Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
WELL-APPLIED TORMENTS
I tripped out of the back door and across the yard towards the stable. No one questioned this, as it had become a longstanding habit that I would pay a call on June and July shortly after we stood up from the breakfast table.
Both my girls nickered their greetings, to which I sternly replied, “Do not think yourselves so clever, my darlings. I know well enough you welcome me so affectingly only for what I carry in my pockets.”
I let them freely nuzzle my palm for parsnip tops and rose hips from the stillroom, I stroked their silken flanks, and I looked them over for any telltale signs of discontent. As I went through this ritual with July, I murmured, “Wish me luck, Julie, for I have no small task before me.”
She bobbed her gracefully curved neck as if she were, in truth, wishing me luck, and satisfied that I had paid my ponies sufficient attention, I dipped out the half-sized door in the back of the stable where the hay was conveniently shovelled in from the nearest field.
From there, I had an unobserved walk through the furrows to the hay wain. This object, a huge old wagon, had become an unlikely monument at Longbourn. It had been heaped so high with straw five years ago, its axle had cracked in two. In typical fashion, my father had not taken the trouble or expense of having it removed, and even the straw piled atop it had been left too long to use. It was now a solid, mouldering mound. That said, it made for a handy landmark and convenient cover to lurk behind at the back of the estate.
What an odd mixture of sensations! I reflected, noting the fizzing of joy and the faint tendril of anxiety intermingling in my chest. I wished for more time in which to gather myself, to compose what I wished to say, but no, the walk would have had to be long indeed for me to approach Mr Darcy with any semblance of serenity.
I first saw the rump of his horse from behind the derelict wagon, then he was there before me with his hand extended and a shining look in his eyes reflected to me by the rare sunlight of a fine spring day.
“How are you faring, my love?” he asked. “I see you are here on the day in question. Do you mean to compliment me with your punctuality?”
I stretched out my hand to his, then despite my every intention not to do so, I poured forth with my troubles.
“Oh Mr Darcy, you would never believe what has now occurred! Jane and Mr Bingley are engaged, and I was only spared a terrific scold by Mama for coming home so late yesterday because she was weeping with joy. Only, now what shall we do? I do not wish to dampen my sister’s jubilation by declaring trumps, yet, I?— ”
He pulled me towards him so that he could grasp my other hand as well. “Hush,” he said. “Must you always anticipate me? When I told you we had a few practical matters to discuss, I meant that we must, for now, be patient.”
“Patient!” I demanded with a sudden, and irrational frustration. “But I do not want to be patient!”
“Nor do I, but have you not just said you wish to let Bingley and your sister have their happiness undiluted?”
“I know I am not making sense,” I said with my brow wrinkled in bewilderment.
“No, you are not. Listen, dear heart. You are restless by nature and swift in all you do. But I would not march into Longbourn this morning and demand of your father permission to marry even if you begged me.”
“No?”
“Did you not tell me on the muddy road in Lindbury Wood that our friendship has cast shade on your reputation? Would you wish for me to add a torch to that fuel by a sudden and unexpected proposal of marriage? I do not intend for you to be subjected to any more gossip than you have already endured because of me.”
“Oh.” I looked down at our tightly joined hands before lifting my eyes to his, and in a small voice, I asked, “What are we to do?”
“We must agree to a secret engagement until such time as I can reasonably approach your father in a manner which should surprise no one.”
“How terribly gothic!” The requirement to carry around yet another heavy secret daunted me more than a little.
“It is deplorable, is it not? You are looking at the last man on earth who should ever find himself making love to a lady behind an old hay wain and offering her a clandestine promise upon some nameless day. Yet, here I am.”
It was absurd he was skulking around Longbourn to steal chances to kiss me, and against my will, I began to sense both the allure and amusement in romantic intrigue.
“Is this how a mistress is solicited, Mr Darcy?” I asked with a twinkling eye.
He brushed my cheek with one hand. “What makes you suppose I would educate you as to how such arrangements are made? Are you indeed accusing me of less than honourable intentions?”
“No, I am not. Only, to be frank, I have no notion how to conduct a secret engagement, and you must yourself own that you have all the power in such an understanding. You have no obligation to make good upon a promise that is not public.”
“Nor do you, but I have not called into question your intentions, have I?”
“Forgive me, I did not mean?—”
He kissed the words away before he said, “Come, this is fruitless wrangling. You know me, do you not?”
