Something to Think Of, page 1
Something to Think Of
P. O. Dixon
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
A Capricious Inducement
Chapter 2
A Disagreeable Connection
Chapter 3
Very Agreeable Strangers
Chapter 4
A Moment’s Reflection
Chapter 5
A Casual Acquaintance
Chapter 6
Exercise in Futility
Chapter 7
A Secret Admirer
Chapter 8
One Noticeable Exception
Chapter 9
Her Heart of Hearts
Chapter 10
A Way with Words
Chapter 11
Kindred Spirits
Chapter 12
A Curious Creature
Chapter 13
A Respectable Profession
Chapter 14
Cause for Concern
Chapter 15
In His Possession
Chapter 16
Making Matters Worse
Chapter 17
Sinister Forces
Chapter 18
The General Understanding
Chapter 19
More Inconvenient Time
Chapter 20
Sense of Honor
Chapter 21
Her Maternal Feelings
Chapter 22
In that Manner
Chapter 23
The Happiest Woman
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About the Author
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Miss Elizabeth Bennet is suffering something akin to regret having refused Mr. Darcy's proposal because of his interference in Jane's relationship with Mr. Bingley. Indeed, her sister has a new love interest—the charming Mr. Hemmingsworth. Moreover, Mr. Hemmingsworth has a brother—an identical twin.
* * *
Will a second chance at love for Jane lead to a second chance at love for Elizabeth too?
“Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then. It is something to think of and gives her a sort of distinction among her companions.”
* * *
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Chapter 1
A Capricious Inducement
Kent, England - Spring 1812
A sleepless night gave way to a pleasant morning. Miss Elizabeth Bennet quickly escaped the parsonage house for a solitary walk.
She could think of no better balm for all the tumult of her mind. The five weeks she had passed in Kent had made a noticeable difference, not only in the countryside—its trees and bushes growing lusher with each passing day—but to her equanimity as well. Surely her life would never be the same.
Thoughts of how she found herself in her current predicament accompanied her every step of the way.
Had my mother not insisted upon Jane going to Netherfield Park on horseback, would the events of the past six months have unfolded differently?
Elizabeth would never have been subjected to such behavior on the part of her matchmaking mamma. Her fear of horses aside, Elizabeth was headstrong and unlikely to be made to do anything against her wishes.
Her sister Jane, on the other hand, was the kindest, most deferential person Elizabeth knew. It was not in her nature to disappoint anyone—especially her mother.
Had Jane ignored her mother’s decree just that once, she would not have arrived at Netherfield during a rainstorm, and she would not have fallen ill. Elizabeth would not have gone there the next day to care for her. Her dearest sister for whom Elizabeth would do anything—including spurning the hand of the man who had offered a life of wealth and privilege. Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Had I not been forced to endure the proud Mr. Darcy’s company for so long, surely he would not have persuaded himself that he loved me—against his reason according to his own words.
She scoffed. As if I could ever be prevailed on to marry such a man—much less the man who has been the means of ruining the happiness of a most beloved sister.
Elizabeth was on the point of continuing her walk when she caught a glimpse of a gentleman within the sort of grove that edged the park. He was moving her way. Fearful of its being Mr. Darcy, she started retreating, but in vain, for the person who advanced was now near enough to see her and continued stepping forward with eagerness.
She had turned away, but on hearing herself called, though, in a voice that proved it to be Mr. Darcy’s, she moved again toward the gate.
Anger and agitation accompanied Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy every step of the way that morning. Determined to disabuse Miss Elizabeth Bennet of the unjust accusations she had leveled against him the evening before, he arose before the break of dawn and wrote in extensive detail in his defense.
Elizabeth’s utter loathing of him had caught him completely by surprise. It would honor any woman in the country to be his wife—she would be a most fortunate creature indeed. Yet, she had allowed lies and misjudgments to guide her.
Why he had fallen in love with such a woman was beyond his reason. When he fell in love with her was just as perplexing. Surely it was not the first time he laid eyes on her at the Meryton assembly.
Only fools fall in love with such little provocation as a willing smile. As a testament against such a capricious inducement, he had declared her tolerable and unable to tempt him.
Perchance it was all the time spent in company with her at Netherfield that marked the start of his one-sided love affair. Her lovely dark, disheveled hair and her eyes, bright from the exertion of having walked three miles in the mud, nearly stole his breath away.
Her manner of rising to his every challenge during their many heated debates throughout the course of their days and nights under the same roof and the pleasure he received as a result equally baffled him.
