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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Elizabeth

Dearest Papa,

Mr Darcy plans to visit you on Friday, and I hope you will at least be civil. Do just what he says, sir, and I shall absolve you of every arrears of parenting of which you stand accused.

Your loving daughter,

Lizzy

T hat evening, I took my note to my uncle’s post tray and then went to the front parlour. There I sat by the window and looked out, unseeing.

My vision was perpetually turned inward in the days following my betrothal, and I craved solitude in order to review my most recent conversations with Mr Darcy.

“When did you fall in love with me, sir?” I had asked him only the day before in a low voice as we huddled in the dim back row of the atlases at Hatchards.

Our sisters were looking at the illustrated histories on the lower floor, and my aunt was herding my cousins around in search of books to read to them.

He pulled me deeper into the shadows and then held out his two hands as though catching rain.

“My fate was sealed by increments, rather like coins on a scale,” he said.

“The first being dropped when you warned me against dancing with you a second time.” His left hand lowered an inch and his right hand compensated equally upward.

“I had never danced twice with anybody for fear of being caught, you know.”

“I see. I stole your trick. And then?”

“Then, I saw your ankle.” He smiled rakishly as his left hand moved theatrically downward and his right hand went further up, and he repeated this motion with each successive point.

“You were afraid of my horse. You marched down Oakham Mount like a foot soldier. You teased me about having learnt your ABC’s and you flounced away—while limping—after I enraged you at a ball. ”

“You have the strangest notions of comely behaviour.”

“But you have never seen how comely you appear in full retreat, my girl.”

“Are there any more coins you wish to report?” I asked, waving at his imaginary scale.

“You looked so fragile with your foot on a stool the next day when I came hat in hand to tell your father about Wickham. And you had two of everything to eat at Maidstone. The fashion of elegant starvation has never appealed to me.”

“No? Miss Bingley seems to have mastered the art. I never saw anyone take more bites from a square inch of beef in my life.”

“A woman who does not eat is prone to fainting,” he said with asperity.

“I can safely promise I shall never faint from hunger, sir.”

“Good. And now, may I move my arms? I am beginning to feel a strain in my shoulders.”

“That is because you are a fragile prince,” I said. “But hold there. Suppose when we are married, I fall into the sullens and snipe at you. What of your famous scale then?”

The left hand came up a fraction. “I believe that would be the worst of it.”

I scoffed at his optimism. “And if I lost this tooth here?” I pointed to my right front incisor.

He dropped his hands. “Truly, Elizabeth? You wish me to anticipate such an eventuality?”

I put his hands back into their scale positions. “I stand before you with a large gap in my smile. Oh, and I have opted to wear a matronly cap to cover a grey streak on my head.”

He dropped his hands, looked about, took my face in his hands and kissed me in a public place.

“Mr Darcy!” I huffed, my face aflame.

He spoke hotly into my ear. “Do you think your missing tooth and your grey hair could put me off? I mean to show you the meaning of devotion.”

A short gentleman in a red waistcoat appeared around the row, and we broke apart, pretending to look earnestly at the spines of the books in front of us. Mr Darcy then leaned over and whispered, “You know, we could have a gold tooth fashioned for you.”

“I suppose.” I whispered back.

“Very well. Have we settled that I shall always love you?”

“Yes, I suppose,” I said with flippant disregard, though I confess my heart was pounding with a strong passion for him.

“Now, since you have rushed me into this understanding, I am forced to give you this trinket to seal our bargain. When we go to Pemberley, you will have your choice of my mother’s jewel box or something new if you prefer.”

I realised with a start that Mr Darcy, the most imposing man I had ever met, was in a state of insecurity over his token. He confirmed this by muttering, “This was the smallest, most inconsequential thing I could see in the case, and not wanting to enrage you with my notions of a suitable?—"

“But that is beautiful!” I cried, immediately stifling my outburst with my gloved hand.

Mr Darcy looked at me uncertainly before he beamed out a smile of triumph.

His expression of relief stayed with me still as I sat there at the window of my uncle’s Cheapside house.

