28 • Her Ladyship
The door flew open hardly before their carriage had stopped. Mrs. Bennet bustled onto the stoop in her shawl. “Children, get inside, quickly! Winter still grips these nights and I must hear—”
She absorbed their faces in a stupefied manner, and then stared at Jane’s silent explanation in the display of her hand. Candles appeared as if from the walls as family members came out of the woodwork in the wake of her scream. Mr. Bennet stood against the doorway of the foyer, grinning contently as he opened an arm to his son. James settled against his ribs, hugging around his middle while Jane was otherwise spun round and round by their jubilant mother.
Mary was smiling on the stairs while Kitty chased her sister around, demanding details about what things she would want for her wedding, until Mr. Bennet carefully moved forward to capture his daughter in his embrace. “Congratulations, sweetheart.”
“Thank you, papa,” she was crying anew.
He stroked her head while he said, “I told the man, that if he intended to court you, he had better get on with it. I hadn’t meant for him to do so in the same day.”
His family laughed around them, and he announced that it was quite time for bed. “Yes, yes!” Mrs. Bennet agreed. “Dear Jane, you must rest! There can’t be enough sleep before the wedding!”
“It’s not tomorrow, mama,” James exclaimed.
“Nevertheless! Up with you! To bed, everyone! Mr. Bennet, you must go to Netherfield tomorrow—”
“I must nothing! I’m done with the place,” he curtailed.
“You have to thank him! For—”
“He’s got my daughter and the prettiest thing in the country with an equal amount of sense. I should be the one being thanked.”
James and Jane laughed all the way up to their room. They washed their faces slowly, still giggling at random times and without prompt. Jane bounced over the bed in her nightgown, a girl again while her brother smiled. “You know, you’re fortunate the ring fits. He never asked me for a size or to test it on my hand first.”
“You would never let him live that down,” she scolded. “And we aren’t the same size, anyway.”
“Do you want to try?” he teased.
“No. It will never leave my hand. I don’t want to imagine it getting stuck.”
His head fell back on the pillow with his mirth. “Well I congratulate you. You will be a very happy woman. The happiest, wisest, most reasonable end.”
A burst of giggles escaped her as she bobbed onto her side. “ ‘Tis too much, by far too much. Oh, why is everybody not as happy!”
He huffed, “Engagement ideally happens only once and even more hopefully ends.” The bases of his palms kneaded his eyes. “Our mother is going to be insufferable. Two daughters out of the house, and you with five thousand a year.”
Jane grinned, but it slowly faded into a wistful expression. “Netherfield will no longer be let…ever again. It will go to my children.”
“And the ring won’t fit your swollen fingers,” James realized with a gasp of epiphany. “We’ve come full circle.”
“Don’t be cruel!” she beat her pillow against him before hugging it under her. “Let me enjoy my engagement.”
He chuckled around the coffee bean he popped into his mouth. His smile lingered as he listened to Jane speaking, prattling more than she was normally inclined to do. “He has made me so happy by telling me that he was totally ignorant of my being in London! I had not believed it possible.”
“I suspected as much,” James commented, recollecting the man’s expression when he poised the accusation to Caroline’s face at Pemberley. “But how did he account for it?”
Jane’s head had lifted to be poised on her fist. “It must have been his sister’s doing. They were certainly no friends to his courtship with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have chosen so much more advantageously in many respects.”
“Hush.”
“But when they see, as I trust they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will learn to be contented, and we shall be on good terms again.”
“Ugh,” he groaned around another bean.
“Though we can never be what we once were to each other.”
James fixed wide, impressed eyes upon her. “That is the most unforgiving speech that I have ever heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again the dupe of Miss Bingley’s pretended regard.”
She moved to her belly, sitting up on her elbows. “Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November, he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of my being indifferent would have prevented his coming down again!”
James swallowed thickly, silently thanking the gentleman’s upbringing that warded against naming people in the wake of misunderstanding. “He made a mistake, to be sure,” he guarded, “but it is to the credit of his modesty.”
