These Three Remain (7 page)

The closer the hands of the Ormolu clock crept toward the hour appointed for departure to Hunsford Church, the more needful it became to Darcy for some manner of activity to stave off his mounting impatience. Unable to countenance any longer the confinement of his aunt’s table and conversation, he rose abruptly from his chair. To the astonishment of his relatives, he excused himself and, forestalling Richard from accompanying him with a frown, left the morning room for the air of Rosings’s garden. Once beyond the doors, he stopped, filled his lungs with the sharp morning air, and then turned his attention to the garden and his own disordered emotions. The crunch of the white graveled path beneath his boots was the only sound that accompanied his thoughtful meander through the geometrical beds and hedges that Lady Catherine deemed correct in a polite garden. No suggestion of wildness, neither the veriest hint of the natural was tolerated here, only the mathematical order of sharp angles and precise beds. A formal, logical garden, Darcy mused, as he put as much distance between himself and Rosings Hall as the garden could afford. Would that the geometry of the garden might seep into his bones, discipline his unruly thoughts and emotions, and return them to the figures in which they had run before he’d ever heard of Netherfield. He slowed his stride; the path went no farther but divided right or left to circle the garden’s perimeter. With a sigh, he turned back to face the manor house and the truth.

He was wild to see her; there was no denying the truth of it. But it was also true that he feared to see her. The memory of that moment in the parsonage, when her presence and his desire’s imaginings had caused him to doubt his reason, had been a continual torment and tease. The scene had intruded on his every thought and accompanied his every action. One moment, the remembered delight would be such that he would give much to be caught up so again, and the next, when the reality of the situation reasserted itself, he swore that he would give anything not to be. Darcy clenched his fists. This mad swinging of his thoughts and desires was becoming intolerable! His resolve had melted in the candescence of her eyes. His self-physic of duty and busyness had been an utter failure.
Is there no means of quenching this fascination?

The only response to his plea was the sudden, shrill call of one of the peacocks allowed to roam the park. On its heels followed a faint “Darcy!” from the house. Looking in that direction, Darcy spied Fitzwilliam at the opposite end of the garden, striding purposefully toward him. Come to plague him, most like. But as Richard advanced, something he had said earlier that morning teased Darcy’s memory. What had it been? Something about having had a surfeit of Collins? Darcy seized upon the thought. Might that be the solution to his obsession with Elizabeth?

“Fitz! It is time to be off! What the devil are you doing out here?” Richard demanded querulously as he came upon him. “Why did you abandon me to the old she-dragon? Fitz!” He addressed him again when he got no reply. “And what the devil are you smiling at?”

It was indeed a fine Easter morning. So mild was the weather and so light the breeze that Lady Catherine consented to Darcy’s request that the calash of the barouche be let down. The beauties of the Kent countryside, thus displayed in their full glory, were duly observed under the lady’s express direction and commentary, but Darcy never heard her during the sojourn to Hunsford, nor he suspected, did his cousin. This was of no consequence, for an unfocused stare and an occasional nod were all Her Ladyship expected or desired from her nephews. Any more fervid a response would have given rise to a suspicion of “artistic” tendencies, which the lady deplored almost as much as “enthusiast” ones in men of rank.

The distance to Hunsford by carriage was not long, but it was obvious from the agitated demeanor of its rector as he fluttered about the threshold that they were late. Since Darcy’s turn in Rosings’s garden had hardly delayed their departure, it was plain that Lady Catherine’s timetable had been designed with a grand entrance in mind. Members of the elevated strata of the local gentry stood with Mr. and Mrs. Collins outside the church doors in order to greet Her Ladyship and her distinguished nephews, but Elizabeth was not among them. Darcy tensed as the barouche swayed to a stop and it became apparent that neither was she to be seen within the threshold of the church. Chagrined, he glanced at Fitzwilliam, who was scowling with annoyance, first at his aunt and then at the crowd gathered on the church step.

