London was yet thin of company, most of its exalted inhabitants remaining at their hunting boxes as long as possible before Parliament and the Season called them back to the frantic activities of Town. The normal dizzying round would be greatly exacerbated, Colonel Fitzwilliam told his cousin over a glass at Boodle’s, when they heard the news that Bonaparte had been denied Moscow, albeit at a terrible price. Darcy shook his head. What could one say to desperation so great that it drove men to burn their own homes — an entire capital city! — to the ground rather than leave them to that rapacious monster.
“What are you tsking at now, Darcy! Good Lord, you look like two old men!”
Darcy twisted around at the voice but gave up trying to see its owner and bounded from his chair to pound him unmercifully on the back. “Dy! My God, when did you get back? Why did you not write?”
Lord Dyfed Brougham held up carefully manicured hands in protest at such a greeting and took a step away when Fitzwilliam rose as well. “Write? Too fatiguing by half, old friend! And you, Fitzwilliam, may shake my hand but no more. Yes, that will do.” He grinned at the two of them in fatuous triumph and then helped himself to a nearby chair and motioned for them to sit down. “Write? No, no…thought to surprise you, which I have, quite handily it seems.” Darcy resumed his seat, the absurdity of Dy’s words a signal of the persona he wished to play.
“And how was America, Brougham?” Fitzwilliam sat, stretching out his lanky frame. “You don’t look like it agreed with you.” Looking closely at his friend now, Darcy had to agree, and the closer he looked, the more alarming were his conclusions. Dy was dressed elegantly as always, but his clothes hung about him in an odd manner. His face, neither broad nor fleshy to begin with, was now grown very thin, his cheeks almost sunken. It could not have gone well with him over the sea.
“Do not, I beg you, mention that place in my presence!” Dy laid a dramatic hand over his brow. “How I ever allowed myself to be talked into going, I shall never know. The voyage was brutal, Fitzwilliam, absolutely brutal! The natives are completely without culture or the least morsel of sensibility. It was ghastly!”
Richard hooted at Dy’s description, then asked, “Which natives were these, Brougham? The Algonquian, the Iroquois?” He looked at Darcy for help, but Darcy could only shrug his shoulders.
“No, no, old man.” Dy looked at him as if he had taken leave of his senses. “The natives of Boston and New York!” He removed a handkerchief from his coat pocket and dabbed at his temples. “Dreadful, simply dreadful.”
Richard rolled his eyes at Darcy and stood up. “Well, I shall leave you to my cousin, who will be of more help to you than I in your recovery, I am sure. Fitz.” He turned and addressed Darcy. “I must get back to post. Remember, His Lordship and Mater expect us for supper tonight, nine sharp!” He bowed to Brougham. “Rather face red Indians myself than delay His Lordship’s supper. Your servant, Brougham.” Dy nodded and graciously waved him away.
Both Brougham and Darcy remained silent as they watched Fitzwilliam make his way to the door through the knots of club members and servants.
Darcy turned back to his friend. “My God, Dy, you look terrible!”
“That bad, then?” His Lordship responded, straightening in his chair, motioning a servant over, and ordering something to drink. “I had not wished to show my face in Town until I had put more flesh back on my bones” — he sighed — “but I had been gone so long as it is that the Home Office was afraid I would lose my footing if I stayed away longer. So, here I am.” He raised his arms. “I look like a scarecrow!”
“What happened?” Darcy leaned across the table.
“I cannot tell you, my friend.” Dy smiled sadly. “Except to say that she eluded me.”
“And Beverly Trenholme, did you find him?”
“He never set foot on that ship you provided passage upon. He, in fact, never left England. Someone else believed she was more needful than Trenholme.”
“Sylvanie! But, no one has seen Bev — Good God, you do not mean…!” Dy nodded, and both men fell silent. The buzz of conversation and laughter of the crowd continued unabated as they sat. Somewhere a glass hit the floor, accompanied by sounds of an argument.
“Tell me,” Dy asked finally, breaking the shocked quiet that had settled between them, “how is Miss Darcy?”
“She is well.” Darcy spoke slowly. “Quite well, actually, although she does miss your company.” Another sort of foolish grin spread across Brougham’s face, this time a sincere one. Darcy sat back and arranged his face and frame in as disinterested an attitude as possible in order to deliver his news. “She has made a new friend since you have been gone.”
