Chapter Text
“But I don’t want to go to dinner with Lady Catherine or Fitzwilliam Darcy or Bill Collins,” Liz would have said if it hadn’t sounded so much like whining. “I don’t want to sit and talk to a single one of them for more than five minutes at a time!” she would have said if she didn’t think it would pain Charlotte or get her in trouble.
Instead, she made do with deep sighs and long eye-rolls, until Charlotte promised, cross-her-heart, that it would be a short evening. “All we have to do is sit at the table, eat whatever fancy dinner Lady Catherine is serving us, and nod along through coffee. When her back is turned, we can sneak away and watch whatever trashy movie they’re showing on late-night TV tonight.”
Rather than being soothed with time, Mariah seemed to grow more and more flustered with each invitation to Lady Catherine’s. She was entirely silent as they approached the apartment, despite both Charlotte and Liz whispering encouragements to her and patting her shoulders gently. It was hopeless; she answered with nothing but a few barely comprehensible squeaks when they were let through the front door. Danielle, Lady Catherine’s maid who had returned from her holiday, shared a rueful smile with Charlotte. Charlotte nodded in return and put her hand back on Mariah’s shoulder, guiding her towards the living room.
Liz, for her part, found she was just as equal to the match of Lady Catherine’s grandeur, stuffiness, and pompousness as she had been at their first invitation. Even if she did feel she was gearing up for battle every time she heard the woman’s name.
Or set her eyes on Darcy.
He was there too, of course—he was everywhere she looked, it seemed—standing very straight but tucked up in the corner. Even half hiding, he was hard to miss, both due to his height and the way he seemed to drain the color out of the room around him. Between his black hair and jacket, he was like a tall, skinny black hole surrounded by pink floral looming in the corner. He wasn’t wearing a tie; his white shirt was perhaps not as crisp as usual and it was unbuttoned one lower than was usual as well. There was a small shadow at the base of his throat where the skin curved inward.
“I’m so glad you could come,” Lady Catherine said in her usual, condescending manner. As if they had begged to come. Liz turned her back on Darcy with some relief. Besides the nephew and the aunt, the only one around was Bill. He radiated the same frenetic energy he always did in the woman’s presence. If he wasn’t trying to act so dignified, Liz was certain he would have bounced on his toes. As it was, he still swooped around Lady Catherine any time she spoke, waiting for even the hint of an order.
“Of course,” Charlotte said, her voice peppy and saccharine sweet. “We were honored to receive the invitation.” She was still guiding Mariah with one hand and she eased the girl into a chair.
Liz glanced around the room once more before asking, “Where is Anne? And Robert?” She had hoped she somehow missed them, but no, there was still only Darcy. Liz plopped down onto the couch cushion furthest from where he was looming.
“They’re coming, they’re coming,” Lady Catherine murmured dismissively.
Another sentence Liz didn’t say for Charlotte’s sake: “But they’re the only reason I came!”
She was slightly distracted when Darcy appeared as if he were going to sit next to her; he stared very hard at the empty side of the couch. One of his feet moved to take a step. Liz clenched one fist where her hand was hidden by her thigh and willed her expression to remain blank.
Darcy paused. He moved his foot back. Then he sat in a chair by the window. Liz relaxed her fingers. She could hear a clock ticking on the other side of the room. She dragged her toe against the floorboards in time with the rhythm. There was a faint sound of movement coming from the kitchen and a slightly stronger smell. It was garlic and herbs—thyme, rosemary, sage—and butter. She willed her stomach not to grumble as she continued fidgeting.
On the other side of the room, Bill tried to engage Charlotte in an utterly mind-numbing conversation on the topic of property taxes. She seemed interested enough, though, because she shot back a number of questions. Whatever they were talking about seemed to please Lady Catherine, for she graced them with one of her stiff-cheeked smiles.
They seemed to sit for an eternity; Liz noiselessly kicking her feet, Mariah twitching every time Lady Catherine spoke, and Darcy a silent and judging presence in the chair. They were none of them invited to join the conversation, though it wouldn’t been much good if they were—Liz and Mariah knew nothing on the subject and Darcy… Darcy is being Darcy, Liz thought coolly.
