Captain Newbury gave a pence to a slight ragamuffin, then turned back to Darcy, shaking his head.
"I can't be sure, but I don't think anyone has seen her. The goose girl we talked to an hour ago had the best description, but that trail has long been cold. I don't see how we're going to find your Elizabeth if she does not want to be found."
Darcy paced in tight steps on the cobblestones of the square. "Damn it man, where could she have gone? She knows no one in town, she had no coin for an inn and we haven't seen her in any of the public rooms. Where could she have disappeared to?" He continued to stare around him, knowing it was futile, but he could not help himself.
"How well do you know her? Could she have found some man?"
Darcy stopped abruptly, clenching his hands, preventing himself from doing Newbury a violence by main force of will.
"I tell you she is gently bred. She would no more go off with a strange man than —"
"Than elope?" Newbury asked tersely.
Darcy dropped his head and his shoulders slumped. "I must find her, Newbury. Everything depends upon it. I cannot go back to England without her. I cannot leave her here, friendless and unprotected. Might we go to a magistrate?"
"I don't know that a magistrate would help you. Even if she was found, she could not be forced to marry you. I think that you're going to have to wait for her to come to you."
"Come to me? Are you mad? You heard her, she hates me. She wants nothing to do with me, even if it means the worst for her. This morning I could have sworn that she had seen reason, had seen what we need to do. But after she talked to you —" Darcy looked up at Newbury with a dangerous light in his eyes. "What did you tell her? What did you say to her?"
"I said that I expected she accepted your proposals because of your great wealth. No surprising thing, really. I was surprised when she said she hadn't accepted. I wonder, at that, you were able to force her into the carriage. She must have been screaming the whole way to Portsmouth."
Darcy shook his head sadly. "I believe you may have insulted her, Newbury. Lady Catherine told me she refused her cousin, even though her father's estate is entailed on him. By marrying him she could have provided for her family after her father's death. She seems very determined to marry only — I thought, marry well, but I was not eligible enough for her. I believe her mother intended her daughters for the militia regimental officers."
Newbury began to lead firmly him toward a nearby tavern, and Darcy continued speaking woodenly.
"Mrs. Bennet was so eager for her elder sister's match with my friend Bingley. I felt sure that Elizabeth would want to please her mother by accepting me. Her mother made clear the evening we met that she knew how large a fortune is mine."
Newbury ordered strong ale and put a pint before Darcy, who began to drink reflexively. "I snubbed her, you know, at that ball. I told Bingley that she was not handsome enough for me. I knew perfectly well she could hear. I thought that if I slighted her, she and the other girls would see fit to leave me in peace. My gods, Newbury, how arrogant was I? And that's the least of it."
The barman took the empty pint and replaced it with another.
"Good god, Newbury, how terrible I've been to her."
Mrs. Romney put an arm around the sobbing Elizabeth and handed her a handkerchief. "There now, dear, this will be nothing to you one day."
Elizabeth only cried harder, quickly soaking the thin cotton. The lady held her until her wracking sobs began to subside.
"My dear Miss Bennet, what could be so wrong that it makes you so very unhappy? This man, he does not love you? Is he old? Ugly? Cruel? Did your family force you into this?"
Elizabeth wiped her nose. "No, my family never, would never, not even my mother. And he said he loves me but if he did how could he —" Silence gripped her and her mind returned to the sitting room of the rectory at Hunsford.
Looking intently into her face, Mrs. Romney's eyes drew wide with dawning recognition. "So this man, he forced you to go with him so that you would be forced to marry him?"
Elizabeth hid her deep blush under the soaking handkerchief and nodded.
"This is terrible. Oh, what a shameful man. And now by the English customs you will have to marry him. Quel désastre! Oh my poor, dear Miss Bennet!"
