Chapter 20 Happy Was The Day

The vein on the side of Elizabeth’s forehead throbbed in cadence with her racing heart. Mr. Lamont had indeed shared each line of the four agreements she was asked to sign, with most of them detailing that once she did, speaking about the accounts she would oversee as Mrs. Darcy would become extremely limited. The gist of the conversation was that once she married Mr. Darcy, she would become a very wealthy woman in her own right.

However, the true fortune would never be entirely hers. The money lay in trust with Barclay’s bank, as it had for several generations, with strict instructions as to how to utilize the fortune for the promotion of the family. She tried to get more information out from the man who had assured her would be her primary agent once she signed the documents and married Mr. Darcy. But every time she thought she had him close to revealing a detail, he became quiet once more. It became tacitly understood that the unprecedented circumstances of no living Mrs. Darcy, or Darcy family member on the trust, awarded some latitude to their dealings, but not meaningful disclosure.

Her mind reeled with ideas about why the trust was so secretive. Her aunt assured her the ways and manners of the wealthy would always boggle her mind, but found little suspicious about her niece being asked to agree to inherit access to a large sum of money with little to no explanation as to why or how such a strange arrangement came to be.

The door to her shared room with Mary flew open and her sister promptly apologized.

“Oh, I beg your pardon, Lizzy. I was looking for the book I was reading, and yes, there it is on the nightstand,” Mary said, with a sigh of relief. “I knew I had not left it at the park.”

Elizabeth ceased rubbing her temples and braved opening her eyes. The room was dimly lit to aid her resting, and she had to blink a few times to see her sister properly. 

“You can come in, I am not an invalid.”

Mary shrugged her shoulders and gently closed the door behind her, then walked over to retrieve her book. “You look as I felt this morning,” she said, making her older sister chuckle.

“Too many people?” Elizabeth asked. 

“And too late, and too loud, and . . . ” Mary blushed and avoided her sister’s gaze. Quickly she mumbled, “I must sound entirely ungrateful.”

A pause of silence filled the room, and Mary hastened to grab her book and hold it, shifting her weight as though she might bolt the room in embarrassment.

“No, you don’t sound ungrateful. Not everyone in our family loves coming to Town,” Elizabeth said, thoughtfully. “I didn’t think I should like to come back after the first time I visited with aunt and uncle.”

“You?”

“Yes, I was a little younger than you and everything felt too fast and dangerous,” Elizabeth confessed. “But now I’m well-acquainted with the hustle and bustle.”

“So why are you resting? Did you begin your courses?” Mary asked.

Elizabeth shook her head, though she knew why Mary asked. Whenever she began, her sister was not a day or two behind her. But it was unlikely to happen for a few days.

“No, an agent of Mr. Darcy’s bank came today to ask me to sign papers with very little explanation. Or rather, he made it clear there is a very large sum of money I am to manage or use, but there are rules and I believe some ruling committee on my budgets or something of that sort,” Elizabeth rattled on with her speech becoming faster as Mary slowly sat down on the edge of her bed, clutching the book to her chest. “It’s rather mortifying to speak of such a thing, but as I never expected such a situation and Mr. Darcy has been kept busy with Papa and Uncle—”

“They’ve all returned downstairs. They didn’t plan to disturb you because you had taken ill,” Mary explained, barely finishing before Elizabeth flew out of bed, stumbling around to gain her balance. “Lizzy!”

“No, no,” she said, throwing her arms out to steady herself and keep Mary away, “I’m fine, just stood up too quickly. I wish to see Mr. Darcy,” she uttered, before finding her shoes and a shawl. “I must see him,” she urged and yanked open the door to hear her father’s raised voice from below. Such rancor gave her hope that Mr. Darcy was still there, and she thundered down the stairs in a less than ladylike fashion until the last few steps, which she took with some sense of dignity.

“You should have told me, Teddy! Not leave me to make a cake of myself!” Mr. Bennet shouted on the other side of the office door. 

Squaring her shoulders, and wrapping the shawl tightly around her upper arms, Elizabeth braved opening the door and entering without a knock. It was clear Mr. Darcy had left as her father and uncle spoke very forcefully with each other.

