Excentryke's Musings

Title: November Tears
Author: ExcentrykeMuse
Fandom: Pride and Prejudice
Pairing(s): Elizabeth/Darcy, Lydia/Wickham, Jane/Bingley, Bingley/OFC
Word Count: 1.2k
Rating: PG

Warning(s): elopement, attempted elopements, ruined reputations, harsh Darcy
Prompt: for shelby6666: “My prompt is always Elizabeth and Darcy from Pride and Prejudice”

The doors closed behind Caroline decidedly.  “They’re not just rumors,” she declared to the waiting gentlemen.  “The Bennet family is ruined.”

“Ruined?” Bingley asked, the horror clear on his face.

“Quite ruined,” Caroline answered him as she sat and poured herself a cup of tea from the waiting tray.  “I had it all from Lady Lucas.  It seems like last summer—the younger one—”

Lydia, Darcy’s mind supplied, but he remained staring out the window, showing no emotion.

“—ran off with an officer.  But it would appear the intended elopement never took place.”  She set down a piece of china decidedly.  “Milk, Charles?”

“Oh, quite.” 

Caroline and Charles muddled about with the tea things and Darcy only joined them to claim his own cup.  “She never came home, then?  This youngest Miss Bennet?”  He affected a casual tone, as if he didn’t care at all one way or the other, when really he was hanging off of every one of Miss Bingley’s words.

A sneer covered Miss Bingley’s otherwise pretty face.  “She was found—alone—in London last month.  Lady Lucas believes she remains in Town.  She cannot come home.”

“No,” Bingley agreed.  “She can’t come home.  Not after that.”

Darcy closed his eyes in pain.  He’d spent over a month searching out Wickham and the youngest Bennet girl but to no avail.  He had sought to protect Elizabeth’s reputation, but now the family was entirely ruined.  Even if he could gain Elizabeth’s good opinion, he could never marry her now.

“You know, now,” Darcy said calmly, not even looking at his friend, “there is no chance of you connecting your name with such a family.”

Bingley looked up at him quickly.  “No, no chance of that,” he agreed before ruminating over her empty cup of tea.  “How she must be suffering.”

She—that is, Jane Bennet—wasn’t suffering half so much as his Elizabeth must be suffering.  If only Elizabeth had accepted his proposal at Hunsford, this would have all been avoided.  Lydia would have been nothing to them.  Elizabeth would have been above scandal as his wife, and they could have easily cut off the rest of the Bennet family in its entirety, diluting any taint.

It was all so completely avoidable!

Perhaps if he had asked her that first day at Pemberley, she would have agreed, and they could have been married by special license. 

He put down his cup of tea and decided to go for a ride, not even informing Charles.  He just walked out of the room, wrenched open the door, and slammed it behind him.

“Come, man,” he hurried on the stablehand, and soon mounted his charger, riding (coincidentally) in the direction of Longbourn.  When he reached the small estate, he sat in his saddle and looked upon it.  It was much as it ever was.  He wondered what the indolent Bennet would do now that his youngest and thrown the entire family into disgrace, if Mrs. Bennet had taken to constant hystics, if the daughters had all been sequestered.

He saw a bonnet come down the path and knew it to be Elizabeth and he quickly turned his horse and rode in another direction.

Society was not great nor varied that Autumn for they were mainly a shooting party.  Every time Darcy entered Lucas Lodge, however, he felt the loss of Miss Elizabeth Bennet and her fine eyes and pert opinions.  When it came time for Bingley to give his Second Annual Netherfield Ball, he had decided quite rightly not to dance, even with Caroline.

“Come, man, I hate to see you standing around in this stupid manner.  I must have you dance!”  Bingley had been delighting that evening in the smiles of a Miss Faywick, who had lately come into the neighborhood.  The girl, at least, did not have a mother who pushed her on the neighborhood’s most eligible bachelors and she was rumored to have a fortune of seven thousand pounds.

“And who,” Darcy asked him quite serious, “would it not be a punishment for me to stand up with?  I know the Lucases and the Gouldings, you cannot tempt me with any of them.”

Bingley did not look at all deterred and he gave his friend a firm look.  “If no one from the old neighborhood can entice you, then why not allow me to introduce you to Miss Faywick?  She is a most amiable partner—and you cannot tell me she smiles too much.”

Darcy looked over at the girl, at her blue eyes, at her russet hair.

“I shall not distract her—”

“Come now, I insist,” Bingley declared, and Darcy was unfortunately led over to the bright face of Miss Alice Faywick. 

He was pushed to dancing, and accepted it as his punishment for attending the festivities.  Darcy did not at first speak, until Miss Faywick hesitantly told him, “I have a message for you.”

His eyes flashed to her and he said, quite resolute, “I am not used to be passed messages by ladies in ballrooms.”

She did not seem dissuaded.  “Miss Elizabeth was unsure how else it was to be accomplished.”

At the sound of her name, his breath caught, and he inclined his head toward her.

“Be ready with a carriage at six o’clock tomorrow on the Meryton road,” Miss Faywick instructed, and Darcy stilled in the dance as he perceived her meaning. 

“Are you attempting, Madam,” he asked harshly, “to set up an elopement?”

Her blue eyes flashed at him to continue in the dance, but he stood resolute.  “You are no lady, Madam,” he declared, leaving her and the dance.

What did she think he was?  What did Elizabeth Bennet think he was?  Was he not Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley?  Was he not his good name?  Was he not everything that was good and honest and upright?  What made her think that after so many months, of no words or signs, that he would agree to such lunacy?

He walked toward Bingley, his hands resolutely behind his back, and told him harshly, not moderating his tone, “Miss Faywick is a harlot.  She sought to set up a rendez vous at six o’clock in the morning, unchaperoned.  I do not know how she gained admittance to this ball.”

“Surely you jest—”  Bingley gasped, but Darcy only shook his head.

“I do not jest.”  He then left Bingley with a nod of his head and sought his rooms, leaving the party a full two hours early.

Darcy did not see Miss Faywick again that night.  He certainly did not see Miss Elizabeth Bennet the next morning.  At six precisely, he was standing at his window with a cup of coffee, staring out over the garden toward Meryton, wondering if his Elizabeth was waiting for him to make the mistake of his life.

He would not make that mistake, though.  He would not make that mistake for her, or any woman.

The End