A/N: Testing out a new story. If I go forward with it, do not expect a quick, regular posting schedule.

The Resurrection at Rosings

Book One: The Trees Don't Grow Into the Sky

Chapter One: No Exit

Lizzy

Run, Lizzy, run!

Elizabeth Bennet was no stranger to running (running is only faster walking!) and no stranger to the gardens of Longbourn, where she was now running.

She plunged deeper into the rough-tended shrubbery, increasing her stride as behind her she heard the door she had used open and slam closed again, and heard the voice of Mr. Collins, crying after her, loudly, a bellow: "Cousin Elizabeth! Dear Cousin! Your mother has approved! We need only formalize — !"

Tears obscured her vision. Tears of overwhelmed frustration. Although she knew the gardens as well as she knew her own person, so overset was she that she turned by mistake and found herself in a section of the shrubbery from which there was no exit, short of a scratching battle through the thick shrubbery itself. Behind her, she could hear the lumbering half-run of the weighty parson, could hear his open-mouthed gasping. She could still smell him, the stink of him, from when he purposely brushed against her in the hallway, rubbing his sweaty palm on her shoulder as if entitled and smiling with that oily vaulted humility that was the essence of the man.

He sickened her and she had no intention of allowing him to propose to her. Even listening to his addresses would be a degradation.

She would refuse even to refuse. A no preemptive of another no.

She would escape.

Or she would have escaped if her vision had not become watery and her panic induced her onto the wrong path.

No exit.

She skidded to a halt, her slippers slipping in the newly raked path, and she almost tumbled to the ground as she overbalanced. Catching herself, she rotated to face the other way. Collins was wheezing behind her, closing on her. A white-collared monster in black, a bible-bearing Grendel.

A whiff of his stench was already mixing with the scents of the gardens.

There is no escape. Collins came along the pathway and saw her. She crossed her arms, at once an act of protection and of defiance. Collins' thinning hair was already damp with sweat, stuck to his forehead. Beads of sweat collected on his upper lip, an unholy dew, no manna.

He stopped ponderously, an armed and legged boulder rolling one final time, and he tried to stand straight but was too winded to manage that posture. Instead his thick, rounded shoulders collapsed narrowly and he bent at the waist, trying to catch his breath — since he had caught Lizzy.

Trapped me. She prayed there was no deeper symbolism in her plight.

"Cousin, dear Cousin, why have you run from me? Do you not understand that I have chosen you — you! — as the companion of my future life?" The questions were broken up by wheezing gasps but unfortunately Lizzy understood them. Him.

She was about to speak, to put a forceful end to the farce but he continued before she could do so, still panting. "There are…several…reasons why I have conferred this honor upon you, dear Cousin. Please allow me to recount them, much as our Lord's ancestry is recounted at the beginning of St. Matthew's Gospel…"

He is looking at me but he is talking to himself — or his absent patroness.

The morning had been unhappy, disappointed, from the moment Lizzy opened her eyes.

The night before had been Mr. Bingley's ball at Netherfield. Rarely, perhaps never, had Lizzy looked forward to a ball more. She loved to dance, and she was certain that she would dance with the dazzling Lt. Wickham. His dancing, at least in her daydreams, was as faultless as his manners, as enchanting as his person. As they danced, they would show the admiring multitude at the ball true felicity in music-regulated motion; the crowd would be stunned, enlightened, envious.

It had rained for days and days, a Noachian deluge, before the ball. Lizzy hated being imprisoned indoors, especially with Mr. Collins stomping around the house constantly, either with his feet or with his voice, stealing everyone's peace. But she focused on her gown, on perfecting it and making sure that every detail was perfect. She fully expected that she and Wickham would dance and spread purification and perfume all about the ballroom, potent enough even to drive out Mr. Collins' odor.

Alas, her expectations were defeated. Routed. Because of that miserable, miserable Mr. Darcy. Although Lt. Wickham had promised that Mr. Darcy's presence would not cause his absence, it seemed that it had. She was unsure if Mr. Darcy had actively prevented Lt. Wickham's attendance, somehow forbidding it, revoking his invitation perhaps, or he had done it passively, perhaps worrying Lt. Wickham that some unpleasantness would result from both of the men being in the same ballroom, and so causing Lt. Wickham to miss the ball — but honorably. All the dishonor belonged to Mr. Darcy. The tall man was a lightning rod for dishonor, despite his pretensions to be untouchable,to stand above the mortal coil.

