The Zephyr

Chapter 39

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

THE ORACLE

M r Darcy and I were to say our vows in the simple setting of All Saints Parish Church in Meryton. Mr Graves would do the office, though he was only a curate. Upon hearing a wealthy man had again requested the banns be read, the rector, who only rarely came on account of his interest in his larger, more lucrative parish, had sent word he would perform the service as he had for Bingley and Jane.

I, however, did not like the implication that my future would be filled with cases of the tireless workers of the world being swept aside by their grasping superiors in order that they could bow and scrape at my rich husband. Thus, I intervened with a word to Mr Darcy who then deflected the rector’s arrival by politely claiming his bride’s preference for Mr Graves who had served her family’s religious needs for many years. I had no doubt our impoverished curate would also receive a tidy pourboire from my intended as a compliment to me .

In the weeks before our wedding, Mr Darcy and I endured spells of forced separation, sometimes because of physical distance, and sometimes caused by the vast chasm between us as we sat at opposite ends of a drawing room or dining table. Our feelings for one another, having been legitimised and made public, then became a source of limitation, for neither of us were the kind of people to relish being teased for wistful sighs or mooning looks.

In short, we were both too proud, and upon realising that I had harassed him relentlessly for a trait I shared with him, I hatched a plan to meet him clandestinely for the purpose of a confession. Well, if I were to be honest with myself, I would have to concede I sought an excuse to be private with the object of my passion, and the discovery of my own snobbishness served the purpose.

“Do you know a Mr Tomlinson in London? He is the man who designed the Zephyr.” I asked him. Bingley and Jane had returned from their wedding trip, and the occasion was marked by a family dinner party.

Mr Darcy, who had come from London and stayed with them, set down his wine glass before slanting a glance of private amusement at me. “I do, yes.”

“Aside from construction, he must also be a reading man, for he once sent a notice of advertisement that quoted Plato—of all persons! I cannot recall the poem exactly, but there was something about a spring in the shade. It must have been an idyllic scene to have inspired such an intellectual man to a romantic expression, do you not suppose? If I could transport myself to such a place, I would go there tomorrow morning directly after breakfast.”

My family listened to this dribble with polite smiles and quickly moved on to more interesting subjects, such as Mr Bingley’s plans to make an offer of purchase on Netherfield Park and the engagement ball they planned to have for me. Mr Darcy, however, noting that attention had shifted away from us, winked at me, and I felt satisfied of my plan.

The following day was cloudy, but there was no rain, and I managed to escape Longbourn by simply walking out the back door. I drove my ponies down the familiar road to Lindbury Wood, and upon looking into the little path that led to the interior of the forest, I saw the way was damp but passable. As we went deeper into the trees, there was little light, and I felt myself suddenly encased in that strange other-world feeling of twilight falling.

“You came!” I said nonsensically upon breaking through the underbrush and seeing Mr Darcy standing by the spring with his horse.

“I wonder that you are still surprised by my constancy,” he said, stepping forwards to hold my ponies while I stepped down. He led them and his horse to a patch of moss where standing would be more comfortable for them and secured them to a stripling. “To what do I owe the compliment of this tryst, my love?”

“I suppose I only wished to commiserate with you. I thought a secret engagement was onerous, but to be publicly engaged is a trial! I only wished a moment in which we are not gaped at and snickered about in which to tell you I have discovered why we are so well suited.”

“Indeed? Pray enlighten me. I have been wrestling with this dilemma for a year.”

“By the light in your eyes alone, I know you are teasing me, but what I wished to say is that I am just as proud as you are. ”

“That is indeed a revelation,” he said with specious surprise.

“ You may have known it, but I was comfortably unaware.”

“Thus you felt qualified for life in a cloister. Do you not recall my warning?”

“That I lacked humility?” I replied as he led me to sit beside him on a lichen-covered stone. “Very well. Perhaps my pride is no great revelation to either of us. Perhaps I just wished for an excuse to ask what I truly wish to know.”

“Like any good oracle, I live to enlighten you.”

As tempting to engage as that piece of wit may have been, I pressed on with sudden earnestness. “Why do you love me, Mr Darcy?”

“Hm,” he said thoughtfully. “I cannot reduce to words the why of it, but I can tell you on that fateful day that I saw you nearly bounced out of your curricle as you rounded that bend at a gallop, I realised that, should you break your neck, I would never recover from my loss.”

“But you were so cross with me!”

“Can you wonder at it? That was a wicked prank to have played on a man whose heart was lodged in his throat.”

“I am sorry. Truly. But why did you not then and there fall out of love with me?”

He gently kissed my lips. “Because love is more powerful than anger, and love, dear heart, eclipses all doubt.”

“Did you doubt me, too?”

“I did not doubt you, but I doubted all else.”

“Such as my suitability?”

“Perhaps it is my imagination, but I feel myself sinking into a hole of a sudden.”

“If you claim you do not doubt me, then you must now begin to trust me. Surely, your reservations were an obstacle.”

“Had they not been, I would have secured you much sooner. I believed time and distance would rescue me from—Lord, you have done it again. I am saying much more than I ought!”

“Forgive me, but I need to understand you. We have been plagued with secrets up to now. But if we run shy of plain speaking between us, particularly surrounding this question which pertains to our very origin as husband and wife, our doubts will surely grow. I do not wish to be naive.”

He fell silent for a moment. “I did not want to love you.” He took my hand to his lips. “I railed against the possibility and wrote many long lists why I could not possibly be in love with you, many other lists as to why I must do my duty to my family, and why the notion of offering for you was absurd. Meanwhile, the reasons I loved you grew, not on paper, but in my heart. And eventually, what also grew was a determination to do my duty—to myself—to you.”

For once, I had nothing to say, and we fell into yet another interlude of profound silence which ended with my ear pressed against his chest as I nestled into his embrace. Only a cold mist descending from the clouds forced us to awaken from the spell of enchantment under which we had fallen.

As I guided June and July back to the comforts of their stable where Charlie would rub them down with straw, Mr Darcy rode alongside me. We went slowly, unconcerned by the soaking dampness and savouring the rarity of time alone together. We spoke of practicalities, incidentals, and such mundane things as stitch together a life—which inns we might stop at during our wedding trip and how soon, upon arrival at Pemberley, I should anticipate the festivities required of the good harvest that everyone expected.

We parted in the drive at Longbourn with a sweet look of yearning and my heart full again to the point of strain and on the verge of breaking to see him go. But once inside, my presence was urgently required for a fitting, and as I stood patiently upon a chair to have my hems marked, I considered myself fortunate to sustain the occasional pin prick in service to a good cause—a new ball gown.