Dy’s grin dissolved instantly. “A ‘new friend,’ you say?” He traced the rim of his glass with a finger once, twice, then tapped it. “Might one inquire the name of this ‘new friend’?”
“One might, and I see what you are thinking. No, that is not what I meant.” His friend’s shoulders relaxed. The tight cast of his jaw softened. “Her new friend is Elizabeth Bennet.”
“Elizabeth Bennet!” Dy was all attention. “Your Elizabeth? How on earth did that come to pass?”
Maintaining his pose, Darcy told Dy of their meeting by chance at Pemberley in August. Brougham raised a brow at the word chance but did not interrupt his recital. “Unfortunately, a letter from home required that she return posthaste, so Georgiana was deprived of her company sooner than she wished.”
“Georgiana,” Dy echoed dubiously, “hmm.” He looked at Darcy compassionately. “It would seem that Miss Bennet is not so ill disposed toward you as you feared. What a shame that she was called away! Have you seen her since, or heard of her?”
Darcy nodded and shifted uneasily. “A little over a week ago I went down to see my friend Bingley — you remember Bingley, the Melbourne ball?” Dy nodded. “I visited him at Netherfield, the property he is thinking of purchasing in Hertfordshire. We called on the Bennets the day after my arrival. It did not go well.”
Dy shot him a questioning look. “How?”
“She scarcely looked at me, barely spoke, although we were in each other’s company several hours.”
“That seems odd!” Dy replied thoughtfully. “Do you mean to say that she refused to answer when you spoke to her, gave you the cut direct?”
“No, certainly not!” Darcy grew defensive. “She was…she was not herself and I…” He looked down at his hands. “I did not know what to think, what to say.”
“Ah, so neither of you could say much to the other,” Dy concluded. “Well, that does make it rather difficult to conduct a conversation or pursue an acquaintance of any sort. Yet you both had less difficulty when she was at Pemberley. Can you think of a reason?”
Darcy eyed his friend. “You are persistent, aren’t you?” Dy merely shrugged and smiled back at him. “Yes, there had been some family difficulties of which I was more aware than a passing acquaintance should be.”
“The letter from home!” Dy smacked the table. “Yes, it is coming together. She was embarrassed for what you knew of her family! Quite a predicament for her after she had criticized your behavior so severely.” He settled back into his chair and after a few moments had passed asked, “Did Miss Darcy truly like her?”
“Yes, she did, in what time they were together. Georgiana expressed a most sincere wish that they meet again.”
“So,” Dy probed gently, “do you desire some advice, my friend?” Darcy considered and then breathed out an assent. “Then, my advice is to have faith and wait. Your friend is admirably placed to give you reason to visit the neighborhood. Allow time to pass, and try again when the tides of discomfiture run farther from the surface. If she is worth the having, she is worth the time and effort it will take to win her. ‘For aught ever I could read,’ ” he quoted. “But I suppose you know that already!” He rose and looked down at his good friend. “I must be off! Recommend me to Miss Darcy with as much affection as you deem appropriate, and tell her I hope I shall see you both again soon.” He bowed then with a flourish and took himself to the other side of the club’s dining room and a group of younger gentlemen known for their flash and dash.
As an inquiry concerning a cockfight drifted back to him, Darcy shook his head and smiled ruefully at the life his friend had chosen or, perhaps, had had thrust upon him. Wait had been Dy’s advice, wait and hope. He could do that, painful as it might be.
For aught that ever I could read. Darcy struggled to recall the Bard’s words as he rose to leave. Could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth. He had just received his hat and walking stick from one of Boodle’s ubiquitous servants when another addressed him, thrusting under his nose a note upon a silver servier .
Darcy mounted the steps of Erewile House with barely a look at his Aunt Catherine’s traveling coach pulled up at the curb. Singular enough that she had not written of her intention to visit, but it must have been urgent indeed if she had come straight to his door. What her reason could be he could not imagine save if it were in some way connected with Anne’s health. The door opened before he reached the top step, revealing a somber-faced Witcher, who reached for his hat and walking stick.
“Where is she?” Darcy asked, stripping off his gloves as he crossed the hall.
