Chapter 4
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy,
This is the twelfth letter I have written to you since that odious day wherein my good deed was punished most severely.
Either I am exemplary in my tenacity or foolish to continue writing letters my parents forbid me from sending in the post. How convenient that nobody has a direction to mail your correspondence, or you would soon learn what a strong-willed creature I am!
Your father is aware of this, I am certain, despite my family’s habit of intercepting my communications of discontent.
A gentleman in possession of two residences and the presumption to steal my autonomy ought to become accustomed to hearing my grievances.
Pray forgive the sharpness of my pen. Frustration makes me frank—that and knowing that you will never see this letter and, therefore, I may be as piquant as I wish.
Are you even alive? For all anyone knows, you might not be. Or perhaps, as my mother most fears, you have married another and are blissfully happy living in a foreign land. Somewhere warm and exotic.
The ripe age of one-and-twenty looms before me, and I admit that I dream of you being happily settled.
Pray do not for a moment believe me benevolent.
No, my motive is too self-interested for that quality.
I wish you settled so that I might not have to spend a day more of my youth waiting for a wedding I never wished for to a man I have never met and may not like.
(How is that for frankness? Although, to be fair, you may not like me either.
I may be frank, but I am reasonable. Well, most of the time.
Reason too often thwarts my plans, and while I live as a rational creature, I own that I often do so with some resentment.)
I am to reach my majority in a few months, and I do not know what it will mean for me.
Will it grant me any more power over my fate or is it merely the passing of another year of my life without any indication of you noting my existence?
Do you know who I am? Do you trouble yourself to think about me at all?
I know who you are—Fitzwilliam Darcy, heir to the finest estate in Derbyshire.
My family reminds me of it every day. They tell me that gentlemen do not abandon their birthrights, especially not one so lovely as Pemberley is reported to be.
They dream of its grandeur while I roam our humble, rolling hills and pretend that the property I care for is mine, that my future is mine to decide.
I manage my father’s estate, balance the ledgers, and negotiate with merchants twice my age, yet I cannot negotiate my own freedom.
You will return one day to claim your inheritance, and me along with it.
It is unjust, and I find myself in the vexing position of being afraid to hope, and yet unable to stop hoping entirely.
Still, I continue writing,
And waiting,
Your reluctant betrothed,
Elizabeth Bennet
Elizabeth jabbed her quill into the inkwell, attempting to appear calm and unaffected should anyone else in the room look her way. She had been gracious in her letter. Fitzwilliam Darcy had to be the most selfish, irresponsible, unfeeling man in all England… or wherever he was… if he was anywhere.
Jane, her eldest sister and by far more forgiving than Elizabeth, would remind her that some misfortune might have befallen him.
However, after ten years with nary one communication from him, Elizabeth would accept no other excuse for his prolonged silence than death.
Not that she was so heartless as to wish him dead, but he might as well be for all the answers he had denied her.
And so, with each passing day, her vexation at a man she had never met but to whom she was forever bound compounded.
Mary, the third in the line of five Bennet daughters, played a lively tune, impervious to Elizabeth’s stormy mood.
Her sisters had reason to be cheerful: they had the Meryton Assembly to look forward to next week. Mr. Hill had gone into the village and would return with the post, including their subscription to La Belle Assemblée.
Kitty, the fourth sister, lifted her gaze from the pillow she embroidered to the window that overlooked the path from Meryton.
Mrs. Hexam, their dear, patient governess, smiled softly, suggesting in a kindly tone, “If you watched your stitches with as much vigilance as the arrival of the post, they would be straighter.” Kitty screwed her face as genteelly as one could, then looked down to assess her stitches.
With a sigh, she undid her work. Lydia, the youngest Bennet, sneered at her.
Holding Jane’s hair in her hands, she practiced a new coiffure for the upcoming Meryton Assembly, no doubt believing herself quite clever for escaping from her embroidery work.
Jane winced, her needle never losing its constant stab-pull rhythm in the delicate stockings she expertly mended. “Not so tight, dear.”
“While I applaud your eagerness to assist your sister, I still expect to see some progress on your embroidery by the end of the day,” commented Mrs. Hexam, her eyes fixed on her own white work.
Lydia scowled, her fists full of golden hair. “If only our magazine would arrive, then I would not have to guess how to do this.”
Mama tapped her foot and hummed, proudly presiding over the room and her accomplished daughters. “When you are done practicing on Jane, you could attempt to tame Lizzy’s hair.” Elizabeth prayed Mr. Hill would return with the post before her scalp was subjected to Lydia’s ministrations.
“The post has arrived!” Kitty leapt from her chair, followed by Lydia and Mrs. Hexam’s voice reminding them to behave with the gentle comportment she persistently taught them.
Elizabeth tried not to look too eager as Mr. Hill entered the house and brought Mama the correspondence to sort through. The magazine was there, larger than the letters Mama carefully perused and one by one replaced on the tray for Mr. Hill to take in to Papa.
Her father had been receiving letters written in foreign languages over the last year or so—mostly Italian and French.
Elizabeth had asked her father about them, but he had assured her they were of no import.
They all ended up stuffed in random spaces around his desk, lost in the piles of papers, books, and manuscripts spilling out of his bookshelves and trailing onto the floor.
Mama held up a crisp, cream envelope. “Wrayburn the last time I read it was when I was a boy.”
Elizabeth wished too much for an adventure of her own to enjoy reading about someone else’s. Especially that of a reckless young man who was free to have all the adventures he could arrange. “Harvest season is fast coming upon us, and I have yet to finish Annals of Agriculture.”
Papa set his book down and arched a brow at her. “Why divert oneself when there are winter feeding schedules to arrange?”
“That is already done and approved by you, no less.”
“You are ahead of your plan, I see.”
Was such a feat possible? There was always something needing to be done for the estate.
Elizabeth liked the business of it. It kept her mind off other, more unpleasant things.
“Today, I plan to make space in the cellar for storing the root crop, and by the end of the week, I aim to review and settle our tenants’ annual accounts, which will give me more time to see the wheat and rye sown before the cold and rain set on us.
Not to mention the sheep need to be brought in from the pastures to be sorted, separated, bred, and the surplus driven to market.
” All this, she counted on her fingers, convinced she had forgot something important.
Lifting his book and opening it, Papa settled back in his chair. “Then I will not interfere or slow your progress, dear girl.”
She wished she could ignore pending business as her father did, but she had to make certain he tended to the mail. She plucked the foreign letter off the tray and held it out to him. “Papa, why are you getting more of these?”
He glanced at the letter and shrugged.
She pushed it closer to him. At least he could look at it before tossing it on a shelf or stuffing it in a drawer. “What does it say?” she pressed.