The Zephyr

Chapter 32

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

A DESCENDANT OF PLATO

I walked in the beautiful spring light through the dappled, dancing shadows of trees. The path was dry and well laid by some thoughtful soul of long ago, and though I missed my ponies and the speed of our escapes, I reflected how well I still loved a good long walk.

As I went, I reflected on the strange, the curious, the anxious, and the miraculous happenings that had led me to this finite point in my life. How long had I known Mr Darcy? A year and a half! In that time, he had shown to me his various qualities, and yes, his faults, with increasing confidence. He trusted me to know him through and through, and privately, he had even unbent sufficiently to be playful and sharp. Perhaps it was because, as he once suggested, he had learnt that I enjoy banter a great deal. This spoke to his power of perception, a discovery which pleased me greatly, for he had rightly concluded I was not nearly as moved by mawkish sentiment as I was his brutal set-downs.

Publicly, he held on to his affect of the distant, objective observer. He seldom spoke and revealed little in doing so, seeming to find chatter for the sake of noise an occupation of simpletons. Laughter, as he once so wryly pointed out, was for wild African dogs—not the descendants of Plato!

I had found his demeanour objectionable from the start, primarily for lack of understanding, but also because I felt myself accused of behaving with the intemperate mischief of a monkey or the unregulated enthusiasm of a hyena. Perhaps I was thus accused in his opinion, but something in my failure to cower under his damning judgments had appealed to him. Certainly, I had early on recognised in Mr Darcy a man whose good opinion would be a glittering prize indeed, but the notion of working for it had enflamed my fundamental distaste of truckling to anyone for any reason.

As I stepped deeper into the shade of a walk lined entirely with lime trees, I considered that my second misconception with regard to Mr Darcy’s dour and forbidding manner was entirely wrapped up in my fascination with George Wickham.

Had I been half as clever as I thought myself to be, I reflected, I would have pondered why my affection for Wickham rankled Mr Darcy so much more than anyone else’s. The entire neighbourhood had been beguiled by that villain! The obvious conclusion—that our history as lovers had been fraught with conflicting passions all along— caused a languid smile to play on my lips.

The object of my silent counsel, meanwhile, must have heard my thoughts of him, so burning with intensity as they had been, for there at the turn of the bend sat Mr Darcy atop a huge-chested black mare. I walked towards him, forcing myself not to run like a child. Without a word, he reached down for me. I took his hand, and by instinct, I put my foot on his boot and jumped, and in one movement he pulled me onto the saddle in front of him as though we had done so a hundred times before.

“Where shall we go, my love?”

“Anywhere you wish to take me. But might we go swiftly?”

“Why do you suppose I brought this beast? She is Irish-bred. Her name is Pearl.”

“I am pleased to meet you, Lady Pearl,” I said, patting her flank. “Show me your powers, then.”

Mr Darcy’s chest rumbled with pleasure. “You had best take off your bonnet, Elizabeth.”

Even as I untied the ribbons, we began to canter, and by the time I had my bonnet clutched on my lap, Mr Darcy had wrapped one powerful arm around my waist and kicked his horse into a strong gallop.

“Duck!” he roared, as we dipped into a wilder part of the park, rising up on a stony path through a stand of oak and emerging onto a hilltop studded with hazel, blackthorn, and silver birch. “She knows this path well,” he said in reassurance over the pounding of Pearl’s gallop, and I was glad of it, for we hurtled over a ridge and down into a field before again rising up to a small prominence.

At last, we slowed to a canter and then a walk, and there before me was the vista of the Kentish weald.

“Had you danced me around a ballroom in London or given me a necklace of rubies, I doubt you could have impressed me more than you have with the gift of this sumptuous view,” I murmured, settling back into his chest as Pearl slowed to a stop.

We sat in silence, and a more blessed interlude in a secret engagement could not have been contrived, for we spoke without words, loved without kisses, and merged into the scenery of ancient lands, son and daughter of so many people before us.

“I had better go back,” I said with great reluctance.

“You had better fix your hair, Swiftling. Here, let me help you. Lord! What a tangle.”

“Here,” I said, taking the mass and twirling it expertly into a rough chignon held together with a few pins. “That should do for now.”

“If you say so,” he said sceptically, but he kissed my cheek to soften the blow, then he turned his horse back towards the path by which we came.

Our pace was gentle enough for conversation.

“Miss de Bourgh is not well, is she?”

“Her condition has only worsened in the past year,” he said. Then as though he owed me an explanation, he added, “I am loath to rob Lady Catherine of her delusions with regard to Anne’s future, for in truth, Elizabeth, I do not believe she has long to live.”

“Should we wait, then?”

“Dearest, if we awaited everyone’s convenience, we would never do the deed. At some point, we must plunge ahead regardless of who is affected or what is said of us.”

“Of me, you mean. I shall be well-hated by your family for tempting you away from your duty.”

“There is only one person whose opinion of you matters to me and that is my sister. And,” he said hastily to forestall my next question, “she is much inclined to care for you already.”

“Is she? But how?”

“In her, I have confided a little of my admiration for you.”

“Oh? And what did you say? You have fallen under the power of a witch in Hertfordshire who made a blood cross on her throat and now owns your soul?”

“How did you guess that is precisely how I described you to her?” he said with a chuckle.

“Well, if she is inclined to like me based on that description, then I love her already.”

“I know you will, Elizabeth. I plan to bring you to her as a kind of gift, for she has had her troubles, as you know, and she is in need of a strong dose of your irreverent joy.”

I sighed with the extreme satisfaction of being described so respectfully, so tenderly.

“I am relieved I might have one friend amongst your formidable relations. But come, let us hear it. What has your cousin to say of me?” I asked this with a touch of pertness, lest a few sentimental tears betray my true feelings.

“Richard? He had nothing to say at all. He is too busy observing the curiosity of me, his unsociable cousin, paying duty calls on Mr Collins’s wife.”

“Does he suspect?—”

“I am certain he does, but he is too well bred to invade my privacy.”

By then we had broken through the trees and emerged onto the path leading to Hunsford.

“Well, if he did not know yesterday,” I said quietly, “he must suspect something now.” For there, walking towards us was Colonel Fitzwilliam.

Mr Darcy calmly swung me out of the saddle, again using the step of his boot, and upon setting me gently down onto the ground, he said, “Well met, Cousin. Might you do me a service and escort Miss Elizabeth back to Mrs Collins’s house?”