“In the drawing room, sir.” Witcher bowed as he received the gloves. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Darcy, but she insisted you be summoned.”
“She gave you little choice, I am sure,” Darcy assured his butler. “You did well. Has Her Ladyship been offered refreshment?”
“Yes, sir, but refused it. Perhaps now that you are here…?”
“Bring up some tea, Witcher. There’s a good man.” Darcy strode up the stairs and to the drawing room doors. Whatever it was that had occasioned this appearance of his aunt, he would soon know more than he wished, of that he had no doubt. Let it not be bad news of his cousin!
“Darcy! At last, you are here!” Lady Catherine stood in command of the room, her posture as straight and stiff as the silver-tipped walking stick she held before her. “Come!” She held out her hand to him urgently. He quickly took it and, giving her the support of his arm, led her to a seat.
“My dear aunt!” he exclaimed at her worn countenance as she sank onto the settee. “What can be the matter!”
“Never, never in my life have I been subject to the sort of ill usage and ingratitude I have encountered today. I cannot think to what the world is coming!” Her Ladyship pronounced these words forcefully. “I was never put to such pains and trouble only to be so insulted!”
“Aunt!” Darcy looked down at her with a mixture of relief and consternation. If it was not news of Anne, what could have set her off so and then sent her here?
She fixed her gaze upon him. “It was on your behalf, Nephew, that I exhausted myself. Yes,” she replied to his expression of surprise. “And on behalf of the entire family! Someone must see to these things before it is too late, and as I have always been attentive to the demands of propriety and decorum, the disagreeable task fell to me. If all of the family stands together, we may yet contrive to stop this vicious and scandalous falsehood from spreading further.”
A knock sounded at the door, interrupting for the moment his aunt’s astonishing charge. At Darcy’s call to enter, Witcher and a footman walked into the room with the tea. As it was being laid out, Darcy rose from his seat to escape his aunt’s sharp eye and afford himself an opportunity to think. A scandalous falsehood? His thoughts had immediately gone to Georgiana at the words, but then his aunt had laid it at his door. Could it be something to do with the business at Norwycke or Lady Monmouth? It seemed improbable, but what else was there?
Their tasks completed, the servants withdrew, and Darcy turned back to his aunt. “I do not take your meaning, Ma’am. What falsehood is this?”
“You have not heard it?” A small smile escaped Lady Catherine’s pursed lips and then was briskly packed away. “But then, it is too incredible for anyone of sense to repeat.” She leveled a censorious countenance upon him. “Nevertheless, Nephew, it must be vigorously denied, especially on your part, and its originator proved a fraud.”
Never one to leap at his aunt’s willful commands, Darcy felt his patience with her odd reluctance to come to the point vanish. “Perhaps, Ma’am, I could more easily put this and your mind to rest if I knew what it is that has excited your apprehension.”
Lady Catherine’s eyes widened disapprovingly at his tone, but he could see she was not checked. Rather, she appeared on the verge of apoplexy. “That young person…toward whom I extended my interest last spring…the friend of my rector’s new wife —”
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet?” Darcy was incredulous. Good Lord, had his assistance on behalf of Lydia Bennet been made public?
“The same! She has shown herself to be in every way undeserving of the notice she received from me. That woman has industriously set about the rumor that she is shortly to become Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy!” At the last, Lady Catherine pounded the tip of her walking stick on the floor and sat back, her eyes trained upon his face.
The shock of her words could in nowise excuse the need to maintain the utmost self-control, Darcy knew, as his heart jumped faster, blood and ice running crazily through his veins. “I see,” he managed to reply in an even tone and quickly turned away to the settee across the low table from the one his aunt occupied. He sat down.
“Do you, indeed, Darcy? The tale is already spread in Hertfordshire and came to me in Kent not three days ago. I acted upon it immediately, of course, and have done what could be done.” What had his aunt done? Elizabeth…oh, he was wild to know! Yet if he hoped to wrest all he needed from his aunt’s iron grasp on these events, he must disguise his own emotions and play upon her prejudices with care.
“What I see,” he enlightened her, “is that you are quite overset by a report concerning Miss Elizabeth Bennet. From whence has it come? Is the source reliable?”
