Chapter Two
The wind was picking up as Darcy descended from the carriage. Netherfield loomed above, foreboding where it ought to be welcoming, a warm house out of the cold, the amiable Charles Bingley inside.
No matter. He just had to endure one evening and half of tomorrow. Then he could be on his way to Pemberley, where he was most at home.
Pemberley, where he had not returned since his abbreviated visit in August.
Elizabeth had been there then, wandering the grounds when he walked up from the stables. He had not been expecting to see anyone but the servants. He had been dirty and tired, and Elizabeth could not have missed that he smelled strongly of horse. Yet she had been nervously polite.
He had been so struck by the sight of her. Elizabeth, at Pemberley.
The following day he had taken Georgiana to meet Elizabeth at the inn.
The day after that, he had rushed back from fishing with the other gentlemen when he learned that Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner were returning Georgiana’s call.
When he entered the room, not at all his usually composed self, Elizabeth had been sitting in the northern saloon with Georgiana and the other ladies, coaxing a smile from his retiring sister by telling her a story about how a cat had stolen into Longbourn’s larder when she was just a girl.
He could see the falsely polite expressions on the faces of Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst from the corner of his eye, but they were quickly banished from his thoughts.
Mrs. Annesley was listening attentively, and Mrs. Gardiner was shaking her head fondly, interjecting that the cat had not slipped inside, that someone had very kindly opened the door for him.
And Elizabeth had laughed.
The scene had made his heart beat wildly. All he had ever wanted had been there before him.
And then, the very next day it had all been lost.
Elizabeth had been trembling, so great was her distress.
What mortified Darcy the most was not that he had lost her through his own inaction, but that she had been so materially wounded by it.
The woman most precious to him in the world, even more than his own sister, and he had allowed Wickham to destroy her family’s reputation to protect his own.
Well, at least he had been able to put that right. As right as the foolish Lydia Bennet would allow. But it was done.
“Darcy!”
The warm voice pierced the fog of his ruminations, and Darcy realised he had been standing outside his coach in the cold for some minutes like an idiot. He shook his trepidation away, took a deep breath, and pressed forward.
“Bingley,” he called as he mounted the steps. “How fares the groom?”
Bingley stood at the top of the steps, a wide smile on his lips, beckoning him inside. “I am well, Darcy. Anticipating having my Jane home with me.”
Darcy offered his friend a half-smile. He knew precisely how anxious he must be. At least Bingley had a definitive end to his waiting. “Will your family depart for London afterward?”
Bingley shook his head, his expression a mix of displeasure and wry understanding. “They are not coming. Louisa wrote to say that they had planned to spend the festive season in Scarborough, and there would not be time to travel here and back.”
“I had not realised the Hursts enjoyed Scarborough so very much,” Darcy replied. “Do not they generally spend December in town?”
“They do,” Bingley responded tartly, quite uncharacteristic for him.
“This fascination with the north is quite new. Perhaps Hurst’s father requested that they remain.
” Unspoken was the fact that the larger Hurst family did not appreciate Caroline Bingley’s company.
They had never hesitated to send Hurst and his wife on their way if it meant being rid of Miss Bingley.
Darcy was surprised that Hurst had not accepted the invitation if for no other reason than he would be fed and lodged at no cost to himself. It was always possible, of course, that the ladies had not mentioned the wedding to him.
Though Darcy was affronted on Bingley’s behalf, it was a great relief to him that Miss Bingley was not in residence. Her vapid pettiness reminded him of how he had acted when first he arrived here and how that behaviour had set Elizabeth against him from the beginning. It was not a pleasant memory.
“I am pleased that you are here,” Bingley was saying. “Although I do wish you had planned to arrive last night. We had the most wonderful dinner with the Bennets. It would have been good for you to meet them again before seeing them at the church tomorrow.”
The timing of the dinner had been the very reason Darcy had delayed his journey until today. “They are your future family, Bingley, not mine.” There was almost a tinge of melancholy in his voice, and he commanded himself to banish it.
Bingley clapped him on the back. “The Bennets are not so bad when you get to know them. Mrs. Bennet is excitable, I grant you, but soon Jane will live at Netherfield, and we will not have to meet her mother every day.”
Darcy doubted very much that Mrs. Bennet would distance herself from her eldest and advantageously married daughter. But then, it was not his business, was it? Mrs. Bennet would never be making a nuisance of herself at Pemberley.
“As you say,” he agreed.
Bingley walked him to the chambers that had been prepared for him, which were in a wing on the opposite side of the house from Bingley’s chambers. Darcy smiled broadly at that. “I will not be here, you know, when Mrs. Bingley enters the house.”
“An overabundance of caution, let us say,” Bingley replied, nudging Darcy in the ribs with his elbow.
Bingley was normally a jovial sort of fellow, but today he was downright giddy.
And why not? He was about to marry the woman he loved.
Darcy put his own desires aside. Bingley was not the reason for the jealousy that burned in his chest like a hot fire banked low.
He had it in him to be truly happy for his friend.
There was no man of his acquaintance who deserved a loving woman more.
“Well,” Darcy said, “allow me to change my clothes, and then we shall spend this evening eating a fine meal and toasting your future felicity.”
“Not too many toasts.” Bingley’s countenance was nearly shining. “I want to remember every moment of my wedding day.”
Bingley was a far better man than he. “I have always been in favour of quality over quantity, Bingley.”
