Mr. Darcy & Elizabeth

by Alyssa Jefferson

  Elizabeth had not gone two steps out of the carriage before she saw him among the crowds, tall and handsome as ever, standing among a group of gentlemen in hunting clothes: Mr. Darcy himself.

  If it occurred to her that she had told Mr. Darcy that this was one of her host’s favorite haunts and that she planned to be there soon, there was no arrogance or pride in her face to make it appear so. She smiled when she saw him, a reaction so untaught and artless that it rather belied the prim and proper upbringing Lady Sarah had so assiduously saw to giving her. When it came to the point, she had no thought of hiding her emotions. Though only a moment before she had been brooding on the unpleasantness of marriage, she certainly had no such thoughts now.

  Bowing to his friends, Mr. Darcy turned and approached Elizabeth with so confident an air as made all her friends take notice—though Jane did her best to shield her sister from any speculation by being the first to greet the gentleman herself.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Darcy,” she said with a curtsy. “Have you any tidings of Miss Whipple?” Then, turning to the Campbells, Jane added, “This is a cousin of Miss Whipple’s, whom we met during our stay in Wimpole Street.” She turned back to Mr. Darcy and said, “May I present the Miss Campbells, sir?”

  Mr. Darcy was obliging and said all that was proper, but as soon as these pleasantries were done, he turned fully to face Elizabeth, who had by now been given the time she needed to recover from the surprise of seeing him. “It is a fine day for a walk,” he said.

  “Indeed,” Elizabeth answered. “I have not been to Hyde Park all summer, and the trees are flowering so beautifully.”

  “Are you to walk along the footpath?” Mr. Darcy pressed. “I ask only because I would offer you my arm.”

  It was an offer that Elizabeth was delighted to accept. Miss Campbell was already walking side-by-side with her father, and Jane eagerly went to Miss Margaret to take her arm, thereby leaving Elizabeth as the natural partner for their new friend. Elizabeth tried not to blush as she observed Jane smile at her over her shoulder.

  “I hope you enjoyed the play, sir,” Elizabeth said.

  “I was diverted,” he replied nonchalantly. “And you?”

  Elizabeth raised her eyebrow. “Diverted. I should hope you found a play diverting, at the very least. I was diverted, as well.”

  “You believe I ought to praise the play more?” he said with a smile. “Very well. I thought the acting was…quite professional.”

  She nodded, and her eyes danced with humor as she said, “I understood it to be put on by professional actors, sir. Yes, your assessment is perfectly correct.”

  “Accuracy is a strength of mine,” he replied.

  Now she laughed. “And what an important strength it is!”

  “I hope my friends appreciate that they can count on me for the full and complete truth,” he replied.

  “I am sure they do,” she said. “I hope your friends were not unhappy that you came away from them so suddenly.”

  “What, just now?” he answered. “No, I am sure they would not mind it.”

  “You must have many friends about town, have you not? I always see you with somebody I have never met.”

  “I could say the same of you,” Mr. Darcy replied.

  “Me?” She shook her head. “I have only school friends. It is a very limited group.”

  “I have seen you with the Hadleys,” he protested, “the Jacksons, and I know you to be acquainted with the Pembrokes.”

  “Nay, sir, just the eldest son,” she said, “and it is only through other people that I know any of them. I am but a guest at other people’s parties. My own friends never give parties, but merely attend them—and I join at their invitation.”

  “Yet everybody wants to meet you,” he pressed. “Wherever you go, you are welcome.”

  His words reminded her of Jane’s teasing earlier in the summer, when she had accused Elizabeth of dancing with every gentleman and being sought by all the best. As it had before, the thought made her anxious. “I have noticed no peculiar attention,” she said.

  “That is because you are used to it,” he replied.

  They walked on in silence a few steps more, and Elizabeth puzzled over why this particular comment bothered her so much. She did not want Mr. Darcy to believe she was particularly popular, for she certainly did not feel it to be so. If she were, it provided very little benefit to her. And she dreaded the thought that he, like so many others, might see her as a person whose popularity, youth, and fashion made her happy—while true belonging was always wanting.