His aunt relaxed her grip on her walking stick and then set it aside. “Upon two counts, it is from the best authority. My rector, Mr. Collins, brought it to my attention, and besides being my clergyman, he is related to the woman. Also, she is his wife’s intimate friend. There can be no mistake, Nephew.”
“Perhaps.” Darcy drew out the word as he leaned forward to avail himself of the shield of a cup of tea. From Collins, was it? In truth, it must have been from his wife. A letter from Elizabeth? Or from Lucas Lodge? “In what form did the report arrive, Ma’am?”
“In what form? I had it from Collins’s own lips, Darcy!” She bridled a little at his raised brow but then relented. “A letter, evidently, from his wife’s family imparting the news of the engagement of the eldest Bennet daughter to your friend.” Her voice rose. “Soon to be followed, it was supposed, by your own nuptials with the next daughter. This vicious rumormongering is not to be borne!” The walking stick she’d picked up in her passion came down again with a resounding thud.
Darcy shook his head. “My dear aunt, my name has been coupled with those of any number of young ladies over the years. Rumors all. Complete fabrications. Why should you be distressed by this latest?”
“Because,” she retorted, “you…or rather, she” her mouth snapped shut, and for a moment she could only glare at him. He returned the favor with as much innocence as he could contrive, but in fact her answer to his question was essential. There had to be something more than an idle report to have put Her Ladyship in such a state.
“Please, continue, Ma’am.”
“Oh!” she burst forth. “If you would just have allowed your engagement to your cousin to be published, this could not have happened! The girl could not have presumed to begin with, or lacking that, I would have her promise —”
“Her promise!” Darcy shot to his feet. “What have you done? Have you communicated with Miss Elizabeth Bennet?”
“Do not imagine, Darcy, that a letter is sufficient to put an end to matters such as this. I confronted that person to her face with her —”
Everything in Darcy went cold. “When?” he demanded, “when did you speak with her? What did you say?”
“This very morning, sir, and was met with an obscene impertinence and ingratitude the like of which I pray I never encounter again!”
Darcy walked slowly away to the window, the better to overcome the horror her words had engendered. Horror soon gave way to a caldron of indignation for himself, but more so for Elizabeth. By the time he faced his aunt again, his rioting emotions had coalesced into a rigid anger that could not be hidden. “Am I to understand,” he began in a precise, demanding tone, “that you traveled to Hertfordshire to tax Miss Elizabeth Bennet with this rumor and then required some sort of promise of her? Good God, Madam! To what purpose and by what right do you interfere in a matter that is properly mine to resolve?”
A martial light glinted in Lady Catherine’s eye. She straightened and, grasping her walking stick, stamped it again on the floor. “By right of your closest relative and in your best interest!” She rose and addressed him scathingly. “Yes, your interest! Oh, I saw your weakness when she was about Rosings last spring, but I could not credit that you would so lose yourself to her arts and allurements — and under my own roof! — as to encourage any pretensions! Should I have put this into your hands, what might have come of it? If she will not be moved by claims of duty, honor, and gratitude, how else shall she be worked on save by the truth of what would await her presumption? And that I am entirely within my right to tell her! She shall not stand in the way of your duty to your family or my daughter’s rightful happiness!”
Darcy rounded the table, returning her hawkish eye with all the cold anger her words and actions had birthed. “You have far overreached yourself, madam. There can be no excuse sufficient to pardon your interference in so personal an affair as you describe or to harangue one so wholly unrelated to you yet subject to your whims by your advantage of rank.”
“If I had brought it to you, you would only have denied it! Then where should we be? She, at least, did not deny —”
“Deny what?” Darcy’s hands itched to shake the woman before him, aunt or no. “How did you leave it with her?”
“She would promise me nothing! Though I plied her with every disadvantage attendant upon such a marriage, she would have none of it! She refused to promise not to enter into an engagement if such were offered. Obstinate, headstrong girl! And so I told her! She is determined to ruin you! She is set upon making you the joke of the world.”
Something like hope broke through the ice that had encased Darcy’s heart. She would not promise! She had suffered the most outrageous invasion of her privacy and inquisition of her character, yet she would not promise! Elizabeth…A warm feeling arose in his chest which he longed to nurture. If it were ever to become more, he must clear its path, a task that he must begin immediately.
