He was almost upon her when the path narrowed and ran alongside a high stone wall. This took them out of the turbulence for a while but forced him to drop back and follow in her footsteps. However, Darcy knew that several opportunities to draw alongside her lay ahead, as there were stiles as well as open fields still to be crossed before they accessed the rough lane that wound its way through the wood and up the hill. It was at that level that he anticipated they would feel the full force of the wind.
They emerged into the open once again and, to his mind, the wind definitely blew harder. He was unwilling to feature as a figure of fun and so kept silent as he followed Elizabeth to the end of the field and through a squeeze stile. There had been a break in the hedge further down and were he alone he would have gone around, but that would have put Elizabeth a considerable distance ahead once again. As it was, she slipped through with ease. He, being broader, turned his body sideways; yet even then the rough stones pulled threads, ruining a perfectly good jacket. He strode on, a little more put out than before and wincing to think of the poorly disguised lecture on carelessness that he would be getting from his man when they got back to Pemberley that evening.
At the far end of the next field there was a cattle gate to be climbed and, for the first time, Elizabeth acknowledged Darcy’s presence by slowing her pace and silently accepting his assistance with lowered eyes. She was nimble; even so, he was rewarded with a brief glimpse of neatly turned ankle as she pivoted on the top bar and let go his hand to jump down on the other side.
A broad patch of grass now lay between them and a larch wood. Having crossed the green expanse together, they left the sun behind and entered a world in which cool light filtered down through a moving tracery of autumnal needles. Occasionally a gap opened overhead where a tree had fallen and, if it was large enough, it was possible to see clouds scudding across the sky. The atmosphere below was awe-inspiring - even intimidating. Tall tree trunks soared straight up from the dimness of the forest floor, swaying and creaking as their tops were tossed about, high in the sky on the roaring wind.
They strode side-by-side in silence: Darcy was overwhelmed by a feeling that, for the first time in his life, there was no need to communicate in any way. He was seized by the conviction that Elizabeth’s spirit was made of the same strong stuff as his and that it expressed itself in their matching steps and the eagerness of their bodies straining towards the light at the other end of the wood. He thought of her mockery of him at breakfast that morning and couldn’t understand how she did not feel this silent communion.
And now there was another gate to climb. Then the wood was behind them and they were striding along a path with a sheer drop to their left. It was blowing strongly but still the sun shone and once again there was a stone wall to one side protecting them from the worst of the weather. A rough bench had been positioned in its shelter a little further on. It allowed the walker a place to linger, catch his breath and look across at the breathtaking views of the Wye River which slowly wound its way down through the meadows and steeply wooded sides of the valley below.
It was here that Darcy spoke for the first time. “Miss Bennet, the view does not get much better than this. I think that we might stop and give the others an opportunity to catch up with us,” he called to her receding back. “What do you say?”
She stopped, nodded her agreement and retraced her steps. They sank onto the bench, resting their backs against the sun-warmed stones and suddenly she spoke. “Please accept my apologies, Mr. Darcy. That was a poor show on my part. My hastening ahead forced you to leave the other ladies unassisted.”
“Fitzwilliam and Randall will cope,” Darcy said briefly and closed his eyes: as much to shut out the breathtaking vision of her wind-tossed curls and sun-kissed face, as to rest his eyes a little: for he had suddenly become aware of how they burned from having had no sleep the night before. Yet, even with his eyes closed, he remained acutely aware of her soft breathing at his side as he sat basking in the sun.
At first there was only the sound of the wind and then snatches of conversation began to come to them, as down the path the others climbed the forest gate. At one particularly loud feminine exclamation, Darcy opened his eyes and, to his consternation, caught Elizabeth covertly studying him.
She immediately blushed and her words began to fill the silence. “I think that I have something else to apologise for, Mr. Darcy.” She looked down at her hands, folded on her lap. “I was dismissive of your advice at breakfast this morning. I saw immediately that you understood that and so I became a little embarrassed. I will admit now that the wind is quite strong up here and I can imagine that once we move away from this wall, its force could cause one to overbalance - just as you pointed out.”
Darcy sat upright. Now was the time to clear the air. “Why is it that you so consistently imagine that I am out to spoil everyone’s enjoyment, Miss Bennet?”
She shrugged and her colour deepened. “Not everyone’s; just mine. I suppose that we began on the wrong foot in Meryton. There are few things that I dislike as much as being ordered around, and at that time you seemed to think that you had the right to direct my every action.”
Darcy had been listening intently and now he nodded slowly. “Given what happened then, that’s fair. I have been raised to take control. Perhaps I didn’t realise how often I did so when it was not warranted - or even polite. However, today must be considered an exception. I had some knowledge of this area and felt it my duty to alert you to a very real danger. I would hate anything…”
“So there you are, you bounder! Sitting sunning yourself with Miss Bennet while Randall and I toil up the hill with the other ladies.” It was Fitzwilliam, striding up towards them in advance of the others, who straggled some way behind him in an untidy line.
“It was entirely my fault, sir,” interposed Elizabeth. “I have only just apologized for striding out in the way that I did. I left Mr. Darcy with little choice but to follow me.”
