Under the heat of the sun she shivered, as if in premonition of something to come. She must be strong. Any debate about Darcy was academic. She was an engaged woman - or as close to being engaged as it was possible to be without having accepted a proposal.
A little way along, Georgiana turned abruptly onto a cart track that ran between two wheat fields. On the left, harvesting was obviously still in progress with the reapers bent low over the golden grass, their sickles flashing in the sun. On the right, the field had already been reduced to stubble and long lines of stooks stood under the blue sky, waiting to be collected. Seeing them, Elizabeth felt homesick. If all had gone well at home, Jane would surely be looking upon just such a scene, for the lands that had been given over to the Meryton communal planting scheme were visible from the windows of her sitting room.
At some distance down the track a large wagon stood next to a haystack and Elizabeth could just make out Darcy, tall and athletic, in amongst a group of men. He was leaning on his pitchfork and shading his eyes with one hand, while around him men forked hay onto the wagon or sat eating under a nearby tree.
“It looks like we timed it well,” said Georgiana. “My brother is probably more than ready for that jug of ale and his lunch. I know that I feel peckish and I haven’t been exerting myself.”
Darcy must have heard the approach of the vehicle, for he turned and began walking up the track to meet them. They pulled to a halt and he came to stand at Elizabeth’s side of the cart, his smiling face raised towards hers. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and his shirt open at the throat. Elizabeth glimpsed tanned forearms and a powerful neck, before she let her gaze slide to somewhere over his shoulder.
“So you came, Miss Bennet,” he said. “Please excuse my appearance. How did you enjoy your tour of our school?” he asked, watching her face carefully for her reaction.
Resolving to behave as if the intimacy of yesterday had not happened and that his appearance today was nothing out of the ordinary, Elizabeth hesitantly met his eyes. “I was just telling Georgiana how impressed I was, Mr. Darcy. Particularly at the amount of care directed towards ensuring that the girls on the estate get an education.”
The cart jerked. “Georgie, will you hold the horses still so that I can help Miss Bennet down,” said Darcy. Stepping forward, he raised his arms as Elizabeth turned and placed her hands on his shoulders. Grasping her lightly around the waist, he swung her clear of a muddy patch and placed her on the dry ground at his side. Elizabeth’s mind travelled back to the previous evening with some embarrassment and then went even further back in their acquaintance to when he had saved her from falling face-first into a puddle. A fleeting glance allowed her to see the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. It seemed that he was remembering too.
She was still uncharacteristically shy when he rejoined them after seeing to the horses. Darcy seemed to sense this as, with a blanket hanging over one shoulder, he walked in front of the two women, swinging the picnic basket in one hand. He laid the rug on a patch of flattened grass beneath the spreading branches of the tree. Elizabeth chose a far corner for herself and keeping her eyes down, began undoing the ribbon of her bonnet. She was relieved when Georgiana broke the silence to question her brother on the progress of the harvest.
“So you will be finished this evening?” she asked him, as Elizabeth tidied away some loose strands of hair.
“Yes. Long before sunset, I think. The arrangements for the Harvest Home should be equally well in-hand.”
“We stopped off at the big barn on the way to the village and all looked to be well underway.” She leant forward. “Here, Will, have a ham and mustard sandwich. They’re good.”
“Everyone seems to be looking forward to this evening,” said Darcy, biting into the bread. “It’s been a difficult year.”
“So you are often in the fields with your tenants, sir?” asked Elizabeth, finally finding her voice as she accepted a sandwich from Georgiana.
“I confess that I am. I know that it is not really the done thing, certainly my own father never worked alongside of his labourers; but times are changing, Miss Bennet. Labourers have begun leaving the farms in droves to work in the factories. Because of the returning soldiers there is unemployment at present; but I believe that in a few years, landowners will be hard pressed to find enough farmhands. I like to keep those on my land content and I find that working alongside them and taking a daily interest in their affairs, makes for good relations all round. Does your father never involve himself in the affairs of his estate?”
“Only on an infrequent basis and never to work in the fields, sir. I can’t imagine him perspiring,” she said, looking up to smile at him, only to become aware of a bead of moisture trickling down the side of his neck. She turned beet red as she realised how inappropriately personal her observation had been. It became almost impossible to continue in a natural manner “That is to say that I am aware that hard work has its rewards,” she said stumbling over her words. “And as you know, I have never been averse to strenuous exercise myself.”
A short, agonising silence followed.
“Brother,” said Georgiana a few seconds later, “Avril Simons is waving at me. Should you object to me walking over there for a minute?” She stood up and brushed the crumbs from her skirts, seemingly unaware of the tension in the air.
“No. Go ahead, Georgie.”
Darcy turned to Elizabeth as his sister walked away. Leaning over he placed a warm hand on her wrist and murmured in a low tone, “Pray, don’t distress yourself, Miss Bennet. I did not take offense at your remark.”
Drawing on her courage, Elizabeth forced herself to look up at him. A slight shudder run through her as their eyes met. Beneath the concern of his expression she could see that he was as tense as she, but there was something more there: a new tenderness that jolted through her and made her mind race with apprehension. As she battled to regain the thread of their conversation, a multiplicity of thoughts shot off like sparks from a Catherine wheel in her head.
