“Yes, of course, but—” Elizabeth sighed. “I do not know how to explain myself.” Then, glancing up at Longbourn and catching sight of her mother’s face in one of the windows, she forced a smile. “I know the reason we have such different feelings on this matter. You, my dear Jane, will only be three miles from Mama, but I will be over a hundred—and how will I ever survive without a daily dose of her nerves?”
Half an hour later, she was no longer asking herself this question, even in jest. Her mother had insisted on changing dresses three times (“Is this color too bright, do you think, for although I am not yet a widow, Lizzy, Mrs. Long will not fail to mention if I appear too cheerful!”), leaving Elizabeth to wonder which of her unfortunate sisters would be left with this task when she and Jane left the house.
“I must ask a favor, Mama,” Elizabeth said as Mrs. Bennet fussed with her bonnet.
“Oh, Sarah, can you not tie this any better? Well, what is it, Lizzy? I have not the time to do any favors for you now, as I hear Bingley downstairs, and we must not keep him waiting. It is very kind of him to bring us to the church in his carriage, is it not?”
“Yes, as the walk—an entire half mile—would certainly be too much for you all. However did we manage before Mr. Bingley?”
“I am glad, Miss Lizzy, that you are to stay here with your father, as I would not want dear Bingley to be offended by your manner. You really must curb your tongue, girl, or your Mr. Darcy will want nothing to do with you. Now what is this favor? As I said, I have so little time before—”
“The favor, Mama, does not need to be accomplished before church. I should like for you to speak to Lydia, to help her to understand that it is truly in her best interest—”
“Has this something to do with Wickham? She told me that you had your father order her from seeing him. Really, Lizzy, I do not think it is very kind of you to bother your father with such pettiness when he lay dying.”
“It is not pettiness, Mama.”
“Though your Mr. Darcy, who I will admit is more admirable than I once thought, dislikes Mr. Wickham, I see no reason to keep Lydia from speaking with him. He is so often with her other friends that she cannot help but see him, can she now?”
“It is not mere dislike, Mama. Mr. Wickham has a character that—”
“Oh, I hear Mary calling. It must be time to depart, for you know Mary would not let us be late to church.”
“Mama—”
Mrs. Bennet, who had been so slow to rise from bed and see to her toilette, was quick to leave her chambers.
Elizabeth followed her downstairs where she found Jane and Mr. Bingley waiting in the parlor. Despite her black mood, Elizabeth could not help but laugh when she saw how quickly Bingley stepped away from Jane when the door opened.
“Oh, now, my dear Bingley, there is no need to be shy around us!” Mrs. Bennet said upon entering the room. “The wedding is only a fortnight away, you know, and I would be surprised if I did not interrupt a tête à tête on occasion!”
Elizabeth and Jane blushed, but they did not turn nearly as red as poor Mr. Bingley.
The gentleman cleared his throat. “Yes, well, I…good morning, Miss Elizabeth! How are you?”
Elizabeth curtsied, hoping that she could make up for her mother’s vulgarity with a show of formality. “I am well, thank you, Mr. Bingley.”
“I should image you are,” he said, smiling. “I saw Darcy writing to you this morning.”
Elizabeth’s mouth fell open, but before she had a chance to say anything, Mary appeared in the doorway.
“Kitty and Lydia are finally prepared to leave. I do not understand why it takes them so long to dress, as I am quite certain God does not concern himself with the color of their ribbons.”
“It would not do to look shabby, that is for certain,” Mrs. Bennet said. “In fact, Mary, you might liven up your own dress if you would only—”
“We will be late, Mama,” Mary said, crossing her arms.
“Oh, very well. Come along, Jane. It is so nice that we have such a large carriage to transport us all!”
Elizabeth hurried after them.
“Mr. Bingley,” she called as he waited for the ladies to exit the house, “do you mean to say that Mr. Darcy has returned to Netherfield?”
“You did not receive his note? That is strange. Yes, he returned quite late last night, yet he was, as his wont, up with the sun. I expect he will be arriving at church any moment now; I heard his valet order one of the servants to ready his horse. I will tell Darcy that his note went amiss, but do not worry, Miss Elizabeth, you will see him soon enough.”