“Hmm,” said Fitzwilliam, giving Darcy a knowing look. “Don’t be so ready to apologise for this rascal, Miss Bennet. Never known him to put himself out if he didn’t want to. Idle to the bone.”
“That’s rich coming from you, Fitz,” said Darcy, getting into the spirit of the thing. He turned to Elizabeth. “There are few that know how to sleep on a clothesline; Fitz here could give us all lessons in the art of snatching forty winks.”
“Well, I am or was a professional sleeper – er, soldier that is. Provided our boots are laced tightly enough to hold us upright, I defy even Napoleon’s army to doze as well as we British can on the march.”
“You have left the army, sir?” asked Elizabeth.
Just then Georgiana came up to stand behind Fitzwilliam on the path. “You have found a cosy spot here, Miss Bennet. Out of the wind. And such glorious sun,” she said, breathing heavily.
Elizabeth got up quickly. “The path is not wide enough to accommodate all of us, Miss Darcy. Come, you sit here beside your brother and I will make myself comfortable on that rock there.”
“Nonsense,” said Darcy, who had also risen. “You will be exposed to the worst of the wind over there, Miss Bennet. Keep your seat here while Fitz and I go and assist the others.”
The men moved off and Georgiana took Darcy’s seat on the bench and turned impulsively towards Elizabeth, an earnest expression on her young face. “Miss Bennet, has Lucy mentioned that we have invited your party to Pemberley for the next few days? We hope to share our harvest festival with you. Do say yes! It will be such a jolly party.”
“Please call me Elizabeth: Miss Bennet makes me feel dreadfully old. Certainly, if my cousins are agreeable, I will be too. That is if Mr. Darcy is aware of your plan,” she said, suddenly thinking of their exchange of a few moments ago and deciding that it was quite possible that she might not be Darcy’s favourite person. She paused and then said diplomatically, “However, I am entirely at the disposal of my cousins and it does sound as if it will be grea
t fun.”
“Oh! It’s definitely fine with my brother. I asked him about it last night at dinner. He thinks that it is a splendid idea. Pemberley has been so solemn and quiet since our cousin Anne passed. It will do us both good to have friends in the house once again.”
“Had Mrs. Darcy been ill a long while?”
“Heavens, yes!” Georgiana said candidly. “I don’t think that I ever remember Anne being well. When she and my brother married, she was already far too ill for a proper wedding. The doctor gave her six months at best and we were sorry to disrupt her peace, but I think that the marriage came as a blessing to her. It was she who insisted on moving to Pemberley and she seemed to love it there. Brother and I had agreed to do whatever would make her happy in her last days and in the end she was with us for almost a year. She was contented: so much so that she even improved for a while in the beginning. I remember that she wanted her balcony door to stand open all through that summer and she loved being out in the garden, listening to the birds. My aunt had forbidden that at Rosings.’
“Of course that was almost three years ago - before all this dreary rain that we’ve been having. But we have good weather now. Let’s cross fingers that it continues; at least until after the harvest.”
Chapter 29
“I wish for you constantly for I want to talk about
everybody and everything. I can't go up to a
stranger & say 'your manners &looks have
stirred me to this profound meditation”
W. B. Yeats
With his elbow resting on the window ledge of the carriage and a hand shading his eyes, Darcy appeared to be looking down at the book resting on his knee, but he was making no attempt to focus on the words swimming before his eyes. The book was there mainly as a deterrent to the conversation that Richard had attempted to initiate as they had set out for Pemberley; but now his cousin slept at his side, his head lolling about with every rut that they hit in the road. Darcy could easily have abandoned the deception were it not for Georgiana and her friend Lucy, who were seated opposite conducting a conversation in whispers.
As it was, he was free to let his mind wonder and his thoughts kept returning to the walk that he and Elizabeth had just shared. He had surprised himself this morning by conceding a fault: admitting that he might, on occasion, have been somewhat overbearing during the time they had spent together in Meryton.
Even he could see the contrast between who he had been then and was now. It was really quite striking. Certainly when he had first met Elizabeth, his pride would have made him incapable of sustaining such a conversation. Yet today he had not only listened but strained to understand her point of view: hoping all the while to resolve the friction that had been constantly between them. True, he had surrendered something of himself this morning, but even though Elizabeth had the power to hurt him, he did not feel threatened as he might have done three years ago.
Loving another human being was perhaps the ultimate test of maturity and for the first time Darcy felt he might be capable of it. When Bingley had revealed his love for Jane Bennet in London, Darcy had been unable to understand his friend. But he understood love now: it was a force so strong that it thrust aside considerations of self-preservation. It dissolved boundaries and made one long to see life through the eyes of the person one loved.
It struck him anew just how resentful he had been of his family’s influence at the time of Bingley’s wedding. In fact, the budding of his infatuation for Elizabeth had coincided with his growing rebellion against their control and in some ways the two had been connected to his journey to maturity. He had eventually faced up to his family obligations like a man, but even had he been free of his duty to the Fitzwilliams then, he doubted that he would have married Elizabeth. She had been the right person for him, but he had not been ready to love. He had been too arrogant, too concerned with his position in society and later - when he had learned a little wisdom - in struggling to discover his own nature and future role in life.