Something dinged in the kitchen, the chime sounding only for a few seconds before it was stopped, followed by a gentle clatter of plates. Another minute more and it was succeeded by the gentle clack of a low heel on hardwood.
Danielle entered the room. Older than poor Annabelle, she was about 35 and knew what she was doing. She had a broad face and brown curls pulled up into a bun. She walked purposefully up to Lady Catherine and waited for the woman to address her first. Danielle dipped her head slightly towards Lady Catherine. “My lady, dinner is ready,” she said softly. “Would you like to tell the kitchen to wait or do you want me to fetch—”
Before Danielle could fetch anyone, the missing parties very slowly entered the room. Anne came in first. She seemed rather the worse for wear; the blue and white buttoned shirt hung a little loosely on her shoulders and there were bags under her eyes that the somewhat unevenly applied concealer didn’t hide. Robert walked very closely at her side, not quite touching her but with one arm out behind her, as if he were ready to catch her in a moment’s notice. She seemed a little unsteady, but she moved with slow, even movements.
Robert spoke with a smile, “Sorry for the delay! I needed Anne’s help with something and it just couldn’t wait.”
Anne kept her head down and she offered no comment. She waited for her mother to fuss over her for a moment before moving to the dining room. Lady Catherine tried to pull her towards the seat on the right-hand side of the table, but Anne shook her off, purposefully seating herself on the other end. With a hmph and a sniff, Lady Catherine sat directly across from her. If she could not get her daughter to sit by her side, she was happy enough to glare at her from the other end of the table and make mental notes on how little she ate.
Liz knew she needed to be strategic about where she sat, so she hung back a few steps, pausing in the doorway. Darcy had to walk by her, pulling his arms in so he didn’t brush her by accident—or on purpose—glancing down at her as he walked by. She did not look at him directly, but she gave a little grimace when he took his seat.
He sat on the far side of the table, right next to Anne. If Liz sat where she had intended, she would be directly across from Darcy. If she sat as far from him as she could get, she would be next to Lady Catherine. One down from Darcy would have to do, but at least she would be across from Robert. He smiled at her when she took her chair.
Charlotte, following after Liz, tapped one finger against her lip. She noted the stiffness in her friend’s neck as she looked purposefully at Robert or at Anne, never lingering her gaze between them. She sighed and shook her head before taking the seat directly opposite from Darcy. Charlotte tried to catch his eye more than once, but when he was not looking particularly intently at her friend, his gaze was dropped to his empty plate.
The last one in the room, Mariah balked the necessity of sitting next to Lady Catherine, but she was also too frightened to make a scene. She slipped into the chair, grateful at least to be next to Liz; that would protect her, at least a little.
Talk swelled and folded as Danielle and one of the cooks brought in their plates, whisking away the empty ones placed at the settings. Darcy seemed as disinclined as usual to speak; his cousins’ words flowed around him like water around a unmoving stone. Unfortunately for Mariah, even with Bill on her left side, Lady Catherine grew bored of her conversation before long and turned to the girl with her own questions. “You are at university, are you not?”
Mariah only nodded.
“And what are you studying? Following in your sister’s footsteps?”
“Um… I’m undeclared,” she said in a wisp of a voice.
Liz put her hand on the younger girl’s arm and gave it a comforting squeeze; she could see Lady Catherine beginning to puff up her chest in preparation for a declaration.
“Undeclared! I hope you do not waste too much of your time deciding. I really think councelors in high schools should do a much more thorough job—like you, Robert! I’m sure you did a very good job telling your students which career they should pursue when they were in school.”
“I… I did my best to help every student I could, Aunt Catherine,” Robert replied in a firm, diplomatic voice. Liz could tell there was something else he wanted to say behind his words, but he was clearly smart enough not to come out with it.
“Good. Better councelors in schools and firmer parenting are what we need to get the youth motivated. Lord, parents letting their children go into school not knowing what they want to do… Parents become so lenient with younger children, wouldn’t you say, Charlotte?” Before Charlotte could answer, Lady Catherine posed another question. “And you have a brother as well, don’t you?”
