her point, the more Elizabeth realized the entire mess could grow infinitely worse.

“Father, I must write to Mr. Darcy and send it by messenger.”

“Lizzy . . .” he cautioned. “Surely you are not threatened by that saucebox!”

Elizabeth turned away from her father, not offering him further explanation. “I will ask Mama, then. She will agree.”