Page 8 of Pride, Prejudice, and Parenthood (Heartfelt Pride and Prejudice Variations #5)

The afternoon following the visit of Elizabeth and the rest of the Bennets, Mr. Bingley ducked his head into the nursery when Emily had fallen asleep for her now once-daily nap.

“There you are, old fellow, off for a ride. Need a gallop. You do too.”

Darcy went out with him.

They said a few words as they gathered their horses and set off over field and dell on a proper countryside run.

Darcy’s mind was on Elizabeth, on her face and way of being. How Emily had let Elizabeth pick her up.

He felt a deep tenderness for Elizabeth, and a sense of something… that there was something precious about the friendship they had developed. He had never spoken so much to anyone about Anne since she had died.

Darcy missed Anne.

A jump over a hedge, Darcy needed to grab his hat to keep it from flying off, and then down on the other side, one hand in the reins, and the exhilaration of galloping again, now down the roadside. His eyes seeking forward, to make sure there were no gopher holes or ditches along the line.

Bingley behind him whooping in glee.

Anne had become dear to him as a friend. As more than a friend… She had been his wife, after all. While he tended to silence, she drew him to talk, and he saw her every day. They lived together, and he’d learned to talk to Anne, to be comfortable in her presence, in the way that he was comfortable with Georgiana, or Richard, or best of all, when no one else was around at all.

Anne would have liked Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is the sort of woman she would have wanted you to marry after she died .

They turned down a new road with a wide field to each side, and then onto a clear road leading up to a grassy knoll with three benches circling the top. It was a shallow enough incline that they could ride the horses up to the top, at least from this side, at speed.

With a shout and a gesture Bingley showed that he meant to race Darcy to the top, and then he started out with a “Heehaw!”

There it was again, that bad horse that Elizabeth had referred to, in her slightly mangled reference to Plato. It told him to defile the pure and platonic friendship he had developed with Elizabeth with base passions and thoughts of her physical person.

She was a beautiful woman, with fine eyes, a wide mobile mouth, freckles and dimples, a light and pleasing figure, and that smile and laugh. His stomach leapt when she looked directly at him.

It would be easy, far too easy, to let himself fall in love with her. He was in danger, and he must be on his guard.

Darcy had fallen behind Bingley, more due to his preoccupation than any other cause, and he pulled up to a stop at the top of the hill. His horse, Aristotle, gasped.

Darcy lightly dismounted and petted Aristotle about the ears.

Bingley likewise came down, and he went to stand next to Darcy. They admired the late afternoon sun, the reddish light gleaming over the clouds and the brightly burning sun. The chittering of birds sounded. A soft wind tugged at them. There was an evening chill that seeped through them both, now that they had ceased to exercise.

“By George, a beautiful day!” Bingley exclaimed. “A perfect day! — to think, I was half bored with the world when that whole crowd arrived so early.”

“I fear that I’ve forgotten what it is to be bored with the world.” Darcy shook his head, wondering at himself.

Bingley laughed. “Fatherhood agrees with you. You approach it with great spirit. But then you always throw your full effort into that which you consider important. No dilettante like me.”

Darcy nodded.

Then Bingley made a huffing sound, and Darcy looked at him, as he showed him an amused grin. “Was I supposed to insist that you are not in sober truth a dilettante?”

“Upon my honour.” Bingley grinned. “I know better than to expect such a little lie from you . And we both know my defects — Lord, it’s a damned pity.”

“What?”

Bingley frowned and shrugged, then he said, “Miss Bennet was missing for a great while. The footmen didn’t find her when we sent them out so the Bennets could leave, and then she simply appeared.” Bingley looked at Darcy with raised eyebrows.

“We’d fallen into a conversation while I walked with Emily. There is nothing odd there. Or disreputable.”

Bingley grinned and raised his hands. “You are awfully quick to imagine that someone might imagine something disreputable.”

Darcy frowned.

