Chapter 4
The Thursday that Would Not End
To Elizabeth’s great astonishment, the man ushered into the parlor was Mr. Darcy, not the colonel.
“Mrs. Collins said you were unwell. I hope you are feeling better?”
She mumbled something about being improved and watched in fascination as he paced across the parlor.
“You will have more room if you pace this way.” She gestured to the fireplace and signaled walking past it instead of across from it.
He did not seem to hear her and continued to pace the short side of the room, which he accomplished in three long strides before turning about and going back the way he had come. Finally, he stopped directly in front of her, a look of determination on his face.
“You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
Elizabeth gaped at him. That was the last thing she had expected he would say.
Was there anything about this man that would not surprise her today?
She knew her face must show her shock, just as his showed an intensity she had never seen in him before.
They stared at one another for a full minute before, struck by the absurdity of it all, Elizabeth’s shoulders began to shake.
Mr. Darcy noticed this and took a step toward her, one hand outstretched as if to steady her.
She snorted.
He paused and lowered his hand partially, his eyes searching her expression.
She could contain her laughter no more. It burst from her, like a dam in a swollen river. Great gales of laughter, trilling from her like wind chimes.
Mr. Darcy was perplexed. Then he began to feel heat in his neck, working its way up to his cheeks. Elizabeth pressed her hand to her mouth, trying to control her mirth, and he straightened his shoulders stiffly.
“I see my feelings are amusing to you. Forgive me for disturbing you,” he said curtly. He nodded stiffly and turned on his heel to leave.
His hand was on the knob when Elizabeth grabbed his arm. He stopped, hating how the sensation of her fingers wrapped about his bicep made him stupidly happy. He turned, unable to forgo all manners and simply leave her to her ridiculousness.
“Miss Bennet?” He released the knob, but he spoke to the wall above her head. He could not face her dancing eyes, not yet.
“Mr. Darcy, forgive me. Your feelings are not amusing to me, I assure you. Not in the least. I was only struck by the absurdity of the situation.”
He had begun to relax until she spoke the last, and his arm stiffened again. He began to turn away from her, but she tugged him further into the room.
“Please believe me, Mr. Darcy. I mean no disrespect toward you.”
He breathed deeply and closed his eyes, waiting for patience to find him. “May I ask, Miss Bennet,” he began, in quiet, restrained tones, “what you find absurd about this situation?”
She looked out the window, pursed her lips, and finally made a huffing sound. “I suppose there is no avoiding it now. I must ask you to sit, sir. This may take some time.”
He finally looked at her and saw her cheeks were flushed and she was nervously twisting the fingers of her left hand in the fringe on her shawl. Her right was still on his arm. She seemed to have forgotten its presence.
He nodded. “Very well.”
He sat very correctly on the chair near the fire across from where Elizabeth perched on the edge of the delicate sofa, looking as if she might take flight at any moment.
Had she taken laudanum for her headache?
That might explain her uncontrollable laughter and the flush on her cheeks.
He could not deny the relief he felt at this notion.
“Forgive me, Miss Bennet. Are you unwell? I do not mean to make you entertain visitors if you are not… prepared.”
“I had a headache, but it is better now. The injury is more to my pride.”
“Your pride?” he asked, confused.
“Yes. You see, I have long prided myself on my judgement. I have thought, for many years now, that I could tell the truth of a person by their expression or take the measure of a gentleman after a short acquaintance.” She nervously looked to him, then returned her gaze to the fire. “I see this perplexes you.”
“I own to being… curious as to your meaning.”
She sighed. “I may as well come out with it as I am sure you will know the whole soon enough. Better to have it over and done with.”
Now he truly was perplexed.
“I met your cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam on a walk today. We were speaking of general things, and one of us mentioned Hertfordshire… and you.” She snuck a glance at him, then looked back to the fire.
“I mentioned that I had heard something of your history from an officer in the militia there. I’m certain you know of whom I speak. ”
“Wickham,” he said lowly.
In that one word, she could feel how much Mr. Darcy hated him. She sighed. Perhaps he had good reason to.
“Yes,” she said hesitantly. “Have you by chance spoken to your cousin today?”
“No, he was touring the estate and I went to Belle View on business. I barely returned in time to change for tea.”
She nodded. “He can give you more details of our conversation, but suffice it to say that the good colonel informed me that Mr. Wickham is not who I believed him to be. He is a gambler, in debt to nearly every tradesman he’s had the misfortune to meet, and a silver-tongued liar besides.”
