Page 21 of Friendship and Forgiveness (Mr. Underwood’s Elizabeth & Darcy Stories #7)

The next morning Darcy set out on his walk with a decided hope of meeting Elizabeth in the road.

During their conversation the preceding night — when they were not arguing about Miss Bingley — she had mentioned that she loved to walk about the park and talked with admiration about the greening verdure and the thickening leaves in the trees.

Darcy ached with longing for her.

He wanted to see how she would react to Pemberley’s park.

Pemberley.

He loved Pemberley, and that love made him desperate to share it with Elizabeth, as though baring his estate to her was in some way like baring his soul to her. As though if she just saw Pemberley, by some mystical force she would immediately understand him.

He wanted to see her delight, her smiles, eyes wide and bright. The gasp she would make when they came up over that ridge and she saw the manor and park for the first time.

Her ruby lips, a pant of delight, those passionate eyes wide with pleasure.

Her beauty hurt.

Looking at her was a sharp sensation that made it at times hard to breathe. Her rapt attention as she listened to Georgiana play. That face. Elizabeth was too beautiful to even fully understand.

Of course simply wandering leaf to lawn with a vague hope of meeting Elizabeth was no plan .

He would call upon her at a more appropriate hour if this scheme failed, but it was impossible for Darcy not to hope . He tramped around freshly scented woods for more than an hour. Each time he heard footsteps, voices, or the cracking of a branch underfoot, Darcy’s heart leapt, and his stomach flipped, and he eagerly looked to see if it was Elizabeth — alas.

Every time someone else.

And then there she was.

She stood in the sunlight, her head tilted back, the bonnet falling off her hair, held by blue ribbons on her white neck. A butterfly flapped happily in the air, and there was a low sound of twittering birds. She wore sensible brown leather boots. The soft breeze blew over both of them, pulling her dress softly around her legs.

Darcy’s throat caught.

Some sound startled her, and she looked around and saw him.

The smile that wreathed her face made his chest ache.

He loved her.

He knew he would always love her.

He wanted her, and he wanted to grow old with her, slowly turning gray and wrinkled over the decades by her side, and he desperately, desperately wanted to not ruin this second chance.

Her manner towards him the previous night had been such an odd mix of argument, sincere sweetness, and mischievous smiles that he could hardly tell what she thought of him.

But their argument about Miss Bingley had likely done him no favors in her eyes, and he would not make the same mistake today.

Smiling, he hurried up to her. “Miss Elizabeth.”

“Mr. Darcy.” Her voice was chirpy and encouraging. They looked at each other, and she smiled at him.

He required several seconds before he regained that talent of speech which separated man from beast. “My dear Miss Elizabeth, have you completed your morning perambulation yet?”

She shook her head, still smiling as she resettled her bonnet around her hair and patted it into place. She looked like a flower nymph.

“Might I join you?”

“I can think of little that would please me more,” she replied. Elizabeth looked down shyly, but back up to his eyes again with that same smile. “Come, Mr. Darcy — you have been an intimate of this estate for many years. You must show me your favorite pathways.”

So saying she offered him her arm, and he took it.

They set off at a slow amble.

At first Darcy could not shape any coherent phrases for conversation, and Elizabeth was quiet as well.

A part of Darcy — not an inconsiderable part — wished to jump to matters immediately, to ask that question that burned in him: Can I hope?

He suddenly said, “I noted how much you enjoy a ramble during your stay at Netherfield.”

“Yes,” She smiled at him. “I have realized that you often observe me.”

“Particularly when you are lost in the beauty of music.”

She reddened becomingly, and smiled at him. “Or when I am enjoying a sunny morning.”

“I confess to particularly enjoying the opportunity to observe you when you are in the midst of enjoyment. It does not seem to matter what you have derived this enjoyment from, so long as you are…” his voice cracked for a moment, “passionate about it.”

“Ants.”

“What?”

Elizabeth squatted down pointing at a large ant colony. “Do you ever watch them just running back and forth? Moving all the leaves, dragging crumbs from a picnic, you know… just observing them.”