“Your Ladyship.” Darcy stepped back and bowed. “I must be clear. Your actions in regard to Miss Elizabeth Bennet I can never approve or condone. Perhaps, however, I am somewhat at fault.”
“Humph!” his aunt snorted, a glimmer of triumph in her aspect. “That I should have to remind George Darcy’s son what he owes to himself and his family!”
“No, Madam, my fault lies in another direction entirely. A nuptial between Anne and me is something neither of us desires and never has.” Her Ladyship gasped, but Darcy cut her off. “I should have made that quite clear years ago, but instead, I took the easier path of silence at your hints and maneuverings in the hope that you yourself might see how impossible it would be. I must humbly beg your pardon for what I see now was not only cowardly but cruel.”
“Darcy, you cannot…Anne expects —”
“My cousin does not expect marriage from me. We have spoken of this and are agreed. My cruelty lies in allowing you to labor under a hopeless delusion rather than be forthright concerning the truth of our situation. For that, I beg pardon, Ma’am.” He bowed again.
His aunt for once was speechless. Her face contorted with the effort to assimilate what she had heard. She turned away, turned back as if to speak, and turned away again. Finally, with agonizing effort, her disappointment was cast aside and she rallied her other flank. “Be that as it may, Nephew, you will never impose that…that…woman upon your family! You cannot possibly mean to do so against all their wishes and expectations!”
“Madam!” Darcy warned.
“Such an alliance lies in opposition to all interest! She will not be received, have no doubt of that! Who is her family? They can claim no connections or standing save being the subject of the vilest scandal! The youngest daughter — surely you have heard of that! — run off with an officer to London! A patched-up, tawdry affair!”
“Madam, no more!” Darcy thundered, and for a moment his aunt quailed.
Hastily, she cast about for her shawls and hat. Clutching them to her, she turned upon him in such wrath as he had never seen. “I will not be silent! I am your nearest relation and must stand in the place of your parents. It is for their sakes and yours that I tell you marriage to that woman would be a disgrace!” Darcy stared at her in stony silence.
“If you persist in this folly,” she railed at him, “Rosings will be closed to you, your name will never be mentioned in my hearing, and I will forswear you as any relation of mine!”
“So be it, Madam; as you wish.” Darcy bowed to her once more and then strode to the door. “Lady Catherine’s carriage,” he called down the hall and, turning, held the door open for her. “Your Ladyship.”
“Do not think that I shall be the only one to object to such a misalliance!” Lady Catherine continued as she swept past him and down the stairs. “I shall write your uncle, Lord Matlock, immediately! He will make you see sense. He will cause you to know…”
Only when the door was closed behind her could Darcy release the breath that he’d held in anger against his aunt’s innumerable insults. Stepping to the window, he observed her storm out into the street below. Her carriage swaying under her fury, her driver pulled swiftly away from the curb and set the horses to a hurried trot. Well might she hurry, he thought, as he took up the decanter and poured himself a drink. Good God! He had never been so close to…! He picked up the glass and tossed down a portion. Then setting it down, he strode to the door, then back again. That impossible woman! He took another drink. What had she done! Standing in the middle of the room, his breath coming in chuffs, he raked his hand through his hair. Elizabeth so accosted! He shook his head. What could his aunt have heard that would send her posthaste to Hertfordshire? A mere rumor? No, he decided. There must have been more. He held his breath, attempting to calm himself enough to think rationally. What had his aunt done? What had been the actual result of her outrageous presumption?
Sitting down on the settee, he returned to the material truths of the entire extraordinary interview. Elizabeth would not promise not to accept him. That was what had so infuriated his aunt. Did he dare believe the converse? Would she accept him? Her manner during his last visit would never have tempted him to believe that she would. Why had she not said as much and been spared such insults? Was it her heart or her anger that had turned back Lady Catherine’s every demand? How was he ever to know unless he returned to Hertfordshire?
“Witcher!” he bellowed down the stairs. “Witcher!”
“Sir?” The old butler appeared, a look of apprehension on his face at such goings-on in the usually sedate confines of Erewile House.
“Order my traveling coach and send Fletcher up to pack. I wish to be gone in the morning!”
“Yes, sir!” the butler replied and scuttled off belowstairs as quickly as his old legs could carry him to deliver the master’s extraordinary demands to an already scandalized household.
