by Jane Lark
“As I said. I have, I—”
He did not want to hear what his aunt had to say on her account. “What did Miss Elizabeth Bennet say?” A thousand questions flew through his head—and his heart.
“She would not deny it. Why would she deny such an opportunity? But of course you would not lower yourself. That woman is a grasping—”
“To what would I not lower myself?” He wished to be certain he had this right.
“To offer that woman marriage!”
Lord. His heart had stopped beating. He was too stunned to respond, and the emotion inside him rose too high, silencing him for a moment. He finally answered. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet…” His pitch might have been perceived as carrying incredulity. That was not true. His words carried on a wave of shock and surprise only because within him what he had given up as impossible roared into opportunity.
“Of course Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Please tell me this infernal rumour is not true? You would not reject my daughter for such a woman?”
Elizabeth Bennet had not denied it.
He wished to shout with rapture.
How quickly might he reach Longbourn?
“Will you not deny it, Nephew.”
He swallowed. No. He did not wish to. He had no desire to deny Elizabeth. He had longed for Elizabeth for far too long. “I am sorry, I cannot.” He spoke the truth—as he hoped Elizabeth had. Lord. Damn. He hoped. The sensation roared inside him; a lion with its jaw wide. He hoped with every particle of his being. It yelled with joy—with the sort of jubilation that wrapped about him when he came home to Pemberley each time and faced the place where he felt himself again.
“You cannot!” Her response was barked, in shock, in shock that would in an instant turn to anger.
Darcy lifted a hand. To stop her next words. “I shall deny such a rumour no more than Miss Bennet. I am sorry—”
“Then you must swear to me you are not engaged to her!” Lady Catherine shook her bonnet-clad head with an expression of disgust even at the thought.
“That I shall confirm,” Darcy said, in a sharp dismissive tone. Soon though, perhaps, it may be true. “Now. If that is all you came to ask me?” He lifted out a hand towards the door, indicating that she ought to leave. “I have business to attend to. I must go out.”
“Darcy…” She looked up at him from under the brim of her bonnet. The pupils at the centre of her eyes were wide in the shadow of the fabric, making her eyes darker and more challenging. “If you dare to marry that girl, you shall not be welcome at Rosings ever again.”
The threat was supposed to send fear running through him. He wished to smile, in just the manner Elizabeth would have smiled. Except she would not have smiled, she would have bitten upon her lip and contained it before his aunt—she had saved mocking smiles of ill-judgement like that solely for him. He bowed his head, and merely said, “Aunt.”
She huffed at him, expressing her disgust in sound as well as the look contorting her face. Then she turned with her particular style of cut, and strode out, the rustle of the crepe fabric of her dress announcing the haste of her departure.
Darcy sucked in a liberating breath that swelled his chest. It felt as though he was rising from under the water of the still, glass-like lake before Pemberley, sending ripples out across it as all the glory of his home and the happiness he knew to be within it stood before him; when he climbed out onto the bank, the water dripped free from his body.
When the sound of the front door closing echoed into the drawing room, Darcy laughed. Actually, bloody, laughed. The deep sound resonated about the room. It came from low in his stomach. A gut emotion.
He had never had so much to thank Lady Catherine for, and he had not shown his gratitude accordingly. He would.
He turned and walked from the room. In the hall he said, “Have my carriage made ready, swiftly. I am returning to Netherfield.” Bingley would be kind enough to forgive him arriving without warning.
Jane smiled into the air, towards the ceiling, as her head hung over the chair-back. Perhaps she had been awake too long and she had become delirious. She laughed. She felt so close to Darcy and Lizzy she might be standing in the room and a part of their scene, their characters had become so alive.
Chapter 25
It was late when Darcy arrived at his friend’s home, yet Bingley, in his congenial way, welcomed Darcy regardless of his unannounced appearance.
