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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Elizabeth

“ H e is horrible,” I sniffed.

“Yes, yes,” Uncle Gardiner said. We sat alone in the parlour on the sofa with the lamps burning low. He put his arm around me, and clutching Mr Darcy’s handkerchief, I cuddled deep into his shoulder.

“Mr Darcy will not let you come over the top of him, and you do not like that one bit.”

“No! And he is arrogant,” I said, sniffling just the once. “You should have seen the way he looked at Mama.”

“I can only imagine,” my uncle said drily.

“He was very severe when he visited Papa.”

“Was he? Well, in that I must hold him blameless. Who would not be severe when trying to get Mr Bennet to talk seriously about anything?”

I made a grumbling sound. The tick tock of the clock seemed to drown out the vague sounds of the city at night. I sat up in protest and said, “He is obscenely rich, Uncle!”

He pulled me down to his shoulder and humbly admitted that I was perfectly right to object to a fortune. And after I could think of no more objections he said, “What would you like me to tell him when I see him tomorrow, Lizzy?”

“What will you say to him?”

“That he must either offer for you or leave you alone, my girl. We cannot have any more of these alarums. Your sister is to marry, I have a business to run, and your aunt has a family to raise. If you must be the centre of a contretemps, then I suggest you run away to Drury Lane because we are too busy to attend to you.” He softened this harsh statement with a kiss to my forehead. “What is it to be then?”

“I love him, Uncle.”

“I know you do. The thing is not so very hard to figure out, is it?”

“He will have to go to Longbourn,” I said mournfully.

“If he loves you, he will bear the mortification. And, if you love him, you will suffer through the humiliation. Make your decision, and either marry the poor man or let him go. You have thoroughly done him in.”

“Have I?” I asked, suddenly feeling a little heartier and sitting up.

My uncle chuckled. “He was reeling, child. You have staggered a great man.”

“Well,” I said, blowing my nose, “he deserves it. He has caused me to weep in public.”

“Terrible. So, will you make him pay for it by marrying him?” I fell back on his shoulder and nodded.

“Good. I shall speak to him in the morning and tell him to collect you for a drive in the park if the weather holds fine. If not, he can speak to you here. Now, let me up. I must dig around the attics and see if my fishing pole is intact. I hope to be spared from half your aunt’s visits on the excuse of angling. ”

After he left me, my aunt put me to bed as though I suffered from consumption, and Mary came with her candle to kiss me goodnight. My lord, what a terrific loss of composure I had suffered! No wonder everyone treated me like a physical wreck.

The morning broke fine, but I was still on the list of those of uncertain temper , or so it seemed. Mary brought me a cup of tea, and my aunt breezed in with one of her summer muslins for me to try on.

Looking upon my sister’s smile of pity and my aunt’s forced cheerfulness, I sat up and said mournfully, “I am so embarrassed.”

“As you should be,” Aunt Gardiner said lightly. “Mr Bromley discretely offered to mix you a composer. But never mind that. We must do what we can to stitch up your courage because I expect Mr Darcy as soon as may be, and you will treat him with a little deference for once, Lizzy.”

“I like him very well,” Mary put forward tentatively, as though trying to convince me.

“I like him too,” I protested, “but I did not account for how hard it would be to sacrifice my independence. And to give it up to such an imperious man,” I added with a frown.

Good God. He would direct everything!

My sister looked at me in confusion. “But you will be the most independent woman I know,” she said.

“Will I? Will I, Aunt?”

She laughed at me and sat on the bed. “You will be privileged and have things just as you like them. Mr Darcy does not do anything by halves.”

I fell back on my pillow in dawning comprehension. They were right.

“No, he does not do anything in half measures. He will have me, after all, and I am a whole world of perturbation.”

“Just so,” she said, delightedly clapping her hands. “You must stand upon that foundation and come down to breakfast. And then we shall plan out our excursion to Derbyshire.”

My aunt’s pale peach sprigged muslin, dotted with tiny white flowers, once hemmed for my height, was the perfect antidote to my mortification.

The French cut flattered my frame and featured a ruche at the high waist of the gown which flared out the back in a most satisfying swirl when I walked.

I found Mary in the nursery, and together we went down to the parlour.

“Would you like to practice?” she asked.

“I would rather hear you play the Mozart,” I said, picking up my book from the table by the window.

That window would, for some time to come, cause me to think upon Mr Darcy, and so I put the book down and listened to Mary.

When a black perch phaeton with matching horses pulled in front of the house, I stood and went to where my aunt was busy writing at a little table.

“I shall go out and spare him the trial of small talk.”

“Yes, Lizzy. Do go, and I shall see you when you return,” she said, putting her hand on my cheek.

Darcy

Elizabeth met me at the door as I was raising my hand to the knocker. She smiled tentatively and searched my face. I gravely took her hand, led her down the walk, and without saying a word, handed her up to the bench. The tiger let go the horses and as we trotted forward, he jumped on the back.

“Where would you like to go?” I asked to break the silence between us.

“Anywhere you would like to take me,” she replied.

“Docility is it?”

“I mean to be amiable today. Shall we talk of Ritter, sir?”

I had spent eighteen sober hours barely strung together, and my short laugh sounded rusty to my ears. I looked over at Elizabeth, and when she offered me a modest smile ripe with both apology and trepidation, I reciprocated in kind.

“All will be well, my heart,” I said.

