THERE ARE TOO MANY BEDS
Elizabeth was in grave danger of being forced to marry her cousin. Mr. Collins had asked her, and that is sometimes enough of a reason to say yes. Other times, it is a reason to run away from home. Mr. Collins had told her in great detail how many beds Lady Catherine had advised his parsonage should be furnished with, and Elizabeth had told him that she would never sleep in any of them.
Her parents did not support her decision to refuse, and her sisters were sour because there were not nearly enough bedrooms at Longbourn and sending a married sister off to Kent would have solved a problem for them.
For Elizabeth, the problems were just starting. There was talk of all kinds of threats and underhanded stratagems that could be used to force her acquiescence. So she packed a bag and thought to go find refuge at her relations in London. But the stagecoach she boarded in Meryton went the other way, northward. She had been lost in her thoughts and only realized her error when they were stranded at a dingy roadside inn, forced to stop by a convenient blizzard. She asked the innkeeper if there was a bed for her and told him that her name was Mrs. Darcy, thinking that Darcy was surely the last name that her relations would suspect her of using, if anyone was asking for her. He said that she could have the last of his beds. In exchange, he only wanted the last of her money.
If her ill luck ended there it would have been a pretty good day, considering. But then the dragons arrived.
I am just kidding. If the dragons arrived, it would still have been a decent day, all in all.
But Mr. Darcy stepped into the inn's common room and ruined everything. "Look, sir, here is your wife, safe and sound," the innkeeper said.
"But I have no…" Mr. Darcy said, and broke off abruptly when he recognized her. When the innkeeper was out of earshot he asked, "What on earth are you doing here, Miss Elizabeth?"
"You must have mistaken me for your friend," Elizabeth said. "My name is Mrs. Collins, and my husband will be here shortly."
Mr. Darcy was a cynical, distrustful man so he did not believe her at all, and cruelly insisted on staying close to her in order to protect her. "A young lady like you, all alone at a place like this!"
"I should be so lucky," she said.
She could not shake him all evening, and as further evidence of his ill intentions, he bought her some soup and bread.
The bed that Elizabeth had been granted was just that, a bed. Not a room but the top of a bunk bed in a room full of other bunk beds. Which goes to show that sometimes you get exactly what you asked for.
"I have no other bed for your husband but surely you can share," the innkeeper said. "It is a bit crowded tonight so there is no privacy to be had, unfortunately. We have plenty of chaperones, har har."
Mr. Darcy looked appalled by this and thought that he might try sleeping sitting up in the common room. But when he saw the room full of strangers, both men and women, that Elizabeth was to be sleeping in, he changed his mind.
"You will be much safer with me sharing the bed with you. None of these strangers will dare to bother you then," he said. "Besides, we are married so it is quite proper."
She wanted to demur because there was only one bed and that was just not done. But he was right. She would be much safer sleeping with someone who found her only tolerable and not at all tempting. Some of the other men might not be so scrupulous.
Neither of them slept a wink that night, because there were far too many beds. Too many terrible, disgraceful, hateful people were able to sleep in the dormitory, and most of them snored. Mr. Darcy renamed the room Snoremitory.
Next morning, Mr. Darcy proposed to her. She was too dazed, tired, and confused to know what she replied, so she found herself married in Lambton as soon as he could contrive it. If any further proof of his maleficence is needed at this point of the story, he did not even bother to go jewelry shopping but gave his bride an old emerald ring that had been a heirloom of the Darcy family.
They went home to Pemberley which Elizabeth found to be a grand manor with a lot more rooms than she could ever need.
"There are too many beds in this nursery!" she exclaimed. "I do hope that you are not expecting me to put a baby in each of them."
"We can try to fill a few," he said.
However, they did not start that night. Or the next.
The marriage went unconsummated for quite some time because there were far too many bedrooms. What with the recent renovations that had been undertaken, Mr. Darcy could not recognize his own quarters, and Mrs. Darcy had never learnt the way to her own. As a consequence, they both slept alone in various beds in different rooms each night, and it took nearly two months until they both randomly found themselves in the same bedroom at the same time.
"This will not do," Mr. Darcy said.
"We need a map," Mrs. Darcy said.
"Or some beacon or string that we can follow, to lead us to the right room."
"There are too many beds," Mrs. Darcy said. "We should lock all the other bedrooms and get rid of the extra beds."
"The idea has merit," Mr. Darcy said. "My aunt Cathy threatened to visit, and if there is no bed for her she will not stay long."