This profound disappointment was worsened by Lizzy's forced agreement to dance the first set with Mr. Collins. His dance was an assault on her head to toe. He stank so badly that her nose burned and her eyes watered. He danced so badly that he spent more time on her feet than on the floor. Worse still, if that was possible, she found herself dancing with Collins while beneath the satirical, censorious eye of Mr. Darcy. His face seemed stone as he watched her unconcealable misery with neither sympathy nor pity, only a frigid tranquility.

When the eternal damnation of the first set ended, Collins went hunting punch, and Lizzy found herself unexpectedly facing Mr. Darcy. He was standing close to her and it was like having a sudden tête-à-tête with a gargoyle.

A handsome gargoyle. Could anything count as a gargoyle that was handsome — transcendently handsome?

"Miss Elizabeth, may I have the second set?" The impassivity of his face and his voice made it hard to know whether he was asking or commanding. Only his words themselves suggested that he was asking, his words in form interrogatory not imperative, although his inflection was neither — or both.. Lizzy had not realized that her best friend, Charlotte Lucas, had walked to her after Collins walked away; she arrived on the side opposite Mr. Darcy.

When Lizzy failed to answer Mr. Darcy, Charlotte spoke for her. "She would be honored, sir."

Mr. Darcy nodded at Lizzy, not Charlotte, and there was a flash of something in his eyes but it was too quick and Lizzy was too annoyed by Charlotte's interference to name it.

"I shall return in a moment." Darcy bowed again.

Mr. Darcy stepped away, walking as elegantly as he bowed, as elegantly as he was dressed. Lizzy despised his elegance. It was a vice, not a virtue.

She turned to Charlotte, coloring deep red in outrage. "Whatever are you doing, Charlotte? I promised myself I would never dance with that baleful man! Never!"

Charlotte looked cool and unconcerned despite Lizzy's fiery tone. "Saving you from yourself, Eliza. That man's presence in Hertfordshire is a minor miracle, almost…a true fairy tale, a northern prince riding in over the horizon. All he does is stare at you, Eliza, a stare like a trance, ecstasy. I believe he is…moved…by you. Deeply. Lt. Wickham may be pretty, Lizzy, but even you must see that he is more boy than man, despite his years. Mr. Darcy is a man, a man in full."

"Lt. Wickham, a boy? Charlotte, has your eyesight been compromised? Is your advanced age blinding you?" Lizzy smiled quickly to prevent her words from stinging Charlotte, a reminder that she had been shelved.

Charlotte smiled, imperturbable. "No. My eyesight at least equals yours, and may be better, since not as superficial. You like to regard yourself as having genius at sketching characters, but all too often you substitute the face for the heart. I conceded that Lt. Wickham is pretty, but what do you know about him beyond that? Has he any qualifications that do not meet the eye or ear? Do you have any idea where he was before he joined the militia, what work he did — if any? Do you know anything about him other than what you see and hear, or what he has supplied you?"

"Charlotte," Lizzy responded but did not quite answer, "you only say that because Mr. Darcy is so great and tall, and Lt. Wickham is smaller, slighter. Now, who is superficial?"

"I do not deny that Mr. Darcy is handsome. That he has a compelling, regal presence. I have never seen anyone more handsome, more impressive. All this I admit. But he has made no effort to trade on that face, that fact, with me or you or indeed anyone, he has not presented me with stories served up with smooth manners. Perhaps he should be more willing to please, but at least he is no flatterer. All the more reason to take his preoccupation with you seriously. Would such a man turn such a gaze on me!" Charlotte reddened and opened her fan, fanning herself, in a genuine, if minor, swoon.

The musicians showed signs of starting the music for the second set, and Lizzy tried to reconcile herself to her fate. Mr. Darcy approached her and bowed elegantly (of course — she would despise him because she could). "Miss Elizabeth." He extended his large, gloved hand. She realized only then just how great and tall a man he truly was, how in relation to him, she was almost tiny, negligible. A sudden vulnerability overcame her but she was sure it was a result of their vastly unequal physical size. The fact that he towered over her struck her as a reason to resent him, although a part of her knew that was ridiculous. Still, he could dance on his knees! Equalize us.