“I of course imagined nothing disreputable, and I could not imagine anyone imagining anything disreputable.”

“Do not say anything, the reputation of a young lady can be fragile. And—”

“You are a devastated widower,” Bingley replied laughing. “Simply tell everyone that you spent the time talking about the late Mrs. Darcy, and — good God. The deuce.” Bingley then continued in a quiet, serious voice, “I apologize. I should not have made sport. You were talking about Mrs. Darcy, I could see that from your start. And you have every right to still be unhappy. Mrs. Darcy was a kind woman, a good woman.”

“An angel.” Darcy stared out at the landscape and the slowly setting sun.

The chittering bird had fallen silent. The air was colder. The light was dying. It was late in Autumn. Winter cold was soon to be with them all.

But Emily was in her earliest Spring, and Darcy would cling to that thought.

“Speaking of angels, I think Mrs. Collins was the loveliest woman I’ve ever seen,” Bingley replied. “It’s a damned pity — Darcy, you cannot live your whole life thinking about Mrs. Darcy. Time heals. And… well… how might I say this… she is beneath what you might expect, but Miss Bennet likes you a great deal, and you clearly like her well enough. I’d say that—”

He fell quiet under Darcy’s fierce glare.

After a minute of silence, Bingley grinned once more and said, “Well, and now I have done what I have always known I ought never do, and proffered advice to you, and what is worse, advice which I knew you would not take kindly to. Do ignore what I have said, as I know you shall.”

“Do you think me so… incapable of listening to advice?”

“No one listens to advice they do not like. When I am asked for my opinion, I make a practice of agreeing with people if I consider them to be correct, and I say nothing when I do not.”

“I will not marry again,” Darcy said quietly. “I do not wish to. I have determined not to. And I shall explore no possibility, whether that chance be splendid or lowering.”

They went back to Netherfield, keeping the horses to a comfortable walk, and the two of them soon ended their silence to chatter about the fineness of the land, the plans that had been set for hunting over the next few weeks, and Bingley announced that he’d determined to have a ball in another week or so. “And if you think it shall be a punishment rather than a pleasure, you may go to bed before it begins!”

Darcy grinned. “The true soul of hospitality.”

“And though I can’t stop you, I’d rather you not spend the whole night standing about in that stupid manner you did at the assembly ball.”

“You may depend on me dancing half the night. I am now acquainted with many persons in this neighbourhood, and so I might dance without it being a punishment.”

Bingley’s raised eye was quite sceptical. Then he grinned, and asked, “I take it you’ll ask Miss Bennet for the first two?” And then before Darcy could answer, Bingley whooped and hurried his horse off down the road.

Two days later, when Bingley and Darcy rode out into town to deliver the invitations to the ball, they discovered the Bennet sisters walking into town. Both Bingley and Darcy dismounted, with Bingley exclaiming as he did, and chiefly speaking to Mrs. Collins, “My dear friends, we were on the road to call upon you. That ball we talked of — the date is settled! Tuesday next. Here is the invitation.”

And Bingley pressed the envelope into the blushing hands of Mrs. Collins.

Darcy was aware of how he had been too assiduous of Elizabeth’s welfare of late, and he purposefully looked about the rest of the group before settling his eyes on her.

She smiled at him, with a rather worn look. And next to her stood a gentleman whose name Darcy could not recall, but who was one of the members of Lady Catherine’s neighbourhood, and who had been chiefly remarkable for being known as a brute to both his first and second wives.

Anger went through him at seeing the possessive way he hovered about Elizabeth.

The short, wiry, greying gentleman did not even attempt to hide his leering gaze at Elizabeth. Darcy hurried over and inclined his head to them. “Miss Bennet.”

“Mr. Darcy.” She smiled at him, a look of relief in her eyes. She gestured towards the other gentleman. “This is Mr. Sykes, a friend of my cousin.”