Darcy squatted next to her. The tiny red creatures did in fact scurry back and forth. It was a major colony, with a large pile of loose sand all around the entrance. The hordes rushed in and out. Some carried out stones and bits of dirt, while others brought in the presumably tasty detritus from the land around.

“I haven’t watched an ant colony for many years,” Darcy slowly said, filled suddenly with a sensation that was like regret, but not quite the same. “Not since I was a child. Why do you think we forget to watch the ants?”

She smiled softly at him. “I haven’t yet, but that perhaps is only because Papa always loved every insect. We’d watch them play and collect, and Papa would try to teach us about their habits and manners.”

“Of ants? Are they polite creatures to you ?” Darcy shook his head with a half-smile. “I used to watch them fight,” he said. “I’d get horridly stung while getting a bunch of ants to climb up on a twig, and then I’d carry them to another colony just to see what would happen. It was not nice of course. But I was, I dare say seven or eight, and children of that age do not have that sense… the sense that one should not crush a tiny being if one has no good reason to do so.”

She placed her soft hand on his shoulder and they stood back up.

He stood up again as well, his legs had been starting to become sore from holding himself in place. “George, that is Mr. Wickham, always made fun of me for being fascinated by ants, by beetles, music, living things… he much preferred, even as a small child he much much preferred when he had a chance to charm Papa or one of the tutors. I think his father instilled in him the sense that he must always smile in that way to us, be charming so that we would like him, and so that the great family would continue to shower its favor upon him.”

“Were you two very close?”

“Always together on the same estate… He was two years my younger, and I had a sense of responsibility for him. My father’s godson, rather than his son, but I had no other sibling, except Richard when he visited in the summer. We marched round and round, playing games mostly of my devising. I’d encourage him in his studies, help him with them, and he’d encourage me to skive off from time to time.”

“Did you?”

Darcy laughed. “I hope dearly that when I have a son that he will not be such an unnatural creature as to never avoid his tutor on a particularly fine sunny summer day.”

These memories swirled around Darcy in a thick cloud of acrid smoke.

It had been George who taught him that there were people who were fundamentally bad, and who could never be trusted again.

“I am so, so sad to see your loss,” Elizabeth said.

Darcy pressed his lips together and he nodded. Everything was too warm, pleasant, burbling and green scented. Like childhood.

He could not look directly at her.

“Why?” Darcy flicked a pebble into a tree trunk with his finger. “I asked myself that so many times in university. But his character will never change. He harmed others. He ruined the lives of young women, wrecked engagements, left poor tradesmen with debts he never meant to pay, used his charm to escape consequences, and cheated on exams… I slowly grew to hate him for who he was. Why? Why couldn’t he have been a different man?”

Her eyes were sad.

“I did not ask for him to be a good man — only a man who took some responsibility. Who was not spectacularly bad. He promised to change… he always promised. Promised, promise, promise. I never told my father about the seductions… in fact I took two of his bastards upon my charge. I believe from some disapproving comments that he made one of the last times I saw him, that my father had the impression that they had been mine. And Wickham promised to change… Papa was ill, and I could not bear to tell him how utterly unworthy Wickham was of his affection, of the position we planned for him in the church. Of everything.”

She suddenly threw her arms around him and hugged him. “Mr. Darcy — oh! I wish, I wish he had been.”

The feel of her slender body, of her care, her concern for him. Her breasts briefly pressed against his chest. There were tears in her eyes when she stepped away, blushing at her own boldness, but not repenting of it.

Darcy wiped at his own eyes.

“In any case,” Darcy added, “matters have now ended between us forever.”

They walked on again, side by side in silence. Darcy felt better. As though speaking of Wickham had lanced some boil in his soul, and now that it had been drained, the wound that had been there for so long could begin to heal.

“You are right,” he added. “I ought to forgive Mr. Bingley. He is not… he ought not be sorted into the same drawer as Mr. Wickham.”

She did not reply, he looked at her and smiled. “No crowing over me admitting you have a point?”

“Would it be likely to improve your ability to admit such points in the future were I to do so?”