As their hands first touched, as the music began, Mr. Darcy smiled again; a trace of humility appeared in the smile but it must have been an illusion. "Thank you for agreeing, Miss Elizabeth. I did not expect it."

"Why ever not, sir?" Lizzy asked, off-balance but keeping her response coy.

"Induction. You have refused me twice recently, and I expected the present to resemble the past."

His words struck her. "As do I, so I wonder if you may be responsible for Lt. Wickham's absence from the ball?" She would not allow his smile to cause her mind or her loyalties to wander.

If her shift in subject surprised him he concealed it. "Lt. Wickham is not present?"

"No, and I suspect it is because he has few friends."

Darcy parted from her as did his smile. On his return, he asked: "Do you believe that I am responsible for that? I have spoken to no one here of Wickham until this moment. If he is friendless, how can I be responsible?'

Obtuse man! As if Lt. Wickham's present is not the result of Mr. Darcy's past, their shared past.

"He has suffered depravations, broken promises, belittling. If he lacks friends now, that is because of the decisions of others then. The present resembles the past."

They danced in silence for a moment. Mr. Darcy's impassivity deepened. "Is it mannerly to focus on one man while dancing with another? Is not faithfulness to one's partner a virtue and unfaithfulness a vice, at least in the small space and time of a dance?"

Unfaithfulness? Lizzy blushed.

She had been thinking in terms of virtue and vice herself, but about him. Darcy's vice. His rhetorical question shamed her. She had intended that he be the one shamed by unfaithfulness, unfaithfulness to his childhood friend, to his own father's wishes. Unfaithfulness to honor.

Mr. Darcy observed her blush. "Your loyalty…" he paused as if weighing that word against possible other choices, "...is admirable. But the object of your loyalty is sadly unworthy of it."

His chiding made her feel like a child. Who is he to speak to me thus? Ltl Wickham supplied me with a story, details, all Mr. Darcy does is make assertions, pass judgments, and talk down to me. Who is more likely to be truthful? But Lizzy could hear an echo of Charlotte's earlier questions about Lt. Wickham. If she did indeed feel loyalty to Lt. Wickham, in what firm ground was her loyalty anchored? At bottom, her conviction felt sandy, unsure, movable. In what good deed of Lt. Wickham? Even his story, its details, made known only bad in Mr. Darcy, not good in Lt. Wickham. If Lt. Wickham was so set on wearing parson black, what was he doing in Meryton in military red? Why complain of a living when he had, so far as she knew, never taken orders.

But I know bad of Mr. Darcy. I have heard it with my own ears and spoken of my person. Tolerable. Not tempting. She could not imagine such words from Lt. Wickham's lips, but she did not have to imagine them from Mr. Darcy's; she need only recall them.

But she had no arch reply to Mr. Darcy's comment about loyalty. She did not believe it but she found responding to the curious admixture of praise and censure in his comment difficult, at least it was as she danced with him.

No longer warring with him, feeling vulnerable and corrected, she involved herself in the dance. Mr. Darcy danced even more elegantly than he bowed or walked…or breathed. His eyes were on her for the rest of the dance, deep, black, abysmal. But not cold, not impassive. They were expressive, but expressive of something for which she had no name. Whatever it was, it drew warm blood to her face — as if her body could name the expression but her mind could not. As she felt her blush, she saw Darcy smile, his smile pleased and entitled. It felt as if he had commanded the blush.

When the dance ended, Mr. Darcy offered to seek a glass of punch for her but she had already been through too much. Never had a single set at a ball left her feeling more exhausted. She had thought the set with Collins was as bad as a set could be — but no.

Mr. Darcy was the worst — and the best partner — she had danced with. But his being the best made him still worse, somehow. An elegant contradiction in measured movement, a tall, broad-shouldered, superfine impossibility.

She refused the punch and walked unsteadily toward Charlotte, leaving Mr. Darcy behind, hoping that her face would cool before Charlotte turned to her.

Mr. Collins pressed his panting proposal.

