Chapter Two

You appear to me, Mr Darcy, to allow nothing for the influence of friendship and affection.

— Elizabeth Bennet, 1811

Elizabeth was greatly relieved to discover that the near insatiable curiosity of the neighbourhood did not rest solely on her shoulders, but was instead divided between herself and the former Miss Honoria Ponsonby, lately married to Lord Allendale. By the time that the beleaguered brides finally met, their gratitude was such that they were ready, eager, nay, determined to approve of one another.

That initial introduction took place under the most ordinary of circumstances — about a week after Elizabeth's arrival in Derbyshire, the Allendales called to express welcome and congratulations. As soon as they were announced, Elizabeth sprang up with genuine enthusiasm, pleased to see that they appeared very much as she had imagined them.

'Forgive us,' Lady Allendale began straightaway, 'but we believed your husband to be here, or we should never have intruded.'

'Oh, he is with his steward,' she explained, 'but they should be finished shortly. Please, sit down. Would you like tea, or coffee?'

'Thank you, coffee would be delightful,' said Lord Allendale. 'He is with his steward already?'

'I rather doubt that a day passes in which he does not communicate with Mr Higgins.' She sent for the coffee, slightly annoyed at the gentleman's startled expression. Did he think her incapable of the smallest civility? 'My husband considers fulfilling his responsibilities a point of honour, as I daresay you must already know.'

Lord Allendale gave a short, barking laugh. 'His adherence to duty is very nearly legendary in these parts. I only thought matters might change, given the present situation.'

Elizabeth poured the coffee, and said glibly, 'He could not love me half so much, loved he not honour more.—Cream or sugar, sir?'

'No, thank you — we take it black.' He seemed puzzled, but behind her cup, Lady Allendale's eyes danced. He continued, 'I understand you are from the South, Mrs Darcy?'

'Yes, my father's estate is in Hertfordshire.' She sipped at her own cup.

'It must be very different.'

'Yes, it is. Lady Allendale, have you been in Derbyshire long?'

'All of her life,' said Lord Allendale, before his wife could answer. 'She was one of the Ponsonbys, the Wakefield Ponsonbys.'

'I am sorry, ma'am,' said Elizabeth, 'I have never heard of your family.'

'There is no reason that you should have,' he replied. 'It is only that they are very near neighbours. Lady Allendale's mother, Lady Huntingdon, is a distant relative of your husband's.' He smiled at her, but Elizabeth, meeting his pleasant dark eyes, felt inexplicably perturbed. Despite every intention to curtail unreasoning judgments, she already disliked him.

'Oh, I see. Are you often with your parents, Lady Allendale?'

'Very rarely,' said Lord Allendale, 'my wife is of an extremely retiring disposition.'

Lady Allendale choked on her coffee. 'I beg your pardon,' she managed, before her husband carried on.

'Your father's estate, you said? Perhaps I might have heard of it.'

'I think not,' said Elizabeth, 'it is quite modest. In the ordinary course of things, I assure you I would never have met a Mr Darcy.'

'And yet you did meet.'

'A friend of his rented a nearby estate, and we happened across each other's paths at a local assembly. Would you like more coffee, Lord Allendale?'

'Yes, please. An assembly, really? I should never have thought it — Darcy, at an assembly in Hertfordshire! Is it not incredible, my dear?'

Uncertain which was the incredible event in question, Elizabeth smiled at Lady Allendale's succint, 'Quite.'

'I hope that we shall see more of Miss Darcy, now that there is a lady in the house. I have heard that she is uncommonly pretty — ' his eyes briefly lingered on Lady Allendale's handsome profile — 'and quite accomplished.'

At that moment, Darcy himself entered. 'Oh! there you are!' his wife cried, her face lighting up. Though he trusted that she was very fond of him, this seemed rather excessive, until he caught sight of her callers. After the exchange of greetings, he unobtrusively seated himself between Elizabeth and Lord Allendale.

'Darcy, we were astonished to hear of your engagement,' Lord Allendale said.

'Yes, I imagine you were,' replied Darcy, his voice dropping into a languid drawl that Elizabeth, at least, had always found excessively irritating. She rather suspected that it was meant to be.

'Plainly, however,' the viscount went on, with an admiring glance at Elizabeth, 'you are no more of a fool than you have ever been. I congratulate you.'

Elizabeth flushed angrily. Darcy said through clenched teeth, 'Thank you, Lord Allendale.'