“Too late!” Fitzwilliam grumbled under his breath as one of Rosings’s scarlet-clad servants hurried to open the barouche’s door. “And a bloody gauntlet to run as well!” Once the door was opened, he bounded out of the equipage, forgetting his duty to his aunt for the length of two strides before Darcy caught his arm. “Richard!” he hissed to him. Fitzwilliam stopped short, a question on his lips that Darcy answered with a silent cock of his head. “Oh, good Lord!” Fitzwilliam whispered fearfully and, pasting a smile on his face, stepped back to the carriage and offered his waiting aunt his hand down.

“I shall write to your mother, Fitzwilliam,” Lady Catherine announced as she took his hand and descended from the barouche, her eye sharply inspecting his now blanching countenance, “and inform her of your unusual behavior. Further, I will advise that she read it to His Lordship.”

“My Lady” — Fitzwilliam bridled — “I beg you to believe that I haven’t turned Methodist.”

“I should say not!” interrupted his aunt. “You were baptized in the Church of England, sir, of which fact I was a material witness, and there is an end to it! Now, no more of such nonsense!” She took his arm and nodded toward the church door. In seething obedience, Fitzwilliam escorted her forward.

Impatient to be past Richard’s aptly labeled “gauntlet,” Darcy turned to his female cousin and extended his hand. Anne’s ephemeral touch drifted down upon his forearm for only a few seconds and, to his surprise, was quickly withdrawn when she gained the ground. He looked down at her curiously, but her gaze was averted from him, hidden by the brim and gathered flowers of her bonnet. It came to him suddenly then that she had not spoken a single word during their breakfast or sojourn, nor had he observed her attend to anything but the passing scenery or her own glove-clad hands, which had lain clasped in her lap. Even now she said nothing, merely stood like Lot’s wife where she had alighted from the carriage, waiting.

“Shall we walk, Anne?” he asked evenly. The bonnet moved slowly up and down, and Darcy almost thought he heard a sigh as he once more offered his arm to his cousin. Two thin fingertips came to rest on his blue coat sleeve, but he knew so only by sight; their weight was undetectable. He started forward slowly, expecting a reticence from her that would require he coax her on, but she responded to his signal and walked in unison with him to the church door. Still without looking at him, she paused, anticipating his need to shift his walking stick to his other hand and remove his hat at the threshold. He nodded curtly to the assemblage there, forestalling any attempted conversation, and led her inside.

The sudden, cool dimness of the entryway beneath the bell tower was a welcome respite from the glare of public scrutiny, but Anne seemed to shrink even further within herself as a shiver caused the fingers pressed so lightly on his arm to tremble. He looked sharply down, maneuvering to catch a glimpse of her face, but the semidarkness and her bonnet still shielded her from him and for the first time Darcy felt some concern for his cousin. Something was wrong, that was very evident, but what could it be? Sudden shame flooded him as he realized that he could not possibly guess her trouble, for he had never taken even a passing interest in her concerns. She had always been merely Anne, his “unintended,” his sickly, female cousin: a pitiable thing with which any healthy, young male would have had little to do. And, to his dishonor, he had not.

Hunsford Church was a respectable edifice. The structure itself was not a grand one, nor the nave a particularly long one. But it might as well have been Westminister for the time it seemed to require Darcy to escort his cousin to the de Bourgh pew and Lady Catherine’s side. Relieved at last to have completed the promenade, he handed Anne into the box, and was free, so he thought, to blend himself into the rest of the congregation as he searched it for Elizabeth’s profile. Doubtless, he thought as he set aside his walking stick and hat, Richard had already found her and he needed only determine in which direction the Rudesby was gawking. But a surreptitious glance past Anne to Fitzwilliam on her other side told Darcy that, far from engaging in a nave-wide flirtation with Elizabeth, his cousin’s habitual good humor had quite fled. In all Darcy’s past experience of Lady Catherine, it was only his father who had ever been able to stand against her and even bring her to some semblance of womanly reserve. Since his passing, those more feminine aspects of her nature had been overthrown completely by her imperious disregard of all but her own opinions, of which Richard now suffered the brunt of her latest rendition.