“I take no blame in your humiliation, sir. You never asked for details about the arrangement. Mr. Darcy never asked me to lie to you,” Mr. Gardiner stood tall at the side of his desk while his guest helped himself to the port. When he sensed a presence behind him, he turned and was startled that it was his niece, not his wife as he expected.

“Papa, why are you cross with Uncle?”

“Ha! Don’t you play the fool as well! I have heard all about your meeting with Mr. Lamont from your aunt. Signed those papers fast as you could, didn’t you? Felt nothing for wasting my time, any of you,” Mr. Bennet began, before taking a swig.

Confused, she looked to her uncle who at first seemed to shirk away from the conflict with his brother-in-law, but spying the fear in his niece’s eyes, an expression of determination overtook his kind features. Stepping between Elizabeth and her father, Mr. Gardiner reminded his guest to whom the house belonged and it wasn’t Mr. Bennet.

“I hold my tongue when I watch you let my sister run over you with her incessant spending. How a man conducts his household is not for me to judge until it affects my household.”

“Teddy,” Mr. Bennet repeated the pet name for his wife’s younger brother with a gasp of exasperation, turning away slightly in the chair as though he would have none of what the man had to say.

“Yes, tried and true Teddy. Teddy who helps when you can’t meet the taxes, Teddy who helps the girls wear nice gowns. Teddy who searched day and night, while you could not be bothered, for your youngest.”

“When I left London you said you were also giving up the search, that it was easier to find a needle in a haystack than to find a young girl on the streets.”

Mr. Gardiner held his tongue and did not respond. The eerie silence caught Elizabeth off guard until she began to puzzle a niggling suspicion that all of them were prey to her betrothed’s rather nasty habit of arranging other people’s lives.

“Uncle, why did you suggest my father leave London and return home?”

Mr. Gardiner retreated a step as Elizabeth stood next to her father and placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him. Gratefully, he did not flinch away from her touch and she could only imagine the mortification that must have occurred that day for her father’s temper to flare so violently. It took more than a slight provocation to capture his notice away from his leisure on a bad day.

When her uncle did not respond and opened a box of cigars on his desk to help himself to his preferred vice, Elizabeth grew suspicious.

“I will call Aunt Gardiner in here as well, and Mr. Darcy if I must. Had you already found Lydia?” The question tumbled out of her mouth as much of a surprise to her as it was to her uncle.

“I was outfoxed!” Mr. Bennet cried, and his daughter firmly pushed on his shoulder to remind him to keep calm.

“Yes, she had been found. Mr. Darcy approached me because he was not certain Mr. Bennet could be relied upon to leave emotions out of the negotiations. He didn’t know if your father would become rash.” Mr. Gardiner attended his cigar with a crabby expression and growled when he realized Bennet held his favorite chair. Instead, he walked over to the settee and sat down with a huff.

Elizabeth spied he had no tray for the ashes, and lifted the brass bowl he used for such a need and took it to him.

“And you agreed with Mr. Darcy,” she prompted, in part to get the truth and also to lift some of the guilt off the shoulders of the man she loved. To her, Mr. Darcy could be forgiven for the fact that he did not know her father well and many fathers lost their good sense of judgment when it came to runaway daughters. 

“Did you?” Mr. Bennet barked from across the room and Elizabeth winced, but only her uncle could see her discomfort. “Did you side with that young buck with more money than sense? When it came to my daughter?”

Elizabeth and her uncle shared a quizzical expression while her back was still to her father. She offered him a half-grin as they both mutually surmised this conversation was not entirely about Lydia. Still, she left her uncle to return to her father’s side, standing next to him in a small gesture of support for the injured party’s feelings.

Mr. Gardiner cleared his throat as his wife chose the best moment to join them in the office. Spying his ally, Mr. Gardiner’s expression lifted in spirits, making him look much closer to Mr. Darcy’s age than Mr. Bennet’s. Elizabeth began to realize he probably was only a few years older than Fitzwilliam, and the realization settled a deep desire for her future husband to accept her favorite relatives. As Mrs. Gardiner took her husband’s hand that was not holding the cigar, she settled next to him. He adjusted himself to the edge of the seat, and placed the cigar gently at an angle in the bowl to continue burning, but not puff it into his wife’s face.

