Chapter 24 #2
Her composure cracked. “You cannot truly mean to align yourself with such connections! A mother so vulgar, sisters so unpolished—”
“That is enough.”
The words rang through the room.
Lady Anne sat perfectly still. Darcy did not move. Miss Bingley stared at her brother as though she did not recognize him.
“I warned you,” Bingley continued, his voice no longer raised but sharpened beyond comfort. “I told you plainly that I would not have the Bennet family disparaged beneath this roof. You chose to disregard me.”
“I am your sister,” she said, her voice rising. “I have every right to advise you—”
“You have every right to your opinion,” he cut in. “You do not have the right to wound those I esteem.”
She drew herself up. “If you persist in this folly, you will regret it.”
“I regret only that I did not act sooner. That I allowed you to have a second chance.”
When she made no move to comply, he crossed the room, took her firmly by the arm, and guided—indeed, compelled—her toward the door.
“You will prepare to leave at once,” he said. “You depart for Scarborough this afternoon.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief. “Scarborough? With Aunt Thistlewaite and her odious cats? I detest cats—they make me sneeze!”
“You should have considered that,” he replied coldly, “before disregarding my express warning.”
Her protests rose into something perilously near a tantrum. “Charles, this is absurd! You cannot banish me for speaking the truth!”
“As it is not truth, but merely opinion, I certainly can,” he said simply. “And I do.”
She began to protest again—loudly—but he did not release her.
Mrs. Hurst, who had been seated quietly near the hearth, rose at last and hurried after them as Bingley guided his sister from the room.
The door closed.
Silence followed.
Darcy exhaled slowly. He had barely registered Mrs. Hurst’s presence before her departure.
He certainly had not expected such steel from Bingley.
Lady Anne regarded the closed door for a moment, then turned her eyes upon Darcy. “Were you able to have your conversation with Miss Elizabeth?”
He nodded. “She… she asked for time.”
“That is something. She did not refuse.”
“No, she did not.” He hung his head. “She asked whether I would end the courtship if she declined.”
“And what did you answer?”
He hesitated. “That I hoped I should not be required to choose.”
Lady Anne studied him.
“And would you?”
He looked at the fire. “I do not know.”
She was silent a moment. “You ask her to accept more than distance,” she said gently. “You ask her to enter a life she has not lived.”
“I know.”
“And you wish her to do so freely.”
“Yes.”
Lady Anne’s expression softened. “When your father married me,” she said quietly, “it was not exactly by choice. Oh, it was in a way—I chose him over an old earl, and he chose to rescue me instead of turning his back.”
This was not news to Darcy, but it was the first time he heard of his stepmother speak of the circumstances that led to her marriage.
“It was necessity. Protection,” she continued. “I did not understand his faith then. It was not central to me. He had been married before; he had fulfilled certain expectations already. My views cost him nothing.”
She paused for a few moments, staring into the distance at a past he could not see.
“It was his constancy,” she continued at last, “that caused me to question. He did not demand. He did not condemn. He lived what he believed, and I chose to follow. Not in a year. Not in two. It took time.”
“You requested baptism yourself, then?” Darcy said.
“Yes, but it was not until Georgiana was around seven years of age.”
“The earl would have disapproved.”
Lady Anne’s lips curved faintly. “My brother disapproves of many things. That has never prevented me from doing what I would prefer.”
Darcy exhaled softly. “Would my father be disappointed,” he asked after a moment, “if I married a nonbeliever, without having the sacramental ceremony?”
Lady Anne’s gaze sharpened. “Your father valued faith,” she said carefully. “He did not value coercion.”
Darcy absorbed that.
“There is hypocrisy and devotion in both faiths,” she continued. “My brother proclaims himself champion of the sovereign religion, yet his conduct is rarely exemplary. George was devout, but never severe. I think he would care more about the character of your partner than how she prays.”
She leaned slightly forward.
“Heritage is important. But it is not the whole of a man. Nor of a marriage.”
He nodded slowly.
“She must come to it, if she comes at all,” Lady Anne rose her from her seat and smoothed her skirts. “And she may not come by the path you expect.”
When she withdrew, the room fell into a thoughtful stillness. The fire burned low; the afternoon light stretched thin across the carpet. He remained where he was, hands loosely clasped, gaze unfixed.
He had never before felt so divided—between past and future, between inheritance and hope. He thought of Elizabeth’s steady eyes, of the tremor in her voice when she had said she loved him, of the courage it required to ask for time rather than surrender.