“I do.”
“Then cease your argument for the sake of contradiction. I know you as well as you know me, Elizabeth. We are deprived of all choice in the matter. We are compelled to be lovers, and many years from now when our passions cool, if ever they do, we will never be anything other than the dearest, most trustworthy of friends. And if, after we are wed, you are still in a mood to be perverse, I shall happily debate you on any subject over candlelight at midnight, but right now, with the breeze wafting towards us the aroma of newly turned earth, make me your promise that you are now and forever mine.”
I stared up into his face throughout this, the most eloquent speech I had heard in my life.
“Give me your little knife,” I said very suddenly. “No, do not ask me why. Just please?—”
He produced it warily from his pocket, and before he could blink, I had pulled off my glove and sliced a small cut on the tip of my index finger. With the growing droplet of blood, I drew a cross across my throat, and said, “I promise myself to you upon this oath of magic, and should I fail you?—”
He interrupted me. “If you fail me, I would be exceedingly angry. Where did you learn such a witch’s spell?”
I glanced up at his incredulous and slightly irritated face as I wiped my finger on the handkerchief he offered.
“I made it up—well, one day, when we have nothing left to talk about, I will tell why I did so. But did not a ritual of bloodletting seem fitting for a secret engagement?”
“It seemed more fitting for the stage. You are not going to ask that I now stain my neckcloth for your satisfaction?”
“I wish you would,” I said sweetly. And then, in an altogether more reasonable tone, I said, “But no, you are a man of honour—of duty! You have only to promise to return to me when our circumstances are more favourable.”
“I swear it. Now give me my knife please before you begin to improvise some new means to cast spells upon me.”
I suppose I somehow returned the thing to him, but when or how, I do not know, for we were too close and suddenly kissing far too passionately for such a humble, pastoral setting.
“When might I see you again?” I murmured breathlessly .
“I must go at Easter to visit my aunt in Kent?—”
“Lady Catherine? My friend Charlotte Collins has several times begged me to visit. Perhaps I could arrange to do so soon?”
He pulled away from me with a newly enigmatic expression on his face as if considering the possibility. “Might I warn you that my aunt is dreadful?”
“Do you think I had no inkling? Mr Collins spoke of her so freely as to leave me with the impression she is unreasonable, dictatorial, and highly opinionated.”
“She is worse than all that, but if you can stomach her, then make your plans,” he said. “And prepare yourself to be told I am betrothed to my cousin Anne, which I am not.”
“Ah yes, I remember. My cousin spoke of your engagement several times. Did you in fact make a poor bargain with me instead?”
He smiled. “A poor bargain indeed. You will surely rule me all the rest of my life, much as you have since shortly after we first met. Do you know how often—how relentlessly—I have thought of you for well over a year now?
“But, in all seriousness, Elizabeth, prepare to be regularly set down by Lady Catherine, and I shall prepare myself to strangle my temper. Our secret would not be served by any outward displays of my protective feelings for you.” He paused as if reconciling himself to the challenge before he said, “We must meet in the park when we can, and I shall pay regular calls at the parsonage.”
“My condolences, for if ever there was an onerous duty, that would be one of them.”
“It is never onerous to be in the same room with you. Besides, those marked attentions might be mentioned in Mrs Collins’s letters home. And those reports, if they are made, should serve as a reasonable hint that we are in fact making a start towards a believable attachment.”
“Might this all turn out to be as dull as it sounds, Mr Darcy?”
“It will be exceedingly tedious, but I can hardly scandalise the world by abducting you in order to satisfy your appetite for romantic gestures.”
“Such as following me forlornly around the county and reciting poetry to me?”
“A momentary brush with madness from which I have now recovered. Prepare to be amazed at how indifferent I can pretend to be in your presence.”
“I shall flirt with you with my eyes, then.”
“I am quite familiar with your well-applied torments, Elizabeth. Might you be pleased to know I suffer no less longing after repeated exposure to them?”
“I am somewhat mollified to know you will be in agony.”
He chuckled, and then sobered as he searched my eyes. “Promise me you will not be wounded by my failure to defend or claim you publicly just yet.” And upon my sincere promise, he then said, “Now, return to your family, and if you need to reach me, write to me.”
“I will. But might I have one last kiss?”
“If you must,” he murmured.