It had been a long journey to maturity. When Darcy looked back now, he saw that even as a child, a quiet sorrow had defined his inner life. His short, sad marriage to Anne had been the culmination of those years but he could not regret it. Their marriage had given his cousin peace and what he had learned while standing by and helplessly watching her die, had been the most important lesson of his life. She had been as brave in death as she was in life: a little scrap of a thing with the heart of a lion. She had taught him to value every day of his life as if it were his last: to make every action count. Even though he had resisted their marriage initially, he had come to love her gentle nature. Anne had read more penetratingly into life’s secrets than he or almost anyone else he knew and, in her final moments, he had been humbled by the gallantry of her smile.
To his mind, life with Elizabeth would be more robust: more vibrantly joyous; more of an equal partnership. He thought that he already understood the most important things about her but there was one way in which she still remained something of an enigma: he had no way of knowing quite what she thought of him. When they had separated at the end of their walk today, it had been on friendly terms and he thought he saw a newfound respect for him in her eyes. But of course, this visit to Pemberley would affect her one way or the other too.
It was not impossible that his wealth could become an obstacle. After all, Elizabeth’s values were unlike those of any other young woman of his acquaintance.
___________________________
Some five hundred yards behind Darcy’s carriage, Elizabeth traversed the very same bumps in the road and failed just as dismally as he in her attempt to carry a conversation with her cousins. But there was a difference between Darcy and herself and it lay in the fact that her view of herself had been fundamentally affected by the events of their morning walk.
As Darcy surmised, she had been aware from the first that he was following her. Given their history and her attitude that morning, she would have done anything rather than admit that he had been right about the strength of the wind and so she had increased the length of her stride, trying to leave him behind. However, she couldn’t shake him off. He was always there just behind her, a silent but persistent presence. Gradually, as her annoyance subsided, she saw how ridiculous she was being. It was a man’s duty to protect his feminine companions and Darcy was quite justified in trying to ensure that no harm came to her. In fact, it had been wrong of her to sneer at his advice that morning.
In the past Jane had attempted to point out to Elizabeth that she was prejudiced against Darcy, but she had never been able to see the justice in that opinion. Now she began to see that it might be true. For some reason that she didn’t understand, she had fallen into the habit of looking askance at this intelligent man. She had consistently suppressed the commonsense which would ordinarily have told her that no one could be quite as one-dimensional as the Darcy she had created in her mind. Had, in fact, deliberately ignored any evidence that arose to the contrary.
As they emerged from the forest and onto the narrow pathway running above the valley, she had been on the verge of making an apology for everything. Then, with him seated conveniently close to her on the bench, she had tried to settle in her mind how she should begin. But when she had looked up, it was to see him leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. He had shut her out and she was left looking at him and wondering what to do next.
She had glanced down at her hands and then over at the muscular legs stretched out next to her, their shape outlined to admiration by close-fitting buckskins. Alarmed at the direction that her thoughts were taking, she immediately shifted her eyes back up to his face. In the warm sunshine, his countenance, usually so hard and severe, was softened and relaxed. He looked positively young. Her wayward mind was just concluding that he was an extraordinarily attractive man when his eyes opened and he looked right at her.
Now, oblivious to the rhythmic beat of the horse’s hooves and the rumble of turning carriag
e wheels, Elizabeth squirmed on her seat, remembering with mortification, how brightly she had blushed at being caught inspecting the man at her side. She had covered her embarrassment by stumbling into an apology for her behaviour that morning. That was when Darcy had demolished her last remaining defenses. Going to the very heart of the matter, he had shown her that he was both aware of her poor opinion of him and willing to hear why it had been formed in the first place. Only Jane had ever opened herself to Elizabeth’s criticism in that way before. It was a sign of trust from him that she felt she could not equal.
And now she was to be his guest at Pemberley. In the light of today’s events, she viewed the time ahead with some trepidation - not least because all her convenient ideas about her host as well as those she held about herself had just been completely overturned.
_______________________________
Pemberley could be ranked amongst the most splendid of the great houses that Elizabeth had visited while touring with her cousins in that part of the world. There had been no one amongst her acquaintances, passing or otherwise, who had ever owned anything approaching its magnificence. And for all that it was a house that had been added to during various periods in its history; it was no architectural monstrosity but surprisingly elegant and coherent in its plan. The magnificence of the house, the largeness of its rooms and the beauty of the estate certainly went a great way towards explaining Mr. Darcy’s past arrogance. Beside this splendour, her beloved Longbourn must have appeared to be little more than a hovel in his eyes.
It had taken an unbelievable amount of time after passing through the gates, for their coach to drive through the estate. And although they had arrived at the house in the late afternoon with little warning, such was the efficiency of Pemberley’s staff that there had been no need to wait for rooms to air before they were conducted up the magnificent, curving staircase.
The Golden Apples of the Sun Page 24