Darcy’s hand was shaken heartily, and he was led into the drawing room and seated close to the fire as supper was sent for to fill his stomach, and then a glass of brandy was placed into his hand.
Darcy did not mention Elizabeth Bennet, or his aunt’s visit. He said only that his business was finished in town and so he had returned to help Bingley celebrate his recent engagement.
The rest of Darcy’s evening was spent listening to his friend retell all the wonders of Miss Jane Bennet, accounting for every hour he had spent with her since his engagement. That seemed to include from the moment of sunrise to the moment of sunset. From the sounds of it Bingley hardly left Longbourn.
If all Bingley said was true, Miss Jane Bennet would be a credit to Bingley, and she did indeed adore him. Just as Elizabeth had claimed. Darcy had wronged Miss Jane Bennet, and Bingley. It was good, then, that he had made his first foolish proposal to Elizabeth, otherwise he might never have known his error and had the chance to put things straight.
He smiled at his friend as they sat and talked. He knew now how Bingley had felt when they had returned here.
Would his second proposal turn out to be as foolish as the first? Or would he discover the happiness Bingley had found? He sipped his brandy. There was no way to know.
She would not deny it… The words echoed through his head in his aunt’s voice. They had been breathing in his chest for hours, it was the hope within those words that had become the air in his lungs and the blood that beat through his heart into his veins ever since he had heard them.
He did not join Bingley at the Bennets’ the next day, instead he walked out into Bingley’s fields with a gun and shot some pheasants for his dinner. It was cowardice. Yet he told himself he was busy formulating the words.
How did a man make a second proposal to a woman who had renounced his first so fervently?
She would not deny it… He clung to those words as he built up his courage.
Jane leant forward, smiling widely, and looked down at the page she had turned to last.
Lizzy’s father stepped out of his library, lifting the letter he held in his hand.
“Lizzy, I was going to look for you; come into my room.”
She did, yet it was with some trepidation. The letter, Lizzy surmised, must have some reference to her and the only reference she could imagine was that it had come from Lady Catherine. Colour warmed her cheeks. How would she explain such accusations, or her refusal to deny them to her father?
Once they were seated he confirmed her worst fear. “…I did not know before that I had two daughters on the brink of matrimony. Let me congratulate you on a very important conquest.”
No it was beyond her worst fear, the letter must be from Darcy not his aunt. The colour in her cheeks now burned with mortification. Darcy must have written to explain his aunt’s provocation, and to apologise. But if so, why had he not addressed his letter to her and what had he said?
“I think I may defy even your sagacity to discover the name of your admirer. This letter is from Mr Collins.”
“From Mr Collins! And what can he have to say.” Shock and anger made Lizzy speak more bluntly than she normally would. Why must Mr Collins interfere? Why could he not keep his opinions and his confidences to himself?
“Something very much of the purpose, of course. He begins with congratulations on the approaching nuptials of my eldest daughter, of which it seems he has been told, by some of the good-natured, gossiping Lucases. I shall not sport with your impatience by reading what he says on that point. What relates to yourself is as follows: ‘Having thu
s offered you the sincere congratulations of Mrs Collins and myself on this happy event; for which we have been advised by the same authority. Your daughter Elizabeth, it is presumed, will not long bear the name Bennet, after her eldest sister has resigned it, and the chosen partner of her fate may be reasonably looked up to as one of the most illustrious personages in this land.
“Can you possibly guess, Lizzy, who is meant by this? ‘—This young man is blessed, in a peculiar way, with everything the heart of a mortal can most desire,—splendid property, noble kindred, and extensive parsonage. Yet, in spite of all temptations, let me warn my cousin Elizabeth, and yourself, of what evils you may incur by a precipitate closure with this gentleman’s proposals, which, of course, you will be inclined to take immediate advantage of.”
“Have you any idea, Lizzy, who this gentleman is?”
