Chapter Twenty #2
Mr. Darcy was a serious young man, with a dry sense of humor, a willingness to take arguments and ideas seriously, and a warm and happy smile every time he looked at Elizabeth.
Simply seeing him next to her made Mr. Gardiner kiss his own wife, and think of the happiness of the early stages of courtship, when the existence of the other person seemed to be a magical fact which could barely be believed in.
Elizabeth was delighted to show off two persons whom she loved dearly to her aunt and uncle.
After an hour of adult conversation, Mr. Gardiner’s two children, a well grown girl of three years, and a son who was just beginning to pull himself up on tables, were called to the room.
Darcy found himself an object of great interest to the girl, and he was happy to play with her, to seriously answer many questions about ‘why’, and to act as though the empty cup that he was given by Miss Gardiner was in fact filled with the most sumptuous brew of tea.
Though he did not know it, listening to his conversation with Miss Gardiner brought great joy to Elizabeth, and it helped to satisfy both Mr. Gardiner and his wife that their niece had attached herself to a worthy person.
After they finished eating, Mr. Gardiner made a point of interrogating Mr. Darcy minutely upon his expectations and feelings towards Elizabeth, but he did so in such a manner as to leave that gentleman and the rest of the party who listened to the inquisition laughing loudly.
Even though Darcy and Georgiana had only arrived in London after noon, they remained for supper with Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner and only returned to their own house across the city when night had long since fallen.
A return of the visit was immediately made, with the Gardiners calling at Darcy’s London townhouse, and they spent nearly the whole of a Sunday in it and its environs.
The townhouse was a building that Elizabeth scarcely recalled since she had not been in it since before the fire that changed her life, as Old Mr. Darcy had tended to stay in his home county during the last years of his life.
At the start of the visit, they brought Fanny and little Eddie up to the nursery to play with Fitzwilliam and Georgiana’s old toys—some of which had been the toys of Fitzwilliam’s father when he had been a child.
It was quite odd to think that he had once been a child, but she could not doubt it.
At least not after Fanny had thrust a large, robust toy soldier into her hands and enthusiastically ordered Elizabeth to feel it all around.
As she traced out the buttons and the sound head, Fitzwilliam quietly informed her that it this soldier had been a favorite object of his at a time, since it had been his father’s when he was a child.
“I am so glad that you are in town now.” Elizabeth leaned her head against Fitzwilliam’s shoulder. “In only a few years it may be our own children playing happily with these toys.”
Mr. Gardiner heard this, and he said in a friendly but firm tone, “Not in too little time, I expect.”
Elizabeth laughed.
Fitzwilliam said, perhaps feeling the intimidation that one ought to feel in the presence of the guardian of a beloved woman, “Certainly not, sir.”
“Young gentleman, we ought to have a serious talk about the matter of your marriage to my niece soon.”
“I quite agree.” Fitzwilliam sat taller—and to Elizabeth’s annoyance disrupted her comfortable headrest. “As Elizabeth’s closest male relation, and her guardian, I wish to seek your blessing.”
The next evening Darcy and Georgiana were still at Gracechurch Street when Mr. Gardiner completed his business for the day and returned home.
It was not a particularly difficult conversation, as the chief point which Mr. Gardiner wished to insist upon was one which matched Darcy’s own views of what was best for Elizabeth—though he had different desires that pointed very much in the other direction.
“I have no doubts about your suitability,” Mr. Gardiner said. “I have received letters nearly every second week from my niece for many years, and you and your kindness to her received frequent mention. That your attachment is a product of long friendship and affection is clear.”
Darcy smiled at Mr. Gardiner, who he liked even more the longer he spent with him. “But?”
“It merely is that she is very young. My understanding is that you have said as much. Elizabeth does not see herself in that way. Or perhaps she thinks that her blindness gives her leave to ignore every ordinary consideration.”
That drew a laugh from Darcy. “That is very much like how she thinks.”
“I’d hope for her to be older, and that she will have had a chance to mingle in society some before her marriage is solemnized.
This is not from some nonsensical desire to test her affection, or any other notion of that sort.
Simply…well, she is young. Both of my sisters married when they were sixteen, and that was too young, I think.
I married my wife when she was twenty-five, and the additional maturity and certainty of herself that age gave has been much to both our benefit. ”
“I hope,” Darcy said with just a little of anxiety, “that you do not mean to delay our marriage that long.”
Mr. Gardiner laughed. “Merely an example. I do wish that you’d delay until she was eighteen.”
In his relief at this suggestion seeming far more reasonable than the age of twenty-five, and because he agreed with the principle underlying Mr. Gardiner’s suggestion, Darcy agreed to this plan.
Darcy would never know that Mr. Gardiner, a man most familiar with the way to gain the best price in commercial negotiations, had thought to bring forward the example of his own marriage in such a way, precisely for the sake of making Mr. Darcy feel more amenable to the date which Mr. Gardiner preferred.
Mr. Gardiner poured glasses of port for himself and his guest, and they clinked and drank in celebration.
As soon however as Darcy saw Elizabeth sitting and smiling in the drawing room, with her three-year-old cousin on her lap, pretending to read to Elizabeth from a book, the duration of almost three years seemed unendurably long.
When the plan of waiting until after her eighteenth birthday was suggested to Elizabeth, she was not at all pleased with the idea of such a long delay.
Miss Bennet stated that in her view a marriage after a year’s engagement, when she would be the age that her mother had been when she married would be more than sufficient.
The fortune and situation of the couple made any delay at all wholly unnecessary.
Unfortunately for Elizabeth’s preferences, Darcy’s sense of duty and rightness required that he defer in this matter to Mr. Gardiner, rather than his own preferences—which Elizabeth could have easily bent and sighed and smiled into whichever shape she so wished.
Her uncle proved to also be a little bendable, and eventually the date of their marriage was moved to be substantially earlier than he had imagined, though it was still in Elizabeth’s view a far longer engagement than necessary.