This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence and the little value he put on his own good qualities. James rolled his eyes. “You both finally speak up for yourselves and wind up engaged. The wonders of proper communication—careful!”
The protected his pouch of edibles morsels against the swat of a pillow. Jane giggled, “I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed! Oh Lizzy, surely I can’t be singled from the family, blessed above them all. If I could but share this day’s pleasures and see you as happy!”
James coughed a laugh deep in his chest. “Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I can never have your happiness—No, no let me shift for myself,” he curtailed when she sat up. “Perhaps, if I have very good luck, somehow better than yours, I may…That’s rather loud.”
They listened to the commotion outside of their house. “Horses?”
“At least three,” her brother counted.
“A carriage,” she realized.
A sharp knocking downstairs drew their gazes together.
Mary and Kitty’s heads poked out of their rooms while Jane and Mrs. Bennet were likewise tying the sashes of robes around their waists. Mr. Bennet was further along the stairs when Kitty asked, “You don’t think that’s Charles, do you?”
Jane opened her mouth to speak, but it was their father’s velvet baritone which answered, “It is a four-horse.”
This seemed sufficient answer enough as his family lined the stairs behind him. It was not Charles Bingley.
Mrs. Bennet lurched a step back upon the door opening. Such finery as the amethyst silk, the black velvet cloak, and the ostrich feather in her cap was not to be misunderstood. It was Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
James carefully descended the stairs as if to not make a sound. Though his parents had never seen the woman, they knew wealth when they saw it, and bowed and curtsied appropriately. Her eyes flicked to James, who bowed. “Lady Catherine.”
He heard the immediate rustle of fabric as his sisters curtsied low upon the stairs. Taking that as her invitation, her ladyship strode into the foyer, inducing the owners to move aside. Mr. Bennet, his voice measured, announced, “Ladyship or not, I’d like to inquire why you visit us at such an inhospitable hour.”
James was not surprised by her lack of formality, but her air was more than usually ungracious as she placed herself before James and made neither greeting nor a glance at his sisters or his parents more than necessary. “I wish to address your son on an urgent and most private matter. I presume there is a drawing room or study where we may speak alone.”
His mother’s head turned with her gaze darting between them. Mr. Bennet only looked at his son for confirmation. James gave it through gesturing to the nearest room. “Our parlour is just there.”
“Yes! Of course,” Mrs. Bennet rushed forward, throwing the door open and making quick work lighting the candles already melted over a candelabrum. James realized Jane had followed them inside when he rotated and she stood next to him. Behind her, were Mary and Kitty in the door jamb. Mr. Bennet was not far beyond, his shoulder visible as he leaned against the stairs.
While Mrs. Bennet was moving the candelabrum to the central table, Lady Catherine voiced, “You seem quite well, Mr. Bennet. This woman, I suppose, is your mother. And these are your sisters.”
James met her hard stare and knew politeness was limited and waning. “They are pretty, my lady, but they are not dolls. You’re free to speak to them directly.”
Her eyes flashed and he could feel Jane’s warning glare boring into him while their mother’s spine went rigid. “Yes, madam,” she intercepted. “Jane is my eldest. All my girls are here but one; my youngest of all is lately married. It just so happens that Jane was engaged this very…well, I suppose it was yesterday evening actually, to a wonderful young man, whom I believe will join our family nicely.”
To her ladyship’s credit, she listened to Mrs. Bennet’s nervous prattling and replied over her shoulder, “You have a very small park here.”
This gave Mrs. Bennet pause. She acquiesced, “It is nothing in comparison of Rosings, my lady, I dare say, but I assure you it is much larger than Sir William Lucas’s.”
“Speaking of Lucases,” Jane tried to curtail. “Have you come with a letter or word of Mrs. Collins? May I take the liberty of asking your ladyship whether you left Mr. and Mrs. Collins well?”