  “My friends you saw me with were just returning from a hunting party,” Mr. Darcy said, a welcome interruption to Elizabeth’s unpleasant thoughts. “I did not know I would see them here. It seems everybody is here on a day as fine as this one.”

  “Do you come often to Hyde Park?” she asked.

  “No, almost never,” he replied.

  The answer was simple, yet the fact that he had said nothing to conceal from her the fact that his coming was unusual made her smile. He was truthful, forthcoming, open.

  “Where do you go for exercise when you are in town?”

  He shook his head. “I seldom am able to find any time for leisure while I am here. My estate offers plenty of opportunity for that. London is for business.”

  “Yet you have come out today.”

  “I have.”

  Elizabeth smiled up at him, and he turned to meet her eye when he saw the turn of her countenance toward him. “I am glad that you have made that decision, for I think it very wise. Too much work, even for a short time, without any leisure is unhealthy,” she said.

  “Is that so?” he smiled and turned again to face forward, where the pair were rapidly losing ground on Elizabeth’s friends, now about a quarter of a mile ahead of them. “Why do you believe so?”

  Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders. “I…do not know. I suppose I have heard my stepmother say so to my father. He used to spend a great deal of time in his office, working on his books and finances of various kinds. He is not of a disposition for continual study, however. I believe it made him unhappy. Lady Sarah insists he limit the time he works, now that she is the mistress of our house.”

  As she spoke these words, Elizabeth again felt the conflict of heart that she sometimes experienced when she recalled how important Lady Sarah was to her father. He had been miserable after the death of his wife, and he had buried himself so deeply in his books that he might truly have lost his health if Lady Sarah’s affection for him had not revived him. Yet Elizabeth could not erase her ungrateful thoughts toward her stepmother. She still wished her father had never met her.

  “I am rather unscientific in my reasoning, I know,” Elizabeth added. “I have heard it said so many times that I suppose it has become a truth to me, even if it is not a truth to others.”

  Mr. Darcy considered her words for a moment before replying, “I had been used to thinking of truth as universal to everybody.”

  She raised her eyebrows playfully. “Your friends must be much more enlightened than mine, sir, if you have one universal truth of which you are all aware. I find that differences of opinion abound everywhere, from matters as simple as which food is best to those as serious as the merit of a sermon.”

  “We are not speaking of truths, then, but opinions,” he replied. “Opinions certainly vary, but truth never does.”

  “I say truth, you say opinion,” she said. “We are using different words to describe the same thing.”

  “I suppose we are.”

  The warmth of the sun in the heat of the day had passed, and now a light breeze cooled and refreshed Elizabeth as she rested her hand on Mr. Darcy’s arm. Though he was a gentleman who did not labor, his arm was not soft. She felt muscles beneath his coat that must have been from sport. His posture, too, suggested strength. Walking among so many like-minded Londoners along so fashionable a footpath, Elizabeth could not help but take pride in her walking partner. She felt tha
t, were anyone who knew her to see her today, they would envy her—and anyone who did not know her, even more so. Under such happy circumstances, she was even able to put aside the worries over her future and pains of her past, and simply dwell in the enjoyments of the present. Here, today, she was happy. If only every day could be so happy.

  Unbeknownst to Elizabeth in all the excitement of her fresh air walk with the man whose company she preferred to almost anybody else’s, circumstances were forming in another quarter to overtake her current happiness, and eventually eradicate it altogether. Jane’s letter was now being conveyed from London to Hertfordshire, where it would eventually be brought before Lady Sarah herself. The note and its substance would be neither understood nor admitted to have value beyond one thing: that Jane had informed Lady Sarah that no marriage proposal had been made to Elizabeth, and that Lady Sarah’s own direction and interference was desperately needed in the business to put things to rights.

