Page 18 of Searching for Elizabeth (A Pride and Prejudice Variation)

—afternoon—

Elizabeth Bennet was surprised but pleased to see Mary approaching; however, then she noted her sister’s face. Her sister’s eyes were red, and her usual smile was absent.

“Come in, dearest,”

Lizzy said. She took off her pelisse and swiftly put aside it with the rest of the outerwear she and Mr. Darcy had just donned. She guided Mary to one of the chairs by the little table and then hastened to make tea.

Mr. Darcy seemed to be trying to help. He got out two cups, saucers, and spoons. Then he hesitated, his hand hovering near the third cup.

“Should I—”

he started to ask.

Mary immediately shot a smile in his direction and interrupted, “Please stay, sir. I just…I want to tell both of you why I am upset. I hope I have not said the wrong thing to Jane….”

Soon all three were seated at the little table, sipping tea. Mr. Darcy looked from Lizzy to Mary and back again. Since Mary did not go on, Lizzy asked, “You are upset about Jane?”

Lizzy had made the assumption, when she first saw Mary’s red eyes, that their mother had said upsetting things. But now she prepared herself to hear another negative report about a sister she had not long ago greatly esteemed.

Mary gulped a bit and plunged into her tale: “I fear that Jane is becoming Mama, Lizzy! She seemed quite unlike herself last night, restless and a bit unhappy. She paced, even! And then, this morning she asked me to help her in the still room, and she started asking me what I had said to you, Mr. Darcy. She accused me of saying the wrong thing and running you off, because you did not stay to dinner the night before last, and you did not call at Longbourn yesterday.”

Mr. Darcy lifted his eyebrows.

Mary rushed on, “Jane said something about her poor nerves, Lizzy, and my eyes almost bulged right off my face, as you can imagine, and then Jane said, ‘You do not know what I have to bear.’”

Mary sighed.

“But then she started blaming me for trying to dominate all of your time and attention, Mr. Darcy, and she said that you must have been upset, and that she had done nothing that could have upset you, so I must have….”

“I assure you, Miss Mary, that it was Miss Jane Bennet’s flirtation that upset me. I was certainly never angry at you.”

Lizzy asked, “How did you respond to Jane, Mary?”

“I told her the truth,”

Mary asserted. Lizzy flinched a bit, and Mary hurried to assure her that she did not say anything about her whereabouts, or the cottage.

“But I did say that Mr. Darcy only called on us the day after the ball to talk to you, Lizzy, and then the next day, he called to speak more to me about you.”

She turned to Mr. Darcy and said, “I hope I did right by saying these things. I know we talked about pretending that you had interest in me, but I made it totally clear to Jane that that was never the case. I specifically said that you wanted to court Lizzy and had no romantic designs on any other Bennet sister.”

She cast her eyes down and blushed. When she looked up again, she asked, “I know that is accurate, but was it appropriate for me to say?”

Mr. Darcy nodded.

“I think it was perfectly appropriate, Miss Mary. After all, I already told your father that I wished to marry Miss Elizabeth.”

Lizzy was happy to see Mary relax, and to see her smile finally reach her eyes. Mary asked her, “You think I did the right thing, too, I hope?”

“Certainly I do.”

Lizzy got up and gave her sister a hug.

Mary turned back to address Mr. Darcy again.

“I think my mother has asked Jane over and over again about Mr. Bingley and about you. She asked Jane several times in my hearing if she had put any effort at all into trying to gain your interest, and she has asked her if she was able to secure your attention. I do not blame Jane for feeling upset about all those questions. I think Mama has told her a million and one times that she is not ‘so beautiful for nothing’ and that her destiny is to save us all by marrying well.”

Mr. Darcy said, “I understand that many mothers give similar messages to their daughters—that they must marry well—even when there is no financial hardship looming in the future. I cannot enjoy the way your mother chortles over a man’s income or plots to achieve a particular marriage, but at least she has very valid reasons to fear what might happen if her daughters do not make advantageous marriages.”

Lizzy nodded.

“I see your point, sir. Mama is not necessarily trying to secure wealth for herself or her daughters, but she is definitely attempting to ward off disaster.”

“Still,”

Mr. Darcy said, “it does no one any good at all to lay blame on any of her daughters. The blame for her worries belongs to the entail and perhaps to your father, who likely could have increased your future security by making improvements to Longbourn and reducing spending in the house.”