“Have faith and wait,” Dy had counseled. Now, as he looked out the coach’s window at the passing scenery of a Hertfordshire afternoon, he could easily imagine the scene that had taken place. How imperious and insufferable his Aunt Catherine could be under the most modest of irritations, he knew very well; but in this, her passion had been thoroughly roused. It must have been terrible for Elizabeth to have been its object, yet she had with-stood it and refused to bow to demands easily met had she decided against him. For the hundredth time since yesterday, he wondered what was her mind and whether by returning to Hertfordshire he was committing folly enough to match all he had ever committed in his life.
In less time by the watch than his anxious thoughts could credit, his coach was rolling up Netherfield’s drive, and the house came into view. He had sent no letter announcing his return, and Bingley’s expectations of it were vague, as Darcy had wanted them to be in case he decided against it. His friend might not be home. But as the coach drew up to the house, the door opened, and Bingley stood at the entrance with a look of pure delight upon his open countenance.
“Darcy! I say, Darcy!” he exclaimed as he came down the steps to meet him. “This is above everything!” He grabbed his friend’s hand as soon as Darcy descended from the coach.
“Charles,” he began, “I apologize for giving you no warning —”
“Nonsense,” Bingley replied. “I am that glad that you are here. I am about to run mad with no one with whom to share my good fortune. Here, you must come in. I have so much to tell you!” Refreshment was ordered as Bingley pulled him into the library and begged him to be seated.
“But, Charles, my dirt!” Darcy indicated the traveling dust that had settled on his arms and shoulders.
“Dirt be hanged, Darcy!” Bingley laughed. A servant knocked and entered with the tray, but almost before the door shut behind him Bingley burst forth. “I am engaged!…Engaged to the loveliest angel in the world! My beautiful Jane has consented, and her father agreed. We are to be married, Darcy, married!” He laughed again. “Can you believe it, for I cannot! It is too wonderful!”
“Not at all, Charles!” Darcy took him by the shoulders. “I can think of no other man who deserves such happiness, truly I cannot. Did you think she might refuse you? What nonsense! I wish you joy, my friend, you and your future wife.” At his words, tears stung at Bingley’s eyes. Darcy clapped his shoulders roughly and turned away.
“Thank you, Darcy.” Bingley cleared his throat. “Thank you. Now, how may I serve you?”
“I can hardly say, except that I hope you will allow me to stay. It may be only a day, it may be more; I do not yet know.”
Bingley regarded him curiously. “My home is at your disposal, you must know that. Can you tell me no more?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Darcy replied. “It is business of a personal nature. Perhaps it is all folly, I do not know. But,” he continued with a smile, “it is nothing that will diminish your own joy however it falls out. All I ask is that you allow me to come with you when next you visit the home of your fiancée.”
“Certainly,” Bingley answered him. “I am to visit tomorrow. Since Jane and I are engaged, there is no time I am not welcome. We can go as early or as late as you please.” Bingley continued to look at him curiously.
“What do you say to a game of billiards before dinner?” Darcy proposed a distraction that had always worked with his cousin.
“Certainly!” Bingley pursed his lips. “Shall we wager on the outcome?”
Early the following day, Darcy and Bingley set out for Longbourn with a fresh autumn breeze at their backs. The leaves were turning, the multihued trees framing the harvested fields and golden pastures. Although Bingley had caught Darcy up on all the events since his departure two weeks before, there still seemed to be minutiae yet to be imparted; and so the ride was filled with the overflow of Bingley’s enthusiasm for his soon-to-be in-laws. Far from being bored, Darcy listened carefully for any clue that might lend him insight into the tenor of the Bennet household in general and Elizabeth in particular. From Bingley’s descriptions, it seemed that all there were in a flurry of goodwill and excitement over the coming nuptials. Of Elizabeth, he heard only how good she was to her sister and how often she had turned her mother aside to some task in order to allow Bingley some precious moments alone with his bride to be.
Their arrival was greeted with all the happiness that Bingley had described, although several curious glances were thrown Darcy’s way. Not a little fearful of what this day would bring, he could hardly look at Elizabeth. When they had dismounted and made their bows, Bingley immediately advocated that, on this beautiful day, they should all walk out and enjoy it. His proposal was readily agreed to, and while Jane, Elizabeth, and Kitty sought their bonnets and wraps, Mrs. Bennet took her prospective son-in-law by the arm and advised him with authority that the paths to and from Longbourn were the prettiest to be had in the area, although, she confided, she herself was not in the habit of walking.
