Chapter Two #2
Elizabeth left her room only when Lydia knocked on the door to inform her that Mr. Bingley’s carriage was approaching. When she stepped into the hall, Lydia pushed a seed cake into her hand.
“Bless you,” Elizabeth whispered, breaking it into small pieces and making short work of it. It was terrible behavior, she knew, to eat in such a manner, but it would be worse if her stomach rumbled during Mr. Darcy’s call. She waved Lydia off to the school-room before heading downstairs.
When she arrived in the drawing room, there was thankfully no sign of Mr. Collins.
Mr. Bingley and Jane were seated in one corner, Mary was reading, Kitty was at her needlework, and Mr. Darcy was standing by a window waiting for her.
She was struck, again, by how very tall he was, and how handsome.
His dark curls just touched the collar of his shirt, and his eyes followed her as she approached.
He was holding a small, tightly bound nosegay of white roses with deep green leaves, bound by a red ribbon.
Her heart began to beat a little faster, a little harder.
“Good day, Mr. Darcy,” she said, feeling unaccountably bashful.
“Good day, Miss Elizabeth,” he replied. She let the deep, smooth tone of his voice wash over her.
She glanced over at Jane and saw that Mr. Bingley had given her red roses in full bloom.
She wondered why Mr. Darcy had chosen white, though she appreciated that each was an exquisite, only slightly-opened bud.
They would last longer, blooming in her room and filling it with scent.
He smiled as he offered them to her, and she knew from that smile he had noticed her comparing her sister’s flowers to these.
Nothing I do escapes his notice, she thought, embarrassed.
Then she was struck by the truth of her observation. Oh. Nothing I do escapes his notice.
He waited for her to take them and then said in a voice only she could hear, “I saw the white roses and could not resist.” He brushed his fingers lightly over hers. “Greek mythology tells us that Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was born from the foam of the sea.”
She nodded. She had read that myth, too. She raised the flowers and bent her head to inhale their fragrance. It was crisp and sharp, like lemons. I love them, she thought.
He lowered his voice. “The Greek poet Anacreon claimed that the foam which fell from her as she emerged from the ocean transformed into white roses.” He touched one of the buds tenderly. “When I think of Aphrodite, I think of you.”
Elizabeth was certain her cheeks were bright red. His words were both innocent and daring. Her impulse was to tease him but could not find the words—he had struck her speechless. She found she did not mind.
When she glanced shyly up at him, his small smile grew into a wider one. “Would you like to take a short walk? The day is growing a little warmer.”
“I would love to,” she told him, despite having already been out. She glanced over at her sisters. “Mary,” she asked, “would you care to accompany us outside?”
Mary agreed immediately, and Mr. Fitzwilliam rose from his seat near Kitty.
“I will escort you, Miss Mary, if you will allow me.” He cocked a challenging eyebrow at his cousin, and Darcy almost rolled his eyes.
Mary seemed pleased, and Elizabeth worried her sister might have taken the request the wrong way.
There was nothing for it, however, and the four of them walked out together.
Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy had soon outpaced their chaperones.
“You are very bold this morning, Mr. Darcy,” she said as he placed his free hand over hers where it rested in the crook of his arm.
“I promised myself when you agreed to be courted, I should be entirely open with you,” he replied. “It is not easy for me, but I have caused misunderstandings enough with my behavior.” He gazed at her, his expression troubled. “I have not been too bold, have I?”
Elizabeth paused a moment, then lifted her head. “No,” she assured him. “You have been precisely the proper amount of bold.”
The worry lines around his mouth disappeared. “Good,” he said, lifting her hand to bestow a light kiss. “Good.”
Elizabeth could not have related much of what they spoke of on their walk.
Mr. Darcy, true to his word, demonstrated his care through numerous small gestures that assailed her senses: offering steady assistance over a stile, plucking a fallen leaf from the brim of her bonnet, gazing at her face as though nothing else mattered when she was speaking.
It was necessary, she thought, to have some weightier conversation, to learn the things about one another that might ensure the felicity she was currently experiencing would last beyond their first argument as husband and wife.
But he had entirely discomposed her. What topic might they possibly broach?
“Tell me about your childhood,” she said at last, thinking that an exchange of personal stories might help them know one another better. “Why do you call your cousin by his Christian name while he calls you Darcy?”
