The party decided to take the longer path back to the house, and Kitty had more time to plan for her continued triumph with Mr. Johns. Before she could propose her ideas to him, however, Elizabeth joined them, and Kitty did not feel quite as comfortable in involving her sister in the matter as well. She was not likely to approve of Kitty's methods.
Seemingly unaware that Kitty was not in any way desirous of being rescued from Mr. Johns's company, Elizabeth skillfully inserted herself into their conversation so thoroughly that Kitty was nearly pushed out of it. Mr. Johns was unfailingly gallant, but the warmth in his address to Kitty had quite vanished, and she was almost relieved when Mr. Knott joined them and she could slip away. She was less pleased when Elizabeth joined her shortly afterwards.
"Mr. Johns is a very pleasant gentleman," Elizabeth said when they were out of earshot of the others, "but take care, Kitty. You are not doing either of you any favors by being so obvious in your designs."
Kitty winced, only partly because her ankle throbbed a bit when she set it down. She had pushed herself a little too far, it seemed. "I was not trying to be obvious, Lizzy, but how in the world is a girl supposed to make anyone fall in love with her if she cannot encourage his attention?"
"That is a difficult balance to find, and every young lady seems to fall on a different place on the scale," Elizabeth said, and sighed, a distant look in her eyes. But it vanished quickly and she focused on Kitty. "But you would do better to err on the side of not showing enough encouragement, than showing too much. You are not of a disposition that makes you very much at risk of showing too little attachment."
This was true, but that did not make it sting less, and Kitty did not answer. Elizabeth changed the topic.
When they arrived back at the house, there was a letter waiting for Mr. Johns. He took one look at the address, paled very slightly, and excused himself immediately.
Kitty was half consumed with worry. Was it something with Edgepark? Had something gone wrong?
She was not to find out; he announced at dinner that night that he would be departing for Edgepark the following morning, having received in the letter confirmation that it was prepared for habitation.
Something else was amiss—Edgepark being ahead of schedule would not have provoked that reaction. But she could think of no way to comment on it without bringing Elizabeth's further censure, and no one else seemed to think anything of it.
She worried about him the whole evening, and it spoiled what should have been an enjoyable night. As she fell asleep, she resolved to seek him out first thing in the morning, and ask him about it. Surely he could confide in her! But by the time she woke the next morning, he was gone.
A week passed, and Kitty threw herself into other pursuits, determined to have something to show Mr. Johns if he should come back for her. She picked up whatever work Elizabeth or Miss Darcy needed done, even if it was just mending. Miss Darcy talked of going to visit some of Pemberley's other tenants, who had apparently suffered the same illness that had afflicted the Stephenses, and Kitty actually found herself looking forward to the possibility of those visits. It was something to do, and something to keep her mind off of Mr. Johns.
Amy laughed off Kitty's enthusiasm for Pemberley's tenants, and declined their invitations to join them, but did not say anything against it, either. Kitty decided that it must not be for everyone, but she was secretly glad that she had something to share with Miss Darcy alone. It was much more interesting that way, to have a project she could talk over eagerly with Miss Darcy the way she talked over Colonel Fitzwilliam with Miss Pratt.
Wednesday morning the whole party was gathered in the music room to hear Miss Darcy and Amy play a new duet for them.
Unannounced and unnoticed, Mr. Johns joined them partway through the performance. When she saw him, Kitty nearly leapt to her feet to greet him, but she remembered her conversation with Lizzy at the last minute, and decided against it. She watched him intently, waiting to see if he would seek her out. But it was not long before she noticed that he was not seeking anyone out—he was barely meeting the eyes of those who noticed and greeted him, and he looked decidedly uncomfortable.
"What brings you back so soon, Johns? Have you tired of your new house already?" Darcy asked, a little smile on his face.
Mr. Johns laughed, but Kitty knew it didn't sound quite right. "No, no, the house is fine. But there is something… well, I'm not as ready to move in there as I thought I was, I suppose."