“One of many reasons I knew you were the right man for the job.” Bingley offered Darcy a shallow bow when they reached the chamber door. “I will see you shortly.”
Elizabeth was so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not hear her father calling her name.
“Lizzy,” he said with a sigh, gently taking her book from her hands. “You are terribly distracted.”
“My apologies, sir,” she told him. “I was wool-gathering.”
“I should say you were.” He sat down in the chair beside hers, searching brown eyes meeting her own.
“Lizzy, you went away this summer your usual charming, witty self, but you returned to us quiet and subdued. If it were not for Jane’s wedding plans, I do not think we would see you at all other than at meals. ”
Elizabeth’s protests were weak, and her father lifted one shaggy eyebrow.
“Ever since Lydia’s folly, you have not been yourself.
I cannot recall the last time I heard you laugh.
Jane may not notice because she is so caught up with your mother and her intended, but Lizzy, will you not tell your old papa what is troubling you? ”
Elizabeth wished that she could, but she was still angry with her father.
A folly, he called it? It had been dangerous to send Lydia to Brighton with no one but the young Mrs. Forster as a chaperone, and she had told her father so.
He had dismissed her warning out of hand, only desirous of his own peace.
Papa had his book room and Jane had her Mr. Bingley.
Elizabeth alone was paying for his negligence.
When her father had returned from London, his search for Lydia a failure, he had admitted Elizabeth had been right to warn him, but what good was that after the worst had already happened?
“There is nothing the matter,” Elizabeth said, “other than I grieve for Lydia’s future and feel sorry to be losing Jane’s company, even to so fine a man as Mr. Bingley.”
Her father watched her carefully, speaking not a word. At last, he sighed. “Very well, child, but understand that if you do wish to speak of it, you know where to find me.”
Elizabeth offered him a slight smile. It was all she could summon. Instead of remaining in the drawing room where any of her family might find her, she wandered to the family parlour at the back of the house.
Her father had noticed her anguish, and that was something, she supposed.
Mamma would only ascribe Elizabeth’s sorrow to jealousy and scold her for it.
Mary and Kitty were wrapped up in their own concerns, Mary praying more because she did not understand how Lydia had broken all the rules and yet wound up with everything she wanted, Kitty shyly following Jane about and involving herself in the wedding plans since she had not been able to do so with Lydia.
Neither of them yet possessed the insight to realise how unsatisfying Lydia’s married life would be.
Their youngest sister would pay the price for her impetuousness, and do so among strangers, very far from home.
Elizabeth did have it in her to pity Lydia for that.
She closed her eyes and attempted to banish the melancholy that was overtaking her, but it was no use, not today.
Elizabeth found herself staring out the one window that looked to the northwest and Netherfield. She stood before it. Had Mr. Darcy arrived yet? It was cold, but there had been neither rain nor snow to prevent his journey.
Though she would never have asked Mr. Bingley about his friend’s travel plans, Elizabeth had nourished a secret hope that Mr. Darcy would attend the formal family dinner the previous evening.
She had taken special care with her toilette, earning herself a scolding from Mamma, who had told her not to bother, as there was nothing for her at Netherfield.
It had stung. In fact, all of Mamma’s little slights, intended and unintended, had bothered her more these past weeks than they ought.
Elizabeth knew this was simply how her mother was, and she ought not allow the insults to discompose her, but after the events of the past year her emotions were rubbed raw, and she knew not what to think or do or say.
She had thrown herself into assisting Jane with preparations for the wedding, not only because Jane deserved such attentions but to keep herself from running mad.
What would she do when Jane was gone? Although a three-mile trek across the fields was of no matter when the weather was mild, it was still a good distance away from having her sister in the room next to her own. And Jane would have her own concerns and duties as a new wife.
Elizabeth wished she might be able to do the same.
But how could she when she had so abused the man she now understood she cared for, accusing him of a lack of feeling and a dearth of integrity?
To her shame, she had learned that he felt more deeply and had more integrity than any other man she had ever known.
She had not been wrong about his interference between Jane and Mr. Bingley, but had he not also rectified that error by bringing Mr. Bingley back again?
Mr. Darcy was not perfect, but what would she do with a perfect man?
More to the point, what would a perfect man want with her?
No, that was Jane’s lot, to have a husband so uniquely complementary, to create the serene marriage that best suited her.
Elizabeth preferred the storm. But it had not served her well.
She went to her writing table and drew one of the drawers forward.
Behind the false back there was a keyhole, and she fit a little key into it, turning it all the way to the right until the lock popped open and she could withdraw two letters.
She sat on her bed with them, reading them both through.
The first was showing signs of wear, but she could not resist tracing her finger along the farewell.
I will only add, God bless you.
Fitzwilliam Darcy
The next was a letter from Aunt Gardiner, extolling Mr. Darcy’s efforts to find Lydia, to bring her back to the family without marrying such a terrible man, and then seeing that the marriage took place when it was clear Lydia would not be convinced.
A tickling wetness on Elizabeth’s cheek had her refolding both letters hurriedly so as not to smear the ink with a wayward tear.
She held them in her hand for a moment, fragile reminders of what she had thrown away, talismans that proved an honourable man had loved her once, even if she had not recognised it.
He had loved her, and she had never seen it. “How clever do you think yourself now, Elizabeth Bennet?” she whispered.