Finally she said, “Thank you for your generosity of spirit, sir. The remark was completely unintentional. My tongue seems to be running freely today.”
Still looking into her eyes, Darcy took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. Her back stiffened and her pulse raced as she tried to prepare herself for what she sensed was coming.
“Miss Bennet, I know you too well to think that you spoke with any intention to hurt. In fact, I have long admired your kindness, sincerity and open-mindedness…”
“Oh yes! Particularly when I reviled you, leaving you to face Longbourn’s villagers on your own,” Elizabeth said lightly, desperately harking back to another time in order to circumvent the growing intimacy of their conversation. But Darcy, it seemed, was not to be deflected from his purpose.
“What did you do that any spirited young woman who had been unfairly accused would not have done? No, I might have been annoyed at the time, but on looking back I found that I could only admire you for your actions. In my experience, many other young ladies would be intimidated or, having an eye to my position in society, would try to humour me.
She stiffened. “Mr. Darcy there was no virtue involved on my part. Our stations in life are so unequal as to ensure that I never entertained any aspirations, marital or otherwise towards you.”
Darcy’s eyes darkened and his gaze dropped to her lips. He said softly, “Ever since we so fortuitously re-encountered one another two days ago, I have been wishing that you would entertain them, Miss Bennet. Indeed, I wished it long before this, and had it not been that I was bound to honour certain obligations to my family three years ago…”
Elizabeth stopped breathing. This could not be happening to her. Courted by one man and now all but proposed to by another! She looked up and into eyes that shone with tenderness and passion. Seeing a muscle twitch nervously in his jaw, she was immediately pierced by a feeling of unbearable remorse and there was little comfort to be had from telling her
self that she had never deliberately encouraged Darcy to look at her like that. She would have to tell him the truth. But how can I hurt him so? she thought, involuntarily shrinking from the deed.
Elizabeth was not a frivolous person. She had not had that many admirers but she had always been careful of their feelings, never encouraging hope where none should exist Even her acceptance of Edmund’s offer had been a thoughtful decision that had arisen out of the belief that she both admired and respected him - and she still did; didn’t she?
A sinking feeling possessed Elizabeth as she realized two things simultaneously: the first being that, despite their mutual hostility, a fascination for Darcy had always lain just beneath the surface of her consciousness, and the second that while she admired and respected Edmund, his touch had never so much as caused her breath to quicken. But this was all irrelevant. She was in no position to be entertaining these feelings. She was a rational woman who knew to whom she was committed.
She took a deep breath. “Mr. Darcy, I won’t pretend to misunderstand you. But before you go any further, sir, I must tell you that I am already committed. I have given my word to another.”
The glow in his eyes faded. “You are engaged,” he said tonelessly.
“No. Not yet engaged but I am being courted. I have an understanding with the gentleman concerned, sir.”
For more than three years he had thought of no other woman. Obviously it had not been the same for her! Images of his Elizabeth in another man’s arms leapt into Darcy’s mind. He felt rejected, angry and sick with jealousy and he struck out blindly.
“Let me guess. Could the lucky gentleman be Meryton’s celebrated parson? The same man who has set you to work for him in his parish. I wondered why you had suddenly become so submissive to another’s will; but then I should have realised that you were afraid that you might not find anyone else willing to marry you. A pity you didn’t wait just a little longer. You could have had a much bigger prize,” he said: his pain leading him to utter things that would have been much better left unsaid.
She would not dignify that remark with an answer she thought. She sat on her end of the blanket in outraged silence, her glare fixed unwaveringly upon his angry face. How dared he suggest that she was so desperate to marry that she would work to earn the privilege? She had been involved in parish work long before Edmund arrived and before that she and Jane had regularly visited the needy on her father’s estate. And another thing: if she was such a money-grubbing, undesirable spinster, why was Darcy proposing to her? No, she could see now that she could never have married this man - even had she been free and he the last person on earth. He was simply bad-tempered and arrogant.
Darcy got to his feet, his face twisted in anger. The suddenness of his movement caused Elizabeth’s heart to lurch with alarm, but she remained outwardly calm as he bowed with painful irony and turned on his heel, leaving her sitting alone.
She let out a long angry breath and scowled at his receding back. So, he was going back to his wretched fields. Well, good riddance. She couldn’t hate him more than she did at this moment! And she had given a creature like him the benefit of the doubt. Worse, she had blamed herself for being prejudiced against him!
Last night’s kiss must have addled her brains so that she had momentarily forgotten what he was; but he had reminded her now. This display of temper revealed his true colours and she saw now that it was impossible for a rational woman to do anything but detest him. She remembered very clearly why she had behaved so badly towards him in the past. Had he stayed one moment longer, she would have given him the dressing down that he deserved.
She exhaled, and with that the fury that had been sustaining her suddenly left her body. She slumped back against the tree and felt tears pricking behind her eyes. She wanted nothing more now than to leave this place and be at home with Jane. She had never felt so desolate, so unwanted, in her whole life.