“We are acquainted,” Mr. Sykes said to Darcy. “Condolences on the loss of Mrs. Darcy, and all. But,” Mr. Sykes lowered his voice, “between you and me, and do not tell your aunt, she was such an ugly little thing that you must be happy to be rid of her.”

The only thing which made the production of such a statement understandable to Darcy, even given the man’s poor character, was the strong scent of brandy already present on the gentleman’s breath despite the early hour.

Darcy contemplated challenging him to a duel, and then he rejected the thought. There always was a danger when guns came out, and he would not risk leaving Emily an orphan.

“Come now, Darcy.” Sykes patted Darcy familiarly on the arm. “I’ve seen how you notice pretty girls. You are no molly. Had to marry her for the money, and the family, but she was nothing to look at — not like Miss Bennet here.”

A glance at Miss Bennet showed that Elizabeth was clearly disgusted by the gentleman.

Mr. Collins entered their conversation and said, “Mr. Darcy, it is always a matter ecstatic to see a scion of the noble Fitzwilliam line. I have also insisted that Mrs. Collins accompany us to town, as walking a great deal is salutary for pregnant women.”

“So I have read,” Darcy replied.

“If only wealthy women generally would walk more frequently, in the way that peasant girls do, the scourge of Eve would be eliminated, and none would die in the childbed. Lady Catherine herself told me that her own daughter, your wife, likely died because she did not walk so frequently before her confinement as she ought to have. Mistakes on the part of those who care for them are the chief cause of deaths amongst children and women. But I am so blessed as to have little cause for concern for my own Mrs. Collins.”

And so saying he turned to his wife and elaborately bowed to her.

“Diamond of the first water!” Mr. Sykes exclaimed, also looking at Mrs. Collins, who cheerily spoke with a smiling Bingley. “Even in the middle of growing her animal, she’s a better looker than Miss Bennet. Not, by Gad,” he said to Elizabeth, “that you cannot claim to be a fine looking woman yourself. By Gad, you are a finely curved and worthy specimen. By my lights, I’d stare at you for hours without boredom.”

The twist of Elizabeth’s mouth suggested that the compliment had not fallen on fertile soil.

Darcy took the opportunity to step between the two of them in a gesture that he thought was rather awkward and obvious, and he took Elizabeth’s arm. “And where were you going to in town?”

Sykes exclaimed, “No, no! You’ll not cut me out. I was walking with Miss Bennet.”

That urge to slap the man and pray that he offered a challenge in turn returned.

Rather to Darcy’s surprise, a look of sobriety briefly entered Sykes eyes, and he backed away from Darcy’s glare, slightly raising his hands. “All friends here.”

Mr. Bingley exclaimed, “You all are invited to my ball on this coming Tuesday. Both you, Mr. Collins, and you, Mr. Sykes. You are acquainted with Darcy? Very good, very good. More friends always make the world a better place. I love friends!”

“A ball? By Gad, I love a good ball,” Mr. Sykes happily exclaimed, stumbling over the curb as he did so in a way that nearly had him topple into a small pile of horse droppings. “Miss Bennet, I’ll have you dance the first two with me. By Gad, I do insist on the first two.”

Darcy felt a strong surge of what he suspected to be jealousy.

Ridiculous, Elizabeth was fully aware of how terrible Mr. Sykes's character was — the gentleman made no effort to hide his awfulness — and Darcy would be sure to tell her about the tales of his mistreatment of his previous wives. She was in no danger from such a man, even if he did own a fine estate worth three thousand a year.

Seeming to see no option, perhaps especially with Mr. Collins staring peculiarly at her, but to assent, Elizabeth agreed to dance the first two with Mr. Sykes.

They came up to Mrs. Phillips's door, and the woman immediately invited all of them to enter, saying that any friend of her nieces’ was a dear friend of her own.

