Chapter 9 #2
Darcy could not help smiling with admiration as he remembered her.
It was plain that she was no Helena. He had not thought a young woman capable of understanding his situation.
Yet, it seemed that the intelligent Grace had perceived that, for the present, there was no place for her in his heart.
Strangely enough, as he walked home beneath a cloudy sky, he felt, for the first time, something for the young woman who had, in one manner or another, withdrawn from a connection that might have caused her pain.
She was intelligent and mature, and Darcy found himself wondering whether that was perhaps the sort of woman he was drawn to—though sometimes, as at Almack’s, he chose almost by chance. Of all the women he had met and danced with, she was the only one whom he had continued to court.
“But this is a good sign,” the colonel said that same evening at his father’s house, while they waited in the library for dinner.
“That I am still capable of feeling something for a woman—or that I am drawn only to intelligent ones?” Darcy asked lightly; yet even as he spoke, a claw tightened about his heart. The brief moment of calm had lasted no more than half a day.
“How can one person claim one’s soul in such a way?” Darcy said, though he did not look at his cousin.
“Are you speaking of Lady Grace?” the colonel asked.
Darcy said nothing, but the answer was plain enough. He could not forget the lady from Longbourn.
∞∞∞
“Bingley is to be married in a month,” Darcy announced one evening at Lord Matlock’s dinner table.
“A sensible step,” his uncle replied. “And who is the fortunate lady?”
“Miss Jane Bennet,” Darcy answered, with a slight hesitation.
“Have we ever met the family?” his lordship asked.
“I do not believe so, sir, but they are a very respectable family in Hertfordshire.”
The colonel looked at his cousin as he spoke. To hear Darcy describe the Bennets as respectable was remarkable enough; but he appreciated the honesty of the admission.
“Do we know them at all?” Lord Matlock asked, with his usual indifference.
“No,” Fitzwilliam answered, “but they are well thought of in the country.”
“Well, for Mr Bingley, I daresay that young lady may be a suitable match. But what of you?” He looked from his second son to Darcy. “It is time that both of you should marry and produce those fine families we all expect from you.”
Lady Eleanor nodded warmly. She wished very much to have grandchildren from her favourite son, the colonel. “There are many beauties this Season. I hope neither of you will delay much longer.”
∞∞∞
Darcy and the colonel went to Bath, then to Brighton, and afterwards returned to London. Everywhere, as Lady Eleanor had foretold, they encountered young ladies eager—indeed, sometimes rather too eager—to marry.
In Bath, the Season never seemed to end; there were balls and dances everywhere. The young ladies rode all day along Great Pulteney Street in elegant chaises, accompanied by some bored cousin or father, merely to display their newest dresses or hats.
Darcy could scarcely endure the noise and bustle of the place, and refused outright to visit the Roman baths or the assembly rooms. However, his cousin urged him to look about him.
On the rare occasions when he did, he accompanied his observations with such sarcastic remarks that it became plain he derived no pleasure from those excursions.
“Miss Rosanna Baltimore is a beauty, but she is six-and-twenty and so eager to marry that she would accept almost any compromise,” Darcy said while they were in Bath.
“Not Lady Rowena—under any circumstances,” he declared after a ball in Brighton. “She is well known in London to have had more than one betrothed…most intimately!”
And so the list went on, Darcy becoming more and more weary and disappointed.
“It resembles a hunt more than a happy marriage for life,” he said, once they were back in London.
The colonel agreed, though he tried not to reveal the private conviction that the only truly happy match had perhaps been the one at Rosings.
But he knew already that Darcy was too stubborn to abandon his present course.
Of late, he seemed more determined than ever that he must marry a lady of the ton.
“Bingley’s wedding is in a week,” the colonel remarked one evening, scrutinising his cousin.
“I know. I have decided not to go.”
The colonel was so astonished that he could not conceal it.
“My dear cousin, do not look so alarmed. It is not the end of the world.”
“No, certainly not—but Bingley is one of your closest friends.”
“I know. I have written to him that my uncle, as head of the family, has arranged a meeting at Matlock estate in Leicester at exactly the same time.”
“What meeting? I know of no such gathering!”
Darcy smiled at his surprise. “Only because it had been just decided.”
“And you invite me?”
“Of course. You and the rest of the family.”
“But why did you say nothing of this before?”
Darcy laughed. “I decided only a few days ago...But I postponed telling you because I am still afraid of you. You always won our battles in childhood, and now you are in far better condition than I am.” He was joking, but the colonel suspected that beneath the jest there was something concealed.
“Bingley will think you still disapprove of the marriage.”
“No, I wrote him a long and very sentimental letter, merely to assure him that I entirely approve. I have invited him and his future wife to visit Pemberley as soon as they return from their wedding journey.”
It was such a surprise that Darcy intended to absent himself from his friend’s wedding that the colonel entirely forgot to ask why he had summoned the Fitzwilliam side of the family to Matlock at precisely that time.