While Bingley was thus engaged, Darcy stepped away and looked out over the garden. Most of it had been raked and overturned, but some hardy blooms still waved their colorful heads in the light breeze. He breathed in the musty scent, holding it for a moment in an attempt to soothe the racing of his heart. Again, time seemed to be plunging headlong into the future, his future, consuming and discarding the precious present in the most wanton manner. At one and the same moment, he longed for Elizabeth to appear and devoutly wished that she would delay, at least until he could achieve some semblance of control over his heart.
A noise from the doorway told him that the young ladies were ready, and he turned back to see Bingley holding out his hand to Jane. Elizabeth stepped lightly from the house, the sunlight dappling dark and light over her rusty brown spencer and green muslin dress. There was nothing elegant about her appearance. She was dressed for a walk. Yet her every expression and movement inspired his admiration.
Bingley secured his Jane’s hand, and as the pair set off, Elizabeth turned away from them with a smile and then — oh, it took his breath away to see it — lifted her eyes to him. It required no exercise of will or command of his limbs to take him to her side. He was suddenly there, and they were turning down the path after Bingley and Jane, the younger sister somewhere behind them. After a brief discussion of their route, in which Darcy took no part or interest, it was decided that they would walk toward Lucas Lodge, where Kitty would leave them in favor of a visit with Miss Maria Lucas. The arrangement could not have fallen out more favorably. It remained only to put some distance between themselves and the newly engaged pair, and he would have no excuse, nothing save his own fears, to hinder him from knowing his fate.
The group moved forward down the lane between fields and through a small wood. Sooner than he had expected, Bingley and Jane were well behind them, walking slower and slower as the privacy of their surroundings increased. “Mr. Bingley has chosen a fine day for a walk,” Elizabeth ventured, “although I do not think he notices where he is going.”
“Yes, it is a fine day.” Darcy looked behind them. “And I believe you are correct about Bingley. Your sister also, perhaps?”
“Very likely.” They walked on, leaves crunching and sliding beneath their feet, a renewed silence between them. Several excruciating minutes passed before he asked whether this was her favorite walk.
“Only when Charlotte is home, for there — do you see it?” She pointed ahead to a divergence among the trees. “That is the way to Lucas Lodge. I suppose I could walk it blindfolded.” He nodded that, yes, he saw where the way divided, and as he did so, Kitty brushed past them.
“May I go, then, Elizabeth?” she asked, studiously avoiding Darcy’s eyes. He could see that she wanted nothing better than to be away from such dull company as he provided.
“Yes, you may go, but return before dusk, and do not ask Sir William to drive you home,” she admonished her younger sister.
With a roll of her eyes, Kitty left them, hurrying down the path to her friend. Darcy looked back the way they had come, but Bingley and Jane were not to be seen. They were now quite alone. He waited to see which direction Elizabeth would go. With a quick glance up at him, she stepped forward, continuing down the path. He struck out after her. It must be now, he told himself.
He drew abreast of her and began to reach for her arm to arrest her stride when she slowed of her own accord and looked up at him with a troubled countenance. “Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature,” she began, “and for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings care not how much I may be wounding yours.” Surprised by such a speech, Darcy stopped short and regarded her with concern. “I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister.” Elizabeth’s words rushed on although she could hardly meet his eye. “Ever since I have known it I have been most anxious to acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest of my family I should not have merely my own gratitude to express.”
She knew! Darcy’s heart twisted into an icy knot around this revelation, which changed everything, perhaps damaging every possibility between them. The reasons for her actions on his last visit were now only too explicable. “I am sorry,” he managed to reply, “exceedingly sorry that you have ever been informed of what may, in a mistaken light, have given you uneasiness.” He looked past her and exhaled a pained chuff of air before saying, “I did not think Mrs. Gardiner was so little to be trusted.”
