Thanks for your corrections, alix33

Yes, some of the footnotes explain words and phrases that are well known in modern times. Sometimes I am checking that the term is not anachronistic. Other times I'm just curious where the term came from. If you don't like the footnotes, don't read them.

Please note: there are no recordings of Regency gentlefolk speaking BBC (Received Pronunciation) English. It is a concept that reached its apogee in the early to mid-twentieth century. Accents were probably more regional in the past before being standardised, firstly by public boarding schools and more far-reachingly by BBC radio. The BBC subsequently back-pedalled, starting in the 1960s, encouraging more diversity, just as Bernard Shaw had originally proposed when BBC radio was first set up. He got outvoted by the very undiverse BBC board.

If I was the son of an earl, who had not attended Eton but was schooled by a private tutor, and grew up in Derbyshire, I'd speak in whatever way I bloody liked. And I'd grow a moustache, just to be different!

Suggestions for the title of Chapter 28 were:

"An Educated Woman" by FatPatricia515,

"Unfinished business" by Levenez,

"Out of the dark", "Sudden surprise","All alone" by LMFG,

"Tea and Proposals" by NotACursedChild,

"Small Talk, Bad Manners" by SacredWomanY2K,

"Praise or not, that's the question" by beatrizwolfstark,

"Lukewarm water for tea", "First should build a fire", "Bonfire of the pride" by guest,

"Rushes and Fences" by MerytonMiss

"Winding me down", "Positively medieval", "Two for tea" by guest,

Some very good ones there. I think I will go for "Bonfire of the vanities," inspired by guest.


Chapter 29 Stale mate

Returning to her seat, Elizabeth stared at her cup, wondering how she could have been so gauche as to cause Mr Darcy to walk out. But as she sat there, dwelling on the immediacy of their rupture, it got worse. Her mind began whirling. What had just happened? Had Mr Darcy really made her an offer?—that aristocratic fellow who had deemed her 'not handsome enough to tempt him' at that Meryton assembly? It seemed hardly possible—something that might have occurred in a dream.

She took a sip of tea, trying to calm herself, then nibbled on one of the delicious little biscuits she had purchased yesterday in preparation from another visit from the Rosings party. It tasted like cardboard.

Like the silk threads she had sorted for Mary, Lizzy began to unravel Mr Darcy's speech—the feelings he claimed to be of such long-standing nature. He had asked her to dance at the Netherfield ball, and she had ascribed it to her fortune. He had tried to warn her about Mr Wickham, and she had detected only rivalry and jealousy.

Mr Darcy had not honoured his dance at Almack's. Granted, Caroline had been involved in that debacle—though Lizzy had thought at the time that an ingenious person, one who wanted to dance with her, would have thwarted Caroline's schemes. Lizzy had assumed he had been relieved to be extracted from an invitation enforced on him by Georgie.

Yet, he had gone on to apologise to her for his neglect at Almack's. Lizzy had thought at the time that he was merely appeasing Georgie and her aunt. But a tiny niggle now occurred to her—what proud man would have stomached making such an apology without good reason?

He had danced with her at the wedding breakfast at Longbourn, but his approach to her there had been couched in terms of a thank you for her companionship of Georgie. Hadn't it? Caroline had not thought so, as evidenced by the affair of the punch...

Mr Darcy had squired Elizabeth to the theatre, admittedly in company, but he could have been enjoying himself at his club! Her aunt had gone so far as to tease her about his attentions, but Lizzy had laughed it off—detecting Georgie's influence at every turn.

All of Lizzy's conclusions had seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. She could not fault her calculus. Could she?

Further doubts crept in. If one was indisposed towards a person, if one thought that person was indisposed towards you, could that not influence that calculus? Lizzy had believed her aunt's position in society had been enough for Mr Darcy to turn a blind eye to the fact that she was a country squire's daughter, with slightly dubious parentage on her mother's side. Through their conversations, she had thought he had begun to value her for her own sake.

She had been so caught up in her own hurt pride and vanity that she had not seen what was before her very eyes! How could she, who deemed herself so acute, not have discerned it? Indeed, her ascription of such ungenerous motives to his every move seemed to reflect more poorly on her character than his.

A pit seemed to open in Lizzy's stomach. And now there had been a rupture. She had shown herself to be a naive fool; an argumentative, ungrateful shrew. Leaning her elbow on the table, Lizzy covered her eyes with one hand.

