Chapter Seventeen #4
“I thought of my father—of all my family, really. They will be quite amazed at our attachment. I fear it will take some time to accustom them to our understanding.”
“I have been thinking also,” he said, when he had resumed his seat. “Of your father.”
“That is a very proper object of contemplation in a man who has just betrothed himself to his daughter.”
“Betrothed himself,” he repeated, with evident satisfaction in the phrase. “You will allow me, I hope, to write to him without delay. He has a right to hear from me as soon as may be.”
“All the more,” Elizabeth replied, “because I am not yet of age. If you wish to marry me, sir, you had best lose no time in securing his consent.”
“Then my letter shall go by this evening’s pouch.”
She set her cup down. “You have thought what you will say?”
“I had some practice in the stable-yard yesterday,” he replied dryly. “I assure you I will improve upon it when addressing your father, though I cannot promise to be entirely coherent if I write of you at any length.”
Her eyes met his over the table. The look they exchanged was so new, so strange, and yet so natural, that she felt again the disorienting sense of a life altered in a single afternoon.
“There is one great advantage in your writing rather than presenting yourself at once,” she said. “It will give my father leisure to indulge his astonishment in private before he is obliged to speak to you.”
“It gives you time as well, Elizabeth—time to consider what you might wish for: when you might wish to wed, how you might wish to go forward,” he said quietly.
She hesitated. “I do not know that I require much time before we wed. It is only that I am not accustomed to the idea. I assure you, it will not take long for me to settle myself to it. I have little patience for the folderol of weddings.”
“Then we are well matched,” he said. “I have very little of that commodity myself. Yet I must own the impossibility of wedding as quickly as I would wish. Your mother would mutiny.”
“My mother will see many of her favoured schemes thrown over. I wish only to see you as my bridegroom, and I will tolerate no discussion of wedding clothes and lace.”
He crossed to her and offered his hand. She took it, and in the shelter of the door, before they entered the more public rooms, he brought her fingers swiftly to his lips. The kiss was brief, but no less electric for its brevity.
“Elizabeth,” he murmured, “I have a letter to write on your account that gives me more pleasure than any paper I have ever signed.”
She could think of nothing to answer that was not ridiculous, so she said only, “See that you spell my name correctly,” and let him lead her out.
More Happiness
The intervening days had passed with an astonishing swiftness.
There had been letters—Jane’s full of delighted incredulity, Mr. Bennet’s brief and dry, yet containing all the approval a daughter could desire.
There had been morning walks on the terrace, stolen kisses in shadowed passages that left her leaning against the panelling with more laughter than breath, evenings in the music-room where Georgiana and Mary, with little subtlety, left the future bride and groom to themselves for whole half-hours together.
Within a fortnight, when the roads were judged tolerable and Pemberley’s immediate business in some order, Mr. Darcy and Georgiana were ready to convey Elizabeth and Mary back to Hertfordshire.
Georgiana managed a smile. “I was only saying that everything will feel very strange when the wedding is over—when you are mistress here, and Mary is gone back to Longbourn, and I do not know when I am to have her company again.”
“We shall see that you are not long without it,” Darcy said. “If your father can be persuaded to spare you, Miss Mary, and if you would like it, I hope you will return to Pemberley and remain as part of our family.”
Mary shut the book in her hands with decision. “If my father approves,” she said, “and if you are quite certain I should not be in the way, I believe I should be very well content with such a plan.”
Georgiana’s reserve broke into open pleasure. “Oh, pray do not speak so,” she cried. “I have never had a sister of my own. To have two at once is more happiness than I ever expected.”
They carriage wheels rolled smoothly along the drive that skirted the home-farm, when the small, whitewashed cottage came into view at the turn. Smoke rose steadily from the chimney. “Mrs. Littlewood is at home,” Darcy said. “If you are not weary, Elizabeth, I should like—”
“To tell her yourself?” she finished. “By all means.”
Georgiana, hearing the name, turned back at once. “I am sure she has been watching from that window these three days,” she said, half laughing. “If we do not go in, she will come out and stop us in the lane.”
They had scarcely reached the narrow gate when the door opened and Mrs. Littlewood appeared on the threshold.
“I knew it,” she declared, before any of them could speak. “I knew it the day I set off from Longbourn with you and Miss Mary in that rattling chaise, and I knew it even better when I brought you up to the great house and saw how he looked at you, Miss Elizabeth.”
