Chapter 35
H aving settled on this plan, I went resignedly to bed with the expectation of a great many hours of useless waiting, punctuated by an occasional word or look upon which nebulous direction my next step towards an understanding would become clear.
Early the next morning, however, my strategy was thrown into the ditch by the arrival of Carsten at my bedside with a candle.
“My word, what time is it?” I mumbled petulantly.
“Not yet seven, sir. Miss Elizabeth Bennet is downstairs and has asked for you.”
“Good God!” I cried as I leapt out of bed. “What has happened? Is she in the?—”
“She is in the servant’s hall, sir,” he hastily explained, “and appears to be in fine spirits. She asked for me with the intention of discreetly enquiring if you would care to walk her home.”
Needless to say, my preparations were frantic and my morning shave sacrificed in order for me to throw on my coat, step into my boots, fly down the back staircase, and come to a panting, speechless halt before her.
“Good morning, sir,” she said brightly. “Might we step outside? I really should be getting home before the breakfast table is set.”
I instantly complied, of course, and resisting the strong urge to apologise for the shabbiness of my appearance, I steered her around the bustle of the stables at first light and, merely following her lead, found myself walking beside her down the lane commonly used by the servants and merchants who came to Netherfield Park’s rear door.
“I have shocked you,” she said with a sideways glance.
“Not at all. I am used to being rousted from bed in order to walk a lady home in the half-light of dawn. Should I be alarmed?”
Her gurgle of laughter suggested I had amused her, and she took the arm I offered. “I do not rightly know. Should you be alarmed, Mr Darcy?”
“Until I know what is required of me, I believe I should at least be allowed to be confused,” I said. “What time did you leave Longbourn?”
“Full dark and with admirable stealth. There is nothing new in my early morning walks, and I thought to make good use of the fact I shall not be missed before ten o’clock.”
Upon exchanging a look in which she continued to be calmly amused, and I stared at her like a benighted fool, she relented. “I see you are not a man to be taken where the tide washes you?”
“I prefer a map as you perhaps know from our expedition in Kent.”
A flash of mischief lit her eyes. “Upon seeing your reticence of yesterday, I felt I must break convention and force a private meeting. There is much I believe we would like to say to one another, and were I to wait for you to create an opportunity to do so, I would likely see another year pass by.”
This was so far removed from the usual course of things, my mind went completely dark. Did she expect me to make her an offer while we walked past the pigsty before the sun had even come up? Or—good God. Was I to hear something shattering?
“I-I do not know quite where to start.”
“Then we should start with my polite enquiry as to how you are feeling. We have a long walk in front of us, sir, and the liberty to indulge in simple conversation. Are you well?”
Had she indeed arranged to speak with me privately only to ask after my health? After a desperate regrouping of my thoughts, I said, “I am feeling much stronger, I thank you. How was your journey home from Pemberley?”
“Interminable.”
“That is the longest road, is it not? I find the reverse much shorter, though it is exactly the same distance.”
“True. And to add to the misery, I was plagued with—well, so many feelings.”
“Such as?”
“I did not want to leave, for one thing. Never in my life had I enjoyed myself more liberally. But you are being unfair to prompt me to say more before you have uttered a single sentence that was not a polite muttering.”
“There is a great deal I would like to tell you. Perhaps more than even you might wish to hear.”
“Impossible. I would gladly listen to you speak for the next two miles.”
“Upon what subject?”
She rallied me then, and said, “My good sir, clearly you are not in the habit of conversation. Begin with the first stupidity that enters your head. What is the worst that could happen? You may say something foolish to which I would likely reply with a ready laugh. If you need somewhere more solid to begin, perhaps you might explain why you struck north on the expedition that nearly cost you your life?”
“Ah. That is a subject upon which we would need more than two miles of easy walking to canvass.” We took a few more steps in silence, and I was then moved to say, “I see by your look of scepticism, however, that you are unlikely to excuse me from answering you, and so, succinctly, I shall offer only that the impulse was the result of a vague and longstanding dissatisfaction with the progress and content of my life.”