“None of us are made of money. Well, perhaps your Mr. Darcy is, Lizzy,” Mr. Gardiner teased, gently. “I didn’t see any reason to put off a man willing to pay for a silly girl’s mistake. He stated that he had paid for Mr. Wickham’s trespasses more than once in the past, and at first, if Lydia had been willing, we were prepared to pay Mr. Wickham for his silence.”

“But Lydia would not remain silent,” Elizabeth conjectured.

Mrs. Gardiner shook her head sadly.

“No, Papa, it wasn’t fair for them to keep things from you, but we both saw Lydia when she came home, remember?”

“Stupid child was telling the whole world of her good fortune,” Mr. Bennet grumbled.

The word fortune startled Elizabeth’s recollections and suddenly she heard Mr. Darcy’s voice in her head, spying the pained expression upon his face when she had first turned down his proposal of marriage. “His misfortunes! Yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed.”

She could not attend the conversation around her, though the noise buzzed in the background. Instead, she suddenly thought about Mr. Darcy’s interference with Lydia to be more ironic than ever before. Where he had not been responsible for Mr. Wickham’s past misfortunes at all, he might certainly be in consideration for his future ones. Lydia would never give up Mr. Wickham.

“Lizzy? Lizzy?” Mr. Bennet’s voice sounded panicked, finally pulling her out of her stupor. She turned to face him and he continued. “What can you not tell me, child? Has the man compromised you or forced your hand with some kind of threat? You do not have to marry him!” he thundered.

Elizabeth cried out, turning frantically between her father and her aunt and uncle across the room. Confused that she had missed something very important, she clenched her fists by her side and inhaled a deep breath.

“I love Fitzwilliam Darcy, and he and I . . .” she trailed off, smiling as happier memories flooded her mind, “we’ve been through so much. Together. Apart. At different times believing one or the other no longer felt affection,” she confessed. “And he loves me, Papa. Do you know why Mr. Winde was here today? Yes, I call him Mr. Lamont, as we are newly fast friends, but that’s a family tradition,” she babbled, receiving a look of horror from her father, similar to how he looked at her mother when she prattled on. Elizabeth remembered to take a breath and continued since no one interrupted her.

“When I marry Mr. Darcy, I will be independently wealthy. Of even him. He couldn’t mistreat me if he wanted to, at least not for long,” she trailed off again, suddenly repulsed by the very idea of Mr. Darcy being anything other than the most gentleman-like suitor and lover she had known thus far.

Mr. Bennet poured himself another drink and shared a cry of exasperation with Mr. Gardiner, who laughed at his brother-in-law’s expense.

“What’s so funny?” Elizabeth asked, confused as even her aunt was laughing.

“He was, he was hoping—” Mr. Gardiner stammered, as his laughter threatened to overtake his countenance. Unfortunately, the earlier tension had pushed his stress levels to their limits and he shook his head as he doubled over with his hands on his knees, releasing the discomfort with belly-shaking gasps for air between chuckles.

“Father?” Elizabeth demanded, using the formal appellation as she hated for there to be a joke she was not a part of. 

Mr. Bennet sighed and closed his eyes, lifting his port to his nose to inhale the pungent raisin-tasting spirit’s scent. “As you were ambushed by Mr. Winde or Lamont, or whichever infernal name the man means to use, I was ambushed by his father, your Mr. Darcy, and your uncle.”

“Hold fast, I was not a party in today’s intrigue!”

Mrs. Gardiner leaned forward from the settee to glare at her husband, forcing him to recant slightly.

“I meant to say, I only knew that Mr. Darcy told me he preferred a meeting at his house and not at his solicitor’s,” Mr. Gardiner explained, but then added, “and I trusted him.”

Mr. Bennet scowled. “As I said, your dear Papa was slaughtered today, all of my faults laid bare to face at once, in front of strangers I might add.”

Elizabeth tried to keep her patience, but her eyes wandered about the room as she waited for her father to get to the point beyond his hyperbolic victimhood. 

“Suddenly, I was stabbed and quartered by inked numbers. The settlement for Lydia. And additional settlements for your sisters Mary, Kitty, and even, yes, your mother,” Mr. Bennet said, draining his glass.