Before too long, thoughts of her light and pleasing figure and her dark bewitching eyes wiped away every preconceived notion he held of what the ideal woman ought to be. He began to consider her as one of the handsomest women of his acquaintance.
I was in the middle of falling in love with Miss Elizabeth Bennet before I knew I had begun.
I fought against my better judgment and offered her my hand in marriage only to learn how much she disliked me—how I was the last man in the world whom she could be prevailed on to marry.
Making matters worse, she had all but accused him of not being a gentleman. Her cold words echoed through his mind: “You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way than as it spared me the concern I might have felt in refusing you had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.”
After having delayed his departure from Kent several times with the thought of extending his courtship with Elizabeth, it had all been for naught. She hated him.
Darcy was on the point of continuing his walk when he caught a glimpse of the object of his fascination. He knew she would be there. Stepping forward with eagerness, he called out her name but to no avail, for she turned and walked away.
It would not do! After accusing him so egregiously, surely she owed it to him to hear his side of the story.
Still moving toward the gate, he called out once more.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet!”
His hands clasped behind his back, a worn leather-bound tome folded in two and tucked snuggly in the pocket of his long black overcoat, William Collins ambled along the path. What a fine morning for a leisurely ramble. With such wonders of nature stretching before him, how could he not have conjured up what he supposed to be the perfect sermon for next Sunday’s service?
Continuing his solitary trek, Collins silently congratulated himself on accomplishing a hard day’s work. Nothing would pierce the morning’s bliss.
Moments later, the fortunate young man of only five and twenty came to an abrupt halt. Every line of his mentally prepared sermon escaped his mind. Indeed, for just ahead in the lane stood Fitzwilliam Darcy, the distinguished young gentleman from Derbyshire and nephew of Collins’s noble patroness, the Honorable Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
A fortuitous occasion indeed.
Collins arched his dark, bushy brow. Had I known Mr. Darcy frequented this particular path, I would have traveled it more often. His first inclination was to speed up his pace to greet the other man. He hesitated.
Mr. Darcy’s agitated state appeared anything but welcoming. His pacing gave one to suspect he bore the weight of the world on his shoulder. Before Collins had too long to ponder what must weigh on Mr. Darcy’s mind, someone else appeared from a distance. A young woman donned in a light muslin gown, a tan spencer, and a dark-colored bonnet.
Mr. Collins caught his breath. Elizabeth!
Elizabeth was a distant cousin whose acquaintance Collins had made several months prior. She was now a guest in his humble abode. He had his wife, Mrs. Charlotte Collins née Lucas, to thank for such a fate, owing to the two ladies being intimate friends.
Elizabeth bore the unhappy distinction of being headstrong and a bit imprudent in Collins’s opinion. Despite his misgivings, he went along with the scheme to welcome Elizabeth into his home—his reasoning grounded in a peculiar self-satisfying concoction of gloating and spitefulness.
As a means of healing a long-standing breach in his family, Collins had ventured to Hertfordshire intending to
Mr. Darcy’s pacing ceased, and he approached Elizabeth directly. From Collins’s vantage point, his cousin looked as if she had been expecting the encounter.
Half appalled, half curious, he wondered aloud, “Is this the reason the young lady accepted my dear wife’s invitation to visit us here in Kent?”
An even more shocking notion crossed his mind. Is this the reason she refused to go to Rosings yesterday? Is this the reason Mr. Darcy fled the party soon after learning of Elizabeth’s absence?
The events leading up to Collins’s proposal to his cousin and her steadfast rejection of his proposal took on new meaning. This explains Mr. Darcy’s singling out Miss Elizabeth at the Netherfield ball the evening before that fateful date.
Collins’s cautioning words to his cousin crossed his mind: “My situation in life, my connections with the family of de Bourgh, and my relationship to your own are circumstances highly in my favor; and you should take it into further consideration that, in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you. Your portion is unhappily so small that it will, in all likelihood, undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications.”
His being a man of the cloth, the thought of spying on the couple was unconscionable. However, with his own reputation at stake, he could hardly turn a blind eye to such impropriety. Needing to be sure of what was unfolding before his eyes, Collins stooped down and, bolstered by a long stretch of hedgerows to shield his presence, eased a little closer. Though unable to hear what was being said, he saw Mr. Darcy extend his hand, bearing a missive of some sort. Making matters worse, Elizabeth accepted it with nary a moment’s hesitation.
A young woman alone in the lane with a single young man was scandal-ridden in and of itself. Her accepting a letter from him—a man with whom she had no publicly acknowledged arrangement—was beyond the pale.