She remained in that pose for several minutes, running through the catalog of errors, remembering new incidents—things Mr Darcy had done and said—and began to doubt again. He certainly did not gaze at her in that rapt way Mr Bingley mooned at Jane... Perhaps she was not so stupid? Mr Darcy was really so tightly laced up, one could be forgiven for not noticing his attentions...

She looked at the tea things on the table and felt embarrassment—his cup, practically untouched. For some reason, she did not want her sister to know Mr Darcy had been there. Getting up, Lizzy piled the china onto the tray.

Halfway down the hall, she had second thoughts—Mary would notice the activity in the kitchen. Lizzy was fairly sure her sister kept an eagle eye on the level of tea in the caddy, for one thing. She diverted to Mary's sitting room, setting the tray down there. All that was required to make it tea for one was to return the remaining biscuits to the barrel and wash Mr Darcy's cup.

Picking the extraneous items from the tray, Lizzy made her way to the kitchen. She opened the back door to sluice the remaining tea in the cup outside. But she paused.

Holding the teacup in her right hand as he had done, she brought the cup to her lips. His lips would have touched this very place on the china. Did she feel a slight tingle?

Sighing, Lizzy brought the cup down and tossed its contents to the ground. She shut the door again to return to the wash bucket. It was filled with the most disgusting swill. Revolted, she returned to the door and held the cup out in the rain to rinse it, replacing it dry in the cupboard. She put the biscuits back in the barrel and returned the empty plate to the sitting room.

Sitting down on the sofa, Lizzy retrieved her book. But she scanned the same page over and over again while her mind was elsewhere.

Half an hour later, Lizzy heard a carriage draw up. Realising she had slumped into a despondent heap on the sofa, Lizzy drew herself upright and arranged her skirts.

The front door opened. After a pause, she heard Mary's stockinged feet run up the stairs. Puzzled, Lizzy got up. She had not reached the sitting room door before it opened to reveal Mr Collins, a little damp and carrying his buckled shoes. He smelt like he had fallen into a stagnant pond.

"Ah! Cousin Elizabeth! Lady Catherine has need of me at the manor house. I'm afraid the Vicar of Smallbrook has deviated sadly in his preachings, and she wishes me to write several sermons to convey to him as proper templates. It is possible that she might invite me for dinner, for I expect the matter to be quite weighty. Do not hold supper for me."

"Very well," replied Lizzy, wondering why he had not trusted Mary to convey the information.

Mr Collins made to leave, then hesitated. "I'm afraid the journey was a bit much for Mrs Collins... You will go up to your sister?"

"Of course," Elizabeth reassured him.

He was gone from the sitting room in a heartbeat. Lizzy followed slowly in consternation. The celerity with which her sister had mounted the stairs hardly spoke of travel sickness, which Mary was not inclined to anyway.

Elizabeth paused in the doorway of the sitting room while Mr Collins slipped his shoes back on, gathered his umbrella from the stand and disappeared through the front door, giving Lizzy a brief glimpse of the waiting carriage outside.

Ascending the steps, Lizzy found the door to Mary's bedchamber closed. She knocked. When there was no summons, she tested the door and found it was not locked.

Mary was lying on the bed with her back to the door.

"Go away," came a despondent voice from over Mary's shoulder.

Lizzy ignored this request, walking round the end of the bed. Mary was not crying, but staring straight ahead.

Clasping her sister's shoulder, Lizzy sat down beside Mary on the bed. "What happened?"

For a while Mary said nothing. Then her face contorted, "I hate her!" escaped from clenched teeth.

Lizzy squeezed her sister's shoulder and waited.

"She spent the whole time telling me how I should take a leaf from Mrs Shuttergate's book! Maybe a whole chapter! She just would not shut up!"

"Lady Catherine?" queried Elizabeth.

Mary nodded grimly. "Mrs Shuttergate is a low-born lickspittle!" she spat. "She is only more economical than me because she is not used to running a genteel household! Of course, she is fine with one maid! Of course, she does not need red meat every week!"

The shoulder was squeezed again. "You know you should just ignore Lady Catherine," Lizzy said gently. "If you wish to take a page, take it from Colonel Fitzwilliam's book—smile and nod, and then just organise things your own way!"

"You don't understand," seethed Mary. "He constantly checks and enforces the old witch's orders!"

