Chapter 37 #2
“I do not seek to excuse myself,” he went on, letting her go again, “but from the moment I began to love you—or to understand that I loved you—I longed to be married, to bring you, my woman, to Pemberley. I desired a home once more alive with affection. I imagined, for the first time, myself as husband and father. I wished the house to be filled with children, with life again; suddenly, the happiness I had known with my mother seemed a thing that must be restored. When I left the Parsonage, only one thought remained—the wish to rebuild that family. Your refusal was an earthquake to me, and the manner of it, so resolute, made me believe it final. I wished to forget you at once…on the spot. And, unfortunately, the only thought that persisted obsessively in my mind was that I wanted a family. I was mad; I made so many mistakes—”
“I was at fault too,” she murmured. “I, too, am changed. I needed to reinvent myself to become who I am now—to be the person I am at the Academy. Elizabeth Bennet once desired, in principle, the life I now possess, without realising that the girl I was then could never have been an instructress.
“Besides—why should I not speak plainly?—when you proposed I was deeply wounded that you thought us your inferiors. I was prejudiced, I was angry. That was me then. It seemed as though you insulted my family, but in truth, my wounded pride spoke then—”
“That is not true,” he said, and it was not only his words but his whole being that spoke to her.
“Not for a single moment did I ever consider you inferior in any way. Yet you are right—I see it now. You are your family; you cannot be separated or conceived apart from them, and in my boundless arrogance I failed to perceive that evidence…I am mortified by it still.”
Elizabeth touched his chest with a tender gesture, and he caught her hand, enclosing it in his own.
“You were wrong…I was wrong too,” she said gently.
“It was our pride that spoke. Had we both been calm and honest, I might have admitted that there was truth in what you said—that my mother loves to gossip; that Jane, too timid, could not express her feelings; that Lydia was wild and heedless—these were all true. I ought to have acknowledged them. But uttered as an arrogant reproach, they wounded me. I felt bound to defend my family, whatever their faults, for they were mine, even if I knew each one of them too well…they were not perfect.”
“Nobody is.”
“Exactly. But we were both too proud to admit it. Too certain of our own worth.”
“You are much too witty, woman! I am a little afraid of you.” He smiled as he spoke; it was not a dramatic confession, yet not far from the truth. He was not afraid but happy to marry her, though he knew their life would not always be easy…and perhaps that was the beauty of it.
“I know you are—but it is too late for you. I would never break our engagement; you shall take me to the altar, Fitzwilliam Darcy!”
“All is settled,” she said with conviction. “In our memories, the Parsonage exists now only as a place in Kent…nothing more.”
“You have forgiven me!” he exclaimed.
“We have forgiven each other.”
“My fault is the greater.”
“Let us not measure our faults…but…I forgave you before you left the Parsonage.”
She paused, and he waited, scarcely breathing, for her to continue. Elizabeth met his eyes and said, “Yet afterwards, somehow, you found your way to Ashcombe.”
Though he had believed the worst was over, he was mistaken; for he felt in the air around them something that had not been there before—a wave of indignation. When he sought her eyes, she turned them away.
“What is it, Elizabeth?” To him, what had happened at the Parsonage was the gravest part of his offence; there lay the essence of his fault towards her.
Yet it seemed that she considered his visit to Ashcombe still more serious.
The man within him smiled, for now that they sat together, only a few inches apart, speaking freely, Ashcombe no longer held any significance for him—though his future wife thought otherwise.
“How can a man offer marriage to another woman…on the same day?”
“The truest answer is that I cannot tell. I told you before that a vast wall divides me from the man I was then. Even if I wished it, I could not now recall what I thought, for my heart is full only of happiness. Yet it must have been a moment of wandering—on the brink of madness.”
“Why her?” whispered Elizabeth; though, remembering that other Elizabeth—beautiful, timid, witty, distinguished—the answer seemed plain.
“Did you like her?”
Darcy, unable to restrain himself, began to laugh; for he realised that the young woman whom he now so desperately wished to make his wife was…jealous. She wanted him wholly for herself. He was not alone in such feelings.
“Of course, I liked her,” he replied, and only then did Elizabeth look at him as she might one day look at one of their children after some mischief had been done. She wanted explanations—and quickly.
“Elizabeth, I love you, but I am not blind. Or do you imagine that, once we are married, I shall never look about a room and notice a beautiful or an intelligent woman?”