“You must not blame my aunt.” Elizabeth’s voice was pleading. “Lydia’s thoughtlessness first betrayed to me that you had been concerned in the matter; and, of course,” she confessed, “I could not rest till I knew the particulars.” She took a deep breath. “Let me thank you again and again, in the name of all my family, for that generous compassion which induced you to take so much trouble, and bear so many mortifications, for the sake of discovering them.”
Darcy listened, his heart released from his initial fears as he heard Elizabeth describe his actions in the most benevolent of terms. She did not blame him for interfering. She was grateful, that was clear. But gratitude alone could be devastating to his hopes. He wanted more than her gratitude or an alliance founded on such an inequality. He wanted her heart, fully and freely given, or not at all.
“If you will thank me, let it be for yourself alone,” he responded to her firmly. “That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you.” He waited, anxious as well as fearful that she understood his meaning, but Elizabeth said nothing.
Her face was partially hidden by her bonnet but the pink tinge upon what he could see was unmistakable. Then, something inside him moved with such powerful emotion that he had to know all…here…now.
“You are too generous to trifle with me,” he began, putting his future in her hands. “If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.”
“Mr. Darcy.” His name came haltingly to her lips as she brought her face up. “Please…my feelings…” She seemed to be struggling to catch her breath, but the glow of her eyes told him that she was not in danger. “My feelings have undergone so material a change since that unfortunate day last spring that I can only receive with sincere gratitude and the most profound pleasure your assurances that yours continue the same.”
“Elizabeth.” He whispered her name lest the spell he knew himself to be under shatter and fall to the earth around him. “Elizabeth,” he repeated, gently enfolding her hands in his as he reveled in her sweet smile and shining eyes. Bringing her hands to his lips, he kissed one gently, then the other, then held them close against his heart as he told her, at last, all that resided there in terms of his deepest love, gratitude, and hope for the future.
He did not know how it happened, his heart was too full, but they were moving, walking he knew not where. There was so much to feel, so much to say, so much happiness that begged to be examined. Darcy told of his aunt’s visit, of his painful confrontation with her, and yet how it had taught him to hope. He spoke of his struggle to mend his ways and how he had studied to show her at Pemberley that her complaint of his character had been heeded. Elizabeth expressed her surprise at the manner in which he had taken to heart all her harsh words and blushed to recall them. His letter he forswore, but she cherished it, advising him to think of the past only as its remembrance gave him pleasure.
“I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind,” he replied, kissing once again the hand he held. “Your retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of ignorance.” He tucked her hand against his side. “But with me, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude, which cannot, which ought not to be repelled.” He stopped their progress and, tracing her cheek, sighed. “I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child, I was taught what was right; but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit, allowed, encouraged, almost taught to be selfish and overbearing — to care for none beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own.”
He dropped his hand and gathered hers to him again as he spoke his soul into her beautiful eyes. “Such I was, from eight to eight-and-twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.”
They walked several miles, Elizabeth telling him of her apprehensions on his discovery of her at Pemberley, Darcy assuring her that his only thought had been of earning her forgiveness. He told of Georgiana’s pleasure in her acquaintance and her disappointment at its sudden end and that his gravity at the inn had been caused by the measures he was already planning in rescue of her sister. She thanked him again, but of that painful affair neither desired to speak more.
“What could have become of Mr. Bingley and Jane!” Elizabeth glanced at her watch and then down the path behind them. “We should be returning home, and they are nowhere to be seen!” They turned back, Darcy holding her hand and placing it within the crook of his arm. “I must ask,” Elizabeth addressed him, “whether you were surprised to learn of their engagement.”
“Not at all. When I went away, I felt that it would soon happen.”
“That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much.”
“My permission!” Darcy exclaimed. “No, no, that would be heights of presumption I would never dare scale, my dear girl! I hope I have learned better!” She smiled. He told her of his confession to Bingley the night before he left for London, how he had been mistaken in so much of what had occurred the previous autumn. “I could easily perceive his attachment to her, I told him, and was convinced of her affection. Then, I was obliged to confess that I had known your sister to be in Town last winter and conspired to keep it from him. He was rightly angry. But his anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained in any doubt of your sister’s sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me now.”
They walked on, and if he had ever been speechless in her presence, it was ended now; for he knew her to be sympathetic to all his visions and plans for their shared future. In this vein, he continued till they reached her home, parting only just before entering the dining room at Longbourn.