“Of course, Mr. Darcy. If you will remain still!”
Lady Catherine’s traditional Easter breakfast en famille proceeded in its grand manner as it had for over twenty years. The only difference Darcy noted that morning was his own impatience to have it done and be on their way to Hunsford Church. That Richard also chafed to be gone was an unwelcome novelty that even Her Ladyship observed.
“Fitzwilliam!” Lady Catherine set a stern eye upon him. “I have an excellent digestion, equal to any in the kingdom, a fact in which I pride myself and encourage in young people; but if you will not cease fidgeting, I will be put off my breakfast entirely.”
“My apologies, Ma’am.” Fitzwilliam flushed and cast a beseeching glance at Darcy.
“I also understand that you arose this morning much earlier than is your wont,” she continued. “Why is that, I wonder. I have never heard that you were a religious man, Fitzwilliam. Your mother’s letters have long lamented your absence from the family pew. It cannot be that you have taken leave of your senses and become an ‘enthusiast,’ I trust! We shall have none of that nonsense in our family!”
“My dear aunt —” Richard began to protest.
“Then you can have no cause for impatience. Collins will wait! What else has he to do?” Having no answer, Richard lapsed into studied stillness until, being able to bear the inactivity no longer, he reached for another slice of toast and heaped it with an unconscionable amount of jam. With a look at his cousin that dared him to say anything, he thrust it into his mouth and began chewing on it as vigorously as possible without arousing his relative’s ire once more. Darcy bit down on his lip, struck with unease and anger as Lady Catherine proceeded to declaim upon her next subject. It had been wise, after all then, that he had decided against Georgiana accompanying him to Kent. Regardless of his own reservations concerning her new interest in religion, he would not chance his sister’s recovery to their aunt’s crushing opinions. He stared at her as she continued her discoursing, wondering if he’d ever truly seen her before, and silently vowed never to allow Lady Catherine to bully his sister about that which had brought her back to herself and back to him.
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.