“Yes, Lady Catherine. A younger brother.” Mariah seemed to deflate a little once the attention was not on her.
“And what about you, Elizabeth? You said you had swarm of siblings, did you not?”
She wasn’t sure about the intonation on the word “swarm,” but Liz put on her best, bland smile and replied, “Yes, there are five of us.”
Lady Catherine shook her head. “So many children. How old are the rest of them?”
“All of my sisters are out of high school.”
“My goodness,” Lady Catherine said without much emotion behind the words. “Your family must be spending a fortune on university.”
“Well… My eldest sister is graduated. And my sister Cat is going to community college. But my youngest sister isn’t in school right now and…” Liz paused. Lady Catherine’s mouth had pulled into a tight, judgmental line, her eyebrows rising towards her hairline, as Liz spoke, her gray eyes widening. She knew the woman would have something to say when she finished.
But Liz refused to allow herself to be cowed by such a self-centered yet insignificant woman. She set her shoulders and finished, “And I’m currently on a gap year so my sister can study abroad.”
Lady Catherine’s expression turned from harsh to severe at that. “I don’t hold with gap years. That is another waste of everyone’s time. And you see what I mean about younger children and leniency! Your younger one not at school, and not starting a career either?” She shook her head in condemnation without waiting for Liz to confirm her suspicions.
Liz frowned; just because she guessed correctly about Lydia’s status didn’t give her any reason to judge. She didn’t even know Lydia’s name.
“And being told to take time off of school just so—"
“Oh, no one told me to take the year off. I just decided to.” She set her mouth and raised her chin. Show no fear. Keeping her eyes on Lady Catherine, she missed Robert’s pleasantly surprised smile, Darcy’s widening eyes, and Anne’s small, secret grin. She kept her face towards her plate but her eyes flicked up towards Liz more than once.
“Why would you do that?” In her surprise, the accent slipped a little, showing a hint of the more neutral American sounds that had crept into her voice over time.
There were several answers Liz could have given to that question. All of them were true, to an extent, but some of them made her look much better than others. She shrugged. “Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for dreams.”
“But what do you get out of it?”
“I get to see my sister happy, studying physics at CERN.”
There was a moment of near silence, save for the gentle scrape of cutlery, the sound of a glass returning to the table. As she clearly could not win against Liz’s personal values, Lady Catherine moved on to the next issue. “And why anyone would have so many children if they can’t afford to take care of them all, I’ll never understand! If you can’t send them all to college at once…”
Liz could not quite tell if Lady Catherine had no understanding of money or of family relationships. Although she charitably chose to lean towards the former, she was not particularly inclined to continue the conversation. When no question immediately presented itself, she turned away at just the wrong moment to meet Darcy’s eyes.
His fork was hovering over his plate, more or less forgotten. He was staring at her again with the blank expression on his face that seemed so prevalent over the last few days. His brows seemed less furrowed than she had seen, but his mouth was pressed into a thin line, the edges of it curving downward.
Apparently it was unsafe to look anywhere. She stabbed a potato more out of frustration than malice towards the food and did her best to keep from looking towards either Darcy or his aunt for the rest of the meal.
~~~~
They all fit in the sitting room, but it was a tight squeeze. Liz, Mariah, and Charlotte all took the couch while Lady Catherine took what seemed to be “her” seat. Bill brought in a dining room chair so he could hover at her right side. Anne sat in her same chair as the first evening they had come, resting her crutches to the side. Robert pulled the seat from the window over by the couch, leaving Darcy with the remaining armchair.
It took him a moment to take it. He was as jittery as two days previous. He titled his chair to an awkward angle, not quite turned in towards the circle of the conversation. Every time Lady Catherine spoke to him, he had to turn his head to look towards his right shoulder.
Rather than listen to what his aunt had to say, Robert was far more interested in the way his cousin and Liz never quite seemed to look at each other at the same time. When she tapped her chin or adjusted her glasses, Darcy would stare quite openly, but the moment she turned, he would snap his eyes away to attend to Lady Catherine or Bill, or whoever was talking at the moment. He remained almost entirely silent, never offering a comment and answering direct questions in as short of phrases as possible. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. First, they were flat against his thighs, then he slipped them into his pockets. He pulled them out again to cross his arms but that position didn’t last long either. They went back into the pockets after a minute.