'And I, Mr Darcy,' added Lady Allendale, apparently emboldened by the presence of her host. 'I hope that you both will be very happy, and that I may have the opportunity of furthering my acquaintance with your wife.' She smiled, setting down her coffee with a firm clink. It was almost untouched, and Elizabeth was abruptly certain that the viscountess did not like coffee at all.

'I am certain you will,' she said.

'We were just speaking of Miss Darcy,' Lord Allendale persisted. 'When shall we see her? She must be seventeen or eighteen by now.'

'No. She is not.'

Lady Allendale smothered a smile; Elizabeth decided that monosyllables were never a good sign and said, 'She has been staying at Ancaster House, then Houghton, with the Fitzwilliams, but will return in a few days. They are so near, it is not much of a journey. I am discovering that most of Mr Darcy's relations are within thirty miles of Pemberley. Tell me, Lady Allendale, does everyone stay here for their entire lives, or are there a few more interlopers like me?'

'Nobody, I am sure, would consider you an interloper, Mrs Darcy,' said Lord Allendale gallantly.

'As for your question,' Lady Allendale added, 'you are quite right; most of us seldom reside elsewhere, except sometimes during the Season. —Not that I go to town, of course, being so very retiring. In any case, by now we are all connected to each other, somehow, and so well acquainted, that it is really quite convenient.'

'Oh dear,' cried Elizabeth, laughing, 'I hope I am not the only inconvenient bride!'

'Well, there is Lady Caroline Villiers. She is not from here at all.'

'Honoria,' said Lord Allendale, 'I hardly think they are appropriate companions for Mrs Darcy.'

'She is one of Lord Annesley's sisters,' Darcy said, a line forming between his brows. 'Elizabeth, you remember my friend Annesley — he was one of the guests at Pemberley, last summer. In fact, Mr Villiers met Lady Caroline through me.'

'Oh, I remember — they are Mrs Annesley's Irish cousins.' She favoured Lord Allendale with her most sweetly innocuous expression, then turned to her husband. 'Such obliging, well-bred people, I thought. I am sure, dear, that nobody could object to any of your friends.'

'I should hope not.' The Darcys smiled at each other, then he cleared his throat. 'I beg your pardon, but I have only just remembered with this talk of the summer. Allendale, do you recall that acquisition we were speaking of last August? I have only just rediscovered it. Come, I can show you this very minute — hopefully before some overzealous servant moves it again.'

'I could hardly think of abandoning the ladies,' Allendale protested.

'Nonsense,' said Darcy. 'They understand, I am sure — ' he nodded at them, easily receiving the assent of both, 'therefore, with all due apologies to Mrs Darcy and Lady Allendale, I must insist.' The viscount was a small, slight man. Darcy, more forceful both in person and personality, easily propelled him out of the room.

Lady Allendale gave an audible sigh of relief. 'My dear Mrs Darcy, I must beg your pardon for my husband's behaviour. I am truly honoured to meet you — and not only a little curious!'

'There is nothing to apologise for on your part,' Elizabeth assured her. 'As for your curiosity, I would be a hypocrite to despise in you what I feel such a great measure of myself.'

The other woman laughed. 'I shall consider that permission to be as impertinent as I please,' she announced, gleefully. 'Did you truly meet Mr Darcy at an assembly hall? In Hertfordshire?'

'Yes, indeed. It is indelibly marked on my memory.'

'He danced with you there?'

Elizabeth burst out laughing. 'Not at all. He danced one set each with the two ladies in his party, and spent the rest of the evening pacing. At one point, he even refused to stand up with me.'

Lady Allendale's eyes rounded. 'He did? To your face?'

'Oh, no — he would not do that, even then. No, I never knew whether he realised I could hear him at all, but it was a truly inspired piece of rudeness. As you might imagine, I did not feel very cordial towards him.'

'And yet . . .?'

'I changed my mind,' said Elizabeth simply, glossing over nearly a year's worth of trials and tribulations. 'I saw his true character, eventually, and he learnt to tolerate the foibles of humanity with rather better grace. So here we are.'

'It sounds very romantic.'

Elizabeth, catching the touch of envy in the other woman's voice, said, 'Not really — neither of us are very sentimental. I am glad it is over and that we are at Pemberley.'

