Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
Elizabeth stared into the looking glass, turned to blow out the candle, then looked again.
Little but her pale face and the white linen of her nightgown were visible in the feeble moonlight trickling in through her small window.
What is this ‘glow’ emanating from me that Mr Darcy purports to see?
A light that stirs him to declare he loves me!
Sinking to the bed, she hugged her knees and tried sorting her thoughts about the quizzing glass and its effects on Mr Darcy.
It was fantastical that he claimed to read character by gazing through the lens, but after her own peek through it and the dark haze which she saw within Mr Tremblay, she could not doubt what Mr Darcy attested.
How it worked in such a way remained a mystery, even to him!
And yet he relied on it, clearly too often, and had kept its powers secret even from those closest to him.
He told me. He trusted me. Because I ‘glow’ and he is drawn to it...hence his avowal of fascination and ardent love?
His voice and his expression conveyed genuine feeling. Elizabeth had never seen such a look on any man; it sent flutters into her belly merely remembering the depth of his gaze and the rough urgency of his words.
Hearing Jane’s footsteps approach the door, she moved swiftly to re-light the taper from the fire’s low flames.
She had not had a moment alone to truly think since her conversation with Mr Darcy; with their return to Longbourn the following day, the house on Gracechurch Street had been feverish with activity.
There were deliveries from dressmakers, which required repacking their trunks, and then Mr Bingley came for tea and lingered, reluctant to part from Jane—thus delaying the games and stories she and her sister had promised to their young Gardiner cousins.
Dinner with their aunt and uncle had been early and quiet, all of them tired from the previous evening at the theatre.
Elizabeth had had only a few moments alone in their shared chamber; she hoped Jane would go promptly to sleep so she could attempt to sort her thoughts on Mr Darcy. Instead, it was she who fell asleep while Jane whispered happily about her ‘sweet and wonderful Bingley’.
Blasted thing!
Darcy slid the velvet pouch into its box, dropped it in the drawer, and turned the key. If he never saw that cursed quizzing glass again, so much the better! Why had he worn it in Elizabeth’s presence?
As he had told her, it would have been simple to gaze out at those in the loge seats and let the glass drift to include her and her family in its scope.
But he had not—it was wrong, and unfair to them.
He trusted these people, little known as they were to him.
It was an unusual feeling; trusting others had caused him pain in the past. He had been inured to such dangers since discovering the peculiar abilities of the quizzing glass, and now he had fallen victim again—because of love and the power he thought within it.
What is love if not affection, desire, and a hope that those feelings are returned, and will be mutually strengthened and deepened?
Darcy chuckled bitterly, startling himself with the sound.
Love is stupid and ridiculous, based on imprudent hopes and mistaken understanding. Magic would be more likely.
He paced across the floor of his study, where he had secluded himself upon his return from Cheapside.
What a fool. Had I looked at her through the quizzing glass, would I have seen what she truly is and what she truly thought of me?
“No,” he said aloud, his head against the cold windowpane.
Elizabeth Bennet is as you have seen her—a lady of remarkable goodness, spirit, and vivacity.
Although her words could be sharp, they were not spoken meanly, but as the truth—at least in her eyes.
It was he who had not spoken the full truth, unable to fully confess his own weakness.
Elizabeth was right to reprimand me. She was too good to call me cowardly, but I am that, as well as lazy and jaded. Exactly the type of young buck he despised.
After berating himself, sleeping ill, and pacing round his house for the next day, Darcy found himself a few evenings later staring out over the crowd in yet another grand drawing room.
Wealthy men and comely ladies in expensive gowns and fine jewels nodded their greetings, and yet he could not stop listening for her laugh and looking for her lithe figure.
“I am not enjoying this evening nearly as much as I used to,” said Bingley. “Perhaps I am growing old.”
Though Darcy had felt old for the past five years, he was happy to indulge his mawkish friend. “You are lovesick, missing the lady who has returned to her home and counting the days until you are wed to her. What was once pleasure has become obligation.”
Bingley grinned happily. “Worse for you, I reckon. You have never liked large gatherings.”
That is not true. I enjoyed gatherings when Elizabeth was present.
“Darcy, no one would know you are here,” boomed the voice of his uncle, Lord Matlock. “Come let me introduce you to Lord Philpot. He is a man who is good to know.”
He stared at the earl, saying nothing, waiting for him to acknowledge Bingley. When it became clear he would not, Darcy said sharply, “Lord Matlock, you recall my friend, Charles Bingley.”
His uncle did not even deign to nod. “Philpot is over by the windows. I shall see you there.”
Darcy was gone from the party within half an hour, stalking to Brook Street in the crisp evening air in a vain effort to clear his head.
He had hoped being amongst people with whom he was familiar would distract him, and knowing their kind as he did, he would feel ease without relying on the quizzing glass.
Instead, he could hardly feign interest in anyone or any conversation, for he could not keep his thoughts away from the one thing he so desperately did not want to think about.
Elizabeth.
She might think his declaration of affections was sudden, but her anger and mistrust had shocked him. Why did the most genuine lady he had ever met, free of artifice and pretence yet still elegant and well mannered, think so badly of him? It was a painful paradox he had never before imagined.
An elegant couple—neighbours called Wimby, he recalled—passed by, nodding in greeting, and his thoughts drifted back to Lord Matlock’s flagrant snub of Bingley. The earl was outrageous—looking down his nose like a haughty and insufferable swell. Darcy’s step slowed.
Is this how I look to people? A man who can scarcely bow in greeting before pulling out a quizzing glass and peering at them through it?
Mortified, he realised the impression he had made on those who mattered little and, critically, on the one person who mattered most. What reason have I given Elizabeth to think well of me, let alone accept an admission of love?
None. Not at all.