"Well, if you need to stay at Pemberley a while longer…" Elizabeth began.
"Oh, no, no… I'm sure I will be quite well there, and you know I can better supervise everything if I am there myself." Kitty did not point out that this directly contradicted his previous statement to her. She wanted nothing more than to go to him and try to cheer him up; this haunted creature was a very different man than the one who had walked and chatted so cheerily with her on their outing a week before. There had to be something else going on, something that Kitty didn't quite understand.
But the others didn't seem to notice that anything was amiss, or if they did, they didn't say anything about it. They invited him in, and had him sit down, and chatted with him about the weather and the repairs on his house and the whole time he looked like he was on the verge of saying something but never quite got a chance to bring it up. Kitty felt terribly for him. She could see the frustration and desperation mounting.
Before he could finally say whatever it was he wanted to say, the door burst open with a bang and a strange lady strode into the room with a face like thunder. Mr. Johns stood along with everyone else, and faced her, but he had lost all color. "Ah, Camilla. I had thought you were getting yourself settled today."
"I am quite settled, Mr. Johns, thank you." She glared out at everyone who was gathered, but especially at Kitty and the other young ladies. "Are you going to introduce me?"
"Er. Of course." He introduced them all one by one, Kitty last of all. "This is Mrs. Camilla Johns… my wife."
Kitty sank into her chair, unequal to standing any longer. His wife! She hardly noticed the explosion of exclamations from the others in the room.
Mrs. Johns suffered no such complaint. She sailed over to where Kitty was sitting, and her expression was anything but friendly. Kitty was quite frozen; she could not even stand up. "So this is the little chit I have heard so much about! Stand up, child, and let me have a good look at the thing my husband has targeted. Good heavens, Gregory, I've seen you do better than this."
Mr. Johns buried his face in his hand and would not look at anyone. Kitty stared up at Mrs. Johns, horrified and completely incapable of standing, or moving at all.
Seemingly ignorant of the expressions of every person in the room, she turned to the rest with a broad smile, that only broadened when she saw Miss Pratt. "Amelia Pratt, of all people! Why, my dear friend, how long it has been since we have seen each other! I daresay you had not even heard that I'd married. Well, this must come as some surprise to you, and I know how well you love a surprise!" She laughed, and Amy did an admirable job of keeping her wits about her; she smiled and bowed her head, and said something perfectly noncommittal, and that was all.
Mrs. Johns turned to the Darcys, who were standing next to each other, Elizabeth's hand firmly on her husband's arm. "I must thank you for the hospitality you have shown to Mr. Johns. I am sure the house would not have progressed so well had he been forced to travel from London all the time!"
"I think you should leave," Elizabeth said in a low voice that Kitty recognized as dangerous.
"Well," said Mrs. Johns, with a nastiness only enhanced by her cheerfulness, "I suppose I should be getting my husband home. He is clearly not well, and we have so much to do to get the house really habitable. Come along, Gregory, dear!"
She sailed out of the room and the rest of them were left staring at Mr. Johns.
"Do you care to explain yourself, sir?" Mr. Darcy said, in a tone that made more than one of them shudder.
Mr. Johns lifted his head and looked around the room. "I never said I was not married," he muttered. But then he squared his shoulders and shot a defiant glare at them all. "Well, and I have done nothing wrong, at that. I thank you for your hospitality to me, of course." He bowed to Elizabeth, who did not return the salute. "But I suppose my wife has my day quite planned out for me. Goodbye." He bowed to them all, and left.
The room resounded with the most uncomfortable silence, and no one could meet Kitty's eyes. A half-strangled giggle escaped Amy, but she clamped her hand over her mouth immediately. The sound struck Kitty like a slap across the face. She felt as though she was burning alive; her whole body must have been blushing. Married! To such a woman, such a cruel, vindictive creature who took pleasure in shaming him, and her, and everyone else; Kitty knew not where to look. How could he be married at all! It had never come up—she had never had any reason to suspect—what must they think of her? Flirting so shamelessly with a married man, bringing scandal and shame beyond what Lydia had done, even; her father would cast her off, her sisters would never speak to her again—she would be cast upon the mercy of the world—not even Lydia would take her in after this. But she couldn't have known!
