Chapter 26 Happy Was The Day

“Follow me. The Countess is expecting you.”

The butler of Matlock House in St. James’ Square coldly welcomed Elizabeth and her sister, pursing his lips in disapproval as he evaluated their dress. With a final dismissal, he turned his back on the young women and began to walk away.

Jane leaned over and whispered to Elizabeth as they both gazed up. Two stories of imposing portraits of royalty and ancestors lined the wooden walls in rows and rows that seemed to never end. 

“Lizzy, this is a palace,” she said, in a hushed tone, earning a single nod from the sister she had failed to support over the last few weeks.

The air in the hall was filled with the scent of flowers in bloom throughout the house, mingled with a tickling of dust and mustiness of tapestries that perfumed the space with one clear statement: old money. After stopping to gawk at the immortalized great and powerful of England, Jane felt quite overwhelmed.

“These are Mr. Darcy’s relations?” Jane dared. The butler had walked so purposefully, to lessen his time with the unsuitable guests, that the girls had to suddenly quicken their paces to catch up.

But the butler heard Miss Bennet.

With a sneer, he stopped just before the door to the salon on the first floor before announcing their entrance. “Mr. Darcy is the illustrious nephew of the Earl and Countess of Matlock.”

Elizabeth’s nervousness broke free in a small laugh. “I’m not so sure how illustrious they feel he is today,” she muttered, which the butler pretended not to hear. Jane’s jaw dropped with an expression of abject horror at her sister’s impertinence as their names were announced.

For a moment, the two Bennet sisters froze. Elizabeth nudged her sister to go first. Precedence was never a concern back home in Hertfordshire, but here in the drawing rooms and salons of London Elizabeth felt adamant that she would not step a foot false if she could help it.

Jane entered and bowed a curtsy as Elizabeth joined her. When Elizabeth looked up, to her surprise Lady Matlock sat regally next to her sister by marriage, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.  

A male poked his head silently into the salon, but neither Bennet sister noticed him. He caught the eye of his mother and aunt, though they did not dare react to his intrusion beyond stony stares of derision. Colonel Fitzwilliam wisely sized up he was outnumbered and left as wordlessly as he had encroached. Before anyone could stop him, he hurried to the front door to fetch Darcy.

“Closer, if you please, Miss Elizabeth,” Lady Matlock requested.

The two Bennet sisters looked at each other in confusion. It was clear that all other furniture in the room had been arranged to the far corners, away from the two seats next to one another situated as thrones before an ancient stone fireplace. The decor of Matlock House reminded Elizabeth of Rosings in Kent, out of fashion and more of intimidation than comfort to occupants.

When no offer of a seat or command for a footman to move the furnishings came, Elizabeth started to walk forward, and Jane followed suit. The difference between the sisters could not be starker; as Elizabeth took each step, her head rose higher and she pushed her shoulders back. Jane shrunk her height as she neared the two members of the peerage she was unfamiliar with, lowering her gaze as though she were beneath their notice.

“The eldest is very fair to look at. I see why his friend Bingley is enraptured,” Lady Matlock commented to her sister by marriage, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

“I heard the family campaigned hard for that match when her cousin, my parson, was perfectly suitable. He is to inherit the estate once their father dies,” Lady Catherine said with a sneer, earning even Jane’s reaction of shock to her Ladyship’s rudeness.

“My sister’s heart was already engaged before Mr. Collins imposed his visit on us, your Ladyship.” Elizabeth explained, giving her perspective on Mr. Collin’s “magnanimous” offer of his hand in marriage to one of the girls. It didn’t matter to him to boast there was no difference amongst them. When he had proposed to Lizzy instead of Jane, Elizabeth had been appalled at his manners and empty declarations of affection superseding the detriments of her poverty.

“I told you that one gives her opinions so decidedly.”

Lady Matlock nodded in agreement but did not elaborate.

“I shall get straight to the point, Miss Elizabeth. This is not a social call,” Lady Matlock explained, as Elizabeth and Jane shared a glance between them. No one would have misunderstood this as a social call from the lack of welcome offered. “My sister-in-law has informed me this is a fool’s errand, but I’m not so certain. I believe that you are much more clever than you’ve been given credit for. Surely by now, you are beginning to comprehend how taxing, how demanding the role of Mrs. Darcy will be.”

“Forgive me, my Ladyship, but I was under the impression after last evening that your and your husband were in favor of the match,” Elizabeth charged.