I gazed lovingly down at my finger. There sat a startlingly large ruby bound on all sides by tiny pearls set on a band far too large, and my heart burst for the hundredth time.

Nothing about his ring suited either my size or my taste for understatement, but I sat enthralled, for in this small object, Mr Darcy rested his promise to me.

“You had better become accustomed to owning jewels, Lizzy,” Aunt Gardiner said crisply, having come upon me gazing fondly at my ring. “Are you ready?”

“Ready?”

“We go to the dressmaker today. My goodness! I have told you three times this morning you have a fitting.”

“Mr Darcy goes to Hertfordshire today,” I said as though this explained my stupidity.

“Yes, Lizzy,” Mary said crossly coming up behind my aunt. “The entire house has heard this news. Put on your bonnet, for goodness sake.”

And so we went. My aunt, anticipating the need for my trousseau, had the forethought to take me to her French modiste to be measured and to select patterns, fabrics, and the like. “You will need a significant wardrobe,” she said ominously.

Not merely suitable —significant. My father would be expected to send what funds he could spare to the purpose, and if he did not, my aunt assured me she would pay for all in expectation of repayment when I got my pin money.

When I looked nonplussed at the idea of pin money, she pursed her lips and could not be made to say what she knew. I was aware Mr Darcy had talked of my settlement with my uncle, and not wanting to feel daunted by the wonder of my impending fortune, I subsided into meek submission to all her plans.

After half an hour of looking at the most sumptuous fabrics I had ever seen in my life, I said, “Aunt, how much may I spend, do you think?”

She raised both eyebrows and primly said, “You can certainly afford that silk.”

“Can I bespeak fabric for my sisters?”

“Safely, my love.”

“And for you?”

“If you wish, but you know you need not give me a thing. You have entertained me very well these last few weeks.”

“Mary, come to me,” I said. Thus, I eased into the notion of having a modiste of the highest standards selecting three fabrics that did justice to Mary’s subtle colouring and bespeaking for her a morning gown, a new travelling dress, and a ball gown.

“Lizzy, you are shockingly intemperate. For what do I need such finery?” she protested.

“You will come to Pemberley, for one thing, and for another, if I must dress like a peacock, then I wish not to be alone in my plumage. Does Colonel Fitzwilliam like blue, do you think?”

“He is in Surrey as well you know,” she said tartly. She did not like me pressing on this sore spot, for she fostered a hopeless tendre for the dashing colonel.

“But he will get leave to return for the wedding.”

“Very well, but I favour the green.”

“For my wedding? You wish to tell the world you envy me?”

She smiled at last. “I do envy you, Lizzy,”

“Green it is, then.”

We lingered over the fabrics, selecting bolts of yellow for Lydia, pink for Kitty, sky blue for Jane, and gold for Mama. My aunt, when pressed, confessed to a preference for dotted ivory jacquard, and for an hour altogether I did not once worry about how Mr Darcy fared at Longbourn.

While standing on a stool being measured, however, the idea of my mother’s fit of raptures, of the shocking things she would say to Mr Darcy about catching husbands for Kitty and Lydia, did once or twice intrude upon my serenity.

Thinking to dampen my rising anxiety from further imagining what shrieking would ensue from my sisters at the notion of my marrying before them, I cajoled my aunt into looking for hats, shoes, and all manner of items to go with my significant wardrobe.

She assured me I could well afford whatever luxuries I chose, and I ploughed ahead perfectly dazzled, considering that only a fortnight prior, I sat on a trunk in a well-worn wool gown on my cousin’s rectory’s steps.

When I selected three shawls of silk, Indian paisley, and cashmere, Mary began to pucker up, and wishing to avoid her conversion back to pious scold, I tamely put the silk back on the shelf and pronounced my efforts at a stand.

We ended our excursion at a tea shop, and by the time we arrived back to Cheapside from Bond Street, I fell onto my bed for a much-needed nap.

This was just as well because the night passed with restless anxiety over Mr Darcy’s exposure to my family, and only by recalling in minute detail the many horrible moments I had spent with his family in Kent, did I find any peace at all.