“Habit, I suppose,” Mr. Darcy said. “He called me by my Christian name as well until he returned from his first year at Eton. I call him Fitzwilliam in company, but not when we are in private.” He smiled at her.
“I suppose I have slipped a bit on this visit or you would not have heard it, but he has always been Richard to me.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Have you and Mr. Fitzwilliam always been close, then?”
He looked over his shoulder at his cousin and Mary, who trailed a good distance behind them. “We have,” he said, returning his attention to her. “I was, of course, the perfect child, but my cousin was constantly drawing me into trouble.”
“I see,” Elizabeth replied, “and should I ask Mr. Fitzwilliam, would he agree?”
“Of course,” Mr. Darcy replied glibly. She only caught the quirk of his lips by the merest chance as she glanced up at him.
“Yes, it is just as I thought,” she scoffed, triumphant. “It is always the quiet ones that must be watched, Mr. Darcy.”
He laughed, then, with a sort of pleased surprise.
“You have caught me out, Miss Elizabeth,” he told her.
“I was generally the instigator. Richard was older, and it was he who figured out how to make my wild plans work. It was no surprise to me when he chose the army over the church.” He smiled, his eyes faraway for a moment.
“When I was ten, we spent the entire summer training my dog to steal biscuits from the kitchen.”
She smiled. I can picture that so easily. And she could, two young boys hiding in the woods as they trained their dog to fetch. “And were you successful?”
“Yes and no,” he replied, with a shrug. “Jericho stole the biscuits and absconded cleanly, but we found him disinclined to share.”
She smiled. “No honor among thieves, then?”
He shook his head mournfully. “Not at all. We were completely betrayed.”
Elizabeth laughed gaily, but stopped abruptly when he patted her hand and said, “And you?”
“Me?” she asked, pretending not to understand, instead mimicking his words. “I was the perfect child, Mr. Darcy.”
“Oh, come now, Miss Elizabeth,” he chided her. “Do not think me so generous as to reveal my own criminal trespass without recompense. I imagine you made a good deal of mischief of your own.”
“I would not say I had grand plans,” she admitted, “though I did have a great many questions and a very fertile imagination. My aunt and I traipsed all over the grounds at Weymouth House, particularly the long stream that cuts through the property and the woods beyond. I think my uncle quite despaired of us at first.”
“How old were you then?” he inquired. There was a soft smile on his face.
“Oh, ten or eleven, I should imagine. Far too old to be scaling trees with my sketchbook or removing my shoes and stockings to capture frogs in the creek.”
“Were you so interested in frogs, then?” he asked with interest.
“I wanted to draw them, so I needed to see them,” she explained.
“The texture of their skin, the way their legs fold up, their large eyes—they were wonderful subjects, if a bit unwilling to sit for their portraits.” She smiled at the memory.
“My Aunt Olivia was the only adult I knew who would help me.”
“What did she do, precisely?” Mr. Darcy asked.
“Why, she perched on a boulder and held the frog while I drew it,” Elizabeth laughed.
“It did not seem at all odd to me at the time, Aunt Olivia sitting cross-legged on a boulder above the creek in her best walking dress with a handful of frog. Uncle Phillip simply laughed at us both. But it was a good laugh,” she hastened to add.
“A happy laugh.” She cast her eyes straight ahead and blinked rapidly until she was once again composed. “I had a lovely childhood, Mr. Darcy.”
Darcy was charmed by Elizabeth’s story about the frog, but he noted several things as they took turns reminiscing.
One was that most of her happy memories were from Weymouth House, with a few from the trips she and the Russells had taken together.
Another was that her departure from Longbourn had been painful.
And the third was that she still deeply missed her uncle and was eager to see her aunt again.
She fit in with her sisters so well it was sometimes difficult to recall that she had only been a resident here for less than half a year.
It was as if she had never been away, at least to his eyes.
He was pleased to hear in her stories a rather profound attachment to each of them; he had not spent much time with her sisters, but they seemed pleasant enough.
Miss Bennet was all that was proper and lovely and would make Charles an excellent wife.
Miss Bingley might choke on her own bonnet, but she could not deny that even the tangential connection Miss Bennet had to the Duke of Bedford through the Russells was a substantial coup for her brother.