He smiled in reply. “I like this about you — you have a debater’s cleverness with words. And the philosopher’s ability to let a man find his own conclusion, for it is always more certain when he does.”

“I perhaps spoke too much in the defense of my friends last night — I cannot… I understand you better now but I cannot repent my loyalty, and my…”

“It was the very first thing I noticed about you. The first time we danced together — half the dance you praised Miss Bingley, and the other half you spent wholly confused at why Bingley and your sister danced together a second time .”

Elizabeth laughed sweetly. “I did not credit the idea that Jane could admire Charlie in such a way until… not until they announced it to the family. Though by then I had seen enough to know that such was the natural sequel.”

“Are they happy? — I cannot imagine them being otherwise. With Mr. Bingley’s good nature, amiability, generosity, and… your sister is likewise. Always smiling. They always formed a proper picturesque when they stood together.”

“He misses you.”

“I miss him.” Darcy studied the thick roots on the ground. He kicked aside a stick. “But…”

Elizabeth’s warm smile seemed to speak to him, and say, Yes, you should speak to Bingley once more.

“When you danced with me, it was the first time I had ever been in a dance with an unattached woman who did not spend the whole period seeking to gain my favor.”

Elizabeth giggled. “I suspected! I knew you liked me for not pursuing you. What an odd and complicated inclination.”

Her smiles and laughs filled Darcy with a light floating sensation.

If he could hear her laugh every day for the rest of his life, he would account it a life well worth having been lived.

“Yes,” Darcy replied brightly, finding at this moment even this a matter of amusement, “when I consider it in that light, it is not so surprising that the end of my courtship was different than what I hoped and anticipated.”

“Such an addition of knowledge about your own character!” Elizabeth laughed. “And now you know why it was fortunate for us all that matters ended as they did — had I accepted you, then my display of affection would have inevitably ended your affection for me.”

Her mischievous smile as she said that kept the words from stinging.

Darcy laughed at her expression, her words, and at how desperately he wished he could kiss her rosy lips. “A perverse outcome indeed.”

Their eyes met.

Elizabeth was glowing.

He looked at her lips. Their faces were only a few inches apart.

Darcy swallowed. And without looking away from her eyes, or letting his pounding heart interrupt him, he said, “I could never cease to love you — not even if you came to love me.”

There was anxiety in the pit of his stomach at the daring with which he had spoken as he tried to read her eyes.

Elizabeth bit her lip and tilted her face a little towards him.

He brushed his fingers across her soft cheek, brushing back a few curls. He began to bend towards her.

But Elizabeth turned aside, and she took a deep breath. Her face was blushy red.

They walked forward again, her hand resting on his arm.

The earth was loamy and rich. Roots of great oak trees, decayed leaves from the previous autumn, and thin grasses that struggled to grow under the canopy. The rich scent of growth, hordes of ants and beetles, and in the sunlight bees buzzed from blossoming flower to flower.

They had the luck to see a fine stag who lived in the park on his own morning perambulations. The great antlers stood tall and proud. But when they moved towards him, the animal started and ran in the other direction.

Elizabeth turned to him with a lovely smile and said, “Do you truly wish to be reconciled with Bingley?”

Darcy thought about the question. He thought about Elizabeth. He thought about how she loved her sister, and he thought about how he missed Mr. Bingley. Shooting together, hard rides, fencing matches, studying for exams in university, pranks and parties, drinks and dreams.

After the disappointment of understanding Wickham’s character, his friendship with Bingley had probably been what saved Darcy from becoming a general misanthrope.

“Yes.”

Elizabeth smiled brilliantly at him.

“I do not know if we ever can be what we were to each other before, but… what you said last night. That every person has a spark of the divine in them. That stuck with me all night, bouncing about in my head. How might I serve that spark of the divine in me? — but it is hard. I am a proud man, unused to changing. But I wish to be… I wish to be the sort of man who can forgive. Or at least forgive Bingley for the sort of weakness that he showed.”

“I do not wish you to cease being who you are.”