For goodness sake, Lizzy screamed in her thoughts, Mr Collins had spent a half a page hinting, and hinting so thoroughly the answer shouted from the pages. Why had he not simply said, if he wished to cause her trouble?
“But now it comes out—” Her father’s hand lifted and the letter trembled as he waved it. “My motive for cautioning you is as follows; we have reason to imagine that his aunt, Lady Catherine, does not look on the match with a friendly eye.’
“Mr Darcy, you see, is the man!” The letter was lifted higher and waved gleefully, as though it was some grand lark. Then her father leant forward and tapped her knee with the tip of the letter, as if this was one of their tête-à-têtes over some foolish gossip that had run through Meryton. He sat back smiling at her, with a sparkle of amusement in his eyes.
“Now, Lizzy, I think I have surprized you. Could he or the Lucases have pitched on any man… whose name would have given the lie more effectually to what they related?”
Lizzy’s lips were slightly parted, she had no idea what to say, and she simply shook her head slightly.
“Mr Darcy who never looks at any woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at you in his life! It is admirable!” He laughed heartily at what he deemed his clever wit.
Elizabeth forced a fake shallow smile. “Never had his wit been directed in a manner so little agreeable to her.”
“Are you not diverted.”
She was not, and yet she could not bear to tell him why. “Oh. Yes.” She forced the words from her throat. “Pray read on.”
“’After mentioning the likelihood of this marriage to her ladyship last night, she immediately, with her usual condescension, expressed what she felt on the occasion; when it became apparent, that on the score of some family objections on the part of my cousin, she would never give her consent to what she termed so disgraceful a match. I thought it my duty—”
Mr Collins thought everything that was undertaken in the entire world his duty to interfere with.
“—to give the speediest intelligence of this to my cousin, that she and her noble admirer may be aware of what they are about, and to run hastily into a marriage which has not been properly sanctioned…”
Properly sanctioned… Lizzy did not give a fig for Lady Catherine or her consent.
“Lizzy, you look as if you did not enjoy it. You are not going to be missish, I hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report. For what do we live, but to make sport of our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?”
It was their way. It was the reason she was close to her father. She was his one confidant in a house full of women he had very little time for. “Oh. I am excessively diverted.” That was certainly true, diverted by anger and annoyance. There was nothing humorous within the letter on her part. “But it is so strange!” Why had the Lucases believed for one moment that Darcy might propose? She had not told Charlotte of Darcy’s former proposal, nor anyone but Jane.
Oh. Not only had she condemned him cruelly, in return for his offer, she had then wrongfully questioned his integrity and now to add further insult to the injury of her refusal, his originally misplaced affection for her had become public.
Mortification turned over in her stomach, and made her nauseous.
“Yes—that is what makes it amusing. Had they fixed on any other man, it would have been nothing; but his perfect indifference, and your pointed dislike, make it so delightfully absurd! Much as I abominate writing, I would not give up Mr Collins’s correspondence for any consideration.”
Jane smiled, lifted the quill and dipped it in the ink as a line came to her that furthered Lizzy’s father’s point, and would show just how much his character liked to sit back and laugh at the world. She wrote between two lines. “Nay, when I read a letter of his, I cannot help giving him the preference even over Wickham, much as I value the preference and hypocrisy of my son-in-law.”
Jane set the quill down again, and read on.
“And pray, Lizzy, what said Lady Catherine about this report? Did she call to refuse her consent?”
A laugh left Lizzy’s lips, but if her father had been a perceptive man he would have heard the shallowness of it, and the bitterness. He was not a perceptive man; he had not once seen Darcy observing his daughter. Nor noticed Lizzy’s discomfort and uncharacteristic quietness, when Darcy had called recently.
“Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her feelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh, when she would rather have cried. Her father had most cruelly mortified her by what he had said of Mr Darcy’s indifference.” Fear was as much her torture as her father’s teasing. Since Lady Catherine’s visit she had dared to hope beyond hope that Darcy would come. That perhaps he had intended to come… But now this letter explained it all. What if… “instead of seeing too little, she might have fancied too much.”