'I suppose you must be; it is very lovely.' Lady Allendale glanced about the light, airy room, her eyes skittering away from Elizabeth. 'Mr Darcy, I understand, improved it a great deal when he inherited.'

'I imagine so; my husband has a remarkable genius for . . . arranging things.' Elizabeth smiled and went on, 'Is your husband's estate very far from here?'

'No,' Lady Allendale replied, looking surprised. 'Enley is only a few miles away.'

'Then I hope that you will permit me to call on you?'

'Oh! yes, of course!' cried Lady Allendale, her face lighting up. 'I would be honoured to receive you, Mrs Darcy, at whatever time is most convenient for you.'

Elizabeth could scarcely imagine what would make Lady Allendale so delighted about so little; with a rather shaky smile, she said, 'I . . . are you much occupied on Monday?'

'Not at all.' Then she paused. 'Oh! Caroline will be there; I hope you do not mind? I know she is very eager to meet you, and you will have plenty to talk about. She is from the South, too.'

'Oh? I thought the Annesleys were Irish.'

'Well, yes, but she has spent her entire life in London and Bath. That is why my husband disapproves of her so — he thinks she will infect me with her city notions, or some such nonsense.' She laughed outright.

'I do not think I shall be so easily corrupted,' said Elizabeth. 'I used to spend a part of every year in London, with my aunt and uncle in Gracechurch Street.'

To her credit, Lady Allendale's only reaction was a slightly higher-pitched voice. 'Oh!—you must be very fond of them.'

'Yes, I am, particularly now.' The viscountess' brows drew together, and Elizabeth explained, 'If it were not for them, I should never have met Mr Darcy again. You see, I am . . . I am very happy.' She smiled and shrugged. 'So we are both quite grateful. They are to come at Christmas.'

'I see.' Lady Allendale gazed into her coffee. 'I hope, then, that you will introduce me to their acquaintance.'

'Of course. I hope we shall know each very well by then.'

'I believe we shall.'

After a brief silence, Elizabeth sent for the tea. 'I noticed that you did not care for coffee.'

'Thank you.' Lady Allendale stared at the pot a moment. Then, setting her jaw, she said, 'Cream and sugar both, please.'

Elizabeth stepped out of the carriage, straightening her pelisse and briefly touching the rubies at her throat, then took a critical glance at Enley. It had little to recommend itself. The house skulked at the bottom of a valley, the grounds improved beyond all beauty or use. Not everyone could have Darcy's good taste, of course, but still — poor Lady Allendale, to be consigned to such a dreary place.

Poor Lady Allendale greeted her with a bright smile. 'My dear Mrs Darcy,' she cried, 'I am so pleased to see you!'

Elizabeth, somewhat amused at her hostess' excessive cheer, smiled and accepted the viscountess' hands. 'Thank you — I am delighted to be here.'

'The parlour is not the most luxurious but much more comfortable than the others — I hope you do not mind? — there is a pianoforte — do you play or sing?'

'Yes, a little of both. I should practise more constantly, I confess, but I do not have the patience for it.'

Lady Allendale burst out laughing. 'How wonderful, we have something in common,' she declared, 'for I could never abide learning. I was a great disappointment to my poor mother.'

Dryly, Elizabeth replied, 'We have one more thing in common, then.' She glanced around the room. Lord Allendale's mania for improvement clearly had not extended to his house, for everything was in the heavy, gloomy style of fifty years earlier — remarkably fine, but a very far cry from Pemberley's light elegance.

Scarcely five minutes after Elizabeth's own arrival, the footman ushered in a fashionable young woman of about six-and-twenty, her pretty oval face dominated by a pair of warm blue eyes. 'Good morning, Honoria . . . oh! You must be Mrs Darcy.'

'And you must be Lady Caroline,' returned Elizabeth. 'I have already heard a great deal of you from your friend.'

After one short sharp glance, Lady Caroline said, 'And I have heard a great deal of you from . . . everyone.'

Lady Allendale and Elizabeth both burst out laughing, then the former recollected herself. 'Oh, forgive me — Caroline, this is Mrs Darcy; Mrs Darcy, Lady Caroline Villiers.'

'Well,' said Elizabeth, 'I hope you have heard nothing too terrible.'

'Oh, it is all very banal,' Lady Caroline assured her. 'Mr Darcy, apparently, was transfixed by your beauty after one glance, and you, naturally, took advantage of his infatuation and married him for his fortune and consequence.'