  Upon receipt of her stepdaughter’s letter, Lady Sarah removed directly to London without telling a soul where she was going. Having visited so recently, her arrival was as unexpected as it was unpleasant to those she met. She did not have the good fortune—or rather, the good attitude—to be the sort of person whom others were delighted to see when she arrived. The servants in Arlington Street had long known her, for she was a frequent guest in the home of her brother and his wife. The whispering along the halls and corridors of that great house can be imagined, and the displeasure the staff felt upon seeing a most demanding and quick-tempered house guest could have rivaled what the mistress of the house herself felt.

  A Countess need not fear many people, but Lady Radcliffe had never recovered from her first impressions of Lady Sarah as a woman whose affection was difficult to win. She had once longed for her young sister-in-law to approve of her, but had erelong been forced to accept that she never had.

  Lady Radcliffe was with her husband at their leisure when Lady Sarah was ushered inside, and Lord Radcliffe saw his sister with the greatest pleasure of any person in the household. He shared his parents’ former opinion that his sister ought to be more with the family. Her relatively low marriage they could abide, so long as she kept up appearances—but this she would never do. In her resentment toward all who loved her and had given her everything she had, she fled the family home into the kind, retiring arms of her husband, cherishing the independence that a marriage to such a leisurely, passive man permitted. Now, her entrance prompted from him a happy call of, “Is it my sister? Two visits in one month? Why, my eyes must deceive me.”

  “If only they did,” his wife whispered under her breath, unheard by anybody as her husband rose to embrace Lady Sarah.

  The warmth of this greeting was short-lived, however. “I suppose you know why I have come,” Lady Sarah said.

  “Indeed not,” replied Lady Radcliffe, “we cannot imagine to what we owe the pleasure.”

  “You have deceived me, my sister,” Lady Sarah replied. Again she looked at Lady Radcliffe the way she used to do when she was only Miss Annabelle Pine, the youngest daughter of a baronet who had never dreamed she would one day be a Countess.

  Lady Radcliffe was speechless, shaking her head and searching for the words to reply, when Lady Sarah said, “You led me to believe your son was in love with my daughter. This, I find, is not true.”

  In fact, Lord Norwich was deeply infatuated with Miss Elizabeth Bennet, and often thought about her fondly. She was a fixture in the imaginings of his hours of retirement, but his imaginings were as much as he ever saw of her. He did not typically exert himself to see a woman, and she had not, since the party yesterday fortnight, come in his way. However, his idle hope of marrying her was never so far removed from his mind that he could refrain from speaking about it. He did speak about it, and the willing, eager listener to all his hopes and ideas was his mother. Therefore, Lady Radcliffe was quick to come to her son’s defense.

  “Why, of course he is, Lady Sarah! He has spoken to me of nothing else for a fortnight!”

  “How can he love her, when he has not made an offer of marriage to her?” Lady Sarah said, and though such matters happen all too often—a truth that Lady Sarah knew better than anybody—she spoke as though she was utterly scandalized by the thought. Her acting was good enough to convince her sister-in-law.

  “I—I am sure he intends to make an offer. Does he not intend to make an offer, my love?”

  Lady Radcliffe turned to her husband, whose hopes toward his son making a good match had by now been all but dashed at least a dozen times. James, though only twenty-six years old, had embarrassed his parents twice most severely in the past year alone—once by revoking an offer of marriage made to a wealthy but unconnected young lady from the north, and again by being involved in a scandal that took quite some hushing up. If now he were to finally do his duty by marrying, it would be fitting that he find a match in this quarter—with the daughter of his own wayward aunt, who had once nearly been a feminine version of himself.

  “Our son makes his own decisions, dear, as I am sure you well know,” Lord Radcliffe replied. “If this is the only reason for your visit, my dear sister, I will not stay. I have a great deal of business that I have been neglecting long enough.”

  Lady Sarah watched her brother leave the room without any particular disappointment or emotion. He was happy enough to sit quietly with his wife, but he never remained nearby for what he considered “idle chat.” It was just as well, for Lady Sarah began to think she could better achieve her aim without him. He was not persuadable, but Lady Radcliffe certainly was.