Liz seemed the more disinterested party. She would look at him, sometimes, but always with a small frown.
Anne was trying her best to engage her in conversation, but it was one of the days where speaking was difficult. Her breath caught in her lungs and her words came out insubstantial. The longer she failed to get her thoughts out audible and coherent, the more frustrated she became. As Robert watched, she clenched her hands into thin, pale fists, the fingers squeezed to tightly her arms trembled.
When she gave up trying to speak, she crossed her arms over her lap and hunched over slightly, tossing a glance in her mother’s direction. Robert knew she was trying to gauge how much of a scene Lady Catherine would make if she chose to bow out of company early.
Hoping to give Anne an out of the conversation if she wanted it, Robert inched his chair closer to the couch. He leaned towards Liz. “So, you’re on a gap year…”
Liz’s eyes shot to his face.
He laughed softly, holding up his hands. “No, no, I don’t mean it like that!”
She relaxed, resting her elbow on the arm of the couch. “What do you mean, then?”
“Unlike my aunt, I think gap years are a great idea.”
“In theory, anyway. And I’m glad I could help Mary. She has a bit more…” Liz sighed and waved one hand ineffectually, gesturing towards something conceptual. “Well, she has a lot more of a life goal than I do right now.”
“Aw, life goals are a bit overrated. In my professional opinion, anyway!”
“Isn’t it nice to know what you’re doing with your life?”
“Sure, but it just takes a while to get there.”
She sighed again and rested her cheek on her palm. Her eyes drifted off of Robert, beyond Anne who was still hunched in her chair. Darcy was looking at her again. His chair, turned away from most of the room, was very slightly tipped towards her. He seemed to be surprised by getting caught; he quickly jerked his head away to stare at nothing but the center of the rug. Liz rolled her eyes slightly and turned her gaze back to Robert. “I guess that’s the nice thing about gap years; they give you some more time. Not a lot, though.” She frowned. “Not much at all, really.”
“You’ll get there.”
The expression deepened. “That’s what I’ve been told. And then my mom says hurry up and figure it out because Jane and Mary and Cat all seem to have… Never bothered about Lydia, though.”
A quick grin flashed across Robert’s face and he cracked the knuckles of one hand. “All right, you want to figure out what to do with your life? Right here, right now, let’s do it.”
Liz straightened slightly. “What, seriously?”
“Sure! You heard my aunt; I was in secondary school counseling for a while. I have a psych degree; I know how people thing.” He paused. “Well, I know how children think… Um, don’t be offended by that!”
“I’m not,” she assured him. “You’ll be more helpful than anyone I talked in high school, I’m sure of that. Where do we start?”
“I mean, what do you like?”
“Ugh, I don’t know. That’s the hard part, isn’t it? Running. Books. TV. Libraries. I like working with kids, but I definitely don’t want to be a teacher. I don’t think I’m cut out for it.”
“Librarian?”
She groaned softly and turned her hand from tipping outward to facing her; she rested her chin on her knuckles. “I’ve thought about it. A lot. But you need a whole other degree for that. And I don’t… I don’t think I can justify that. I don’t know if it’s the career for me, if you get what I mean.”
Robert raised his eyebrows. There was an arch look in his eye, as if something had just occurred to him that he wasn’t quite ready to share yet. “No,” he said slowly. “No, I don’t. Explain that to me.”
She scrunched her nose in a quick scowl but then said, “Well, I mean… Yeah, I’m interested in it… It’d be really cool to work in a library, yeah. Maybe a big fancy one. But I don’t know if it’s my dream job. I don’t know what my dream job is.” She lowered her hand, sitting upright on the couch again. She let the one drape back on the arm of the couch, the other falling into her lap.
He didn’t seem satisfied with that response, but he prompted her to go on. “And if you graduated right now, what do you’d think you’d do then?”
“I expect I’d just… go home. At least for a little while. My parents own a hotel and they can always use the help. Save up a little money. But after that… I really don’t know.”
