Pride and Predjudice

Walls Come Down

One Shot

Lady Catherine sat regally next to a full-sized window, wearing a flowing purple bombazine dress. Her face had long since lost its youthful appearance, and multiple creases etched themselves across her face. The walls behind her were an off-white, and the curtains almost matched their color, with a green trim all around the edges. Her bed faced the window and was covered with a large, medium-green quilt, with multiple pillows propped against its headboard. Two nightstands had been placed on either side of the bed, with a bench at the foot of the bed. A chair and writing table had been placed on the other side of the window. Lady Catherine paid no mind to any of it as she overlooked the grounds of Rosings Park. At the same time, a knock came at her bedroom door.

"Come in." Lady Catherine called out and, out of years of habit, did not relax as Elizabeth entered the room; that is, not until Mrs. Darcy spoke.

"I was told you sent for me." Elizabeth then offered to come back at another time if she had been told wrong, for Lady Catherine appeared to still want to be left alone after the death of her only daughter, Anne, though it had been almost a year.

"No, no, please stay." Lady Catherine allowed herself to relax - just a little - and pointed to the chair next to the writing table. "I need to talk to you."

'What have I done now?' The question instantly popped into Elizabeth's mind, but it was an inquiry she managed to keep quiet on.

"I owe you an apology and an explanation."

"For what?" This time, Elizabeth could not have hidden her wide-eyed shock if she tried; Lady Catherine apologize to her? For anything? And to give her an explanation over anything?

"Oh, quit looking at me as if I just told you I had the plague." Lady Catherine could not help but snap, but then instantly softened. "I am sorry, Mrs. Darcy, I probably deserved that look."

"No, I am sorry. It was uncalled for. Please, go on."

"First, I just want some peace and realized I cannot do that if I do not allow my walls to come down. So..." Mr. Darcy's aunt took a deep breath. "I am sorry for the way I spoke to you in your parents' garden. The truth is you frightened me." Lady Catherine ignored Mrs. Darcy's confused look and hurried on before Mr. Darcy's wife could speak. "You and my nephew stood for everything I had been told my whole life was wrong. People were supposed to marry within their classes, they were supposed to go to certain functions, go to just the right schools and so forth. Young ladies such as yourself were not to speak to the upper class as you were doing. There was certainly no way you were supposed to have the intelligence your mind held."

"And that made you afraid of me?" Elizabeth was confused; what was there to be afraid of?

"There was more to it than that." Mr. Darcy's aunt sighed. "Your father had five daughters, five chances for them to marry someone of good standing. I only had one daughter, one chance. I was afraid you were taking her only chance to marry. I told myself she would have no one if she did not marry Mr. Darcy; I was refusing to see her own health prevented her from marrying at all. I then told myself my father had been an Earl, my husband knighted." She held up her hand when Elizabeth went to open her mouth. "I am not saying any of this to get pity or to boast, though for too many years I have been snobbish, arrogant, domineering, interfering, and do I really need to go on?" Lady Catherine's tone said just as much as her eye-roll did.

"No."

"Suffice it to say, I am simply trying to accept the way I have been, apologize for it and explain why I have behaved the way I have - even though I have come - too late I fear - to see the error of my ways. And I feel I am doing a poor job explaining my actions as it is." Elizabeth shut her mouth and, if she were to be honest, was amazed Lady Catherine was even speaking to her so openly and in a far less condescending tone of voice as it was. Hence, Mrs. Darcy's willingness to continue listening.

Lady Catherine sighed as what she was going to confess was by far one of the hardest things the woman had ever had to do. "I was not only afraid of you, I was afraid for you and your sisters." Darcy's aunt continued on. "I was raised with certain expectations of what society expected from me and me from them, or maybe I should say I was not properly raised. I feared what I had not bothered to learn, what your mother had not taught you, would hold you back. The truth is I was allowed to roam freer than I ought to have been. Had it not been for my husband, I... I would have been another Lydia."

Elizabeth gasped. She could not help it. Whatever she had expected Lady Catherine to say, that was the last thing she had expected to hear. "So..." Lady Catherine stiffened back up more out of habit than anything else. "Please accept my long-winded apology, you have made an excellent match for my nephew; a far better one than my Anne would have ever had. Now..." The lady smoothed out her skirt. "I hope this old lady has not taken too much of your time."

"I accept your apology." Elizabeth stood up and shocked Lady Catherine by giving her a hug, walking to the door and then turning back around. "I am glad you allowed your walls to come down. Maybe you can find true peace now."

"I hope so too."