  “Making one’s own decisions is all well enough after a certain point in life,” Lady Sarah said, turning again to Lady Radcliffe, “but do you not feel he is jeopardizing his own happiness, as well as the young lady’s, by failing to commit to her?”

  “Yes, indeed, that is just what I—that is, I do not mean that he is jeopardizing anything on purpose, but perhaps he does not realize—”

  “Your word, my dear sister, I am sure, will be enough to convince him,” Lady Sarah said, and as she spoke these words, she sat down on the sofa beside Lady Radcliffe. Her face softened as she said, “You are the most important person to him; nobody’s opinion is so valued, nor wishes so esteemed. He is certain to do rightly, if you advise him in it.”

  “Oh! You are too kind,” Lady Radcliffe replied, blushing.

  “Nonsense,” said Lady Sarah. “My brother may hold the title, but your position in your family is just as strong. You are equally influential, I know.”

  This obvious bluff was taken by Lady Radcliffe as being spoken with only the best of intentions. She was flattered, pleased, and emboldened by her sister-in-law’s words.

  “But what shall I say to James?” she asked.

  Knowing she had won her point, Lady Sarah said, “Tell him that he will lose his beloved forever if he does not act swiftly. Say that Miss Eliza Bennet is young, fashionable, beautiful, and accomplished, and if he does not win her hand now, someone else surely will. If you tell him, sister,” she added, “he is sure to listen.”

  Long after her sister-in-law had departed, Lady Radcliffe ruminated on these words. If she told her son, he would be sure to listen. How flattering it was—if only it was true! She knew her son did not listen to anybody, but then, perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps she had judged James too harshly. Lady Sarah, who was an outside observer and her strictest critic, had observed their relationship and found Lady Radcliffe to be influential and respected by her son. Was not this enough evidence to convince her?

  She began to rehearse her speech in her mind, considering all the arguments her son might make against matrimony when it came to the point, and all the counterarguments she would create to put him in the way of finding happiness. However, when she next saw Lord Norwich, it was a circumstance most pleasant to her that none of her carefully crafted arguments were needed. As soon as she mentioned Miss Elizabeth Bennet, her son said, “How long it has bee
n since I have seen her! So beautiful a creature ought to be seen every day. I have been deprived.”

  “Were you to marry her,” his mother said, “you would never be parted from her.”

  “Yes, but how can I marry her if I never see her?” he said wistfully.

  “I do not know!” Lady Radcliffe cried, and her sudden impassioned speech surprised him. “I know only that your aunt, her stepmother, has been here, and she says that Miss Elizabeth Bennet will not wait for you! If you do not secure her hand, she will surely give it to somebody else.”

  Though his love for her was borne only in vanity, his desire for her only in lust, his emotions at hearing these words were great. Jealousy toward that unnamed, faceless phantom rival filled him, and it was with a great deal more energy that he replied, “Indeed? Has she other suitors?”

  “Yes, numerous other suitors!” his mother replied, never realizing that her sister-in-law’s arguments had never actually established the existence of any other suitor. “She is sure to be married soon, and what will you do then?”

  He shook his head. “Nay, you want to worry me, mother, but you will not make me uneasy.”

  His mother looked at him crossly for a moment, then turned away. “You delight in torturing me.”

  “Torture? What torture?” He turned back to his breakfast. “Do not be dramatic. I am sure she will not refuse me. Who would? She will be so flattered, and so grateful!” He smiled to himself. “I have not the smallest fear, and then I shall be married, and you shall be happy, and everything will be settled.”

  His mother’s effusions of joy and confidence in him at this moment need not be dwelt upon, any more than the crudeness of his expectations of marriage. He did not believe, in short, that marrying would materially alter his lifestyle. He may as well marry as not, and the woman he wanted to marry was a fortunate lady, indeed. How could any woman make a singular demand of him, after he condescended to elevate her to nobility—true nobility? It was a perfectly acceptable scheme, and moreover it was one that made him stand a bit taller. He liked to be adored, and how his wife would adore him! He was determined when he saw her next that he would begin the business of making her love him. It certainly would not take long.