Her stomach rolled over with nausea, when she left her father and the library. Then she hurried to her room where she might weep without being questioned about the cause.
Chapter 26
Darcy gripped his reins in one hand, and his saddle with the other, then pressed his foot down into the stirrup and lifted himself up to mount the black stallion he had left in Bingley’s keeping.
Bingley was already mounted on his very fine chestnut horse and impatiently allowing the animal to sidestep. He had wished to be off a half hour ago, but had awaited Darcy.
Darcy had not spoken of his intent. How could he? It was only hope. He dared not speak and yet he longed to. The words had been playing through his head repeatedly for two days, and yet how to form them when he spoke to Elizabeth Bennet. He would die of embarrassment if he received the same response he had done before. He would not be able to stand it a second time, when he had done so much to correct the appearance of his behaviour. The woman would snap his heart in half if she rejected him once more.
He settled into the saddle, his stomach spinning with an anxious sense of nausea. He was a madman. Insane to even think of proposing for a second time to a woman who had shunned him so thoroughly.
Yet he had given her just cause.
“Darcy,” Bingley acknowledged, to say may we depart? But he had already tapped his heels and set his horse off, impatient to be at Longbourn and in the company of his future wife.
Darcy was not in so much haste. He had had far too long to contemplate his return there. He swallowed hard against a dry throat as he followed his friend.
Longbourn was not far; they soon rode up the drive to the house. Bingley swung his leg over the back of his saddle and jumped down quickly, as the Bennet’s groom came to take his horse.
Bingley was already at the door, waiting for it to open as Darcy dismounted.
Darcy imagined the younger Bennet sisters at the windows, seeing who had come. Lizzy would know he was here within a moment. If she did not already.
He left his horse in the hands of the groom and walked up behind Bingley as the door opened.
“Mr. Darcy is with him!” Kitty shouted across the parlour, having looked out of the window. They had heard the horses and known it would be Bingley, but the sound of a
second horse had drawn Kitty across the room to look.
The name struck Lizzy in the chest, with a vicious, sharp pain. Oh no. What had he come to say? Did he know of his aunt’s visit?
She seated herself as correctly as she could, and turned a little away from the door, wishing to hide the colour she knew had lifted in her skin as she looked at her sewing. She would not be able to face him, nor look at him today—and if her mother said anything of Lady Catherine…
But things had taken a turn since Darcy’s last visit. Bingley and Jane were engaged, and Bingley wished to spend every second possible in more private company with his beloved. He therefore proposed that they all walk out for some fresh air before anyone even had a chance for conversation beyond greetings—so that of course he might walk beside Jane alone.
Mrs Bennet thanked him for including her in his invitation but declined as her health was too frail to walk far, and Mary was not inclined. This left Lizzy to walk beside Darcy with her sister Kitty, as Bingley and Jane walked on ahead.
Lizzy’s heart pounded hard. Nothing that Darcy said or did showed any sign that he was aware that his aunt had called on her, and yet he would hardly speak of it before Kitty. His words were all pleasantries. But that was nothing unusual for the infuriating, frustrating man. Lizzy could happily have throttled him. Why had he returned only to remain silent? Why had he done all he’d done for her family, if not to repeat his offer? She still did not wholly understand Darcy. Confound the man! Yet what she knew was that beneath everything, there was a wonderful, honourable core and a heart that knew what it was to love—and he had once said he loved her.
They walked on mostly in silence, Lizzy feeling too awkward to speak and Kitty too afraid of Darcy’s manner to utter a word.
Jane breathed slowly as she read on, her muscles as tight and her heart as full with both anxiety and love as Lizzy’s must be, and Darcy’s had been when he had made his first proposal. Now Darcy walked beside Lizzy uncertain of himself, and her. His heart hurt with hope far beyond any level of anxiety.