“Yes, very well. I saw them the night before last.”
James blinked, and could feel his sister’s weight lean toward him. Lady Catherine had certainly rushed here.
Her tone hardened. “I must emphasize my previous reason for being here: to speak with Mr. Bennet alone.”
Neither Jane nor their mother made efforts to move, apart from the latter urging, “We probably haven’t what you are in the habit of preferring, madam, but I shall gladly get to work on refreshment—”
“That will not be necessary. I do not intent to stay long enough for such things, however it is quite up to Mr. Bennet.”
At a loss, Mrs. Bennet looked to her son, who shook his head. “It’s all right, mama. You can go.”
An expression he had not often seen hardened her features as she nodded once. Jane grasped his hand, but he gave it a squeeze and let their mother usher all of his sisters out the door. It shut, and they were alone.
James stood in silence as Lady Catherine took a turn about the room. As she passed the mantle, he realized his mother had pried a candle off a metal arm and tossed it onto the logs. The embers were quickly glowing back to life to combat the subtle fog he exhaled over his lips.
Lady Catherine faced him, the firelight glowing in her feather. James determined not to be the first to speak; the woman could uphold her pride all by herself if she thought herself worthy to be more than usually insolent and disagreeable.
Thank god the nephew fell far from this tree.
She began, “You can be at no loss, Mr. Bennet, to understand the reason of my journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience must tell you why I come.”
She let that fall in the air between them, for he certainly could not absorb it. “Indeed, you are mistaken, madam. I am not at all able to account for seeing you here.”
“Mr. Bennet,” she broiled, “you ought to know that I am not to be trifled with. 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 was your sister on the verge of being most advantageously married, but that you, Mr. James Bennet, had on various accounts, and were continuing to do so, made advancements on my own nephew. Though I know it must be a scandalous falsehood—I would not injure him so much as to suppose the truth of it possible—nevertheless, I instantly set off for this place so that I might make my sentiments known to you.”
James was uncertain how to feel. For a moment, he felt his heart crushed as if between two iron plates. And then he felt nothing at all. A lost expectation was finally being met like an old friend.
“If you believed it impossible to be true,” he returned, his voice quiet, “I wonder why you took the trouble of coming so far.”
“To insist upon having such a report universally contradicted!”
James smirked as an idea, like a drop of oil sliding through the cogs of his mind, must have likely found its way to Lady Catherine’s ear. Caroline was more devious than he gave her credit for.
“We so often care more about the information we are given, instead of from whose mouth it reaches us. But never mind.” His voice felt cold to his own ears. “Your coming to Longbourn to see me and my family will be rather a confirmation of it, if indeed such a report is in existence.”
“If!” she huffed. A small part of James wondered if she had ever been so challenged. He did not have the stomach or the interest to celebrate his circumstances. “Do you then pretend to be ignorant of it? Do you not know that such a report has spread abroad?”
“I rather think such information was spread specifically and tactfully, to the person who would be most sensitive to it.”
The closest curve of a smile he had yet seen moved her lips. “It vexes me to say that I rather hope you are correct. Then can you declare that there is no foundation for it?”
His lungs burned. How humble, the need to breathe, and perhaps a vindictive part of him relished making her wait as he did so. James sighed, “I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your ladyship; more so that we ought to establish it outright. You may ask your questions plainly, which I shall choose or deny to answer.”
“This is not to be borne,” she growled. “Mr. Bennet, I insist on being satisfied. Has he, my nephew, made you an offer of homosexual partnership?”
James blinked. Sensation rushed back into his frozen fingertips; the chill of the room compounded with his aching limbs, the gentle warmth of the candlelight on his face. She knows William is…?
As if reading this from him she seconded, “Oh yes, I know of my nephew’s…prior mistakes. Boys kissing each other is nothing a stern word or rod may alter if done early enough.”
Frigidity forgotten, heat blazed inside James’ torso. “Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible.”
