Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
After the excitement of seeing Mr Wickham hauled away from Longbourn, some time was spent in admiration of the quizzing glasses worn by Sir William and his son, the spectacles favoured by Mr Goulding and Mr Blake, and the lorgnettes carried, if rarely used, by various ladies in Meryton’s society.
Mr Bennet, the owner of a plain pair of spectacles he had required since before entering Oxford, was clearly amused by the preening and admiration displayed by his neighbours.
He rolled his eyes more than once, and in the sardonic tone that Elizabeth knew he reserved for those who might understand he was mocking them, addressed Mr Darcy.
“Sir, although your quizzing glass is quite impressive, I have yet to see you raise it to your eye. Is the impressive weight of so many jewels and ornaments a hindrance to its usefulness?”
“If jewels and ornaments were inconvenient, the Prince Regent would not wear them,” asserted Sir William to nods and gasps from his neighbours.
His reddened nose showed he had indeed enjoyed Longbourn’s punch perhaps too much, else never would he have mentioned the Regent in the same breath as ‘inconvenient’.
Mr Darcy appeared somewhat surprised by both men’s comments, and turned to Mr Bennet.
“I find the glass quite useful amongst certain company, sir, and it will not surprise you when I say country society differs from that of town. The people of Meryton are much like those with whom I converse every day in Lambton, the village near my estate in Derbyshire. Rather than ‘rustic’, as some have claimed,” he continued, smiling in Elizabeth’s direction as her eyes widened, “I find the manner here to be unassuming and more welcoming than the pretensions of the more elegant company of the ton, who often require deeper examination. Here, I have no need of it.”
If his speech had not won over the neighbours, the wide grin he gave to her father as he extended his hand certainly did.
At least three ladies nearly swooned, Miss Bingley turned crimson, and Mrs Bennet fanned herself.
Elizabeth was certain that was the moment she knew she was hopelessly in love with Mr Darcy.
Darcy took Elizabeth’s arm, drawing her away from the dwindling crowd and towards a quiet corner of Longbourn’s dining room.
The shocked expression that had flashed across her face moments earlier, when he had meant to amuse her, had turned pensive, and he worried the evening’s events had overcome her.
“Are you well?”
“I am.”
“You looked at Wickham through the glass,” he said quietly.
Even in the room’s dim light, he could see her abashed expression; there was, after all, always a radiance around her.
She laid her hand on his, which was still somehow resting on her arm.
“There was no need, but I wished to see how a person whom I knew first-hand to be truly bad appeared. Mr Wickham has a frightening presence through the glass.”
Withdrawing her hand, she folded her arms and shook her head as if to chase away the vision before looking back at him and continuing.
“Here, amongst my family and neighbours whom I have known all my life, I could not see anything but good. We all have our failings, our eccentricities, and I suppose even Mr Wickham has some virtue, however small, buried within the darkness pulsating around him.”
Darcy shrugged. “Perhaps. He played with my sister and once gave her a baby rabbit, though later I learnt he had ridden over the nest and left it an orphan.”
Elizabeth frowned. “Perhaps not, though there may be a glimmer of infrequent goodness—”
“—occasioned by circumstance or a pretty face or a fat purse.” It was a cruel if truthful gibe, and Darcy was pleased to see her lips turn up in a smile.
She tapped his arm. “You, however, are golden. So says the glass, not only to my eyes, but to Lydia’s.”
“Then we know it must be true,” he said, biting back a grin and a thousand hopes.
“It is. I have been in company with you enough to understand your character, and peering through the glass merely confirmed your goodness and geniality and...”
Her shy expression set off a thrumming in his chest. “And?”
“I do not know. It is a feeling, a sense, rather than a ‘thing’ I can sum up in words.”
The wonder in her voice made his heart sing.
He wished to offer other words, such as ‘love’, but the voices of Longbourn’s guests were too near for such intimacies.
Bending his head closer, Darcy whispered, “Your sister and I are in agreement. You are a shimmering silver. I see it even without the glass.”
Elizabeth gazed up at him, her eyes shining. “Silver and gold.”
Inhaling sharply, he said quietly, “I should practise more before speaking of matters of the heart, but the sentiments I so clumsily expressed in town are unchanged. You have captured my heart. I may speak in haste, and if so, will not press you nor speak of it again, but—”
His breath caught as he felt her hand slide into his and in a warm, tremulous voice hardly above a whisper, she said, “Speak of it if you must, but only after I tell you that my sentiments have changed and, I dearly hope, match yours.”