by Riana Everly
“You are,” she looked directly into his eyes, “the very best of men.”
He said nothing, but raised her hand to his lips and kissed it reverently, then after a short pause, stiffened and stepped away from her.
“Why do you shy from me?” His behaviour left her confused, but his words gave her hope.
His eyes opened as he caressed her with his gaze, and he breathed deeply. Elizabeth watched in wonder as the gentleman before her slowly eased himself out of his barricades, to become once more the man she had grown to care for so very much. At last he spoke. “You are too generous to trifle with me. 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 for ever.”
“Oh, Mr. Darcy!” The words came out in a rush of emotion, barely considered, flowing of their own accord. “Can you doubt me? How can I express how greatly my sentiments have changed since that awful day? How embarrassed I am to even think on it now. How badly I abused you, and how unjustly! Can you not believe that I have amended my opinions so entirely?”
“There was nothing you said, dearest Elizabeth, that I did not deserve. I have learned more about myself than ever I had known, and I hope I have become a better man for it, one deserving of you. Will you, Elizabeth? Will you relieve me now of my suffering? Will you agree to marry me?”
“Mr. Darcy…. Fitzwilliam… Will” His eyes lit up as she, at long last, gave voice to his name, “There is nothing that would make me happier!” Then, drawing closer to him in the privacy borne of the darkness, she lifted his hand to her own lips and kissed it. Then, with more daring than she had known she possessed, she leaned forward to touch his lips with hers. When she looked into his green eyes, she saw nothing but radiant happiness.
Not wishing to make their announcement at Jane and Bingley’s party, they agreed to keep their engagement secret for a few days. Those days were both excruciating, for they wished so much to share their happy news, and exhilarating, for there is something magical about enjoying a shared secret, but at last they deemed enough time to have passed for them to reveal their engagement to the world. Will was now staying at Netherfield, and would remain there until Bingley and Jane’s wedding, three weeks hence, by which time he hoped to have enough of his own affairs in order to finally marry Elizabeth forthwith.
If the Bennets were surprised at the engagement, they said nothing of it, and Mr. Bennet gave his permission for the union readily enough. Once Mrs. Bennet managed to overcome her professed dislike of Mr. Darcy, based so heavily on his behaviour of the previous autumn, she found herself sufficiently in awe of his status and wealth that she was rendered almost mute, a circumstance which satisfied both Elizabeth and her betrothed.
The moon was a sliver in the sky one night, after a well-appointed meal at Longbourn, when the couple were walking in the gardens before Darcy returned to Netherfield. They talked of those matters which engaged couples talk about, and when sure that no one was watching, held hands and dared to exchange the sporadic chaste kiss. Just before turning back to the house, Darcy cast his eyes again on his bride-to-be and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “Your eyes, your beautiful eyes, are wide tonight, my lovely Elizabeth. They are wide and soft, and whilst your face is relaxed and easy, there is still an intensity about your gaze which puzzles me. It is not a look of worry, nor of despair; I am ready to believe you happy to be with me. Can you tell me, dear one, what that look indicates?”
With a gentle smile she leaned forward and returned his kiss, pausing to brush his lips with her own. “This look, Will, this expression, is one you must learn well, for it is the look of one who is deeply in love.”
Epilogue
Six years later
The late summer sun flooded into the bright morning room at Pemberley, treating its occupants to some welcome warmth after several days of rain. Two large glass doors, banked by large windows that extended the width of the room, stood open to the terrace beyond, and from her seat on the sofa, Elizabeth Darcy could see across the beautiful gardens and the gentle valley to the hillside that rose up at the distant end of the park. The leaves of the shrubberies on the terrace still shone wet with the moisture from the recent rains, and the entire view fairly shone with suppressed radiance in the early morning light.
So taken was she with the beauty displayed before her that she had all but forgotten the pile of letters that sat on the small table beside her until a rustle from across the room drew her attention back to her task.
“Is everything well, Love?” How she had come to adore that rich voice. Even after six years, it had the power to make her heart sing. She turned to her husband to reply, but he stayed her with a hand.
“No, no, allow me,” he smiled. “Your beautiful eyes are wide and focused afar, there is no tension in your face, and your lips,” he rose from his own chair as he spoke and walked to her to place a kiss upon them, “are settled in a soft smile. You are wool-gathering, although there are no sheep in here, and feeling content.” He kissed her nose and added, “Your nose, as always, is perfect,” before returning to his chair and his own stack of correspondence. “Did I do well?” He chuckled.
“Always, my love. You have long since proven yourself a most adept student in all things related to me. And yes, you are correct. How can I devote myself to these letters when such magnificence beckons my eye? Here is an invitation from Mrs. Ellings at the vicarage, and another from the Bancrofts, and here are some petitions from various ladies for my time or contributions towards their worthy causes. And each is due its consideration, but…” she waved her hand at the scenery outside. “I shall never be inured to this.”
“And this is why you married me. For my scenery.” Darcy chuckled again.
“Indeed, my love. For that and that alone.”
“You delight in teasing me, Lizzy. What ho? A letter from Richard? May I?”