Bingley now recollected that he had many more persons who he wished to deliver the invitations for the ball to, and that as much delight as he had in the company of Mrs. Collins and all the rest of them, he ought to fulfil his responsibilities, but that he expected to see each and every person here at his ball, and he would be gravely offended if any of them did not attend without ample excuse.

That was said with such a laugh and a smile as to make it impossible for any of them to be frightened of Bingley’s future disapprobation.

Darcy did not wish to leave Elizabeth alone with Mr. Sykes, but it seemed he had no choice in the matter.

Mrs. Phillips loudly offered an invitation to everyone in the party to attend a nice comfortable noisy game of lottery tickets that evening, with a bit of hot supper afterwards.

To Darcy’s enormous surprise he agreed to attend, even though the prospect of a “comfortable noisy game” sounded wholly unappealing, and even though he would not bring Emily to join such a crowd.

Bingley of course also very cheerfully promised to come, and to bring his sisters if they wished to come.

Elizabeth looked at Darcy oddly, as though she were surprised that he had agreed to come to the card party.

He tilted his hat to her when she went into her aunt’s house, and said, “Till this evening.”

A warm smile and a promise of “this evening” was Darcy’s reward.

That evening Darcy and Bingley arrived rather later than Darcy had wished to, as Bingley’s sisters at first planned to attend, and then at the last minute Miss Bingley changed her mind, and spent twenty minutes attempting to convince them all that it would be a tiresome, hot, vulgar, unpleasant, with little elegance, low stakes at the cards, and a supper following that would not be worthy of the august title of food .

Those final two considerations were sufficient to convince Mr. Hurst that he wished to have no part in the evening entertainments. What purpose cards, if the stakes were not high enough to make them interesting, and what purpose had a meal if the food was not the best food that he could acquire for the occasion?

Darcy listened to the whole argument with ever increasing annoyance. Finally, Miss Bingley turned to him with a bright smile and said, “My dear, dear Darcy, you cannot wish to abandon your sweet Emily for the whole night for such an event?”

The image of Elizabeth being forced to sit next to a drunken Mr. Sykes, combined with an even worse image in which he imagined that she liked sitting next to him, made it impossible for Darcy to not attend.

In reply Darcy walked to the door. “I said that I shall attend, and so I shall. Bingley, are you coming?”

Bingley laughed, shrugged, and said, “Well, Caro, no accounting for Darcy’s moods and tastes. I joke, I can account for this well enough. And even though you all are stay-at-homes, I also want to attend. Do not worry about staying up for us, we’ll return drunk, vulgar, and singing loudly enough to wake the dead. And goodbye.”

When Darcy arrived, he found everyone was already about to sit down for various games of cards. His nightmarish image of Elizabeth being accosted by Mr. Sykes was somewhat relieved by seeing that Mr. Sykes’s attention was monopolized by Miss Charlotte Lucas, who was in the process of encouraging him to be her partner at the whist table when Darcy entered.

Elizabeth’s face brightened on seeing Darcy, and she smiled as he came across the room towards her and bowed. “Miss Bennet.”

She curtsied. “Mr. Darcy.”

They sat down at speculation, with Elizabeth’s sister Miss Lydia at Darcy’s other side. Lydia chattered at both of them cheerfully for several minutes, mentioning several times that it was such a joke that they intended to marry Elizabeth to not only an old man, but a drunken sot as well.

Darcy rather thought ill of this display of sisterly kindness, and it did not leave him well disposed towards Miss Lydia.

Soon Miss Lydia became engrossed in the game, eagerly shouting at her bets and exclaiming after the prizes.

“I did not know,” Darcy said when he had a chance to speak when he thought Miss Lydia was paying no attention to them, “that you were acquainted with Mr. Sykes.”

Elizabeth grimaced. Glancing about, as though to make sure that no one who might object was nearby, Elizabeth quietly said, “Odious man.”