“No, you tell me to nurture that part of me which is best in me, rather than the part of me which is mean and petty. To become someone… someone who is worthy of… of my own admiration.” He looked at her, and then added despite the anxiety, “And your admiration as well.”

“I say too much!” Elizabeth flushed and stared at the ground. “But truly, I do not know you so well that you should substitute my judgement for your own. Or so well that I could… I do not know you so well!”

The two strolled forward.

Darcy wondered if this was something which she meant to say about her refusal of him. Suddenly he asked, “Is it true that you refused me out of a concern for Miss Bingley’s feelings — that she was the one whose feelings you considered?”

“And not Colonel Fitzwilliam’s?” Elizabeth smirked at him. “Where did you gain such an idea?”

“Colonel Fitzwilliam told me that it must have been her… when I spoke with him about your visit to Rosings. I… ah, had inquired as to why the two of you had not married.”

Elizabeth giggled. “No, no! Heavens! The two of us? Colonel Fitzwilliam and I? We would not suit. No, no, not at all. I like him very much indeed. But he is not to my taste, not nearly so much as…” She blushed, looked at Darcy, and then looked down again.

Darcy’s heart leapt. Did her smile mean that she preferred him to his cousin?

Some part of his reason shouted at Darcy: Of course she likes you more. You are the one she chose to spend the morning in this intimate tete a tete with.

The sun gazed merrily down on them. The sky was blue above. The forest leaves were green, and the ground beneath them was warm, the flowers sun-kissed and flowing with nectar.

“I can be a fool, just as well as any other man.” Darcy laughed at himself.

“You mean to say,” Elizabeth replied with her teasing tone, “that you can be a fool just as an ordinary man can be.”

“Am I so pompous?” He grinned.

“You are very pompous. But as I am over impressed with myself, I like to see that we have the same flaw.”

“That is what we all wish to have in a companion. Not someone who is perfect, but someone whose flaws match well to our own.”

“And their virtues!” Elizabeth cried. “There are certain virtues which while admirable in themselves, would be wholly insupportable in a dear companion.”

“Such as? I am used to thinking of a virtue as always being a good thing — that is what makes it a virtue .”

Elizabeth flushed. “Perhaps… too much pride?”

It was impossible for Darcy not to laugh. “Do you mean that as a criticism of me? I believe pride to be written in the list of the sins, not the virtues. ”

“Oh, no! I was not thinking of you at all. Perhaps my cousin Mr. Collins. Humility, pliability, gratitude — all virtues. But taken to such an excess as he does, they become insupportable. Or your aunt, but I ought not speak of her .”

“Ah! You mean pride once more.”

“And a concern for the wellbeing of others.”

“Expressed by a constant string of instructions. I do wonder what Sir Louis was like, to tolerate such a woman. But perhaps she did not lecture him .”

They both laughed together, secure in having a similar attitude towards Lady Catherine. Darcy smirked at Elizabeth, and she laughed again.

“And I am so besotted,” he added, “that I perceive your flaws as virtues in any case.”

Elizabeth blushed and she rubbed at her hot cheeks. Her eyes were bright and pleased. And she smiled, but she then looked aside.

Ought he ask her again now ? Was the time now ?

“Elizabeth, would you—”

“Please, not yet. I… let me have more time to accustom myself to the thought.”

It was with an odd mixture of dismay and delight that Darcy received that sentence which seemed to have a promise that while it was not yet the time, that this time would likely come.

“That is, I hardly know.” Elizabeth stumbled forward. “Oh! I am like my mother. I am in such a flutter. I’ll never tease her for her nervous habits again.”

“What do you not know?” Darcy’s voice was low, and there was a burr in it. He took her hand and held it close.

She looked down, chewed her lip, and wrinkled her nose in a quite adorable manner.

Seeing a fine tree trunk lying near them, she sat on it, and Darcy sat next to her, a little pleased to be able to sit. His feet were tired, as he’d walked more than an hour looking for her before they met.

At last Elizabeth sighed. “I suppose… I do not wish to be forced to choose between you and Caroline. Were I to be your wife, I cannot imagine that…” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged. “That is what I fear.”