Yet when the party returned from church, Darcy was not among them.
“He was not even at church,” Lydia said as she flopped into a chair in the drawing room. “You see, he is not a very good man!”
Elizabeth might have asked if Wickham had attended services, but she had no desire to add to her anxiety by starting a row with her sister.
“Yes, I was quite concerned!” Mrs. Bennet said, taking up her needlepoint. “What do you think it can mean, Mr. Bingley? I do hope he did not have an accident. Is he a very good horseman?”
“He is among the best I know. Now that I think of it, he did not actually say he was attending services. He did not come here while we were gone?” Bingley asked Elizabeth.
She shook her head and looked to the window.
“He must be arranging some grand surprise for you,” Jane decided.
“Indeed!” Bingley said. “That note was probably meant for a servant or a tradesman who is supposed to deliver a fine gift. Darcy’s thoughtfulness will make me appear an unfeeling clod.”
“Oh, I do not think that is possible,” said Mrs. Bennet. “Besides, we make certain to keep the Sunday tradesmen away from Meryton, for we do not like to support such things here.”
“Yes, the Sabbath—” Mary began.
Elizabeth stood. “I had best check on Papa.”
There was little to do for her father, yet Elizabeth sat with him for the remainder of the afternoon. She read to him until her voice grew hoarse, and though Mary, who sat with them for a half hour, applauded her sister for her devotion, Elizabeth knew she read more for her own sake than his. After all, he slept through most of the recitation (a testament to his illness, for he used to be able to stay up late into the night reading The History of the Rise and Decline of the Roman Empire); she was the one who needed the distraction.
Yet the conniving statesmen and hapless emperors of ancient Rome did not provide the distraction she sought; she found herself pausing to wonder what could be keeping Darcy. She was not inclined to think like her mother; even if Darcy was not as good a horseman as Bingley had suggested, they would have heard some news of a fallen rider on the road from Netherfield to Longbourn. She also gave little heed to Jane’s suggestion; though Elizabeth did not know her betrothed as well as she would have liked, she had the feeling that he was not one to spend the afternoon shopping, even if he was in love.
No, she felt certain his absence had something to do with his visit to London. It must not have gone well; his last (and only) letter had suggested as much. Why this should keep him from visiting Longbourn—well, she could not allow herself to follow that train of thought, for she had promised him, as well as herself, that she would not doubt his devotion to her.
“Has the Roman Empire finally fallen?”
Elizabeth glanced up at the sound of her father’s rasping voice. Her heart ached at the sight of him, shrunken and pale, yet his lips were set in that half smile she loved so dearly.
“Only my voice,” she responded. “Forgive me for lapsing into silence.”
“It is to be expected. Even intelligent girls are overtaken by silliness when their wedding approaches.”
“Oh yes, you have caught me. I have been thinking of lace and pearls.”
“Now, now, you have tipped your hand,” her father said. “You might be as susceptible to daydreams as any other bride
, but you would not restrict your musings to lace and pearls. So you must be thinking of something else.”
“I am wondering at the ways of the world,” she replied flippantly.
“In that case,” he said, his smile growing, “you had best seek the advice of your mother, for it is not a father’s place to discuss worldly matters with his daughter on the approach of her wedding.”
“Papa!” She flushed, then laughed. “I was speaking more philosophically!”
“As was I. What else could I have meant?”
“You are a rascal.”
“Indeed I am. Because I am such a rascal,” he said, his face growing serious, “you ought not spend your last days in this house, moping at my bedside. The weeks before one’s wedding are, I am told, supposed to be joyous.”
“Were you not joyous in the weeks before your wedding?”
“I was more anxious than joyous.”
Elizabeth paused, then asked, “Did you ever love Mama?”
He met her eyes. “Oh, Lizzy, I love her even now, yet it is not the kind of love one should feel for a wife. It is an unequal kind of love, a condescending fondness that does not fulfill that vows I made to her on our wedding day.”