Mary looked quite thoughtful. Lizzy nodded.

“It is hard for me to like anyone in my family right now, other than Mary.”

She shot her sister a wide smile, but as she continued, she could feel her smile tremble and then disappear.

“In the past, I thought Jane to be perfect, and I believed my father to be quite wonderful. I know it is childish to put people so high up on pedestals that they must crash down at some point, but I suppose that, feeling that I could take the measure so accurately of Mama and Lydia and Aunt Phillips, I could be excused a bit of childish adoration for my favorite parent.”

Mary said, “Well, if you can stand a little more pedestal knocking, I have yet to tell you the worst thing that Jane said to me. She said, ‘If Mr. Darcy does come back, you will not say anything to him, you will not sit near him, you will not walk with him. You must leave him to me. I am the only one who has a chance with him, now that Lizzy is gone.’”

Lizzy gasped; Mr. Darcy frowned. He reached out a hand and took Miss Mary’s in it, pressing her hand lightly; when she looked at him, he seemed to have to force a smile onto his face. He said, “There is no other for me than Miss Elizabeth, but I have always looked on you with more favor than I have Miss Bennet. You must not believe the opinions your mother and eldest sister seem to have concerning you.”

Feeling grateful, Lizzy tried to express her thanks with a smile. Then, looking back at Mary, she said, “I feel like I have never known Jane. Mary, do not worry about hurting my feelings; I need to know the truth. Does Jane seem at all worried about me? Or even just curious about where I am?”

Mary hesitated, took a deep breath, and said, “She seems more upset than usual, but from what I can see, she is upset about Mr. Bingley leaving and now Mr. Darcy no longer calling. She is obviously agitated about Mama’s constant wailing and her endless questions about ‘What happened between you and Mr. Bingley?’ and ‘Did you see any interest at all from Mr. Darcy?’ I…honestly, I am not at all sure if she worries about or even thinks about you. I am sorry to say that, and it may just be that I am not privy to her thoughts and feelings.”

Keeping her face very still, Lizzy felt the hurt, but she also felt resolution. She was determined not to let defection on Jane’s part derail her own efforts to be happy.

“Speaking of Miss Bennet,”

Mr. Darcy said, drawing a letter from his pocket, “I wanted to tell you that I received a letter from Bingley, and he did not speak of Miss Bennet at all. Or ask about her. I am not positive what that means, but I thought I should share.”

Lizzy unfolded the letter and made a face.

“This is a challenge,”

she murmured to Mary as she placed the letter between them, so they could decrypt it at the same time.

“Oh, my,”

Miss Mary said.

“This is from a man who attended Eton and Cambridge?”

“Yes,”

Mr. Darcy said.

“Not only attended, but graduated from both.”

Lizzy and Mary pointed to and read out loud the bits of the letter that they could read. They asked one another about a few spots, and between the two of them, they managed to read the entire thing. Lizzy refolded the letter and handed it back to Mr. Darcy without comment.

Mary said, “Well, Mr. Darcy, please do not be insulted on behalf of your friend, but I must say that Mr. Bingley is not my favorite person in the world. However, he does still remain my favorite of all the Bingleys of my acquaintance.”

They all laughed.

Lizzy felt more light-hearted again, and she was glad that Mary had thus raised her spirits. She said, “Mr. Darcy, this letter has a great deal of explanatory power!”

“It does?”

“Yes, it most certainly does. Now I know why Miss Bingley said fourteen different praises about your handwriting, the evenness of your lines, your skill with your pen. She was obviously comparing your skill to her brother’s!”

Soon Mary made her excuses and rushed off, again worried that her absence from Longbourn would be noticed and punished.

Lizzy and Mr. Darcy sat in companionable silence for several minutes. Finally, Lizzy asked, “Have you tired of me so quickly, Mr. Darcy?”

“Never!”

“Well, you were being completely silent, and I assumed that perhaps we have run out of things to say to one another.

“I do not feel the need to fill every silence with words, but of course, if you wish to speak of something, I would be very happy to converse. On the other hand, I believe I was promised a tour of the outside of the property known as Blackthorn Cottage. I know that it has extensive grounds, but we were only meant to walk the circumference of the cottage itself. And I believe that I might have just about enough endurance to make it all the way—I believe you said it was around eighty feet we had to walk?”

