Chapter Ten
We arrived at Longbourn to find that both Mr. Bennets had arrived before us. They had been expecting us, having been to the inn and gotten the story from the innkeeper.
Miss Bennet’s father pulled her out of the carriage and embraced her and she sniffled into his shoulder, apologizing over and over, and he soothed her hair and told her that she was all right now, that she was all right.
I took Miss Bennet’s brother aside and asked him about concealing it. “Certainly there must be some way to keep this a secret, especially since nothing happened. You must be quite adept at keeping secrets.”
“Well, it’s very late,” said Mr. Bennet, “and I don’t have the clearest mind at this point, but I do see what it is you are saying. Maybe it’s possible.”
“For the love of all that is holy, you cannot marry her to Bingley,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows. “As solutions go, that’s not a terrible one. And Bingley and I have discussed it, of course, marrying each other’s sisters. It wouldn’t be like getting married ourselves, but it would mean we could be all together easily.”
“You marrying Caroline Bingley,” I said. “That seems a wretched thing to do, even to her.”
“Why would you say that?”
“You are ill-equipped to be any woman’s husband!” I raged. “Either of you.”
“Well, Darcy, that is your opinion,” he said. “What is to become of my sister else? I don’t see you offering any other solutions.”
I could not meet his gaze.
I knew what he was implying.
But I could not do it.
It was one thing to marry her if she was some country miss who was perfectly respectable, but to marry a woman who had been ruined by Wickham of all people—even if I knew she had not been—the appearance of it, it would bring shame down on my family. I could not do that.
I had responsibilities to other people besides myself.
I could not pursue my own pleasure.
The colonel was bright as a spring day, having slept the whole way back in the carriage, and he stayed up and talked to me as I raged to him for a long time about how I absolutely could not marry Elizabeth Bennet.
I could not marry her before, and this situation had not made it any easier to marry her, only worse.
Richard was sanguine about it. “You can marry anyone you like, Will. You can marry her if you wish.”
“I cannot,” I said. “You do not understand anything.”
“What are the consequences to you?” he said. “No one will say a thing to your face about whatever your choice is.”
“Oh, they will,” I said, glaring at him. “You would lead the charge, had you not been here. You would have spent all your time needling me, asking if she was with child, asking if I could be sure that the child was mine, saying that—”
“I’m not that awful,” said the colonel.
“You’re worse,” I said. “And when I complain, then it just another chance for you to needle me about my lack of manhood, my snailhood, in fact.”
“Oh, come now. You are too sensitive by half.”
“And here we are,” I muttered.
“Well, even so, it doesn’t matter,” he said.
“You’ll tell everyone you are positive, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she is pure, and that if they say another word against your wife, you will not take it lightly.
And if they continue, challenge them, and name me as your second, and they will back down—”
“Dueling?” I said. “Dueling is your solution?”
“You are a snail,” he said, nodding, shrugging.
“Dueling is illegal, and besides—”
“You don’t actually duel,” said Richard. “You have no idea how this works, do you? You issue the challenge, and then they back off.”
“Maybe with you they would,” I muttered. “I’m not quite sure anyone is much frightened of me in that way.”
He looked me over. “Well, anyway, as all that goes, if you want her, and you do know she is pure, I don’t see that it matters. If you can’t handle men teasing you, if that stops you, then you really are a snail.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not about the consequences to me, really, Richard.
You see, this is what you don’t understand.
You’re so glib, with your bit about how awful it is to be a second son, how difficult it is for you, not getting the same inheritance as your brother, but what you don’t see is everything that comes along with that inheritance.
You see the advantages but not all the responsibilities. ”
“What are you talking about?”
“I am talking about all of the people who rely on me to maintain a certain reputation and a certain appearance. If I behave in a careless way, it affects everyone. It affects Georgiana, your parents, you—”
“You are overstating—”
“All of the servants who are in my employ,” I said. “They are in a position where other servants will challenge them on the morality of their master. You know this is true.”
“Well, that is too much to take on, Fitz,” he said. “I daresay most men in your position do not take it on.”
“It can have detrimental effects,” I said. “Men who do not have sterling morality are known as such. It can mean that business transactions fall through, that men do not wish to allow you to marry their daughters—”
“Well, in this case, that won’t matter, because you will be married.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
“You could do it if you wanted and you know it,” he said.
I shook my head. “I could not.”
But I was at Longbourn early the next day, too early for callers. I was shown into the breakfast parlor, and Bingley was there, and he looked up at me and raised his eyebrows, and I stammered out, “I wish to speak to Miss Bennet alone.”
“You wish,” said Mr. Bingley, “to speak to my future bride alone?”
“I do,” I said. “If she is not your bride yet, she can still hear what I have to say.”
Mrs. Bennet crowed, “This is truly the most exciting set of days in my life in decades. My nerves! I can hardly handle the mad swings of it all.”
It was a warm spring day in early May.
Miss Bennet and I went walking through the fields around Longbourn.
I did not know what to say. “I did not think I would come to see you and do this,” I said.
“I spent all night staying up and protesting that I could not do it. There is a certain sort of woman I should marry, and you have never been that sort of woman, and now that you have attempted to elope with Mr. Wickham, it is even worse, and it is all insupportable.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Well, then, insupportable, Mr. Darcy?”
“So, I have struggled against it,” I said.
“Struggled in vain, I think, for it will not do, I cannot leave you to marry Mr. Bingley. I must tell you how ardently I admire you, how I love you, how I have thought of little but you since the first time I set eyes upon you. You must understand, Miss Bennet, you drive me to do insupportable things, and I cannot help myself, I must ask for your hand. Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
She continued to walk and said nothing.
I walked next to her.
