CHAPTER 10 #5
“I believe Bingley already considers himself sufficiently attached to Hertfordshire to support a temporary separation from his earliest Hertfordshire connections.”
“Then the county has secured his affections with remarkable rapidity.”
“I think,” Darcy answered, looking at her with a steadiness no longer entirely guarded, “that some attachments may be formed more rapidly than prudence would generally recommend.”
Elizabeth felt the colour in her cheeks deepen slightly at this; yet unwilling to surrender too quickly the safer ground of playful conversation, she answered:
“You should be profoundly grateful that I begin with the most serious of my prejudices; I was once very ready to believe your caution regarding Mr. Wickham was merely the consequence of an overbearing pride. I thought you took a natural pleasure in disapproving of the entire world, never dreaming that your silence was born of a much more honourable concern for those you love.”
Darcy remained silent for several moments, and when he finally spoke, the last traces of his defensive reserve seemed to have vanished entirely.
“Remarcable candor, Miss Bennet. I like people that openly share they thoughts, even if there are not completely in their favor. In my defence, it was a concern I felt bound to honour, even at the cost of my own reputation in your eyes.”
Elizabeth felt a surge of warmth at his honesty, but she could not resist the urge to tease him further.
“I must confess, sir, that when I heard from my father you had appeared at the Hunsford inn during such unfavourable weather, I imagined every possible motive except the correct one. I thought you merely possessed of an excessive curiosity concerning the dullness of my society, never suspecting you had travelled so far merely to determine whether I was soon to become the next Mrs. Collins.”
Darcy stopped walking entirely, turning to face her with a look of such earnest intensity that Elizabeth felt her breath catch in her throat.
“You were not mistaken in supposing I had a particular motive for being there, Miss Elizabeth.”
“And the true motive, Mr. Darcy?”
“I wished very much to know if such an unfortunate engagement existed,” Mr. Darcy said, his voice steady despite the gravity of his admission, “for I found that I was not sufficiently indifferent to your future happiness to remain in London and merely wonder at your fate.”
His seriousness removed all possibility of jest.
Elizabeth felt the tell-tale colour rise in her cheeks, but she met his gaze with sparkling defiance.
“Mr. Collins would be deeply flattered—and perhaps a little terrified—to learn that he once stood as a formidable serious rival to the Master of Pemberley.”
Darcy did not return her smile; and something in the grave sincerity of his expression made further levity impossible.
“I assure you, Miss Bennet, there was very little amusement in the possibility of losing you through my own silence and delay. My chief fear was that I had discovered my own sentiments too late.”
Elizabeth turned her eyes away first, finding the openness with which he now spoke considerably more difficult to endure than the reserve which had once so often provoked her.
“You have a most unfortunate habit, Mr. Darcy, of speaking with such alarming sincerity precisely when you leave no possibility of answering you lightly.”
“And you, Elizabeth,” he replied more quietly, “have a habit of understanding me only after I have exhausted every poorer method of attempting to make myself understood.”
For one brief instant their eyes met without disguise; and in that moment something seemed finally to settle between them which neither wit, misunderstanding, nor pride could now entirely obscure.
Yet Darcy himself appeared the first to recover a more careful composure.
“I do not ask you for any promise before I leave Hertfordshire,” he said after a silence which had become too full of meaning to remain entirely prolonged.
“But if, upon my return from Derbyshire, I may still hope to find my presence neither unwelcome nor indifferent to you, I shall think my journey home considerably easier to endure.”
Elizabeth’s answer did not come immediately; yet when she finally raised her eyes again to his face, there remained in her expression very little uncertainty.
“I think, Mr. Darcy, that Hertfordshire is not likely to forget its friends quite so easily.”
Darcy’s composure, though never wholly abandoned, altered visibly at these words; and the relief which passed across his countenance was too sincere to escape her observation.
For a moment he appeared on the verge of speaking with less restraint than prudence might entirely justify; yet long habit still governed him too powerfully to permit any unguarded triumph of feeling.
“You allow me more hope than I had ventured to claim before leaving Hertfordshire,” he said at last, with a seriousness which rendered the quietness of his voice only more affecting.
Elizabeth, conscious that another moment of such openness might altogether deprive her of the composure she still endeavoured partially to preserve, attempted once more to recover something lighter in her manner.
“You must not grow too confident, Mr. Darcy. Hertfordshire has welcomed Mr. Bingley with remarkable enthusiasm already; its regard for his friend may perhaps prove slightly more cautious.”
“I should consider even caution encouraging,” Darcy replied, “provided I were still permitted to hope for improvement.”
She smiled then, though less playfully than before.
“You improve very rapidly in your understanding of the county, sir.”
“I have had the advantage of an excellent instructor.”
The warmth with which he spoke these words rendered any further attempt at raillery considerably more difficult than she found convenient; and Elizabeth, lowering her eyes for a moment beneath the steadiness of his regard, became suddenly and most disagreeably sensible that sincerity, when joined to earnest attachment, possessed a degree of influence against which wit itself defended her but imperfectly.
They resumed walking slowly beneath the thinning shade of the trees, neither appearing desirous to hasten a conversation which had already altered, almost imperceptibly, the whole understanding existing between them.
Whatever uncertainty still remained was no longer the uncertainty of misunderstanding, but rather that quieter and infinitely more hopeful hesitation which belongs to sentiments mutually acknowledged before they are entirely declared.
At length the nearer sounds of the house began gradually to reassert themselves beyond the quiet of the shrubbery.
A servant crossed distantly near the terrace; somewhere beyond the lawn Lydia’s voice became briefly audible before dissolving again into indistinct laughter; and the ordinary life of Longbourn, from which both had for a little while seemed almost removed, slowly reclaimed its presence around them.
Darcy checked his pace slightly.
“I ought not, Miss Elizabeth,” he said with evident reluctance, “to trespass longer upon your kindness before my departure.”
“No,” Elizabeth answered softly, though not immediately raising her eyes again to his face, “for my mother will soon begin imagining either an accident or an engagement, and I scarcely know which conjecture would spread more rapidly through the house.”
The sudden return of her liveliness relieved him enough to smile openly.
“In that case,” Mr. Darcy returned, “I must endeavour to leave Longbourn before Mrs. Bennet succeeds in marrying us entirely by speculation alone.”
Elizabeth laughed despite herself; yet even while she did so, she remained quietly conscious that the subject no longer carried the impossibility it most certainly once would have possessed.
When at last they turned back toward the house together, there existed between them none of the former uncertainty which had so long obscured their understanding.
Nothing final had yet been spoken; no promise had formally passed between them.
Yet both knew, with a certainty far steadier than impulsive declaration might ever have produced, that Derbyshire would not separate them for very long.