And this was the woman whom he had invited into his home. This woman whose propensity to flaunt proper decorum and who had so recently regarded his own noble patroness with such undignified impertinence had subjected both Collins and his dear wife to censure and shame.
Does she have no consideration for my standing in the community, my place among my parishioners?
He always knew his cousin to be a selfish person who only acted in accordance with her own interests. Her rejection of his marriage proposal was proof enough of that. He never supposed that her selfishness might be the means of his undoing—the loss of his esteem in the eyes of Lady Catherine and the world owing to such a connection.
Collins watched in wonder as Mr. Darcy bowed and walked away after Elizabeth accepted the letter. He could only speculate on what such behavior signified. Perhaps this brief encounter was merely the precursor to another rendezvous—some place more secluded.
Determined to find out, Collins trailed his cousin from a careful distance. He watched in wonder as she tore open the missive and read its contents. He thought he detected more vexation than pleasure in her countenance as she perused the pages.
Had Mr. Darcy written to put an end to their forbidden liaison? He was engaged to marry Miss Anne de Bourgh, after all. Collins knew this to be correct, for Lady Catherine always spoke of it as being the favorite wish of her family.
Collins did not know whether to feel sad for his cousin or glad for this turn of events. Had she not invited such heartbreak upon herself by aspiring to a station in life so far above her own as to be laughable?
Uneasiness washed over him. This is no time to rejoice, for there still exists the possibility of Lady Catherine’s learning of my cousin’s brazenness.
Upon following his cousin for almost an hour, Collins resolved to return to the parsonage. Soon enough, Elizabeth was bound to come back to the house as well.
To his manner of thinking, there was but one way to guarantee an agreeable outcome for himself in the wake of his cousin’s scandalous behavior. He would be the one to inform his noble patroness. But first, he needed to get his hands on the letter that Mr. Darcy had given Elizabeth.
After reading Mr. Darcy’s letter to my cousin, I shall know and understand precisely what I must do.
Chapter 2
A Disagreeable Connection
Just over a month after coming to Kent, Elizabeth was on her way back to London. However, unlike her arrival in that part of the country in the company of Sir William Lucas and his youngest daughter Mariah, Elizabeth now traveled alone. The gentleman returned to his home in Hertfordshire a week or so after his arrival. Mariah decided to remain in Kent for a lengthier visit with her sister, Charlotte.
Amid Charlotte’s protests and even the Right Honorable Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s, Elizabeth decided to leave Kent a week earlier than first planned.
So adamant was Lady Catherine to have her own way that she insisted Elizabeth remain in Kent until such time as her ladyship was to travel to London. There was no reason in the world why Elizabeth should not ride in the carriage with her ladyship, according to the grand lady’s way of thinking. Then there would be no cause to put Elizabeth’s uncle, Mr. Gardiner, through the trouble of conveying his niece to town.
Elizabeth shook her head in remembrance of the haughty aristocrat’s benevolence. The last thing in the world Elizabeth wanted was to be beholden to such a woman. If there was any advantage in refusing Mr. Darcy’s offer of marriage, it was that she had spared herself such a disagreeable connection.
No. Elizabeth was eager to be away from Kent—to be away from Lady Catherine. To be away from haunting memories of Mr. Darcy. To be away from her ridiculous cousin, Mr. Collins, whose behavior toward Elizabeth of late had become oddly discomforting, as though his opinion of her had soured.
Most of all, Elizabeth longed to reunite with her elder sister, Jane. Her last letter had hinted of a surprising reversal of fortune, one Jane dared not commit to writing for fear of spoiling it. To say Jane’s missive was somewhat cryptic would have been an understatement but in a pleasant sort of way.
Not for the first time since receiving Jane’s letter a few days prior Elizabeth wondered at the source of her sister’s revived spirits. Recollections of another missive could not help but intrude. The one Mr. Darcy handed her in the grove the morning he left Kent—specifically as it pertained to Jane and his friend, Mr. Charles Bingley.
Mr. Darcy.
Recalling the harsh words between them upon her learning the proud gentleman helped to separate the two lovers and his audacity to expect she would accept his hand despite it, Elizabeth shivered.
“And this is all the reply I am to have the honor of expecting! Perhaps, I might ask why, with so little endeavor at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance,” he had opined.
To which Elizabeth replied, “I might as well inquire why, with so evident a desire of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? But I have other provocations. You know I have.
“Had not my feelings decided against you—had they been indifferent, or had they even been favorable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps forever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?”
