Chapter 43 The Beginning of Happily Ever After #2
“Lord Saye said that if I come to town, he will dance with me,” Lydia reported importantly. “And he means to introduce me to his particular friend Sir Frederick.”
“Good lord,” Darcy whispered into her ear. “We must avoid that at all costs.”
There was some good news at dinner: Jane and Bingley had set a date for their wedding. “The twenty-sixth of November,” Bingley announced delightedly.
“How wonderful!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I am thrilled for you both!”
“And I am thrilled for us both,” said Darcy, “that you did not make me wait to marry you until November.”
Happily, reports of all the callers who meant to call on her the next day made it plausible for them to leave early to Netherfield. It would be a veritable parade of all the people who had so lately reviled her, coming in to offer their congratulations.
“I suppose this is the way of it,” Elizabeth told Darcy. “We all mean to behave as if nothing distressing ever happened.”
“Are you equal to it?” he asked. “I would imagine this should tax even your capacity to remember the past only as it gives you pleasure.”
“That it might,” she agreed. “But I daresay I might endure it only if I recollect that it brought me to you that much quicker.”
Nearly everyone in the neighbourhood called upon Elizabeth at Longbourn the next day.
It was a tiring promenade of curious onlookers who only faintly wished to make amends with her for the fierce gossip with which they had plagued her.
She supposed it was no different in any other country town, but it did not mean that it was not upsetting.
She received their congratulations with as much graciousness as she could muster.
Two callers who were rather more welcome were Miss Goddard and Miss King. It seemed both ladies planned to be in town in the spring. “I believe Lord Saye will be pleased to hear that,” Elizabeth said to Miss Goddard.
“Oh, he will have had six more attachments by then I am sure,” she said airily. “If not, well…who knows? I told him he must prove that he can stay interested in me for longer than a few weeks before I can permit myself any real affection for him.”
“Very wise indeed,” Elizabeth said with a laugh. “In any case, I shall be eager to see you both. Perhaps I will feel brave enough to host a dinner party by then!”
Charlotte called later in the day. She and Mr Collins were due to depart to Kent the next day, and Charlotte showed no anticipation of that.
Despite her sorrow where their friendship was concerned, Elizabeth worried for her old friend.
Charlotte looked very sad, and Elizabeth could not doubt that her life with Mr Collins, already somewhat of a source of pity, had taken a marked turn for the worse.
No matter what had been said or done, or what measures she had taken to correct her error, Charlotte had a mark on her character in the eyes of her husband and benefactor that would not be easily erased. She could not be respectable now.
The two ladies sat in the west parlour, left quite alone by the remaining members of Elizabeth’s family, who were not nearly so wont to feel the sense of pity and forgiveness that Elizabeth did.
Only Jane was able to muster some sort of sympathy for their former neighbour, and even she was more hard-hearted about it than would be expected.
As Jane explained to Elizabeth, it was far easier for her to overlook the sins perpetrated against herself than those which affected her dearest sister.
Charlotte was the first to speak. “I acted despicably, and I cannot deny that my motive was jealousy.”
“How could you be jealous of me? You have wed and you have made an advantageous match. You had nothing to gain by interfering with my own happiness or my own marital prospects, no benefit whatsoever.”
“You are correct; it could not benefit me, and it has not.” Charlotte nodded quickly. “If only you knew what it was to be married to such a man as I am, Eliza! The days, they are very long sometimes. I had hoped…”
“Hoped what?” Elizabeth prompted her.
“I had hoped I was with child,” Charlotte said sadly.
Elizabeth knew not what to say save for some quiet syllables of condolence. “It will happen,” she said. “Allow yourself time. You have not even been married a year.”
Charlotte nodded and gave her a wistful smile. “That is another arena in which I do not doubt you will best me.”
“It is not a competition, Charlotte,” said Elizabeth, more sharply than intended. “Or at least I never imagined it thus. There is no winner and no loser. We may both find happiness in our own respective ways.”
Charlotte, seeming unconvinced, nodded her agreement and took her leave, wishing her friend well. Elizabeth watched her depart, wondering if she would ever see her again, or indeed, if she even wished to.
Elizabeth did not see Sir James in Hertfordshire. He had gone about with Charlotte, it seemed, lending his word to her confession but had decamped shortly thereafter to Hadleigh Hall. He left a letter with Mr Bennet for Elizabeth to read.
She did so in the garden, right next to the very same roses which had been a part of the problem. “Shall I read it to you?” she asked Darcy.
“Only the bits you think I must hear. Otherwise I mean to sit here and enjoy the fragrance of the roses and the sight of my beautiful wife.”
“Very well,” she agreed and began to read.
Dear Mrs Darcy,
I presume that by now I may address you as such?
And if so, might I first wish you every congratulation on your marriage.
Mr Darcy once told me that you owned his heart and that he believed he had yours.
Circumstances do seem to indicate that is true, and if it is I should predict a very long and happy marriage for you.
I am dismayed when I think how my recent actions might have injured you, or interfered with that joy you found with Mr Darcy.
In my defence, I can only say I did believe I acted in your best interest, for truly, I esteem you greatly and can only hope you will forgive me enough to continue our acquaintance at a later date.
I grossly misjudged the situation with Mr Darcy; I can see that now.
You see, most young gentlemen in town, particularly those of Mr Darcy’s status, do not go into the country seeking a wife.
There is a saying among young men: town is for leg-shackling oneself; the country is for demonstrating why a man requires shackling in the first place.
It is well known that many young men seek diversion in the country and, believing as I did that Mr Darcy meant to marry his cousin, I could not bear to see you fall to his charms. Indeed, his behaviour at the ball at Netherfield, and even at Mrs Goddard’s card party was so excessively gallant, so brazen, I decided at once that he must be a rake.
At this, Elizabeth burst out laughing. She glanced over at her husband then, juxtaposing him in her mind’s eye against the very staid, very solemn creature she had met last autumn, and then she laughed even harder. Darcy answered her hilarity with a puzzled smile.
She controlled her giggles long enough to explain, “Evidently, Sir James found your attentions to me a bit bold. He thought you were some sort of rake.”
With a roll of his eyes, Darcy agreed, “He said as much when I met with him. I suppose in my efforts to woo and charm you, I overdid it.”
Calming herself to a large smile, she consoled him.
“In any case, it certainly worked. I was in love with you before I realised what was happening.” Elizabeth paused, her eyes searching his face as if seeing him anew.
“I cannot pinpoint the exact moment—perhaps it was seeing the gentler side of you, the man who was all ease and friendliness—”
“There was certainly no ease to it, to be sure,” he said. “But I was determined to make you see that I could properly love you, the way you deserve to be loved.”
“And so you did. Somewhere along the way, my heart made its choice and it was for you.”
Leaning over, Darcy kissed her tenderly, his hand coming up to cup her cheek. When he drew back, he said, “I cannot think how I managed it, to earn your love. All I know is, I am heartily glad I did, for to live without you would be impossible.”
“I am so glad for us both that we will never have to attempt it,” she said, kissing him back, and then they spoke no more.