Robert smiled gently and put his hand over hers. His palm was warm, large and square, and comforting. “Your job doesn’t have to be a calling, Liz. Not everyone has a perfect match in every part of their life. There’s so much focus on professional callings, perfect families, soul mates… It doesn’t always start out like that. Find all three seems a little absurd to me. Sometimes you just have to find the right fit and see how it goes. Life isn’t about absolutes, not all the time.”
Liz bit her lower lip gently between her teeth and glanced over at Charlotte on the other side of the couch. She and Bill had picked up their discussion about taxes from before dinner and she was gesturing with one hand as she tried to emphasize a point. “The right fit… I suppose you don’t always know right away, do you?”
“Sometimes.” He shrugged. “Sometimes there’s just a click. And other times you just have to… figure it out.”
“And you had that click?”
“Yeah. I did. But not everyone’s that lucky; don’t beat yourself up about that part.”
Liz smiled and rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, and I suppose you use this on all the poor, lost undergraduates who have no idea what to do with their lives?”
He chuckled. “Actually, no. Please let me know if this pep talk worked for you in about six months. I might need to write it down in case I need to give it to any year 11s next time I do a stint at a secondary school again!”
“I will take detailed notes on my career path for you!” Liz promised with her own laugh. Robert noticed, though he was pretty sure Liz didn’t, the way Darcy’s eyes grazed her face at the sound, and the way he flushed very slightly.
Robert squinted and flicked his eyes between the pair of them, considering. He wondered if Liz would answer the questions that Darcy would not. He should have paid more attention in the car ride down!
Before Robert could muster the energy to pose his next round of questions, Lady Catherine began her own line of inquiry that derailed the rest of the evening. “Fitzwilliam,” she demanded in a lull in the spirited tax chat between Bill and Charlotte, “tell us what you’re working on right now. I am sure everyone would be interested in that.”
Darcy’s base coloring deepened to a dark flush. He shook his head, his shoulders sloped very slightly inward. “You know I don’t like to talk about projects I’m working on.” His hands were out of his pockets again and he worried the fingers of his left with his right. “When it’s in the second draft stage I can tell you more.”
“Yes, yes,” she tutted dismissively, “but at least tell me if it is it a piece of literature or one of those magic-y books that take up so much of your time? I know you…like that sort of thing, but I hate to think of you spending so much time on nonsense.”
Darcy dropped his eyes from everyone, throwing his gaze back towards the patch of carpet he had found so interesting before. He said in a strained but normal volumed-voice that sounded very much like he wanted to mumble or whisper the response, “Some of both, right now.”
Liz frowned, comfortable staring openly at Darcy only because he was not looking at her for once. Charlotte leaned forward in her seat. “’Magic-y’ books?”
He looked up at that. Liz couldn’t understand why his gaze slid past Charlotte, the one who had asked the question, to fix on her face. She had never seen such an expression on his features before; far more animated than usual, there was almost a look of…fear. It added a new flavor to his already discomfited appearance.
There was silence when no one answered. His voice was stiff when he finally said, “They’re just... I wrote… a fantasy series. Under a pen name. I was… A lot younger. Much younger. It’s been a while so…” He let the thought trail.
Robert quickly covered his mouth with one hand as his lips twitched, fighting back a smile. It took a moment for him to straighten the expression and lower his hand, but there was a glint in his eyes as he said, “They’re called The Brambling Chronicles. Big fantasy series a few years ago. Fitz’d better pick up the pace if he wants people to read the last book!”
Darcy looked like he wished for nothing more than to disappear into the upholstery of the chair. His hands gripped the arms very tightly, his expression even more severe than usual, his cheeks nearly scarlet. Liz grew extremely still, her eyes widening as she clasped her hands together. Although she refused to turn her head, she watched Darcy—or perhaps she should say Austen—from the corner of her eye.
Mariah’s mouth fell open in surprise, a tiny O of disbelief as she looked from Liz to Darcy so quickly her hair swung with the motion; even she knew of Liz’s near obsession with the books. Charlotte quickly pinched her and raised her eyebrows, begging the girl to remain silent.
After a minute, she closed her mouth.