Darcy coloured, but did not attempt denial. “Mrs. Littlewood,” he said, “Miss Elizabeth has done me the honour—”
“Done you the honour,” she repeated, with a snort that was more satisfaction than scorn. “Aye, and about time. I have prayed to see this day since you were no higher than my knee, and giving more trouble than your weight was worth.”
She came down the step with surprising vigour and, quite ignoring Georgiana’s half-suppressed laugh, reached up to pinch his cheek as if he were indeed four years old.
“You mind what I told you when your father died,” she said, her eyes suddenly bright.
“You keep that great heart of yours for those as deserve it, and you mind your good lady here. She has more sense than the whole parish.”
Elizabeth could not prevent a blush, but she met the old woman’s look steadily. “I shall do my best for him, Mrs. Littlewood,” she said. “I can promise no more.”
“That is enough,” the nurse replied, with a decisive nod. “Miss Georgiana, you bring them both back to me safe after all this marrying and journeying is done.”
Georgiana almost choked on a laugh. “You may depend upon me,” she said.
Mrs. Littlewood dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her apron, vanished into the cottage as abruptly as she had come.
Elizabeth reached for Mr. Darcy’s hand. He squeezed it in return, his eyes full of a mixture of tenderness and incredulity that begun to be his new habitual expression.
“We are going home,” he said softly, when they were seated, the door closed, and the wheels at last in motion.
“To Hertfordshire,” she answered.
“To Pemberley,” he replied. “By way of Hertfordshire.”
I Am Come To Ask
Mr. Bennet’s library had an air of comfortable neglect.
Books rested in little heaps upon the tables, a chair or two stood pushed awry, and a thin film of dust was gathered on the less-favoured shelves.
Mr. Bennet himself sat near the window, a volume open before him more as a shield than an occupation.
“You wish to speak with me, Mr. Darcy?” he said, marking his place with one finger and regarding his visitor over the book. “Pray be seated. I am always at leisure for any gentleman who furnishes my house so liberally with footmen and wine.”
Darcy took the offered chair, though he did not sit easily.
“I fear, sir, you must think me very officious in that respect,” he said. “It was my wish that your comfort should not suffer through the crowd we brought upon you.”
“So I understand,” Mr. Bennet returned. “The footmen were a prodigious source of entertainment to my younger girls, and the hams and claret almost reconciled Mrs. Bennet to your existence. I confess, when the first cart of supplies arrived, I began to suspect that something more than common civility was in question.”
Despite himself, Darcy coloured slightly.
“I would not have presumed—”
“My dear sir, when a man furnishes my table as if he meant to live upon it, I am tempted to think he has a particular matter in view. It is a strong hint to a father of five daughters,” Mr. Bennet said, his eyes twinkling.
“When that same man cannot look at one of those daughters without losing half his sentences, even I, indolent as I am, am tempted to open my eyes.”
Darcy met his gaze steadily. “It was my duty to provide every thing that could be of use to my sister,” he replied. “Your kindness in receiving us—”
“In receiving you,” Mr. Bennet repeated gently, “when you were out of your senses with anxiety, and my girls were scarce more rational. Yes, we remember it. Pray do not suppose that I have forgotten any part of those days. They taught me more of Mr. Darcy of Pemberley than a dozen dinners.”
There was a brief pause. Darcy drew a breath.
“Then you will not, I hope, think me entirely presumptuous in what I am come to ask.”
“I have been expecting you ever since your second visit to Longbourn,” Mr. Bennet said, closing the book altogether now.
“A gentleman who hunts half the county for his sister, then plants himself at Longbourn to watch over her recovery, and yet, in the midst of it all, follows my second daughter with his eyes whenever she leaves the room, leaves little room for doubt. You may proceed.”
Darcy met his gaze steadily. “Mr. Bennet,” he said, “I am come to ask your permission to marry Elizabeth. I love her most sincerely. I know how much I owe her—for my sister’s sake and my own—but it is not gratitude I offer her.
I believe she regard me with affection enough for such a connexion.
If you see no objection, I beg you will give your consent. ”
Mr. Bennet, who rarely looked much interested in any speech not his own, was attentive now. When Darcy had done, he turned the closed volume in his hands.