One Thread Pulled: The Dance With Mr. Darcy (78 page)

“Praise the Lord!” Mrs. Bennet exclaimed. “We are saved, Mr. Bennet! We are saved!”

“Indeed we are.” Mr. Bennet smiled at his wife. “Indeed we are.”

Chapter Fifty-Five

The Final Chapter, A New Beginning

W
ake up, Lizzy, wake up!” Lydia whispered loudly in her ear. “Mama is to call upon Lady Lucas, and we are to accompany her!” Lydia shook Elizabeth's shoulder. “Make haste! We are to go in fifteen minutes, no more!”

Elizabeth sat up in her bed, peering in the dim light at her sister. “What madness is this, Lydia? We cannot visit at such an hour!”

“It is not madness Lizzy! I do not know all the particulars, but I do know that Mama received a message from Lucas Lodge at dawn, bidding her to come and wait upon Lady Lucas as soon as may be. It is a matter of great urgency—do not subject me to an interrogation for that is all I know. Just rise and dress while I do the same. Certainly all will be revealed before the morning is done. Make haste!” Lydia pressed her hands down on the mattress and shook her sister's bed before she turned and ran from the room, pulling the counterpane off her sister as she did so.

Hill's best efforts could not put breakfast on the sideboard before the carriage came around for the ladies, so they quickly donned their warmest pelisses and mantles, departing without so much as a slice of toast or a sip of tea to begin their day. No sooner had the carriage passed through the gates than Elizabeth demanded an explanation of the outing from her mother.

Mrs. Bennet's lips pressed together and her eyebrows shot up. “Can you not imagine, Miss Lizzy? Lady Lucas has requested our presence the very morning after the news on the entail was delivered to her future son-in-law. His prospects are not so very bright now that Longbourn is no longer his inheritance. I cannot pretend to summon even one tear for that wretched man, Mr. Collins, but I most certainly have sympathy for Lady Lucas. To be forced to endure a connection to such an odious creature as that horrid parson is a sorry, sorry fate indeed. Doubtless they need our consolation.”

“But he does have a living, Mama.” Elizabeth said quietly. “That at least, is something.”

“Ugh!” Lydia burst out. “To be forced to endure the marriage bed with him would be the sorriest fate of all! Poor Charlotte!”

“Lydia!” Elizabeth gasped. “You must not speak of such things!”

“La! Why ever not? The thought of so much as a kiss from that toad causes me to suffer goose flesh in the worst way. He disgusts me!” Lydia shivered.

“Then be grateful that he did not offer for you. Mama was quite enamored of the idea that he would marry one of us—had he offered for you, you well may have been forced to accept.” Elizabeth looked at her mother expectantly.

“Now, Lizzy,” Mrs. Bennet scolded, “you know that it was only when he was to inherit Longbourn that I thought him suitable. Besides, with Jane nearly wed, and you engaged to be so, Lydia shall become the most beautiful and eligible maiden in all of Hertfordshire. With your Darcy connections and Jane's place in society as Mrs. Bingley, Lydia could come out in a year’s time. With her beauty and lively nature, she will undoubtedly attract a fine, rich husband.”

“But Lydia is already out in society, Mama.” Elizabeth objected, glancing with a frown at her sister, whose eyes gleamed with delight at the turn of the conversation.

“Ooooooo!” Lydia squealed. “And I shall have new gowns in the latest fashions from London—nothing made-over or turned!”

“Of course,” Mrs. Bennet nodded as she looked out the window of the carriage. “And Lydia is
 
not
 
out, as you well know. Mr. Bennet declared her not to be so and will not allow it until she is at least seventeen.” They were approaching Lucas Lodge, and she tsked impatiently at the sight of a large equipage in front of the house. “Who else would call at this hour, and with such horses as those?”

Elizabeth craned her neck to see past her mother. “Mama! That is the de Bourgh crest! Why would Lady Catherine call on the Lucases? What can it mean?”

“She is, after all, Mr. Collins' patroness.” Mrs. Bennet reflected. “Perhaps the condescension he goes on about has extended to calling on him here, in Meryton. Could it be that she has come to wish him joy?”

“Upon my word, I do not believe
 
that
 
Mama. Lady Catherine would not suffer the expense and hardship of such a journey for so small a purpose. There must be some other reason. Perhaps this has something to do with our own summons here this morning.”

The door to the carriage opened before Mrs. Bennet could reply, and the footman handed the Bennet ladies out of the coach. They were ushered into Lucas Lodge with no ceremony and led by the housekeeper to the drawing room, where the Lucases, the de Bourghs and Mr. Collins were already assembled. The sound of raised voices marked their approach, but once the door was opened and the Bennets were announced, silence hung in the air for a long, tense moment.

Elizabeth took in the scene with great curiosity. Lady Lucas sat beside a tea set, as stiff as a piece of stone. Charlotte appeared to have been crying but was now composed. Mr. Collins sat in the corner, his face flushed and his head hanging low—giving the appearance of a schoolboy being punished. Lady Catherine was enthroned in the center of the largest settee in the room, and Miss De Bourgh was seated with her companion on another settee nearby. Anne's face lit with what appeared to be relief when the Bennets entered the room, although she did not speak.

Mrs. Bennet froze in the doorway, as much a statue as her friend Lady Lucas. Lydia looked about the room and, seeing no sign of Mariah, muttered something about finding her friend and unabashedly walked away. Only Elizabeth seemed fully possessed of her wits. She gracefully walked until she stood directly in front of the dowager. She curtsied slightly with an amused smile upon her lips. “Good morning, Lady Catherine. It is indeed an unexpected pleasure to find you here. I hope your travels were pleasant.”

Lady Catherine squinted at her. “Travels, Miss Bennet, are never pleasant, least of all in the winter months. If you traveled more, you would not say such things.”