His confession made Elizabeth feel weakened in her knees as she gasped for breath a moment to realize what Fitzwilliam had done. He hadn’t used her Uncle Phillips to draft a marriage contract because there already was one. She was now one and twenty and could lawfully enter it herself. Still, as she could not completely process his generosity, there had been very real trauma and unnecessary worry for her and her family. Whether he liked it or not, Fitzwilliam’s penchant for arranging everyone’s lives in his prescribed judgment was a dangerous precedent for all of their futures. Thus far, she had helped him avoid monstrous mistakes and correct those he had made, but this time he had very nearly placed her in the danger of falling for her father’s manipulations! 

“There is something that still troubles me though,” Elizabeth said, thoughtfully as she finally commandeered the chair at her uncle’s desk, turning it around so that she might sit in the middle of her most trusted, wise counselors. She waited until she caught the mischievous gleam in her father’s eye to signal he had pushed himself over the hill he had planned to proverbially die upon and grew curious about his most clever daughter’s plan.

“What troubles you, Lizzy? You do not have to sign the papers, we wished to ask you if there was trouble before you knew of the other settlements, so you would not be swayed,” her aunt explained.

Elizabeth laughed. “No, no, I love Fitzwilliam and shall marry him tomorrow if I could arrange it. And father, we are going to arrange my marriage sooner than later,” she said, sternly, and Mr. Bennet held up his hands as though he had no say in the matter, which was enough for her. “I just don’t know the schedule, when are we going home to Longbourn? I believe Mary is over remaining in Town.”

Mr. Gardiner cleared his throat as Mr. Bennet groaned and poured himself another drink. “We are to dine at Darcy House tomorrow night. I believe Mr. Darcy is keen to discuss moving up your wedding date as well, now that Mr. Bennet has agreed to the trusts set up for the girls,” he explained. “And, Mrs. Bennet, of course,” he added, wincing as he invoked his sister.

Elizabeth sighed, blinked her eyes a few times as she saw her gameplay out, and then nodded as she agreed with herself the plan was sound. Turning to her father, she addressed him, directly. “I need a private audience with Fitzwilliam tomorrow before dinner. I did not sign any documents today and while I do plan to sign them, I intend to let Fitzwilliam worry that I might not.”

“That you might not? But why not?” Mrs. Gardiner exclaimed.

“Because it’s what he’s done to all of us. And Mr. Bingley. And Jane.” She left out the Wickhams as there was no innocence there. “He has to learn the world is not his to command and we are not his ducklings to order about,” she said, mixing her metaphors to land with Mr. Darcy as the image of a Mother Duck keeping her brood in line.

“There is no taste more bitter than a man’s own medicine,” Mr. Bennet offered.

Elizabeth grinned, but her uncle threw caution.

“Are you sure you’re willing to risk Mr. Darcy’s affections over this childish ruse you are planning? I don’t know the man that well, but I don’t get the impression he went to the lengths he did for the pleasure in others’ misery. He is not cruel.”

“No, he is worse, thoughtless. He has no idea the mortification I suffered from my Aunt Phillips, with my sisters, and while we won’t pretend Papa is without fault,” Elizabeth said, begrudgingly, and paused, allowing her father to playfully object. 

“Still,” Aunt Gardiner said slowly, buying time as she exchanged glances with her husband, “men like Mr. Darcy are not accustomed to disappointed plans, dearest. There’s no way to know how he will behave if he thinks you are declining his offers.”

Elizabeth smiled and finally shared her great confession in the whole mess. “I once told him he was the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry,” she boasted to the collective gasps of her elders.

“Lizzy!” her father exclaimed, astonished to hear how harsh his daughter had cut the poor man down. 

“It’s well, now. I even have him convinced that I wasn’t wrong that day in Kent six months ago when he asked me, in what might have been the worst proposal of marriage in the history of England.”

“How so?” her uncle inquired.

Elizabeth shrugged. “I will never marry another man than Mr. Darcy, so he will indeed be the last man I do marry.”

Mollified by Elizabeth’s confidence, together they made a plan to give Fitzwilliam Darcy a taste of the misery he heaped upon others with his lack of plain-dealing. Even as Elizabeth achieved agreements with her father that he would deliver on his part, it was all decided that they would, in the end, force Mr. Darcy to open his purse one last time: for a special license. 

What Elizabeth didn’t tell them was she had alternative plans worked out as she prayed this lesson in arrogance squarely hit the one it was intended to teach.