“There is a Lady Catherine de Bourgh here to see you, miss.”
Chapter 28
“Lady Catherine de Bourgh? To see me?”
“Yes, miss.”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows in surprise. She imagined the only grounds for her visit would be due to her somehow hearing of Mr. Collins’s proposal… or Elizabeth’s refusal of it. Her chest tightened as she considered that any misapprehension would surely make it more difficult to receive Lady Catherine’s approbation when Darcy later informed her of their marriage.
Elizabeth looked in the mirror and straightened her dress, tucking a few wayward strands of hair back in place before walking downstairs. She desired to be presentable in appearance as well as in manners to her husband’s esteemed aunt.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she observed a very well-dressed lady, standing erect and bearing a most decidedly stern look across her face. Her clothes, which were quite opulent in design and fabric, reinforced her decidedly haughty expression. Elizabeth walked up and waited for the woman to address her.
Instead, the woman eyed her up and down, with a most dissatisfied look upon her face.
Elizabeth took it upon herself to introduce herself. “Good morning, Lady Catherine. I am Miss Elizabeth Bennet…”
“I am well aware who you are.” The sarcastic tone in Lady Catherine’s voice was unmistakable. “I noticed a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I request your presence in joining me there.”
“Yes, come this way, please,” offered Elizabeth, already discomfited by this lady’s insolent manners.
Before they had even entered the copse to which Elizabeth brought her, Lady Catherine turned and began to release a diatribe against her.
“You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I have come.”
Elizabeth looked at her with complete astonishment at her brash greeting, but steeled herself to remain calm and polite. “Indeed, madam. I am not at all able to account for the honour of your visit. I have heard much about you from…”
“Miss Bennet,” she replied in an angry tone, “a report of a most alarming and grievous nature reached me two days ago.” Lady Catherine’s face became quite red with anger as she narrowed her eyes upon Elizabeth.
“Lady Catherine, I believe there is no need for you to be upset. You see, although I did turn down…”
“I will not be interrupted!” She pounded her cane into the ground. “Have you no respect for your elders?”
Elizabeth’s ire began to rise as she struggled to maintain a measure of composure, believing this woman had no right to treat her thusly for refusing her clergyman’s proposal. She took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself. “I do, madam, when I am, in turn, treated with respect.”
“You expect me to treat you with respect?”
“I would certainly ask for and expect nothing less.”
“How dare you, when I have been told that you, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, have covertly formed an alliance with my nephew, Fitzwilliam Darcy; that you have, much to my shock and dismay, secretly married him!”
She stopped and watched the expression on Elizabeth’s face betray the truth. Elizabeth paled and felt as though the world was spinning around her.
She continued, “I had every hope that it was a scandalous falsehood when I was informed of this grave situation. I instantly resolved on ascertaining for myself its fabrication.”
“If you believe it to be a falsehood,” said Elizabeth, colouring with astonishment and rising disdain, “I am sorry you took the time to come so far to verify it. I will say nothing to your allegation.”
“Impertinent girl! As much as I wished it to be untrue, what I was given proves otherwise!” Lady Catherine pulled out a piece of paper and waved it in front of her. When Elizabeth was able to look at it more closely, she could see that it was a marriage certificate. Their marriage certificate!
“How did you come by that?” she asked, her voice cracking and her whole body beginning to tense up.
“It is not important who placed it in my hands. I need only say that a concerned, longtime friend of the family came upon it and knew that it would be in my family’s best interest to be aware of the infamous scheme in which you have placed my nephew.”
Elizabeth was rendered mute by the sight of the marriage certificate in Lady Catherine’s possession and the accusation against her.
Lady Catherine continued. “I demand to know how you have drawn him in!”
“If I had been the one to draw him in, I would be the last one to confess it.”
“Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.”
“Then to him you must apply!”
Lady Catherine hesitated for a moment, and then replied, “Unfortunately, he has left for Pemberley.”
Her voice became more deliberate and harsh. “Let me be rightly understood. This match to which you had the presumption to aspire is impossible! I want you to assure me that this is a falsehood! That this certificate is some sort of fabrication!”
Elizabeth looked at her, anger and confusion hindering her ability to comprehend all she was hearing. “I am sorry you took the trouble to come here and accuse me, your ladyship. It is not a falsehood. I did marry your nephew. I humbly suggest and fervently hope that you will accept it.”
Lady Catherine glared at Elizabeth, pointing to the certificate. “Accept it? You ask me to accept a marriage between my nephew and someone like you? Never! And who is this Captain Wendell?” she asked as he pointed to the certificate.
“He was the captain of the ship on which we were sailing, madam. He performed the marriage.”
The angry woman lifted one eyebrow in disdain and pounded her cane into the ground again for emphasis. “This is not to be borne! You stand there and tell me that my nephew has not only entered into a marital relationship with someone so decidedly beneath his notice, with little or no connections, but he did not even have the decency to marry in a church? Heaven forbid! What have you done to him? Have you no scruples, girl? How is it that you came to be married to him?”
Elizabeth fought the strongest impulse to retort back harshly to the woman, remembering she was now family. She closed her eyes, vainly wishing her husband was here.
“Answer my question! How is it that you came to be married to him on this ship?”
Elizabeth paled and calmed herself before she answered. “He made an offer and I accepted it. It is as simple as that.”
Lady Catherine’s eyes darkened. “I understand it was a marriage of a peculiar nature.”
Elizabeth started. “I am sorry, I do not know to what you are referring.”
“Do you not?” Taking in a deep breath, she began, “I understand that you were married with the intention that it would later be annulled.”
Elizabeth felt a tremor course through her. “Where did you hear that?”
“That does not matter. What matters is that I insist on knowing whether it is true!”
Elizabeth could not look upon her, wondering how she came to have this information.
“With all due respect, Lady Catherine, this is not something I wish to discuss.”
Lady Catherine persisted, ignoring her response. “On what basis was it to be annulled?”
Elizabeth straightened her shoulders. “Lady Catherine, I have answered all the questions I wish to answer. If you will excuse me!”
“I will have you know,” she countered, as she stepped in Elizabeth’s path, “that my nephew has been promised to my daughter since their birth. It was his mother’s design as well as mine! And now you expect me to simply ignore the fact that you and he were married, that you degraded him? Do you really believe that I can overlook your marriage to him when he marries my Anne, knowing he has been in an annulled marriage? You have no idea what this will do to my daughter! And what about Mr. Collins? Does he know that the woman he plans to marry has had a marriage annulled?”