___________________________________
“Brother!”
It was Georgiana, her skirts hitched in her hands, running across the field to catch up with him.
Darcy swung his head around blindly, his eyes filled with pain. “What is it Georgiana? You should return to the picnic. You are abandoning your guest.”
“Will?” she asked in a tentative voice, coming up to him and putting a hand on his arm to stay him. “I thought to assist you by leaving you alone with Miss Bennet. Has something happened between you?”
“You thought to assist me! Have you been talking to Richard?”
“Richard? No.”
She kept silent for a moment and then said, “Will, I’m sorry if I have been too busy about your affairs. I remembered Miss Bennet’s name from your letters to me at the time that Bingley was marrying. It sounded as if you admired her then, but of course we all knew that you had to marry Anne. When I saw how happy you were to see her in Ashford, I suppose that I assumed that there had been something between the two of you. Their party leaves tomorrow and I thought that I would create an opportunity for you to speak to Miss Bennet privately today. That’s why I asked her to tour the school with me and then told you about it. I thought that you would ask me to invite her to share our picnic lunch and you did. Did I do wrong?”
“No, nothing wrong,” said Darcy, looking away to conceal his tortured expression. “I suppose that it’s just as well that I learnt here and now that the lady is already taken. I might have made an even bigger fool of myself otherwise.”
Georgiana’s face fell. “She is engaged? Why has she not mentioned it before?”
“Not quite engaged. Miss Bennet is in the process of being courted by the parson in her village. However, she made it quite clear that she has given him her word and therefore considers herself bound to marry him.”
Georgiana repeated slowly, “The reason that Miss Bennet feels committed is because she had given this man her word…” She stopped and searched for words “… not that she loved him and therefore your proposal would be out of the question?”
“Georgie, leave it be! I am humiliated enough. The lady wants nothing to do with me.”
“I think that you’re wrong, Will. I have watched her in your company. She likes you a great deal, I think.” She slipped her hand through her brother’s arm and rested her head against his shoulder as they walked towards the hay wain. “I don’t know Miss Bennet that well, but I sense that if her affections were engaged by this parson, she would have told you that directly. She didn’t and that makes me wonder. Isn’t it possible that she is not in love but merely committed, as she says? Women have a sense of honour too, Will. She might feel that she has to end it with the parson before she allows you to hope. Don’t give up.”
“Georgie, this is pointless. You don’t know her. She will never change her mind. Not her! She’s too damned stubborn!”
Georgiana ignored her brother’s uncharacteristic descent into bad language. “And that’s exactly why I think you should persevere. She would be so good for you, Will. You ride roughshod over most of us, you know. You need someone to stand up to you now and again!”
_____________________________
Georgiana was silent as they left the heat and dust of the fields behind them. She focused on executing a neat turn onto the main road and then allowed a few minutes to pass before she broke into speech.
“Elizabeth, you will tell me to mind my own business if I overstep the mark. Am I right to say that a misunderstanding has arisen between my brother and yourself?”
Elizabeth turned her head away, as if looking at the passing scenery, however her voice was quite firm when she said, “Perhaps there is a misunderstanding on your brother’s side; but I believe that I quite clearly understood him to say that in his opinion I had entered into a courtship with the Reverend Pembroke because I was on the shelf and desperate to marry.”
“Surely not!” exclaimed Georgiana, and seeing an impatient movement out of the corner of her eye, said hastily, “No, I don’t doubt your word, Eliz
abeth. William has a temper, but I have never known him to be deliberately hurtful. He must love you very much!”
“Certainly more than anyone else: if love is to be measured in degrees of spite.”
Georgiana smiled vaguely at this bitter witticism. “I’m not excusing him but it’s not all his fault, you know. He was taught to take pride in our family’s position and his own power. Although he usually exercises his authority kindly, he struggles when he is opposed - especially when it is something that he particularly prizes. I know that he is aware of this flaw and I have seen him try to correct it. He might be a little impetuous but he is a good man, Elizabeth. You will think me biased, but I sincerely believe that you will go a long way before you find anyone as moral and kind as my brother.”
.
Chapter 31
“What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire”
W.B. Yeats
A second glass of brandy in his hand, Darcy sat looking down at his desk, absently rubbing at a smudged fingerprint on its polished surface when the study door opened with something of a bang and Fitzwilliam breezed in on the draught.
“What’s this that I am hearing from Georgie, Darce?” he demanded.
“Close the door, Fitz,” said Darcy wearily. “I don’t need the entire house listening to my business.”
Fitz obliged and then turned to face Darcy. “I hear that your Miss Bennet is engaged.”
“Not engaged. I believe I told Georgie several times that Miss Bennet is being courted by the vicar of her village,” said Darcy in a toneless voice and then swallowed the contents of his glass in its entirety.
“I probably wasn’t listening properly. So only a courtship! And here you are looking like the final act in a Greek tragedy. Are you just going to sit here and drink yourself into a stupor or are you going to go out there and do something about making her wish that she were free?”
The Golden Apples of the Sun Page 26