Lady Matlock pursed her lips and raised her hand to her breastbone. “Did I say such a thing? Did his Lordship?”

Elizabeth held her tongue as she could not truthfully say either spoke such plain words. Then her thoughts dwelled once more on her doubts about living up to the status required for Mr. Darcy’s wife.

“She won’t be swayed by this argument, I already tried it. She’s convinced that she and our nephew are of the same class!” Lady Catherine howled and laughed at the absurdity of such a claim.

Elizabeth did not flinch. But Jane did. 

Lady Matlock spied an opportunity.

“Miss Bennet, I have heard that you did not support the engagement at first. Pray, tell me why?” Lady Matlock asked, and Elizabeth closed her eyes. 

Jane did not have it in her to be rude to her superiors and Elizabeth dreaded the answer her sister was about to give. 

“I’m not quite sure I understand your question, your Ladyship. Why wouldn’t I support my sister’s engagement?” Jane asked, sweetly.

Bravo, Jane! Elizabeth thought.

Lady Matlock chuckled. “You have not seen this morning’s Times?”

Jane, who had spent the morning traveling, and Elizabeth, busy with the family discussions about returning home to Hertfordshire, had not read the paper.

“My uncle subscribes to The Morning Chronicle,” Elizabeth said, proudly. She didn’t add that at home, her father paid for the Times a day later. 

Lady Matlock handed Elizabeth a folded copy of the paper from the bottom of a tea cart that sat as a taunting reminder of no refreshments being offered.

“I believe we should have our carriage called,” Jane began, but Lady Catherine cut her off.

“Oh no, there is more that we need to impart, and this will be the absolute last time any offer is made,” she warned.

Elizabeth’s eyes blurred as she read the lines in the scandal sheet area about Mr. F. D. from Derbyshire, set to wed his long-time mistress from the county of Hertfordshire. The paragraph accused her of keeping his bed warm under his aunt’s nose in Kent, and that her own family begged her to abandon her wanton ways. The scandal sheet further spoke that the lady in question had a fallen sister. 

Elizabeth thrust the paper down and gazed away. She could not read more for she had read enough.

“Lizzy?” Jane asked softly, as Elizabeth handed the paper to her sister, and continued to avoid her gaze. Jane quickly found the offending lines. “But this is not true, my sister was never courting Mr. Darcy in Kent!”

“But your youngest sister did elope, did she not?” Lady Matlock asked. 

Wiping away the single tear that fell, Elizabeth finally turned back to face the two women who were now her enemies. 

“This is what you meant, warning that Lady Catherine had spoken to Lady Jersey,” Elizabeth whispered, bitterly. Sniffing to keep her countenance, as she refused to cry in front of these ladies, she raised her voice to a proper level. “Perhaps it would be more efficient if we allowed them to say what they must,” Elizabeth managed.

“No.” Jane’s voice shocked them all. “No, I don’t believe there is anything either of these ladies could say that would tempt either of us to change our plans.”

“Miss Bennet!” Lady Catherine used her walking stick to rise from the chair, her face changing from a pale white to a deep shade of burgundy as she fussed over her words. “What impertinence! What immaturity!”

Jane attempted to back away from Lady Catherine, but the woman began to advance in equal measure.

“Can you not spy the coming disaster of your sister’s union? Imagine, will you? Your family is the laughingstock of London. Not a single home opening a door to Mr. Darcy, his wife, and certainly not his friend.”

At the insinuation of Mr. Bingley, Jane held her position and faced the words of a woman she barely knew.

“Ah, yes, that love match. Your Mr. Bingley will no longer have his powerful friend to ease his way. How shall his star rise?” Lady Catherine threatened.

Elizabeth sighed as her sister’s bravery crumpled at the mention of her Achilles’ heel: Charles Bingley. But she no longer held her sister in contempt, not after their talk in the carriage. They both loved the men they were to wed, a fact that didn’t always allow their interests to align. Jane confessed how she had allowed her jealousy and insecurities to lead her astray, especially when Mr. Bingley had not been himself after his horse-riding accident. But when the threat of Caroline Bingley’s letters to a confidant in London came to her attention, both Charles and Jane resolved to come to London directly and warn Elizabeth and Darcy. They were just too late.

Lady Catherine continued to give more outlandish, and entirely fabricated, consequences of the few paltry lines printed in the Times scandal sheet.

Elizabeth couldn’t stand the woman’s lies. She interrupted. 

“The damage is done. It is in print. I wonder that no one in Mr. Darcy’s family sought to protect him from this humiliation,” Elizabeth charged, shocking both Lady Catherine and Lady Matlock.

