Page 22 of The Cat Who Loved Mr. Darcy (Pride and Prejudice Variation)

The cat Sophocles lay sprawled across Elizabeth’s bed, fast asleep in a tangle of limbs and fur, entirely oblivious to the world.

“Must you always sleep so soundly when I cannot?” she murmured, half-laughing, half-sighing.

Yet there was comfort in his undisturbed rest—a reminder that the world, for all its tumults, still allowed corners of quiet.

Crossing to her writing desk, she sat down slowly, placing the folded sheet on the bare wood before her.

Her name—Miss Elizabeth Bennet—looked back at her in Mr. Darcy’s familiar hand: neat, deliberate, and carefully restrained, as though each letter had cost him something to form. She traced it once with her finger.

Her breath caught, and she exhaled sharply.

“I must not read it with expectations,” she whispered aloud to no one, her voice steadier than she felt. “Nor with too much fear.”

With careful fingers, she broke the seal. The paper unfolded silently.

Elizabeth’s eyes moved over the page, line by line, sentence by sentence. Her expression shifted as she read—first still, then slowly warming, brow furrowing, lips parting in something near disbelief, then tightening again in doubt.

Her lashes lowered in a swift, deliberate blink, as if to steady her thoughts. Then, she paused and set the letter down, only to pick it up again the next moment. Elizabeth lowered her eyes to read again from the very beginning.

Pemberley, Derbyshire

November 4th, 1811

Miss Elizabeth,

Your letter reached me sooner than I dared hope—and I have read it more than once. I thank you for it sincerely. You wrote with such candour and spirit that, if I may be equally frank, I found it more affecting than any polished note could ever have been.

You wrote that you possessed no remarkable thoughts worth setting to paper.

I cannot agree. Yours are the words of a woman who sees clearly and feels deeply, and I value them as such.

If I hoped to know you better, you have already granted more than I deserved—and certainly more than I expected after our last exchange.

I must tell you honestly that I hesitated before writing again.

Not because I lacked the inclination—quite the opposite—but because I did not wish to impose.

My faults are many, and I know them better than most men would care to admit.

Reserve, pride, and a tendency to judge hastily—I have been guilty of all three.

Yet if you are willing to write, I am more than willing to answer.

I do not seek to impress, only to offer something true in return.

Since you asked nothing of me, I shall speak a little of my family.

My father, Mr. George Darcy, passed away when I was two-and-twenty.

He was a man of quiet strength and sound judgment, and I have often regretted not being older when I might have better understood the extent of his wisdom.

My mother, Lady Anne, died some years earlier, when I was still at university.

She was the younger sister of Lady Catherine de Bourgh—whom you may have heard mentioned with. .. a variety of opinions.

My sister, Georgiana, is more than ten years my junior.

She is reserved by nature, but full of feeling once she is at ease.

She is most at home at Pemberley, with her books and her pianoforte, and her letters have lately taken on more confidence.

It is my hope you shall meet before long, and under agreeable circumstances.

My cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, is the second son of the Earl of Matlock. He is as different from me as day from dusk—and better liked for it. He is currently stationed near Dover, but we correspond regularly. He would approve this letter, I think—though not the length.

My mother used to say that ladies admire landscapes, and my father did his best to offer her something both elegant and enduring.

I wish you could see Pemberley in its summer light.

The stream behind the house runs clear over stone, and the woods are filled with deer that grow almost tame if left undisturbed.

It is not the grandeur that moves me most, but the quiet—especially now, when life elsewhere often feels anything but quiet.

If you are still inclined to continue our correspondence, I would be honoured. I will not presume to ask more than that. I know too well what I have not earned. But I will answer whatever you choose to share, and I shall write you honestly, without affectation or disguise.

Please give my warmest regards to your family—and to Mr. Bennet especially, whose indulgence I do not take lightly. Indebted to you for both kindness and clarity, I remain, Miss Elizabeth,

Your most obedient servant,

F. Darcy

Outside her room, the house stirred with distant footsteps, Mrs. Bennet’s brisk instructions for dinner, and the faint clatter of pots and china from the kitchen. But in Elizabeth’s quiet corner of the world, there was only ink and truth—and the quick, silent thunder of her heart.

She read the closing lines again, her thumb resting lightly on the edge of the paper.

‘Your most obedient servant.’ Yet he had not written like a servant—no, not even like a gentleman making polite amends.

He had written like a man who wished to be known.

No flattery, no grand declarations—only the truth, offered plainly and with a steadiness that made her chest ache.

Elizabeth leaned back slightly, the letter resting on her lap, and closed her eyes.

What had she expected? A formality? An apology? She had not expected to feel seen. Not praised or courted, but understood—as if her words had reached further than ink ought to travel.

What had he revealed in return? A man who missed his parents not with display, but with quiet regret. A brother proud of his sister’s small steps forward. A cousin he trusted. A home he loved not for its grandeur, but for its stillness. And a willingness—tentative but real—to let her see that much.