"Mary!" soothed Elizabeth, a little shocked. She had never seen her sister in such a passion. Lizzy rubbed her sister's shoulder in a comfortable way—the way Jane had occasionally soothed Lizzy when she was upset.

Mary wrenched herself away. "I cannot stand it any longer!" she said, flinging herself upright on the bed. "I want to go home!"

"Mary! You can't!" said Lizzy, aghast at the sudden deterioration of events. "Mama would go into hysterics! If you wish to become Mistress of Longbourn, you must stay here, with your husband!"

Mary collapsed on the bed again and, uncharacteristically, began to cry.

Elizabeth felt terribly guilty. Having made no initial progress with Mary's problem, she had been treating her stay at Hunsford like an extended holiday, hoping that Mary would eventually confide in her. She had been flirting with Colonel Fitzwilliam and, yes!—maybe even with Mr Darcy.

Lizzy folded her hands in her lap—too afraid to touch Mary again, lest the gesture unleash any further violent reactions—and looked helplessly around the room. The sampler Mary had been working on was lying on the dressing table. Mary had taken it from the tambour. Elizabeth walked over to it, intending to praise Mary on her precise needlework, for Lizzy had been watching her sister embroider the tiny flowers around the edge for nearly two weeks now. But it was the homily at the centre that caught her eye now, released from the folds of the tambour—'Cleanliness is next to Godliness'.

The penny dropped. The smell in the carriage; the fact that Mr Collins' positively reeked every time he got wet.

"Mary," Lizzy started hesitantly, choosing her words, "does Mr Collins have a problem with his hygiene?"

"Has it taken you that long to work it out?" Mary returned spitefully.

"Forgive me, but as you would not discuss the matter, you have rather left me guessing..."

"Yes!" said Mary. "A thousand times—yes! He took me to his bedchamber on our wedding night! The sheets! He will only let Betsy wash them once a year!"

Elizabeth gaped. "My goodness, they must be rotten!" she exclaimed.

"His nightclothes, he only permits to be washed once every quarter!" continued Mary.

Lizzy almost gagged.

"But that is not the worst of it!" railed Mary. "He refuses to wash his person! He claims that water is injurious to the health—a great source of disease!"

"Well, if you drink it unboiled..." started Lizzy.

"He only wipes himself down with a dry cloth!" said Mary.

Elizabeth grimaced.

"On our wedding night, I slipped from his arms and claimed to have my monthlies!" said Mary, hiccupping. "But when he came to my bedchamber a week later, even my own washed and scented sheets could not hide the stench! I claimed a headache!"

"Oh dear!" commiserated Lizzy.

"I even tried hiding a sachet of lavender in my bed cap when he came to me the third time, but I ended up dry retching into the chamber pot! He thought I had caught some dreadful disease and hurried out!

"I cannot even stand for him to be too close to me in the carriage anymore—all I can smell is that distasteful stench!"

Lizzy took her sister's hand. "And you have suggested you would prefer for him to perform his ablutions before he comes to you?"

"Yes, yes! But he insists that his habits are wholesome!"

"And what of Lady Catherine? Has she never complained of his hygiene?"

"No, I believe she suffers from the asthma and has a diminished sense of smell!"

"Ah!" said Lizzy in understanding.

There did not seem to be much more she could say. The only thing she could think of was to offer Mary a cup of tea. Mary expressed no enthusiasm for it, but nor did she specifically object. There seemed little to be gained from further discussion. Lizzy was glad to retreat to the kitchen so she could think.

Lizzy made her second pot of tea at the parsonage with more competency than the first: stoking the fire and putting the kettle on to boil like a old retainer. The actions could not but return her to her own upset, but she fought valiantly to dwell on her sister's more dire problems.

Mary seemed to have calmed when Lizzy arrived upstairs with the tea. She agreed to sit up in bed to sip the brew while Lizzy went to check on Madeleine.

When Lizzy returned, Mary agreed to come downstairs, but she brought her sampler with her and began to sew it up into a pillow.

"Do you really think that will make any difference?" asked Lizzy.

"Do you have a better idea?" replied Mary.

She did not. So Lizzy reopened the novel and read aloud as Mary sewed.

Both ladies had retired to their respective bedchambers by the time Mr Collins was returned to the parsonage by Lady Catherine's carriage, sometime before midnight.

Yet Lizzy was not asleep. She lay awake in the darkness, mulling over her tumultuous day.

In his bedchamber at Rosings, Mr Darcy lay awake also, feeling pretty much the same.