“Will it, Mr Darcy?”

“I shall make it so,” I said, and then, traffic being heavy, I worked the team and we lapsed into our private reflections.

The day was not the finest, but it was passably warm with clouds drifting overhead softening the light to a diffuse glow.

We came briskly into the park, and I tooled us over the well-avenues towards the Serpentine.

The fashionable hour had not yet come, and once we had gone over the bridge, the number of visitors dwindled to an occasional person seeking solitude or a party of young men partaking of brisk exercise.

I pulled to a wide spot on the road, handed the ribbons to my tiger—a ready specimen of twelve years old who called me Gov’—and took Elizabeth to a bench screened by willows overlooking the water.

A few of Queen Caroline’s swans floated past, and I searched for some means of opening the most pivotal conversation of my life.

As though she sensed my agitation, Elizabeth reached for my hand, and I knew then that all would be well. Instead of some grand speech, I simply confessed to her.

“I shall not say this well, you know. I have the unhappy knack of sounding like a bumptious prig whenever I want to impress you.”

“That is one of the reasons I have come to love you, Mr Darcy,” she said in the gentlest voice I have yet heard. “Will we marry, then?”

She had just spared me the exercise, and I took the back of her hand to my lips. “As soon as may be if you are feeling stout.”

“You overwhelm me,” she said in her littlest voice.

“And you terrify me,” I replied bluntly, pulling forth that reluctant smile.

“You are very grand, sir.”

My turn had come to smile. “And you are very pert, Miss.”

This earned me a chuckle, but when she seemed to be caught by the sight of a scull with two rowers gliding past us, she did not speak again.

“I adore you, Elizabeth.”

“I am lost to you, Mr Darcy,” she replied, still looking at the skull but with her cheeks warmed.

“I dream of you most nights.”

She finally turned to look at me. “And I think of you every day.”

Again, we floundered.

“Might we walk, sir?” she asked, standing.

And so we meandered down the lane, our hands refusing to release one another, and after a moment, Elizabeth came out of her abstracted state.

“One cannot wonder that lovers want to be private.”

“Do you refer to our singularly stupid conversation, my love?”

“My head is both full and empty at the same time. I have nothing clever or charming with which to tease you.”

“And I have nothing whatsoever dashing to say. I do hope I recover my wits eventually. I have never spoken so much mush.”

“I am a little partial to mush.”

“Really! Well, I shall brush up on it then.”

“Was my uncle very harsh this morning?”

“Hardly. He informed me I had better marry you or leave you alone. I handed him the settlements to look over and told him in my most officious tone he would have a terrible time ridding himself of me because I mean to have you come what may. We then fell to talking of fishing and for the sake of form, because I could hardly call on you an hour early, he gave me a tour of his warehouses, and we talked of his business.”

“Might we—might I ask after your family, sir?”

I stopped in the middle of the path and turned to face her.

“Elizabeth Bennet, you may say anything to me, anytime you wish to say it. Even if you enrage me, I prefer to know what you are thinking to having you mince around me as though you are addressing a fragile prince. What is it you want to know?”

“What will your uncle say?”

“The earl will fail to recognise me at his club.”

“One thing I admire most about you is that you are willing to tell me the unvarnished truth,” she said. “And your aunt, the countess?”

“You may expect the cut direct if we should meet out on Bond Street.”

“Lady Catherine?”

“Oh, she is another matter entire. She will want to have a warrant posted for your arrest so that she can see you hung by the neck at the gates of Rosings Park.”

We began walking again. “Colonel Fitzwilliam?”

“Supportive.”

“His brother?”

“Langford? In public he will snub us because my uncle determines his allowance, and he will need to march in step with Matlock’s opinions. In private, he cannot be brought to care about anything except his dissipations.”

“Your sister?”

“In alt. She hopes to have you for a sister, and as a side benefit, longs to be overlooked when she makes her dreaded debut.”

“Truly?”

“I never told you, Elizabeth, but Wickham insinuated himself in her society when Georgiana was on holiday and convinced her to elope with him. She fancied herself in love, and only by chance did I arrive in time to rout him. My sister has since worried she cannot distinguish between a man who loves her and a man who loves her inheritance.”

“You shock me. No wonder the mention of his name?—"

“At Netherfield, yes. I could not continue our flirtation on account of the urge to go and strangle that man.”

“But your sister! Now I understand why you kept silent with regard to his lies.”

“Until I was told to do otherwise, yes. But that was only the first time you chastened me. I did not know then that you would do so over and over again.” Inwardly, I braced myself for a lifetime of being sent to the right-about by this diminutive spark at my side.

“I have not been as bad as that.”

“Not bad? You have caused me, Fitzwilliam Darcy, a man of sense and dignity, to lose my temper, my composure, and my bearings, and that is not all. You have harassed me into such a disordered state that I resorted to publicly shouting hyperbole at you in full view of a party of our relations. You, Elizabeth Bennet, have been positively wicked.”

“My uncle says I staggered a great man,” she put forth with an impish smile.

I laughed, pulled her close, and with my arm around her, I stumbled us forward like a drunk with his barmaid.

“That you have, my love.”

We came laughing to a small sliver of shingle and stood there as the water lapped at the stones. All our merriment subsided, and we looked at one another with wonder.

“What next, Mr Darcy?” she whispered, with her eyes glinting like jewels.

“You are about to be kissed, madam,” I said, and then I made good my threat.