At length, he bowed his head.
It was not a formal prayer, nor one rehearsed from childhood, but something quieter and more urgent. He asked only for wisdom—for patience—and for the humility to accept whatever answer might come.
He did not know how long he remained thus.
The tranquility was shattered abruptly by a rising shriek from the upper hall.
“I will not go! Charles, you are insufferable!”
The protest descended in pitch and volume as it was borne toward the staircase, punctuated by indignant gasps and the unmistakable commotion of resistance.
Darcy closed his eyes briefly.
The carriage door below slammed with emphatic finality.
Peace, it seemed, would no longer be a fragile commodity at Netherfield.
∞∞∞
Elizabeth did not sleep well that night.
She had thought, at first, that the quiet of her chamber would lend clarity. Instead, her thoughts circled without resolution. Love had seemed so simple only the day before. Now it bore weight—history, doctrine, expectation.
By midmorning, she could endure her own mind no longer.
She wrapped her pelisse about her shoulders and walked toward Meryton, her pace brisk, her purpose only half formed until she found herself turning instinctively toward the parsonage.
Mr. Harding had held the living at the Meryton church for as long as she could remember. He had baptized her younger sisters, buried neighbors, preached sermons of varying length but consistent decency. He was not an alarming man. Nor was he rigid.
He received her kindly.
“Miss Lizzy,” he said, rising from behind his desk. “You look as though you have come in search of counsel.”
She smiled faintly. “I fear I have.”
He did not press her to sit until she chose to do so.
“I shall not presume to pry,” he said. “But if you wish to speak freely, you may.”
And so, she did.
She did not speak of Darcy’s name, nor of Pemberley, nor of affection. But she described the matter plainly: a gentleman of Catholic heritage, devoted to his faith, desiring a Catholic ceremony in addition to the Anglican one required by law, and the raising of children within that communion.
Mr. Harding listened without interruption.
“And what troubles you most?” he asked at last.
“That I do not wish to offend God,” she answered honestly. “Nor to enter into anything that would estrange me from Him.”
He regarded her thoughtfully.
“Does this gentleman seek to draw you away from belief,” he asked, “or toward it?”
“Toward it,” she said at once. “He speaks of it with reverence. With seriousness.”
Mr. Harding nodded.
“Anything that draws a soul closer to God is not easily condemned,” he said quietly.
She hesitated. “But would it not be wrong? To participate in a ceremony outside our church?”
He leaned back slightly.
“Ephesians tells us there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,” he said. “We must remember that truth precedes institution. The Church of England did not descend entire from heaven untouched by human frailty.”
She blinked.
“The root of our present establishment,” he continued gently, “sprang from a king’s unwillingness to be contradicted in his personal affairs. It would be difficult to argue that political necessity and wounded pride form the sole gate to salvation.”
Elizabeth could not help but smile faintly at the understatement.
“I do not believe,” he went on, “that the Church of England possesses a monopoly upon heaven. Nor do I believe that God measures grace by geography.”
She felt something within her loosen.
“If your heart leads you to a life in which faith is taken seriously—lived seriously—you are not walking away from God.”
She lowered her gaze.
“I do not know that I feel called to convert myself,” she admitted. “I have not examined those doctrines deeply.”
“And you need not pretend conviction where none exists,” he replied calmly. “But to permit your children to be raised in a tradition that emphasizes reverence, moral discipline, and devotion to Christ—there is no sin in that.”
Her thoughts turned inward.
She had grown accustomed to religion as habit. Attendance. Form. She could not recall her father leading family prayer with any consistency, nor pressing moral instruction beyond wit and irony. She loved him—but she knew the want of firm guidance in her own household.
She thought of Darcy—earnest, steady, unwilling to abandon what he believed.
She would rather her children be led by a man who took God seriously.
“I thank you,” she said softly.
Mr. Harding smiled. “Follow your conscience, Miss Elizabeth. God is not waiting to ensnare you in error. He guides those who seek Him.”
She rose, steadier than she had been when she entered.
As she stepped back into the winter air, Elizabeth felt no sudden blaze of certainty. She did not know whether she would ever seek baptism herself.
But she knew this much:
To marry Darcy would not be a betrayal of God.
And to allow their children to share in the faith that had shaped him would not condemn her soul.
The path ahead remained complex.
Yet for the first time since that morning’s walk, her heart felt lighter.
She could answer him now—honestly, without fear that love and righteousness stood opposed.