“Protect him? I warned Darcy! I warned him there would be no good from aligning with you, after I tried to dissuade you in that pathetic garden your family keeps,” Lady Catherine abandoned her charge at Jane and returned to her seat.

Elizabeth cracked a smile, amusing Lady Matlock.

“And this makes you smile? I have heard you possess a rather peculiar sense of humor from my son.”

“When Lady Catherine warned Mr. Darcy, she cemented our union.”

Lady Matlock scoffed. “Come, my dear, if you think my nephew is marrying you to spite his aunt, I ask, is that a foundation you wish to build upon?”

“On the contrary, she gave him hope,” Elizabeth said, sardonically.

“Hope?” Lady Matlock asked, looking between Elizabeth and Lady Catherine, who was so furious, that she would not speak. “Hope?” Lady Matlock furrowed her brow and then began to calculate the sequence of events. “My, tell me, Miss Elizabeth, are you so devious that you intentionally turned down my nephew only to inflame his attentions?”

Elizabeth shook her head and approached her sister, to stand closer to Jane, and further away from the two elders in the room. The length of the interview began to increase her physical discomfort from standing so long for their pleasure. 

“So you maintain that you did not love my nephew in Kent,” Lady Matlock pronounced.

Elizabeth’s proximity brought a shudder to her sister. Jane raised her head and reached out her hand to grasp her sister’s. She once again attempted to take her place as the eldest sister.

“I believe I must insist that we take our leave. We have overstayed our welcome,” Jane stated firmly, glancing back toward the door. But there was no butler or footman to call the carriage and the lack of protocol presented a temporary obstacle to their escape.

As she looked to Elizabeth for guidance on what they should do next, they both looked at the door once more. Suddenly, the door opened with enormous energy as two men strolled in. The sisters were elated to see them both. 

Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley walked confidently to their soon-to-be brides, bowed, and offered each an arm.

Before he spoke, Mr. Darcy took a moment to take into consideration the status of the room, spying that his betrothed had not been offered a seat. The tableau presented matched his cousin’s fears precisely: this was an ambush.

“I hope you have not committed a gross miscalculation and abused or slandered my betrothed this afternoon,” he accused, coolly.

“We had no need, your business is in the paper for everyone to read!” Lady Catherine snickered and Elizabeth tensed next to Mr. Darcy. He placed his other hand comfortingly upon her arm.

“A retraction will be printed. We have identified who betrayed our trust. The next announcement you read in the Times will be the announcement of my marriage.”

Lady Matlock stood up. “I beg you, Darcy, think about the family! Think about your mother’s legacy! Your choice is very pretty, and intelligent. But you cannot honestly expect someone like her to step into the role that a Mrs. Darcy must!”

Elizabeth cringed at the slight, attracting Mr. Darcy’s notice. But he wisely did not comment on her flinch.

“I am not an impulsive man,” he said and waited for his aunt to relent in her fierce posture to slightly nod in agreement. “I have chosen Miss Elizabeth Bennet to be my wife precisely because I believe her to be the only woman in the world capable of carrying on my family’s legacy.”

Elizabeth brightened at the vote of confidence being offered and realized that as ghastly as the visit had been, it was worth it now to be with him.

“My sister and I were just offering our farewells. Thank you for the illuminating conversation and I wish you both well,” Elizabeth said, magnanimously, earning a raised eyebrow from Mr. Darcy. She managed not to laugh as he schooled his features and echoed her sentiments with a curt bow.

As the two couples turned around to leave, Lady Catherine urged Lady Matlock to do something, but the grand lady sat down and poured herself a cup of tea.

Once they had left, Lady Catherine couldn’t control her ire.

“He will marry her tomorrow! That smug, insolent, man. It will be too late to stop him.”

“Catty, it was too late when you warned him that she refused to deny his hand if he asked again. Truly, why did you not come to me first? I could have prevented all of this. You don’t know what it is to raise boys.” Lady Matlock blew across the top of her cup, and then took a tentative sip.

Lady Catherine pouted and her hands shook as she poured a cup of tea, following the example given by her hostess. 

“It is all lost.”

Lady Matlock chuckled in a slightly amused fashion. “I warned you that you counted too much on Darcy’s nobleness where it came to Anne.”

The butler opened the door and nodded to his mistress after catching her eye. She nodded and the man bowed his head.

“The staff is returning. He will marry that woman, and we shall not underestimate her in the future.”