Lydia did hear, despite the precaution. She diverted her attention from the game sufficiently to giggle. “Odorous man.” Then she mimed drinking from a flask of alcohol. She giggled again and added once more, “They are going to make Lizzy marry him. It’s such a joke.”

Darcy frowned deeply. “Surely they do not mean to.”

“No, no they will.” Lydia giggled. “You should have heard Mama and Mr. Collins talking about how wonderful it would be for Lizzy to no longer be a burden. Lizzy, when you marry Mr. Sykes, can I then have your room? It is so much nicer than my own. And your pink ribbon.”

“You ought not discuss this at an open table.” Elizabeth gestured at Maria Lucas and another young girl whose name Darcy could not recall. He believed she was the one who the militia commander, Colonel Forster, meant to marry.

Both young women intently watched the situation, the one with as much amusement and delight as Lydia, and Miss Maria with what Darcy thought was sympathy for Elizabeth.

Elizabeth’s reticence made Lydia giggle again. She nudged Miss Maria, and said, “Oh, everyone will know.” Darcy was beginning to despise Miss Lydia, despite her close relation to Elizabeth. “I heard them. You’ll have to.”

“I really shall not,” Elizabeth replied calmly. “I have no feeling of the sort towards him, and I am sure that Mr. Sykes does not intend to make me an offer. Which I would refuse.”

“It will be such a to-do, like we’ve never had, when you refuse. Mama will swear to never speak to you again. And Mr. Collins, I do not know what he shall do, but he will be even angrier at you than he was when he found out that you were reading novels.” Lydia giggled. “It is such a joke. I borrow all my novels from Maria and Harriet. You should get yours from Charlotte.”

“Lydia!” Elizabeth smacked her cards flat down on the table.

“It will be such a joke. I cannot wait to watch!”

“ You shall see nothing of it.”

Lydia laughed again, but then her focus returned to the game when the next flip of the cards showed her as having won a particularly large prize.

Darcy did not quite feel sufficient to beginning another conversation with Elizabeth while her sister and sundry others could hear.

Thus, the duty fell to Elizabeth to speak next. “I am happy to see you here,” Elizabeth said, “though it must be an uncongenial environment for you.”

Darcy looked around. He certainly had noted the cheap mantelpiece, the giant collection of manufactured figurines, the low ceilings, and the general lack of… elegance in the room.

“If it pleases you that I am here,” Darcy said quietly enough that he did not think Lydia would be able to hear clearly, “then I am well rewarded.”

Elizabeth flushed in reply to that. Her cheeks were pink. The rounded curve of her jaw and neck made his stomach jump.

“You do look very odd here. I think you are too big for my aunt’s chairs.”

Darcy laughed.

“You are,” Elizabeth insisted, smiling. “I am surprised you did not bring Emily.”

“I know her well enough to know that she would be bored at the cards. I would have spent the entire evening telling her to not grab everyone’s cards, and when someone inevitably was charmed into giving her theirs, she would throw them wildly about.”

Elizabeth laughed. “No, Emily?”

Darcy nodded seriously.

“And she always looks so peaceable.”

They did not speak much more while playing cards, except commonplaces upon the room and the situation.

Darcy knew that he ought to say something further about Mr. Sykes, even if Elizabeth insisted that she had no plan to marry the gentleman. But he could not say so much in front of the other girls.

Unfamiliar anxiety suffused him. He did not think he had felt so helpless since the time Emily had a hot fever. He could not help Elizabeth… should not help her.

But if he did not find a way to help her, he was not the gentleman he ought to be. Elizabeth’s whole family was dependent on the goodwill of Mr. Collins, and thus it would be no small thing for her to refuse to marry the man that Mr. Collins had invited to court Elizabeth as his third wife.

He could not expect Elizabeth to refuse that demand, not when it actually was made to her.

And… he absolutely could not allow Elizabeth to marry Mr. Sykes, no matter what it took to prevent it. Could not. Could not. Could not.