“Dissatisfaction? You? Surely not.”
“By that you mean to suggest that my circumstances give me no right to complain. But I confess when I looked forward to my old age, I saw only slight variations in an uninteresting turning-over of days, months, and years. The daily routines, the cycle of day and night, the food on my plate, the discovery of problems and solutions that seem to revolve endlessly on a tiresome wheel—all of it was so unvarying as to render me half-dead before I had even crossed through the prime of my life.”
Elizabeth remained thoughtful for a moment before she said, “Would it surprise you to know that I too have sometimes seen the same narrowness in the scope of my own life?”
“Perhaps you should plan a very long march upon some arduous and stony path,” I said lightly.
“If only I could! When Georgiana wrote to me of your plans and then the bits of news of you which she had to share, I was wild with envy.”
“Might I hint that the reality is much less charming than the idea?”
“You may, and I would believe you, but that would not lessen its value to a person’s life. Come,” she said, as we stepped around a muddy dip in the road, “confess to me what you really discovered other than Roman ruins.”
“I am so altered, I would think you could see for yourself that I am not the same man.”
She grinned at me. “I see no such thing. You are the same gentleman who saw me safely to the edge of London in a gig.”
“No, no. That poor soul has since been humbled ten times over. And you? Have you changed since I saw you safely to Mr Gardiner’s house?”
“Saw me?”
“It should not surprise you that I followed your hackney coach and watched until the door safely closed behind you.”
“I suppose it should not—but did you, indeed? I see from the smugness of your smile that you did.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you are quite adept at avoiding a question you do not wish to answer?”
“Such as the one you just posed? Let us cross over that stile and take the lane that borders Mr Ridley’s field, shall we?”
“That is an excellent idea, since I have no notion where we are at the moment. After which,” I said drily as I helped her over the top step and down the other side, “I am in full expectation that you will turn the tables upon me once more, and before I know up from down, you will have won the game of conversation.”
When I had also gone over the stile, I again offered her my arm.
“Let me save you the trouble by surrendering sooner than later. You may freely interrogate me, madam, and I shall confess any truth. Meanwhile, you are to be absolved from telling me anything meaningful, since you cannot be made to do so.”
“What?” she cried. “You cannot give up so easily! By doing so, you have fairly beaten me at my own game. It is so much more fun to pull words from you than to…” Her words faded and Elizabeth Bennet was, for the first time since I had known her, slightly confounded.
“…Than to what? Tell me what you are truly thinking?”
After a blushing silence, broken only by the flutter of doves we startled as we walked by a fallow field, she said, “The truth is I boldly forced us to meet, and now I am suddenly shy of you, Mr Darcy.”
“You cannot possibly be as shy of me as I am of you. We have been thrown together in miserable circumstances and became used to speaking too freely, perhaps. Now, months later, it seems a treacherous business to return to such intimacy, yet we are incapable of pretending we do not know one another better than we ought.”
She listened with her face averted, and I pressed my advantage while she was still too abashed to defend herself by the judicious application of her superior wit.
“You gave me leave to come to you, and I have come. What now, my love?” I took her gloved hand to my lips. “Should I tell you what I truly learnt in the wilds of the northern counties? I learnt that my feelings for you are unshakeable, unyielding, and unalterable.”
She then looked up from the ground and turned to look into my eyes, seemingly on the verge of reply, and so I put a finger to her lips and said, “Slowly, my darling. Let us not rush through the best part of love. Be assured of my constancy and of the honour I take seriously. I mean to do justice to your worth, and for this I cannot take any moment of your time or attention for granted. You refused to allow me to marry you out of duty to your reputation, did you not? Reject me here and now or allow me to win you fairly as though we did not have any history of—well, I do not know how to put the matter more delicately, except to say that I have held you in my arms as though you were mine already.”