“If you are sure,”

Lizzy said, “let us put on our warm layers and pick up where we left off….”

She pretended to try to remember just where that was, and Mr. Darcy, now wearing his great coat, hat, and gloves, guided her to the door.

“I believe we were just about…here.”

“Ah, yes.”

The short time it took to walk around the house, both of them sobered up enough to discuss the long-term detriments of having the shrubs so close to the house, the tree branches practically leaning on the thatched roof, and the extensive growth of honeysuckle and ivy over much of the house.

“I do like the way all the plants and trees almost hide the cottage,”

Lizzy said.

“Agreed. But speaking in the long term, there are many possible problems, from fire to a weakening of the masonry, from larger animals being able to easily reach the roof to infestation in the thatch, from rotting timbers to the difficulty of detecting problems.”

Lizzy felt a bit demoralized. They had returned to the front door, and she went inside, removed her pelisse, hung her bonnet on a peg and returned her gloves to the little shelf near the cot. Mr. Darcy, still wearing all of his outerwear, approached her with a tender expression on his face.

“Miss Elizabeth, you have done an admirable job of making this cottage livable. It is remarkable to see all the repairs you have made. When we speak of the dangers of the overgrowth, we are talking as if two things will always be true.”

Looking up, she asked, “Two things?”

“Yes, the first is that you should always want the cottage to remain hidden to others. The second is that you should always want to live out here, presumably alone. I feel strongly that neither of these things are true, and that neither of these things should be true.”

Lizzy nodded.

“I agree, those two things will not always be true. However, it is difficult to say right now how long I will need the cottage to remain hidden, or how long I will need to live here.”

He was standing so very close. Lizzy felt as if every bit of her was alert to his nearness. It almost felt as if her body was straining towards him, and if she relaxed her self-control even a little bit, her body would take over and simply press itself against him. It was hard to even think about the cottage and the overgrowth and….

Mr. Darcy was speaking again. His deep voice was gentle as he said, “Mr. Collins is engaged; it is very unlikely that you could be forced to marry him. And I am ready to speak to you of a future for us, you and me, when you feel ready to hear me.”

Lizzy whispered, “Not yet,”

disappointing her body, she was sure. She just hoped her body would not act as a traitor and disregard orders from her mind.

Mr. Darcy said, “Do let me know, my dear. It may not be long before you are able to share this cottage’s location with your family, before you are able to order the trimming of various trees and shrubs in order to maximize its longevity, before you live elsewhere and have, possibly, even more charming retreats that are, in fact, safer.”

“Sir, you have not taken off your coat. You look as if you are ready to leave for the evening.”

Lizzy was not sure how she felt about that. She would be able to relax her self control once he was gone, and she did need to finish Tales from the Hedgerows….

Mr. Darcy sighed, a longing expression in his eyes.

“I have been hard-pressed to keep up with certain duties of late. I meant to read and possibly respond to all of yesterday’s correspondence this morning, but cracking the code of Bingley’s letter ensured that it was the only letter I even opened. And I imagine that more correspondence has been delivered today. I…probably should go.”

“I have an important correspondent to consider as well,”

Lizzy said. She saw Mr. Darcy’s curiosity spark at those words, and she smiled and said, “One need not own multiple estates to have important correspondence.”

She wondered if she should tell him about being a published author, but before she had made a decision, he spoke.

“No indeed. Most people do not own multiple estates and yet manage to have all manner of important correspondence.”

He smiled, and as he looked so very handsome, she felt her toes curl.

“Well, goodnight.”

Lizzy very well remembered the kisses they had exchanged the night before. She wanted to feel those sorts of kisses again—actually, she thought that perhaps she wanted to feel even more—but she felt constrained by her own words, just a few minutes ago. She had said not yet to her suitor, and now she said it to her own body. She did, however, give him a swift kiss on his cheek, just as she had the night before.

His response was identical in the number of his kisses, and their placement on her body—her forehead, the back of each hand, her wrists, the center of her palms. Somehow, these kisses felt even more intimate, because he lingered over each one.

Kissing Mr. Darcy had somehow become its own goal, claiming time and attention as a separate category of life. But when he showed the self-control to turn away, to say one more goodbye and walk out the door, she felt desperately grateful to him. She slumped into one of her chairs for several minutes before she finally moved to get out her writing supplies and start a simple dinner-for-one on the stove top.