Darcy barely paid attention to his cards. They played for what seemed to him to be absurdly low stakes, and so Darcy only lost a few guineas before the cards were put away, and the promised hot supper was brought into the room.

When Lydia and Maria leapt from the table to get their early chance at acquiring the melted cheese on toast that Mrs. Phillips handed around, Elizabeth tapped Darcy’s arm and gestured for them to go to the corner by the fireplace.

He’d earlier overheard Mr. Collins comparing it to the mantelpiece in one of Lady Catherine’s secondary rooms.

“What has preoccupied you?”

Elizabeth’s eyes were soft, beautiful, and warm. He was so used to her flashing and laughing looks, that the sympathetic gaze startled him out of speaking for a few seconds.

She was so beautiful, and he now saw her beauty in new ways that he hadn’t already found.

He then recalled what she’d asked him and looked around the room. His eyes found Mr. Sykes who was engrossed in conversation with Miss Lucas, and who'd placed a hand on his arm for a second, before demurely flapping her fan.

Darcy felt a mild worry for Elizabeth’s friend, who he had a sudden suspicion hoped to use the gentleman’s wounded pride following Elizabeth’s refusal to gain a possible husband. “Mr. Sykes is known for his abominable treatment of women. I have heard from multiple persons tales of how he mistreated both of his previous wives. That is likely why he is seeking a wife here , no woman aware of his reputation would be willing to marry him.”

“I see.” Elizabeth looked towards Mr. Sykes, with a deep frown of her own, and then she almost immediately looked down and away, and muttered, “I do not wish him to see me looking at him and decide that I hoped for his company.”

“No.”

“I thank you for the warning, but it is wholly unnecessary, I have told you that I am determined to only marry in a case of strong affection between both parties. I assure you, that does not subsist betwixt me and Mr. Sykes.”

“I know.” Darcy frowned, not sure how to say what he wanted to, how to not be a busybody. And worse than that, a useless busybody.

“But?” Elizabeth smiled upon him. “I dare say I have never seen you so at loss for words.”

“I am generally considered to be taciturn.”

“You often do not find anyone who you wish to speak to, and then you are taciturn, but once you have decided you like a conversation well enough to be part of it, you speak fluently.”

“When you are placed under pressure, I beg you to not forget your resolution.” Darcy swallowed. “You are dependent upon Mr. Collins, he may threaten your whole family to force you to marry. And in such a situation, it can be easy to forget… what you owe to yourself.”

“I will not.” Elizabeth smiled thinly. “I have already thought about the matter — and not because of Sykes. If necessary, I’ll… I might always become a governess. I have improved my playing on the piano, knowledge of drawing, and facility at Italian enormously since Papa’s death, with that thought in mind. I can gain independence from Mr. Collins if I must. And I delight in my heart when I think how much he would hate the shame of the thing.”

“No, you should not do that. There is very little independence in such a position.”

“Then what would you have me do?” Elizabeth’s voice was sharper than Darcy thought he’d ever heard from her. She vibrated with tension. “What other option would you give me?”

Ask her to marry you .

No.

I swore not to marry again, out of respect for Anne. This is my passion trying, once more, to run away with me, and I’ll not reward myself.

“You have an easy life,” Elizabeth said. “There is no need for you to worry about your independence. You have great wealth, and even if you had none, you are a man, and a capable man. You could always find a respectable occupation for yourself. I am a woman.” Elizabeth wiped her eyes suddenly. “My father is dead. There is no man who loves me in a way—” She wiped at her eyes again. “I apologize, Mr. Darcy. I have no happy options. I must choose amongst the unhappy paths that lie before me. Which course has the least evil, since none are filled with good.”

“I am worried for you.” Darcy’s stomach ached as he said that.

You can ask her to marry her. Do it.