A flurry of movement and song from the rear of the sanctuary brought the congregation to its feet. From habit, Darcy’s limbs also heeded the call, and he rose even while he discarded the puzzles of his cousins to take up the more intriguing one of finding Elizabeth in the crowd. Thankful again for his height, he began to search the meadow of flowered and fruited bonnets for the one that sheltered her glory from the casual eye, but at that moment the small boys’ choir began the processional, their voices — only occasionally on key but earnest and clear — echoing against the ancient walls. Darcy’s gaze flicked down the aisle. Behind them, in stately stride, came Mr. Collins, his white surplice starched to within an inch of its life and his eyes cast reverently heavenward. So he proceeded until he drew even with the de Bourgh pew, at which point he startled both Darcy and Fitzwilliam with a sharp turn in their direction and bowed deeply to each member of the family of his noble patroness. It was just as the ridiculous man was rising from these embarrassing flatteries that Darcy saw behind him and across the aisle a flash of blue belonging to the ribbon of a straw bonnet decked with freshly picked lilies of the valley. As the brim came up, a pair of velvet brown eyes appeared above a pert nose and beguiling lips held back from exposing their owner’s amusement by delicate, glove-clad fingertips. The sight was pure enchantment, and he was more than disposed to allow it to have its way.

Filled now with the sight of her cousin Mr. Collins, Elizabeth’s lively eyes danced with the diversion. But not content with beholding his fawning attentions, her eyes swept up to observe his effect on others and, to Darcy’s surprise, she began their examination with his own face. The expectancy in her eyes and the sweet curve of her lips shot through him like a bolt, pinning his senses to the moment, and in that eternal second he could only wait and watch for what would come. A puzzled frown lightly touched her countenance. Although it allowed him some respite, her bewildered regard excited his curiosity. What intrigued her?

The end of the morning’s collect signaled that the assembled might resume their seats, giving Darcy only a few seconds to cast another surreptitious glance in Elizabeth’s direction. The curiosity that had enlivened her face had been replaced by a thoughtful character focused on the intricacies of the stained-glass window, a gift of Sir Lewis’s grandfather that hung majestically in the apse beyond the pulpit. It well became her, and he would have given much to know the nature of the thoughts that produced such an arresting display, but hard upon this observation was the guilty realization that he was once more engaged in a blatant invasion of her privacy. With reluctance, he withdrew from his secretive foray without catching her eye and gave his attention to Hunsford’s unfortunate rector. Darcy’s previous exposure to the presuming little man had not included a taste of his formal sermonizing; therefore it was, in a sense, the rector’s “maiden speech.” Darcy’s expectations were not high, but as Mr. Collins arranged and rearranged his sheaf of notes upon the pulpit, the visitor was prepared to give him the benefit of a judgment reserved.

His papers finally arranged to his satisfaction, Mr. Collins turned to the family of his patroness and, to Darcy’s consternation, bowed to them yet again, whereupon Lady Catherine nodded her permission to proceed. With growing apprehension, Darcy watched the rector arrange his face into the most solemn of lines and turn it upon his congregation. “My text this morning comes from the Epistle to the Colossians, chapter three: ‘Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.’ My subject for this Easter morn, my faithful congregation, is affection — or, more properly, what has been called Religious Affection. That is to say, I speak to you today in stern warning against the vulgar excesses of ‘Enthusiasm!’ ”

“Oh no!” Fitzwilliam groaned as he shrank down in the pew, but Darcy came to a tense attention. This was his aunt’s doing, he was sure of it.

“The text,” continued Her Ladyship’s mouthpiece, “directs us to set our affection on things above. This may not be construed as leave to indulge in flights of emotion. Heaven forbid! Religion is of a more steady nature; of a more sober, manly quality. She scornfully rejects the support of something so volatile, so trivial and useless as a lively imagination and the uncontrolled flow of, you will pardon the expression, ‘animal spirits.’ Such things find their home in the heated, disordered brain of the Enthusiast rather than in the dispassionate, rational understanding which the Supreme Being requires of the true man of religion.”

Heated, disordered brain? Darcy crossed his arms over his chest and leveled a piercing stare at his aunt’s minion.

“No, dear listeners.” Collins brought his palm down upon the pulpit with a theatrical thwack. “True wisdom, true religion directs us to the reining in of passion and its disorders for the calm cultivation of moral virtues. Only fulfill the conditions on your part of duty and honor, become proficient in this lesson of the Gospel, and all will be well.
Self-reformation
is affection set on things above, not this vain, self-aggrandizing fervor.”