“That I would not permit you to maintain a friendship with a woman who wronged me and whose character I despise.”

Elizabeth looked at him with a rueful smile. “The manner in which you speak of her makes my point.”

Darcy held her gaze for a long moment. He looked down at his finely polished black boots. The ridges of the trunk they sat on pressed into his bottom. He absently broke off a piece of the bark, rubbed it against the trunk, and then tossed it away.

This was where that spark of the divine that Elizabeth had promised was in him would be useful.

Jove!

This was wholly ridiculous. He was wholly ridiculous, and worse, he was the sort of fool who could be rightly laughed at.

He loved Elizabeth. Love, care, family, affection — that was what he claimed to himself were the values of greatest importance.

It would be not merely ridiculous , but stupid as well to prefer his resentment towards Miss Bingley to Elizabeth’s love and hand in marriage.

A fat green caterpillar scrunched itself up and then stretched its way forward on the ground. More of the ants they’d admired earlier. A very small black beetle.

It was unfair.

Why did she expect him to choose between his just and honorable resentment at a crime committed against him, and her? He did not like anything which had the foul scent of a demand.

His own words from earlier echoed through his mind: I wish to become someone who is worthy of my own admiration.

What had he really meant?

Elizabeth did not ask him to choose. She asked him a wholly different question: What sort of man are you?

“Mr. Darcy, please say something. I cannot — I do wish to hear you say something.”

“I find that I am not wholly certain who I am. Or perhaps I fear that the man who I am is not the man who I wish to be — or a man who is worthy of you.”

She solemnly looked at him, and she placed her palm on top of his hand.

Darcy laughed. “You really did refuse me for Miss Bingley’s sake! I did not even consider that at the time. I was terribly jealous of Colonel Fitzwilliam, and perhaps I had this unworthy, unjust, and unspoken sentiment in my breast that no woman would reject a really favorable match for the sake of a friend.”

Elizabeth giggled. “I was supposed to keep Colonel Fitzwilliam distracted so that he would not bother Caroline as she focused upon you.”

“Upon her orders.” Darcy ruefully shook his head. Elizabeth had been quite devoted to her friend’s interests.

He remembered how close he had felt to Wickham. Grown up together in the same house, playing together in the same rooms, educated together in the same school. Such a friendship would be hard for a loyal woman such as Elizabeth to betray.

“Of course,” she replied with a small smile.

“Well, well.” Darcy rose and he extended his hand to Elizabeth to help her stand from the trunk. She looked up at him smilingly, the curve of her bosom was outlined by her tightly buttoned pale pink redingote. “It is too cold to sit out very long without moving.”

She took his hand and rose, standing and facing him. Just a few inches separated their bodies. They almost brushed against each other.

And suddenly everything changed.

Her soft lips, her tanned cheeks, her fine eyes, dark hair, curls falling around the face and framed by a pink bonnet. There were freckles on her nose. Her closeness. Her scent was heady, with a hint of rose water.

Those lips trembled.

Suddenly Elizabeth kissed him, wrapping her hand around his neck and pulling his head down so she could reach more easily.

Her lips were soft, sweet, sensual. Darcy’s heart nearly exploded from the magical experience.

She withdrew, and looked at him with wide eyes. “I did not mean to—”

He kissed her.

Darcy pulled her tightly against his body, cradled the back of her head in one warm large hand, and with the other he held her close to him. She wrapped her arms tightly around his back, and the kiss went on and on.

She placed a hand against his cheek, pulling softly at his ear, and she moaned against his mouth. The sensation continued forever as they explored each other. Touching, slowly kissing, longing for each other, their noses bumping and rubbing.

“Elizabeth,” he whispered when their lips parted, “marry me.”

Her eyes were wide; she looked almost scared.

And then she smiled so brilliantly that his breath was stolen away.

That look in her eyes was imprinted on his soul so that he would remember how she smiled at him now for the rest of his life.

“Yes, Mr. Darcy, I believe I will.”