“If you cannot help me, and you can only tell me that you are worried — I thank you for what you told me of Mr. Sykes’s reputation. But it only confirms what I already knew from his words and general behaviour here. Please do not bother me with your useless anxieties. I already know I shall hurt my family. I know that Mama will be angry with me. And that — I do not need you to tell me.”

She pulled her handkerchief out and dabbed at her eyes and walked away, exclaiming in forced cheer, “Do save a piece of toast for me!”

Darcy felt stupid.

He observed the room. Mr. Sykes approached Elizabeth and took her arm. She gave him a flat, polite smile as she ate. Mr. Bingley and Mrs. Collins sat together talking, while Mr. Collins cheerfully spoke to Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Phillips. It seemed to him that all three of them were observing Mr. Sykes and Elizabeth.

Lydia Bennet was hugging one of her friends.

The room was crowded, had a slight stench from too many people, sweaty, too warm, and he missed Emily.

He damned himself.

Darcy went to the window and opened it up, and he let the cold air cover his face, feeling much better.

“No, no, no. We’ll all catch our deaths. You know how much ill health is caused by cold air hitting sweaty skin.” Mrs. Phillips shut the window and latched it.

Darcy considered making a sharp retort, but he was not certain that this medical commonplace was nonsense. Perhaps it was unhealthful, that seemed not greatly more unlikely than anything else doctors said. This was Mrs. Phillips’s house, and it was her right to keep the window closed if she so wished.

Rather than going off, Mrs. Phillips looked towards Elizabeth, where Darcy as well was looking. “Fine girl, my niece. Whatever Collins says, I think she can do better than a widower who already has five children, four of them boys. Even if he is rich enough. I always liked Lizzy as much as all my other nieces, even if Fanny liked Jane and Lydia far more.”

“She is a fine woman.”

“Almost as pretty as Fanny was at that age. She was always the pretty one.”

“Was Mrs. Bennet more…” Darcy hesitated. “Was her character much the same when she was young?”

Mrs. Phillips laughed. “We were all confident pretty girls. It was a lovely time. Why, I remember those days… What I would give to be young again — you do not realize when you are young. Mr. Darcy, I hope… oh well, let me simply say this—” She gestured at the black armband he always wore round his coat sleeve. “If you refuse every chance of happiness now because of that, in twenty or five and twenty years, you may wonder at what sort of a fool you were.”

Darcy grimaced and did not reply.

Mrs. Phillips flushed. Darcy suspected that she thought she had offended him, but Darcy could not quite decide if he was offended. His emotions had been tossed too much back and forth, and there was a voice in his head that was quietly convinced he was in the process of making a terrible mistake, by not telling Elizabeth… by not asking Elizabeth…

After an awkward silence, Mrs. Phillips said, “We’ve eaten all the toast, but I’ll have the kitchen make more for you. You did not have any, did you?”

“No, no. That is not necessary.”

“Tea? Brandy? I’ll have my best bottle brought out.”

“Thank you, but I beg you no. My stomach is unsettled tonight.”

“Hope it’s not an illness.” Mrs. Phillips flushed again.

Darcy added, wondering if this might have been the source of the woman’s sudden reaction, “I assure you it is not due to your food, nor an illness. Unpleasant thoughts have preoccupied me.”

“Oh.” A pause. Elizabeth’s aunt then said, “You haven’t forgotten that black armband, have you?”

“No, not at all.”

Darcy soon departed from the room. He made his apologies to Bingley and his hosts, saying that he required fresh air, and that as they had taken the horses out, it would be no difficulty to return to Netherfield by himself.

“Do be careful,” Mr. Phillips said. “Always be cautious when riding a horse at night. I never do.”

Elizabeth looked at him. And then pulling herself away from Mr. Sykes, who'd placed a familiar hand on her upper arm, she smiled at Darcy, and said, “I do thank you, very much, for your concern, and for having come tonight. I am glad I saw you.”

Her smile said she meant that.

It warmed Darcy’s heart, and it was that smile that was the vision before his eyes for the whole road to home.