September Storms Relay Story Part 2

You guys raised $150! Woohoo!!! Here’s scene 2 (from Elizabeth Adams). Click here for scene 1  (by Abigail Reynolds) Another $150 earns you another scene! Click here to donate to Hurricane Dorian relief.

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Darcy could hear his aunt long before he reached the stranded carriage. She was screeching and demanding she be released, punctuated with the thumping of what he hoped was her cane against the floor.

He and Col. Fitzwilliam looked at each other with matching expressions of dread before joining the coachman and groom where they stood alongside the carriage. It was precariously close to the bank of the small river and the bridge was already washed out.

The door was wedged closed behind a large limb, and they quickly organized to move it. Knightley, Darcy and the colonel lined up alongside the coachman and grooms, pushing with all their might to remove the branch while lady Catherine pounded away with her cane.

“Release me! I demand you release me at once!”

“We are trying, Madam,” growled the colonel. He pressed his shoulder harder into the branch, determined to make it move by sheer force of will.

“Forgive me, I hadn’t realized you’d all left,” said Bingley as he scrambled his way through the mud to join them.

Darcy rolled his eyes and pressed harder into the branch, manfully ignoring the water trickling down his neck and the mud seeping into his boots. Their feet were sliding forward and back, and they were sinking ever faster into the soft earth. Darcy began to fear that his aunt’s carriage would begin to sink, then slide into the river if they did not move it away from the bank.

With a final heave, the branch budged. A moment later, the door flew open and Lady Catherine filled the opening, her face a riot of righteous indignation.

“It is about time. You would think a group of gentlemen would know how to open a door. Had I been outside the carriage, I should have had it open a quarter hour ago!”

Darcy clenched his jaw and Col. Fitzwilliam stepped forward to hand his aunt out of the carriage. Deciding that the second son of an earl and a colonel in His Majesty’s army was not capable of handing her down after having left her so callously in the rain, she turned up her nose and reached toward Darcy.

But Darcy was looking to his left, toward Longbourn, where Elizabeth and Miss Bennet stood on the steps beneath the overhang, watching them closely. He could not make out her face, but he knew it was her by the color of her dress and the way she held herself. Beside him, Bingley was equally enamored of his own Miss Bennet, and it was only the unmistakable squish of mud and a lady’s screech that brought their attention back to their current situation.

“Darcy! You idiot! How could let me fall!” cried Lady Catherine from her position on the ground.

Knightley stepped forward to help her up while Darcy knelt on her other side. Col. Fitzwilliam turned away to hide his laugh.

The Great Lady lay face down in the mud, her head lifted to berate her nephew. They heaved her to her feet and helped her gain her balance until she pushed them off, claiming she could manage perfectly well on her own as they were obviously all unfit to escort a lady.

She took one step and nearly fell again, clutching Mr. Knightley’s arm.

“Are you injured, madam?” he asked.

“Of course not! I am never injured!”

She took another step and slipped, her feet shifting uncertainly and her face twisting in pain.

“Madam, I must insist. Please, allow us to assist you to the house,” said Knightley.

She accepted begrudgingly and leaned heavily on his arm, her ankle throbbing and her feet sinking into the mud.

She was drawing breath to begin another invective against her inattentive nephew when her foot sank into a particularly deep patch of mud. She tried to pull it out but was only successful in removing her shoe from her person. With one foot hanging uselessly in the air, she attempted to hop on her painful though impossible-to-injure foot, succeeding only in sending shooting pains up her leg and a surprised cry from her mouth.

Knightley tried to balance her, good man, but Lady Catherine was not a small woman and she quickly pulled him down with her until the two of them were in a heap on the ground, Knightley sprawled indelicately atop the screeching lady. He leapt to his feet and attempted to help her up, but she swatted him away.

Darcy tried to help her next and she railed at him, too, declaring it was his fault she was in this predicament in the first place. Bingley was the only gentleman she would allow to help her, and once he finally had her upright—no small feat as Lady Catherine was at least as tall as himself—she clung to him like a child with its mother, both her shoes now missing and her gown soaked through. Bingley wore a bewildered expression, clearly unsure of what he ought to do with the woman hanging off him.

Darcy thought for a horrified moment that she might begin weeping like a child, but before he could express his concerns, Colonel Fitzwilliam intervened.

“Gentlemen, I think that is enough time in this rain. Let us get her into the house.” Without waiting for a reply, he signaled to Bingley and reached down to grab his aunt’s feet, heaving her off the ground while Bingley held her arms fast. Lady Catherine shrieked and Darcy saw Bingley grimacing under the strain and quickly moved to assist. He took his aunt’s right shoulder and arm while Bingley held tight to the left.

“What are you doing? Unhand me at once! Do you know who I am?” cried Lady Catherine.

She kicked and flailed until Col. Fitzwilliam asked for assistance and Knightley grabbed her other leg, careful to keep his eyes facing forward and his countenance neutral.

They made a rather undignified procession to the house, but soon they were climbing the front steps, Jane and Elizabeth staring at them in astonishment as they held a still struggling Lady Catherine between them, like a pig being taken to market.

Elizabeth had the undignified thought that a little rope might have come in handy in this situation, then slapped her hand over her mouth to stop the laughter from escaping.

“Where can we put her?” asked Darcy as he strained to not drop his mother’s sister on the front steps of Longbourn.

“This way,” said Elizabeth. She opened the door and pointed them directly to the kitchen to avoid getting mud on the carpets.

Next scene is HERE! 

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