What reason could he have to reveal himself so? She could think of only one. Mr. Darcy was prepared to be known exactly as he was.

Her fingers brushed once more over her name written in his hand. Not stiff with pride, not softened by elegance. Just... careful. As if he feared bruising the page.

She ought to write back. Of course she ought. But what could Elizabeth write that would not sound trite or rehearsed?

Perhaps she did not need to impress him.

Perhaps she only needed to answer him—plainly, and in fair words.

She folded the letter again, more gently than before, and slipped it into the small drawer beneath her writing desk. Her hand lingered there a moment longer before she straightened and looked out the window.

The morning had long ripened into full sun. Light shimmered on the far hedgerow, dancing across the leaves in quiet patterns, while beyond it, the fields stretched toward Netherfield—and farther still, northward, toward Pemberley.

She did not yet know what shape this correspondence might take, nor what path it might set before her.

But for the first time, she allowed herself to hope.

***

Elizabeth reached for her pen—not to impress, nor to compose something polished and perfect, but simply to answer.

To meet sincerity with sincerity. To let her thoughts find shape in ink as naturally as breath, as though she were replying to a knock at the heart’s own door.

She did not yet know what she would write, only that she must.

At first, Elizabeth longed to write of the joy his letters brought—of the quiet happiness stirred by the thought that someone far away was thinking of her and choosing to write with such honesty.

Not to impress, not to dazzle, but out of a sincere wish for dialogue—something that might draw them closer and allow true understanding to grow between them.

Gratitude filled her heart, and perhaps even a happiness greater than Jane’s, who saw Mr. Bingley every two or three days.

For what mattered more than proximity was the knowledge that Mr. Darcy, from distant Pemberley, thought of her and extended a hope—a silent promise—that her worries might lift.

That all might yet turn toward a better, brighter, more joyful future than even her naturally hopeful spirit had imagined.

Yet no—it would not do to write so openly now. Not in a second letter. Such words might suggest expectations, or a deeper reading of his intentions than he had meant to imply by seeking her permission to correspond. That would not be fair to either of them.

She sat in stillness a moment longer. Then, without another breath of hesitation—pausing only to dip her pen—Elizabeth set her thoughts to paper.

Longbourn, Hertfordshire

November 9th, 1811

Mr. Darcy,

There are letters one receives with civility, and others that are read with care.

Yours I have kept beside me all morning, not for lack of understanding but because I find myself reluctant to set it aside.

You have written plainly and with feeling—and I must now do the same, though I find it no easy task.

I do not possess your steadiness of hand or habit of reflection.

My thoughts arrive like the wind, sudden and full of wild turns.

It is strange how little we know what words may do, how they may reach a part of the heart not touched by noise or glance or even memory.

Yours did. There is a weight in sincerity that cannot be faked, and I was moved—deeply—by your manner of writing.

Not because it was elegant, though it was, nor because it flattered, which it did not—but because it felt true.

You spoke of quiet at Pemberley. I wonder if you know how much I long for such places.

Not grandness, but stillness. There are days when Longbourn feels like a stage, the curtains never drawn, and every line of speech expected in advance.

I walk often in the lanes near here, not to escape my family, whom I love, but to hear my own thoughts again.

The hedgerows are still green for the season, and the robins have begun their bold winter songs.

I wish you could see them. I wonder if you would admire the sound as I do—or call it merely cheerful noise.

You mentioned your father, and I will not pretend indifference. I lost no parent myself, but I have known others’ grief, and I think no man speaks so honestly of such absence unless he carries it still. It moved me that you shared it—and I am honoured by your trust.

If it is true that you did not write to impress, then you have done so all the more for it. There is strength in such candour, and gentleness, too.

I do not know what this correspondence will become. I do not ask for certainty. But I will say this—your letter did not fall upon an indifferent mind, and it has not left an indifferent heart behind it.

So yes, Mr. Darcy, if you will write again, you are welcome to do so. There is more I wish to ask and more I would like to share, though I cannot yet say how or when the words will come. But know that you are not unwelcome in my thoughts. Quite the opposite.

Yours—

Elizabeth Bennet

Elizabeth reread the letter carefully, reconsidering more than once whether to add something on the reverse.

Her small handwriting would have allowed it, yet again she persuaded herself that it was wiser—and more proper—to write less.

Just enough, as decorum allowed, for a correspondence still in its early stages.

She decided to seal the letter and looked with quiet satisfaction toward the cat, who slept on, undisturbed and untroubled.

“What do you care, Sophocles?” she murmured. “No worries press upon you, no hopes unsettle your peace, no rules keep you in check. You must be happy as only a cat can be.”

Indeed, Sophocles slept with great aplomb—one of the few pursuits at which he excelled beyond all question.