"Yes, I must, I must marry him, if only to spare my family the infamy. We were at the church, about to be wed, when I discovered I could not go through with it. I was speaking with Captain Newbury, who was to be Mr. Darcy's best man and the witness. Captain Newbury assumed that I was marrying Mr. Darcy for his wealth. That made me think how everyone will think — I abused him so to everyone around my home, condemning his pride, his arrogance."
Elizabeth stood and began pacing about the room.
"What a hypocrite I will be thought! And how his family will despise me. And Mr. Wickam, too, how hurt will he be?."
"Will they be so harsh? I would think anyone who knows you would think better of you."
"His family will be harsh as anything. His aunt, a wealthy woman who thinks much of herself, has plotted for years to marry Mr. Darcy to her daughter. I can only imagine how unforgiving she will be of my upsetting her plans. And his sister I hear is a very proud creature as well. She will no doubt look down upon me for bringing nothing to the marriage. And though Mr. Darcy's closest friend, Mr. Bingley, is civil and kind, his sisters are disdainful and haughty. No doubt they will censure me as much as will his family."
Elizabeth collapsed into a chair as if the breath had been knocked out of her.
"And Jane. My dear sister Jane. It was Mr. Darcy who persuaded Mr. Bingley to cease his attentions to her, though they were growing to love each other dearly. It was on the morning of his proposal that I learned of his intervention. How can I face Jane as the wife of the man who spoiled all her hopes? Mr. Darcy said he wrote to Mr. Bingley to reverse his actions, but is his friend so pliable as that? Are Mr. Darcy's powers so great?"
Darcy finished the ale and signaled for another. "Do you know when I knew I had to marry her, Newbury?" he asked his companion, who was blearily finishing his own glass. The light from outside was growing as dim as they were growing drunk.
"It was when she was playing the pianoforte – my god, she plays like an angel. If only you could have heard her. She said that she plays ill, but I've never heard anything so wonderful. She was playing the pianoforte, and I — I can't believe I had the gall to say this to her — I said told her that she said things that she did not mean. And she just smiled up at me like anything. That smile went right through me, Newbury."
The captain lifted his glass,"Here's to Miss Elizabeth Bennet's smile."
"To her smile," Darcy echoed, downing half his ale.
"So as I see it, Darcy, you have two options," said Newbury after a long swallow. "Admit that she outsmarted you and deserves to go her own way. I take you back to Portsmouth on the morning tide and you try to forget about her."
"I'll never forget about her," slurred Darcy. "And I can't abandon her. How can you even suggest it? I'm going to stay right here until I find her." He swallowed the rest of his ale and slammed it back onto the table.
"Right, so if you're not going to let her go, you're going to have to find her. That means either waiting for her to come to you — which doesn't seem very likely, considering the circumstances. Or hire someone to cry your apologies through the streets and hope she'll hear and come to you. Or hire spies to find her out and fetch her to the church, and post someone by that damn choir door this time."
Darcy stared into the bottom of his empty glass. "Drag her kicking and yelling to the altar? My god, man. Is it as bad as all that? Won't she see sense and come quietly? Am I so horrid?"
"I wouldn't say so, but you seem to have rubbed your Miss Elizabeth the wrong way good and proper. What possessed you, man? For sure she is pretty, and she plays the pianoforte, but you could have had your pick of London's prettiest faces and richest dowries. Are you trying to alienate your aunt, is that it? Or is it simply sheer perversity? That would explain a lot."
"I don't know what came over me," Darcy admitted, still playing with his empty glass, the alcohol starting to thud unpleasantly in his head. "It seemed so simple and straightforward at the time. I thought she just needed an excuse, that if she was forced to marry me, she wouldn't have to think of herself as mercenary and that she'd grow to love me in time."
"I'm sorry, but that's the worst chain of reasoning I've ever heard," Newbury said. "Don't you know anything about women, particularly ladies?"
Darcy looked about them. "I would have to say I don't. Are you offering your guidance?"
The captain looked down at his half-finished drink and quickly downed it.
"I suppose that I am."