She had knotted her fringe hopelessly now and moved on to clenching and releasing her skirt.
She could not look at Mr. Darcy. “Colonel Fitzwilliam informed me that the living Mr. Wickham says you denied him in defiance of your father’s wishes was traded for the sum of three thousand pounds.
A prudent man could live on such a sum for many years, but the colonel told me he returned when the living fell vacant and was quite abusive when you declined to give it to him. ”
Darcy was watching her carefully. Her eyes were bright and darted back and forth, like she was searching for escape. Her hands were constantly in motion, twirling the fringe on her shawl, bunching the fabric of her skirt, twisting around each other.
He reached across and clasped her hands in his, stilling their motion. He had done it instinctually, with no thought to what his next action would be but wishing to comfort her in her distress.
He rubbed his thumbs across her knuckles and spoke softly.
“Dearest, is this what has overset you? That you were wrong about Wickham?” She looked at him with wide eyes.
He seemed to take this as agreement. “He has fooled many before you and will likely continue to do so. He cannot open his mouth without a lie falling out. It is his way, and he is very practiced at it. Even my father was taken in by him, and he was a man of the world and decades your senior.”
This seemed to mollify her somewhat and he squeezed her hands in his before releasing one and moving to sit next to her.
Elizabeth’s eyes widened as she saw him moving closer and settling her right hand on his knee, clasped in his. What was happening?
She edged away from him, into the far corner of the sofa, and half-turned to face him. “Mr. Darcy,” she said uneasily.
“Yes?” He smiled gently at her, his expression soft and kind, his eyes dark and full of understanding.
She looked at him then and was struck anew with how little she understood him. She felt as if she had lived weeks since this morning, not hours.
“I am afraid I do not know you at all,” she said, her voice filled with dismayed wonder, her brow creased in confusion.
“Pardon me?”
“Mr. Darcy, pray forgive me. I must ask you to apply to your cousin for more details. Coherent speech is quite beyond me at the moment.”
He frowned, and she found his confused expression inconveniently attractive.
“I do not understand.”
She sighed. “Neither do I,” she muttered.
She took a deep breath and sat up straight.
“Mr. Darcy, I must apologize. I believed spurious things about you in Hertfordshire, with absolutely no evidence to support them and plenty to dispute them if I had but opened my eyes. Charlotte told me not to believe him, but I did not listen. Even Jane thought there must have been some misunderstanding, that it could not be true. Mr. Bingley would not be such a close friend if such things were true. But I was so confident in my own abilities.” She had not the energy to berate herself as fully as she had done that afternoon with Charlotte, and her words came out in a dejected tone.
“I assure you I was much more stringent with myself earlier.”
Darcy was moved by her suffering. “Do not fret over Wickham, my dear. He is not worth your distress.”
“He has made a great fool of me.”
“You are not the first, I am afraid.”
She met his eyes and inexplicably felt tears rising to her own. “I do not like feeling foolish.”
He nearly smiled. “Neither do I.” He patted her cheeks dry with his handkerchief.
“I am a vain and ridiculous creature.”
“We are none of us perfect.”
She laughed at that, as he had intended her to do, and he smiled at her.
“You should smile more often, Mr. Darcy. You are quite handsome when you do.”
He flushed. “Am I not handsome when I am not smiling?”
She appeared to consider this for a moment, then grinned at him, looking almost like her old self. “It requires further study.”
“I dare not suspend any pleasure of yours.”
She smiled softly at him, then yawned and tried to hide it, but he was sitting too closely to miss it.
“You are tired.”
“Yes, but it is early yet. It must be the tea,” she said absently. “Charlotte put something in it.”
He saw her teacup on the table beside him and leaned down to smell its contents. Brandy. “Ah, I see. You should retire, Miss Bennet. We can continue our conversation another time. May I walk with you tomorrow morning?”
She nodded regally. “You may.”
He grinned at her, thinking her delightful, if a little volatile, under the influence of brandy. “I will await you in the grove.” He kissed her hand and held it to his lips a little longer than propriety would normally allow. “Until tomorrow, my sweet.”
“Good evening.”
She smiled blearily at him as he walked out the door and watched from the window as he went down the lane towards Rosings. He turned at the bend in the road and tipped his hat at her, and she waved sleepily before trudging up the stairs and falling into bed.