“Well,” she said finally, “you have done it. James said you might, and I said you would not, for I sat across from you in that carriage and saw the expressions you made, the way you disapprove of me.”
“I do not disapprove of you, madam.”
“You do indeed. Your entire proposal has been about how much, in fact, you disapprove.”
“No,” I said. “Other people disapprove. I think you’re wonderful.”
“Other people?” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“People whose opinions you care about.”
“Well…” I was not certain what to say.
“I suppose you realize that Mr. Bingley came to me this morning, and that I have already accepted his proposal, and that everyone in the family is quite relieved at this turn of events, even though my father cannot understand why Mr. Bingley would do such a thing, and James’s reason that he and Bingley are fast friends does not satisfy him.
But they are not going to deny his offer, and neither could I.
I had a letter from Lady Susannah telling me that she wishes me to stay away for the rest of the week. ”
“She had heard already?”
“I told you, the servants knew,” she said. “Everyone knows. She made it out as if she was only thinking of me, and she said that I must rest, and that she would quite welcome me back in due time, but I could read between the lines, you know.”
I nodded. “Of course. I am ever so sorry, Miss Bennet.”
“So, with those rumors, do you wish to take it back?” she said. “Everyone in the surrounding area will know of what I have done soon enough, I rather imagine, and you will not wish to be saddled with that.”
“Perhaps not, but I wish to have you more,” I said.
“Why?” she said. “Because I am pretty?”
“More than that,” I said. “Because you are brave and because you have this spirit within you, this spirit that reaches for the things you want. You are fearless and you are willing to pursue pleasure, and I think I have sensed that in you from the beginning. You make me wish to be fearless, too.”
She regarded me. “We don’t really know each other, Mr. Darcy.”
“Are you not this way, then?”
She shrugged, smiling a little. “Well, I don’t know, perhaps. But I do not mean that you are wrong about me, only what I say. We have spent very little time together. We have conversed very little. We do not know each other.”
“If we get married, we shall know each other,” I said. “We shall know each other rather well, I think.”
She raised her eyebrows at me and then smirked. “Well, all right.” She swallowed. “But you see what Bingley is offering me, do you not?”
“I suppose,” I said. “But I am offering you the same thing and more.”
“More?” she said. “How do you suppose that is true?”
I coughed. “Rather obviously, I should think, there is something I bring to the table that he doesn’t, and it’s that I want you.”
She stopped walking, and her lips parted. “Oh,” she said.
“Apologies,” I said. “After what happened with Mr. Wickham, you might be reticent, and if so, I should assure you—”
“No, that was not unpleasant, Mr. Darcy,” she breathed, and she began to walk again. “Not even remotely unpleasant, I must say.” She was smiling.
Encouraged, I fell into step with her. “Then accept me. And if so, there is no concern with breaking your engagement with him. It has barely been hours, you are allowed to change your mind, and he won’t even mind.”
“He is offering me a life,” she said. “A life similar to what my brother and I had always planned. I can travel with James, and we can go to the continent, and we can even go to America, and no one will think anything of it. It will be proper as anything, and James and Bingley will be happy, and I shall have my adventures—more adventures, Mr. Darcy—and you will have… responsibilities, likely, and some large and stuffy country house that I shall be expected to be mistress of, and ever so many balls with ever so many women who will not even like me. Who will all be jealous because it is me on your arm and not them and they will feel as if they were the right sort to have been your wife, and I never was, and the life, Mr. Darcy, the offer you make me…”
I stopped walking.
She kept on for several paces. And then she stopped and turned to look at me.
“You are going to say no?” I said. “I can take you to America, if that’s what you want.”
She bit down on her lower lip. “I suppose.”
“I think, Miss Bennet,” I said in a voice that had taken on a rather scratchy quality, “I might like nothing better than finding things that please you and doing them. I might like to spend my whole life trying to please you.”
She laughed helplessly. “My mother says my father said something like that to her. But you see how they are now.”
“What happened between your parents?”
“I know not, but she always goes on about how she swore she would never have another of his children, you know. They were once quite in love. My mother says men desire you, as a woman, and it feels lovely, but that it is dangerous, for it is so easy to disappoint them.”
“I can’t imagine you disappointing me.”
“Oh, I definitely shall,” she said. “I might do it right now if I refuse your proposal.”
“Miss Bennet, you cannot do this. You cannot agree to a marriage with a man who desires your brother. You cannot marry a man who will never want you, who will never be a husband to you in that way.”
“Well, he says there are things… like insemination with bulls, and that we can have children, and—”
“That’s appalling,” I said. “You eloped with a man because you wanted him for your own pleasure, and you will then resign yourself to a life with no pleasure at all?”
She looked at me and then she looked away.
“Perhaps I don’t please you,” I said. “If so, Miss Bennet, put me out of my misery, please. If you know you don’t want me back—”
“Oh, stop it, Mr. Darcy, everyone knows you’re the tallest and the broadest and wealthiest man to come through this county in ages, and that your hair is so very dark and you are… everyone wants you.”
“Wait, you mean…” I made a face. She meant Bingley and her brother.
“From an objective perspective, you are wantable,” she said. “You are ideal.” She twisted her hands together. “Maybe you’re sort of prim, I suppose, timid, sort of—”
“Prim?” I repeated. “Have you really just now called me—”
“Righteous,” she said. “Maybe you’re just righteous. There’s something appealing about it, because you are noble and serious and I get the feeling that if you were my husband, you’d take that very seriously. There is something about you that is utterly swoonworthy, Mr. Darcy.”
I waited.
She rubbed her forehead.
“But?” I prompted.
She laughed softly. “Oh, no, please, do not press me.”
“But you are still going to refuse my proposal,” I said softly.
“I have not said that,” she said. “Let me think about it, please. Please?”