“You will look?” she asked, her surprise genuine, though tinged with displeasure.
“I shall be married, not blind,” he answered lightly, but upon her face he saw no trace of mirth. To her, it was a serious matter, which amused him the more.
“Well then, let us turn to you, Miss Bennet! The same young lady who declared, loudly and repeatedly, that she would marry only for love, be it to a modest vicar or a young solicitor just beginning his career. It mattered not who or what he was, provided there was love. And scarcely two months later, you told me you were to marry Mr Clinton.” His tone grew firm and somewhat loud.
“Hush!” whispered Elizabeth, glancing anxiously towards the door.
“Good heavens, what is it? It is no secret now that you broke the engagement. I saw him myself today—married to another.”
“You jest!”
“Indeed, I do; yet I cannot deny that I am jealous. Mr Clinton is no modest vicar or struggling solicitor—he is one of the wealthiest and most influential men in London.”
Elizabeth looked at him in astonishment. “Richer than…us?”
At that us and her question, Darcy burst into laughter. Though he had smiled often in the last hour, this was the first true amusement he had known in a long while.
“Yes, madam, richer than ourselves. Do you regret the exchange?”
Though Elizabeth did not smile broadly, it was clear that no shadow now remained between them…yet there were still details unexplained.
“Well then? Why could we not speak of—”
Elizabeth hastily laid her hand upon his lips that he might not utter that name aloud. She needed to explain quickly, for she did not wish him to commit any blunder.
“The great love had come…and gone in the same instant for me,” she said, yet without regret, for she now sat beside her that love. “In truth, the matter was otherwise. I was not to marry a man…but the Academy.”
Seeing that he required more, she continued, “Mr—” she gestured towards the direction where, most likely, the wedding breakfast was now proceeding without them, “has no heirs, and suddenly I appeared. It was a surprise to both of us. He declared that I was what he had sought ever since his wife’s death—a successor for the Academy—”
“He wished to make you the heiress to the Academy?” Darcy was genuinely astonished. Mr Clinton was not a man to entrust such fortune and influence to anyone lightly; Elizabeth had impressed, conquered, convinced him.
“Yes. And the succession, if made by will, would have been laborious and not without danger—”
“He has near relations still.”
“Precisely.”
“And so marriage was the simplest means of making you his heiress. And you accepted his proposal?”
Elizabeth shook her head, and the discovery that she had not been engaged made him unspeakably happy.
“You radiate pure arrogance,” she said, looking at him, “you will never be rid of it. You were engaged to Lady Elizabeth, and I must live with that, but the gentleman is triumphant, for he shall have been my first fiancé—”
“I am odious,” he admitted, drawing her close to his breast to kiss her. Elizabeth nodded, but once in his arms, she forgave him everything. Yet again, he would not prolong the pleasure.
“Well?” he urged.
“And he gave me time for reflection, but one day I saw that he and Mary—”
“Oh, heavens!” Darcy understood at once.
“I do not know if their love is this…,” she said, motioning to the space between them, where love existed as truly as within their hearts and bodies, “but it is certain that he came to me and told me the truth—about Mary—that he admired her, and believed the sentiment to be returned. He begged me to keep his proposal for ever secret, lest Mary should learn of it.”
“And now you tell me,” he answered with playful reproach.
“Yes—but if you reveal it to anyone, I shall break the engagement. And speaking of broken engagements…?”
Darcy smiled and nodded. “You were saved by the affection between Mary and Mr C; I—”
He paused, looking at her, how impatient she was to hear the truth, “Speak, do not let me wait, in the name of God!” And though Elizabeth had changed much, she was still the woman he had first seen in the Meryton assembly room—spirited, proud, a little prejudiced, no matter what—and that delighted him more than anything.
He needed passion, and passion did not spring from composure and decorum.
“Richard and Lady Elizabeth, in their turn, fell in love.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Elizabeth, her eyes brimming with tears of joy. She had feared so much that somewhere in London, there might be a young woman suffering at that very moment of happiness meant for them.
“Yes, the Colonel and Miss Mary—pardon, Mrs Clinton—will be our witnesses at the wedding.”
“Mary is married. Should the witnesses not be unmarried?”
“There is no such rule,” he assured her; then, looking at her, smiled. “But even if there were, are we the sort of people to observe rules of decorum when we know they are but masks behind which we are sometimes obliged to hide ourselves?”