“Perhaps you are right.” Elizabeth nodded graciously and turned to face Lady Lucas. “We came as quickly as we could. I trust you are well?”

Lady Lucas's eyes grew round and she nodded, casting a nervous look toward Lady Catherine. Mrs. Bennet grew suddenly animated and rushed to the side of her friend. “Yes, yes, we have come. What can we do for you, dearest? What is this matter of great urgency you have encountered, and what must we do to come to your aid?”

This drew a moan from Mr. Collins, a whimper from Charlotte, and a grunt from Lady Catherine. “There is nothing you need do, Mrs. Bennet. I have the situation well in hand now. I am here to retrieve Mr. Collins, whose absence has been most keenly felt by the parishioners at Hunsford. His return is long overdue, and I fear his neglect of his duty cannot be allowed to continue a moment longer.”

“He has been ill!” Elizabeth came to his defense. “He could hardly return to Kent in the condition he was in. The journey itself could have killed him, and if it had not, he may well have brought the sickness with him and spread it about the countryside there.”

As if to emphasize the seriousness of his condition, Mr. Collins sneezed.

Lady Catherine turned her eye upon him. “It was most irresponsible of you to tarry here. It displeases me that I was forced to intervene and put Anne's health at risk in doing so.” She waved her hand toward her daughter. Mr. Collins gulped loudly.

“Your ladyship, it was the apothecary, Mr. Jones, who advised me to stay abed. Indeed, he forbade…”

Lady Catherine turned her head and squinted at Charlotte. “I suppose you nursed him.” Charlotte nodded timidly. “Most irregular. The task should have fallen to his relations at the Bennet household.” She looked directly at Elizabeth and raised an eyebrow.

“I do not see why that should be.” Mrs. Bennet interrupted indignantly. “Elizabeth herself was taken with the fever, and the burden of her care fell to us. Charlotte is engaged to him, and as it turns out, we are not related to Mr. Collins after all, unless you count a relation by marriage, which I do not in this case. In fact…”

“Not related?” Lady Catherine's head pulled back in surprise. “Engaged to Miss Lucas?” A deep frown crossed her features. “Mr. Collins, you have handled your affairs here in Hertfordshire most clumsily, and your failure to notify me at once of these developments is alarming indeed.” She scowled and puckered her face, tipping her head slightly before returning the focus of her frightening visage back to Mr. Collins. “Am I to understand that not only have you aligned yourself with a family of not even a small fortune, but that you are not the beneficiary of an entail on the Bennet estate after all?”

Collins shook his head as his face colored and beads of moisture formed on his brow. “I was deceived, your ladyship, by my father, into the belief that I was his natural son. It was discovered—by means not yet clear to me—that my true lineage differs from what I have known all my life and that a grievous wrong has been perpetrated by my parents. My father was always resentful that the lands and manor house at Longbourn had fallen to Mr. Bennet, and he insisted to the very day he passed from this mortal coil that justice would only be served when I ascended to take the place of Master at Longbourn upon Mr. Bennet's death. I am as shocked as you are.”

“Have the facts of the claim against you been verified?” Lady Catherine challenged. “Is it certain?”

“The legal papers delivered to me by express courier yesterday are quite clear. My birth record names one John Sutton as my father. There is a death entry for him in the same parish mere weeks after I was born. The registry entry for my mother's marriage to Mr. Collins, the man I believed to be my natural father, was made well after my first year of life had passed. I never knew John Sutton or that I was christened William Sutton as an infant, although the remnant of this identity persists in my full name, which is William Sutton Collins. I was told that 'Sutton' was the surname of a grandfather, which is true enough, but I wonder if this did not make forging the name change on documents a simple task. It is perverse! The elder Mr. Collins treated me as a father ought to treat a son; I never had any reason to doubt that he was my true father, although in retrospect, his disappointment when my sisters were born was perhaps a hint of his motive and desire to produce a legitimate heir to Longbourn, although I never suspected the reason for his melancholy. I proclaim myself to be innocent of any intentional harm to the Bennets, quite the opposite in fact, for I intended to heal the breach through marriage, thus returning the inheritance to the family fold. It was only after I was twice refused that I sought to secure the hand of one who is more amiable by far—
and
 
in every way better suited to be my wife.”

“Humph,” sniffed Lady Catherine, her attention once again falling to Charlotte. “Does this lady still accept you, now that your fortunes have fallen? You owe her the chance to back out gracefully, since your situation in life is so decidedly beneath what it was when you offered for her. Can you even afford a marriage settlement now?”

Charlotte sat up straight in her chair and quietly spoke. “Jilt Mr. Collins? I would not do such a thing for all the world! His fortunes may have fallen, true, but the inheritance in question was always subject to the eventual death of Mr. Bennet—an event that will bring great sorrow to my dearest friends, and which I always hoped was many years in the future. My acceptance of Mr. Collins never had anything to do with his ties to Longbourn. He has the living at Hunsford, as you well know, and with the tithes and proceeds from the glebe, we shall have more than sufficient for our needs, regardless of any other income. I am resolved to proceed with the marriage. Nothing material has truly changed.”

“Well, that's settled then. Mr. Collins, you are fortunate indeed to have chosen a woman who would not abandon you in the face of misfortune. You should marry as soon as it can be done. All this traveling back and forth will become tiresome ere long, and you cannot afford it.” Lady Catherine looked bored and cast her eyes upon Elizabeth. “My business here in Hertfordshire is not yet concluded. There remains the matter of yet another untimely engagement that has transpired in my absence. Miss Bennet, it has come to my attention that you have attached yourself to my nephew. You cannot deny it—the announcement was published in the Morning Post, which you must have known could not escape my notice.”