"I hope you…understand, fair Cousin, that in asking you what…I am about to ask you, my asking has the…sanction, indeed the blessing, of a woman of the acutest discernment, the greatest delicacy. A woman who combines moral and religious rectitude with the most merciful condescension. Lady Catherine de Bourgh, as I have often mentioned, but it is impossible to praise my patroness or to name her too often. In fact, her name is itself a benediction. Lady Catherine. Like the name of our Lord."

Dear God, Elizabeth thought, deaf to his own sacrilege.

"I mention this so that you will…understand that my affection for you is not low-born, some physical…hunger, but is instead a most just and righteous feeling, high-minded, originating in a disinterested impulse to obey the best of women.

And besides, as Scripture says, it is better to marry than to burn." Collins licked his fat lips as if wetting them would cool some fire inside him. He continued, still panting, his eyes dropping from Lizzy's face to her chest..

"My situation in life is good, you see, and I may say this knowing I am speaking…modestly. Beyond my patroness, I have…the Rectory, a fine house with a garden. Rosings, the estate of Lady Catherine, is nearby — really, only a stone's throw away, although no one would ever dare throw a stone at Rosings and risk shattering one of the uncountably many glorious windows…besides, let him who is without sin first cast a stone," Collins added after a moment, prompted by a similarity of words not of thought, (never of thought!), "...and I am invited to visit regularly. My present living is…comfortable, and of course, in the future, I am to inherit Longbourn, and so…assuming you accept my proposal, as I do," he emphasized the final two words, "I will one day return you to this home, to take your…rightful place as Mistress of Longbourn, shouldering your mother aside, should she still be living."

Good God!

Collins had caught his breath. "All that remains, before I claim your lips as mine," he wet his lips again, nearly drooling, "is to assure you in the most vigorous and animated — and devoted, devoted, let me say again — language, of my affections."

And then he stopped, still looking at her chest hungrily for a moment before his eyes snaked up to her lips. He stretched himself to his full height as if dignity were a possibility for him, and by standing straight he could claim it..

Waiting. Waiting for her yes, her yielding.

Lizzy took a deep breath and then spoke, keeping her tone neutral. "I am sensitive to the honor your proposal does me, Mr. Collins, and I thank you for thinking so highly of me. But I fear my answer can only be no. I will not marry you. We would not suit."

For a moment, a stretching, stretching, taut moment, Collins simply stared and licked his lips a third time. Is he now wetting them or drying them? His eyes, never bright, dulled further. "Not suit?" he asked, but less as if it were a question than a mere copying of her vocables, the sound, not the meaning. He shook his head and smiled damply. "I understand. This is the typical ploy of the elegant female, heightening the suspense of the proposal, testing the resolve of her suitor. But I am not a double-minded man, fair Cousin; I am resolved. My affection, once secured, is secured forever. Come, now, and cease these arts and allurements, and tell me plainly that you will be the companion of my future life."

"No, Mr. Collins. Again, thank you, but no. I cannot marry you. I am not the woman for you, not the woman that Lady Catherine envisages for you. She would be most displeased by me, I feel confident of that."

Collins had been shaking his head as she spoke. "You do not mean it, surely. You must acknowledge the compliment, the great compliment, of my addresses. How can you not be aware that you will likely never be so complimented again? You must be toying with me still!"

How can I convince him? This mortification must end. Harshness will be kindness.

"Mr. Collins, I am not toying with you. I am innocent of any ploy, of all arts and all allurements. While I cannot say that you are the last man I would ever marry, I do believe you are next-to-last."

Collins was at last beginning to believe her. The strange exactness of her last claim rendered it credible. He shook his head, now in pity, not disbelief. "This then is your final answer? You wish for me to speak on the subject nevermore?"

"Nevermore, yes, sir."

Collins tried to straighten himself even more, to look down on Lizzy with heightened, self-righteous disdain. He managed only to make himself resemble a dog standing on its hind legs, his black waistcoat lifting, exposing his white shirt, like a second, lower collar but for his stomach. "May I ask for the name of the one man less likely to win your hand than I?"

She had the name at the ready, and spoke it without deliberation. "Mr. Darcy."

Collins grunted softly in surprise.

A/N: Next chapter, Darcy.