“It ought to be so! It must be so, while he retains the use of his reason.”
“But now you say he must be the one approaching me?” James tilted his head, a dark humour in his eyes.
He was admittedly impressed by how she matched it. “We are each of us susceptible to allurements, even my own flesh and blood. Your arts may, in brief moments of infatuation, have made him forget what he owes to himself and to his family. And I am not oblivious, Mr. Bennet, to your unique negligence in outright refusing such accusations.”
“And how do most gentlemen refute these things?”
“Most vehemently and whole heartedly.”
“I cannot apologize for disappointing. Your nephew learned himself how I do delight in contradicting expectations.”
She stepped forward, “Mr. Bennet, do you know who I am? I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.”
“I disagree to every word you’ve just now spoken, but it is not my place or ability to change your mind. I can, however, assure you that you are in no way entitled to know my concerns, nor will such behaviour as this ever induce me to be explicit.”
“Let me be rightly understood. This match can never take place. Never. William is engaged to my daughter. Now what have you to say?”
“Only this: that if he is so, he is also an honourable man. You can have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me. However, as I ignore your accusation, I notice you likewise neglect a common adversary to men who kiss men. Are you not a god fearing woman?”
Lady Catherine hesitated for a moment, taking the time to return to the window and gather her words. “I am as religiously respectful as one can be, however it is a harsh reality one faces when they discover the love for their family outweighs the adoration of the divine. I have turned a blind eye to many individuals and their inclinations, so long as they do not impact mine or my parish. You now obviously pose a problem. I was able to ignore your obvious hold on my nephew—even the enjoyment my daughter found in your company. They have been intended for each other since their infancy. It was the mutual wish of myself and his mother. While in their cradles, we planned the union—”
“I do not care for the aspirations of girls too young to know the hearts of their children,” James shook his head. “I always dreamed that those rich enough and so positioned had the privilege to love freely. That it was logical for a mother to desire the happiness of her children, and for this to be the force she used to guide her children’s decisions. Not to make the decisions for them in such an unfair manner. The reality is devastating.”
“Quite,” she marked. “You may be free, as men so often are, to mind your own business. As that business has since crossed with mine, here we now stand. The reality is this: you are of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family, and that is disregarding the most presentable case against yourself! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his engagement to my daughter?”
“I had heard of it before,” he drawled stiffly. “But what is it to me?”
Her voice sharpened, “Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy?”
“I wonder at the illusion of power you think you have over a grown man. You are not a girl deciding fates anymore. You did as much as you could in planning the marriage. Its completion depended on others. If William is neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is he not to make another choice? And if I am that choice, why may I not accept him?”
The words fell from his mouth before he meant for them to. The safety of emptiness was long since removed from him. The back of his throat ached and his eyes were glazed with furious tears.
Lady Catherine’s demeanour was not malicious. It was stoic with confirmation. “Because honour, decorum, prudence—nay—interest, forbid it. Yes, interest, for do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends if you willfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised by everyone connected with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace. Your name will never be mentioned by any of us.”
“By none of your circle, perhaps,” he almost whispered.
“These are heavy misfortunes!”
“I’ve been to Pemberley,” he combated. Lady Catherine appeared as if she had been struck. “I know Lady Georgiana is the daughter you wish you had and that their home, filled as it is with happiness, is unlike anything you’ve shared. I cannot apologize for your never having extended periods of happiness, your ladyship, for I cannot much take credit for anything in your life. I can be certain, though, that any partner, whether it is a wife or otherwise, to the Darcy family will have extraordinary sources of happiness. It makes sense, then, that you so desire Miss de Bourgh to have a place there. But it is not you who decides this. It’s William and Georgiana.”
Her aged jowls trembled in her rage. “Obstinate, headstrong fool! I am ashamed of you! Is this your gratitude for my attentions to you in my own home? Is nothing due to me on that score? You are to understand I came here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose, nor will I be dissuaded from it. I have not been used to submit to any person’s whims. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment.”