“Yes, read it and tell me what he says.” She ruffled through her own stack. “I have one from Jane, and what is this? From Lydia? It is six months or more since she has written! But I shall read Jane’s news first; I must hear how she is getting along.” She broke the seal on Jane’s letter and began to read.
Jane’s news was good. She and Charles were still looking for a suitable estate to purchase, and had begun to make inquiries into some land near Pemberley. The Bingleys’ two children were growing well and Charlie, the elder, was insisting on exchanging his petticoats for breeches. There would be a breeching ceremony after Michaelmas. “We are invited. It will be grand cause for a celebration after what heartbreak they suffered.”
She had no need to elaborate; her husband knew of the babe that was born too soon and was lost, and of the pain the Bingleys still felt, no matter how common such events were.
Darcy’s moss-green eyes met hers. “Will you be fit to travel, Love? It is a long distance.”
“I am perfectly well, husband, and you know it! Little Anne will be three months old by then, and can travel with us in the carriage with her nurse. I know Jane would want both children to come, and Tommy can ride with us, or with Jones and Cabal in the other carriage, as he wishes.” Thomas George—Darcy had refused to burden his first-born son with his own name, and consequently had opted for the names of the boy’s grandfathers—was four years old and as smart as his father, with the same grey-green eyes and dark hair, but with his mother’s smile and sense of humour. He was a delight to his parents, and—thus far, at least—a doting brother to his infant sister.
“He will wish for breeches too,” Darcy cocked an eyebrow. “Shall we suggest a double ceremony?”
Lizzy laughed and returned to her letter. “There is little else of news, merely sisterly chatter. I am so pleased to see Jane returning to her accustomed self. What of Richard? What does he write?”
She watched Darcy’s eyes flit back to the paper on his lap. He had become much improved at looking into her own eyes with little discomfort
, but she knew he found relief in those moments when he might look elsewhere.
“He is well. His leg is quite healed now from his fall last winter, and he reports no lasting ill effects at all from the accident. Anne has opted not to return to Rosings after helping nurse him through his recovery, but has formed an attachment with the doctor who tended his leg! Aunt Catherine will never approve.”
Elizabeth broke into a wide smile. “Then we shall support Anne if her mother will not. I am pleased for her and wish her happy. What does he write of Mrs. Fitzwilliam?” Two summers before, Richard had been pushed into matrimony at last by his mother. His bride had a large dowry, a small but profitable estate in Buckinghamshire willed directly to her by her late grandfather, and a caustic sense of humour which Elizabeth rather enjoyed but which left her husband very confused. Despite it being a society marriage for the usual reasons of wealth and connections, the couple seemed very well suited and quite taken with each other.
Darcy raised his eyes from the letter to meet hers again. “His wife is well, and they are looking forward to visiting us at Christmas, if the roads allow the drive from Matlock. It is only twenty miles, but the snows can be heavy in December.” He paused. “Lizzy, I do not understand Harriet at all. She says one thing, but her face, from everything I can determine, tells me something quite different. Her words suggest mirth but her features speak of tragedy, or worse, she recites tales of gloom with a bright smile upon her face. Whatever shall I do when she is here? I know I shall say something to offend her terribly, but I cannot make her out at all.”
Now Elizabeth rose from her chair to walk to her husband. She settled herself upon the arm of his chair and fell into him, pressing her own kiss upon his forehead, and then upon his lips. “She is an unusual woman. We will decipher her together, my love.”
“Did Lydia write as well? Did I hear you correctly?” Darcy wrapped an arm around his wife and pulled her tight before letting her rise to return to her sofa and her letters.
She read for a few moments more and then looked up.
“You have bad news. I do not need special skills to recognise tears. What does she write?”
“Wickham is dead. Oh, my poor sister! She wrote this three months ago, and it happened a month before that. How horrible, and I never knew! How troubling that it takes so much time for letters to arrive from the Islands.” She sniffed in a very unladylike way and dabbed her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief. “It is hard to determine the exact matter of things from what Lydia writes, for she has always been blind to his faults and to the truth, but it appears that he was the master of his own demise. From what I can understand from her strange tale, he engaged the wrong sort in his gaming and wagering, and when he cheated them of their money, they attacked him and left him dead behind the tavern. Oh, Lydia! Now she is alone in Kingston with three babies and no money.”
Darcy did not move as she told the sad tale, and for a moment she could see him returning to the statue-like man she had first met. These moods did not bother her now, for she understood him to be reflecting on what he had heard, and considering how best to proceed. He might remain thus for a few moments, or a few days, and whilst she could never be pleased to see him so, neither was she concerned. This reaction was as much a part of him as his green eyes and his loving heart, and she would not part with it.
“I shall provide her with a small income,” he said at last. “When she returns to England, I shall arrange for a small cottage near Meryton and shall ensure she has enough to live respectably and raise her children properly.
This was more than Elizabeth had expected. “You are, and always have been, the best of men.” Now her tears were borne of gratefulness and less of sorrow.
“Cousin Lizzy! What is the matter? You are crying.”