“Then why did you marry her?”
“Because I was, in fact, passionately in love with her, at least in the beginning. And that was why I was so anxious in the days leading up to our wedding. I knew even then that my passion was an irrational sort of thing.”
She looked to the window and sighed. “Can love be rational?”
“No, for it were, then it would be too self serving to be called love. I misspoke before. It was not the nature of my love that caused me anxiety; it was my own behavior. I have always prided myself on being a rational man, yet when I met your mother, I acted wholly on impulse and proposed to her within a fortnight of meeting her.”
Elizabeth tried to smile. “It seems to be family tradition, these quick, impulsive courtships.”
“Yet there is a noticeable difference between our cases, Lizzy.”
“Is there?” She stood up and paced the room. “I feel as if my mind is regularly at war with my feelings, and I suspect Mr. Darcy is undergoing a similar struggle. How is that a propitious beginning to a marriage?”
“It is not the struggle, my dear, that you ought to fear. It is when you give up the struggle, when you allow either your mind or your heart to dominate, that you ought to be concerned.” He began to cough then, and Elizabeth hurried to his side. After she tucked the covers around his shoulders, he burrowed deeper into his pillow and closed his eyes.
Thinking he had fallen into an uneasy sleep, she prepared to go downstairs to see about some broth to soothe him. But then, eyes still closed, he spoke: “I know for certain that your mother did not love me when we married.”
He opened his eyes and offered a weary smile. “How odd that she came to the marriage with such logical ends—for she knew I was a good catch, as they say—while I played the irrational fool. Yet in time, we allowed ourselves to switch roles. Fanny is, bless her, not made for misery. Oh, she may complain regularly, but she does so with a lively enthusiasm. She threw herself into the marriage and convinced herself that she loved me. She must have had to close her eyes to my shortcomings to do so. Meanwhile, I allowed my rational mind to pick out all of her flaws, all of our dissimilarities—and I became cynical.”
Elizabeth returned to her seat. “I am to find hope in this?”
“Not at all, though it has not been so bad a marriage as I have made you believe. She has, after all, given me you. I only mean to advise you: do not become cynical, as I have, and do not ignore reality, as your mother does. Allow your mind and your heart to always be at war, and you will find a disconcerting happiness.”
“A disconcerting happiness?” Elizabeth smiled. “That is not the kind of happiness most people would desire.”
“That is because most people are fools, just as I have been. We chase after easy pleasure and then wonder why we cannot find fulfillment. Do not be afraid, Elizabeth, if your love is a difficult one, not if you are willing to work at it.” He stretched out a bony hand, and as she took it in her own, he added, “Now, enough of this preaching. You see where Mary gets it from, do you not? My throat is sore, and I think only a cup of tea and some silence will improve it.”
“Perhaps broth would be more wholesome.”
“Perhaps it would be. Now bring me a cup of tea, and do not skimp on the sugar.”
“Oh, very well,” she said, smiling as she stood. “I will bring you broth and tea.”
“That will be a waste of broth,” he called after her.
Mrs. Hill met her in the downstairs hallway with a smile: “Your young man is here, Miss Elizabeth. He’s in the drawing room with the rest of the family. Now, don’t you worry about your father. I’ll bring him a warm bowl of broth.”
“And tea,” Elizabeth said, even as she turned toward the drawing room. “With plenty of—”
“Sugar,” Mrs. Hill finished with a laugh. “I’ll tell him you’ll be up shortly.”
Elizabeth hurried to the drawing room and pulled open the door. It was a perfectly ordinary scene: her mother sat near the fire, gesticulating to Kitty, who seemed to have little interest in whatever Mrs. Bennet was saying; Lydia lounged next to Kitty on the settee, regularly bumping shoulders with her older sister and giggling each time she managed to produce a sour face from her seat-mate; Jane and Bingley were perched on the edge of their chairs so that their knees nearly touched; and Mary sat near the bookshelf, though she spent more time watching Jane and Bingley than reading her book.