'Oh dear, wrong on — let me see — yes, all three counts, and the first most of all.' Elizabeth could not keep from smiling at the memory. 'What dreadful odds.'

Lady Allendale burst out, 'They are nothing more than spiteful old gossips. As if nobody could wish to marry a gentleman as clever and honourable as Mr Darcy something other than money!'

'And handsome, too,' added Lady Caroline solemnly. 'Truly, it boggles the imagination.'

Elizabeth laughed. 'I could not have spoken better myself.' She sipped at her tea. 'Though I will admit that I can endure certain luxuries with very little complaint.'

For the first time, a smile warmed Lady Caroline's face. 'I am sure that you are very long-suffering, Mrs Darcy.'

'Oh yes. I simply loathe jewels and carriages and all fine things, but I tolerate them for my husband's sake. He cannot help his wealth, poor man.'

Everybody laughed; then Lady Caroline gave Elizabeth a steady look and said, 'Honoria tells me that you, too, are from the South?'

'Yes, my father's estate is only fourteen miles from London. That is where you lived before your marriage?'

'Primarily, although I often went to Bath. Derbyshire is certainly very different, would you not say?'

'It could not be more so. I love Pemberley, but I should miss town if I could never return. Did you enjoy living in the city, Lady Caroline?'

The older woman's eyes lit up. 'Oh, yes, I liked both London and Bath — all the entertainments they offered, and the people.' Then she gave a philosophical shrug. 'But I liked my husband more, so here I am.'

'I can certainly understand that,' said Elizabeth, laughing. Then she caught a glimpse of Lady Allendale's half-envious, half-wistful expression, and hurriedly went on, 'All jesting aside, I think we are rather fortunate in that we need not make any particular choice. After all, we may return south just as easily as we left it.'

'It certainly makes the change easier,' Lady Caroline agreed. 'If I had to spend my life buried in the country — '

'Exactly.' Elizabeth finished her muffin. 'I know that we are going to town in the spring — and you?'

'Yes,' said Lady Caroline, 'I insisted. My youngest sister is having her first Season.'

Lady Allendale hesitated for a long moment. 'I shall not,' she finally said, wetting her lips with a nervous look. 'My husband does not permit me to go . . . so far away.'

The other ladies choked over their tea in almost perfect unison.

'My dear Honoria —' began Caroline.

Elizabeth's mind had already leapt ahead. 'Lord Allendale is very deferential to my husband,' she said. 'I do not know why, but . . .'

'My husband's family has only been settled at Enley for about seventy years,' Lady Allendale explained. 'Your husband's has been at Pemberley for over seven hundred. Allendale does not easily forget such things.'

'Well,' said Elizabeth, 'I have hardly any acquaintance in town, so I shall probably be desperately lonely. I am sure that if I mentioned my desire for good company to my husband, he might mention it to yours, and . . .' She shrugged. 'Perhaps Lord Allendale might reconsider the matter of permission — only if you would like me to, of course.'

'Oh!' Lady Allendale flushed. 'But, Mrs Darcy, you should not inconvenience yourself — you needn't go to such trouble — '

'Nonsense,' said Lady Caroline. 'She offered, did she not?'

'Yes, I did. And it would not even be untrue, Lady Allendale; I really would be delighted to have the pleasure of your company in town.'

'Thank you.' Lady Allendale paused. 'My dear Mrs Darcy, I really cannot express enough gratitude for your kindness . . .'

Elizabeth laughed outright. 'If you will use my Christian name and give me another muffin,' she said, 'I shall consider your debt repaid.'

He could not love me half so much, loved he not honour more: Elizabeth is paraphrasing Richard Lovelace's famous line from "To Lucasta": I could not love thee, dear, so much/ Lov'd I not honour more.

Darcy references a Lord Annesley, brother to Lady Caroline, who -- he says -- Elizabeth met at Pemberley the previous summer. This, of course, did not explicitly occur in the novel; however, it's mentioned that Darcy brought with him a large party of friends, and Mr Gardiner, Darcy, and Bingley fish with 'some' of the gentlemen from the house. It stands to reason, then, that there were a number of men (and probably women) at Pemberley, who were unimportant to the story and therefore left nameless. Elizabeth later recalls that Darcy was often unable to speak with her at Pemberley, presumably due to the number of people separating them, and instead talked to the Gardiners. Lord Annesley and his sisters, of course, are my own invention.