A young man stood in the doorway. He was eighteen years of age, with a mop of sandy hair and bright eyes set in a face that was just now losing its boyish contours and that was a masculine version of his mother’s. He was not particularly tall, but he had grown much over the past several months and he was certainly above average in height. He was, in all, a pleasant young man to look upon.
“Sam, come and sit with us a while.” Over the past six years, Sam Gardiner had grown in maturity of manner as well as height, and he had requested this nickname as more suited to that of a man than the diminutive Sammy. “I am sad because of unhappy news from Lydia, but my tears are for her and not for me.”
Her cousin cocked his head and furrowed his brow. “Are not all tears the same? How can one be crying for another if one is not sad oneself? If I am sad, I find myself tempted to cry, although I know this is something men must not do. And yet, if something sad happens to another person, I might expect that person to cry, but why should I cry, or be tempted to do so, on his or her behalf? If there is something I am able to do to assist, I can respond that way, but to cry when another is sad does not make sense to me.” He looked over to Darcy, who shrugged his shoulders, and Elizabeth smiled despite her sympathetic tears. These two men were so similar in many ways, and she would never tire of trying to understand them.
She looked on in pleasure as her cousin took a seat beside her husband and proceeded to open the newspaper that sat atop the side table. He would, Elizabeth knew, be reading as much about the races as the news. That interest had never changed over the last several years. He cared just as little for the horses as ever he had done, but the betting and the odds still fascinated him as an intellectual game. From time to time, he mentioned something to Darcy, who responded in a cryptic language she only half understood, and the two would nod as if they had jointly solved all the problems of the world. This had become their way of late, and it had never ceased to amuse her, for all that she would never truly comprehend it.
She would miss this. Sam had been at Pemberley since the spring, working alongside Darcy, whom he idolised as much now as when they first become acquainted. Sam was eager to learn about the proper management of a large estate, and spent hours with Darcy both in his study over the ledgers, and in the fields and amongst his tenants. For his part, Darcy had all but adopted the lad as a brother. They shared an understanding that Lizzy could only grasp at, and they were as comfortable in each other’s company as ever she had seen either.
It was Darcy who had suggested Cambridge to Uncle and Aunt Gardiner the year before. Sam was as smart as any boy she could imagine, and he had expressed a wish to continue his education past the schoolroom. Darcy had insisted upon paying Sam’s way— “I would do as much for my own brother, and he is as a brother to me”—and refused to be swayed from his position when Sam’s parents resisted. He did, however, allow that Oxford or St. Andrews would be acceptable alternatives. Furthermore, when Sam’s friend Robert began to ponder his own future, it was Darcy who suggested the two friends take rooms together, which he would fund.
Robert’s parents naturally demurred, but Darcy had replied, “Robert has been such a stalwart friend to my cousin. I know that friendship is its own reward, but if I may be so selfish, I would wish to assist them to continue together, for Robert can ease Sam’s way where he might otherwise struggle. It is no hardship for me, and would ease my mind.” And consequently both lads—now young men—were preparing for their first term at Cambridge immediately after Michaelmas.
Elizabeth’s eyes fell upon her husband’s handsome face once more. How this man had been a blessing, not only to her but to all her family. Whatever had she been thinking when first she rejected him? She had been so blind! The notion that she might have lost his goodwill forever, have forsaken the joy of being his wife and partner, was too horrible to consider.
These self-recriminations were cut short with the sound of rapid footsteps and a babbling voice, followed by the sound of a woman urging calm and a baby’s coo, and almost at once, the door opened again. In flew a bundle of curls and energy which threw itself upon Elizabeth as she sat upon her sofa.
“Mama! Mama!” the whirlwind cried and wr
apped chubby arms about her neck.
“Tommy, my darling! And here are Miss Roth and Annie. Come here, my sweets!” She took the baby from the nursemaid’s arms and stared into the beautiful little face with its midnight-dark blue eyes and wisps of flaxen hair. Then she lifted her head to kiss her wonderful young son who looked so much like his father, and turned so she could see Darcy and Sam as well, all of her family in a single view.
The gardens, with their sun-drenched radiance and lush foliage, under clear blue skies and rich with the promise of a prosperous and glorious autumn, no longer called for her attention. They were no match for what she saw before her now. Her children, her husband, her cousin: these were the most wonderful things in the world to her now. No, she decided, as beautiful as the view through the windows, this sight before her was far more precious still.
The End
fin
Afterword
Many readers will recognise that the different lens through which Mr. Darcy and Samuel Gardiner see the world is that of the autism spectrum. Mr. Darcy is lightly touched by what a lot of people know as Asperger’s Syndrome; Samuel is a bit further along the spectrum. They both have challenges and difficulties with social interactions, albeit to very different extents, and they respond to the world in different ways. However, autism was not a known condition during the time of the regency, and depending on the severity of the individual’s symptoms, they were tolerated as eccentrics or treated as lunatics, and in the worst cases, were sent off to private institutions to be forgotten by their families.
Today, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is recognised as a complex developmental disorder that affects social interaction and communication, with a vast range of types and severity of symptoms. At the mildest end, people with ASD might have trouble with nonverbal communication or social skills. At its most severe, people with autism can be completely non-verbal and unable to communicate.