James crooned, “And here we are. However pitiable your ladyship’s situation may be in your eyes, it will have no effect on me.”
“I will not be interrupted. Hear me in silence. My daughter and nephew are formed for each other. They are descended from noble lines. Their fortunes on both sides are splendid. They are betrothed by the voices of every member of their respective houses, and what is to divide them?”
“Perhaps that, out of the voices you are citing, all are dead apart from yourself.”
“And it is up to me to upload our legacy against the upstart pretensions of a young man without family, connections, or fortune. This will not be endured! It must not and shall not be. If you were sensible of your own good, and the good of your sisters, you would not persist through this course of action.”
“Lady Catherine,” James growled. “You may say any damn thing you like about me, but the moment you threaten my sisters is the moment you learn of the vulgarity you insinuate the lower classes of having. You claim you care about yours and your sister’s offspring, where in fact you only desire the maintenance of pride. I, however, lack pride entirely. I will do anything for my sisters, and you forget that I am a gentleman’s son. I have every right to your nephew’s company.”
“True. You are a gentleman’s son. But who is your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their condition—”
The door burst open, shocking the air from James’ lungs insofar that he grasped the back of a chair for stability. He distantly heard his sister’s frightened chirps as the door slammed once more, this time with Mrs. Bennet inside.
“What condition is that, madam? For if your sources are to be reliable, then you would know my brother and sister have married not only well, but have raised themselves and their spouses from pennies to comfortable thousands. They are not unlike the Bingleys. Will you hold one family in high regard while hypocritically defaming another?”
Lady Catherine’s wide gaze was justified, however she was not dishonest of her resolution. “You ought to know as well as I that it is easy for extended family to lower a reputation, but it is not easy for them to raise it. Society is fickle in that regard. What of yourself, then? What income gains can you boast?”
“None,” Mrs. Bennet huffed, “because that pet who boasts so fondly of you—I mean of course, Mr. Collins—his late father took monthly sums from my husband’s generosity! But as he is gone and Mr. Collins is now under your responsibility, my Jamie is quite free to rise as far as he pleases, alongside my daughters’ dowries. They are in fact free to love whom they wish, where yours can only marry each other to keep money and arbitrary dignity safe within the family.
“I must say, I quite loathed your nephew. Every occasion I’ve had to observe or interact with him, I’ve found him full of hubris, disdain, and frankly, the spinning image of yourself. But my Jamie is indeed his father’s son, and both have terrific judgment in the company they keep. Therefore, whatever my connections may be, if your nephew does not object to them, they can be nothing to you.”
Lady Catherine looked thoroughly incensed, the fireplace now illuminating the room on one side and the candelabrum standing central to them all. She locked onto James, and bit out, “Tell me once and for all, are you joined with him?”
Both women waited for him to speak, making him aware of the tears tickling his face and jaw. Though James was more inclined to not oblige in answering, he could not but utter, “I am not.”
Lady Catherine seemed pleased as she relaxed as much as her corset enabled. “And will you promise me never to enter into such an engagement?”
“I will make no promises of the kind. Ever.”
Once more into the fight, she inhaled and spoke, “Mr. Bennet, I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more reasonable young man. Nothing is in your favour. 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.”
“Then at a stalemate of spite we shall remain, and I seem to be winning, as I have more time than you,” he rasped.
Her mouth was agape until Mrs. Bennet intercepted, “Your ladyship wants Mr. Darcy to marry your daughter, but our giving you the wished-for promise will not make their marriage at all more probable. I have tried thrice to have married children and my efforts have only succeeded one of those times. Supposing your nephew to be so attached to my son, would any refusal sway Darcy’s reaching hand to move to his cousin’s? Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that you have widely mistaken each of our characters, and frivolously come to us with such poor 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 ours.”
