Page 50 of Moments of Truth

“Some trials,” he returned, his eyes alight for a moment, “bring their own reward.”

She understood him, and the understanding was a sweetness she had not expected to taste again.

Their conversation, on other days, turned to books.

He did not overwhelm her with authorities; he confessed to gaps in his reading and asked what she recommended to fill them.

She named Cowper; he nodded, smiling, and said he should be glad to see the world with a gentler philosopher than himself for guide.

When she rallied him for the severity of his early opinions, he accepted the charge with so manly a humility that her raillery transformed into respect.

Where once their words had struck sparks, now they gave light.

Georgiana’s name arose by degrees. Darcy spoke of his sister with a reserve that sprang not from pride but from tenderness—how she loved the early morning at the pianoforte; how she was shy and yet, among the few she trusted, the kindest of companions.

“It is my hope,” he said, looking not at Elizabeth but at the open window and the sweep of meadow beyond, “that, when it may be proper, Miss Darcy might profit by Miss Bennet’s friendship.

” Elizabeth answered softly that she would consider such a request an honour indeed; and because she had seen his care to place propriety before inclination, she felt the honour more.

Mr. Bennet’s scrutiny, though masked by humour, was exact.

He did not leave his favourite daughter without the shelter of his own presence; he proposed chess when conversation flagged, and, when it did not, he pretended it did.

One evening, after Darcy had taken his leave with a bow that was almost shy, Mr. Bennet observed, “He is not a lively man, Lizzy; but then, lively men make lively blunders. I do not say he is perfect—perfection is the prerogative of fathers—but I begin to suspect he has two rare qualifications: he does not talk nonsense, and he listens when others refuse to be nonsensical.”

Elizabeth, who could not trust her voice, smiled and turned a page she had not read.

There were walks on the lane—with Kitty, or Mary, or Mrs. Bennet herself pressing between—when the hedgerows were all a-bloom, and the talk, though guarded, deepened imperceptibly.

There were mornings Darcy arrived on horseback, dismounted with a thoughtfulness for the groom, and stood a moment by the gate as if collecting himself for happiness.

There were small tokens of attention that were no tokens at all—never a gift, only a remembered preference: that she liked the west window in the parlour for its light, that she never took a second cup of tea unless the first had been too hot, that her laughter, when it came, was loveliest at the end of a long day.

Once—only once—he asked forgiveness directly.

They had reached the old elm at the field’s turn, Mary lingering a few yards away to admire the clouds.

“Miss Bennet,” he said, and the formality told her how much he felt, “you have been generous beyond my claim. If ever you should remember my past with pain, I entreat you to set against it not my words but my endeavours. I would wish to earn the peace I have disturbed.”

She looked up—steady now, for his humility steadied her.

“I have remembered it,” she answered, “and do not mean to forget; but I hope to remember it as part of a lesson that has done us both good.” Then, because candour had begun their new acquaintance and must sustain it, she added, though her colour rose, “I was not less in error than you.”

He was silent a moment, and the gratitude in that silence had more eloquence than speech.

Mrs. Bennet declared, in the privacy of her chamber, that Mr. Darcy improved prodigiously when one knew how to manage him; and if by “manage” she meant allow him to be everything he had quietly become, Elizabeth could not object.

Mary, for her part, confided to Elizabeth that Mr. Darcy had a mind fitted for seriousness, “which is, in a husband, a very great advantage—provided,” added Mary with unbending integrity, “that he knows when not to be solemn.” Elizabeth laughed and kissed her.

So the weeks unfurled—tender, measured, and wonderfully secure.

It was not the violent rapture Mrs. Bennet would have applauded from the housetops, nor the sparkling warfare Elizabeth had once mistaken for felicity.

It was something rarer: the daily discovery that respect had ripened into trust, and trust into a warmth that made even silence companionable.

If once they had stood opposed—pride against prejudice—they now advanced, step for step, into a country neither had travelled, where humility could be brave and affection, at last, unafraid.

On an evening of soft gold light, Mr. Bennet, having watched long enough to satisfy both his caution and his heart, closed his book and spoke with playful gravity.

“Lizzy, if a certain gentleman should, at the proper time, request a longer walk than a chaperone can easily compass, I may be prevailed upon to believe that the gravel will take no harm.”

Elizabeth, startled into a smile that trembled, curtsied as if to cover the treachery of tears.

She thought of a letter grave and honourable; of hands that had learned to serve rather than command; of a look that had once offended and now kept its distance for her sake.

If ever happiness is to be tried again, she told her heart, let it be thus—slowly, rightly, with gratitude.

And because gratitude is the most reliable architect of joy, she believed it would be.