Kitty sank back against the back of her chair and covered her face with her hands.
After a few tense moments during which she desperately strove not to cry, Mr. Darcy came around to stand before her. Kitty lowered her hands to her lap, but couldn't bring herself to look at him. She couldn't imagine what he could possibly say to her, but it was certain to be uncomfortable.
To her everlasting shock, he bent over to look her in they eye, and took her hands. "Miss Bennet, I am immeasurably sorry for this. I should have investigated his character more thoroughly before inviting him to stay at our house, and I most certainly should have taken better steps to protect you. But I promise, I will not allow him in this house again. I will not allow anyone else to cause you such distress." No one else moved. It was as though everyone had been turned to pillars of salt for daring to look at her.
Kitty could hardly think, hardly respond. Shaking, she managed to whisper her thanks, but she couldn't bear to have everyone staring at her like that, and they were sure to hate her. Flirting with a married man! She hated herself as much as they could do.
She wanted to get up and run from them all, but she couldn't seem to stop shaking long enough to stand up.
Elizabeth came to stand beside her husband, who took that as his cue to straighten up and take her hand. "Kitty, dear, no one blames you for this," she said, very quietly. "None of us had the smallest suspicion—if we had, we would have let you know of it, I swear. There is no reason why you should feel at all guilty for anything. You could not have known."
Kitty thought this was rather rich, coming from the woman who had lectured her so strictly about her behavior toward Mr. Johns so recently. But she could only whisper her thanks again.
Mr. Knott was the one who saw her distress for what it was. "I think we should let Miss Bennet alone; she probably needs time to recover her composure, and I am sure we are not helping." He said this, ostensibly, to Miss Darcy, but loudly enough that the whole room could easily hear it. That seemed to bring them to their senses somewhat, and they did not require further prompting to send them along their way. Mr. Knott was the one who lingered longest, in fact. When the others had left, he came and stood beside her chair. She stared at him, and his reddened ears, without really seeing anything.
"I notice that you do not have your cane, and you were limping this morning," he said quietly. "I thought perhaps you would like some help walking back to your room. Do you need an arm?"
Kitty wanted nothing more than to thank him and send him away, but the truth was, she probably wouldn't make it to her room without help, and she wanted very much to be there. So she accepted his arm and let him lead her away.
She followed his lead silently, and he was wise enough not to speak. Kitty was too much wrapped up in her thoughts to have noticed if he had. What on earth could Mr. Johns possibly have meant by deceiving them all like that? Had he not noticed that she was expressing her interest in him? He could have told her, if he had told none of the others. She would not have made such a fool of herself if he had. Anger warred in her heart with her shame and mortification.
When she entered her room and flung herself into her chair, she was seized with a sudden desire to march over to Mr. Johns's house and demand an explanation from him. She deserved it, surely. Not even his wife—such a woman as she was!—could deny her that bit of justice. Indeed, Kitty thought, she would very much like an explanation from both of them. What on earth was she doing with herself all that time, while Mr. Johns was here and going to balls and convincing them all that he was as single as anybody? Hiding away somewhere? That was shameful enough in itself! What kind of miserable creature must she be, that her husband had gone to lengths to conceal her existence from everybody? It was absolutely ridiculous.
But Kitty knew there was no real chance of ever finding anything out, unless she could catch a bit of gossip from one of the servants. Considering that Elizabeth was, even now, almost certainly instructing every one never to bring it up in Kitty's presence, that seemed impossible.
Well, that was fine. She would forget Mr. Johns, and Mrs. Johns, and the whole sorry business.
Only, now that she knew he was forever out of her reach, she realized how much she had allowed herself to fall in love with him. How could he have done this to her? How could she have let him?