And Darcy? It would have been romantic indeed if Elizabeth had seen him first, but he stood nearly hidden at the back of the room, staring out of the window. So when her eyes had found him last, her gaze met not his eyes, shining with love, but his stiff shoulders and the nape of his neck.
Still, while the other inhabitants of the room glanced up without pausing in their conversations (indeed, Bingley could not even spare her a glance, so intent was he on speaking with Jane), Darcy turned and looked at her with an intense expression she could not quite decipher. She would not have called it genial, for he did not smile, nor would she have called it eager, for he made no move to close the gap between them. Yet, when their eyes met, his shoulders relaxed and the hard lines of his face softened.
As Elizabeth crossed the room to meet him, Lydia said, “So, Mr. Darcy, where is Lizzy’s gift?”
Elizabeth stopped and glared at her sister.
“We guessed your absence today was due to a surprise of some sort,” Bingley explained after a moment of awkward silence.
A slight flush appeared on Darcy’s cheeks. “I have no gift.”
“Nor was I expecting one,” Elizabeth said, smiling at him. “I am only glad you have returned.”
Lydia scoffed. “I cannot think why when he waited until the end of the day to call on you.”
Elizabeth looked to her mother for some help restraining Lydia, but Mrs. Bennet said only, “We were wondering at your absence, Mr. Darcy.”
With a sigh, Elizabeth glanced at Darcy, expecting to see his expression darken. While his lips did harden into a frown, his eyes, which closed briefly, seemed to signal fatigue more than anger.
“I apologize for the delay. While I was away in London, a Mr. Elias Purvis sent word to Netherfield that I might look at his house, but no later than today, for the servants would be shutting it up for the winter.”
“Do you mean Purvis Lodge?” Mrs. Bennet dropped her needlework into her lap. “Why ever would you want to look at Purvis Lodge?”
“We mean to take a house in the neighborhood so that we may be close to Papa,” Elizabeth explained when Darcy said nothing. He offered her a weary smile, and she knew that she had interpreted his mood correctly: he was exhausted.
“A house? But you must stay with us at Netherfield if you are remaining here for the winter,” Bingley said.
“Oh, yes,” said Jane, “there is no reason for you to rent a house when we might all be together.”
“Besides,” Mrs. Bennet added, “the attics at Purvis Lodge are dreadful!”
Elizabeth had a sudden vision of Darcy bending to kiss her in Netherfield’s music room, only to be interrupted by the arrival of Caroline Bingley.
She and Darcy shared a glance, and he said, “Your offer is most appreciated, but we would not want to impose on a newly married couple.”
“Ah.” Bingley smiled. “Of course. Well, how did you find Purvis Lodge? Is it Hertfordshire’s Pemberley?”
“Hardly,” Darcy said with a hint of a smile for his friend. “But it is a pleasant enough house, and it is five miles from Longbourn.”
“You ought to look into Haye Park,” Mrs. Bennet said, resuming her embroidery. “It is only two miles away, and the attics are much better.”
“Yes, but there is the problem of the Gouldings,” Elizabeth said, raising an eyebrow, “unless you would have us share the house with them.”
“Oh, they could be convinced to give it up for a winter, of that I am certain. Molly Goulding is always going on about wanting to visit Bath.”
“I told Mr. Purvis I would take his house.”
Mrs. Bennet stared at Darcy. “Even with those attics?”
“I see he did not ask you what you wanted, Lizzy,” Lydia said with a sneer. “Then again, I have heard it said that your Mr. Darcy is so proud that he would not ask anyone for an opinion, even when the matter concerns that person most intimately.”
“Lydia!” Mrs. Bennet cried. Elizabeth felt a moment’s gratitude toward her mother for finally curbing Lydia’s rudeness—but just a moment’s. “I do not think you have it quite right. I would not call Mr. Darcy proud; I would say he is more the impulsive type.”
Darcy’s frown deepened for a moment; then, quite suddenly, he began to laugh. Elizabeth thought the sound had a desperate quality to it. Judging by the exchanged glances and shocked silence, she supposed the others in the room must have shared her assessment.
This Disconcerting Happiness: A Pride and Prejudice Variation Page 23
