Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll Page A

in such a situation, he walked out of the room and down the hall.
    Jane watched him as he took his leave, then tilted her head just a little to catch every last glimpse of him as he rounded the corner to his own room (possibly to make certain she truly witnessed what she thought she had). Then, still in the doorway, she looked at her sister’s equally dishevelled tresses.
    “I feared you and Mr. Darcy had quarrelled.” She again looked down the hall, now vacant of Mr. Darcy’s passage, “But I dare say any disagreements betwixt you have been mended?”
    Indeed.

8
    Nary a word had passed betwixt Elizabeth and Jane regarding the blatant impropriety of Elizabeth entertaining Mr. Darcy in her bedchamber (and in her night-dress). This was not by way of censure, but because Jane and Elizabeth’s sisterly bond was unusually strong. Jane endeavoured to find goodness in all God’s creations and she loved Elizabeth unconditionally. Hence, no matter what her eyes told her, she did not for a moment believe anything untoward had occurred that night.
    This benevolence allowed Elizabeth a reprieve from explaining that if it did not, it was not for want of trying.
    * * *
    The day Mrs. Bennet married off her two eldest daughters in extremely advantageous matches was cold and bright. As the two couples stood in the vestibule (Jane aglow with purity and Elizabeth wearing quasi-vestal white) Mr. Bingley’s eyes were almost as fulgent as the winter sun, but Mr. Darcy was quite solemn.
    This august occasion was well-nigh put into a pother by reason of another relative. For the obsequious, obtuse (and far too ubiquitous) Mr. Collins waited as long as he dared for the request. It being not forthcoming, he then hied from his vicarage in Kent to apply for the exceedingly illustrious duty of presiding over the wedding of Mr. Darcy to his cousin, Elizabeth Bennet. So very anxious was he to officiate, Elizabeth thought it fortunate that it was she who happened upon him first, lest his fawning embrace have to be pried from about the illustrious Mr. Darcy’s knees.
    For, as he was wont to announce upon the heels of his introduction, Mr. Collins came under the personal condescension of Darcy’s aunt, the Mistress of Rosings Park, Lady Catherine de Bourgh (a distinction he embraced a bit too acutely). His own self-satisfaction with the felicity of his situation was exceeded only by his compleat ignorance of public regard. This happy alliance of oblivion and conceit made Mr. Collins an unusually contented man.
    There was, however, a single cloud upon the perpetually sunny sky of his disposition. Indeed, it was a forbidding one. For Lady Catherine’s extreme displeasure over her nephew’s engagement to Miss Bennet rather than to her daughter, the bilious Lady Anne, was vocal and virulent. And for a sycophant of Mr. Collins’s well-rehearsed sensibilities, it was a fiendish dilemma. But, ultimately, with whom he should ally himself was not a really difficult decision: Rosings Park was closer, but Mr. Darcy richer. Hence, just days before the wedding he stood before Elizabeth, his handkerchief mopping his perpetually bedewed upper lip.
    “Dearest Cousin Elizabeth, perhaps you feared it too much to ask of me, thus I take it upon myself to offer my services at your wedding.”
    Human folly had always been a great source of amusement for Mr. Bennet and, as her father’s daughter, Elizabeth as well. As the most ridiculous of men, Mr. Collins should have incited considerable merriment. However, Mr. Collins had expectations. Upon Mr. Bennet’s death, by reason of the unforgivable sin of begetting five daughters, Longbourn was to be entailed to his sister’s son, the said same vicar from Kent. The magnitude of this particular injury was compounded by Mr. Collins’s once entertaining the notion of uniting Longbourn with the Bennets by marrying Elizabeth.
    Disabusing the tenacious little vicar of that idea was no easy endeavour. Her eventual success was