Her ladyship raised a gloved hand. “Not so hasty, if you please. I am by no means finished. To all the rational objections I have already urged, I have still more to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest’s infamous elopement. I know it all; and I daresay more than you—”
“You don’t,” James countered.
Lady Catherine’s nostrils flared, but she progressed, “—that the young man’s marrying her was a patched-up business at the expense of your father and uncles. And is such a girl to be my nephew’s—in some distorted view—sister-in-law? Heaven and earth! I cannot even humour such wordage! Your union with him is incriminatory! I cannot believe I must discuss this when it will never come to last any how.”
“You would be surprised how well my sort do in this world,” James voiced quietly. He would not dare tell her of William’s involvement to Lydia’s marriage.
She huffed, “Am I truly the sole being who sees every angle of foolishness to this mess? Wickham to be once again so closely attached to the Darcy family—Of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?
“Well go on then, your mother has spoken for herself, what of you? What can you think will happen once you and William age and a man of such fortune bears no children?”
James’ voice felt hollow. “Pemberley will go to Georgiana, and I am sure she will manage it even more beautifully than you’ve managed Rosings Park.”
“And it will befall the ownership of whatever man she marries!”
His brow furrowed. “You are so terrified of change. I am not afraid of Jane’s children inheriting Longbourn, because they surely will. I am not afraid of its being known as the home of Bingleys instead of Bennets. I am not afraid of a name fading inside the rush of time. I care only for Jane’s happiness, the health of her children, and Georgiana’s confidence in being a woman of privilege in such a den of snakes like you.
“You can now have nothing further to say. You have insulted me, in every possible method. I must beg you to leave my house.”
James began to move toward the door. His eye sockets ached as if his eyes were stone—
“You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish tyke! Do you not consider how a connection—and one such as this—will disgrace him and his sister in the eyes of everybody?”
He paused with his hand on the knob. “Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments.”
“Then you are resolved to have him?”
“I am resolved to be responsible for my own happiness, and the happiness of anyone who is brave enough to attach themselves to my treachery. This will be done without reference to you or any person so wholly unconnected with me.”
“You are determined to ruin him in the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world,” she spat.
“I know the man and his friends a great deal better than you, your ladyship, and I can proudly say it has been an honour sharing their company. William, Charles, and Georgiana, none of them fear the world as you do. There is a reason William never let your tendrils wrap around Pemberley. William never once approached me in a secret manner, he never once feared the indignation of the world. He has only held me in the highest regard and treated me as such. Your asking me to not do the same for him is absolutely shameful and vile. I will have nothing more to do with you.”
He marched from the room as Lady Catherine’s voice rang out, “Do not imagine that your ambition will ever be gratified!”
And then his mother’s, “Be silent, you infernal cow! A ladyship you may be but you are not the lady of this house, and I demand your silence as well as your removal! You’ve sought to injure my boy, and insulted two of my girls, and all I can say is that not enough money in the world has made you so fortunate as to have Jamie to combat with over myself!
“You’ve been given a precious gem from our county, and I can only hope Charlotte does bloody right by your own. As for the rest of us: Longbourn, Netherfield, and Meryton will only host you in the most strictly necessary of manner. Longbourn may be a small estate, but she is self-sufficient, long adored, and full of more heart than your entire bloody park has ever known! Now, if you are quite finished, get out!”
Her ladyship’s heels clicked sharply over the floor, her feather bobbing ever-elegantly behind her as she strode to the door Mr. Bennet was already holding open. Lady Catherine spared a final moment to growl up at him, “You raised a fowl creature for a son. Have you any notion what my word over his can do?”
The man drawled, “Your ladyship, nothing more would please me than to close this door without gracing you with a response. However you are on our threshold, and I must tell you, not only to move a pace backward before I am given that pleasure, but also that any card removed from a pyramid makes all the cards fall, regardless of suit or value. So pick away. At the very least, we will be below fair William to catch him.”
Her astonishment swayed her backward, and the door shut with the loud latch of its lock.